Random Pictures of Pets and Things and Random Updates of Whatever Comes to Mind
Every few days, I think, "I should write in my journal about that!" but then never actually do. Although I'm not taking any classes right now, it's a busy time of the year in the House of Felagund, and I've been staying very loyal to my gym schedule. And I've been busy at work, with a large senior class this year and all of them in some form of jeopardy (usually related to HSAs), plus the after-school program. And trying to get the B2MeM ebook together. Anyway, I've been photographing things, so I'll at least share my photos and some updates will likely straggle along with those photos.
Spring is reluctantly arriving. It's been a very cold and wet spring so far (although rather nice today), as later pictures will prove. But it's that wonderful time in Carroll County (and I suspect pretty much any rural U.S. community): chick days! All of the local feed and farm supply stores have chicks right now. Since we lost our two oldest hens to a weasel a few weeks ago, we only have five hens left and so decided to increase our flock. These are our chicks, taken the day we got them, a little over two weeks ago. They look nothing like this now; they've already started molting their baby feathers. They're cute for about three days before they start getting the rangy look of pullets. Apologies for the reddish coloration of the photos; blame the heat lamp for that!
We got six different breeds. Starting in the top left and going clockwise, they are Rhode Island Red, Australorp, Auracana, Dixie Rainbow, Golden Wyandotte, and Barred Rock.
The Australorp was the smallest (still is). But Australorps are pretty much the most productive egg layers there are and have broken all kinds of records.
Doing what they do best: eating and drinking!
Today, we installed a new package of bees. It went great except that I popped the cork out of the wrong end of the queen cage, and so we lost the queen. :^| That's not disastrous but it could be a setback; the person we bought the package from also had some extra queens, so Bobby's already emailed him to see if we can reserve one. Since we've been now over a week with no snow, we've also done quite a bit around the yard and garden. Bobby is completely refreshing the landscaping in front of the house: He's put in a stone pathway and is expanding the front gardens. I cleaned out much of the vegetable garden and turned the compost, which I didn't touch at all last year, on account of the pain issues I was having. Turning compost isn't strenuous, but when it hurt to lift my arm to write on the board some days, then twenty minutes forking half-rotted stuff from one place to another wasn't in the cards. However, I was delighted to find that Mother Nature did a great job in my stead, and the one composter was almost full of finished compost, even though I'd done nothing to it. Just further proof that it is not only possible but common to overthink composting.
Okay, back to pictures ...
Speaking of snow, these were taken just over a week ago, on April 1. This shows that the yard was still almost covered in snow. And it also gave me an excuse to get some up-to-date pictures of the Goldens.
Alexander, who is really starting to show his age. (He limps a lot now; we need to make a vet appointment to have that checked out.)
And Lancelot, a.k.a. Phil.
They only look so interested because I'm holding the ball as I take this.
Phil is sad because he knows the likelihood of my throwing the ball is minimal.
Natural law: If you are trying to photograph dogs, they will look away the moment you click the camera.
The range of odd and probably embarrassing noises that I had to make to get them both to look at the camera just can't be captured on film.
Not a Golden but taken the same day: the first flowers in the yard.
This is from months ago, but I found it in my files and thought it funny enough to share. Phil is scared of loud noises, especially the smoke detector. And sometimes, when Bobby is cooking, he will set off the smoke detector. This terrifies Phil, who tries to climb in my lap. (Phil weighs 68 pounds.) I was sitting at the kitchen table, so he couldn't climb all the way into my lap, but he did his best, and my webcam captured my attempt to continue using the computer around him. (Bobby is in the background fixing the guilty meal that made the smoke detector go off.)
Speaking of Bobby, yesterday was his birthday. His birthday present was a 9-foot surfboard. It arrived today. So here he is with his new stick.
Whilst putting on the fins, Freyja decided to hang ten.
I have much more I could write, but it's TV time, so I'm off for now.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/335847.html
Spring is reluctantly arriving. It's been a very cold and wet spring so far (although rather nice today), as later pictures will prove. But it's that wonderful time in Carroll County (and I suspect pretty much any rural U.S. community): chick days! All of the local feed and farm supply stores have chicks right now. Since we lost our two oldest hens to a weasel a few weeks ago, we only have five hens left and so decided to increase our flock. These are our chicks, taken the day we got them, a little over two weeks ago. They look nothing like this now; they've already started molting their baby feathers. They're cute for about three days before they start getting the rangy look of pullets. Apologies for the reddish coloration of the photos; blame the heat lamp for that!
We got six different breeds. Starting in the top left and going clockwise, they are Rhode Island Red, Australorp, Auracana, Dixie Rainbow, Golden Wyandotte, and Barred Rock.
The Australorp was the smallest (still is). But Australorps are pretty much the most productive egg layers there are and have broken all kinds of records.
Doing what they do best: eating and drinking!
Today, we installed a new package of bees. It went great except that I popped the cork out of the wrong end of the queen cage, and so we lost the queen. :^| That's not disastrous but it could be a setback; the person we bought the package from also had some extra queens, so Bobby's already emailed him to see if we can reserve one. Since we've been now over a week with no snow, we've also done quite a bit around the yard and garden. Bobby is completely refreshing the landscaping in front of the house: He's put in a stone pathway and is expanding the front gardens. I cleaned out much of the vegetable garden and turned the compost, which I didn't touch at all last year, on account of the pain issues I was having. Turning compost isn't strenuous, but when it hurt to lift my arm to write on the board some days, then twenty minutes forking half-rotted stuff from one place to another wasn't in the cards. However, I was delighted to find that Mother Nature did a great job in my stead, and the one composter was almost full of finished compost, even though I'd done nothing to it. Just further proof that it is not only possible but common to overthink composting.
Okay, back to pictures ...
Speaking of snow, these were taken just over a week ago, on April 1. This shows that the yard was still almost covered in snow. And it also gave me an excuse to get some up-to-date pictures of the Goldens.
Alexander, who is really starting to show his age. (He limps a lot now; we need to make a vet appointment to have that checked out.)
And Lancelot, a.k.a. Phil.
They only look so interested because I'm holding the ball as I take this.
Phil is sad because he knows the likelihood of my throwing the ball is minimal.
Natural law: If you are trying to photograph dogs, they will look away the moment you click the camera.
The range of odd and probably embarrassing noises that I had to make to get them both to look at the camera just can't be captured on film.
Not a Golden but taken the same day: the first flowers in the yard.
This is from months ago, but I found it in my files and thought it funny enough to share. Phil is scared of loud noises, especially the smoke detector. And sometimes, when Bobby is cooking, he will set off the smoke detector. This terrifies Phil, who tries to climb in my lap. (Phil weighs 68 pounds.) I was sitting at the kitchen table, so he couldn't climb all the way into my lap, but he did his best, and my webcam captured my attempt to continue using the computer around him. (Bobby is in the background fixing the guilty meal that made the smoke detector go off.)
Speaking of Bobby, yesterday was his birthday. His birthday present was a 9-foot surfboard. It arrived today. So here he is with his new stick.
Whilst putting on the fins, Freyja decided to hang ten.
I have much more I could write, but it's TV time, so I'm off for now.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/335847.html