Out of commision..

I've been on an unplanned vacation this last week, my building projects, garden harvest, dozens of things interrupted. It seems my gall bladder went into some kind of hissy fit last monday night, didn't like the lovely steamed cabbage I had chowed down on. So off to the hospital by ambulance with my insides in an uproar, intense pain, and a diagnosis of "It's gotta come out".

Free health care is a wonderful thing, and I hate to think what this would have cost us without medicare, but...timely delivery would be wonderful also. I got hooked up to an iv and put on a standby list for surgery and waited and waited and waited whilst people kept having car accidents and clogging up the operating rooms. In the photo its friday night and I just got the news I was on my way.

So now I'm home and kinda shocked to see on the bathroom scale I lost 14 pounds from not eating for nearly a week, holy cow that iv fluid must be light on calories... Now I have a free pass when I get my appetite back, for cake and cookies and ice cream!

Building up and tearing down

My little greenhouse I built 12 years ago is rotting and will never make it thru another season so here comes it's replacement. I was given a pile of sliding patio doors, thermopanes, so the building is designed around them. This time I'm using pressure treated lumber so by the time it wears out I'll be too old to lift a hammer anyway.

Today I'll work on the right side which will be the winter chicken house/garden tool shed. The window in between is to let the warmth of the winter sun in the greenhouse through to the chickens.

On the raccoon war front...I am losing badly as evidenced by the devastation in the nearly ripe corn. It seems another family has moved into the vacumn created by the removal of the last five. They are driving me crazy, I'm finding the trap sprung every morning with nothing in it.

The little chicks are 3 weeks old now and entering their gangly teenage stage. Momma keeps them close to the house or in the shade of the big trees away from danger from the skies. They are so entertaining to watch them learning their chicken things.