All My Eggs In One Basket...

Let me start backward and say for a number of years my mother raised chickens for extra money by selling both meat and eggs. If my memory is correct she had about 500 at a time, however many, it was one of our chores to collect eggs. Her egg basket was yellow vinyl clad steel and was about the size of a bushel basket. Big.

I have nine black sex-link hens I inherited from my father-in-law and if you've read my blog you watched them grow from babies to ladies and you know I just love 'em to pieces. All this time I've been thinking about an egg basket and using cottage cheese and Cool Whip plastic cartons. Efficient but no soul at all, none, nada.

Finally my brain kicked in; it's Easter basket time, what better time to find a perfect egg basket for nine eggs a day. Eureka! Now if you were one of my little girls wouldn't you be thrilled to have your eggs gathered in a shiny silver basket loaded with color and bling? I swear the eggs even taste better. They know when they are appreciated :)

Saturday Thankies
How hard my dementia plagued FIL laughed when I showed him the basket
That my MIL bought me pink Easter grass to cushion the eggs
How out of character each action was and is treasured in my heart

Knichen, Asparagrass, Kalnking, Thumb Quilting

The three words above are father-in-law-isms. Kitchen, Asparagus, Caulking. Comes to mind because the fresh tender asparagus is coming into the produce sections now. Beyond yum. I just steam, spray with I Can't Believe It's Butter and chow down.

Not much to report on the quilt front, I'm not happy with the cornerstones of the below mentioned quilt so am rethinking that plan.

FIL gets a little weaker each week and is eating less as we wind down toward the end. Some nights he sleeps pretty well, others he is up and down three or four times an hour. "Well, I gotta get up." "How come?" "I don't know, I gotta get up."

On the other hand my little girls (hens) are eating for an army I swear. But the nine of them have laid straight through fall and winter which is quite unusual if the chicken forum group are to be believed. This is the cutest picture I've seen in awhile, click on it to see full size.

I've been asked to show what I am doing when I thumb/finger quilt, as they say a photo is worth a 1000 words. I don't use a thimble, I push the needle with my thumb or fingernail depending on which direction I'm going. The example is just on a piece of fabric, the quilt I'm working on is next door. #1 pushing away with thumb nail, #2 pushing back with finger nail. My other hand would be under the quilt letting me know each time the needle comes through. Hope the visual helps.

I started quilting with a floor frame built from instructions in a Foxfire book, 2 short side rails, 2 long top and bottom rails, sitting on chair seats. Then I used a vintage card table with the sidebars wrapped in pillow-ticking to pin to. This works beautifully because you can just work your way around the table. Then about 15 years ago I switched to strictly hoop quilting. I did buy a Grace frame in there at one point but hated it so it's gone to a friend in Canada. Back when postage was affordable. I can't imagine what it would cost to mail something like that now.

Sunday Thankies
Apple blossoms
Big grey squirrels
Yellow finches

Ruffles Have Ridges...And...

Selvages/Selvedges!!! My life is complete...wonder how many bags it would take to make a checkbook cover out of the top edges?

I also got to wondering if I've been alone too much, after I said earlier when I'm feeling blue I go down and listen to the chickens tell stories. So, info junkie that I am I looked around and found this as the first post of a looong thread on a chicken forum...names have been changed to protect the Innocent of course..."I have a house chicken named Babby. I love her dearly. I have come to realize that there are "others" out there too. I was thinking that we needed a place to chat. A place that is safe, where we won't be judged that our chickens are sitting on the couch with us eating grapes..." I laughed 'till my eyes squirted. It never crossed my mind, but now that it has...

Tuesday Thankies
Noodles
Cinnamon
Robins

How Long? How Much?

As I sit and stitch through the night at my FIL's bedside I've been thinking about a question my BIL asked clear back in 1972 when I had my first finished top on the frame. He wanted to know how long it takes to make a quilt and how much one cost, was it comparable to buying a blanket? With batting, backing, Merribee printed top, and the embroidery floss this quilt topped out at about $60.00 and it probably took about two months to quilt. It actually took three years to finish because I wasn't happy with the way the back looked and put it aside for a couple of years.

