sky watcher

When I was a child, my favorite thing to do was lie on my back and see what pictures I could find in the clouds. I've never stopped being a cloud watcher. One of my favorite cloud pics is the one I use behind the title of this blog. That's a view from my bedroom! How blessed am I?

It's hard to match the beauty of sunset colors reflecting off ice-covered branches. This is what I see when I look out my kitchen door in the winter.

No, it's not a funnel cloud. Living in Xenia, people are leary of anything that looks like a tornado! (Google Xenia 1974)

These next two are more shots from my bedroom deck... my favorite spot on a summer's eve. (Ignore the cell tower.)

This one reminds me of lava cutting down the slope of a volcano.

I also have shots of different fronts moving across the sky. Here's one from last year. It looked like we were being swallowed by this huge dark mass!

This next shot is a scan of the picture on regular paper I kept under lexan on my desk at work. The hard drive that has the original shot crashed! (not backed up) You see there's not much in the way of landscaping... It was shortly after we built this house. That's my bedroom deck facing you. I was standing in the far corner of the goat's pasture. That IS a real rainbow, and yes, it REALLY was PINK! (A special gift from God, just for me!)

From my deck, I love watching the colors disappear into the treeline. I must have thousands of pictures of our sunsets. I wish my camera could capture those 'Halloween' clouds that pass over the moon at night. It simply gives me a great feeling when I walk out on a starlit night and see those shadows move across the sky. Yes, I've spent a lot of my life with my eyes turned toward the heavens...

bathrooms & gardens...

I've been busy today... I managed to get some inside and outside work done!Last year Hubby and his dad planted some nice sticker-weeds in my garden. (Don't ask.) Anyway, nice to know the seeds did well. I spent several hours on this garden today and almost finished it! My wheel-barrow is heaped with weeds and my back hurts. Another one of those projects that I will post more on when I'm done...



This ornamental grass is just off the kitchen deck. I haven't yet cut it back and noticed a lot of new growth, so out came the clippers.I thought instead of tossing all the cuttings back into the compost pile, I'd add a few to my hall bath. I already had an urn full of cattails. I stencilled these dragon flies (not today) to appear as though they are flying up out of the 'weeds'.

Last summer my girlfriend brought me back this signed print from her stopover in New Orleans. She thought it would be perfect for my master bath.

I decided to double-mat it and put it in a frame I already had. It didn't suit the print or the room so today it is white.

The wall really is green, and yes, that's torn wallpaper... on purpose! I'll expose the finished product soon. It is the only feminine room in the house, so I made sure it's 'over-the-top'!

This mirror hangs in the same bathroom on an opposite wall. I've had it forever! (Well, since the late 70's.) There is enough dark wood in the room with the windows, doors and floor, so I decided to lighten it up a bit too. And, of course, a touch of pink
I think I've done enough for one day. Hopefully I'll have the energy to get out of bed tomorrow!

chicks update

I am still having camera issues, (long story involving a warranty and those 'refurbished' replacements) so excuse the quality. But on to what you've all been waiting for...

First is one of the pics I snapped a little bit ago. When they first arrived, the chicks were all fuzzy and soft. Now they are quickly getting their feathers. (If my refurbished camera (2nd one!) would cooperate I could really document the growth.) I'll try to get a good picture of the tail feathers to share. They are so darned cute!

The chicks are two weeks and one day old. Here is what they look like now. It's still hard to tell there are seventy-five of them in there! Compare it to this picture that was taken two weeks ago. Hmmm... have they grown?

chick pics

Here are some shots showing the different colors and markings of the various breeds we have. Sorry about the quality... I'm having camera issues. To get an idea of scale, that's Hubby's hands in the photos, and they are gigantic hands! Do you have any idea how big a size 14 ring is? Anyway, let me know what you think of the pics.

update on the babies

Well, the chicks have all made it ten days. Hurray! According to the hatchery, we can start lowering the temperature of their pen five degrees per week until we reach seventy degrees. So far they seem like they've been very comfortable... They don't pile up under the heat lamp, but they also don't scatter along the walls to get away from it.

This week we will add some fascia and soffit to the hen house to keep the cold drafts out. Once the roof is sealed off, it will be easy to maintain the needed temperature, so that the chicks can soon move to their permanent home. (Yea!) My fear is that they will do one of those overnight growth spurts, and we'll wake up to seventy-five chicks pooping all over the house. (I think I would just go back to bed and tell Hubby to wake me when they're gone!)

It's amazing to watch how fast they are growing! When they first arrived, they looked like a ship on the ocean in that huge pen. Now, they pretty much fill up the space, but still have plenty of room to roam. I remember going out into the garage to hear them chirp. Today, I can sit in the dining room and listen! I am resisting the urge to post more pics. I will wait until they are a full two weeks old and snap another shot at the same angle as last week's progress post.

goodbye handyman

Well, this is it. The handyman that was doing all the work for me, in trade for the old Lincoln, finished today. His last job was moving many, many wheel-barrows full of large rocks through the mud from my dump spot around to my front flower bed. It was so nice to have someone around to get the things done that I have a hard time doing by myself. We will miss him. Not only was he a hard worker, he was an extremely likeable guy. He had lived a country life in his past and had lots to talk about with us. He said he was very accomplished in the saddle, so perhaps we'll invite him back to ride sometime...

One of the blogs I follow is titled, 'when I am rich'. I too have said that quite often. Today I say, "When I am rich, I am going to hire him full-time."