June 29, 2026 – on our way:
We drove down the coasts of Oregon and California with lots of ocean views. Lots of ocean views require a lot of stops to take pictures.
Day two started out of Florence, Oregon, and I don’t know why I don’t have any photos from there. We went down and over the North Bend bridge
Through Port Orford
And down to Brookings
Where we stopped at the Harbor for lunch
And then into the Redwoods, headed for Eureka, CA, where we’ll spend the second night.
More to follow.
I was just playing a game of solitaire on my iPad, and I thought to myself “wouldn’t it be nice if thoughts were visible?” Then I realized that would be horrid, because then I’d be able to see nothing around me except the thoughts that have escaped my mind 30 seconds after they appeared, before I had a chance to act on them. Or – maybe then I could read them and do what I had thought of. Most likely I wouldn’t be able to move, the air would be so thick with thoughts.
In my email every day come a few different quizzes. One is from Team Brainy – actually, two come from them each day – and my current life goal is to answer all 20 questions correctly. The questions are of random topics – and often some of my correct answers were just very good guesses.
Ok, so Team Brainy is a goal, but only one. The other is to find the “perfect” – whatever. Right now it’s bras. This paragraph may be TMI for some, in which case I’d suggest you skip on by. My skin has decided in its old age, to not only thin out so it takes little to create a scratch that bleeds, but also to dislike anything that fits snugly – and it makes its dislike known by becoming very itchy – mind-altering itchy. Which means now I wear long pants with snug waistlines less often, and loose dresses most often. But there is that undergarment females almost always wear for reasons of modesty as well as comfort, and that is the infernal bra. I cannot tell you how much money I have invested in my search for the “perfect” bra. My latest acquisition is waiting for me to try it on, give it “the” test. Sigh.
Our weather has gone manic, and from what I read, I suspect it’s not limited to where I live. Two days ago, our high was 86, then came a major thunder/lightening/wind storm and yesterday and today our high has been 66, with a chilly wind. The temperature isn’t bad, but the wind makes sitting out and communing with nature not pleasant.
Another thought about visible thoughts – it could become quite awkward when I’m thinking how stupid someone who is speaking within my hearing is being in their viewpoint that our current government is worthwhile. I could end up with many enemies. Or with bodily harm, even. Picture walking down the aisle of a grocery store and seeing everyone’s thoughts floating around.
The photo above is one of those “I wish I were. . .” things. I hope to create more photos like that this summer to look back on in future. Kat and I are going on a road trip, heading south to beaches and swimming pools.
Wishing you enough – today, tomorrow, and forever.
I’ve had thoughts for a post wandering around my mind for a few days, but I haven’t done a thing about it. I’ve spent a lot of time outside, doing nothing much but moving pots of plants around – to the front yard for a few days, then back to the patio, shuffle here to there and back again. I think that’s my outlet because I really can’t move things around much in my indoor space.
The girls are growing. Based on assuming they were a week old when we got them, they’re now 10 weeks old – except Gertrude, because we know she was two weeks old when we got her. She’s no longer the largest bird though – she’ll be sleeker than the rest of them when they’re full grown. It’s the nature of the breed. Here are photos of the girls I took yesterday evening when I spent time in their run with them.
Deborah got up close and personal, as she always does. She’s always first to do anything, except go to bed in the evening, when she is invariably last.
Left to right: Wynonna with Gertrude, Ashley with Wynonna, Deborah with Ruth. Whoops, where’d Penelope go?
There she is! When I join the girls now, I cover my legs and arms because their toenails scratch, and their beaks pinch. They’re fun to sit and watch, and they run back and forth across the run area, flapping their wings madly.
Here’s Ruth, showing off her newly fluffy chin.
I’m very much in summer mode. Meals are pretty much whatever can be easily found – I make a large pasta or rice salad occasionally which I’ll have for lunches, but dinner is a loaded green salad, and maybe apples and cheese for a late snack. Or potato chips. Or whatever my heart thinks it wants. I’ve been mixing strawberry lemonade to dilute my Chardonnay, and it makes a really nice summer drink.
