Archive for the ‘trees’ Category

Timber! and Chicken Training

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

Other than providing you with my entertaining Product Review, I’ve been busy working on adding an on-line shop to the Back to Basic Living website for my bath products. I’ve enjoyed using Etsy, but there is an expense involved in using it and with the cost of everything rising these days, the easiest way for me to keep my selling prices affordable is to offer the products from my own website. I hope to have it up in the next week or two so those of you that have told me you start your Christmas shopping early can continue making the rest of us look bad by getting your bath product gifts a full three months early. There is seriously something wrong with you people.

Eddie came out this weekend and sawed down three especially huge trees that were dead and leaning ominously toward the house. Bernie could certainly have done this himself, but he was not comfortable with the proximity of the trees to the house. Eddie has a lot more experience sawing down large trees and plus, it’s not his house, so his comfort level is greater. My comfort level, on the other hand, was lacking a great deal. I pretty much hid in the house and only stepped outside the door when my curiosity couldn’t stand it any longer. It was at one of the exact moments when I was peaked with curiosity that I stepped just outside the door in time to hear Eddie say “Wow. Brother, that tree is heading the wrong way” and I looked up just in time to see a humong-nificant oak tree land exactly on top of a section of the fence that Bernie just finished putting in not too long ago. It was flattened beyond recognition. I went back inside and prayed I was safe there and wondered if it was too early in the day to start drinking.

In the next few days, Bernie plans on sawing up the trees they took down today and repairing the fence. He’s also promised to start running electricity to my garden shed and the chicken coop. The girls have been fussing about getting chilly the past few nights, so they are pretty excited about having electricity for the heat lamps as the nights get cooler.

And speaking of the girls, I’ve got the Black Spanish hens trained to fly up to my shoulders or arms when I hold my arms out. Occasionally a Phoenix will join them. I was outside playing with them and
had three on my arms and shoulders when Bernie came out with the camera. One of them jumped down, but he managed to get a few pictures of two of them:

Two White Faced Black Spanish Hens and Me

Pretty Black Spanishes

And how cool is it that my shirt matches with the coop exactly?

Cute little bugger.

OK, I admit it. The truth of the matter is that I never trained my chickens to fly up to my arms and shoulders. They trained me to hold my arms out for them as they flew up. None the less, I can talk and they can’t. So I trained them. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Be free,
Penny

I Told You I’m a Good Wife

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007

As we have well established in the past, I am a pretty good wife. I not only accepted that my husband wanted bees, I’ve learned to love them and become totally absorbed in them. I throw him a Super Bowl Party every year. And I not only hunt, fish, and ride motorcycles, I also willingly participate in pretty much every cock-a-mamie scheme he comes up with. Take tonight, for example.

My wonderful husband walks in an announces “I’m going to take down that branch that hangs over the driveway that’s been bothering you.” I looked up at him. “Well, that’s great. Need my help?” – never expecting in a million years that he would actually say yes. He pulled up his pants, puffed out his chest and said “I thought I’d drive the back hoe down there and lift you up in the bucket. You’ll be able to cut it down a lot easier that way.” What the…… “Lift ME up??? I thought you said YOU were going to take down that branch????” He looked at me ever so tenderly and said “I figured it would be a lot safer if I lift YOU in the back hoe than if you lift me.” He had a point. I don’t know how to operate that back hoe very well yet. I mean I could do it, but I couldn’t insure he’d be heading up or down in the bucket right at first. I am struggling with what is up and what is down with that bucket right now.

It was getting dark, so I reluctantly agreed. We headed down and Bernie positioned the backhoe exactly where it needed to be:

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He hoisted me up and I snapped a picture along the way:

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The branch hung over the road – which seemed a lot further up than I remembered it:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

I thought Bernie looked a lot more smug than he should have at this point:

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I swear I sawed on that stupid branch half the night:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

And then I got it! It fell to the ground!

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Bernie lowered the bucket and rode me back up to the house:

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If this is not proof of what a good wife I am, I don’t know what is. That Bernie is one lucky man. And I never cease to remind him of it.

Bee free!
Penny