Well….The chicken coop is done.  It isn’t all prettied up, but it will hold chickens for now.  My parents are very happy about that!

We worked from about 9-5 yesterday to get it done.  It was a long day. Moods were a bit tense in the morning, but once we kind of got all of our cranky kinks worked out, we fell into a nice rhythm and got stuff done.

First thing, we had to sweep the water out out of the coop as it had rained in the night.  Nature Boy did the sweeping, but was not so interested in photo documentation….

Then we got up the frame for the front wall.

And dh started on the roof. 

Which necessitated some branch trimming…..Don’t even look at those horrible body mechanics! <shudder> Not to mention the safety breach!

We got the ridge pole and rafters up.

And then got the roof on.

Now…This is where the camera ran out of batteries…So I have to go  back today for final pictures.

We also got the front wall pieced on the frame and got a door on.  There is more finish work to do (windows, roofing, a proper door, etc.) but hopefully Grandma and Grandpa were able to get their chickens in the coop last night.

In a few weeks….We will get to do it all over again for our coop….Though our coop won’t be nearly as palatial……We are having only half the number of chickens and will be building a hutch style coop vs. a walk-in building style coop.

It was a weekend well spent! 

Today is Nature Boy’s last day of school, but he is home surfing the couch with a cup of ginger ale.  He seems to be a bit under the weather!  I am keeping him home as his symptoms warrant exclusion from school.

It is supposed to rain pretty much all day today.  That means I can’t garden.  However, the next couple of days will be sunny….A good thing, since I seem to have some weeding in my future!!!

Building A Chicken Coop:

We are spending the weekend building a chicken coop for and with my parents. We got a lot of work done today…Though my parents don’t appear in any of the following pictures, I assure you that they were there and working hard too. 

The lumber:

The very bottom (minus some crosspieces):

Yours truly hammering down the floor:  (Side note:  Look Berry! See what I am wearing!)

Framing:

Real progress:

And more progress:

The end of day one:

Tomorrow, we go back for more! 

I assure you, we will all sleep well tonight!!!!!

Yesterday, I had a quest and I succeeded.  I was able to procure the last vegetable for my garden. Squee!

And what was this most-wanted vegetable? Brussel sprouts.  I have never grown them before, but dh and I love them and Nature Boy will eat them from time to time.  I had looked at several different places for some started brussel sprouts (it’s too late for seeds here) to no avail.  Yesterday morning, I called up Speedy (who was familiar with the quest and desiring brussel sprouts herself) and I told her I was giving it one last shot at a particular nursery.  So, we went together.

Among many other wonderful things, they did indeed have many brussel sprouts.  I bought two six packs and planted them in my garden.  Now my garden is full…No more room.   So, this year’s garden consists of:

• tomatoes
• radishes (a zillion!)
• broccoli
• brussel sprouts
• peas
• leeks
• watermelon
• cantaloupe
• potatoes (which keep popping up here and there and I move to one spot)

And I have six tomato plants on the deck, two grapes, two cherry and two regular. 

I am quite pleased as it is all growing nicely!

Yesterday was off and on sunny and cloudy.  Since it wasn’t actually raining (part of the reason I went plant shopping….I could get them nicely in the ground yesterday).  I mowed down by the garden. 

Oh! I also set up a small bird bath in the perennial bed.  The nursery had glazed terracotta saucers.  I bought a medium sized one and a terracotta pot.  I inverted the pot, placed the saucer on it, filled it with water…..Instant bird bath!

Then I found this awesome bird bath project online….I am thinking of doing this, not for a bird bath, but to make stepping stones for the perennial bed.  I think I might do it as a project next week when Nature Boy is home from school….We can both make one.  I love the way the leaves imprint in the cement! It’s just beautiful!

Hey friends…A question:

Have you ever done one of those embedded slideshow thingies on your blog? And if so, what application did you use to do the slideshow? And would you recommend that application?

I got my strawberries in…But the patch will look a bit sparse this year.

It has been rainy and gray here today.  That’s okay though, I think we are getting a nice balance of sun and rain for the garden.  I have been impatient about waiting for my gladiola bulbs and I will admit, I dug in a bit to see what they are doing.  Sure enough, they have sprouted and are actually close to coming up through the surface of the ground.  I must be patient!

I had a study meet up with a friend today.  Yesterday, I spent all morning collecting my paperwork and doing my application for my licensing exam.  It cost me $520! Ouch!!!  I guess I’d better pass it the first time!

