Catch-up Thursday

What I've been up to in the past couple of months.

Stats:

• Baseball games attended: Twins vs. Blue Jays
• Cities visited: Rochester
• Ice creams made: Peaches, Rocky Road, Campfire, Strawberry Cheesecake, Pumpkin
• Projects completed: garbage disposal installation, storm door repair, fire pit construction, new ramp on chicken coop, play kitchen
• Books read: The Gunslinger, The Graveyard Book, The Dead Sea Scrolls, Augustine of Hippo, The Tipping Point, How to Win Friends and Influence People
• Video games purchased: Minecraft
• # of mice captured: 4
• # of days our road has been under construction: over 9,000

Tidbits:

• Getting ready for bath time, Natalie looks carefully at my swallow tattoos, then looks down at her own chest. "Where my birds?"
• Natalie is enamored with the hens. She loves to throw them food, check for eggs, "chase chickens" and try to "hug" them.
• Natalie loved Halloween. She held out her bag and said, "trick or treat" and "thank you" very politely.
• She calls me and Jenna "you guys."
• She thinks that it's hilarious to call things the wrong name. "Good girl, daddy," she tells me. "You good girl."

The Season of Death

What's the best part about waking up to take out the dog when it's pitch black at 5:30 AM? Outstanding stargazing. Yesterday morning was exceptionally clear. I could see much more than usual, and I even spotted a shooting star! Yet another reason that I love living in the country.

I made another discovery in the afternoon that wasn't quite as delightful: a dead, dried-up toad, and a Cedar Waxwing with its guts squashed out in our driveway. On top of that, we've been trapping mice in the house and the last victim was caught by its paws in a neck-snapper. It left a bloody circle while it dragged the trap around trying to escape and ultimately I let it go in the yard instead of killing it. Give it a few minutes of freedom before it is snatched up by a hawk or dies from limb-smashing-induced blood loss.

Natalie is getting an education in the cycle of life. She was very interested in the dead bird and wanted to "see, see" while I picked it up with a shovel and dropped it into our compost pile. While I dumped some weeds on top of the body, she asked, "oh, you cover up? Bird go sleep?"

"Yes, Natalie," I said. "Being dead is kind of like sleep, but the bird will never wake up." I scraped the goo off the shovel blade and watched the gears turning in her head. "Do you understand?"

"Let's go," she said. We went inside and I showed her a video of what the Cedar Waxwing looks like when it's still alive. "That's so silly!" she giggled, and demanded to watch it again. Then she got bored with the video and went back to playing with her new kitchen. Check it out, didn't my wife do a great job?

Happy Halloween!

The Natalie Tree

Jenna's family has a tradition that I enjoy very much. Every time a child was born, her parents planted a tree for them. She and her two sisters each have their own tree in the yard where they grew up (and where her parents still live). This weekend we planted Natalie's tree.

Since we obviously waited a couple of years before planting our daughter's tree, Natalie was able to help. The top photo above is my favorite since she appears to be wiping her brow from exertion while I bend to the task of digging a hole in our nearly impenetrably rocky soil. In fact, she barely touched blade to dirt before sighing, "never mind," and dragging her shovel back to the garage.

Here she is posing while Lola stares hopefully at the snack in her hand. The tree is a dwarf North Star, a sour cherry tree (the sweet varieties won't grow outside in Minnesota). I'm hoping for pretty spring blossoms and pie filling. And now Natalie has a tree of her own. Will it stand alone or become a small orchard? We have a few years left to figure that out.

Clever girl

A recent bath time conversation. Natalie suddenly tosses one of her toy boats across the room. I pick it up and return it to the bathtub.

"Don't throw the boat, Natalie. Please keep your toys in the tub."

Natalie stares down at her feet, sullenly. I wonder if she is going to cry or mope but she seems to just be deep in thought. After a moment her faces brightens and she looks up again with a smile. "Play game!" she says.

"OK," I say, relieved for the change of topic, "what game do you want to play?"

"Boat throw!"

Home Sweet Home

"It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home"
-Edgar Guest

Jenna and I have different experiences of home. My family moved fairly often, so I can quickly adapt and feel comfortable in a new place. Where I lay my head is home. On the other hand, my wife grew up in the same house her entire life, and the transition is more difficult for her.

I think she was just starting to feel comfortable at our house in St. Paul when we uprooted and moved to the country. Personally I was getting sick of it and restless for a change!

Coop

Here's the story of how I built my little backyard chicken coop. I decided to use found materials as much as possible, which was probably a mistake in hindsight, as it ended up taking more time and not saving me all that much money. The frame was built with pallets salvaged from my office alleyway.

I sort of got the walls squared up and put some supports underneath. Just getting to this stage took much longer than it should have. I was figuring out a lot of things about the design as I went along and kept revising my plans. My inspiration came from online photos and the basic guidelines in my chicken book.

There was a bunch of lumber in our barn and I found these cool old tongue-and-groove floorboards for the coop floor. They fit together pretty nicely. Too bad you'll never see them because the floor is always covered in several inches of wood shavings and chicken droppings!

When I had the coop finished to this point, Jenna helped me carry it out of our garage and up the hill to its final resting place, beside the ramshackle deck. It was unbelievably heavy. The tiny legs I had used snapped right off so I put on more substantial treated 4x4s.

And here's the finished product, covered with the cheapest siding I could buy at Home Depot. I've been doing some tweaks ever since the hens moved in, but the basic shape is as complete as it ever will be. We cleared out most of the rotted wood planks and turned the old deck area into our new enclosed chicken run. It's not perfect but it was a fun project, and it works!