Plans, and What Happened In The Mean Time

I spoke to the Bride on Sunday morning, and we're in agreement about having the dresses made locally. I'm now the proud owner of the pattern, and have spoken to the seamstress about pricing and deadlines, and have a line on a suitable silk shantung fabric that I'll be driving to Green Bay to view and person (and hopefully approve for purchase). It's all down hill from here.

Meanwhile, the other day I did something completely out of character and forgot to shut the chicken coop overnight. I've been keeping birds for a dozen years or so now, and I've almost always day-ranged them - let them wander at will during the day, but shut them in a secure coop at night to prevent access to predators. That door has been left open occasionally over the years, but usually it's something like me delegating the task to a kid who then forgot. Otherwise, I go down every night, climb a ladder to remove the three birds who always nest in the tree, tuck them onto the roost with the rest of the flock, and shut the door.

Maybe it's because I'm spending so much time on the dog and my new routine is still getting settled, but on Thursday night I just plain forgot to go down there. But everyone was accounted for on Friday morning (I think), so I just scolded myself about it and went on with life.

On Friday night, I got home about midnight and climbed my ladder in the dark. The three birds were not on their regular limb, and I figured they must have decided to sleep in the coop on their own for once. But Saturday morning when I went down to open them back up, I noticed two of those birds on a completely different limb where I never would have thought to look in the dark. The third bird was a no-show, and I haven't seen her since. And those other two have continued to roost in their new place, which could mean something bad happened in the old spot and they're too nervous to go back there.

Still, I'm not seeing any trails of feathers or other dire indications. And the missing hen is the same one who went walkabout last summer, and turned up with a new batch of checks weeks after we'd given up on her. This could still turn out fine, with a little luck.

Meanwhile, I was feeling a bit lazy about dragging that old wooden ladder over to the new roosting branch to retrieve my birds last night. Instead I hopped up on a rickety plastic garden chair on uneven ground, stretched as high as I could - - and then suddenly found myself lying face-down in the grass with bits of broken plastic around and under me. I'm fine but for some rather dramatic bruises from falling on the chunks of broken chair, but Rick points out that I could have fallen on a sharp point instead of some dull edges. Point taken; I moved the stupid ladder over, then picked up the pieces of the chair.

That's about it. Big storm last night, which helped us discover that the dog does NOT like thunder. But we got almost an inch of much-needed rain, and everything looks refreshed this morning. All is well.