Busy summer days

I’ve been blogging for nearly 4 years now, and I’ve been reading blogs for the same length of time.  I was always a little annoyed when my favorite bloggers got too busy to post regularly during summer.  What were they doing?  Did they really think there were more important things to do than keep one’s blog updated?

This year I finally understand.  Over the past several weeks,

• We built a chicken house. Actually my uncle did most of it for us.  It’s a very nice one, I’m told.  My dad calls it our chicken palace.  We still need to cut out the 2nd window and add the trim.  This house just might be more finished than our own.  Not that I’m inclined to swap with the chickens, of course.
• We acquired 25 chickens of varying ages. We raised some from the age of 1 week, and others came to us a bit older.   We haven’t had any casualties since the 2nd night.  We suspect 3 of being young roosters, but that’s ok.  We’ll have choices when it comes time to cull.
• I built a ginormous auto-feeder for the chickens. In theory, it holds somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 lbs. of feed, though I have no intention of filling it that much.  I just hope I won’t be auto-feeding all the rats and mice for miles around.
• We joined Swagbucks and became utterly obsessed. Thanks to our own searches and our friends who signed up, we have done very well.  We have $5 Amazon gift certificates galore.
• We built a frame to hold a sunshade over our deck. Yay for shade!  Our house is cooler and more comfortable, even on 100 degree days.  Even though we’re not running our a/c.  The very fact that we’re still alive and breathing is proof that it works.  I think photos are even better proof, and will be happy to provide some.
• We stained our deck. That was a lot more work than it sounds like.  We scrubbed.  We doused it with chemicals and scrubbed.  We invited friends out to eat a meal and help us scrub.  We even scrubbed the underside.  We replaced the bad boards, and scrubbed.  Then we stained the deck.
• We rebuilt the stair rail leading up to the deck. The old rail was weak and inadequate, especially at the bottom where I backed in it with the van.  Oops.  Did I say that out loud?  I mean, somebody backed into it.  Anyway, now you could drive a small car up the rails.  Not a 15 passenger van, but a small car.  Not that I plan on trying, or expect it to happen accidentally.
• My uncle is using my brother’s Bobcat to rebuild & beautify our rough & rugged country driveway. Ya gotta love family.  He works for the cost of the diesel to run the machine, and my brother insists that his Bobcat is better off being used and maintained while he’s otherwise occupied.
• We made great progress at clearing a targeted portion of our land. If you’ve never tried to make your way through the scrubby cedar in the Texas Hill Country, then you can’t begin to appreciate the work involved.  Trust me, it’s good.
• We have nearly reached the point of closing on our short sale! This is some of the best news we’ve had in many years!  Our 7 year stupid tax just might be coming to an end!  We are scheduled to close on Tuesday!  Did you notice that every sentence in this item ends with an exclamation point?!
• We received and completed a very large order of framed Geneva Bible pages to be shipped directly to 14 separately recipients as gifts. At least one of the names is somebody nearly everyone in the country would recognize.  I don’t want to say who right now, because he might be keeping an eye on where his name shows up on the internet and it would spoil the surprise from his benefactor.  We think the whole order is very exciting, and hope that all of the recipients are delighted enough to order more as gifts for people in their lives.

I’m sure there are far more items to go on this list, but – guess what?  I don’t have time to blog any more right now.  Important stuff to do!

Related posts:

1. Busy day…
2. 31 Days of Procrastination {4 days late}
3. Summer school
4. Summer Giveaway
5. Can’t blog. Busy.