Insurance, chickens, garden, health screening

I got a note from the insurance company yesterday morning that the insurance for Victoria’s house is now reinstated. I will feel better when I see the policy and know the bank is fully satisfied, but for the moment we can take a break from making unnecessary cosmetic changes to the house. Victoria and Mama are going to the house this morning – Victoria is off today – and check the mail for the first time. For some reason, that really excites Victoria.

Neither Mama not I felt up to doing much yesterday afternoon when I got off. I have had several nights with very poor sleep so my energy level is pretty low and I am still nursing a bruised tendon in my right elbow so I did not want to get into anything that would overuse that arm. It was also still pretty wet from rains we got over the weekend. But I felt like we needed to be doing something. We elected to clean out the chicken coop.

That did not take us very long but my being there to help in the chore relieved Mama of having to take it on all by herself. It amazes me how much mess we are willing to go through to get fresh eggs. We are up to averaging 10-11 eggs per day. On some days we will get fourteen. That allows Mama to sell the eggs which pays for the feed. I suppose any break-even operation on a farm is a good deal – especially when we get all the eggs we want as a bonus. (And chicken meat when we cull the flock a couple times per year.)

I walked around the garden after mama and I got done with the cleanup. I am very pleasantly surprised by the sprouting seeds. Most of what we put out two weeks ago is breaking through the ground and getting a good start. Some of what I planted only last Friday is breaking through. We still have a large open area to plant if things dry out this weekend but what we have in the ground is liking the soil we have it in.

The little blueberry bushes I planted are doing well. I think we will actually get fruit from the larger of the two. The grape vine I put out a couple weeks ago is putting out shoots and stretching toward the back fence – as I intended – but the raspberry plant I put in the ground at the same time is not doing very well. All in all, we are seeing things grow much better here than we did in Bowie but we have not been through a summer at this farm yet.

We had our biometric screening today at work. I completed mine early in the morning and was not surprised by the numbers. I am slightly improved over last year in every area but my blood pressure – which has been slightly elevated lately. This morning it was more than slightly elevated. It was pretty high. I had told Mama just the other day I may need to get some help with it for a time. I am confident that our change in diet and the expected weight loss will help in a big way.

But I still may get some short term help.