Happy Friday!

Sorry, no new pictures today. Pumpkin from a couple of years ago.

I know it has been quite awhile since I posted. I have missed you! They opened the road last night. They only have a few things left to do, and then hopefully normal will return. I can walk in the morning and have all kinds of pithy thoughts. You know the saying " If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all." That pretty well sums up my life via road work.

We have had a couple of really nice days. They have been so nice and cool and make me long for sweatshirts, late afternoon coffee on the patio. A good book and a roaring fire to stare at with the winds knocking at the door. This has been a long hot summer. Even for us.

I have to tell you about this Blue Jay. While I mean no disrespect, I call him Mr. Millennium. The reason being one day he was sitting on the patio on the back of a chair, yelling his head off. I stopped, trying to figure why he was yelling. As I stood there I realized he was a baby, because his feathers on his head  was still all pin feather though every where else was nicely feathered out. The blue jays fly to the patio table and grab a bit of cat food and fly off. Mr. Millennium was sitting on a chair yelling his head off for his parents to come fly down and put the food into his mouth. So now you know his name. Oh, by the way, after a little while he got it that no one was going to feed him and he hopped over filled his beak just as full as he could get it while complaining and flew off.

 

Here is a new story of Mr. M. I had my chickens out in the yard. It has been a little nerve racking as the hawk. has taken to just swooping in and scaring the hens to death. In fact so much they really don't like leaving the coop unless I am out there. I was sitting out there yesterday afternoon, and they had very carefully come up the hill to where I was but still in running distance of the chicken coop. There was a huge commotion with the hens running for their lives, when to my amazement, Mr. M. was flying making swooping motions like the hawk. The hens ran to the coop, and I was so glad Elliot was with me to see that Blue Jay sitting on top of a redwood, jumping up and down with a nut in his mouth, laughing. My thought by his body language was, " I'm bad, I'm bad." He watches everything around here and follows me just like the sweet finches. He also scolds quite a bit too. 

It is September and the almond orchards are shaking the trees to harvest the crops. If there is one job I wish I could have it would be shaking almond trees on one of those contraptions. It just makes me laugh to watch them. 
That video makes me laugh too. The dust is terrible right now. I can't wait until we get rain, but I bet it rains mud.

I can open the doors and windows today, so it will be a wool dye day. Not just Friday. October is just around the corner too. Don't you just love Fall?

I wish you a lovely weekend,

~Kim~

Jane Austen
“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.” 

Getting Caught Up

 

I hope September has been a nice month for you so far. Yesterday we had a taste of fall. It never got warmer than 76 all day. Perfect bliss. I had to stay outside all day. It will go back to normal tomorrow I think. Back to the 90s, hopefully, we won't reach a 100. I am so over that now.

I don't know where the weeks seem to go to or what it is that I do. I started a woman's Bible Study last week. Its different. Its been awhile since I went to a morning class. Like maybe 30 years. Gosh can it be that long? I would go to the evening kind so I could take the kids with me when they were all in school at home.

 

I was nervous last week. Emilie started a new job at the church as an assistant to the lady in charge of the women's ministry. I thought it might be nice to go and be apart of it. Do you ever think about embarrassing your kids? I do, I worry about it all the time. Like I am going to turn into Granny of the Beverly Hillbillies or Ma of Pa and Ma Kettle fame. I worry about things like will my clothes be okay or am I too fat? Yes, all silly things, but that stuff does go though my head. Or maybe I lapsed into complete pagan?
 On to the Bible Study:

 

 We are going to be going verse by verse though Joshua. I have never done just Joshua by itself before. When I was walking out to the car just wanting to go back in the house and throw up. I didn't but the verse that popped into my head was Joshua 1:9 " Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

 I breathed deeply, and got in the car. It was a morning like this, jackhammers going like crazy, tractors going up and down the street. Water trucks spraying water. I thought to myself, "I am so glad to be getting out of here today!" Ron later quipped, " It took a lot of heavy machinery to get you out of the house!" It was true. So all of the heavy machinery is a good thing. 