I believe this is quite common with quilters, strolling between projects. I wish I had the admirable tenacity to stick with one thing start to finish, but that isn't very exciting. Sometimes I'm in the mood for lots of machine work, and others, like now, I can't get enough of hand appliqué. As to cost today...some patterns alone are $60-80.00 if the quilter likes Block Of The Month programs. And I've done a couple of self designed whole cloth quilts that have more than 600 hours of quilting each.

In the night I've been quilting on the Raggedy Hearts quilt, another 30's self designed quilt based on the Bull's Eye technique. This quilt dates back to 2005. It took about a month to machine piece and appliqué and each year I think this is the February it will take pride of place on the bed...as long as my hand holds out 2011 might be the hallelujah February. Note that my corner stars are also raggedy, too cute.

As to how long? My stock answer for the last quarter century has been "If I were in a hurry, I'd buy a blanket".

Wednesday Thankies
Needles and thread
Ready to use batting
Wonderland of fabric...all out of reach to me, I've been on the fabric wagon since 2001

Fobbing Along

I seldom mention my MIL here at the farm, probably because at 86 she can run rings around me. Here she is taking the push mower to her front yard a few days ago. She's a little dynamo...her weight is the same as her age.
A few weeks ago I was blessed with the gift of four scissor bobs from a young woman from Australia I don't even know. They are so beautiful and I'm very grateful for her kindness. Live Long and Prosper Hayley.

Friday Thankies

Books

Soup bone stock

Eyes

Faye Anderson Appliqué Designs

I was just through the AQS book side of their website, and it strikes me as bizarre that they have apparently let this book go out of print while some of their old dogs are still being published. Weird. It is available on the secondary market still which is nice, because speaking for myself, I'm having a lot of fun stitching up these little six inch blocks and would recommend the book to others.

I didn't do any block stitching while I was home for three weeks, but I did get all the blocks prepped, and each night since I've been back at the funny farm I've gotten two blocks finished.

I've added some blocks which was easy to do because many of the shapes are repeated throughout the top. I've monkeyed with others just because I can...
And I'm adding the sequins and beads as I go along now. Sequins on a quilt is a new one for me; I'm triple stitching them and all independent of the appliqué stitching so if one comes off nothing else will fall apart.
As I type I'm sipping a fresh cuppa and nibbling a little box full of Necco Sweethearts candies. My second favorite holiday treat. I guess I could just go buy a roll of Necco's any time of the year, but it really wouldn't be the same thing~

Some Valentine day trivia from a book by Nigel Pennick: A combination of Norse and Roman traditions dedicated to Vali the archer, son of Odin and to Juno Februa, goddess of maternal and married love. Rob and I will be married forty years this month. I asked him yesterday if I could have another serving of forty years please...he said he'd think about it. Probably makes him tired just to think about it. I wouldn't take another forty years with me if I could get out of it :)

Sunday Thankies
Time to visit my favorite blogs
Hatching a surprise with my FIL
The sight of my hens enjoying yogurt this morning

Of Blocks and Brothers-In-Law

Some more of my little 6" appliqué blocks added to the pile, they will make more visual sense when the stem-work gets added. I'm still on the hunt for the perfect pen. I think I've an idea for the sashing but will wait until I'm home for a bit and can stage try-outs on the big working wall. It is a rainy grey afternoon here, perfect weather for prepping more blocks and playing a couple of movies. Perhaps a marathon of my National Geographic Egypt series??

A wonderful treat this weekend, my BIL showed up out of the blue and we talked well into the night and again for a long time this afternoon. He'd dropped off the radar and I was very fearful we were being shunned, which is a wicked and shameful practice in my book. Apparently not, and I'm so thankful he was here to see his dad for the last time. And that FIL recognized him. Although as the night progressed he would sit up in bed and say "who is he talking to?" I'd pull my ears out and say Me!

