water logged and bloated

Geez. It's been over a week since I posted. I couldn't help it. The cold rain, the snow that covered the ground one morning, the cold rain, the cold rain, the cold rain. It always happens this time of year, and I can remember it because it is why I like to teach track A in the summer. Finals week is usually ok, but the week between semesters and at least the first 2 weeks of classes really suck. It depresses me more than winter ever does, actually. If it were warm rain, that would be different.

But today it actually got warm, allowing the black fly to cover our faces like a tingling, biting, buzzing mist. How can such a little fly make such a loud noise? Even if they are dive bombing our ear drums, it still seems like they shouldn't be able to make such a racket.

But I'm not totally complaining. It's warm. The grass is really green, and the flowers are growing like crazy. It's going to be a busy couple of weeks.

We got our guinea hens today. The lady at the feed store was a bit short with me. Too many birds, too many people. Usually, though, they get in at least 5000 birds every year, but this year they only received 1500 orders. They don't make a profit on them, so I don't think they'll be ordering next year.

They're pretty small little buggers, but already super friendly. I think the guys and I really make good moms. It must be our soft voices or something. They all seem to love us.





I'm also starting to clean out the road house and one of the barns with some friends, Moe and Liz. This is what the big barn looks like now:



When I started cleaning it out, I realized that I had forgotten that it had taken Buck and I an entire month to clean up and pack up everything that was in the house. It was freezing, well below zero many of those days. I figure that maybe it was good it was so cold-it killed a lot of germs that were probably quite dangerous for us. Sometimes I would have to run to his house crying with the pain from frozen hands, warm them up, and then get back to work. Usually, Buck and I would start working Friday night after school and work pretty late, and then if he didn't have anything going on, he would help for the entire Saturday. Man, it was something else. In a way, though, it was kind of fun to go through someone else's stuff and try to figure out what things were used for, or wonder about why someone would own something in the first place. The whole process made me more aware of my consumer habits, and I have certainly stopped buying things I don't use, and will be getting rid of lots of stuff I no longer need. Time to simplify!

The Road House had a lot of my stuff from my old life, stuff that Buck needed to store, and lots of junk from the old owner. I really had no idea where to start with cleaning it out, so Moe and Liz came and had it organized in no time. I'll start bringing more stuff from the other barn to the road house for the sale. It's nice that the house is dry, so if we continue to get rain, we can still sell stuff.


Here's Moe and Liz doing their stuff:


Liz:



Since they seem to know what they're doing, I'm content to have them boss me around and tell me what to do. And they can take whatever percent they want from the sale and from doing all that organizing. I just can't wait to get rid of stuff.

I've decided that the Road House will end up being the workshop, and the barn will become the turkey and chicken coop. I'm building a duck house now, and the Guineas can go in the little coop. See, things have a way of just working themselves out once we get moving.