Lily and the chickens

    Instead of the watered garden, right now we have the weedy garden.  After a certain point you just give up and the weeds happily take over everything.  This year our main crop has been and will be gourds.  Mayfield has a gourd festival in September so it's appropriate.  I'm not the crafty type so I don't know what we'll do with them all.  They are making a good shade canopy over the chicken pen right now.  Yes and then there's the chickens.  Unfortunately my beloved dog is a chicken killer.  I can't understand it since she is just so sweet.  Lily chased them for quite awhile before she ever caught one.  She did it mortal damage and has been lethally after them ever since.  We like to let the chickens free range a little in the evenings so we have been putting Lily in the dog pen.  We feel sorry for her so I bought her an expensive comfortable muzzle.  She was able to kill a chicken with just her big paws.  So she's back in the pen in the evenings.  I wish I knew a solution to this.  
      

Memphis kitten

  We have two large dogs, numerous cats and almost 50 chickens.  I also love to feed the hummingbirds and songbirds. I think we take good care of our animals.   This weekend we went to Memphis to see my mama.  She has various feral cats around her house that she feeds.  There is a mama cat with 3 gray kittens and the kittens were weaned and easy to catch, but not exactly tame.  I wanted to give one a better life with us and to have a Memphis cat.  Well we caught one and placed it in a cardboard box.  We then went to a family gathering at my husband's uncle's house in another part of Memphis.  My family brought the cat into a shaded breezeway and placed a firepit grate over the top of the box so it could get air.  It was quite a hot day.  We gave him water and checked on the kitten frequently.  Well at some point the kitten made an escape.  The whole family came out and looked for the kitten but if anything we probably ran it farther away.  We never saw it again and I just feel terrible.  I really wanted to help out the little thing and all I did was take it away from everything familiar and it's family.  It's in a much worse situation now.  The whole thing just gives me an uneasy feeling.  You can have good intentions and think you are doing the right thing and it just go terribly wrong.  We should have recognized that the grate was a little bit short and it could be moved.  Why didn't we see these things as possibilities and do something else?  The whole situation didn't go as I planned and that gives me a bad feeling.  Anything can turn out like that.  And sometimes the consequences could be so much worse or even tragic.  This whole condition of being human and in this world can be kind of dicey and unpredictable.  I want to think we have control over things, but we don't always.  It all just makes me uneasy. (I'm seeing this over and over again in the ER)    I guess for the most part, I'm over the whole thing.  I hope the kitten survives. The uncle said he'd call us if the kitten shows up.

Iron Mom

     On saturday I ran/walked the iron mon half marathon in Paducah.  It was scheduled for mother's day but I had to work that day so I knew I couldn't do it.  Well the floods came and the date got changed to father's day weekend. So then I could actually participate.  I signed up a little reluctantly.   It was the first annual race and benefitted Lourdes hospital family services.  I had to work for 12 hrs the afternoon of the race.  I've been exercising and trying to stay in shape but I'm really not much of a runner.  I'm more of a slow jogger or a fast walker. A 4 mile race stretches me.   My plan was just to finish as quickly as possible.  First I planned on getting at least 15 minute miles and then I thought I might be able to finish it in 3 hrs.  Well it was an overcast looking like rain day- perfect weather.  I ran the first couple of miles and then ran/walked the rest of it.  I got in under 3 hrs and lived through it. I also finished before the heavy rains came.  I can't say I didn't suffer though.  Lots of soreness and blisters.  I lived through my shift at work afterwards too.  Thank goodness for advil and bandaides.  I'm proud of myself.  Think I may do it again in Dec for St Judes's in Memphis.

     Yesterday I went back to see everyone at my old job.  It really is bittersweet because I miss them all.  I really tried to get all the details and technical information before I changed jobs but I'm still finding out important information.  I hate that.  It's such that no one gives you information unless you ask a very pointed question.  It shouldn't be like that, but often times it is.  My gripe is not with the people I'm working with or the job itself, my gripe is with the contracting company that pays us. Not giving information can be just as deceitful as lying in my book. I'm just trusting that it will be okay, but if I had known then what I know now..........

