Vacation, doctor visits, the little shed

I took the day off yesterday so I could help on the construction of the little shed we are calling the chicken coop. Today there will be no progress because Grandpa has medical appointments in Wichita Falls. The entire visit is supposed to take about six hours because there will be a stress test, a CT scan and the requisite paperwork – pre and post test.

Grandma and Grandpa started their day yesterday in Bowie at a doctor’s appointment for Grandma. There was not news either good or bad from the visit. Grandma only talked about the examining room next to hers where an aged friend of hers was being quizzed about her aches and pains. The lady is a favorite visit of Grandmas in the nursing home there is Bowie. She just celebrated her 91^st birthday. She described her pain to the doctor as being so bad on some days that even her hair hurt.

Mama and I also started the day in Bowie cleaning out the chicken coop and getting the cage she uses for her little ones when she buys chicks. We had left a mess in the coop since Grandpa and Grandma had been tending the flock for us but we managed to get all the old residue out and leave the place looking pretty good – for a chicken coop with a dirt floor. It will give Danny a good start and we will need that cage in about six weeks when Mama get her spring batch of chicks.

Once home we worked with Grandpa and did manage to get the roof on the building before we quit yesterday. I got most of the bolts and screws in the prepared places on the roof and gable end at the rear of the shed which stiffened it considerably. The front was an entirely different matter. Mama and Grandpa did not tell me that they had come up about eight inches short on the tin panels for the walls. They had rearranged a couple panels to make up the difference – which left us short by the exact amount where the door should fit. Well, guess how much we came up short on the roof – about eight inches.

Mama and I went and bought three translucent panels last night at Lowe’s so we could make the roof retrofits required to seal the building for use. It looks like I will have to work out in the rain tomorrow to get the shed ready for her chickens. It could have been worse, but not by much. All told, the little shed looks okay and it will be fit for use this weekend. That will be just in time since the temperatures are supposed to dip back below 30®F by Sunday night. In anticipation of cooler temperatures, the wind picked up yesterday afternoon and the temperatures dropped through the day. But it was pleasant enough.

A little after dark Mama and I went to Krum to pick up a glass door to replace the door we currently have in use in the sunroom. I am not totally sure it will fit but it is so close that we made the decision to buy it and see if I could make it work. If it will work it will be a definite improvement over the door we currently have in place.

There are some tentative plans I place for the next two days but we will wait see what the weekend brings to us.