Sunday Thankies
Conversation hearts
Good doggies
Lost little hen was found

RIP Tot50, Stop You're Killing Me

Am I alone in being an office supplies junkie? I spent a lot of years working as a secretary so I appreciate good office tools, but I think the seed of the junkidom was planted pre-teen in my Christmas stocking with one of these Swingline Tot50 staplers. I still have and use it, nearly half a century later. I bought a second one when I outfitted the 5th wheel for my extended stay here at the in-laws. I use them primarily to staple manila folder templates to fabric for my chosen appliqué method, starch and press.

All fine and well, nothing remarkable in any of that except last week I went to Office Max to get some more staples and none were to be had. None at the downtown local office supply. I went on-line in my quest and found to my dismay the Tot50 has been discontinued by Swingline. Oh yes, you can buy small staplers...but they take the big honkin' staples, not my fine sharp mini-staples. I found a distributor on Ebay and ordered enough staples to last the next half century and hoo-hiss on Swingline for breaking with the past. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Little cheerful blocks keep appearing on the working wall (or a RV version thereof) I can usually get two a night done while FIL gears down from sundowning and into patchy sleep mode. When my eyes are too sleepy to stitch I've been working my way through ancient Egypt mysteries with Lieutenant Bak and his Medjay police force for the second time, penned by Lauren Haney. If you like mystery stories you'll love Stop You're Killing Me. You can search out titles by author, trade, sexual persuasion, genre, and much more.

Monday Thankies
Feathers
Chimes
Rhinestones

Won't See This Egg At Tesco or Safeway

Ever wonder how hens can lay eggs without an episiotomy? The shells are soft when they come out, the underside of hens have super soft feathers, and she hovers lightly over the egg for a short time until the shell hardens.

I'm having a blast with my current quilt project, and it is coming together ever so well. Don't know if 30's reproductions are the right fabric for this but they are cheerful and I have them here and that is enough reason to use them for me. I've been on the fabric wagon since 2001...and I doubt I ever run out of fabric. I wish I'd never 'stocked stash'.

These will finish at six inches and every block is different. I need to get clever about some sashing or border or create more blocks because the 50 patterns from the book won't be enough. I decided long ago big borders just look like the maker ran out of steam. But I have some off-the-wall ideas perking...as usual. These are from the 2001 edition of Faye Anderson's Appliqué Designs My Mother Taught Me To Sew, an awkward title if there ever was one but nothing surprises me with an AQS publication.

These patterns are not original to the author but are based on a 1870's wool felt quilt credited to Hannah Riddle of Woolrich Maine. I'm wondering about the book information, there is no Woolrich Maine, but there is a Woolrich Woolen Mills, and there is a listing of intentions of marriage listed on a geneology site for Henry Tuckerman & Hannah Riddle July 4, 1761 of Woolwich Maine.

Whatever, a number of the shapes are used multiblock, so it will be easy to add more blocks. One unusual thing the author did with her blocks is add sequins with a seed bead which really makes the blocks pop in the cover photo. The blocks also include embroidery which bores me to death and also explains why I'm the worst embroiderer on the face of the earth. I'll do my vines with penwork which I've used on a number of my quilts with good success.

On the home hospice front, I've decided FIL's dementia symptoms are a worse punishment than congestive heart failure, acute renal failure, diabetes, or pulmonary disease. Dementia runs the show here now and the afflicted has no defense against this ghastly disorder of the brain. He knows he can't remember but can't remember that he know that. Try living with that concept 24 hours a day and you will have a window into FIL's life.

Thursday Thankies
The ability to reason
The ability to make choices
The ability to think

Flat Santa

How can I keep the faith with Santa Claus when I see something like this in the neighbors yard?

Makes me feel like weeping every time I go by. Whose idea was it to invent and market something that feels this cruel? This is worse than the discarded trees on the roadside, at least we can think their last weeks were cheerful and bright. But this Santa, flat with his face frozen in the grass, puffs up each night, only to face the same sorry fate each morning. This has to be one of the circles of hell.

