Day 9-Sunday

Sleep in. Late. Run out for milk, half and half, and compost. Lazy morning altogether. And then a lovely afternoon of gardening: I had put in tomatoes, tomatillos, and eggplant last weekend. So today was tilling the rest of it and planting everything else: peas, beans, peppers, lettuce, spinach, carrots, etc. Now I just have some cutting flowers to plant and need to find the basil seeds to get them in.

I also planted my flowering hedge on the inside of my privacy fence- right now it looks rather puny, but in another year or two it is going to be lovely!! The hedge consists of rose of sharon, forsythia, lilac, and butterfly bushes. The only one I didn’t get was the burning bush. Maybe some other year I can add those in.

My neighbors are the loudest people alive. They have company in the carport today. Loud music, loud talking (to be heard over the music), loud loud loud. But it is completely delightful to only hear them and not see them. Gardening behind a privacy fence is totally worth the hype.

Being off work and fairly disconnected from work for over a week has been wonderful. It also strengthens my resolve to continue cutting back, to donate less time to this job, and to find more balance in my daily life. I know I have been saying that and have honestly been working on it, but I need to be stronger and better about it. I will still give 100% while I’m at work, but I am really over all the unpaid overtime, the chaos caused by lack of planning, and the overall insanity the job brings into my life.

I headed over to the Flemings to see Barbara and the kids, which was fun. And then on the way home I got the call about the chicken massacre.  Sigh. Now I’ve got my feet up, homemade margarita in hand, and thankful for one more day of weekend.

Day 8–Saturday

Last night’s wedding was great. My cousin Nick married his sweetie, the first in their family to get married. It was a beautiful Mass and a great party afterward. Always great to hang out with the fam.  At the end, I stayed to help clean up and at some point was walking fast across the gym to find my shoes and there was a puddle of water. So I slipped, sort of caught myself on my knees, recovered for a moment, and hoped not too many people had seen that awkward moment. The knee hurt a bit from the twisting as I fell but not too bad. This morning is a different story. Ouch!! I don’t think it is anything serious, but it does hurt to put weight on it. I’m going to try advil and some ice and hope it doesn’t slow the painting down too much.

It is also raining here after a gorgeous, dry week. The rain is a good thing. Everything needs it. And it will make it easier to plant my garden tomorrow if the soil gets softened up some.

Today: Wake up slowly to the sound of rain. Uh oh. Run down and get a few things I left out last night put away. Check on the chickens- who were all happily on their new roost. Poor Buck was terrified of the storms, had to drag him outside to get him to go potty and then he trembled like crazy for the thunder. Poor pup. Maggie and Suzie are unfazed by storms, thankfully. Finish painting the hall ceiling, edging, painting the walls (with Leslie and John). I still need to paint the stairs area and the downstairs part of the hall, but we’re making progress. 

Run out the door for Owen’s play, Arsenic and Old Lace, with the Explorer’s Drama Club. Owen was Teddy Roosevelt and was FABULOUS!!  Grandma and Grandpa Kennedy came to see it. Every time Owen was on stage Grandpa would turn to me and say “That’s your little brother!” and “He’s very good.” Both true. I couldn’t be prouder.

From there I had a fabulous dinner out with my little sister. And then went to the Pentecost Vigil Mass at my parish, which was wonderful. Got to sit with my good friends and then see another friend who is in town for just a couple days. Our parish celebrates it’s 31st anniversary this weekend as well and it gave me pause to appreciate how blessed I am to be part of such a wonderful faith community, a community of true believers. Oh we have our characters, our flaws, our issues, but God has blessed me so abundantly through this wonderful parish and the people He has here.

Arsenic & Old Lace

If you’ve never seen the old black and white film of Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant, go see it, it is a great story. If you missed the Explorer’s Drama Club rendition of it this past weekend, you seriously missed out.  My little brother Owen was Teddy Roosevelt, a hilarious character in the play, and did a marvelous job. I’m so proud! The whole case was great, but obviously Owen stole the show. Grandpa Gene was sitting next to me and every time Owen was on stage, he leaned over and said “That’s your little brother.” and then, “That’s my bugle”.  So funny. Anyway, Owen was fabulous and his good friends Jono and Daniel were also amazing. I was very impressed all around. 

Grandpa Gene gets his picture taken with another famous person- Teddy Roosevelt

Rest in Peace Frances & Geraldine

It was a sad, though not entirely unexpected day at the Nichols Homestead. Earlier in the day, I had gone out to the chicken coop to give them a handful of weeds. All three of them were enjoying their new roost and as I opened the top, they fluttered up a bit and I saw that the roost put them closer to the roof, and as they have gotten bigger, it occurred to me that they may be able to escape out the top. Hmmm. I should remember to latch the top, just in case. I tossed them a bunch of weeds, closed the top, and was going for a second round of weeds, thinking I would latch the top after I delivered the next round. Instead I got distracted, but something, anything. And forgot all about the latch. 

