Sleep...Sunday and Other Talk

I sure do have my hours turned around...I should be asleep. I did stay up long enough to watch Heroes, but I should have been sleepy afterwards...but was not. Cleaned up the kitchen and folded some laundry. Now I am feeling a bit sleepy, but it is almost 11:30...so that will put me at about four and a half hours of good sleep before I have to wake Ian up for work...which is just not enough, so once again I will go back to sleep from six a.m. til Phoenix decides to rise and shine...which has been anywhere from 8 to 9 a.m. Is he spoiled or what? Roosters outside have been crowing for three hours and here he is sleeping in. I can't blame him...I mean it is cold out there in the early morning light, why not just stay under the covers and in the pillows (yes, literally for him) where it is warm and dark. I don't mind him waking later...he is a good snooze button for me.

Anyway, on with the weekend happenings. Sunday we got up and Karen and I fixed eggs, bacon, sausage, grits, and brown sugar and cinnamon toast with honey...with either milk or OJ to drink. After breakfast we discussed this and that...eventually I had to make the planner out for school for this week so the kids were playing games and Karen slipped off to sleep on the couch into a nice naptime. I made the most of it and got most of the planner done. I finished study sheets this morning for History, Geography and Science.

Later I set up the cake and we sang a Happy Birthday to Shelby...had yummy cake and icecream. Soon after Karen and Tiffany had to be going. Tiffany had some studying to do and I think some homework. I sent them home with two dozen eggs, two big jars of kosher pickles and some cake. After they left I started on supper...and the rest of the day was business as usual.

I did get a single pen covered and almost all of the row of five pens covered for wintertime. We have no cover here so it is essential that I button up the pens against the cold and winter. I don't use any flimsy tarp either. I get the heavy duty stuff. It can get really windy here and combined with the cold it could kill smaller chickens like my Serama. I will be getting one of those 250 watt heat bulbs to hang, probably two...since I have two pens full of Serama out there now. Speaking of which I have to get pictures of the newbies. Still havent done that. I will see about doing that in the next day or two.

I do have a bit of sad news. My young Golden Phoenix rooster of five months old is going to pass on with my help. I don't know what happened. He was fine last night when I fed and watered. Today about noon I went out to check on everyone and I found a horror. I will spare you the pictures I took of this as weak stomaches may not make it through seeing it. I took the pictures to try to get some feedback on a few chicken people friends and a chicken message board, but so far no one can tell me what has happened. You ask what happened. Well, quite frankly it looks as if he threw up his insides...his crop at least anyway. The crop is the first place food goes before it goes to the stomach...it is a kind of shall we say "waiting room" for the food to go on down the pipeline. It is hangin out of his mouth and there is nothing I can do for him...and no one can tell me why on earth such a thing would happen. There will be no recovery from this I imagine. So I will put him down out of mercy and it is the humane thing to do. He is suffering terribly I am sure.

On a lighter note...goodness I didnt mean to get so down. On a lighter note Halloween is just around the corner. Lots of candy and trick or treating in the square, games and a costume contest. Small town fun...I love it. We never did find Shelby a girl pirate costume she really wanted or liked so I guess she will just have to wear the one from last year, which was a pretty costume, nothing wrong with it, she just wanted to be something else. She is not too bummed about it though thank goodness. She is already planning next years Halloween! She wants to dress up as Hanna Montana...go figure...lol.

Here are some pictures from the weekend...

 

 

 

 

Tiffany feeding Peter his carrot, and Shelby feeding Buster his carrot...these two rabbits are spoiled already..being cuddled and hand fed.

 

Thanks to everyone for wishing Shelby a Happy Birthday. :)