I made some more earrings over the weekend.  I am having a lot of fun making them and wearing them.  I am so happy that I found the titanium wires so that I can wear dangly earrings.

Not much else exciting going on. 

I actually forgot to blog yesterday.  It could be because I was so tired I didn’t get out of bed until almost 8.  That changed our whole day.  There was only one UU service yesterday, at 9, so we didn’t get to go because I slept too late for us to get ready and out the door.  I also didn’t have my morning routine of blogging.

The weekend was up and down.

The good parts were being home with dh and Nature Boy (who has one week and one day left of school!).  I also got more gardening done up by the house and dh and I cleaned off the deck.  The deck had fallen victim to being the dumping ground of many projects….Mostly planting pot and bucket related projects, but also wood scraps and other stuff.   Now, it looks fantastically better.

We also made a run to the dump and got rid of the old dishwasher that had been in the barn.  We also took the old upright vacuum cleaner.  It was nice to get rid of those broken appliances!

As for the down parts of the weekend: Yesterday Nature Boy was in a terribly moody mood.  If he was a girl, I’d say he had pms…But no such thing on which to blame his moodiness, sadness, feeling-incompetentness.  We just gave him a lot of nurturing and tried our best to be patient.

We also spent all weekend worrying about our old cat, Meg.  She was sick on Saturday morning and I took her to the vet.  $250 later (ouch!) we found out that she has another infection.  The vet thought actually it was likely the same infection that had her hospitalized in March, just that it had come back. The vet also said that Meg is now no longer in the stages of kidney disease, but kidney failure. Her bloodwork wasn’t so good and the vet said that we were at the point where the kidney problems would be catching up with Meg.  <sigh>

Yesterday, Meg still wasn’t feeling better (her behavior was very subdued) but today she seems much better.  I guess a couple of days on antibiotics has helped.  It is a big relief to see her more perky!

And some very sad news….The robin babies are gone.  I have one last picture to post of them that I took on Saturday.

Yesterday, we went to the garden and noticed the momma bird didn’t scold us.  Nature Boy checked out the nest and the momma bird wasn’t there.  The nest was empty.  As you can see from the picture, the babies certainly weren’t old enough to fledge.  A predator must have gotten them. 

Today is supposed to be a sunny day and from the looks of the forecast, the last sunny day all week!  I am going to spend time outside, get laundry done and enjoy the sunshine.  I also am going to send in my application to take my licensing exam and maybe even study a bit!

I am glad it’s the weekend. I like it when dh is home.

Last night, we went into town to have our pictures taken for the UU church directory.  You may be familiar with this process…Olan Mills takes your picture and you get a free directory and a free “untouched” 8×10.  Then they offer for you to buy more pictures.  For lots and lots of money.  They took some pictures of Nature Boy and I was quite pleased with how they came out, so I was interested in buying more pictures. 

It all comes down to the almighty dollar folks.  I guess when she offered the promo package at “$350 but for tonight we are having special, $100 off so you pay just $250″ I shoulda known I was sunk.  However, I persevered and asked about just getting 5x7s or whatever.  Basically, it boiled down to (and I had to push her for her to even tell me) that they charge $30 per 5×7.  That’s right, one picture for $30!   And I wanted to get half a dozen….$180 <gulp>

Needless to say, I politely declined and we left.  I don’t mean to be a poor sport, but who the heck is going to be paying $30 for one picture?  Especially given the current economy?  And knowing that if I trotted over to my Olan Mills studio with a coupon or for one of their package offers and it will cost way less. (At least it did a year and a half ago when we had family portraits done).  <shakes head>

Yesterday also consisted of studying, chatting with friends, and stopping by a few stores after our directory portrait. 

I have new pictures of the baby robins on the camera, but I haven’t downloaded them yet.  I’ll need to do that today.

Well….I slept in this morning and haven’t had breakfast yet, I am going to go remedy that as I am hungry!

Wow! I was hopping busy yesterday…So busy, I didn’t even take pictures.  I spent a lot of the day in the garden. Speedy helped and kept me company.  We went to get some more tomatoes and I also found some hearty cantaloupe plants (mine died in the rain).  I had dug up my strawberries to transplant, so we planted those too.

I also cleaned my house.  Actually, that’s how I started my day. 

I got together with another friend in the evening and went on a little walk.

And, I went over to my parent’s to wish them a happy 42nd anniversary.

<phew> 

Today will likely be less full….Which is fine by me! I was tired last night!

