The End is Near

 The kids are back in school, and that mean a lot of uninterrupted time to work on the house. The past two weeks, have been focused on the kitchen cabinets, prepping them for paint. My mom spent several days sanding down the doors while I got caught up on laundry and other neglected chores. Once she had most of those knocked out, I started on the cabinets themselves.

 The base of the cabinet where the sink is to go had seen better days. Aside from the large hole cut in the floor of the cabinet, some of the particle board was rotten, and a large spot of dried black mold adorned the underside. Chris' original idea was to cover the floor of the cabinet with 1/4" plywood, but I didn't like the idea of knowing that mold was under there.

 I carefully took the cabinet apart, rebuilt the support base, and installed fresh, new wood on the floor.

 Next, I wanted to modify a cabinet that will sit next to the range. I took out the shelf and installed dividers so I can easily store my baking sheets and cutting boards.

Another cabinet base that was used for a counter-top stove also had holes in its floor, so I replaced that. And it had the perfect space ready for a large drawer. I figured I'd better take the time to build the drawer now, as installing one after the counter tops were in would make the process a lot more difficult.

As I was using our table saw to cut precision-sized grooves to hold the base of the drawer, I realized how happy I felt. There is a satisfaction and joy that comes with building something, and building it well... I can't wait to get started on the growing list of things I want to build once we are in the house.

 The face of the drawer will be put on after the painting is done.

 Meanwhile, in another part of the house, Chris laid the tile in the last bathroom this weekend, and installed all the fixtures. All three bathroom are up and running.

As soon as the cabinets are painted, we can lay the hardwood, install the cabinets and some counter tops, then, maybe, just maybe, we can move in!

Sleuthing on the Farm

One day last week, Finley brought me a small, brown egg she found in the chicken coop. I was baffled. All of the hens that roost in that coop are older and tend to lay normal-sized eggs. I had been expecting our young hens to lay in the stable, since that is where they sleep at night. Also, the stable has it's own nesting box with a golf ball decoy that has been waiting patiently for some one to make use of it.

In order to solve the mystery, I planted our game camera just inside the door of the coop, pointed at the corner where the eggs have been found. Day One left us without an egg and without answers. Day Two yielded some thirty photos, mostly of a chicken's rear end:

 But one shot revealed the culprit:

I am pretty sure this is one of my two Buff Orpingtons, sneaking into the old ladies' coop to lay her eggs.

*Note to self: Fix rear coop window to allow for better lighting.

Goldie 3

If I was superstitious, I would insist that the kids refrain from naming any more chickens "Goldie". Goldie #1 was given to us the first year we lived on the farm. Not long after we got her, she came down with some sort of mysterious illness (I suspect something like botulism) and died. Goldie #2 was nabbed by a fox. Goldie 3 is faring no better.

Thursday morning, the kids and I were quietly minding our own businesses when a ruckus was raised by some of our chickens outside. Finley and Joe dashed out the front door of the trailer. I peeked out a window in the kitchen as I made my way to the door, and caught glimpse of a pile of feathers. This wasn't going to be good.

I ran out the front door and into the yard. There were my kids, crying, with a look of terror plastered on their faces, and at the same instant, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a dog running at me from beneath the trailer. I turned and kicked it as it jumped. And in the next couple seconds, as I watched the dog stumble, then run around a little, I realized this wasn't some vicious, crazy dog. It was a happy, excited dog that desperately wanted some food, love, and attention. Thankfully, the dog wasn't very big and I was able to grab him and restrain him by the scruff of his neck.

It took a few minutes for the fear to melt out of the kids, and a little longer for the tears of grief to subside. We had discovered that Luke Skywalker, Zivah's pet chicken, had suffered a serious wound on her haunch, and it would be necessary to put her down. Joe and Finley were terribly worried that Zivah would take the news badly (more crying on their part), but when I broke the news to Zivah, she said, "It's okay. I still have Fluffy-Head." [Side note: This from the girl who cried for an hour the day before because I wouldn't let her have a pocket knife that she couldn't close. An hour. I am not going to try not to worry about her just yet.]

Initially, we thought Goldie had been killed and taken away by the other stray dog that we kept seeing hanging around Queenie's pasture. [We later caught the other dog, and our neighbor took them both to the shelter the next morning.] But several hours later, she reappeared with a de-feathered and bloody rear-end.

I had already had to kill one pet chicken that day, and really didn't want to have to put another one down, so we decided to give her a day or two to see if she might have a chance of survival. Our neighbor gave us some Blu-Kote antiseptic, and we sprayed her down with it, and put her in a cage in the stable with fresh water and food.