As I drove and I was praying that the Lord would speak to me and I would be an open vessel to receive all that He wanted me to have.  A long time ago, I went to another Bible study and the lady who taught it was named Janet. We became friends and she also had been one of my favorite English teachers in high school. I was thinking about how much I missed her. She passed away 20 years ago. Why do things just pop into your mind like that I wonder?

I walked in to a building that I wasn't all that familiar with. I always go in another door so I wasn't aware of this side of the building. I found Emilie and we talked. I picked up my Bible Study materials. I do what I always do, I walked around trying to find all of the exits and the bathrooms. Just in case you know? I went into this really big room where we were going to be while the ladies explained how all of it was going to work. I was all alone and on the chairs was a newsletter telling about a ladies retreat coming up. It was double sided and I turned the paper over and there was an article entitled. "The Significance of Success." It also said, By Kim Johnson. 
Not a single person would notice that but me. My maiden name was just that. Kim Johnson. I laughed because how like God to give me a little nudge. Emilie said that it isn't anyone in their church it is something they just put together. So what are the odds I wonder. 

When Ron and I go to church, we only go to Nik's class room in the junior high. He is the pastor there. It is the only place I am really familiar with in this whole big church. Guess what room I go to when we are dismissed to our classes. Yep, the one room I am comfortable in, this isn't a little study either, there must be about 150 women attending. I sat  down in the class room breathing deeply and praying I would be courageous.

 As the ladies are filing in, and I don't know anyone at all, until this lady walks in named Joan. I haven't seen Joan in 20 years since Janet's funeral. I used to be in a Bible Study a long time ago, when I was pregnant with Ben. Joan just happens to be Janet's sister. Now I loved Joan just as much as I loved Janet. So of course, I said, " Joan, do you remember me? She so sweetly replied, " Of course, I remember you Kim." Me of course, being nervous I just blurt out, " Oh Joan, I miss Janet so much!" She tears up and smiles. We chat after class, and she tells me that she was so glad I said that because after 20 years no one remembers Janet. I felt I had been given a gift to have Joan in a Bible Study with me.

I have thought a lot this week, all of the little gifts God gave me to show that He was aware of where I was and how no matter how far I stray He is always there with me to bring this lamb back in the fold. This study is so far out of my comfort zone and so new. This program all of the ladies will be together three years. This is an established group. I am the new one. I think though, its good to get out of my comfort zone. To have to look to God and see all of the ways He surprises me with His gifts. Its easy to forget how much He does when I am in the safe confines of my house. 

So if you are still reading along with this long winded post. Thank you. I was hesitant to write this out. 
It really is still on my mind. So I thought I would share it with you. I will go back tomorrow. I am excited to see what new gift God will surprise me with as it will have to be Him again who gets me out of the house. 

Thank you for stopping by and reading. 

~Kim~

“. . . I have found that if, instead of praying for my own comfort and satisfaction, I ask the Lord to enable me to give to others, an amazing thing often happens — I find my own needs wonderfully met. Refreshment comes in ways I would never have thought of, both for others, incidentally, for myself.” (Elisabeth Elliot)

Oh September!

Hello September!
I am so sorry that I didn't greet you when you first arrived. You see your previous sisters, May, June, July and  the worst of all August have been so brutal. I really don't think I had the heart this year to even think as much as normal about your coming. I thought because sometimes in years past, you just go along with the crowd. So thank you for restoring my faith in you this morning.

 

Your light was warm and golden. The smell of fall upon your breezes. The trees were shimmering and dancing in the sparkling light. Having my first glimpse of a blue sky in such a long time was such a treat.
I could hear the sound of the ocean in the leaves on the trees. So September I greet you with a happy heart.
The sound of the wind chimes tinkling as the breeze passes over is I admit exhilarating. I sat and listened today to the sound of the hummingbird with his funny sawing sounds he makes as he sings his love songs to you. The blue jays I believe are even happier. As if a thing such as a happy blue jay exists. (Have you ever sat and listened to them gripe and complain under their breath?)

