Ketchup.

I am way behind on my posting!  This is iffy territory for someone who struggles to remember what she had for breakfast...


In lightspeed ------


The weather stinks, stanks stunks!  Dealing with the weird weather can really put a damper on achieving results on The List.  It's either frigid, raining, or both.  I haven't seen the sun in such a long time that I've started taking my daily D3 a month early.  My solar-powered lights that festoon my pergola have petered out - not enough sun to charge their batteries.  Everyone looks droopy.


Remembered to check the oil in my car and it was down to a drop!  Geez.  Put three quarts in and we're good to go to the next oil change.


Quail care has been successfully worked into the routine!  There are still a couple of tweaks and then they will be moved to their winter quarters, and we will be totally off the tracks again.


There's been a little too much 'romance' in the coop with the two roosters!  One of my older girls was slightly injured by too much (ahem) attention and had to spend a day and night in the hospital ward.  She is fine now and the boys have gotten a talking-to.  Fritz will have to be rehomed.


My garden is about 90% ready for winter!  I fear that is about as done as it will get this year.  My third planting of hearty greens in the cold frame are coming along famously.  Most of the raised beds will have to be replaced - a few at a time.  I have rethought the fencing and have decided to go with electric netting, starting in the spring. 


I don't have enough hay!  I still am down half of the hay I need for winter and have been dropping none-too-subtle hints to the farmer.  It's so frustrating to be beholding to people for what you need, sometimes.  However, all his corn is now in, so I am hoping to be moved to the top of his list.  I can rest easy with a barn full of hay.


My furnace won't be serviced until tomorrow morning!  The forecast for tonight and into tomorrow is low 20s.  Pfft.  I'm so glad my dogs don't go visiting often.  They would be aware that most people do not keep their homes at 58 degrees.  Most people keep their homes warm.  My reasoning of "The cold will preserve us longer" would fall on deaf ears.


My sister, bless her heart, arrived Sunday morning and helped me clean out the chicken coop!  It was the first time in 13 years that it was fun.  We're trying something different this winter - I put down an old tarp and put shavings on top.  The plan is that we will be able to drag it out, with its stinky load, in the spring.  The hens were highly alarmed at the alien floor.  It took Rhubarb, my brown leghorn, who HAD to lay an egg (one of only two that seem willing to do so) to venture in and break the curse.  (Look!  She's still ALIVE!!!)


I got a cold!  Sunday night, after deciding to start the first fire under the brandy-new chimney, I realized I might have picked a less windy day.  The ensuing bursts of smoke irritated my nose and I thought that was why I was blowing it every five minutes.  Wrong-o.  I awoke Monday morning with a full-blown head cold.  At least I hope it's just a head cold, and not the flu.  A head cold will struggle on for a week.  The flu goes on and on. 


I have a resume!  Thanks to the diligent and gentle prodding of a talented and generous friend (we'll refer to her as an angel in shepherdess' clothing), my blank stares, lack of words and complete mind-freeze were overcome and she created a wonderful and perfectly-suited-for-me resume.  Such a load has been lifted from my shoulders.


Work is exactly the same!  All I can say is that they sent me a new computer - with the latest upgraded operating system, and the crew from HQ said they would see me in November and December.  I am taking that as an affirmative that I will still be employed until the end of the year.  I have decided to stay to the bitter end, as I need the income.  They will give me a reasonable amount of notice, so I will do a more blitzkrieg approach to resume-sending when I have an end date.  Right now, I am sending it out to my network of business friends.  You never know.


The Party has been given the heave-ho!  I had invited family and second family (my neighbors and my parents' best friends) to a pre-Halloween party this weekend.  However, due to my germy condition and the diagnosis of spinal stenosis on my second mother, it was deemed prudent to postpone it.  Poop.  I had gathered a number of fun items for a Halloween centerpiece, drawn up an appropriately ghoulish menu and bought 8 pie pumpkins.  Well, the kids and I will enjoy it anyway.  I may just whip up the main course and do a meals-on-wheels thing.  I'd roast and freeze them, but Marianne has been giving me her gorgeous, organic pumpkins on a weekly basis and there is only so much pumpkin a single woman with dogs can use.  I already have two large butternut squashes and a Long Island Cheese pumpkin roasted and pureed and frozen.  I have three pumpkins in the car (all exotic types, from M) and more to come this weekend.  A nice problem to have, no?


This weekend I have plans to get the barn ready for the sheep and llama, clean the house and finish the quail hutch.  And about twenty other items that loom large on The List.


Whew.