Our country makes me unhappy. When you put a bunch of bumbling idiots in office, you should never expect good results. It’s all about in-fighting and screw the country and the people, my party matters most. Let’s not buck the guy “in charge”, because he’s mean and small and not very smart, but he is very invective and retaliatory. The universe needs to step in and save us from ourselves.
I’ve been spending my evenings out in the backyard, when it’s very quiet and peaceful. It’s my favorite time of the year. I usually sit until the girls go to bed or are nearly ready to go to bed, so I can lock them up securely (raccoon preventative) before I head inside. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1347798874114503/? explains why that’s necessary.
I hope your world is filled with enough and you have your places of peace, quiet, and contentment. Unless you prefer it loud and exciting.
We have from left to right, starting at the top: Deborah, Wynonna, Ashley, Ruth, Penelope, and Gertrude.
A small part of the view outside the coop and run:
The pink poppy is a volunteer that chooses different parts of the yard to pop up in every year. I’m encouraging her, along with the California poppies, to proliferate in the planter boxes in the backyard. Here’s a closer look at her:
We’ve been working with the girls to teach them to go into their coop in the evening at sunset. For the first two nights, Kat blocked the doorway partway up, scooped up each girl, and put them inside, then closed the main door with the smaller chicken door blocked, removing that blockage later when they were all asleep. The third night, I went out to check and all the girls but Deborah were inside, so I put her inside and put up the door block, thinking she was needing reminding. Last night, I sat on the patio and watched them run in and out of the coop as the sun was setting, until 5 of them were in and I could hear them scratching around, getting settled. Of course, it was Deborah who was still outside, but I continued watching and it wasn’t long before she went inside and stayed there. No more door blocking required! Yay!
It’s going to be another lovely day, part of which I’ll spend outside with the feathered girls, some of which I’ll spend outside with the Nong, some of which I’ll spend outside just enjoying being outside. The pleasures of being an old lady who is retired.
Well, four of them at least. From front to back, Deborah (on my feet), Ashley, Wynonna, and Ruth.
Clockwise, starting at 6:00: Deborah, Penelope, Gertrude, Wynonna, and Ruth. Missing from this one is Ashley.
Deborah is the Barred Plymouth Rock, and she is always up front.
We moved them outside on Saturday -originally the plan was to bring them back in Saturday evening, but they were so happy with their larger space, we finished our security efforts so they could stay out. Security is necessary because we have raccoon visitors most night, and raccoons will kill and eat chickens.
Their new space is 80 sf of interior space, where we have a large perching roost – as yet untested by the girls – and an outdoor, hopefully secure enough, run of about 75 sf.
Kat and I built the coop using materials we had on hand – panels for dog pens, lattice panels, miscellaneous 12” square grids. We did buy 2x4s for the perching roost.
Deborah on my legs.
Deborah on her way up my legs.
Wynonna in the sun, fluffy butt facing me.
Penelope standing next to me, showing her lovely chest colors.
Ruth. She is the Americana or Easter Egger – gotta check to see if they’re the same breed. She will be showing up more in the next post, because she is so photogenic. But then, they all are, and of course we don’t pick favorites.
Penelope on my leg.
Penelope coming up higher.
Wynonna again.
Nong Saow (Little Sister in Thai. She was born in Thailand, as I’ve probably told you before). She’s letting me know how she feels about me paying attention to the chickens.
Wynonna again, right behind Gertrude. Her colors in the sun.
I think that’s enough for today. I have more photos – of course I do – but we’ll save them for tomorrow, or no one will be able to load this post.
I might need to start posting more often, so I become more familiar with WordPress and its controls again. I’ve been struggling with this one today, which I think has been common for my past few posts. Maybe I’ll go back to grumbling about the state of the world, or maybe I’ll find more things to take photos of, now that things are growing and blooming.
