The Gate.

We have had trouble with our gate to the field since we've moved in.  The post holding the gate was in poor shape, and it hasn't been helped by wet, and cold, and digging, and general age. 

So, Husband surprised me while I was gone, and fixed the thing.  This was SO nice!  The post was leaning badly, so the gate drug in the dirt.  This made it hard to open, and harder to make absolutely sure it was closed.  We had several "chicken leaks", they would catch it any time I hadn't managed to shut it completely. 

He had to take down the post, which was more undoing the fence from it. 

He said the bottom... Was GONE. 

It had just been more or less holding position by the fence, and a support we'd put until some good weather to fix it occurred.  He had a new post, and put it in, re-upped the fence, put the gate on straight, no dragging!  We have to latch it now, before, it was like a plow, so it didn't move, willingly.  Now, I have touched it with one finger, and zzzwing, off it goes. 

So nice!!

The chickens enjoyed the after effects, in that Husband need to dig out the hole for the post, and so there was dirt they could scratch, as well as worms... Told him, had I been home, there would have been a race, because I would have put the worms in the garden!

And an added benefit, we can have the chickens in a large area, the main field, or in the hen yard. We have a second latch, on the small enclosure, and now I can enclose them, as I did the other day.  I want to see if any of them are hiding eggs.  If there is a significant amount of eggs the next day, I have my answer.  Otherwise, I guess they were a bit more freaked out than I expected from Husband's work day. 

So, I went to the coast, and came home to a present from Husband. 

Cool, isn't it??

Sorry, Jerry Garcia...

"What a long, strange road it's been." 

The last two days have been... Well, they have been a royal pain in the butt.  Interesting in only the Chinese curse sense of the word. 

I had a performance at a school almost on the border between Oregon and Washington.  (I do Renaissance history performaces for schools.)  This is about a 3 hour drive, give or take.  I did manage to con, uh, vince the other performer to drive through the metro areas, I don't do that well... 

We did the performance all right, except that about halfway through, I choked on my own saliva, and had to leave the poor guy all alone for a bit, while I tried to regain my breathing skills.  Somehow, sounding like I am going to hack up a hairball, and turning purple, wasn't part of my agenda.  He did alright, and after a glass of water and a cough drop, I managed to get through the rest of the performance unscathed... 

Until I got back to my truck, and realized I'd left my cell phone somewhere.  I searched, the guy I was with searched, we tried calling my cell phone.

Nothing. 

I borrowed his phone, and promptly figured out I am stuck in the late 90's.  It was an Android.  I didn't even know how to start it.  Once it was on, I think I managed to have it turn to 'sleep' mode because I took so long to work out what to do.  I managed to make a call to Husband, to call Mom, and let them both know I was okay, just couldn't find the blasted phone. 

Or...

I thought I had.

I checked in the Starbucky's that we'd been by, they hadn't had one turned in.  (They also have extremely limited tea selections.  I guess that's why it's a coffee house, huh?)  I thanked them, and after convincing the guy I was with I needed to leave, (he'd forgotten I still had about 2 hours left to get home), I took off. 

It rained buckets.  I was behind a semi.  At Rush Hour.  I 'ate soup' for most of the trip home.  And decided to skip the rest areas so I didn't have to try getting on and off the freeway.  So I stopped at Mom's, as I really had to pee.  She hadn't received the message, and was worried.  I told her that Husband should have called, I had left him a message.  Called Husband from Mom's, and he was worried, he hadn't received the message. 

Joy of technology.  May it long receive a one finger salute...

I managed to get home, and at the door, Husband told me the message that I had left AT 4:30 had just arrived at 6 or a little after, right after my call.  That helped. Yeeeaaah...

I was so tired and furious, and just generally wound up, that I couldn't settle down.  The head of the group I perform for called by the end of the evening to let me know the school called, they had my phone.  (I still can't figure out why they didn't call with my phone, I have several things titled "Mom" "Home", etc, that they could have more directly contacted me.  Eh.)  So, with the help of the guy I performed with, and the group head, I may get my phone back Saturday or Monday. 