Those robin babies are growing like weeds!

I believe there are four of them now.  It is amazing how much more space they take up in the nest than in the previous photo!

Yesterday was a busy day for me.  I met up with a classmate at a college about halfway between her and me.  It is just off the highway and easy to reach.  We used the library for studying, though it was such a nice day that we ate lunch and finished our studying outside.  The campus is really beautiful too! And it is perched on a hill, so it has amazing views. 

We’re going to meet up to study a few more times.  Yesterday, we looked at our practice exam book and were able to come up with study categories and pertinent things in each.  We will tackle at least one category each time we get together…Though some categories can be easily grouped. 

Here’s a list of what we need to review:

AOTA

• Code of ethics
• Framework of Reference
• Domains
• Standards of Practice
• OT/COTA roles

Treatment Implementation

• Service competency
• Supervision
• Grading/adapting: tasks, equipment, environment
• Joint protection
• Chaining

Psychosocial

• Psychological treatment models
• Practice treatment models
• Medications and side effects

Working with Groups

• Group development and function
• Leading groups
• Occupation based treatment
• Therapeutic use of self
• Responding to client behaviors
• OT/Patient relationships
• Task groups

Physical Disability

• Manual Muscle Testing
• Range of Motion
• Balance
• Spinal cord injury
• Oral motor
• Parkinsons
• Dermatomes
• Sensory
• Accessability
• Review kinesiology
• Review A&P

<phew>

I have come to a realization.  We cannot actually re-learn all that we learned over the past two years.  I do know there are things I need to re-learn because I just am not solid on them.  However, the majority of the studying for me will be review of the materials….simply reading it over it all again.

I also think I need to apply to take the licensing exam.  The process takes a few weeks and I need to work through the application and figure it out and send it in.  I don’t want to be doing all my studying now and then wait so long for the exam that I don’t recall the info!

In other news: I am ready to plant strawberries.  I need to go dig them up so that I can bring them down to my strawberry bed.  Right now, the bed is kind of lonely looking!

So, my goals for today are to study some, get strawberries in and fence the bed, visit with a couple of friends and enjoy as much time outside as possible!

Yesterday was a crazy weather day.  It was sunny, warm, cloudy, rainy, cold, really cold, windy, and then it repeated the whole cycle repeatedly.  It even rained and was sunny at the same time!!! And yes, we did get to see a brief rainbow.   Then last night it frosted. I did cover my plants…A good thing too as our deck is all icy this morning.

Guess what? Another robin egg hatched.

I don’t think I’ll bug them today as it is supposed to be really cold and I don’t want to have them be uncovered….I’ll wait and see though, maybe it will get warmer than they are predicting.  I guess we are due for a cool week all week. <sigh>

The perennial bed is still there and growing. 

Can you see all the buds on that balloon flower plant?  It is going to just be covered with blossoms!

I went and visited my parents yesterday.  By a stroke of weather luck, it was sunny and not too chilly when I visited and I brought my mom here to show her my perennial bed and then we went back to her house and looked at her gardens.  She has many gardens with lots of plants…She has spent a lot of time starting up various beds and the hard work is paying off.

Actually, she is going to let me dig some bits of different plants to bring here and plant in front of our deck.  Also, she has a big strawberry patch and the strawberries are creeping on to the lawn.  I am going to dig the ones out of the lawn and bring them home to my freshly tilled strawberry bed.  Yup, I got dh to freeze his buns off last night and till me a new bed while I covered all the gardens with sheets. 

I need to pick a lot of grass clumps out of the strawberry bed and then fence it to keep out the woodchucks, but hopefully, I can get some strawberries in it sometime this week.  The only thing is…Dh put the bed closer to my perennial bed than I wanted (a bit of spousal miscommunication).  Oh well…it’s tilled and not a bad spot….Ultimately, I think it will be fine. 

K…I guess it’s Monday and I need to give Nature Boy money for hot lunch and such…Time to launch my day!

Welcome, babies!!!

I wasn’t even going to bother to look yesterday, but dh and I went down to check on the peas (not sprouted yet) and he grabbed the camera.  When I walked by the corner of the garden near the momma robin, she didn’t yell at me and fly away, she just glared.   I edged closer and she glued herself to the nest and glared harder.  I knew something was up because every other time I had gone closer, she’d fly off squawking at me.  So, I grabbed the camera from dh and…..found the babies!

I must say, robin babies look a bit like aliens….Kind of a-face-only-a-mother-could-love, iykwim!!!!