Spring is Here! sort of....

I officially have daffodils  up in the yard. Ok... not just up. Budding. It has been a very mild winter. So much so that when I went outside in the yard last weekend to enjoy the unseasonably nice 50deg Sunday there were flies buzzing around and gnats in the yard.

I am by no means complaining about an early spring. But I am a little worried about the bug population if we indeed are wrapping up winter. However, the weatherman is saying that I should expect 1-3 inches of snow in the next 36hours. I will be sad if my hardy little daffodils get nipped off by Jack Frost though. We got some snow Tuesday night into Wednesday morning this week. But it was gone before ten. Looked pretty though. 

I love that our house backs up to the nature preserve. It makes the yard look amazing in photos like this :) 

Basement Brewing

Since I replaced our ancient cooktop with a glass cooktop I have forbidden Dan to brew beer on it. Brewing beer is a messy (but fun!) business. And since there is a lot of sugar involved and sugar is very very bad for glass cooktops. I nixed it. However, I have been working hard on turning a part of the basement into his brew area. It is starting to come along nicely, but is definitely taking longer than I anticipated. Our basement is unfinished but already had a cozy area to turn into a beer area. Mostly because there was already a deep sink there. I also want to replace the old nearby water heater with a vent-less gas water heater, which would free up enough electric for all the boiling that is involved in beer making. Anyway, I started painting last night and the sink turned out pretty well (in my opinion anyway). The exterior is a semi gloss orange (that Dan picked out) and the interior of the sink is now white enamel. looks waaaay better than it did. Unfortunately there are no "before" pictures, but here is an after picture :)

The list of things that have been done so far: 

- replaced plumbing to and from the sink (everything was frozen up and the lead pipe from the sink fell off when I touched it) 

-added wood trim around window (it was just insulation packed in around the new window which was smaller than the original) 

-painted the copper pipe to the sink white and touched up the wall behind the sink white
-painted the outside of the sink orange
-painted the inside of the sink with kitchen/bath white enamel ( it was just plain cement)
-cleaned the window (it was so dirty you couldn't see through it)

Still to do:

- panel ceiling
- paint floor white
- put curtains on window
- add a heat source for boiling
- finish blocking off the back of the steps and paint


Basically beer making needs to be in a very sterile environment so it needs to look clean, be clean, and be easy to clean.

More to come I'm sure!

Sparrows in the Run

There were birds in the chicken run, and I'm not talking about my chickens! I went out and some how two white-throated sparrows and one house sparrow were stuck inside the chicken wire of the run. Beats me how they got in if they couldn't figure out how in the world to get back out. I could hear the poor things hitting the chicken wire from inside the coop so i went to investigate. (The chickens were pretty amused at this point) I think letting the chickens into the run scared the crap out of the little birds though. Two of them managed to escape by dive bombing into the chicken wire with wings closed and feet stretched out then plummeting about two feet before opening their wings and flying on. The other one kept trying to do that but would chicken out at the last minute and bring his feet forward and land panting onto the chicken wire. Meanwhile the girls are trying to catch said bird as it flutters around because I am sure it would have made a tasty treat for them. So I went into the run. Rye and Cookie immediately ran out of the run to go frolic in the new snow. I immediately stepped into a puddle hidden by a thin layer of ice and got muddy, poopy, icy water all over my shoes. I shewed the bird toward the open door till it finally realized it was free and flew off. Beats me why on earth 3 birds went into the run on the same day... Needless to say- I was very late for work.

Seeing Red

Ever heard the phrase "seeing red"? As in being so upset you have lost all notions of reason beyond killing someone or something. Going crazy. Loosing it. You know. Anyway, the phrase applies equally to bulls... or chickens. When a chicken sees blood, it will peck what ever is bleeding to death (given the time and the scope of things of course).

Well or course it is Betty my lap chicken who got plucked on. My hens rip each others feathers out rather regularly (I think it is something of a past time for them) Well one pluck went to far and Betty got a bloody wound. When I discovered it after work I separated her from the rest (by letting her into the garage while everyone else was confined to stay in the coop part of the garage). I gave her food and water and she seemed perfectly unconcerned with her new arrangement and absolutely was begging for treats.

