May 18, Victoria Day Weekend

I was up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 this morning. According to my Fitbit, I had very restless sleep and only slept in one hour stints between being restless or awake. Fabulous. Oh well, might as well be up now rather than continue to fight it.
Just got up for the kettle - I have coffee now. All is good.

Mother's Day was this past Sunday and it was very nice. I received very thoughtful gifts from both children and my husband. Daughter made butter chicken and rice with naan bread (one of my favourites), so I didn't have to cook. Lunch was out at a local little restaurant with husband's mother. She appreciated the chance to be out and enjoyed her meal.

The weather (yes... I'm talking about the weather) has been cold, rainy, rainy, and more rainy and then cold. I am sooooo far behind on weeding, cutting back perennials that I didn't get to in the Fall, and whipper snipping around the fences and edges. Ughhhh. Maybe some will get accomplished this long weekend. (Although, it's calling for rain).

I've been on a quest for a few more chickens. I was down to three sad, partially bald laying hens after finally getting rid of the two roosters. One of them keeps laying eggs with very delicate shells which break in the nesting box. I've starting giving her extra calcium, so we'll see if it helps soon. I called up a hatchery (Frey's) that also sells ready-to-lay pullets. I was told they were back ordered, at least for the interesting kinds I wanted which were barred rocks and Columbian rocks. Then I tried the local co-op, but they get their birds from Freys and I was told forget it until September. That made me very sad.

I went looking on Kijiji (an online buy and sell site) and found a few options, but then remembered that it didn't go so well the last time I did that, with birds that I believe were carriers of a respiratory disease, and three roosters!

Finally after mucking around on a site called Backyard Chickens, I found out about a place called Pullets Plus about an hour and a half away from here. They sell either brown or white pullets. Yawn. However, they are open on Saturdays until 3:00 and have birds available now. So... later today hubby and I will go on a "chicken roadtrip / date" and pick up a few brown hens. I will still keep my name in for September for the other more interesting breeds, but for now, little brown hens will be fine.

In anticipation of the new girls, after work last night, I cleaned out my chicken coop, washed and disinfected feeders, waterers, and nesting boxes (which are actually just plastic bins from Dollerama, but work remarkably well, especially in terms of keeping them clean), laid down fresh shavings, and gave the girls a good talking to about being nice to the newcomers. This is wishful thinking as I know there will be an established pecking order and an adjustment period. I just hope nobody gets too severely bullied.

This weekend is Victoria Day weekend, with Monday being a holiday. Many folk like to go camping this weekend, weather it be in trailers, RVs or tents. None of these are our thing, but good on those who do. In my classroom, I had students away to get going on an early camping weekend with their families. We will get together with friends tonight after supper for drinks and a fire. I'm going to make a hot cheesy dip to bring along.

My ant issue continues (for those of you who actually remember that I had an issue with ants in my house). I thought they were limited to one area in the kitchen. Nope, now they have migrated to the den. I currently have a spray bottle of Lysol cleanser and a roll of paper towel ready to attack every time I see more of the little buggers "go marching two by two hurrah, hurrah". For the record, liquid ant poison and little round ant traps do not work.

The fox that showed up on our back porch continues to be seen around our area. I have no idea why it wants to hang around this vicinity. There is a lot of human commotion happening. We are always coming and going, and the new house which is built kitty corner to us has lots of action and people all day long. It could have a huge woods to reside in if it just walked five minutes to the south. I don't exactly know where its den is, or if it is male or female, but I would really like for it to change locations. I am not worried about the chickens during the day. They are in an enclosed run. If we are home, the chickens are closed up in their coop by about 8:00 in the evening. However, there are times when we are out, and the kids are out, and we aren't around right at roosting time to close them up. I have no doubt that a fox could scale the fence and pop in the little door. Oh well, nothing I can do about those times except maybe try to heard the hens in early, before we leave.

We watched the final episode of Big Bang Theory and daughter and I had a cry at the end. I enjoyed it and recorded it every week so I could watch it. But I think there were series that were more meaningful to me. I was a religious Seinfeld watcher and still reference the show (low talker, man hands, spare a square, working on the Pensky file...). I remember the last episode of MASH. Now that was a tear jerker! As an eighties gal, my shows that I watched were things like Magnum PI, Hillstreet Blues, St. Elsewhere, WKRP in Cincinnati, Cheers, Soap, Unsolved Mysteries... I didn't get into any of the night time soaps like Dallas. One thing I can't abide with these days are the so called reality tv shows which are just staged competitive ridiculous fluff, such as The Bachelor, or Naked and Afraid. Seriously, who came up with that concept??

It's now 6:20 a.m. and the sun is starting to shine in my windows a bit. That's nice to see. I'm going to start to catch up on some of your blogs now and finish my coffee. I'll leave you with some morning tulips that have just stated to show their colour, a bright little forsythia, and the girls  just starting their day.