On the home front, let me preface by shouting, I'm no saint, I'm no angel. I'm just able to be in the right place at the right time for me. The saints of the world are the workers who keep it going. The ones who show up every day at the office salon store mill airport. I did that, I've worked for pay since I was eight years old. Here, in dementia land, for the first time I can be with my doggies around the clock. If I get wound up I can go talk it over with my hens. And I can fondle my fabric and pins and needles all night long if I want, I don't have to be anywhere tomorrow.

I've gotten some real traction on my little project, bits and pieces are turning into prepped blocks at an incredible pace. FIL has stopped asking me what I'm doing now that fabric has entered the picture. He gets that I've been a passionate quilter for all the forty years he has known me. FIL has also pretty much stopped eating and is clearly growing weaker by the day. He wakens about once an hour, says "well, I guess I gotta get up", moves to the bedside commode, and back to bed. Last night at the 3 AM-ish transfer he said "well....I know, it's a hole in the ground". Took us both by surprise and we had a good laugh.

Tuesday Thankies
Chickadees and Nuthatches
PVC pipe
My small Rowenta iron

Beginnings and Endings

May all of the best the season has to offer bless you and yours, my friends.

As we have transitioned to the home hospice stage of care for my father-in-law there is a lot less for me to do so I've taken my sewing machine out and set it up on the dining table just a few steps from his bed. He keeps asking me what I'm doing, and I keep saying I'm making a quilt. Then I laugh because for four days I've been busy making a quilt and so far he hasn't seen a single piece of fabric or a needle. He just shakes his head, assigning my actions to one more dementia symptom. Mine~

He has seen a pile of manila folders getting used up

A stack of virgin 16# onion skin paper being covered with odd shapes

He has seen me standing at the dining room window tracing the onion skin shapes onto the folders

Those cut out shapes have gone into little zip-lock baggies

My mind copes with the end while my hands create the beginning

Wednesday Thankies

Little Pembroke's willingness to assume her part of the team, giving comfort by remaining curled up by Gene's side

Simply Fresh 100% orange juice

Flannel sheets

Elixir of the Pharaohs

Today I have the pleasure of bottling our honey bee's output. Isn't it lovely? I probably have another gallon left to drain but it needs to settle for a few more days. These cold crisp clear days are just about my favorites of the year, it invigorates me, with the exception of keeping the stock watered. Frozen faucets and iced troughs...now here's a thought...Rob is off to the farm store for mineral blocks, hows about I call him and ask him to look at tank warmers? Sometimes good ideas are slow to sink in.


Inside at the funny farm FIL continues to pull back slowly from the brink but classic sundowning has been added to the mix of things to plague him, bless his heart. If I can sweet talk MIL into sitting next to the bed and verbally cuddling with him, after about 15 minutes he goes right off to sleep. MIL carries her own childhood baggage as do we all, and she considers this spoiling behavior and last night she wouldn't do it. So we ended up with panic attacks well into the wee hours. We have a new oxygen concentrator and I must have checked it thirty times trying to help him get his breath. When our elders say don't get old...believe it. This is our little corner of the world for the nonce.

How's this for a twist in today's modern medical practitioner? I'm looking for a new doctor for MIL and the one we've heard the best things about is going to be accepting a few new patients in January...but we have to go by the office and pick up an application; from those apps they will be choosing whom they take. Insert thunderous frowny face here. They will see her age (86) and drop it in the round file. She is in better shape than I am in many ways, and still walks four miles a day whenever she can get out. It's a weird old world isn't it?

Monday Thankies
Honey Bees
Mason jars
Flannel sheets

Toys For The Girls

Good First of December my friends. Having discovered that chickens are both smart and affectionate I now worry about them getting bored in their play pen between breakfast egg-making and outdoors work-like-dog time.

