It is a miserably rainy day, a good day to nap the Covid symptoms away. When I looked over to the coop area this morning, I saw that several birds had found their way into the open garden but couldn’t figure out how to get back out. Their appearance looked like perhaps they had spend the rainy night in there. Eventually they either went back out the open gate or climbed a pallet leaning against the fence and went over the top.
With a Cooper hawk hanging out nearby, they aren’t free ranging much, but a few minute’s ago, most were in the front yard.
The two hatchlings from last summer both ended up roosters and for the first time one crowed.
I’m not sure which one is vocal, but at least it isn’t an unpleasant squawk.
This was supposed to be Christmas with Son 1’s family and Daughter’s family, but Saturday, all plans changed.
On Friday, hubby started having “cold” symptoms and prior to Son 1 getting on the road south west on Saturday, we did Covid tests. He was positive, I was negative, but postponing Christmas celebrations seemed the advisable plan. Late yesterday, he was feeling miserable and I was just beginning to have symptoms. This morning, I also tested positive and so far my symptoms are manageable and hope they stay that way. And he is feeling somewhat better.
As a result, we will delay our Christmas gift exchange and dinner for two weeks. Not what we had hoped for, but sometimes safety overrules plans.
Somehow, we managed to avoid this plague for almost 4 years. I guess it was inevitable that we eventually caught it. The telehealth Doctor congratulated us on avoiding it this long. Masks, vaccines, and avoidance helped us. It is likely that walking in the gym on cold, rainy days probably is where we caught it but Christmas and grocery shopping may have contributed even though masked. Because of our ages, I guess we will again avoid eating indoors in restaurants and becoming even more diligent about masks and hand sanitizing. Three of our favorite restaurants do have outdoor seating during warm months.
My activity here has been sparse lately. This in part because of trying to get ready for the holidays between having cataract surgery first on my left eye in mid November and my right eye two days ago. The first one produced lots of swelling of my cornea, proving to be quite uncomfortable the day of surgery, like someone rubbing sandpaper on my eye every time I blinked. Thus, much of that day was spent reclined with my eyes closed and dozing. It then produced 5 days of very blurry vision in that eye. As soon as the vision cleared, I realized that my brain just would not/could not adapt to the disparity of vision between the eyes. At the two week re check, when I discussed it with the surgeon, she did a quick check on my right eye acuity and scheduled me for a more comprehensive exam and surgery on the the right eye. My vision had significantly deteriorated in the three months since the exam that generated the referral to her in the first place, or the initial exam from elsewhere was flawed. Now two days out from that surgery, there is only slight vision fuzz, no discomfort, and cheap reading glasses stashed all over the place as I can no longer see any text closer than several feet away. As she and my eldest said, I now have bionic eyes.
In between the surgeries, Thanksgiving dinner was prepared and enjoyed here for 8 family members and Christmas gifts wrapped and sorted, one box mailed off. The stocking stuffers have mostly been gathered and sorted by recipient. We were set to go look for our Christmas tree sometime during the first week of December, only to find out that the two local cut your own farms both shut down, one on November 26, the other on December 3. I guess the drought from the summer affected their trees’ health. As a result, we ended up buying an artificial prelit tree on sale. Both of us were finding the cold hike through the farms taxing now, so we will just use this tree as long as it lasts.
Also in the middle of the two surgeries, we celebrate several family birthdays. At my birthday dinner, local grandson approached me and ask for assistance on a project. Forty odd years ago, we purchased candy cane yarn rope garland for our tree. Ever since daughter was on her own with her own tree, she has coveted the garland. Her son has tried for several years to locate some and purchase it for her to no avail. His project was to see if his wool spinning grandmother could help him make some. Challenge accepted after my search for it was also futile. A huge ball of super bulky chenille white yarn and another of red were purchased. I attempted to make one length on my own but wasn’t happy with it. He was invited over so we could figure it out together and between his intelligent engineering oriented mind and my spinning knowledge and equipment, we succeeded in making 12 very long garlands.
There is an awesome video that hubby took for the process of making one, but I can’t get it to load here.
And a few days ago, we had our first snow of the winter, about the most we received in all of 2023 and it was only a couple of inches after a day of 3 inches of rain.
Hopefully, the rain and the snow are omens of more wet to follow and hopefully break the 2023 drought.
The littles are all grown, the two hatchlings both young roosters. They haven’t started crowing yet, but at 20-21 weeks old, it will happen any time now. The young pullets haven’t begun laying yet, but they should start soon. The old girls are all in stages of molt, so eggs had to be purchased at the Farmer’s Market last weekend.
We continue our daily walks outdoors unless it is too cold or raining. Then we walk the mall or go to the gym 1/9th mile track and walk a numbing 36 laps.
Right now it is quiet on the farm. We will have some of our family here for Christmas and Christmas dinner and look forward to that.
Wishing you all happy holidays, depending on which you celebrate.
