A new job....

Wow, I can't even begin to explain how busy I am. I started working again, at a small yet busy place just the other side of town. It is an industrial sewing place, and because we are in "Gold Country", I think I told you that before, most of the things that we make are all mining related. Mostly miners bags, ore sample, and gold bar bags. It is rather neat seeing the amount of product heading out the doors all over the country from the little city "factory". They also make tents, and I don't mean your little camping style tent either, I mean prospectors tents, and girl guide tents. These puppies are big!! All in all it is a very nice job, I work inside, its warm, the people are even warmer, and it is just a fascinating job, never a dull or boring moment, and as of yet, for a newbie like me, sewing these bags together is still a daily challenge.

So the boys get on the bus at about 8:05 every morning, and I basically leave at the same time. Passing the bus as it heads down a little side road off mine. Then I work my little butt off till 5 pm every day. This is the most hours I have worked in a day since the kids were born, so my evenings are crazy busy and I catch us eating at 7 pm and me still doing chores till long into the night. But really, what working Mom isn't??

I went and got grain yesterday, picked up the order sheet for my chicks. I was going to be going half with a girl friend next year and do 50 of them. So I have got to get a hold of her and see if the plans are still the same or not. Either way I will still be ordering another 30 for myself if she has changed her mind. She is a very busy woman, so I could see her finding that late summer butchering a little more of an annoyance. I am definitely ordering more "ready to lay" hens, I have to figure out how many, maybe 10, or maybe 15. I just know that right now I don't have enough eggs to keep up with the friends, family, and neighbours so I need more hens. Either way, I see good things on the horizon for us as a family. I will still be doing my garden, and taking the summer off of work, that be for two main reasons, one being that I simply couldn't afford to work all summer and keep both my boys in day care. The other, much more important reason being that my boys are still young and I so love the company of them, I would feel so bad sticking them into some city day care place, when they have so much freedom and independence out here in the country. This is time that I will never be able to get back, and my boys will appreciate this time that I will be setting aside for them, giving them an extra amount of time and love will only help them in becoming great men. After all, we really do live a life here that I wouldn't trade for any amount of money or things. I clearly have been blessed....

I have been feeding the wild birds this winter, for the first time, and have become floored by just how much food them little rascals can eat. I hang out 2 feeders, each holding a good 12 cups of food, and they can have them both emptied in 2 days. Now, yes there is a bunch on the ground around the feeder, (messy little guys) but they really love to eat. I am not too sure what species the little ones are, but I have seen chickadee's and grosbeaks. The other little bird, small like a chickadee, but brown come in huge bunches, of 25 or 30 maybe even more some days, covering the feeder, and the ground below. They are so pretty, and the bassets just sit at the window watching them, knowing that the next time they go out, they will get to chase them away, and eat any left over bird seed on the ground, and little birdy poops left behind. That folks makes a basset happy!

Spring has not even begun to sprung up North here. It is still snowing, but we can see our days getting slightly longer and our nights not quite as cold as the nights in January. We are easily at about the 3 foot mark on the level with the snow, and the piles in the yard just keep getting bigger, and bigger! The bassets have once again been reduced down to a long skinny trail that leads though the kennel. Neighbourhood roofs have snow drifts up to 4 and 5 feet deep, nearly covering chimneys, and their basement windows are no longer visible from the road, making cellars rather dark and gloomy in the North. This is clearly the most snow we have had since living out here, it seems less drifty, but more snow all in all. I absolutely love it, and I know that we still have more coming, because we usually get up to 30 percent of our winter snow in February and March. So there is a good chance that we still have another 2 feet coming our way! Just so you know, at that point I just might start complaining.... :)

Back in the swing....

Well here we are, swinging into the middle of January all ready. Things are going pretty smooth here, my back has finally let up and returned to the "regular old ache" that it has had for the last few years. The boys are back in school, my oldest even got to be on the news! They asked him what he liked most about being at the new school, and his answer was great! He can sometimes get a little shy, but sailed through like a pro! :)

We have a lot of snow, more than the last 2 winters already. It doesn't seem to be showing any signs of stopping any day soon either. Today was even a snow day for the boys, with all the busses cancelled in the city. I love it, it just keeps piling up out there, making a monster of a snow hill for my boys. Hubby might bring home the big loader from work to make the pile even taller. The pick up with the flat plow only manages to get the snow hill up to about 7 feet high. A front end loader can get it up to about 13 feet I believe. Which would be great motivation for the boys to go out and play.

The bassets had just a small little trail in the kennel to walk on, obviously because of how much they love the deep snow. ;) So because we had to carry in wood the other day Hubby snow blowed a nice path from the shed to the house, the bassets (and Pebbles) were thrilled! It was like a whole new yard to them. Snow that was unsniffed for about 2 weeks is like gold to these guys. It doesn't take much to make them happy. Anyways, Hoover poked himself in the eye the other day, it was all red and his haw was swollen, I treated it with antibiotic drops for two days and it all healed nicely. It was rather funny how much he loved to come and wipe that eye goop on my pant legs though. Odie ended up with a mild ear infection on the weekend, poor lad. I have been treating him with drops as well, and it seems to be clearing up rather nicely. He didn't even mess with it at all today. This doesn't seem like a great way to begin the new year, with both of the bassets hurting them selves. I hope that this will be the end of the problems as it was the beginning.

The chickens are all well now. I lost 2 over the holidays to Mareks disease, Momma our beautiful black banty hen, and one of my silkies. That leaves me with just the 4 silkies now, and I have yet to know if any are roosters. I still have the 3 nasty black hens separate from the rest of the flock because of pecking. The polish are settling in rather nicely and 2 of the 3 roo's are crowing their heads off now. One of them is even doing his "job" as a rooster with a bunch of the hens, but still not all of them. I still have 2 very testy red hens in there that will occasionally pick and pull feathers out of my polish but Sylvester is slowly gaining control over his flock. When I see no more of him running from those 2 nasty hens I will put one of the black ones back in there and give her a week or so to settle down, then I will add the last 2 together. I just hope all of this occurs before spring! These guys all need to live together permanently so they have got to learn to get along. I have two hens with bumble foot, who knows how they got it, it was very new so I cleaned the coop and did foot surgery on the hens, Big Red sailed through it, when I changed her bandages today her foot looked great, I cleaned it up, put new bandages and brought her back out to the coop. The other red hen now named Mia, (after Mia Hamm who was born with a club foot but still managed to become a famous soccer star) didn't fare so well, when her bandages were removed today her foot pad had doubled in size and was red and hot. So I had to re-open the wound and dig out the root of the infection. It went well, it took about an hour, but when I was done the foot was soft, and clean and the hen was happy enough to eat a whole slice of bread. :D

So as you can see there is never a dull moment here at "The Hens Nest". We are all keeping busy and all have plenty to smile about. The female cat has returned to her Moms house, but Salt the male is still here for now. We are seriously thinking about keeping him because they offered but we are waiting to see what happens over the next week or so till we make up our minds. The frog is doing super, eating and growing, a pretty nice pet actually, he never wakes me up at night to pee, never barks, or pees on the floor. A ideal pet really! Well, happy Friday the 13th to everyone. I am not superstitious, to those of you who are I hope you had a great day anyways. See you on the flip side! Hugs and droolies for you all.....