Wishing you a day full of enough.
I always thought puppies and kittens grow up far too quickly, but when compared to chickens, they are very slow. Our girls are rapidly leaving their chick stage, growing up into teenagers, and starting to show their true colors.
This one is Deborah, the Barred Plymouth Rock. Deborah is the bravest and friendliest of them all, always front and center, always ready to climb into a hand and out of her pen – which we don’t encourage because we do have cats, and our Vlad cat spends a lot of time sitting on the chair by the pen, watching them. It’s like he thinks that’s his cat TV.
You can see that although she’s getting her big girl feathers on her body, she still has her chick fluff on her head. This is true for all of them.
This one is Ashley, a Silver-Laced Wyandotte. She is always right behind Deborah, wanting to know what’s going on.
Then we have Penelope, a Speckled Sussex. She has white on her neck and breast, which you can see, and when she lifts her wings she has more white. Her body feathers have the speckles of rusty brown, and some charcoal gray/black. Her head feathers are not nearly as fluffy as Deborah’s.
Say hello to Wynonna, the Gold-Laced Wyandotte. You can see she has a rose comb instead of the single comb. This is common to the Wyandotte breed.
Here is Ruth, who is either an Americana (which is what the label in the farm store said) or an Ameraucana, which is what I think she is. She has a pea comb. I am learning so much about chickens!
And last, but certainly not least, is Gertrude, who is a White Leghorn. I worry that Gertrude might turn out to be Gerald, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that she is not. She has the single comb. She is a week older than the others, although we think Penelope might be older than the others too, perhaps not by a full week though.
We’re getting their chicken house/coop and run ready for them to move into in about 3 weeks. We have almost all the accessories they need – the bedding, a feed bin, a dust bath, a tarp with tie downs for over part of their run. The water jug will be here in a few days, and we’ll get the sand for the dust bath when we get the 2 x 4s to build the roosting bars/perches for them. Pictures of the completed coop/run to follow.
I gotta say, chickens are a lot more fun than what’s going on in the world.
Wishing you enough.
It’s a quiet, cloudy morning, with a chance of rain in the forecast. This week is cooler than the past week or so, so inside seems a good place to be – in my comfy chair, with a cat on one side of me and a cup of coffee on the other, the fireplace providing some warmth, and the sounds of our chicks coming from the next room. Those girls are growing so quickly. Just a few days ago, they looked like this:
That’s Deborah, the Black-Barred Plymouth Rock, in front. Deborah is always in front, and always the first to jump to the top edge of the pan when the pen door is opened. In the rear, left to right, is Ashley, the Silver-Laced Wyandotte, Gertrude, the White Leghorn, Wynonna, the Gold-Laced Wyandotte, Ruth, the Americana, and partially out of the picture is Penelope, the Gold-Speckled Sussex.
This morning, the girls are bigger, growing real feathers, developing little tails and tiny combs.
Once again Deborah is front and center. Behind her, left to right again, are Wynonna, Gertrude, Penelope, Ashley and Ruth.
They’re rapidly outgrowing their pen, so one of our projects for the coming weekend will be creating a larger living area for them. They have about four more weeks before they can go to their permanent outside chicken house and run area. We’d like to allow them to free range, but there are just too many risks for escape and worse in our back yard, so we’ll give them as much run space as possible.
In other “news” Kat and I will be driving to Vancouver, WA on Saturday to go to a psychic show, then find a place by the water for dinner before we drive back home. The new chicken pen will be our Sunday project.
I watched the PBS news last night. Just when I think that man in the highest office of the country can go no lower, he manages to do just that. Apparently he views himself as the God-like Almighty ruler, king of all. I view him quite a lot differently – rather like a mad narcissist, not fit to hold the office he currently has, surrounded by syncophants, also not fit to hold the offices they currently hold. Will the world wake up, or will be crash and burn?
