The Boss'

I thought I’d post a few photos of what we hope our chickens will look like in about six months. Assuming they live that long. So far they are doing well. They seem to be eating well and are settling in to their new surroundings.

We have five Isa Browns. They will likely be the most productive of all our chickens…that’s why we loaded our flock with five of these. They are supposed to produce about 330 eggs in their first year of production. Anybody need some eggs?

We have two Buff Orpingtons in our flock. These are supposed to be a gentle, well mannered bird. As chicks, they are perfectly round little puff balls. Very neat looking bird.

We have three Silver Laced Wyandottes in the flock. To me they look like a classic bird to have running around the farm.

We are also excited to have three Aracanas in the coop. These girls are supposed to lay colored eggs. According to what I’ve read online, they lay olive drab, light blue, and pink eggs. The kids will love it when these start showing up.

This is the same vide that I published over on my facebook page, but I know that not EVERYONE is on facebook, so I am re-posting it here. The kids are SO excited…and they (the chicks)all lived through the night, so we’re off to a good start. (the kids all survived the night as well)

Here’s a birds eye view of our modest homestead. The trees don’t allow for a real good view of the house, but you can get a feel for the general layout. Crazy how high res these images are from Microsoft Live Maps. You can even toggle to different compass angles, if the photography is available.

I’ve changed my blog to the default theme in order to try and diagnose what has gone haywire with it. In certain browsers, users can’t access the site and they receive a “malware found” warning. No malware here folks. Just me. I will continue to investigate as time allows.

There is a strange question of etiquette that has been plaguing me. I’m not sure there’s an answer, but it’s something I deal with on a daily basis. Here’s the problem. I work in a very cool building. Said building is designed to look like a collection of agrarian structures in a rural setting. It features a series of long hallways that connect the various buildings. Offices are on the interior of the buildings with the hallways running along the exterior, primarily along the south side, allowing tons of light into the hallway and offices beyond.

For me to walk from my office to the main entrance of the building takes a good 3-5 minutes. Now, imagine me leaving my office, and shortly after leaving coming up behind someone making the same trip. What is the proper protocol for “passing” this individual? It may just be me, but I find myself totally stressed out trying to figure out what to do in this situation. To pass someone walking in the same direction takes a long time. I’d kind of have to pull out next to them, and be right next to them for a second or two…awkward…and then pull back in front of them once I’ve put sufficient distance between them and myself. And what constitutes  “sufficient distance”? 10 feet? 20 feet? Who knows these things? If I know the person, I feel obligated to say “hi” to them, or something friendly as I pass, but then I question whether or not my knowing them obligates me to make the rest of the trip “with” them. Once “hi” is spoken, are we then traveling together until one or the other of us reaches our destination? Are we travelling buddies henceforth and forever more? On occasion, I’ve come up behind someone and have purposely altered my gate so that I don’t catch up to them before the journeys end. But this too, can be problematic. I’m 6’-4”, so trying to match the speed of a short woman can leave me looking like I’m just lopping along, with no particular place to go. That’s not acceptable either. If I walk quickly past them, trying to avoid the obligatory “hello” and subsequent traveling companion confusion, then I just look rude or like a speed walking nut. When I do pass someone, I feel self conscious, and worry about getting my feet tangled up and falling flat on my face in front of someone. “Are they staring at my butt?” “Does my butt look weird?”, I ask myself. Worse, if I don’t pass them, and I just walk behind them for several minutes, I quickly enter stalker territory. I don’t think I look particularly scary, but I get this weird vibe that I’m freaking them out.

Often times if I see one of the above scenarios unfolding, I’ll look for some way to break stride to avoid the awkwardness. One that works well is a fake cell phone call that requires great concentration. I’ll stop and gaze out one of the many windows with my free hand on my hip, giving the fake caller on the other end my full attention. When sufficient time has passed, meaning that the person ahead of me is “uncatchable”, then I’ll hang up and continue on my way. If I’m on my way out of the building in the evening and see that I’m going to be “matched up” with someone on my way out, I’ll do a fake, “shoot, I forgot something”, routine, checking my pockets for nothing in particular, and head back toward my desk for a second, thereby giving the other party sufficient time to exit without me right on their heels.

I know it’s hard to believe, but yesterday I had something even weirder happen to me. I was pacing some guy about 30 feet ahead of me…not wanting to walk so slowly that I looked funny, but at the same time not wanting to get so close that I gave him the creeps. Well, it all went south when a colleague of his passed us in the opposite direction, and he stopped and turned around briefly to say “hi, how’s it going?”. His colleague, evidently in a rush, did not break stride as he passed and just hollered “hey, good, yeah everything’s good”, over his shoulder. By the time this short exchange was over, I was exactly next to the guy who I had been following, and he was left with the awkward choice of:

1. Ignoring me and falling in eerily close behind me.
2. Saying hi and walking with me. (not an option)
3. Pausing awkwardly, letting me pass, and then falling in line behind me.

He chose option 3…he stood there for a second stupidly, without a purpose in the world, talking to nobody, looking vacantly past me at nothing in particular, let me pass, and then fell in line behind me.

Am I thinking about this too much? Is there another person in the world whose brain works like this? I guess I know the answer to that. This is my curse. This is the stuff that I worry about. In addition to all of the real reasons to worry, I have to invent things to drive myself nuts.

Anna was sitting with Lindy the other night, and she was having Lindy read this baby sign language book to her for about the 10th time that day. I shot a quick video of her running through the signs.

Strange things have been going on with Ben’s blood glucose numbers for the last week or so. He’s tending to be very low, which is something we haven’t had to deal with in a long time. Last week he was sick with some sort of stomach bug, and ever since he’s been battling lows. I sent his insulin pump data to his endo yesterday and they’re recommending that we change his carb coverage for the time being. It seems that he’s not absorbing carbs in the same way. Maybe it’s some lingering effect of the stomach bug. To avoid any severe lows, we’re going through a ton of test strips. I’m checking him before I go to bed, and again around 2 am.

In other medical numbers related news, Lindy will be 30 weeks along this Friday. We’re grateful that she has been able to carry the baby this long, and we’re praying that she can make it at least one more month. 34 weeks would be great. The family is adapting to Lindy’s reduced activity pretty well. If she gets put on strict bed rest, things will be much harder, but for the time being she is just taking it easy…not lifting the kids, lugging laundry baskets, etc. She puts her feet up whenever possible.