Just a quickie

First and most important, today is Garf's first day with a new company. He'll be team driving, at least this first time. I don't think he's happy about that part. He's not a good passenger lol. I think it's just this first trip though, and it should only be maybe three days at most, so he'll survive it.

Lots of little stuff around here.

- There is a patch of wild strawberries growing near our fire pit. I'm hoping to encourage them to spread. Add that to the Chanterelles that I discovered last year, and I'm happy. I like free food. 

- Mama hen hatched out five chicks. She was still sitting on 8 eggs. Overnight, she was disturbed by some falling straw and quit her nest for the night. She moved back onto it when we cleaned up. The next day, one chick disappeared overnight, 4 eggs went missing, and she wasn't sitting on the eggs that were left. So, I guess I really shouldn't have counted those chickens before they hatched. I'd sure like to know where the eggs disappeared to. Mama and babies are now safely contained where no one can get lost or hurt.

- Barn has finally been cleaned up after the winter. That took a full day. 

- Garden has been tilled. We got cucumbers, carrots, peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, hot peppers, onions, and beets planted. Still a lot more to go. We're way behind. Such a short growing season, but we can pop up some tents later in the year if we need to just to get a little extra time and hopefully harvest enough. The real trick will be me getting up some energy to either can or freeze what gets harvested. 

-The grape vine is doing nicely, and out of the 8 sticks we stuck in the ground, it looks like 5 or 6 have new growth. So in the next couple of years, we should have far more grapes than we'll ever need.

-Cherry and pear tree are showing up with some pretty flowers. We've air layered 3 branches on the cherry and 2 on the pear. In another couple of weeks, we should have roots and that'll give us 5 more fruit trees.

-The remains of my strawberry beds are looking nice. Quite a few of the plants have their flowers already. It's not the 60 plants that I started with before the chickens ate everything, but it's more than I had when I started splitting and replanting in the fall. So it was a bit of a setback, but it'll be better next year.

-The mint, oregano, and chives are expanding nicely despite the grass taking over that bed. I'll be digging all that up, splitting and spreading around this year. That's the plan anyway.

-We planted 8 asparagus crowns a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure they were gonna make it. When they were delivered, we were just so busy with everything else that we didn't have time. I left them in the box for a couple of weeks, then opened it when I thought we were going to have a chance to get them in the ground. We didn't. It was about another week. It wouldn't have been a surprise if they didn't grow. The other day, we all swear it was a bare garden bed. Yesterday, there's about a foot of growth. 7 of the 8 are fine.

- Finally, finally, finally, the collection of junk (washer, washer parts, the big stuff) got picked up by garbage collection this morning, along with 2 full cans and who knows how many bits and pieces of other stuff, like one office chair. This stuff has been sitting in the back for about 2-3 years. Garf just keeps adding to it. And while I like to have the junk yard because you never know what you can use, the mess of it was getting to me and I ordered it gone. He sorted through everything yesterday. 

- I now have a hose that stretches from the house ALL THE WAY to the back garden. No more lugging buckets and watering cans.  

Okay, that wasn't as much of a quickie as I'd thought. 

Irrational hatred

 I'm really developing an irrational hatred towards chickens. We have a lot of chickens. Too many. We need to butcher to make room for next years laying stock and, of course, we do need to eat. But I'm just hating everything about chickens so much right now. I just can't seem to get up and get things done. 

We've got about 50 birds, 5-6 of them are roosters. The roosters start crowing around 4 a.m. I hate them.

I tell you, I do NOT need 46 eggs a day. We don't actually get that many, but some mornings, when collecting the eggs, it feels like there's a hundred or so. We candled the eggs under mama hen yesterday. Out of the 17 she's sitting on, only 4 were duds. The rest look good and alive and I imagine that within a week, there should be 13 little chicks bopping around the barn. I do not need or want 63 chickens. (Yes, I'm actually counting my chickens before they hatch.)

As soon as I can set up a separate coop for the couple of chickens we have that go broody, they will be moved and given some eggs to sit on. So there will be more replacement birds. We only need/want about 10 hens, 2 roosters. We're gonna end up with closer to 20 hens being kept simply because we need to keep younger birds and there's a few that just aren't on the block. Broody hens get a pass because I don't want to pay for an incubator or mess about with heat lamps. Mamas do that work for me. Beep Beep gets to stay, of course. She's moved in with the goats now, by the way. That's 3 hens so far. Then we've got the Silkie hen and her man. I'm not one to break up a couple. Basically... I'm gonna be up to my elbows in butchering and canning for the foreseeable future. 

