Angel Wheeler

Headless Chickens Need Not Apply

Today the phrase “running around like a chicken with its head cut off” is an understatement of the millennium.

And one that I hope I never, ever witness.

I cannot bear to see this beauty without a head.

I’ll cry.

Or this one.

Have I mentioned I’m getting chickens delivered March 14th? Oh, I have? Only 3 gazillion times you say. Sorry. It’s just that I’m busting at the seams.

The next two weeks of my life are a whirlwind of busy-ness. I have been dreading these last 2 weeks of January. Some days I find myself wanting to step into a time machine and travel to February 1st, but then I’d feel compelled to push forward to March 14th, for reasons obvious. Surely.

During the next 10 days, I am going to be out of my classroom for 5 of them. Three of those days I will be learning all about Title I schools. My school is heading down the Title I path, which means that 50% or more of our student population qualifies for free or reduced lunches. We are the final campus to move this direction, all other schools in my town are already Title I, which tells you a little bit about the demographics of my little town of 17,000 people.

The other 2 days I will be out testing my second graders one by one. Three times a year, we get substitutes to teach our class while we sit individually with each student and assess their reading, writing, and spelling abilities. It is arduous on both them and me. So planning for a substitute and then catching up, to only plan for a substitute again makes me feel like a headless chicken.

Adding to these work responsibilities is this little thing called life. Cleaning house, cooking meals, being a wife, keeping up with my postaday blogging challenge, keeping up with my exercise plan and buddy I’ve already fallen behind with, remodeling a trailer house and packing and moving. I’m beat already. Finished before I started. Stick a fork in me. I’m done.

I’m sure many others can certainly relate to the busy-ness of our existence.

Today the calendar date glares at me reminding me I am two days late for the Beth Moore Scripture Memory Team. Every month, on the 1st and the 15th, we choose a verse from the Bible to memorize. Jesus used scripture when tempted by Satan. It is the sword by which we do battle.

I awoke this morning thinking of my upcoming duties, feeling the heaviness of responsibility weighing on my shoulders and my prayer was simply, “Thank you and help!”

I need refreshing. I searched for a memory verse that would tell me to come to the Lord for refreshing, to call on the Lord and he’ll give me energy to endure, to rest in the Lord, which I found and He will, but the verse that spoke to me did not tell my to lay down and rest. It did not say massages and pedicures are in full order.

Dang it.

It did not tell me to take 3 hour naps. Not even 2 hour ones.

It told me to be an active participant rather than a passive recipient of the refreshing I desperately need.

Proverbs 11:25 screamed itself at me this morning.

“A generous man will prosper, he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”

Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but rather what I NEEDED to hear. How many times do I selfishly think to myself or worse, complain to others:

I have so much to do.

I can’t get it all done.

I’m so behind.

When rather I need to stop thinking about myself and say,

Look around.

Who needs your help today?

What can you do for someone else?

Who in your little world needs refreshing?

And then refreshing shall come.

May you find your needs met today.

Love,

Amazing Grace

My eleven year old niece takes art lessons.

This is her most recent painting.

She loves art, drawing, creating, and having fun.

Let me tell you a little bit about her.

She was born under less than perfect circumstances and survived a very traumatic beginning in this cruel world. Her middle name is Grace and she was quickly coined Amazing Grace by my dad.

She recently brought home a paper she had written in her 6th grade writing class called The Time of My Life. She made an A, I might add.

I’ll just let her tell you about herself.

Here’s her story:

When I was born I cried like a squealing pig. My mom had me at 5:30 in the morning. My biological mom was very happy when I was in ther world, my grandma was rushing to the hospital to see me.

If you’re wondering what my belief is I’ll tell you. I believe in God and going to church and listening about God. Worshiping God is quite fun.

She goes on to talk about being in a play, who her best friends and best friends for life are, some vacations she’s been on and then she tells her story.

