Quickly

Just quickly tonight...I am late to bed, and so, so tired.  I have been putting in lots of extra time at/for work lately.  I have to admit that I am thankful for our Electronic Medical Records, which allows me to complete my charting from home.  Yes, I did just finish it at midnight, thanks for noticing.  At least I could spend some time with my girls while they were awake, instead of at the office, dictating notes.

So there you have it!

Being Thankful

I was just looking back at last November's posts, and remembered that I tried to blog about something that I was thankful for on each day in November last year.  I've started a bit late, but I'll try to get in the Thanksgiving Spirit before the big day by doing the same exercise this year.

Lately I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed.  It seems that I can never finish the projects that I set out to do, because 3 more fall into my lap.  Little by little, however, things ARE getting finished.  On Saturday, the girls and I got all but one of the garden beds weeded and covered in a thick layer of leaves.  Yesterday, JP and I got the chicken fence rearranged, giving our "keeper flock" an enormous area of fresh green grass to scratch through.  This morning, my parents, the girls and I butchered the remaining 6 old hens.  The girls and I, on J's day off from school today, got the last bit of shopping done for J's birthday bash next Saturday.

Check, check, check. 

So what am I thankful for today?  I think mostly I'm thankful for a light at the end of the tunnel!  We have just over a week to go until there is a nice long break from school for both girls.  I don't anticipate getting lots of things done during that break, but I am looking forward to being able to slow down.

Also, today I am thankful for my Mom.  Today is her 69th birthday, so my parents came over tonight for cake, ice cream and tea.  We went out for dinner at Red Lobster yesterday in her honor as well.  I wouldn't be working if she weren't here to help out with school and childcare for the girls.  I'm also glad to have her so close so that I can get her opinion about a myriad of things every day.

How about you?  What are you thankful for today?

Report Cards

Today J brought home her first report card.  I was prepared to see a B on it, but I wasn't prepared for the C and D that were printed there in black and white.  Looking further, I noticed X's (signifying "needs improvement in:") next to "Paying attention in class."  and "Following directions."

What the...?  I didn't hear about any of this at the Parent-Teacher Conference last month!

J was about THIS close to getting grounded AND losing her allowance for the next 9 weeks, AND having her Birthday party cancelled! 

In the few seconds that it took me to peruse the report card, I was extremely confused, knowing that I had never seen a test or quiz come home with a grade lower than B (and parents are required to sign and return all of the tests.)  That's when I noticed marks for "Received special assistance in:  Reading and Math," and finally the NAME on the report card, which was NOT J's name!

Imagine how proud J's classmate's mother will be for the few minutes it will take her to realize that the A's and B's and good behavior marks actually belong to someone else's child.

Until I have actual proof tomorrow when the REAL report card comes home, I will continue to assume that I did OK teaching her at home for the past 4 years...and that she still deserves to have that Birthday party!

Just Call Me the Egg Lady

It seems like I spend way too much time way too late at night every night, washing eggs.  When I tallied our totals for October, I discovered exactly WHY it feels this way...because it's true!  We collected 560 eggs in the month of October!  That is almost 47 dozen...AKA a LOT of eggs!

My extra refrigerator has turned into the egg refrigerator of late, and I have gladly taken recycled egg cartons from anyone who might be offering.  Last week, I finally cleared out most of the eggs, after selling 11 dozen to friends and giving 2 dozen to Mom and Dad.  (Keep in mind that number of eggs can be collected over about 9 days.)  Still, I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the thought of peddling eggs 7 days a week.  Finally, I made a couple of phone calls to local businesses, and found a regular customer!

I will be supplying Poplar Ridge Farm Fresh Eggs to Fencerow Farmer's Market in town.  (I will still be selling some out of my home to my preferred clients at a discounted price!)

So, the Egg Lady is now PROFESSIONAL Egg Lady, thank you very much.

...and remember...eggs make GREAT Christmas gifts!

Pop Goes the Weasel!

Ernie the cat came home this weekend with a small tear at the tip of one ear.

This afternoon, I found a Long Tailed Weasel out in the yard...obviously the prey of one of the cats, most likely Ernie.  After examining his extremely tiny and sharp teeth, I have to wonder if he is the cause of Ernie's injury.