Yay.

But first - I HAVE to plant the gardens. I'm late. Maybe not for Canada weather, but if I'd been on the ball, I could have planted a month ago and had a head start on our very short growing season. *sigh* Maybe next year.

Oops

 I'm the budget person around here. I've got it all under control, right down to literally the last penny... until I don't.

I went merrily on my way at about 5:30 AM, click, click, click, pay, pay, pay... 

And then I looked.

And looked again.

OOPS!

I'd forgotten to shift something from one column to the other, paid everything in full, only to find that there was this one thing left that MUST be paid. No borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. I've really got to stop trying to use my big brain when I haven't even had my coffee yet. 

Today, Garf has a drug test to do for his new job... it's a long-ish drive to get there and with gas prices... But it's gotta get done.

Also, there will be that wait of an extra week for a pay while he makes the switch from one company to the other. 

I have a child turning 15 tomorrow. Child wanted roller skates. Pride roller skates. That just happen to be on sale at about 50% off.  And even though we'd already bought and given a Nintendo Switch as an early present, I really wanted to get the damn skates. And had all my duckies lined up in a nice row so I could do that. Now I can't. I want to cry. 

Do I care that I've literally left us without money for at least 2 weeks? Nope. All bills are paid, there's food, gas in the tank, pet food, chicken feed, hay for goats. We can manage without extras for a couple of weeks. 

But the skates... 

*disappointed mommy sounds*

Just how bored am I?

 I don't have much to write about. How much trouble can a girl get into when she lives in the middle of nowhere (nearest Tim Horton's is a 20 minute drive and I don't drive, I'm dead serious when I say we have no neighbors), hubby is gone 4-5 days a week, my work, when it's available, is online so I sit comfy with my PJs and coffee. I'm busy with the thousand dogs that are part of the family, or dishes and some laundry, feeding the barn critters takes about 15 minutes... I mean, that's just about the whole list. BORING!

So, while being bored this morning, I noticed the big letters down the side of my list of blog posts. Those letters are the first letter of the first word of every title. Aha!! A challenge to myself then. I need some words, first of all. Then I'll just need to make a blog post for each letter to spell out those words. 

Yes, I am THAT bored! But I do love word games so... 

If anyone has any fun words to start with, let me know!

New Job

 Well, it looks like hubby's snagged himself a new job. He's doing the driving test now as I write this. Of course, I have no doubt that he'll get through that with flying colors. He's been driving for almost three years. But all the official paperwork from the company came through my email so I got first look at it all and confirmed that he does, indeed, have a new job. (I guess they're not expecting him to fail a simple driving test either lol)

He'll be making more per mile, more per stop, more per layover. Just more of everything. And he gets a uniform lol. I don't know that it'd be the kind of uniform that turns a girl on, but if it'll keep his everyday clothes from being covered in truck smells and oil, I'm all for it. 

What I don't like is that it's still the same job. He's still not going to be home. Perhaps sometime in the future there will be more local work available and he'll be there to grab it if it happens. For now though, I guess we'll just have to see where he ends up. I'm hoping for at least a more regular schedule, Monday to Friday type of thing. Right now, he's up and gone any day of the week and sometime gone for three days, sometimes five, sometimes off for four days at a time, but sometimes only home for one night. I think if I know what to expect, I can deal with it better. I'm hoping, anyway.

It's HOT here today. 30 degrees, in May, in New Brunswick... what?? I mean, I remember not so long ago that us Canadians had to wait til May 24th to get gardens planted, at the earliest. Now it seems like we could safely start in late April or early May. I've never complained much about heat before. I like heat. I don't get hot. In fact, most summers I have a light sweater on for most of it. Not so much the last few years. 

One of my kids that lives in Ontario, is needing to rehome their dog. He's a pup from a litter we had that we kept three of. I do not want another dog in the house, and certainly not another male. We only have one male, the oldest at 9 years, and so do not want another. But I was begged to please take him. And how do you say no to your sobbing baby when they're so far away and you can't do anything else to help make life easier? *sigh* When I told my kids our doors were always open if they needed us, I was not expecting the furry grandchildren. 