When I was 4 1/2, I was mauled by two rotweillers. My dad was asleep and my step mom was busy, so when I yelled for my dad, he did not hear me. I was in the back yard holding their puppy singing my ABC’s, then all of a sudden the mom and the dad came and attacked me. By that time I was yelling so loud that my neighbors could hear me, but my dad still did not hear me. Finally my step mom went outside to take the trash out, she heard a little cry, then she saw me. She ran inside and woke my dad up and told him what happened. My dad went outside to see. He YELLED go start the car. My dad ran inside and got a towel and wrapped me up and picked me up and ran to the car. He drove really fast to the hospital. When I got there they put me on an ambulance and drove me to the Amarillo hospital. The ambulance driver rushed me into the ER and got me into surgery immediately. After they turned me over to do the back, there was a huge gaping hold in the back. The doctors went outside and told my grandma and my dad that it will be 3 or 4 hours till they finished sewing all the hole back together. So my grandma waited and waited and waited and finally the doctors came out and said we’re done with the surgery and now we have to roll her back into intensive care. Later on in the day I awoke with a lot of people waiting for me to wake up so they could give me gifts and love. That day I felt a lot better. Soon afterward I got to go home after 6 or 7 days in the hospital.

Today I am recovered and acting like a normal eleven year old.

The jury is still out on the “normal” part.

Here’s an audio of her from a few years back You must listen.

Listen Here

Or try this: http://angelwheeler.blogspot.com/2010/01/listen.html

She’s the greatest. I love her dearly. She’s amazing Grace. God’s hands are on her life. It is evident. She is here for a reason. She is destined for something great.

Just wait and watch.

Five Reasons Not to Have a Blogging Buddy

Five days ago an idea for bloggers to pair up with a blogging buddy went out over the world wide web via wordpress, the site that hosts this blog. This is an effort to motivate, uplift, and encourage bloggers to keep up with the commitment they have made to blog in 2011. Much like an exercise buddy who will hold you accountable, unless you are both weak-willed and convince each other ice-cream and beer sounds better than jumping jacks and bicep curls. Within minutes of this post, bloggers from around the world were holding hands and skipping in circles. I stood on the edge of this online playground, watching the happy bloggers, scared to get in the game for fear of rejection or dashed hopes.

I am approaching this like everything else I approach in life, with fearful trepidation. This idea of a blogging buddy both intriques me, yet scares me. I did a little pondering and came up with a few reasons why I’m still sitting on the swings while everyone else is playing kick-ball.

Five reasons I’m scared of having a blogging buddy:

1. I’m afraid they won’t be committed. They might say at first they are going to post a blog daily, but are they still going to be as enthusiastic come May 17th?

2. I’m afraid I’ll end up with a moron. You know, someone who can’t use there, their, and they’re appropriately. I might have to let loose my inner teacher on them.

3. I’m afraid I’ll get a buddy who thinks Jesus is a fake. Then I’ll have to worry about their soul in addition to their blogging.

4. I’m afraid my buddy will be a completely superficial fashion blogger who will tempt me to buy new clothes of which I’ve decided I am buying no new clothes in 2011. I am simplifying my wardrobe, not adding to it.

5. I’m afraid I’ll have nothing in common with my buddyand won’t be able to intelligently respond to his posts about nuclear war heads and/or guitar riffs.

Again today I searched through the 800 plus comments of people wanting blogging buddies. I clicked on a couple of blogs that I found interesting, but alas they disappointed. Perhaps I’m taking this a little too seriously. Afterall, this is a blogging buddy, it’s not eHarmony. I don’t have to marry this person, just read their blogs for Pete’s sake. But I’ve been on bad dates before, and my past experiences are reminding me how painful this blogging buddy experience might turn out to be. There is still 11 and a half months left in the year. Eleven and a half months to blog daily and encourage someone else to as well.

But I faced my fears today and went ahead and walked out onto the playground. I’m five days late but I put myself out there to see if I could still get in the game.

This is my post.

Hello, I’ve been perusing on this site some, trying to find my “perfect” match. I’ve been blogging daily, even when it’s hard, even when I don’t want to, even when I’m super busy, and I want someone who appreciates and possesses the same commitment. My blog is http://www.chroniclesofarocketsurgeon.com and it is about my life as a fumbling earthling. I tell stories mostly, try to make people laugh once in a blue moon, and blog about simplifying my life. I would like a blogging buddy, but to be perfectly honest, I’m scared of getting paired up with a moron or someone who lacks commitment, or someone who we later find out we have nothing in common. So please, if you want to choose me, don’t break my heart 🙂

Appealing, isn’t it? This might help to understand why I didn’t marry until age 29.

I’ll keep you posted.

