Good Morning!

[WLLady]

good evening everyone!

full day of piddly construction here....sigh. Our downstairs bath shower stall let go a couple of weeks ago, so...we ordered a new one, and then set out to rip out the old one. It's been a PITA since the day we moved in here. leaking and stuff. so. well. that was fun ripping that out. The drain was not in right. The drain was half missing actually. The wall boards were installed the wrong way out, so the rough side that could hold glue was actually facing the shower, and uncleanable (it was a white stall-went yellow). They "glued" it in with something that looked like spray foam. believe it or not. Me-bad back me-removed the wall panels with 1 hand, and only lost a tiny bit of paper on the drywall. that should NOT be that easy! we also found out the old base was not screwed in right, or level. we did sawzall that to get it out. the new base fit perfect, and now we know that at least the surround is in correctly! LOL. we had to sawzall the tap handle off the mixer on the old one too, because it was glued inside. go figure. ah well. it's pretty much done. just a bit of paint needed on the walls.....later this week. And the silicone is setting till tomorrow so we'll see tomorrow if it leaks. (fingers crossed it doesn't! don't need a day like farriers!)

missing the animals we had to process. sigh. the girls are starting to lay better now with the lights on. My one drake hurt his leg somewhere somehow, so he's quarantined in the barn hallway with one of his girls. he was doing better tonight....enjoying just hanging out on some hay we put down in the hall for him. Getting about a dozen eggs a day now, about half the girls are laying. which isn't bad for how cold and damp things are. Had someone come and pick up 8 dozens eggs for christmas cooking....tis cookie season! We made a bunch of hard boiled duck eggs....i did some into devilled eggs. MMMMMMMmmmmmm so good!

now it's time to go through the seed catalogues! i have a feeling seed is going to sell fast this year again, so i want to get my orders in really really soon!

[baronrenfrew]

Wow - reading these last stories - I had a mess this year. The latest - I was starting to make dinner and pulled a container of meatballs from the fridge, then Carla called for a hand with something. I come back and the container is on the floor and the devil and his minions were licking the floor. I blew a gasket - got far more upset then I should have (this puppy has been trying anything he can get away with). So I got in the car and went to town for pizza. I get home, and instead of the "special" full of toppings in the box was a plain cheese pizza. I try to call the pizza place - line is busy - so 15 min drive back to town, 15 to remake, 15 home, then I could eat. This after weeks of everything going wrong in one way or another (all small stuff). Call my sister - retrograde Mercury - I always thought that astrology was crap, but this coincidence has happened too many times. Next year is supposed to be better. Better check the Chinese version and see what it says for rats.

[kenya]

Ha! Ha! Ha! They look so innocent! Can't believe they did anything wrong.

[Ontario Chick]

Reminded me of our Grate Dane who was famous for eating whole muffins including the paper cup and one a pound of butter with the wrapping on!!!
....and that in turn reminded me of this "seasonal" picture...

[ross]

Poor Boobo

[Ontario Chick]

Good morning, looks very pretty here, looks a bit Christmasy here, hope we don't get the forecasted rain in the afternoon.
Baked couple of different Christmas cookies yesterday, probably all the effort I am putting in to the whole thing.
As the days are getting shorter, the puppy is getting longer and busier, glad I found a playmate for her at the train facility we go to, I am having hard time keeping up with her energy level

[kenya]

She's sooooo cute!

[WLLady]

Our yellow lab used to sleep like that too! now she's bigger....haha still full of energy....fun trying to find ways to burn it off. we were very happy to find out the neighbours across the road got a great dane puppy about the same time we got sally, and they have grown up playing with each other while the owners just hang out and chat LOL. Easy on us, and burns LOADS of energy! Alas ours has taken to wandering in the mornings, and then not coming back when we call her. ARGH! and thus, training to COME (now...not in 20 minutes) begins....this time i'm using food. she's a lab. food oriented. apparently coming for praise and pats isn't enough for this one.

we have now successfully installed the shower stall, and have the walls patched up and fixed and painted. DONE. Then yesterday the water pump got replaced by DH. DONE. I sure hope that is it for plumbing for a while. gah. DH would appreciate if that is it for plumbing for a while. Definitely not his favourite past time. Next up is trying to fix our one drawer in the kitchen. Or maybe just ripping the kitchen out altogether. haven't decided yet.

Kinda cool and drizzly today. Can't decide if it wants to rain or snow. Half the guineas are outside, half inside. The half outside are barking for the half inside, and the half inside are all standing against the wall closest to where the outside birds are, yelling that they can't get there. wee little brains...

[WLLady]

Hi everyone, sorry about the delay with the photo of the month. We had to replace our router (guess the old one was getting too much of a workout teaching from home??), and the shower, and our water pump. So much fun! So our humblest apologies on being so late this month getting that posted! Congrats, it is a wonderful picture.

Pouring here, just POURING. pounding on the roof and the mud is epic. We still also have snow on the ground, which is melting fast, so it's just cold and soaking wet out there. yuck. one of those grey days where i have a whole pile of things i *should* do, and i have zero desire to do any of it, and find myself just having "just one more tea". LOL.

DH did let the ducks out. this is perfect duck weather. My hobbling boy is hobbling less severely now, and doing better for the few days break in the hallway of the barn with just one girlfriend to keep him company. However, 2 of the other girls missed him and flew the fence and yesterday he had his little group of 3 girls back with him. It was so warm yesterday i let them all out. DH also went and freed up the drainage under the driveway, so we are now happily eroding the field. I think we have a plan for next year to do beans and then covercrop....that should help. wish there was a shorter season corn we could put on that would allow covercrop to sprout after the corn is off, but nope. not here. our weather is just too unpredictable. 10km east and 10km west of us there's no snow, and we still had 4 inches as of last night (going fast today). cover crops don't sprout in snow, and that started coming down within a week of harvest!

still feels weird being down to so few birds. oh well. they're now pretending they're sharks when i do the chores, because they want those sunflower seeds. i picked up a 50pound bag of them on sale from the feed store, and they go nuts for them. everyone is doing great.

I hope to get working on the calendar for PTO soon too for those of you that download that to print it. it will be the same sort of thing as last year with all the enteries and then the year winner on the front. Of course, if anyone out there wants to volunteer for anything with the forum in the new year, just give me or poultry admin or KB a PM....we'll set you up with something!

[Killerbunny]

Fun evening yesterday. We put up lattice to cover off the turkey coop rafters. A couple of the girls roost up there and coming down can be "problematic". All good everyone happy. Put clothes in washer because of course they now have a liberal application of turkey poo. Put them in the dryer and a few minutes in ghastly noises from it. DH strips it down and we found the source of the noise. Lodged in the back of the pulley was a spent .22 cartridge. Must have been in our clothes and worked it's way out. Glad it wasn't live! All good now.