This is one of the toy ideas I've devised for them, a compressed bell-shaped wild bird seed feeder. Chickens can jump good...I have this one suspended from the roof of the pen about eight inches above their heads. It didn't take them long to figure out that electing someone to the high jump position was the better part of valor rather than all of them jumping at the same time and simply accomplishing a giant chest-bump. I think for Christmas dinner I'll get them a watermelon, they are mad about it. I'll hang it in a netting bag. For common days I'll do a head of lettuce or an apple on a string. Note the bell is hung using the ubiquitous farmer's helper.

On the other front, on Thanksgiving I checked my FIL into hospital with acute renal failure. We just got home again last night and set in place the next step of care, moving his bed into the family room with a bedside commode on one side and his big brown chair on the other, my new bed for the duration.
Even though he ate next to nothing while there he is up eight pounds, all retained water. We do have a plan, and for the first time in two weeks he is hungry. Praise the Lord, and pass the French Toast.

Tuesday Thankies
Sweet yams
Zen mouse pads
Toothpaste choices

Goat Trees

Each year we get our goats a Christmas tree. Down home the Lion's give us the few that didn't sell. Here we have a enormous Christmas Tree Farm right behind us and the owner has encouraged us to take trees from the back portion that needs thinned. Here comes tree number one. By the time Indiana and Freckles are finished with them there will be nothing but a barkless trunk.

Yesterday afternoon early FIL was sitting up in his big brown chair enjoying Disney's Homeward Bound and wanting to know about the cow with the injured leg. Two hours later he was slid down in the chair with just his head on the back. I asked him if he was practicing to be a slouching teenager...He said he was comfortable, leave him alone. He said it with that sideways looks that indicates he knows he isn't going to win this round. Mid-December we will move from Visiting Nurses to Hospice care.

What dementia is stealing from him now is his ability to differentiate between rooms. Here he is trying to decide which is the bathroom. His body knows what it needs, but if he heads for the kitchen or into the laundry room and I ask if he needs to use the bathroom he doesn't know. I'm grateful we have a good team in place here with the four of us.

I've been making chicken toys for my little girls. Stay tuned.

Wednesday Thankies
Two dry days
Beautiful sunrise
Good neighbors

Courses For Horses

That is a chiasmus. Not much to show for learning something new each day. In ten minutes I won't even remember that. My brain matches the sky, this is the kind of day in the Pacific Northwest that snowbirds run away from.

It is still an area of incredible beauty, regardless of the liquid sun. This morning I thought I'd be a clever girl and before my FIL got up I'd run over and get a good walk in at a local golf course that allows walkers. It really is a beautiful course, and just after I snapped this photo a great blue Heron lifted off in front of me. Just after I rounded the corner of the lake my MIL called, said FIL had fallen and couldn't get up. Guess I won't be sneaking off early any more, what was I thinking?

All's well that ends well, I called 911 for a lift assist, no siren please, and they were here and organized by the time I pulled in. This afternoon FIL refused to leave his big cushy chair for lunch. I said he was, and he gave me a look (a couple of years ago he'd have give me a pounding), got up, took his walker three feet and sat down on the couch. "I'm not moving" he said. So I sat and shot the breeze with him and pretty soon Lasix and nature moved him and then he came out to the kitchen for his lunch. He has become a milk junkie. Wonder what that is all about? He doesn't remember falling, but I know inside, he sure doesn't want to do it again.

I went down to let my little girls escape the chicken play yard and out they came, clucking and curtsying, went about three feet, and as a group turned and marched back in. Way too wet. I split a big punkin and left them grinning.

Monday Thankies
Warm Socks
My yellow Gorton's fisherman hat
My Vornado

Belly Up To The Milk Bar Baby

Time for another update. Cold and rain has set in so the farm chores take a different tack. The cattle get hay each morning, two bales between the six adults and three babies. The cows were terribly skittish when we first came to help, FIL fed and that was about it. Now we can walk amongst them, and I love to scratch their big foreheads while they are chowing down at the manger. Cows heads are enormous when they are twelve inches away! When I took these pictures I was actually trying to get a good shot of cow eyelashes for you, they are beautiful.