My Tree Harbor

There is a mimosa tree and an evergreen tree growing in the yard at our new place. They are both young sprouts right now, but I hope they grow big and strong and formidable. I love the mimosa tree, never tried the drink, but I adore the fuzzy, pink flowers that bloom and the rattle of the seeds in their pods that fall from the tree. I love the way they close their leaves at a touch. A mimosa tree makes one of the best climbing trees. Of course this is just my opinion, but I am as close to an expert on climbing trees as you’re likely to find. The limbs of a mimosa branch off the trunk low and you can practically step up into it.

My grandmother had a mimosa tree on a perfect square patch of green lawn in her front yard. I spent much of my childhood in that tree. Each branch was, in my mind, a pretend room in an imaginary house. I flitted around from branch to branch passing the hours.

There was another climbing tree at the back of my grannie’s house. A tall evergreen. Probably 30 feet. This tree was by far the absolute best climbing tree around and also my dear friend. Sap on my hands and bare feet were as common as dirt under a little boy’s fingernails. The branches of this evergreen hung nearly to the ground. It was necessary to duck underneath the heavy green limbs, but once underneath it was like a secret place. A shady, quiet, dark circle of dirt. The limbs of the tree grew straight off the trunk nearly parallel to one another practically forming a ladder. A tree climber’s dream! Once up in the arms of the tree—off to the right about 20 feet up, one branch curved and crossed over another branch forming a little settee, a cradle if you will. The perfect size for a little girl’s body to recline in. It was possible to squeeze another person up there too, out towards the edges, and I shared this branch, my branch as I like to think of it, occasionally with my sister, cousin, or friend. Here nestled up in the branches of the tree I could spy on things down below, but I much preferred to gaze upward. I would recline back and peer upward through a little window of branches imagining the angels sitting on their fluffy white clouds, watch the birds flit in the sky, and dream my dreams

This tree was my oasis from divorcing parents, my retreat from a big sister, my reprieve from boredom.

The mimosa died, and someone cut it down. Then one day I came to visit my grannie to find my beloved evergreen hacked. She had hired someone to trim the trees and they had sawed off my trees ladder-like branches at least 10 feet up. Tears poured down my cheeks as I gazed up and realized I couldn’t reach my sanctuary. I wrapped my arms around the tree hugging it, pressed my cheek against the trunk, and using the sawed off nubs as foot and hand-holds, I shimmied up, much like a bear would. But the bark scratched my skin and hung on my clothes. It was so much effort and getting down was no longer as simple as climbing down a ladder.

I don’t remember ever having an ill-thought towards my grandmother before that day. But at that time I was furious because she had hurt me. Not intentionally of course. She apologized when she realized how much it meant to me. She said she didn’t know they were going to cut it like they did. To her it was a tree, to me it was my harbor, my haven, my hide-away. I told my secrets to those branches, swayed in the breeze in its limbs, imagined I was an angel floating on my own fluffy cloud right up to Jesus. I eventually accepted that I had no more trees to climb.

My mother now lives in my grannie’s house and the tree is still standing. The other day I grabbed my niece Ashlynn and said, “Help me climb this tree.” I discovered I’m too heavy to hoist myself up, and she is too little to boost me. It was so effortless 25 years ago. But I was winded in 2 minutes and never made it off the ground. She decided to shimmy up and perched on the lowest branch, but I looked up at her, paranoid she was going to fall and break her neck and demanded she get down.

It’s probably for the best that I couldn’t climb it. I’d probably be disappointed once I got to my sitting spot. Adult experiences are always so vastly different from our childhood memories.

But writing this makes me want to get a ladder and get up there anyway.

Find my sitting spot and recline

And put the fire department on speed dial just in case I need them to help me down.

Four Things

I have few things I want to share with you today.

First Thing:

We’re studying the water cycle in science up at the elementary school. You remember your second grade science class don’t you? Or has it been many moons? For a quick review, here’s a song about the water cycle sung to the tune of If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands.

Ready?

A one, a two, A one, two, three, four…..

Water travels in a circle, yes it does (clap, clap)

It goes up as evaporation, forms a cloud as condensation, fall to the ground as precipitation, yes it does! (clap, clap)

I was reading the Bible this morning, I am still in the book of Job. At this point a young man named Elihu is ripping into Job, tearing him a new one, putting him into his place. He’s telling him about how awesome God is, and then he says these words:

Take a long, hard look. See how great he is—-inifinite, greater than anything you could ever imagine or figure out! He pulls water up out of the sea, distills it, and fills up his rain-cloud cisterns. Then the skies open up and pour out soaking showers on everyone. Does anyone have the slightest idea how this happens?