 

 I always think of September as a time of renewal and new beginnings. New backpacks and new notebooks. The sound of school buses as they lumber down the road sounding like a giant T Rex gobbling up children. The leaves are beginning to turn brown as the whirlwinds swirl them into the air. I love sitting outside listening to the trees telling their stories again after this long hot summer. 

 

The first tiny flock of geese flew over just before sunset yesterday. As I watched their progress, I thought,
"Aw yes, September has arrived." My heart sings again that Autumn will finally be here and my heart and soul can finally be at home. 

I am so glad you finally came! Welcome home September!

~Kim~

“Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first September was crisp and golden as an apple.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

A Chicken Post

 

Its been a long, long time since I have done a chicken post. I always mean to write one but then something else comes up. I wanted to show you something I got early in the summer that has been a life saver for my chickens.

I was loosing about a chicken a week. I was getting pretty discouraged. I had gone through every chicken book I have and looked online. My chickens had these symptoms. They just stop eating and just stand and drink and then they starve to death and die. Over and over again. I had thirty hens and now I am down to seventeen. I was reading one day and there was this little sentence that talked about how chickens need Lacto Bacillus. I didn't even know if they had a product like that, I had spent so much time at Tractor Supply looking at stuff for chickens but I had never seen anything like that. Ron happened to be going that day and he found locked up in one of the cases. I don't even remember ever seeing it either.

I had a hen who was going to be the next one to die. I thought a day or two at the most. She was my first young hen to exhibit these signs. You just mix it in the water and that's it. 1/3 of a teaspoon to a gallon of water.

I did it and my sick hen just stood and drank and drank. She was so sick I didn't expect her to get better because that is one of the signs of the sickness they just drink and drink.
About a hour later I went on the check her. She was eating like she had been starving, she just stood and ate and ate. I watched her a bit. I came back in because she even looked brighter in her eyes.

That evening when I went back out to put them to bed. She looked like a new chicken. She had lost that pain in her face and the next morning she was eating again and all of the other chickens had not been their ole happy selves, they were drinking too and today, almost September, I haven't lost a single hen in two months.

She has always been a quiet hen. Now she is my shadow. Where ever I am I will look around and she will be standing there watching me. She never sang much but now she sings quietly all of the time. One day, I was out watching my chickens. Ron came out to see what I was doing. He asked me how my hens were now. I was telling him how much healthier they were now. I said, " See that hen right there, you can't believe how pale she was and now she has color  in her face and look how happy she is." Then it dawned on me as he looked around with sort of a blank look on his face, that they all look the same to him, but he was trying to be a good sport about it. Of course, I had to laugh and say, " Oh I am sorry."  Point out the one to him that was not a pale face anymore.

I love that wherever I am they will be with me quietly scratching in the dirt or pretending they aren't watching me. I love when I am working in the garden or the flowerbeds they all lay down and sleep. When it gets a bit cooler and I take my sewing outside and sit, they all come close and want to chatter or take dust baths.

Last night though, when I went out to check on them I couldn't see a single hen in the yard. I could hear a hen in the hen house screaming. I knew something was up and Ron said, " Oh my gosh, will you look at that hawk!!!" Sure enough a Red Tail hawk was perched on the door of my chicken coop. I suppose reading recipes out loud. I ran and yelled and he gracefully flew up into the tree above my chicken coop, I am sure laughing all of the way. My poor, poor hens were so afraid. They were as far under the nest boxes against the wall as they could get. I talked and talked to them to get them calmed down.

Miss Broody

You know what that means right? September is here. The hawks are returning to their winter hunting ground. Which also means, no more chickens alone in the yard unless I am out there. Poor girls. We have ten thousand doves around and that hawk always wants chicken.

I can talk about chickens all day. I know that since I like to keep around thirty, next year will have to be a new chick year. That is a very nice thought to think about chicks being in my future.
Have a lovely day,
~Kim~

The ruler of the hen house

“Self-pity is the hens' besetting sin," remarked Mr. Payton. "Foolish fowl. How they came to achieve anything as perfect as the egg I do not know! I cannot fathom.”
― Elizabeth Enright, Gone-Away Lake