Chickens Are Weak

I guess I forgot to explain a couple weeks ago when Henny DS & DIL1's chicken died. The kids went to Shawano for supper with Jefe & HZ and when they came home Henny was dead. Cold, stiff, white-eyed dead. Porter did tug her out of the coop and was playing with her but they assured me last Sunday when I said, one more time, that I was afraid Porter had done the deed since she'd upped her efforts to get into the coop, that Henny had been stone cold dead long before they'd let the dog out to potty before bedtime. I've since talked to others more versed in the world of chickens and they said that they can indeed just be clucking along, laying eggs, and pecking their feed, and then up and flop over. Who knew? Now Penny lives in solitude, crooning to Porter to get the dog to charge the fence for her amusement (Penny is the pretty one and has always been a bit of a diva) but now that the fence is electrified Porter's not having any of it. A new roomie for Penny will be arriving in a few weeks once Ed's eggs hatch and they grow a bit. (It's a long story.) Or DIL1 can go to a chicken swap (??) with a guy who raises show chickens (????) and get a more mature model sooner, which means eggs sooner too. Hope she can just buy one since she doesn't have anything to trade. Isn't the world a fun and interesting place with all its subcultures (show chicken raisers)? I love it. Today the carpet & flooring installer's supposed to arrive and start work. It's nearly 8:30 AM and he's not here. Now, the store didn't call to confirm his arrival time and day but wouldn't you think he'd get an early start? To my way of thinking if you start early, you can finish early and have some day left at the end to relax in. Plus he's burning daylight. It's always better to work in daylight. Even though it is overcast, windy, and chilly today. Daylight's daylight. Spanky got the painting done yesterday, and reinstalled all the curtain rods, ceiling lights, etc. He'll be back to scrape and re-grout the basement windows so they (hopefully) stop leaking and pair up the new garage opener clickers. Oh, here's the flooring installer guy. I'll go get him started and be right back. I'm back. Tomorrow's the cleaning lady and then I think we're done. I'll redo the photos and our ad on Craigslist and see if we can't lure a tenant. What I'd really like to do is sell the place and move into a condo or apartment where I/we don't need to futz with all this maintenance stuff. Durwood says that we need to keep it because it's investment property and the tenants pay the mortgage and taxes, I say that it's not worth the hassle but I don't feel strongly enough to really fight about it. Yet. I'm sure any nosy neighbor was wondering what I was up to yesterday afternoon when I made a sweep of the yard picking up trash that had blown in. I had the camera in my pocket and laid down to take pictures of the flowers, I even crawled under the forsythia to try taking pictures up through the branches. I'm not sure how successful I was but I got some absolutely gorgeous daffodil pictures. See?

March 27--Alexandre Cabanel, The Birth of Venus. I'm intrigued by the four little cherubs hovering over Venus; they remind me of a box full of puppies, but there's nothing in my mind. No words stringing themselves together, holding hands across the page. I just don't give a crap tonight. Maybe once 1508's done and rented I'll have brain room for words. This is getting me down, big time.

Anybody need a nice place to live? The only downside is I'll be your neighbor. Think about it. Pass the word. Dammit. My knees are super-achy these days too. I'm wearing both of my elastic knee braces. Damn and double damn.
--Barbara