I read that and was bamboozled. It’s the water cycle, right there…..evaporation, condensation, precipitation. I don’t know why I was so surprised to find this in the Bible. I mean, God is the creator of everything after all. What took scientists until the 16th century to learn and label with big, scientific sounding words, Elihu knew 2000-1800 years B.C. Awesome, isn’t it?

Second Thing:

I’ve never been a magazine subscriber until recently. I spent a good $50 on magazine subscriptions when we bought our Little Trailer House on the Prairie.

These magazines will teach you how to garden, can food, cook chickens, milk cows, build solar panels, bake bread, make hammocks, and asundry other very informational things. Someday I fear us younger generations are going to wish we knew how not to depend on commercialism.

Some great magazines to read if you’re wanting to learn how to live off the land and become more self-sufficient are the following:

GRIT

Mother Earth News

Hobby Farms

Mary Jane’s Farm

Today I received this new GRIT magazine in the mail from my grandmother-in-law.

We call her M.O. It’s all about turkeys.

She also sent this book home with Jason recently.

It teaches how to make home-made beer. Among other important things.

But the item that I received in the mail yesterday that made my heart go pitter-pat, was new sticky return address labels.

With my name and address of course.

But these aren’t just any old kind of return address labels.

They have pictures on them.

And not of flags either.

But farm animals.

A chicken, a cow, and a rooster.

And look at this. Doesn’t she make you want to just snuggle up with her?

I’ve never wanted a pig. Never ever.

Until now.

I can’t resist him any longer.

Help me, help me, help me.

Third Thing:

I’ve been unsubscribing to a lot of my emails lately. I click unsubscribe and a box pops up that says something like, “Thank you. You won’t be receiving any more emails from us” But then suddenly, an alert of a new email message pops up from the exact same company who just lied to me telling me I won’t be receiving any more emails from them that says, “We’re sad to see you go, would you please fill out a short survey letting us know what’s wrong.” Or “Oops, did you mean to unsubscibe from us? If it’s a mistake, please click here.” That’s a little bit annoying to me. Just needed to vent.

Fourth Thing:

I read a little snippet today that the earth’s rotation is moving in such a way that our zodiacal (if that’s even a word) signs are changing. So guess what? You may no longer be a Leo or a Sagittarius. I was a Pisces, but now I’m an Aquarius.

Don’t let it shatter your world. I think it was just a bunch of drunk on home-made beer farmers that decided it.

The Stranger

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mum taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger… he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.

If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn’t seem to mind.

Sometimes, Mum would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet.

(I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honour them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home – not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our long time visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn’t permit the liberal use of alcohol but the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing..

I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked… And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents’ den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?….

We just call him ‘TV.’

This was an email I received recently.

It really made me think.

My momma says it is all Rhett Butler’s fault, for when he said, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a d*&n”, that was the beginning of cussing on the TV, and the world’s gone to pot ever since.

My challenge is still out there for you to turn off the TV for one day, not a day when you’re gone from home shopping or at a ball game, but a weeknight or even a Saturday at home, when it’s a real sacrifice.

“We didn’t have electricity and that meant we didn’t have T.V. We had darn poor radio too. So that meant we did the strangest things at night … we talked to each other!” WADDIE MITCHELL, Cowboy Poet

Just Me and the Man in my head

“My momma always had a way of explaining things so I could understand. ”

Those are Forrest Gump’s words, but that’s what I can say about my momma too. I remember being sick and laying in her king size bed with the crushed red velvet headboard. She would stroke my forehead and explain to me how there was a war in my body. There were soldiers dressed in red and soldiers dressed in white. They were fighting each other. Whether she had her facts straight, or whether I’ve forgotten I’m not sure. She would tell me that the white soldiers were my white blood cells, they were the good guys. The red soldiers were the sickness and they were the bad guys. She would tell me to picture the white soldiers winning the war. And I would. In my mind it was hand to hand combat, no cannon balls or airplane bombs. I would close my eyes and I would watch the white soldiers thrust their swords in the red soldiers hearts, watch them collapse to the snow-covered ground, draw the swords out, and move on to kill another one. She would gently croon that the white soldiers are out numbering the red ones. They white soldiers are winning. And I would watch it all happen in my mind.