What was it I was just thinking I should look up? The story of my life, the escape route for thoughts has been enlarged and off they go. Perhaps one day I’ll remember to write things down immediately.
Now I think I shall go clean myself up a bit and put some clothes other than my robe on, prepared to face the day in a very laid-back, lazy manner. I have enough and hope that all of you do too.
There I was, comfortably sleeping in my bed in the early hours of the morning, when suddenly I felt a gentle tap tap on my face. Opening my eyes, I realized that our little Nong was staring at me, obviously in dire need of attention. This cat
the one who usually resists being petted, was obviously suffering from neglect, and insisted she required attention at that very moment. When did she decide petting was a good thing? At 6:30 a.m. I’m retired. I’m old. I can sleep in and my sleeping in has no effect on anyone else – except obviously, this cat.
I fulfilled her needs, and she allowed me to doze off again. For a few minutes, after which she returned, once again having a great need for being petted. Say what? Who are you? And why? Don’t you need to go outside and check your world to make sure there are no other cats encroaching on your territory?
Satiated again, she allowed me to doze off once more. And then – something different. A large, heavy, furry something approached and gently, ever so gently, laid its body across my neck. Wait, wait, my breathing apparatus is affected when weight is placed on my neck. Eyes open once again, I confirmed that my new visitor was yet another cat. This cat:
This 20 pound boy came in for his attention time. My question of “can we do this later?” was ignored, and he settled in more comfortably. For him, not for me.
I gave up. I got up. I got my coffee and sat in my chair. The black boy, Vlad, joined me for awhile, again displaying his need for attention. The Nong went off on her own mission, no longer needing me.
Was it a plot? Were these two cats, who are not friends with one another, conniving and working as a team for a change? I think an early nap may be in my future.
Anybody want a cat or two?
Because it seems any words that want to come from my mind to my fingers to the page are grumping, fretting, sadness, fear – all of those things the current state of affairs bring out of me, and I think no one really wants to read those kinds of words. I really hadn’t realized how long it had been since I last posted until a fellow blogger contacted me by private message to see if I was okay.
Yes, I’m fine, or as fine the state of affairs can allow. I haven’t been arting for a few weeks now – my muse is on holiday, apparently. She’ll be back though – she does this quite often. And – spring is awakening, the plants in my patio pots are coming to life, and so I’ve been absorbed with their arrangement and the best way to care for them. Watering always seems to be a problem, and Kat and I will be gone for two to three weeks in July, so to ease the pressure on the other K, who will stay home and be in charge of cats and house, I’ve decided I’m going to put all the pots of plants on one side of the patio and install a drip watering system. That should simplify life for all of us.
My other current obsession is this: It’s chick season, folks. Our local feed store has many kinds of them, and every single one is cute and funny and cuddly. Well, they’re not really into cuddling, but perhaps could be given some time and practice. We had chickens when we moved here, but nature, wild critters, and time took their toll and we have been without for a year or so now. So, seeing the feed store ad to buy 2, get 1 free, prompted me to suggest perhaps, maybe, we should consider it. It didn’t take a lot of convincing to get Kat and K to agree with me, so one week ago today we ventured off to check things out. We came home with four little girls (at least we hope they’re all girls):
Gertrude, a leghorn:
She’s the oldest at two weeks when we brought her home.
Then Penelope, who is a Speckled Sussex:
We think she might be the second oldest, between Gertrude and Ruth, who is an Americana:
Then there’s Deborah, a Barred Plymouth Rock. Deborah was the first to actually stand and look at me after a couple of days of going in to talk to the girls frequently. I think we’re bonding.
