Happy New Year!?

Ok, I should have written more last month...but, I was sick and when I felt pretty good I had to play catch up with my chores.  It is not much fun mucking out pens and digging drainage ditches and winterizing coops when you have no energy.  As long as I took severe cold medication regularly I didn't feel awful, but got a lot of headaches doing my chores...but I just heard about something called Cedar Fever and am wondering if maybe that is why I have been having issues for over a month now.  We have a ton of Cedar trees in this area, it seems like every time I go outside I get a headache.  But, when you have a farm...you do what you gotta do.

We had company for Christmas and my husband and I managed to get a tree up and decorated, a little shopping done and gifts wrapped before they came.  Mainly just stuff for the young grandchildren this year, although I did get my husband a few items of necessary clothing...lol, yep socks and underwear...and some jeans, he has worn holes in favorites.  My son got me a new coffee maker, which I really appreciate, my old one had taken to leaking all over the counter when you put water in the tank...I had it sitting in a tray to catch the leaks.  I also got a couple of gift cards and will be going shopping soon with those...I am just trying to figure out what I need the most.  I may end up buying new tires for my garden cart...I use it a lot and just had a major blowout or rubber rot, I need never flats!  My husband got me a Tens unit, I have been trying not to take as many pain killers and the Tens is what they used on me when I went to pain management for my back, he also got me a Truffle kit and a cheese kit...maybe I will make some soon, I needa few gallons of milk which I forgot to get at the store the last time I went.  Lol, he also got me some Chicken Poop lip balm...I am an admitted Chapstick-abolic, it will come in handy...and no, it doesn't contain chicken poop!

Our weather has been warm and muggy, very cloudy for the past few weeks and fog on a lot of mornings.  It has actually been near 80 a few times and that is unusual for around Christmas.  We have had pretty major temperature swings too.  It will be cold at night...like in the upper twenties and the next day get up to 78.  I did finally get all the tarps and plastic up on my coops and got one door built for the breeding pens, I still have a long way to go getting the four finished.  I just haven't had the energy, and have been staying in the house more because of the humidity and damp conditions...I still have a cough too.  I need to get them finished, it would probably take me a week if I worked on them every day.  I just need a break in the weather.  I can build the doors in the shed, but the framing and stuff for the runs is all outside work and I need my garden cart to haul all of the tools out there.  It makes it easier because the compressor and the table saw are kind of awkward and heavy to carry and I need a couple of very long extension cords strung out there to operate them too.  By the time I hand carried everything, I would probably be kind of tuckered out and not have much time to work before I had to haul it all back.  I gotta feed the poultry at least an hour before dark so I can get the turkeys put up.  I have also  been feeding the ducks and geese after the chickens are mostly roosting, most of the time they will not eat from the same troughs as the chickens and the chickens follow me to each trough as I fill them.  I just want to make sure they are getting enough to eat...the male geese I have picked up feel light to me, so do some of the ducks I have managed to pick up.  They free range but we have had several freezes and the grass is not really growing any more.

Last night was New Year's Eve, we just watched a movie and didn't even fix dinner...I fixed us a batch of steak nachos for lunch at almost 2:00pm and neither of us was hungry enough to bother.  We had a couple of cookies and a piece of banana nut bread later in the evening.  We only stayed up until about 10:15...so no midnight happenings here.  Our neighbors set off fireworks at around 9:00, it was driving the dogs nuts...some of them sounded like explosions and I could feel the blast waves.  I didn't even bother looking out the window.  I am sure if I acted alarmed, it would not have helped the dogs anxiety.  Bailee tends to jump up on the couch if she hears things and looks out the window, we just had to keep reassuring them it was OK, kinda like when birds set off the driveway alarm.  I get up and look to make sure it is not an egg customer...but some days it happens every few minutes and I stop looking after awhile.  If someone is out there Bailee will let me know...she barks when necessary.  Sophie seems to bark at every sound some days, all three of them together...I know someone or something is outside.  It is funny that I can tell now, when they are in the backyard and I am in the chicken yard the difference between their barks and what they are barking at.

I hope and pray that this year is a good year for everyone, family friends acquaintances and customers...even anyone that I don't know personally.  May the New Year bring you peace, prosperity and happiness in your lives!