Wednesday

If you follow the CDC recommendations and get all your Covid vaccinations when they are made available for you, oh senior person, then you should be in line to get your 9th Covid shot now. I kid you not, I'm on my 9th today (as is Ed). The first was in January 2021. It feels no less wonderful to get this one. Freedom. It buys me a dose of it. Travel with less worry. Kids, at my house, daily, with less worry. Keeping the virus away from Ed (who has never had it). All of it, thanks to that miracle that kept so many of us out of hospitals and off the obit pages of our local newspaper.

And speaking of freedom, today is the day I walk over to the coop to grant all six girls their freedom.And of course, only the two older ones, along with a hesitant one year old strut out of the coop, dusting off their feathers and embarking on their day long bug and seed search. 

 

 

The three teenagers, bold that they were the first day, are not so sure that the wide and unencumbered world is such a fine place after all. They stay in the coop for the better part of the morning. Mission accomplished! They feel safe there! They will remember the warmth of the coop at the end of the day!

Wont they?

Meanwhile, Ed and I have our breakfast feeling at peace with the world, with the hens, with the cats too. 

No one is fighting, no one is destroying the flower beds. Yet. 

It's sunny and beautiful outside. A tad on the cool side, but lovely nonetheless. I do a spot weed pull and Ed mows down my trimmings so that they'd decompose faster and more evenly. In other words, we do some slight garden work at a very relaxed pace, all the way until lunchtime. (Well, my lunch is the usual protein cookie and coffee. Most everyone has a meal that they can do without. For me it's lunch. Still, I have to keep that energy level going strong, given my afternoon kid commitment, so I reach for my newest friend -- a Go Macro bar.

And speaking of kids...

A good day was had by all. Oh, sure, there's always a report on some skirmish between the usual suspects in class, but happily, nothing terribly troublesome, and nothing that made either child sad.

And in the evening Ed and I rolled up our sleeves (figuratively! It's cold outside!) and faced the chicken-into-the-coop-for-the-night project. Equipped with resolve and a flashlight (in case the hunt would take us late into the night), we picked up the hen that routinely hides in the garage and set off for the barn to deal with the rest.

You wont believe it! We hardly believed it! The remaining five were all snuggled together in the coop.

Ed turns to me -- that was brilliant! I respond -- it only shows that the human brain is slightly bigger than the pea sized brain of a chicken. Evolutionary advantage! The fact is, though, that we are enormously relieved. Until the next trauma sends the hens into obscure hiding spots, we have the coop issue in hand. Suddenly, chicken care seems like the easiest job in the world.

with love...