Now when I’m sick, I still see that battle scene.

A different time during my childhood she explained to me that my brain is like a computer and that it is recording every event in my life, every word ever spoken, everything I’ve ever seen, everything I’ve ever done, and then filing it all away in my memory. It’s all in there, my whole life, but there’s just so much that I can’t remember it all. It’s stored away.

Of course, like most children, I too was a literal child. So when I heard this, I imagined a little man. I can still see him today. He lives in my brain. It’s dark in there and he works by a dim light. He sits at a little wooden desk with a feather pen and paper and he furiously writes and scribbles down every word, every event, every experience in my existence. Behind him are filing cabinets. They line the walls and the dark corners of my brain. Some cabinet drawers have absent mindedly been left open, with pages protruding out of their files. He’s so busy scribbling away on his little stool, however, that he is behind on his filing. On each side of him stand towers and mountains of papers that need to be filed. He really needs an assistant. He’s overworked. Especially the way my mind jumps from one thing to another. Talk about job-related stress, he’s got it for sure.

Sometimes when I try to recall a memory, I shut my eyes and see him working away. I feel sorry for him. He’s so busy. He’ll walk to the file cabinet and open a drawer. Sometimes he can’t find the word or event I’m searching for in the dark corners. Might I add that this has been happening with much more frequency lately. His piece of scribbled paper has been filed in the wrong place or maybe it’s buried in the stacks of papers on his desk. Then I get mad at him for not helping me remember. But it doesn’t do any good. He’s working as fast as he can.

Our minds are such powerful things. I heard once that the brain is so complex that it cannot figure itself out.

Think on that one awhile.

What happens to us in our adulthood that makes us stop using our imaginations? When does life become so real?

Sometimes I long to revisit the imagination of my childhood.

When was the last time you visited yours?

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!
Author: Dr. Seuss

Were it not for imagination, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
Author: Samuel Johnson

A Post of Questions

I have a special friend who comments on my blog almost daily. Her name is Lara and the other day I thanked her for commenting. She mentioned if she had a blog she would want comments. And I want comments too!!

I love, love, love, love, love it when you respond to my jibberish. If you’re still reading my daily nonsense, I’d want to hear from you and get to know you a little better. So today, I’ve thrown out some questions for you. You can choose to answer one or all of them in the comment section, respond to someone else’s comments NICELY, or just say hi! Let’s make it fun.

Ready?

************

We live in a household without TV. Granted we still have a TV and a satellite dish, but we have turned it off. I had a serious addiction to reality TV that you can read about here, and had to say enough is enough. Enough! And then my husband said it too.

What’s your favorite TV show? Would you accept my challenge to go one day with no TV in your home? Do you think it would work. Report back to me!

************

Today at school we observed a National Moment of Silence at 10:00 for those involved in the Arizona shooting. Of course the majority of my second graders didn’t understand what we were doing. I got several “what in the world is going on” looks and a couple of blurted out What Happened’s?

Is it awful of me to say that I don’t even know really? I knew there was a shooting only because I read a headline about a congresswoman who had been shot on Yahoo while checking my mail. But I didn’t stop to read it. One of my co-workers referred to the shooting as a terrorist attack by an American on other Americans.

I just don’t understand our hate sometimes. What are your thoughts?

************

Because I can’t keep quiet about my chickens and must, I mean MUST, tell everyone I encounter, I have discovered that all people over the age of 55 have a chicken story, and they love to tell them. As soon as they hear that I’m getting chickens, they immediately go to their “C” file cabinet in their mind and pull out their chicken stories. This weekend I’ve heard stories of going to the depot to pick up chicks by mail order. I’ve heard tales of boys lighting firecrackers, letting the chickens pluck them in their beaks and then blowing their beaks off. I’ve heard of a woman who was afraid of chickens and called her husband at work to tell him with alarm that the rooster was in the henhouse and she didn’t know what to do. She was on a party line. I’m too young to know what that is, but evidently more than two people could talk on a phone line at a time. A man (not her husband) on the party line piped into her conversation with this advice, “Leave him alone, stupid.” And I’ve heard all sorts of pecking stories.

Do you have a chicken story?