Well, everyone's out of the house today, so I think I'm going to go enjoy some quiet TV watching time. 

A Chicken Tale

We have a little speckled hen. She's smaller than everyone else, except maybe the Silkie. Last year, they had a very large yard to run and peck around in. Well, this little speckled hen would run across the yard with her neck stretched out (usually trying to escape a roo) and I said, "Hey, doesn't she remind you a bit of the Road Runner? What was the Road Runner's name?" Everyone whips out a phone. "Beep Beep." So that's how the little speckled hen got her name. 

Well, Beep Beep is one of the friendliest hens we've ever had. She's nosy. She wants to see everything we do. If you tap/slap on any surface, she'll come running. If she spies you feeding the ducks, she'll come from nowhere and land on your shoulder, chattering a mile a minute. She doesn't fit in well with the other hens. They don't really pick on her, but they just kind of leave her out of everything, including meal time. She refuses to stay in the coop where she belongs. Every morning when I go to the barn, she appears from a different spot every time. Sometimes she's far up in the rafters and drops onto my shoulder - scared the crap out of me the first time she did that. She follows me around while I clean goat poop, looking for goodies. She sits near one of our broody hens keeping a wary eye on the mother-to-be in case she attacks, but she knows mama gets tossed some extra treats and sometimes, if she's quick, Beep Beep can snag a bite too.

I call out to Beep Beep in the mornings and it's rare that I don't see her running from somewhere, neck stretched out, hoping to get into the feed bucket before I dump it. She's jumped into a bucket of water in the middle of winter, thinking it was feed. What a terrible surprise for her. During storms, I would fill the feeder in the barn (nice weather, I feed outside) and because the bigger hens won't let her in, she would jump into the feeder head first and all you'd see was her tail stuck straight up.

We love all our critters and spoil them, but we do have to eat, so we try not to get too attached. I don't know if Beep Beep lays any eggs, and if she doesn't, she doesn't have much purpose here... but she's one of the few birds that has a free pass around here. When she eventually dies, of natural causes I hope, she'll probably be buried with some of our other special pets.  We don't eat family. Even the cats understand that. They'll strut around with the chickens, avoid any chicks, and God help the stupid weasel that thinks he can get a free meal here. 

A little lot light on the kinky stuff, but hey, hubby's on the road. There's only so much a girl can get up to by herself.

Updates

 My strawberry eating felons chickens are now locked up. 

My goats have been dewormed, sprayed for lice, and moved to a bigger section of the barn.

I have finally planted asparagus. 

The garlic that I planted last fall and thought the chickens had eaten is doing just fine.

If you throw a frisbee for two hours for an obsessed dog, your arm WILL hurt. 

My father, who had stayed with us for a month or so and then got into a mood and packed up and left without saying goodbye to me (though he had no problem having hubby drive him back to the hell from whence he came) called the other day. We haven't talked since the day he left. I don't even know how long it's been. Less than a year? Or is it more like a year and a half? Well, whatever. I didn't return the call. I'm not putting myself through it anymore. He'll be 87 this year. I wonder if he's finally starting to realize that he has no one left except my money-sucking brothers. They'll tolerate him and humor him because they think they'll get something out of it, and maybe they're still a little scared of him. I don't want anything to do with him. I figure the oldest sibling, my sister, will probably be the one that deals with it all when he finally keels over. None of us talk to each other so I don't know how all those details will be worked out in the end.

Hubby, having spent 20 years trying to figure out what makes me tick, is learning at an amazing rate how to lead me along the path to some pretty amazing orgasms. He's adjusting to all the things, but I'm hyper-focused on sex right now. And wishing we'd figured this all out 20 years ago. Or even 30. Just... why now?? We're getting older and there's no way around having to make changes to accommodate our creaky bones and there are just some things that we cannot do. 

And, we're hoping that by this Sunday hubby may have a new job! It's still gonna be driving a stupid truck 😢 but it is better pay. And when your roof is leaking and needs replacing... well, taking a pay cut probably isn't the way to go. But it does sound like his schedule will be predictable and I guess that'll be nice. 

Fried chicken anyone?

