Yard Cleanup

It finally feels like spring around here. With that, THANK GOD, is April vacation. I didn't think I would make it this year. The kids have been off the wall.
Tony and I started some major cleanup in the yard yesterday. Tons of leaves still need to be raked and hauled over to the compost bins. There are several birch trees that were bent down by thee snow and ice this winter that aren't able to recover. So firewood is their destiny. Tony was gifted a chainsaw from his father for xmas, so he put it to work. A couple of the trees were looming over our back veggie garden.
Speaking of the gardens, we have just about gotten the raised beds on the side of the garage all cleaned up. The chickens have been happily helping us with this task. Today I am going to plant some peas and hopefully some spinach. I did start some seedlings inside this year....not as many as last year though.
Already sprouted seedlings include:
brocolli
kale
beets
swiss chard
eggplant
bachelor buttons
zinnea
black krim tomatoes
yellow jubliee tomatos
romas
rainbow cherry tomatos

Still to plant:
spinach
peas
beans
salad greens
pmpkins
sunflowers
peppers
ccumbers
morning glories

Tin Roof

It is absolutely pouring out tonight, and has been for most of the day. We still have about a foot of snow in some shady spots, but there are areas that have melted and mud season is in full effect.
Working at the hospital this weekend. I am tired. Will be sure to demand less hours from them next month. I can't keep doing 70 hours a week.
My class ends on Monday. I have a big paper to write and took the night off from the hospital to do so. Signed up for another course which begins April 14th. It is only a 3 week course which means it will probably be a pretty intense 3 weeks. Hopefully all of this hard work will pan out with the teaching job for summer school.

Good News, Bad News

Good News....the snow is finally starting to melt and I can see some small patches of grass and garden. I finally managed to start a few seeds today, leeks, beets, brocolli, kale, bok choi, and pansies. I still have a lot more to get planted and am frustrated to be getting a late start once again this year.

Bad News....I have been working ALOT. I guess part of these could be good because we can really use the money especially due to the potential of real bad news....my head gasket may need to be replaced (AGAIN!) in the subaru at the tune of $1200. We don't have that money and the car is barely worth much more than that....fingers crossed it is just a thermostat or something else affordable.

The new job is going well aside from working a lot more hours than I anticipated. I am working as an environmental services aides which is a fancy name for a cleaning lady. I don't mind the work though and am learning a lot about the hospital. I have met a lot of great nurses and hope that this job will lead to something more (nursing or lab work). I've had several compliments about being a good worker and hope to make a good name for myself there. It is a small hospital and the staff seem like a close knit group. There are tuition reimbursement incentives and the hospital has its own nursing program.
My class is a week and a half away from being over. It has been tough keeping up, having to do my homework when I get in around midnight, however, I am still maintaining an A. Looking forward to it being over, but that will be short lived, as I think I am signing up for a 3 week course at the end of April. Once I complete that I will have my conditional certificate in Special Ed and my chance to teach our summer school program.
Time to run... finally get a night to watch one of my favorite shows and then its bedtime.

Soon....

Still alive......I PROMISE to post this weekend. Have been working 67 hour weeks for the last two, should calm down a bit now that I am trained though. I got home from work just a few minutes ago, went to wash my hands, and squeezed toothpaste into my palm instead of soap. Whoops. That is the state I have been in for a few days now, but overall I have felt surprisingly good and am enjoying the new job. Two more weeks of my class left...can't wait to be done.

B-U-S-Y

Sorry for the lack of posts.....I have been uber busy. Am taking my second online grad class in Special Ed Methods and just started a second job today. Working as an environmental services aide (glorified cleaning lady) at the hospital. 7am-2:30pm at school today, then 3pm-11:30 pm at the hospital.....Its midnight, I just got in feed the kitties, am eating a bowl of cereal, checking in on my online classroom discussions, taking a shower, and then crashing hard. I am working trough Saturday, but will try to post more on Sunday.

Fried

We have no food in our fridge this week except eggs, olives, and condiments. Luckily the girls are laying more eggs each day, so breakfast for dinner can continue. With the increasing daylight, we are back up to 5 eggs a day. We have 11 hens, not including the guineas. Mostly getting browns, but every couple days one of the ameracanas will lay a pretty green one for us.

Damn You Winter!

Ugghhhh................
We got dumped on by this last storm. Woke up to two and a half feet of new snow. Add one more snowday on top of February Vacation. We also lost power for about 5 hours. I have been shoveling lots and lots of snow all day....

February Vacation

Already onto the latter half of my vacation. Never long enough. My mother has been up visiting, helping me get my house cleaned and organized. She got me the Wii Fit and we have spent hours playing it and laughing at each other. My legs and arms are sore...don't know if it is from the Wii or from shoveling.

More snow last night and today...when will winter end? Just as snow starts to melt down and pathways clear, it snows again.