So I went to bed disgusted, and woke up the next morning.  And felt like my head was going to blow off.  I had a sinus headache as big as the national debt, and twice as ugly.  I didn't exercise.  Even putting on my shoes was a challenge, because when my head went as low as my shoulders, my brain pulsed.  And not in a good way.  So my usual Wednesday blog was a non-starter.  I did not do a whole bunch.  I even had to fight with the copier at the substation.  I just figured I must have had really, REALLY bad tech karma, for some reason.

On the bright side, I did end up losing .6 of a pound.  That was about the only real big plus for the day. 

When I worked at the substation on Wednesday, there was a call out for ambulance and deputies at a road near my house. One of the deputies was filling out paperwork, and was called directly from dispatch, please go help, it's a mess.  After a quick "be safe" from me, he went out. 

I came home without incident.  Husband met me at the door, "Did you hear about the big accident at Xity-x Road?"  I told him I had, and saw a deputy have to leave quick time to help. 

"I'll bet.  The chippers that we have been getting truckloads from?  One of the guys had just gotten down from the bucket truck, when a dually truck hit the chip truck from behind, doing about 55."  (Nothing like 1 degree of separation!) 

It was a mess, the dually driver had to go to the hospital.  None of the chipper guys were hurt. Badly shaken, but not hurt.  The truck was a mess, the trailer was pushed in almost 2 feet.  They still don't know if the guy had fallen asleep, drunk, what have you, but they did know he is a local, and had passed the chippers several times in the last few days, so he was (or should have been) aware of them being there. 

Wow.

Well, here is the fruits of the chipper's labor (Rudee in picture for scale.)  This isn't even all of it, we used a big bit for the chicken house.  So they have been busy.  ( I don't know if the broken truck was able to unload, but it sounded like it was pretty much a mess, might not even have been drivable, from what I heard, so I never was able to see the end result.  Which probably was a good thing, all things considered.)

And see?  All the chips have made the chicken house great to walk through, and all the chickens have nice, clean feet again!  (They don't seem really impressed.  The llamas, either.  I don't care.  They look better, I am not tracking mud so much, and it's much dryer in the hen house.

So I am desperately hoping that the next few days are without incident.  I am laying low, knitting a bunting for a friend that is preggers. (Yeah, I started a new project, this one doesn't count.  Grin.)  So I will show you pictures once I am beyond 12 rows of stockinette stitch. 

Oh, and my Mom has started reading my blog pretty regularly, and loves to read all your comments, as well as my musings.  So, (blatant beg) leave a comment!  Say hi, even!  ; ) 

I hope to catch up on everyone's blogs, now that it doesn't feel like someone stuck a blow torch in my ear...

Clean chicken feet. And rain. LOTS of rain.

Shortish blog. 

Husband was worried about me walking the hill today (we had the water running down the hill again...), so he suggested that I put chips from the pile we received in the hen yard, making it chips, not mud.  This will be good, so the chickens aren't (ahem) deep in mud, and the llamas (who are fed in the hen yard), aren't hock deep.  I try to keep it clean, but there has been so much rain, it washed most of what I had put there away. 

I don't think that will happen this time, for a little bit anyway.  Husband decided to speed up the process, by using the bucket... on the backhoe.  I had  a HUGE amount of the chips to move.  I now have about a 4 to 5 inch deep layer, and it will pack down nicely, it looks like.

I also found out that I have several muscles that I really didn't know I had.  And quite frankly, wish I didn't know about now... Ow.  The legs were fine.  The arms are a little iffy, and the shoulders and back. Oh, my.

I am going to need Tylenol tonight, folks...

And wish me luck.  Remember when I said that I was glad of the new people in the one volunteer group?  Still am, but I am going to have to get her to communicate with me a bit more. Boss wants me to do performances, and then we play email tag on who, where and how long.  I just found out she'd like me to have one more person along, and I had already had to talk like a good fella to get a car pool so I didn't have to drive, (it's through Portland, and I don't do big cities at all well).  The driver said, oh, Boss had said X was going too, and I don't have enough room for three.  I said, nooo, there's only two.  So, I am going to let Boss know that I had only planned for two, and we can work on the other person NEXT performance. 

The joys of new systems.  Gah.

And I think I am officially sick of the rain.  There is pond algae growing on our driveway. 

That's just not right...