Thurs. July 31st… Had a nice trip to Guilderland…mall…Ichiban’s

We worked on the barn for a little while this morning. At one point, Vick came into the house to make phone calls and I stayed out there nailing batten strips on the board cracks. She first called Verizon to complain about their people who were to come today between 8 and 12:00 noon to hook us up to their phone service, but someone screwed up the order and no one showed up or called. She was pissed! (and now they know it) Then she called her Mom & Dad to see if they were indeed coming today to visit with us and go out for lunch. The had just gotten up, but were planning on coming over yet, so Vicki said that we would wait for them and we would take them out to eat. She then came out to the barn with the truck keys and I put the gun away and we headed to GNH for 50 more 2x4’s which I will use for interior walls and framing in around the outside fencing area for the chickens. After returning from GNH, I unloaded and stacked the 2x4’s, cleaned up the other stuff laying around, shoveled the pile of stone chips level near the roadway door and was ready to hang it up and get showered and ready for Joe & Anita’s arrival when Vicki hollered out that it was time to get ready. Good Timing!!!!

Joe and Anita were here when I came down all showered and ready to go. We waited for a little bit while they watched the chickens, ducks & turkey’s and then we left for Guilderland with the intentions of taking them to Loudonville to Lanie’s Café for lunch. Once we got to Guilderland and we showed them where Vick goes on a daily basis for therapy,

Paster's Chiropractic, where Vicki goes for her Spinal Decompression Therapy.

we gave them the choice of Lanie’s or Ichiban’s, which is another of our favorite places to eat Chinese. They chose to eat Chinese cuisine, so we told them we could go to Ichiban’s and we could take them to Lanie’s Café next time. They really enjoyed the food and we were all stuffed when we left there and headed for home. We stopped along the way at the Country Flowers nursery again to show Vick’s parents how beautiful everything there is and they were totally awestricken by the amount of beautiful and colorful flowers still available this late in the season. Vicki bought them a 4” potted, pretty blue, tropical plant that looked much like a Phlox of some kind, but it wasn’t. Her Dad fell in love with the blue and like me...... he loves flowers and doesn’t care who knows it. We left there with an odd yellow cone flower that we had never seen before.  It’s the same as the purple ones you always see, but we have never seen one in yellow before and Mrs. Heilman said they just came out with yellow this year. Vicki was infatuated with it so we bought one.

The Phlox like flower Vicki bought for her Mom & Dad. See the humming bird moth in the center?

Here is the usual purple cone flower you see everywhere.

Here is the new Yellow cone flower they just came out with this year.

More pretty flowers and gorgious colors!

Beautiful yellow flower

I just love this pretty two colored, dainty flower!!!!

When we got home, Joe and I watched the birds for awhile and then talked a little about the remaining work we will be doing on the barn when Vicki called to us and said for her dad to come to the pool deck to see Casey Mae swimming. We went up and sat on the deck and Joe threw the retriever toy into the far end of the pool for Casey Mae to fetch, which she did with little effort… many times!

Fetch Casey Mae!!

And she did!!!!! Many times!

After Casey Mae got tired of retrieving the toy, we retired to the lower deck where Joe and I talked until it was time for them to leave. They had to get home because Katie would be there all alone. Vicki and I did our feeding preparations for the evening and did our computer work, then went out and closed everything up with all the birds away. We then retired to the computer room again where we watch Snavely try to be friends with Dutchess, (to no avail) whom we’ve dubbed Ms. Crab*ass.

Not such a lovely smile or friendly mannerism is it?

 

Nah......definitively not!!

Poor Snavely has been trying to make up to Dutchess since Vicki and I got together and she hasn't been sucessful and it doesn't look like she ever will be.

As a final note tonight, I wanna say, "Hi Spencer!!  When are you, Mom and Dad coming up for a weekend, or even a whole week to visit and relax? You'll love the farm now that it's getting cranked up good and proper with 100 chickens, the ducks and big ol' turkeys!

How about you Bill, Loraine & Andrew?

How about you Doreen & Scott?

How about you guys Bonnie & Scott?

And yes there Robin... Pop your Southern Belle butt into an airplane to Newark Airport...We'll do the rest!

 

 

Thurs. July 31st… Another end to another month…Fall Just Ahead!

