Finishing up

A month ago, I had the brilliant idea that I would blog every day for the rest of the month. 

And so I did. Mostly for the most part. Almost. 

Except the days I didn't. 

But on the days I didn't, I still took a picture. And I have valid excuses for why I didn't blog on those days. 

 Day 28

Like on this day, the day before the Super Bowl, when I spent the entire winter day and evening spring cleaning the house in preparation for the party we were hosting the next day. And when Seth took the white truck to a friend's house up the road to help pull their van out of the mud.

 Day 29

And like on this day, when I didn't have a story to tell and had too much to do in the evening to take time to blog.

[I skipped a photo on the actual day of the Super Bowl because none of my friends stopped their car long enough in front of the window on their way to our house for me to take a picture. Thanks, guys. You know you who you are.]

 Day 30 

And like on this day, when I called the phone company and asked them to come check our land-line phone to see why the dial tone had been buzzing for the past week and we weren't able to make any calls. And then watched the debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye in the evening and didn't have a chance to blog about the day's events.

 Day 31

And like on this day, when I sat down to blog and catch up on all the previous days I'd missed and my laptop inexplicably shut down. Twice. I figured that was a sign that I should just go to bed instead. So I did.

Day 32

See? All valid excuses. But now I've arrived at the end of the month of blogging, and so it's back to our regularly nonscheduled blogging schedule. Thanks for joining me! 

The chicken that wouldn't die

  Day 25
(Snowman--or what's left of him--is still in residence)

 Day 26

Day 27

(Kieran mowing the snow.)

The other day, when I went out to close up the chicken coop for the evening, I saw one of the older chickens, who seems to have finished giving us eggs, sitting on the ground at the back of the coop with her head drooping. Her breathing seemed laborious. The other chickens were gathered around her and clucking mournfully. I figured that meant she wasn't long for this world and would soon be going to the Great Chicken Coop in the Sky.

And I came inside and looked through my chicken books to find out if she had a deadly malaise that would soon spread throughout the rest of the flock and lead to their untimely demises and to my being quarantined by the FDA for having a bird with avian flu. And I Googled, "Why is my chicken suddenly dying?" And found out there is, in fact, something called Sudden Chicken Death. But what I read about it didn't describe her. Namely, she wasn't dead yet. (Name that movie.)

So, I prepared myself that evening for a chicken burial the next morning and talked to Seth about what we (and I mainly meant he) should do. Since the ground is frozen thanks to the polar vortexes that have sat on our area these past few weeks, we didn't think we'd be able to give her a proper chicken burial. And I voted for dumping her carcass outside the coop and letting the raccoons have a midwinter feast. Seth was slightly taken aback by my apparent callousness toward the passing of what had been a valued member of our flock.

The next morning, I went to let the chickens out of the coop, fully expecting that she had gone to be with her friends. Except she was still alive. Sitting in the same spot, with the other chickens gathered around her. "Are you still alive?" I asked her. I took her deep breathing as a sign that she was and that she wasn't dead yet.

Last night, I had a similar conversation with her. Something like, "Hey, what's going on with you? Are you gonna die or what? Let's get this show on the road [as Cael likes to say]."

And then this morning, there she was. Still alive.

Today, though, something unusual happened. The other chickens, instead of laying their eggs in the nesting box, laid them near her. There were two eggs in close proximity to her when I went out this evening to close up the coop.

Maybe it was some sort of chicken tribute to a dearly departing loved one? "You were the chicken who taught us everything we needed to know about the fine art of egg-laying, so we lay our eggs here in your honor. Carry them with you when you cross over to that Great Chicken Coop in the Sky you've told us so much about."

I have no idea, but I picked up the eggs anyway and brought them inside. No sense wasting perfectly good eggs on a tribute for a chicken that refuses to die.

Water, water everywhere . . .

Day 24

Just before I took this photo, I texted Seth, "We're almost out of water. Or out."

While I was making supper, I had turned on the faucet to get some hot water to loosen the cap to a jar of almond butter and realized the water was flowing without much pressure. I quickly turned it off. If the pump in the cistern that pumps the water into the house is out of the water completely, it creates an airlock in the pipes that's difficult to get rid of. Or something like that. I'm not a cistern expert, I just know that when we run out of water completely, it takes a long while before everything starts working again the way it should and involves several trips into the cistern (by Seth, of course). And I didn't think that with temperatures hovering around zero degrees, Seth wanted to be making many trips into the cistern.

The lid to the cistern had frozen shut a few days ago, making it difficult to check the water level. So Seth had put in several hundred gallons last week and hadn't checked it since. I've been hoping the recent snowfalls would add water to the cistern as the snow melts off the roof, but snow doesn't provide as much water as rain does and the temperatures have been cold enough that the snow has only melted on the front side of the roof. And so, even though we're surrounded by water (see all that white stuff out the window?), our cistern is dry. There's some irony for ya.