The babies, two steers and one bull, are SO cute. They belly right up to get their share. Of course the other end of the cows create a chore of a different color...'nuf said about that.

FIL, who for 90 years was the cog that pushed the wheel, has still managed in his dementia to find a cog to flummox his family. He has figured out if he says "no" he doesn't have to respond to their requests or suggestions to get in his big chair, do his exercises, do his hygiene. I was never afraid of him to begin with so when he tells me no he says it while he is doing what I asked. I always laugh and tell him I love his sense of humor and that he is doing a great job, keep it up. Old tapes die hard in this family.

We covered 3/4's of the chicken's play room with heavy plastic to keep the ground from getting so wet. Yesterday I started adding a good layer of hog fuel for the girls to scratch in. I'm going to get some sunflower seed and cracked corn and salt it like a false gold mine, give them something to work for. Their eggs are beginning to have a uniform size and shape as they mature. Some days we've had eggs so big we couldn't get the egg carton closed. And very occasionally what my little sister calls fart eggs, ones the size of a marble. No one will claim to be the layer of those...ever see a chicken blush?

And because of the kindness of a stranger, we now have four gallons of golden honey that will be ready to bottle in a few weeks. FIL and I extracted it last year; call me a wimp but I'm just not up to doing the job by myself. The gentleman who did it for me has an electric extractor that drains 18 frames at a time. Cool beans! It was fun looking in the hives with him and exciting to pull the full supers of honey, I'm thinking the bees, like the chickens, will be a job I'll keep.

I had a brain bomb the other day, and actually have my sewing machine set back up and fabric strips are turning into blocks of new fabric...stay tuned.
Until next time, that's it from the funny farm.

Monday Thankies
Birthday cards
Electricity
Sugar free pudding

Reknitted

Well, my time at home is nearly to an end, and while I've missed the farm and my in-laws and my chickens a ton, I've also knitted myself back together and am more than ready to take the reins of responsibility again.

I'm going to a Halloween party today where I'll see a whole lot of ladies that I originally brought together; am so happy they have gone on as a group, it shows I've done at least one thing right in my life. They will be surprised to see me, particularly 35 pounds lighter and a strawberry blond rather than a flaming red-head.

I've been to a day long yoga retreat, heaven on earth, and I've had one go at my new beginners Pilates DVD...hokey smokes...fun but if I keep it up I'll have abs of steel. I've missed my window of opportunity to run away to the beach but the month isn't over yet. I've made a new friend, something not to be sneezed at. And every where I've gone the world is a blaze of color.

Thursday Thankies

Big fat seedless grapes

Oracles

Bram Stoker

Finding Fun

An update is in order. Today I am supposed to be birthing, creating, or nurturing. So first thing I put my Chiquita banana sticker to good use. I'll see if my FIL notices, can read, and will laugh. His laughs these days consists of one short bark, but I take what I can get.

I haven't mentioned my 10 girls in a long time, they are about 6 months old now and each day I get between 8-10 big brown eggs, very often with double and occasionally triple yolks. I've not the heart to tell them more white less yolk is what their silly humans need, they are so proud of their output.

We've set up a system of three doors. The wooden door they know to never come out, the 2nd screen door they always can come out and go in, and the 3rd screen door they can crowd around but never go out because when I'm coming in, it always means goodies. Fresh pumpkin, zucchini, tomatoes, apples, corn, radish and carrot tops...who knew chickens could be trained or as I mentioned in an earlier post, seek and give affection. My SIL will be here for ten days in my stead this month while I'm working at home, and I'm already worrying about will she know to hug them and accept their thank you curtsy.

It is back to that 30 tree orchard today. I had the pruning 1/2 finished, turns out I started way to early and now they need pruned again. I'll begin with the espaliered apples along the fence, easiest to reach.

My rainy day project is the workshop. Up until this May, when his dementia really set in, his shop was quite tidy, he always knew where to reach for a tool. In the course of the summer it became what you see here in the 3rd image. We spent so much time here, he and I, working on farm projects, or just running our gums around the little wood stove, and now he won't even come down there. He knows he is finished with it. It has been a difficult job but someone will have to do it sometime, it might as well be me who gets it started.