 I'm furious... and a little heartbroken. Last year, we separated about 3 strawberry plants and made some more. Fall came around and I separated plants again and replanted in two nice new beds. I believe I had just over 60 plants. I planted garlic as well, maybe 30. 

About two weeks ago, I peeked under the straw I'd tucked the plants in with for the winter. So many healthy green leaves! Garlic and strawberries had survied. I wasn't sure if they would because I'd never separated plants like that before. I don't have a green thumb. Hubby inherited his from his grandfather. But me? I kill plants. So I was really surprised to see that it looked as if everything had not only survived me AND the winter, but they were thriving!

Yesterday evening, when I took the dogs out, I almost sat down and cried when I saw my garden beds. There was nothing green left. I looked closer. There was nothing left at all. 

We've had some escapee chickens that just won't stay where I want them. Most of the flock stays within their yard. But there's usually five to six every day that refuse and I have to chase them back two or three times a day. Because I have a dog that wants to eat them and sometimes she gets to them before I do. (She doesn't really want to eat them, but she does like to chase and she can get a little rough) Well, I'm wishing I'd let her have at 'em. 

No strawberries. No garlic. No roots. Just dirt. The garlic would have been ready to pull pretty soon. The strawberries would have started sending out runners to make more. Now there's nothing.

I'm feeling really... unmotivated. After all the hard work I did all by myself last year, after dragging water and feed through the snow and cold all winter, by myself, after having 2 goat kids arrive alive and healthy in March... I've been done in by a handful of fucking chickens. I'm so tired. I was so tired! All winter, I was tired, but I kept things going, and now  it feels like it was just a waste of time. I know, it's only strawberries. It's not like the barn fell down, or like everything died. But I had an unnatural attachment to those plants.  

I guess I should be happy that I had to hold off planting because we're mostly under water still here. At least they didn't have anything else to destroy. 

I have a lot of seeds to plant this year. 

There will be a lot of chicken in my freezer this year.

And maybe some fresh fried chicken later this week.

But no strawberry jam 😭

On Fire!

 I think my brain is on fire. But not in a good way. I haven't suddenly figured out the secret to life or anything like that. I think my brain is just burning up. It's going to look like the remains of last year's campfire soon. 

Once upon a time, I would have run circles around learning something new. I used to have a sort of natural talent for just digging into a new program and playing around and in a few hours I'd know my way around pretty good. Well, those days are gone. 

Let's start with just some simple blogging woes. I can't get my widgets to work. This thing refuses to show the blogs I follow. It just won't. Also, most times when I leave a comment, it forces me to post anonymously. Why?? Is this because I deleted my last blog? Is the site angry with me or something? *sigh*  

I used to google my issues, find the answer, and fix. I once spent a full day on trying to set up a Minecraft server for the kids after they'd all given up. I just kept at it, and at it, digging around online, tried everything under the sun. I have no idea or understanding of what actually worked, or why, but I did get it going. 

I'm obstinate. I hate admitting defeat so I don't.

BUT... I am almost ready to admit defeat this time. I'm working my way through a proofreading, editing course. I don't need the course, I just want the guarantee of work when I'm finished. Flying along, doing fine, doing fine. Of course I am. It's pretty much what I already do as a transcriptionist. I edit. I proofread, I grade, and I'm good at it. And then I stumbled into MS Word with this course. A long, long time ago, I knew how to use this. Apparently, my brain is no longer a sponge that soaks up new learning. I know the basics, of course, but using Word capabilities for proofreading is a whole new ballgame for me. I'm finding that keeping track of three different copies of a document is next to impossible... for me. Following step-by-step instructions and I confuse myself. I'm going to need a big poster on the wall detailing those steps to get through the exam.

I *know* it's just a matter of practice. Of doing it over and over again until I know the steps without having to think about it. But the slowness is killing me. I'm not used to needing more than a day to learn a few steps. I'm frustrated and impatient with myself.

I'd rather go read some blogs. 

Acceptance

 Acceptance has been a hard pill to swallow around here lately. But I think we've had so many pills to take that we're getting better at it. 

I've had to accept the fact that the picture I see in my head will never match my reality. Of course it won't. And honestly, I doubt that I'd want it to. I'm sure that there are some fantasies that are better left as just that. But wow, that's a hard thing for me and sometimes, it still gets a little stuck in my throat. 

