Miracle Chicken

One evening as it was time to get the chickens into the run for the night, I had a naughty black silkie bantam chicken named Dutch who was just not going to follow directions and get her fluffy butt in there. So I let her be for a while, thinking I'd just give her a few more minutes and then try again. And I promptly forgot about her. A couple of hours later, in the dark of night, Troy and I spent at least a half hour looking for her. She had obviously gone to roost someplace, but we couldn't see where. Finally we just decided to let her try to live through the night on her own, without the protection of the coop.

In the morning, I went to let out the chickens and expected to see her out there on the lawn, pecking away at breakfast-bugs. But she wasn't there. My heart sank a bit. I looked around the yard again, in all the most hidey-hole of places. No Dutch. My heart sank lower, but I still held out hope. 

Fast forward. FIVE DAYS LATER. Still no Dutch. By this time I had given up hope, and begun to accept the fact that she was a goner. I was heartsick. Especially about the fact that I was going to have to change all my passwords from being based on my 8 chickens to my 7 chickens. So so sad.

Then, miracle of miracles, I was in the back area of the forest picking something up when I caught a glimpse of black fuzz. In shock (and maybe a few tears) I made my way over to what was basically a cave made out of roots. And there was my Dutch. Sitting on top of SEVENTEEN eggs. She had a been a busy girl. And a dedicated one too - five days of nest-sitting? I'd say she'd have given Horton a run for his money!

Sheetrock Purgatory

Tonight as Troy and I were working away, trying to finish up a task on The Room, he said a brilliant thing: 

"New stages. So fun to begin and so crappy to finish."

Have there ever been truer words? I don't think so. I can not express our delight at moving on to the drywalling stage of The Bedroom Project. So exciting to cover up all of the ugly Franken-insulation. It is always quite invigorating to get started on that next phase. But it didn't take us long to get totally bogged down by it, just like every other stage!

Part of the challenge is just getting the dang drywall sheets to our house. It is so awkward getting them in the minivan. And if poor Troy had a wife with any upper-body strength at all then we could move more than one sheet around at a time. However, weakling that I am, we just can't do it like that. On top of that, this room being the tiny thing that it is, there's not a single place where an entire sheet of drywall fits. Anywhere. It all had to be cut into the correct (and often not entirely square) pieces. Am I complaining too much? Well guess what, I'm just getting started. Because we also had to diagram out all of these crazy little cuts to make slots for the shelf brackets and outlets and junction boxes and light switches. It was a total pain, ok?

 

 

 

 

Getting the drywall installed was SUCH a relief! Then....came the mudding and sanding. The absolute worst. I am just going to leave it at that. I HATE SANDING DRYWALL. Troy did way more than I did, so he deserves to complain much more. 

One of our beautiful diagrams that we had to eventually paint over

 

 

I'm trying to think of concluding remarks here. I dunno. Maybe my expression on the right there says it all? 

Miles and Miles, the Trip to Amethyst Lake

One of the big stressors of the summer for Troy (as if there wasn't enough stress already just from the room alone), was planning and executing a backpacking trip for the 12-18 year old young men of our stake. Backpacking can be so wonderful. And it can be so awful, especially with the wrong equipment and/or food. He worked really hard all spring to get information out to the families about what kinds of things they'd need, and tracking down things for people who didn't have them. It took a lot of time and energy. And not everyone got the messages about what would work and what wouldn't. But it all worked out. 

One of the last things he did to prepare was to go hike the trail there and back the week before the actual camp so he would really for sure know the way and what pitfalls might be found. And who was the perfect buddy for the day trip? Romney of course.

They left at about 5 in the morning, all saddled up with packs of food and water and trekking poles. And I think they had a total ball together, even though they hiked about 13 miles that day. Here are a ton of photos ....not in the correct order.

The trip with Romney was a great success, and almost prepared Troy for the days with the young men. I think Troy would report that the hardest thing about the trip was being in charge of several young men who were only 12 or 13, had never been backpacking before, and needed to hike six and a half miles up a mountain with a pack and weren't prepared to do it. It took a lot of patience to get them up there. Let's just say that the lead group took about 3 1/2 hours to get to camp, and it took the last group, which Troy was with, almost 8. EIGHT HOURS.

I believe he would report that the best part of camp was seeing boys be out in nature with no screens or video games and just playing. There was very little scheduled time. There wasn't really any place they could go. They just fished and hiked and climbed rocks and pushed down dead tree stumps and hollered a lot. Exactly and precisely what boys need and thrive on. 

It took a lot out of Troy, but I know it did a lot for that group of kids.