Love is old, love is new, love is all, love is you.

Bob to me:

"This is, quite possibly, the perfect day." He then listed out everything we did. Winter farmer's market. Watched snow (yes, really) fall outside. Drove around. Bought tea. He cooked. I worked on an album.

Me: "And sat on the couch next to me, right?"

Bob: "Of course. I get lonely when you're not here."

Spats and Pantaloons

My chicks have spats and pantaloons.


I also refer to the ridiculous, huge, upper thigh feathers as "racing stripes."


I mean, truly, we're talking some SERIOUS cuteness here.


Though, I must admit that my husband thinks I'm a tad nuts. But really-- How could you not appreciate this ridiculousness?!

Things are a-changing.

Fabulous news: I have a new job (and still,kind of, the old one). So, things will be a bit crazy around here for the next couple weeks. I'm insanely excited... though tired right now. The excitement has made it a bit difficult to sleep, but I'm getting by, no worries.

We have a slew of projects planned, outside projects especially. As the days get longer, we'll be able to work on some after work sometimes, so hang on, we'll get cracking.

Sad Cat

** UPDATE:
Paddington has been a total velcro cat the rest of today. Starting about two hours after this post and photo were done/taken, he clearly began to feel better. Smart cat that he is, he must have associated it with me messing with his eye, because he was a complete purr-bucket, followed me from room to room, and was even ankle-rubbing when I stood still for more than five seconds. I've had to since reapply the meds, but I was really happy to see the poor guy feeling better. What a grateful little tyke!

*******

Someone's eye problem is flaring up again. I had to put this neosporin-like goo in his eye this morning. Paddington is a bit sad right now.

My poor guy.

Cochin chicks

Finally, photos of the Cochin chicks!

Look at those leg and feet feathers!

This one is a sassy chick:



I call this photo "Rock Chick Album Cover":







The blackish ones will be either black, spotted or birchin-colored (probably birchin), and the brown ones will be partridge . Aren't they CUTE!?!?

Now let's hope they are all girls.

One set of stairs: Done!

Bob and I decided to put strawberries on this slope in-between the garden beds and the raspberry beds. The problem? If we planted strawberries ALL over, how would we get to the ones in the middle? The top ones would be challenging too, since you'd have to lean over the edge of the slope to get them.


Solution: Put stairs from the raspberry beds up to the garden boxes, preferably having the stairs end at the top between two garden beds! Not only will this give us another way from the garden bed tier down, but it would make it very easy to pick strawberries. AND, we can more easily have strawberries growing through a medium like landscape fabric since the area is more contained. I'm not a huge fan of the fabric, but on a hillside with strawberries? I can be convinced. We'll plant the plants through decent holes in the fabric, tacking the fabric down at the edges of the staircases, and mounding up the area in-between (under the fabric). We'll then mulch over the fabric so you see the mulch and the strawberries, but not the fabric.

Our theory is that if the strawberries aren't putting energy into runners and aren't competing with weeds and have great dirt, then they'll put out some nice, juicy strawberries and become very large, nice plants. We've looked at successful growing operations and this seems to be a method that nicely produces good yields.

So today, I built the first staircase. It's all level (which was important), though it does have a teeny curve in the very bottom. I'm not worried by this. It looks great and I'm happy. It's a big messy right now, but I keep chugging towards what I know it will look like in the end!

Staircase #1 from a distance:


Closer-up view:



View of the top. I had to dig out the stairs a bit on the top three stairs, but in return, I got a staircase that has nice, deep treads and very reasonable rises. YES. I'll likely dig out the area a bit more (so dirt doesn't fall on the stairs easily), but the fabric will help with the dirt containing a bit.



View from the top-down. The stairs end with plenty of walking space at the raspberry beds.


Gaps between beds where the next two staircases will go:


Better view of where the next staircase will go (on the left) and the new staircase (on the right):


Best part? The staircase cost under $15 to make. Woo! AND, it's starting to rain, so here's hoping the rain will wash clean my new stairs!

A shout of support

Someone in Bob's family is having surgery today. Believe me, this person -- and the rest of the family too-- is high in our thoughts.

Wish we were there! We're praying for a speedy recovery (and lots of pampering after surgery!).

Mulch results

Well, here's the obligatory "before" shot...


And the after!


There is still about an 8x8' section of area in the far back (not in the photo) that needs landscape fabric and mulch, but I'm out of fabric and debating my options (cardboard?) as to if I should get more fabric.

The mulching, so far, only cost us the fabric: $26. The mulch was free. This is only two loads' worth, so we're pretty happy. Make that very happy!

But oh, so much more to do. Weed the raspberry patch, cut the pillars down a bit, and wire it.



Weed the hillside, plant strawberries, and light mulch it.


And over on this side... sigh. Where do I begin? Rake hillside. Weed hillside. Dismantle old coup and use board on top of chicken coop. Build fence. Build asparagus beds. Fill asparagus beds. Plant hillside. Mulch. Add more gravel to the ramp/path from terrace 4 to 3. Add borders to various things so no mulch in gravel, no gravel in mulch. Whew. What a LOT of work to be done here.

But at least we're getting there!

Quick! Look over there!

I love this photo.

There are so many caption possibilities.

"Quick girls, look over there!"

"OH MY GOSH, what is that?!"

"Yes, I took your eggs..."

"Ok, really, you can look at me now, I'm sorry I didn't give you enough food this morning."

"No, I did not have time to clean your coop today."

"Yes, I didn't let you out until 10am... sorry."

"No, I'm not a vegetarian."

More on the wine closet floor.

Long story short, there is a smell. A smell coming through the vent in the floor in the wine closet.

Dingbat mcgee me decided that it'd look better to have the flooring straight, rather than cockeyed like the vent (darn person whomever put it in....). But, that meant I locked in the vent when the flooring went in.

The smell got worse.

"We really need to tear the floor up to see what it is, Jess....." said my husband.

Finally, I capitulated, and he went all gun ho happy on the floor with the crowbar. He was a little TOO happy about it, if you ask me.

Long story short, we discover that vent actually isn't a true heat pump system vent... it's connected to the crawl space so air can flow into the closet from the top vent (a true vent) and then out into the crawl space.

We deeply suspect that a squirrel or some other vermin died in the crawl space. We're debating whether we should try to find it, or if we should just let nature take its course and let the smell go away that way.

Bleh.