I've had to accept that I am NOT getting any younger, and time will march on, whether I'm willing or not.

I've had to accept that a 9 p.m. bedtime is now my new normal... to be fair, any later and I will pay dearly the next day. But this goes back to accepting that I am just plain getting old, no matter how much I try to slam the breaks on. 

I've had to accept that having a spotlessly clean, organized house is not within my power while there are still kids and dogs living with me, and wearing myself out trying to make it so is a waste of time. 

I've had to accept that when hubby says "Get in the bath and stay there until that incense stick is gone," he means it... And, he's right when he says I'll feel better after. (I'm a very quick in and out bath/shower person. I hate feeling like I'm wasting time that could be better spent cleaning, or budgeting, or fixing some problem in the world)

I've had to accept that I simply like being spanked. With a hand, a belt, a bath brush... doesn't matter. I like pain and I've given up trying to figure out why. When I finally caved and mentioned to hubby that labels and boxes, and how to "do it right" wasn't in the cards for us, it was making things worse, we dropped it all and are just doing what feels right instead. And it's working.

I've had to accept that no matter how hard you try, you can't always protect your children from a world that seems determined to hurt them. 

I've had to accept that despite our best efforts to be the best parents ever, that sometimes, actually quite often, we fell short and we weren't the best all the time. 

As for hubby, well, he's still learning to accept that maybe it's okay to kick his parent's voices out of our bedroom. That it's okay to hurt me. That there's a difference between hurt and harm. He's learning to accept that some of the darker thoughts floating through his head are okay. That just because something "unacceptable" turns him on, it does not mean he's just going to go indiscriminately grab some unsuspecting woman on the street and fuck her, or hurt her. He's learning to accept himself and his desires. 

I actually attribute some of this new acceptance to our kids, and not just me trying to corrupt him for 20 years. They're all very open and opinionated on EVERYTHING imaginable. They've bombarded him with so much that he's starting to rethink a lot of long-held beliefs. Often, they go the complete opposite direction of us, but I'm so very glad that we've always allowed them to explore and discuss it all and come to their own conclusions, and will argue their side elequently. We don't always agree, but at least they've got reasons to back up what they believe and not just empty words. They are very much their own people and "society" be damned. They simply don't care what others say or think.

No spooks here

 Over on her blog, Morningstar has a post about a spooky adventure. And since I've been watching Supernatural with my youngest monster child, my mind had no problem taking a wander. Were there any haunted places close to home? Well, there were quite a few! Of course, there's haunted locations all around New Brunswick, but for some reason, I didn't expect to find some documented ghosties right in my own backyard. "Ooh, how much fun it would be to go check these places out!" 

*sigh* I have very non-adventurous people living in my house. No one wants to go ghost hunting with me. Spoil sports.

In the interests of not giving my exact location away, here's a link to some haunted locations in New Brunswick.  I'd love to go see some of these places. Haunted or not, I'm just fascinated by all things "old".

When we bought this house, the real estate agent pulled us aside, away from the kids to let us know that "someone had killed himself in the house."  I was halfway expecting all sorts of hairy scary things to go on. We've been here 5 years now and while lots of crappy "how could we have such bad luck" things have happened, I doubt any of it can be attributed to a restless spirit. I'm a little disappointed that I've never felt, seen, or heard anything here. Also, I tried looking online to see if I could find out anything about any deaths that happened in this house, but no luck. Maybe the real estate agent just thought we looked the type to really want to buy a house that could potentially be haunted.

BUT... ask my 15 year old, and you might hear some tales. Like taking her dogs out late at night (1 a.m.-ish late) and hearing me calling from down the road. Apparently the doggies heard it too. Well, I'm in bed by 9 p.m. folks, so it wasn't me. And we have NO neighbors. No late-night walkers on the highway. When I say we live in the middle of nowhere, I'm not exaggerating even a bit. There's been some doors randomly opening. Or hearing knocking in the middle of the night. Her little dog sits in the kitchen at night and barks non-stop at the porch door. 

I don't think we have any ghosts hanging out with us. I think the kid AND the dog are simply suffering from late-night heebie-jeebies when everyone else is asleep and you're trying to get a midnight snack in a dark kitchen.