After Seth got home from work, he warmed up the red truck and headed out for the first load of 200 gallons. Life sure is fun in the Holler.

Maybe I need to get out my snow shovel and start shoveling snow into the cistern . . . .

The Headless Snowman

 
Day 22

Yesterday, as the temperatures briefly climbed into the 40s, the snowman lost his head.

Day 23

And today, even though the temperatures were frigid, the sun was just bright enough to melt a little bit more of him away. 

While the snowman was languishing outside, we were enjoying play dough inside. Cael made an "errplane" which he flew across the table.

And Kieran enjoyed snipping the play dough with scissors.

We'll see how the snowman fares tomorrow . . . .

The First Snowman

Day 20 

Day 21 

Another day, another round of snow.

When we went outside this afternoon, the boys wanted to make a snowman. This is the first year that we've had enough snow and the boys have had the ability and interest in doing stuff with snow, so it's been fun introducing them to activities they've previously just read about or seen on TV. This was the first snowman I've ever made with either of them.

They both helped me roll the snow and stack it. Kieran was insistent that the snowman have a carrot for his nose. He settled for celery for the eyes and mouth. Cael wanted him to have a hat.

Then they became disinterested in helping me make an igloo and decided to watch our neighbor plow his driveway with his quad instead.

I had grand visions of making an arctic castle-like igloo for them, but settled for a hole in a mound of snow once I realized how much work it was going to take without any helpers.

Kieran didn't like the idea of crawling into a snow room, so I made it into a snow tunnel. 

And then, because the wind was winding a bit too much, we came back inside to warm up. It was a fun day.

Chicken Lights

Day 19 

The polar vortex that swept through our area a few days ago has decided to do some more sweeping. We're in for some more subzero temperatures, from what the weatherpersons have prognosticated.

Today was definitely chilly. It was difficult being outside even for short lengths of time. And definitely too cold for me to take the boys outside to play.

So far, the chickens have survived the arctic tundra the Holler has become. I've been more concerned about them than Seth has. When I first mentioned the possibility of having frozen chickens to Seth and suggested that maybe we should do something to help them out a few weeks ago, he looked at me and said, " . . . they're chickens." As if being a chicken automatically disqualifies an animal from suffering frostbite or other ill-effects of the cold.

"They have feathers." Yes, but their feet don't have feathers, so what happens when they're sitting on the cold metal bars of the Eglu and they freeze to the metal?

"They huddle together." As if speaking in italics means nothing will actually happen to them.

At any rate, we haven't done much more than we usually do (which is nothing) to keep them warm in the plummeting temperatures. And, so far, they've all survived (although we've suffered a few cracked egg casualties--who knew that eggs would burst if they got too cold?).

But with this new round of cold vortexing the air, I've become concerned about them all over again. With the last polar-thing, Seth did eventually visit the farm supply store to see if they had any heat lamps available, but apparently there had been a run on them (along with bread and milk) and none were in stock. So he picked some up a few days later and we've had them on-hand since.

Tonight, I gathered them all up and went out to the coop to install them.

The lone light on the far right is the one we usually leave on in the evenings--to give them more light and encourage them to continue to lay eggs through the dreary winter days. But I changed the bulb to a heat light and added the two other heat-lights, too. And I'll keep these on all night, rather than turning them off as we usually do.

And then I moved the Eglu cage that they roost on at night closer to the lights . . . but not too close that their feathers would get singed (I hope).

And then I closed up the coop and wished them well and told them I hoped they would all still be alive in the morning and that if they weren't, Seth would be the one they would want to complain to.

And then I came inside to find that the temperatures on the dueling thermometers had continued to drop in the short time I was out there. And I was thankful we have heat inside. And I was also thankful that Seth is a volunteer firefighter and, as such, knows what to do in the event that all those chickens and hay and heat lights collide in such a way as to start a fire. Roast chicken, anyone?

Our Excitement for the Day

Day 18 

I was originally going to post that our excitement for the day was when the garbage truck rumbled down the lane and picked up our garbage. Kieran got upset that the garbage guy was taking our garbage. I have no idea why.

But, later, when we were outside playing in the snow . . .

we heard a loud BOOM and felt a slight rumble ripple through the Holler. It sounded so close that I thought the neighbor two doors down had done something with his truck or somehow banged his barn door closed.

Shows how much attention I was paying at the time. (We were busy piling up the snow so we could make a tunnel through--something Kieran has been requesting since yesterday.)

Turns out, the large boom was actually our state national guard detonating some explosives several miles away. So there you have it: our excitement for the day. Aren't you thrilled?

The Clipper

Day 17

The weather prognosticators were actually correct for once. The forecasts were for several inches of snow to fall last night and into this morning.

And we did, indeed, end up with about four inches of lovely white stuff.

After the snow stopped and the sun came out in the early afternoon, we went outside to do our shoveling and check on the chickens.