I went back out later, after the automatic lights in the coop went out to see where she had roosted for the night. They say chickens will roost as high as they can possibly get. Well this was no exception! It took me a minute to find her when I walked into the garage. do you see her? :)

Anyway by morning she had nicely formed scabs so I let her back in with the rest of the flock after caking some mud on her back to further protect the site. 

All is well in the hen house again. 

Date Night

Dan and I had a wonderful date night tonight. It happens rarely so it is always a treat! We met up at Newport on the Levee in the parking garage and wandered up to Dewey's pizza. We proceeded to order calzones and enjoy each others company. Then we walked across the levee and stopped at Coldstone Creamery where we got a cinnamon bun batter yogurt ice creme with graham cracker crust mix in. It was superb! We walked to the edge of the levee and ate our frozen ice creme in the frozen air while watching the cold Ohio river flow by with the bright city mirrored on its surface. We then headed back to our separate cars and drove to the party source. We bought 7 bottles of wine and a liter and a half of buttershots. Four of the bottles are for Christmas gifts. The buttershots are for me. :) It's also very good in  my home made egg nog. After spending quite a lot in the booze store we headed home to crack open one of the bottles of wine. Now we're sitting in the living room, drinking wine, listening to Frank Sinatra, and looking for castles in Ireland to have our wedding at.

Sunshine!

Firstly, thank you to those of you who responded positively to my blog announcement. You guys rock!

I decided to get on before work this morning (I'm heading to the Grand on Madison Rd in Covington to set up lighting for a wedding today) so that I could see what people had to say, or not say about my blog. So here I sit smiling to myself and checking things out and trying to ignore my kitten, Westley, who was getting into trouble. Well he finally started whining so I looked at him. Apparently the edge of my netbook is shiny enough to catch the light coming in the window and throw it on the wall. The wall, which Westley was now trying to climb so he could play with the moving spot of light.  I know who is getting a laser pointer for Christmas! Maybe it will keep him out of the toilets....

Thanksgiving

Well Thanksgiving was delicious as usual. Definitely my favorite holiday of the year. This year I went to Seattle to visit some of my family. Well almost all of my siblings. Being one of seven with sibling scattered all over the United states (and one in Ireland) it is quiet an event when we all get together. We don't talk much throughout the year and often loose touch between holidays. Often at that point, conversation is just awkward. This year there was an interesting topic of conversation: chickens. I feel at this point I need to mention that I never had chickens, and never knew anyone with chickens, when I was growing up. Nor, as far as I'm aware, did any of my siblings. So it came as a bit of a surprise this year at thanksgiving that we discovered four out of the seven of us were now chicken keepers.  Birds of a feather flock together? Or were brooded together... Either way we passed some time talking about our chickens and telling stories of life on the "farm". Apparently my brother Marc's birds don't like treats. I saw with my own eyes him offering them french fries and they just walked away. My birds gobble up offerings first, ask questions later. Either that or his birds were watching their weight.

Also, an update, Betty seems to be doing much better. She is regaining weight and is very interested in the new chicken scratch I purchased. Whatever was blocking her up seems to have passed. Good news!


My sister Diana and I also went on a hike on Saturday near Skykomish, Wa in Wenatchee National Forest. It was raining and cold. We hiked through a forest that had been logged about 100 years ago. It was truly amazing to see the big stumps that were left from the loggers. It was beautiful to see the (slow) recovery that the forest was making. We got to a point where my brother AJ, my mom and Nadine were ready to head back down the mountain. My sister Diana and I decided to continue on a bit and we came across this. The picture only shows 1/4 of the falls. It was beautiful, amazing, cold, and very wet. Needless to say it was worth it.

Farthest left portion of the smaller side of the falls. Image shows about half the height. 

First sight of falls from bridge over the falls. Drops multiple times again in front of and behind where I was standing for this picture.