Wow! Just another 31 days and we’ll be well on our way to fall again and only a footstep away from all the holidays, then winter! Yesterday we took the time away from barn building to clean out the chicken house and the brooding house. They were in need of cleaning and it’s now done, with a disinfectant cherry spray applied under a new layer of nice clean wood chips, they smell pretty good considering they house about 100 chickens. The duck house hasn’t been a problem ever since we got smart and keep the food and water outside. The inside stays nice and dry and clean. There is very little smell from ducks if the area can be kept dry. I love when we pull into the driveway after we are away, because we have a huge greeting from the Cluckin’ “A” “Welcoming Committee” when we get out of the car. The chickens, ducks & turkeys all gather around us to welcome us home. (and beg food of course)

The Cluckin' "A" Welcoming committee

Skip & Timmy turkey talking. I know....I know.....one turkey to another....

This is one of our favorite roosters.......Poindexter.

Poindexter asserting his dominance over the domain. (unless a bigger rooster wants it)

I think today will be a bad day to work, because of the humidity, unless the sun stays behind clouds. Perhaps then we can get some plywood work done on the chicken side, pick up the 2x4’s at GNH and start putting up the chicken wire. If not…… tomorrows another day. In fact, Anita and Joe may pop in today and if so, we want to take them to Guilderland, past where Vicki gets her therapy, to the Crossgates Mall and on up 155 to Lanie’s Café at 471 Albany-Shaker Road in Loudonville, NY. It is a very quaint little restaurant known for it’s excellent food and salad bar. Do, however, watch their menu when ordering because the waiters will tell you that sandwiches come with pickles and chips and that you may substitute fry’s or onion rings. They conveniently forget to mention there is an additional charge for both. The menu does state that at the top of the page however……it’s just that you may not have read that and then your $8.95 sandwich will cost you about $11.20 when the $2.25 onion ring price is added on. (Bigger meal price……….bigger tip!!!) Don’t, however, let this divert you away from stopping there for an excellent meal in a quaint, comfy little Café.

Wed. Eve July 30th… Taking you where we were before….

Today was an uneventful day in the lives of two upstate farmers. We left the chiropractors office after therapy and went to Crossgates Mall to talk to the AT&T guy that gave us a new phone and a photocopy of the box UPC and when we got home, we saw you couldn’t use a photocopy, so we couldn’t collect our $50.00 rebate. We stopped there today to beat him up and make him give us what we needed for the rebate, but upon laying it all out in front of him and getting ready to puff his eye…… he simply said, “I’ll just credit your AT&T account so it comes directly off your bill and you don’t even have to fill out the paperwork.” Took the wind right out of my sail… I was amazed and said thank you, thank you, thank you!! Next we went to the "little people" food bar in the food court where you get the $3.29 lunch meal. This time we definitely got the meal consisting of General Tso’s chicken and sweet & sour chicken with fried rice and fried potatoes, then left them crying in their rice bowls this time because our bill for both of us to eat was $7 and change with a drink to split between us. Ha……Ha you little twerps, now we got your number and we’ll make you cry often. (as you recall a few weeks ago, they got us for the same size meal @ 14. 79 (see Monday July 14th blog) except he talked us into an egg roll each and a large drink which added another $5 & change to the bill.)

After beating the Asians at their own game, we decided to get severely lost for awhile, trying to find the Northway Mall, to get to JoAnn Fabrics and Marshall’s. After finding our mistake and driving in the other direction for 15 minutes, we accomplished our goal. After leaving there, we headed for home. When we got here, we went to the chicken house and shoveled out the chicken poop (Whew!) and sprayed, then put down a new covering of wood chips. We then did the same in the brooding house, dropped both shelves and added two more wood strips for roosts. Everyone is extremely happy tonight and smelling like sweet cherry instead of Pooooooooooop!

Now, do I gotta tell ya there is absolutely nothing interesting about anything we did today? Nah…..Poop is poop and it all stinks!

So. I dug through the archives and came up with a bunch of nice pictures of beautiful scenery up here that we’ve seen before and think you will enjoy seeing now. so here we go. The first few are on our road today coming home when we had a momma deer cross the road with her fawn. Then the rest are on the mountain at the Kaaterskill falls and North & South lakes near Haines Falls.

There were two fawns, but the 2nd one waited until I wasn't ready & I missed him.

Now these are the pictures of sights on the mountain. The first two are of the Kaaterskill Falls....The highest cascading falls on the east coast. They are 265 feet from top to bottom where the creek starts to run again.......This place is good for catching hell when you hang over the side to photograph the beautiful falls.

Looking down the clove toward Palenville and Catskill beyond that.

Hang on by your toes when you click the shutter for this one!!!!