By Saturday, she was keeping one eye closed, and I was afraid she might be going down-hill, but on Sunday, she seemed a little perkier. She was eating and drinking (and pooping) just fine. But then I noticed something: maggots. The Blu-Kote didn't seem to affect them at all. I did a little research, remebering that maggots are sometimes used in medicine clean wounds. Maybe some maggots weren't so bad! But after reading some articles by wildlife rehabilitators, it became obvious that they couldn't just be left unchecked.

I quite honestly don't have the time or the stomach to sit and pick maggots out of a chicken's butt, but, nevertheless, thought I'd give her one more chance. I had to bribe Finley to help me. I got Goldie out of her cage and, while I held her, had Finley try to spray the maggots off with a nozzle on the garden hose. This didn't work, and in one last-ditch effort, we doused Goldie 3's heinie with some Gibson's antiseptic. I had used this on the calves when we castrated them to keep the area clean and fly-free. I put Goldie back in the cage, thinking that this probably wouldn't work, and I would have to put her out of her misery soon.

As the kids were getting ready for school this morning, I told them that Goldie would be gone when they got home. After dropping them off to school, I ate my breakfast, and tried to work up the nerve to get it done. I decided it would be best to dig the hole first. I planned bury her back behind the stable, so after grabbing the shovel, stopped in to check on her before I dug the hole. A quick inspection of her tail, and to my surprise, the maggots were gone.

So Goldie 3 lives on for now. If you are the praying sort, say one for her. She could use it.

LEtting GO

As far back as I can remember, we had a bin of Legos at our house. Most of them were from the 70s, with people heads the size of large marbles, wagon-styled wheels, and little doors that would be impossible for the big-headed people to fit through, even if I could have figured out at that young age how to build them out of the crazy random and broken pieces we owned. 

So when I was 8 or 9, a desire was born in my heart to own my own set of Legos. **Disclaimer. I am aware of the fact that the plural of LEGO is LEGO, but after 30-plus years of saying and writing "Legos," have decided a disclaimer is easier and more comfortable than correcting myself.**

As you probably know, Legos are not inexpensive.The price tag for a set of Legos was far beyond my allowance-saving potential, and the only hope I had of owning my own was to petition my Gramma to buy me a set for birthdays or Christmas. She came through. First came a police station, then a fire station, and eventually, a Technic go-kart set. Each set, I built, then left intact on a shelf in my room, ready to play with. The instructions, I kept in a safe place in case I needed them. At some point, I bought another bin of Legos in which I put all the pieces of the fire and police stations along with the instructions. The Technic set, I kept in it's original box, not wanting to mix the two kinds of Legos.

Then, along came my kids. At some point, I allowed them to play with my Legos, letting them build random things out of the pieces, and didn't bother trying to build the stations.

When Joe received his first Lego set, I was thrilled. It was a blue car that could be rebuilt several different ways. I had visions of him building it, playing with it, then carefully taking it apart and rebuilding it when he got tired of one style. I place the instructions and extra pieces together in a ziplock bag, instructing him to keep them all together so that nothing would get lost. I don't think the car remained intact for even one day. Boy that he is, he like to pretend that the car would crash... 

As the Lego sets kept coming, I told the kids (in vain) to keep the instruction booklets on a bookshelf where they would be safe and easily found. But, inevitably, after the initial build, the booklet would end up under a bed or at the back of a closet, bent up and falling apart.

A friend of mine has a son that is conscientious enough to take care of his instructions. He then started his own business, renting the booklets out to his friends at school. My kids aren't like that. It has come to the point where I have confiscated all the booklets and have them hidden in a drawer in my desk.

Joe came to me the other day wanting to build a car he had seen in the fire station instructions. I handed him the booklet with a strict warning that the booklet needed to come back to me AS SOON AS he was done with it. He came back five minutes later, complaining that he couldn't find the base to the car. He swapped that booklet out for another, but was back with that one in another five minutes. No surprise there. As the kids get into building something, they don't want to put their projects back into the Lego bin come clean-up time, so they squirrel the pieces away in random parts of their rooms. Zivah will take a liking to a certain Lego piece, and I have found stashes of pieces in several clothes drawers, backpacks, other bins, or other toys. I would be amazed if we could build ANYTHING by the book.

If the mixing of sets and disregard for instructions weren't bad enough, my kids even take apart the mini-figures! Removing an arm or a hand is unconscionable in my book. Seeing the mini-figures suffering from missing body parts about does me in. 

As much as this drives me crazy, I have decided to let go of it all and look on the bright side. The kids love building with Legos, and they are being far more creative with their builds then following instructions allows. Instead of bemoaning that the cool Star Wars ship has little chance of ever being built again, I am enjoying the Lego mess.

Above, a dwarf from a Hobbit set relaxes in a hot tub that Joe built, while Finley's mermaid man swims in his aquarium in the background. Below, Z has her own thing going.