A Bloody Mess

Went out to feed and water the chickens before work this morning, only to open up the coop to a bloody (and poopy!) mess. One of the guinea hens seems to have done something to her foot (toe?) and was dripping blood. At the time I couldn't tell where it was coming from, and had to get to work..... so I left her. And felt horrible. Spent the day hoping I wouldn;t come home to a dead hen. After work I checked again... She was out and about with all of her friends, leaving a trail of blood drops where she had been. She ate fine and seemed to be walking fine.
After watching her for a while I came in to drop my work stuff, etc..... and read some blogs. I went to check in on Danni at http://critterfarmgirl.blogspot.com/
and laughed when I saw it was a post about clipping her rooster's nails AND she happened to take a picture of the styptic solution she applied to her rooster's bleeding nail! What a coincidence. I hadn't thought of that. A quick phone call to the local farmers union and I was out the door to pick some up.

I know, I know....

Regular posting will resume soon. It is really cold here and my funk continues..... I feel like all I have been doing for the last week is complaining about money troubles and work situations and really have no desire to post about that......so, I shall post when I have something else to write about. Hopefully this weekend.

My morning view

After another foot of snow yesterday.





View inside

Obama

We watched the inauguration in the classroom at school today. The kids were bored out of their minds... constantly asking, "Is it almost over?". Of our 5 kids watching it, 2 of them had their heads down on their desks the majority of the time, one of them was drawing, and another one was biting his stuffed animal and shaking it around. (For those who don't know I work in a classroom of kids with emotional/behavioral disabilities, ages 11-14). I gave our rabid dog biter some silly putty to quiet him down.... it seemed to work for a while. After Obama was sworn in, there was a poem read..... one of the kids asked if it was about Fat Albert!! We couldn't figure that one out. Regardless it will make for an interesting story for me to recall about our country's history.

Funk

I am stressed out....... I can't kick this cold I have, I am worried about our finances (whats new), and frustrated with my job. I haven't been sleeping well which is very unlike me. Yesterday I slammed my finger in the door and then today I smashed it between two logs when I was carrying firewood in. I have a big blood blister now and feel like my fingertip is going to burst. Tony has been working up north a lot lately and I feel like I barely get to spend anytime with him when he is home. One of our tenants moved out without even telling us, so now we are once again cleaning up an apartment and trying to get it rented.
Ok, rant over. We got over a foot of snow this weekend. I ready to start thinking about putting together a seed order.

Blog List

I've added a list of some of the blogs I read on my sidebar. If I have posted your blog against your wishes, please let me know and I will take it down.

Cold and Cold

Its really cold outside (-5 without the windchill) and I have a cold. I stayed home from work today hoping to recuperate. Instead I got a phone call from the caregiver of the summer residence I help clean.... the alarm was going off that the water pipes were at low temperatures...could I go over and open the sink cabinets (as he thought that was all it was). I said sure seeing as it would only take about 30 minutes. Well I get there to find a freezing cold house. The indoor temps were ranging from 32-47 degrees! Long story short, they ran out of propane and I hung out for 3 hours in a really cold house waiting and working with the gas man to get the heat back on. One of the 2 furnaces wouldn't go back on and remains off overnight, but I'm done. I did my good deed.

Teachers meetings at work tomorrow. Still will be sick but not having the kids there will make it a bit easier of a day to get through.

The bunnies are living indoors in our sunroom for the duration of this cold spell. They can withstand cold, but I would leave them out there in these temps, especially with the wind.

Hagrid has dirty feet.

Sunoom/sewing room/library/bunny and cat romper room
See the bunny?

They do seem to love their outdoor living quarters though. I blocked the underside of their hutch in with straw and laid down a deep bed of it on the ground. They have a nice little burrow going under there.
The chickens seem to be fairing well even with these temps. We have a light up in the coop which keeps it a bit warmer. They have also been getting lots of extra table scraps to help fatten them up and keep them warm. Red, our rooster also gets special vaseline treatments to his comb and waddle to help ward off frostbite (been there and done that with our first rooster, Buffy).

4th picture from 4th folder

Lots of the blogs I read are doing this 'challenge' where they post the 4th picture they have in their 4th picture folder. Nobody 'challenged' me to do it, but I thought it might be interesting and I couldn't think of anything else to post about.
I have lots and lots of folders, so I decided to post one from 2006, one from 2007, and one from 2008.

Here's 2006. This was in October, when I got sick with mono and developed an infection in my lymph node which to this day we still don't know what caused it. The closest guess was that it may have been cat scratch fever (from my dear Nora who was a kitten at the time). Thinking back on it, they tested me for a bunch of odd maladies, but never thought to check for Lyme Disease. It is something I may ask to be tested for at my next doctors appointment due to constantly achey joints........
April 2007. Nora had her babies. This is her with Monkey and Ty.
2008, Stargazer Lily. I miss my gardens...... it is snowing outside as I type. Need to order a catalog from Johnny's Seeds and get an order put together for this years gardens.