Now, here's some of "Devils Tombstone State Park.

 

Devils Tombstone State Park.

 

A beautiful place to camp and fish or just take in the scenery.

The rest of these pictures are of the North & South lake near Haines Falls, NY

A very beautiful But chilly place to swim.

A Wild momma duck with three little ducklings

Wild? Did I say wild?????????

Wed. July 30th… Short night + over sleeping = Short morning blog.

It’s now 8:30 and I’ve turned all the animals loose for the day, made coffee, laid out the daily meds and read AOL news. Now I need to let you hooked people like Doreen, Keren, Bill, Carol and all the others know what we are doing today. First….if you haven’t read the blog of last evening which I got on at 10:50 last night, take a look at it…….it’s quite long with lots of pictures.

Getting a late start today means we will be hustling to get out and about, picking up 2x4’s, getting Vick to therapy and what ever else needs to be done. Stay tuned this evening for new pictures of whatever we did today.

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Tues. Eve July 29th… Had an interesting and productive day!!!!

We went to the bank this morning and made a deposit, then headed for Guilderland for an 11:30 therapy session. Of course, we noticed that Barbie & Boobie along route 443 were wishing their landlord Martha a Happy Birthday!

We have not had the pleasure of meeting Martha or her husband yet, but we have had the privilege of enjoying the different garden settings with Barbie & Boobie as we have driven by these last few months on our way to Dr. Paster’s office.

Once the therapy session was completed, we went to Crossgate Commons and visited the Wal-Mart store to see if we could get a material for Vick to make me porous knee braces so the heat won’t bother me so much while maintaining good knee support.

(without knee braces, I won’t get past 10:00 am with my knees. With the knee braces, I can work all day long without much problem) We looked but found that Wal-Mart doesn’t have any materials there, so tomorrow after her therapy session, we will go to the Northway Mall and visit JoAnn Fabric and pick up what she needs. After that and eating at the Japanese restaurant, we headed for home.

Ever wonder where these tracks go? Me too!

Beautiful little house....nice driveway.... A BOAT? under the carport????

We stopped at Country Flowers Perennial Gardens, along route 32 in Feura Bush, near the State Police barracks they call the New Scotland barracks. We met Mrs. Heilman who was very friendly and helpful.

Mrs. Heilman. A very friendly & helpful lady.

This little building is so very quaint. Vicki loved it!!

Vicki was , of course, looking for Heliotropes for the rear deck, (as if we don’t have enough of them) and I was taking pictures of their very beautiful inventory of flowers. They are known to have the largest selection of colors in pansy’s in the area and being late in the season, I’m sure their inventory is nothing like it is in the early spring/summer, but I saw a multitude of beautifully, colorful flowers, readily available to take home with you at really reasonable prices. It’s a really cute and very quaint nursery nestled back in a little hollow where lovely cool breezes blow the fragrant flower smells all around while you’re there. Why not go visit the Heilmans, see their beautiful flowers and enjoy their kind hospitality. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did. Remember, it's Country Flowers Perinnial Gardens. Once we got home, I took a 1 hour nap, (in Pa, it would be called a nooner) then was up and at’em, ready to put a roof on the barn. As I drew closer to the barn, I saw a baby robin hopping behind it’s mother, across the driveway, into the grass, I hollered to Vick and told her to bring the camera out and we took some pictures.

As we entered the barn,I immediately noticed another baby robin on the ground and the nest was laying beside it. Obviously it had come loose from the board and fallen off. Now we knew why the birds were out jumping around well before they could fly. I hope the one outside is taken care of by the adults, but we put the little guy in the barn back into the nest and placed the nest back where it was. We did find some worms and fed it because it didn’t look real strong any more. We did this because we watched for quite some time and we didn’t see the mother bird anywhere around the nest and baby, so we felt it was given up for dead as the adults were taking care of the one that followed them into the yard. After putting it back into the nest, feeding it and placing the nest back up in the rafters of the barn, We went to the front porch to cool off. We then saw the robin going into the barn again to feed the baby, so we went out and started working on installing the roof.

The plywood work is next! Then 2x4's and chicken wire & doors.

We went out and as I nailed perlins into place, Vicki handed me the next piece until we had them all on. We then went to the steel roofing. I slid them up from the ground and Vick held the tops in place as I installed screws in the bottom, then she did the tops. We had to stop due to loss of light. Vicki went to feed the critter and check their water. Look at her following. (She should have been a preacher!!)

Look at em go!

Pied Piper of the Cluckin' "A"