The lane leading to our house and our driveway is out there somewhere.

Kieran helped me shovel,

while Cael went off to explore the snow-covered ground.

He was ready to go inside by the end of his short jaunt because, although the sun was out, the air was very cold and the wind was blowing the frigidness right through us.

The snowplow came shortly after we came inside to give us access to the outside world. And we were grateful.

OT . . . again

Day 16

If you've read this blog long enough and been around Kieran for awhile, you know that he struggles with tasks that rely on fine motor control--coloring, drawing, writing, picking things up, pinching, wiggling his fingers, etc. (a result of the genetic disorder -- Williams syndrome -- that he was born with). 

And, if you've been around long enough, you know that I've struggled to get him the help he needs in this area, via occupational therapy, for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is that we live in a very rural area and OTs are difficult to come by. He has had OT through the school system for several years, but only receives 30 minutes of direction intervention a week during the school year. And he's had a weekly music therapy session. I guess I kept expecting that that, along with what we worked on with him at home, would be enough. And I kept expecting him to make progress. But he really hasn't. 

That was made very clear at the yearly meeting we had with the WS specialist in November. He's doing well cognitively but in his fine motor areas, he's very, very delayed. The tests they did with him showed he had fallen even farther behind, relatively speaking, than where he was the previous year. It was the slap in the face I needed. 

This afternoon, after I shot the above photo, we headed out for another OT evaluation at a somewhat-local hospital that offers pediatric OT. They also evaluated him, noticed his delays, and agreed that OT -- at least two 45-minute sessions a week -- would help him. So we start next Wednesday. 

As I was writing this post, I looked back over the posts on OT that I've done in the past and I found this one: Time and Effort. Somehow, I've forgotten that he really does need a lot more of my time and effort and I realized, again, that I haven't been giving enough to him. He's my son and helping him--getting him the help he needs-- is my responsibility. It's difficult to have your failings as a mom pointed out through the delays of your child, but I'm thankful for this new opportunity to help him move forward and write this as an encouragement to my future self to continue advocating for what he needs and to continue working with him as much as possible. 

Safety First . . .

Day 15

 . . . or not.

That's the Holler motto.

Kieran doesn't like to be around the quad, so he stayed inside with me while Seth and Cael explored the winter wonderland.

Cael sure enjoyed it, though. (Just so you know: Seth drove the quad very slowly.)

Note: No children were harmed in the making of this blog post.

What we do for water

I've mentioned before that we get our water from a cistern. And, if I were the proof-texting type, I would say that having a cistern (or a well) is the only way one can truly be godly because cisterns (and wells) are mentioned in the Bible. Check it out. (And I'll let you figure out if I'm really the proof-texting type.)

At any rate, we've had a love-hate affair with our cistern over the years. It (or, rather, the Lord through the rain) gives us free water, which we love. But it has gone and cracked itself, which we hate.

We thought we had had it repaired over a year ago, but the seal they used didn't hold and so we're back to having a leaky cistern. 

We've tried to think through a variety of solutions to the leaky cistern which don't involve purchasing a new one to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars but which will provide us with clean water.

One solution is that we just make more trips to get water. Of course, that involves a lot of fuel and a lot of time and a lot of wear and tear on the F150 we were using to haul the 200-gallon water tank. The above is a picture of one of the places we can go to fill up the tank (about 30 minutes away). For $0.50, we can get 200 gallons. 

The last time Seth checked out the F150, he realized that the entire under-body-something was rusted and would be falling apart any day. Which meant we needed a new water (and gravel and mulch and whatever-else) hauler. So we got this beast. 

And, after getting help from family members removing the rusted cabinets on the sides, we're able to haul water once again. 

But will probably get a bigger tank . . . 

And, in case you're wondering, "Well, why don't they just tap into city water?" Here's your answer:

We live at the end of a very long, thin lane lined by trees on one side and a stream on the other side. "City water" stops at the beginning of the lane and to bring all the pipes back to where we live would require permits from the DNR to dig up the stream, and then, in the unlikely event they granted such an atrocity, lots and lots more work. To the tune of lots of thousands of dollars. 

We could get some type of liner to put in it, which is why Seth climbed down into it a few months ago -- he was taking measurements, but there's a big wall in the middle of it that would make it difficult for a liner to fit well.

So, here we sit, with a cracked cistern, water leaking out and ground water leaking in. Which means, of course, that the cistern water can get kind of funky (don't worry -- we don't drink the water from the cistern, ever). 

So, Seth devised this cistern filter, based on a pool filter concept, and installed it a few months ago with the help of BIL Nate, to help filter the water and keep it clean.

Which brings me to today. Today, Seth took the boys for a ride in the big red truck to the local farm supply store to get tome heat tape to cover the filter pipes to keep them from freezing and also to get some sealant and a few other items to use to try to patch the cracks in the cistern. And so there you have it. Everything you never wanted to know about what we do for water. 

Day 14