The little grey board, lower left is his very last project. It is part of the latch system on chicken house door, it pulled off one day in late spring during one of our strong valley winds. He fooled with it off and on for three days, would pick up a screw and lay it down, turn the board over and consider the wrong side, and then he laid it down for good, he could no longer make his mind and hands work in unison to put in a screw. I've left it laying there, perhaps hoping for some kind of miracle, but they are thin on the ground for 91 year old men.

That's all the news that is fit to print folks, now to have my second cuppa and cruise some of my own favorite blogs.

Tuesday Thankies
Blue sky
Crisp air
Sharp pruners
Postscript: Yes the sticker got a laugh~

Fishy Freedom

Earlier this summer I had a dock built on my 70 foot-ish pond.
Laying on the dock looking down into the water became an exercise in futility, nothing to see.
I thought to get some Koi, my pocketbook thought otherwise.
I got twenty bucks worth of gold fish, 8 for a dollar.
We constructed a pen attached to the dock and released the 160 fish into it.
When I started to think about time to let them go, I began feeding them at a plastic floating circle and rang a cow bell at each feeding.
Two days ago we let our beauties go, most are six inches long and about 3/4 of an inch wide.
Guess what? When I ring the cowbell they come back to the feeding ring!

I didn't think I'd ever see them again except maybe at feeding time, but they really show up well, little schools of them snaking their way from here to there, little clusters of them lurking under leaves and in grasses around the pond.

I wish you all well little companions, thank you for being a colorful and fascinating part of my summer of 2009.

Tuesday Thankies:
Calves safely born
Autumn Mists
Working Furnace

PS: I've been asked how they will fare through the winter. The goldfish idea came from a friend who was a Washington state fish hatchery manager for many years. I asked him the same question. He said feed until the water temperature gets down to 42 degrees. At that temperature they 'go to ground' in the mud at the bottom and sort of hibernate I guess. He said don't be tempted to feed, just let them sleep and look forward to spring. So now you all know as much as I do.

2nd question, yes that 'gold' fish is greenish, there were also some greyish, blackish, and creamish. This morning when I rang the bell I think every nose was there, they'd been hiding under the dock. This evening only about 40 came to the bell, I could see other swirling and swishing groups further out, too busy running free to bother with free fish chips. Their food is like flamingo shrimp, formulated to make their color bright. We'll see how pale they are come spring ;)

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Hello my friends,

We seem to have hit a plateau in the effort to outrun my FIL's dementia. Each day we have a holding pattern and he still finds something to enjoy about life is a present.

As a life-long active man who could always find something to do, something to fix, sitting in his big brown easy chair with his swollen feet up drives him crazy. He recognizes he will no long drive his tractor, mow his lawn, or feed his cows, but his heart still yearns for some kind of movement. So the solution this summer has been the phone call that says "can we go for a ride?".

We've been a lot of places these long summer days, but by far his favorite thing now is to push the cart at Wal-Mart. If it's good for him it's good for me. Today his beautiful daughters came down from Seattle to take MIL to visit family graves, so FIL and I took the opportunity to really goof off. His choice, whatever he wanted. Three hours up and down the isles at the newly revamped Wal-Mart superstore. According to my pedometer that was 3.2 miles.

He bought a nice bunch of bananas. I bought a cushy chicken floor mat, a really lovely soapstone incense burner, and a little tripod for my new camera.

I know Wal-Mart really takes a hit from communities who've seen their local shops fold when WM moves in, from lower echelon employees who have little hope of getting insurance and making a family living wage, their ungreen practices, all the overwhelming stuff each store contains. But it will always hold a special spot in my heart where my FIL spent his 91st summer, driving the grocery cart train in out around and about as his mind slowly degenerated and his body weakened. Thank you Wal-Mart for being there for me.

Saturday Thankies:
Multiple Public Restrooms
Traveling Oxygen
Good Transportation