***************

Today I was a bit insulted when someone informed me that I am a “city girl” playing “country girl.” HMPH!!!

At least they had the gall to say it to my face.

What makes a “country girl” a “country girl”? Should I have been insulted by this comment? How would you have responded?

*****************

My definition of defeating the purpose: Exercising for 20 minutes and then eating two packages of rolos. My husband bought me a case of rolos for Christmas. I’m proud to say there are still some left. Maybe one.

What’s your favorite candy?

*****************

Hey Grandpa, What’s for supper? Do you remember that on Hee Haw?

Nothing here. You know why? Because I don’t remember to lay out any meat to thaw. Never. I live in the moment. It is so hard for me to think about inconsequential things like supper at 7:30 in the morning. And I don’t like thawing meat in a microwave, it gets all dark brown around the edges. It’s unappealing.

How do you plan your suppers?

*****************

Okay, it’s your turn now.

Signed Curious in Cow Country

Here chicky, chicky, chicky

It’s cold today. The sky is dressed in a blanket of gray clouds. The trees have long been stripped of their flashy wardrobe. They look bleak against the gray of the sky. But there is a sense of beauty in a bare tree. A glimmer of hope for the coming spring. The smell of snow hangs thick in the air. The birds are low today. They are perched in the trees and sitting on the lawns. An old weather lore claims, “when birds fly low, expect rain and a blow.”

Speaking of birds, I want a chicken farm.

I said a chicken farm, not a chicken ranch guys.

After scouring the internet, perusing magazines, and reading old books for information on everything I need to know about chickens, I still have no idea what I am doing. But I’m learning.

So far I’ve learned I’m scared of chickens.

And the snakes their eggs might attract.

And racoons, coyotes, hawks, and owls.

Our new place already has a hand-made, southern-engineered, make-shift chicken coop and some nesting boxes, but it needs some work. My plan is to fix it up, but not buy anything new. I’m going to use all old materials that I can scrounge up.

I have a few pictures of what I have to work with.

This is the front of the coop, which I’m going to leave alone. I like these rugged, half-painted side board planks.

Here are 10 nesting boxes for the little layers. Throw in some straw and make it cozy for them.

This prickly pear needs to be dug up.

The back and the side is made of this old tin, also the roof is tin.

I’m going to leave that alone as well. There is chicken wire surrounding the coop and there is a little chicken run for the flock to get out to get some sunshine. I’m going to secure the wire and make sure predators can’t sneak in, I also plan on covering the top with chicken wire to keep the hawks and owls out. On the days I’m home, I’m going to allow them to free range out on the acreage.

I’m going to add some perches on the inside of the coop and I’m going to add on one side of the coop a little window with a ladder so they can climb in and get in their nesting boxes.

Kind of like this coop. But not at all, really. Isn’t this the most elaborate chicken house you’ve ever seen? It’s nicer than the trailer I’m soon to be living in.

Last night I ordered my chickens. I am giddy with excitement. They are expected to arrive on March 14. I scheduled them to arrive spring break, since I have to be their little chicky mama. They will only be 1 day old when they arrive. They will need a brooding box for several weeks while they grow. I had to get a minimum of 15, which is entirely too many for my little family of 2, but I am preparing myself for some fatalities. Death is a part of living. I made sure that I ordered cold hardy birds, with a docile temperment, who are decent egg layers. All female. I’m not quite ready for a rooster yet.

I got 5 Barred Plymouth Rocks,

5 Buff Orpingtons, they are the color of man’s golden pocketwatch.
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And 5 Black Australorps.

Of course like everything else in my life, this will be a learning experience.

Boy, oh, boy, am I excited. March 14th can’t get here fast enough!!

Job 19:25

I’m reading the Bible chronologically. I’m following a reading plan found here www.bibleplan.org/ch/niv Did you know that Job lived before Abraham?

This morning I sat down with my cup of coffee and my Bible to listen to Job whine a bit. As if he didn’t have much to whine about it. His entire family was killed, he lost everything, and then he was stricken with sores and illness. And while he was down, his so-called friends came and kicked him.

But during all of his suffering, he remains committed to God. And as he suffered through this time and longed for death, he claims in chapter 19, verse 25, “I know my redeemer lives.”

This song blessed me to tears today. May it bless you too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p4G2GbPYQA

I know my redeemer lives.

Continue reading “Job 19:25”