We set the girls up in our little miscellaneous use room in what was the rat cage when we had the rats, with a heat lamp, food, and water. I kept reading about various varieties of chickens, decided I wanted one more – a Black Australorp. So on Monday, I returned to the feed store, but then realized they also had a couple of varieties of Wyandottes, who are supposed to be friendly, hardy chickens. So no, Australorps (which I had read are very hard to sex), but instead of that one, I came home with Wynonna, a Gold-Speckled Wyandotte:
And Ashley, a Silver-Laced Wyandotte:
So our flock is a bit larger than we originally planned, and we’re hoping the cage will prove large enough to house them until they can go outside at 8 weeks old, which will be May 10. We have added a brooder plate to the cage, but are also still using the heat lamp. I expect to move the heat lamp away next weekend, and leave just the brooder plate, which should be sufficient for the 80 degree heat they’ll need then.
In the meantime, I’m working on cleaning out the metal shed in our backyard to turn it into their chicken house, and Kat is creating a chicken run using a dog pen and other parts we have laying around. We want their run to be fully enclosed to offer protection from our overnight critter visits by the possums and raccoons.
Hopefully these babies are all girls, because our town does not allow roosters. Their noise is so much more disruptive than cars racing their engines and the drivers playing their music far too loudly, you know.
My hope is that in November, we will still be able to vote. In the meantime I wish for each of you enough.
Why can’t I correct the typos I’ve made in a couple of the above paragraphs? WordPress, what have you changed? Oh, apparently we have a time limit now? What?
I just watched the news – yeah, taking my mental health into uncharted territories, I know. The take-away from that activity is this: It has been 396 days. Can I deal with another 1064 days (+- a day or so)? The anger, the name-calling, the “if you’re not with me, you’re against me” attitude, the narcissistic personality. . . I have no patience.
And then there’s Congress, refusing to take responsibility and do its job. I’m sure there are some elected officials that are trying to do their jobs, that are trying to earn their pay – but not nearly enough. The government being shut down, or at least partially so? Really not a big deal, so far as I can see, except the Congress is still getting paid, while the little guys that are government employees and therefore at the mercy of its’ whims, are not. Fair? No, but then is anything fair right now?
Today there was a headline about measles which took me back to my childhood, all those many years ago – the years before vaccines, when measles and chickenpox and smallpox and whooping cough and dipththeria and polio were uncontrolled and a constant threat to the health of families. I remember getting measles multiple times, always during spring vacation. I was lucky in that they left no lasting problems for me. It would seem to me that the years of science that have developed the vaccines and the proof that they do help much more than any possible harm they might cause – any harm which is questionable at best – should be respected. Increased cases of autism? Or maybe just better methods to allow diagnosis more readily than in the past? And better communications so that we hear more about the diagnoses?
Fact-checking – I try, I do try, but with all the misinformation out there, how do we tell what is “real” fact, and what is “alternative” fact? How do we know who to really trust? I trust very few and very little anymore, but as in the past, I know what my feelings are, what my life tells me, and I have to make choices, just as we all do. It comes to this – believe what you choose to believe, but give me the same right, and do it with grace and kindness. Don’t call me names because we disagree, don’t worship those that do, recognize that in the end, all we have in this world is each other, and that fact needs to be respected and honored.
The Ks have been off on holiday to Germany this past week, so the cats have been forced to make do with me – that person who doesn’t get up as early as they really would prefer to be fed. I’ve awakened some mornings to two of the boys sitting on the bed staring at me. Pretty strong hint, I would say. They have not missed a meal, although the timing has perhaps been less than stellar for them. I have cleaned their litter boxes, and offered lap time as much as possible. As with most of my life, I’ve done my best.
I’m looking forward to the Olympics ending – I am a fan of figure skating, and my life this past two weeks has been wrapped around the event schedules so it will be nice to get back to a more regular schedule. I was sad when Ilya failed, happy when Alysa won gold – thrilled with her joy and appearance of calmness. I admire the dedication and work that these athletes subscribe to, day in and day out, for such a large part of their lives, but I don’t really understand that drive. And once you’ve become a celebrated athlete, where do you go from there? For those whose success continues, there must be so many that end up back in regular real life. It’s good we are not all like me.
I hope that, despite everything, your lives are filled with enough.
Wanderings of an Elusive Mind 