Chicken killing

    Well last week, at my daughter's encouraging we slaughtered 5 chickens.  It wasn't as terrible as I had imagined.  I guess me and my husband make a good pair because he took care of the killing (which I couldn't) and I took care of the gutting (which he couldn't).  We also had excellent help from Sophie's boyfriend and his brother and Sophie.  It took us several hours though to get 5 chickens ready to cook- and that's with 5 of us working.  I bet they have a more efficient production process across the highway at Tyson Foods.  I was glad to get the whole thing behind us and to figure out we could do it.  I think our whole process will improve the next time.
   Right now I have old chickens, teenagers and babies.  We have 18 straight run, rhode island reds.  That means half of them could be roosters so I see a need for another slaughter in our future.  My mother could kill chickens and grew up when you went out and did this before the chicken dinner.  Hunters do this all the time too.  I feel like some part of me though has to toughen up.  I don't like the killing and would really have to be tough to do that.  I don't want that part to make me less compassionate for suffering.

Adjusting

   I have been at the new job for a month and a half now.  I'm gradually settling in.  I work 2-3,  12 hour days and then am off for 2-3 days. I've been able to get my exercising in and was and am off for Sophia's and my neice's graduation.  I've gotten a paycheck.  I think it'll all be okay.  I do miss GI though.
    Soon my husband will be retiring from his full time job.  He'll be farming and doing some consulting work.  He has worked full time since he graduated from college.  While he did that, I spent time at home with the kids and in school. I'm glad he'll be able to spend some time doing what he wants to do now.  I keep fantasizing about all the work he will be able to do here at home.  That's probably just fantasy though.  So more changes are coming.  More adjusting to be done I'm sure.
    I recieved 25 barred rock pullets in the mail two weeks ago.  They are in a cage in the garage now and everyday they get a little bigger.  It's like they grow right before your eyes.  I still have about 18 sex linked red hens and rooster Tom.  They are 2 years old and are about at the retirement age for chickens.  At one point they stopped laying but have now picked it up again.  We need to slaughter these chickens as a part of good flock management.  They are not pets and we have talked about doing this.  I can't imagine that they will taste very good though and I dread the whole thing.  We'll get to see what we are made of- as chicken farmers.  These adjustment points in life are uncomfortable.

New Job

   Since getting back from our anniversary trip, I started a new job.  I was not unhappy in my old job.  In fact I liked it quite a bit, so it was a hard decision to change.  I gave it alot of thought.  My new job is about 180 degrees different than my old job.  The patients are all different, the schedule is different, just about everything is different.  I feel a bit unsettled.  Also I'm learning alot.  It's hard to be new and trying to figure your way around.  It takes awhile to feel confident in your decisions.  Next week I'm going to the KY nurse practitioner conference and hope to get some good information to take back to my new job.  I look forward to learning opportunities.

Anniversary Trip

  This is a hard discipline to be faithful to.  I took a vacation and started a new job and haven't blogged about any of it.  I guess I'll start with our 25th anniversary and our vacation.  Back at Christmas my husband gave me this really strange present of a trip from Minnesota to New Orleans on the train.  We had some words over the whole thing.  This was to occur in one week and the thought of riding a train for a week did not appeal to me.  The whole thing put a damper on our Christmas and I get mad whenever I think about him giving me a trip on our anniversary as a Christmas gift.  He had good intentions but was misguided.  The Minnesota part was so that I could see The Prarie Home Companion, which I have listened to since I was 20.  Well as I later found out, the Prarie home Companion was going to be at Nashville at the Ryman on March 26th our anniversary.  The New Orleans part was so he could go to the WWII museum there.  So as it worked out, we went to Nashville and then down to New Orleans.  We had a wonderful time both places so maybe I can forget the whole Christmas present debacle.  We stayed at a great bed and breakfast in New Orleans which I'd recommend to anyone.  Look up The Green House Inn on Magazine street. (I need to learn how to add links here)   Garrison Keilor was great at the Ryman and friends were in Nashville at the same time so we got to spend some time with Cathy and Baker too.  I loved the city of New Orleans.  We enjoyed great drinks, food and shopping.  I love all the history there and I even enjoyed the WWII museum.  On the way home we went by my sisters, my aunt's and my mom's house.  It was great trip and we had a wonderful 25th anniversary celebration.  It was good to get away by ourselves.