The little guy is incredibly cute.  He is also incredibly tiny, small enough even, to slide beneath the low uneven areas under the chicken house and wreak havoc on the hens.  You've all heard those horror stories, right?  Weasel in the hen house...leaves nary a survivor, just copious amounts of blood.

I've never seen one around here before, but I'm thankful that Ernie is earning his keep.

**I found the beautiful weasel photo here, and there are more lovely pictures there too!

Green, Leafy Things

Friday afternoon, after whisking the girls away to get their Flu Shots, and before enjoying the High School performance of "Really Rosie", L and I managed to harvest the remainder of the things from the garden.  We cut chives and parsley, found a few more onions and taters to dig, and picked/pulled the remaining pepper plants.

I have added leaves that blew up against the electric chicken fence to 2 of the garden beds, and ashes from the wood stove to another 2, but the rest of the beds need either leaves, manure or compost plus lime, as well as a final weeding before winter is here for good.  Poor Lazy Laura suffered a severe head injury during Superstorm Sandy, and has been retired to the trash bin.  (She did have a lovely, warm, and rather lazy Summer, with very little produce to protect from the crows...R.I.P.)

All the things we picked remained in a basket in the garage for most of the weekend.  Today, I finally brought things in and took care of them.  The peppers have been chopped and frozen for later use.  I dried the herbs by spreading them on a towel draped over the shoe rack in my clothes dryer.

We also managed to eat dinner and watch a movie ("Back to the Future") with Mom & Dad, re-enroll for Health Benefits through JP's work, attend the Christmas Craft Show at the Elementary School, and purchase flooring for the Tree House (laminate from Big Lots, on sale for a grand total of $50!)  JP also finished the wiring in the Tree House, the whole family worked together to restock the wood piles on the deck and downstairs, L lost another tooth, and I recovered this storage ottoman that Kali ate bits of during her puppy months.

Not bad for a weekend's activities, right?

We Came, We Saw, We Haunted

Yes, 'tis true that this post is exceedingly late in it's posting.  My only excuse is "Superstorm Sandy", and it is a poor one.

Sandy was forcasted to hit our area and bring snow, flooding, damaging winds and power outages.  Luckily, I didn't read those forcasts, so I didn't have my typical anxiety attack about the power being out for weeks.  Also luckily, Sandy didn't really blow through here, but sort of passed around us, leaving us with minimal wind damage, and 4-5 inches of cold rain (which was actually really good for our well.)  It wasn't so pleasant taking care of all of the animals during all of that rain.  It involved actually going out into the rain multiple times daily to take the dogs out and care for the chickens, and then drying off the dogs again when we returned to the house.  If ever there was a time I wished we raised cats and gerbils, it was last week!

The fortunate children of our town had their Trick-or-Treating over and done with long before Sandy came over the horizon.  As I mentioned previously, our town celebrated on the Thursday BEFORE Halloween, and had the costumes packed back up in moth balls by the time Halloween actually rolled around.

We are usually invited to a friend's home for a party and Trick-or-Treating in her little village, but this year, she called a few days before the big event to cancel because of illness.  The girls were understandably disappointed, and not just because of the lack of candy.  I usually buy a GIANT bag of candy at Sam's Club to take along for our friend to use for Trick-or-Treats, so we had candy covered.  Mostly they, OK...really mostly L, was disappointed because she would have no one to show her costume to.  I appealed to our good friends in town, and to Mom and Dad, and they all agreed to let us come for a Halloween visit to show off their costumes.  They were even kind enough to share their Halloween Haul with the girls!

J dressed as a Gypsy this year

L changed her mind at the 11th hour, and decided to wear the "Colorful Witch" costume that J wore a couple of years ago instead of her cute little kimono.  Notice the black lipstick and nail polish!


L the "Colorful Witch"

In the end, I believe that the girls were satisfied with the experience.  My thoughts, well...JP's and mine, remain with our friends whom we were unable to visit with this year.  May their illness be treatable and without much discomfort.  We will look forward to seeing them next year in our next round of costuming!