The roof has been known to blow open if it isn’t latched and it was kind of gusty today. As I was driving home this evening, I listened to a voicemail from Andrea saying that she was coming to get Buck. Okay. Then I got a phone call from her. “Reenie, where are you?”  “I’m a few minutes from home, where are you?”  The tone in her voice alarmed me. I hoped Suzie hadn’t run out in the street and gotten hit by a car or something tragic. Nope.

Andrea had broken in (hidden key) and let all three dogs out in the yard (just as I would have done). A minute or two later, the neighbor came over. She tried to explain that she was legit, not breaking and entering, and he said that the dogs were f-ing killing the chickens. What??? Apparently his son was in the backyard and saw it all going down (thanks to that privacy fence they couldn’t see it from their spot in the carport).

She ran out back and saw that, indeed, two chickens had met their untimely end. I showed up minutes later and surveyed the yard. Andrea kept apologizing for any part Buck may have played. But it was all too clear. Three chickens were in the yard, three dogs ran out there, and only two chickens died. Buck is in the clear. Maggie and Suzie clearly ran out and each quickly took out a chicken. Frances and Geraldine were the unlucky poultry, while Agnes somehow managed to escape certain death (let’s be honest, Buck didn’t know what to do).
 
Andrea quickly rounded the dogs into the house, as the one remaining chicken “was just clucking about the yard” as her 3 year old daughter Monica kept saying. “Just one chicken clucking about the yard.”

The top had indeed blown open. The chickens had clearly flown the coop. Monica and Andrea helped me herd Agnes into the coop (harder than you would think) and I apologized repeatedly that it happened to my poor friend. What are the odds?? 

After they left, I cleaned up the remains (quite clean actually, no blood, just quick death by shaking). Jenny arrived home shortly thereafter and I broke the news to her.

Operation Chicken suffered a staggering setback today. But we will rise again. And as Monica repeated at least a dozen times “There’s still one chicken clucking about the coop.” 

Day 7–Friday

Happy Memorial Day weekend one and all!  It is another gorgeous day!! I’m so tempted to go out and finish my garden and stare at my lovely new fence. But I may save that for Sunday and do some other less pleasant chores today.

Buck arrived last night while I was out. He is our weekends and holidays dog. It gets more peaceful every time he comes. This time no one even indicated that they noticed his presence, excellent. I guess after yesterdays excitement with 4 kids visiting all day, Buck is old hat. Buck does not appreciate the neighbor walking his remote control car though. He also thinks it is rather disturbing to see a full grown man spending so many hours on the RC cars (I told you he fits right in around here).

This evening my cousin Nick gets married. Crazy. I used to babysit that sweet guy and now he’s getting married! Yikes. So happy for him. And happy for an excuse to hang out with my extended family. I love that crowd.

The fence is awesome. Even from the backyard, it makes it feel private because there is no longer a direct line of sight from the carport to the chicken coop. Actually, there is no direct line of sight from the carport to anywhere in my yard. AWESOME. I do feel like I’ve been given a new lease on life.

Okay, on to some projects / progress today…

Chicken coop alterations: Clean out the outdoor area. Add roosting bar to outdoor area. Hang water and food dishes (to minimize the crapping into them). Yell at Maggie to stop eating all the chicken droppings I raked out of the coop (dogs are so gross).

Chickens are ridiculously stupid critters. I hung their water dish and they couldn’t figure out for a full 8 minutes how to drink out of it. Same waterer, just 5 inches off the ground now. So they settled for all racing after the water I spilled. Eventually Frances figured it out and the others followed suite.  Also, Frances is the one obsessed with roosting (now that Edna lives with my mom). I kept finding her roosting atop the feeder (eww) and the waterer (more ewww).  I put in a nice roosting bar for them in the outside area and she immediately figured out what that was for. Excellent. The chickens are becoming more accustomed to the sound of my voice and they get excited to see me now since I usually mean fresh water or some sort of weedy treat. They are also less intimidated by the dogs and actually acted as though they planned to just strut out the door when I opened it today. Not necessarily a good thing since strutting out that door would mean certain death by canine. I should probably research how to entice chickens into nesting boxes next, but I have a few weeks to figure that out. And a couple minor alterations to the nesting boxes too. Again, I’ve got time to do that later.

 

Suddenly it is HOT outside. Gorgeous but hot. I might break down and sand that drywall mud. And I should water stuff outside. And figure out what to wear to this wedding. And…

Day 6–Thursday

Fence Day!!  Rather than bore you with the details, here’s what we did yesterday:

Thank you!!! To John Love for coming to install it with me. For Lex who brought cute munchkins, kept them happy, and dusted and planted some flowers for me, and made dinner. To the munchkins who kept things lively. To Emmet who delivered the fence panels. To Leslie who helped put up the panels. And to the neighbors who have given me a whole new appreciation for privacy fences. 

Other great things about Thursday: 0 calls from the office, sunshine and a nice breeze, a dog who loves children (while the other dog spent the day in the basement), an exhausted Suzie at the end of the day with children. And to top it all off, I spent the evening with my girlfriends (Lex, Anne, and Cora) which doesn’t happen often enough and always makes for a good time. Life is good.

I LOVE MY FENCE!!