Chicken clocks, traveling today, weekend plans

Every evening when Mama and I go out to feed, the chickens are watching for her. It is her custom to feed them scraps and crumbled bread. They absolutely love bread. Over the past few evenings, we have waited a little late to go out because of the heat, but somehow the chickens know when feeding time is coming. On those nights when Mama and I have delayed going out, they will gather at the door of the sun room and talk to us. I am always curious. How do they know what time it is? On those evenings when we got out at a normal time, they are watching for us and quickly gather around Mama or me. They never miss watching for us at the appointed time. Because the goats cannot see the back door of the house from where they stay, they watch the chickens to gauge when we are coming out to feed. If the chickens suddenly run toward the house – indicating that Mama is on her way out – the younger goats begin to call out to us. When the goats begin to bleat, the calf hurries to her feed trough. It is interesting that they have no way of gauging the time, but they can certainly gauge the time of day. I am always fascinated by that. Morning feeding times are a given, but how they tell when it is time for us to come out in the evening is a mystery.

Maggie, Aaron, Cathryn, Walter, and the cats will be traveling this morning, heading East on their way North. They are caravaning. Maggie driving one vehicle and Aaron driving the other.  I am not sure how excited the kids are about the trip, but Maggie assured Mama that the cats are definitely not excited about being displaced. This will be Day 1 for them. I have been to Upper Michigan several times on training assignments. From the highway I saw some beautiful landscapes but have not spent time exploring the state. Michigan is an interesting place to visit. I hope it is a fun place to live. They will be just on this side of the US border, and there are some fun places to see just across the border. At least they will get to enjoy the last of Summer before Fall sets upon them – and them Winter. I have a feeling that the Winters there will be more severe than they were in Juneau. That can be exciting as well as exhausting. I expect that the locals have all the toys required to enjoy the winter as well as the tools required to keep up with the mess.

Cori, Nate, Mykenzie, Grant, Blake and Savanna will be heading to the airport sometime today. Tex had to stay and guard the house in Honduras. All I know about their itinerary today is that they will be arriving in Chicago about 10 pm. Mama will probably still be up waiting to hear from them. I probably will not. Brittany and Andrew will move to base housing this weekend. It will be interesting to see how the girls react to the new living quarters. For the most part, if they are fed regularly and their toy are available and they have the beds they are familiar with, there is little concern on their part. However, that is not always the case. They will be closing on their house next weekend. Busy times for our children and grandchildren.

I will be teaching classes three days next week. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Tuesday and Friday will be spent getting all the records for those classes recorded in our system. It will be a busy week for me, but it should go by quickly. The following week, I have only one class on the docket, (an in-person class) but that is subject to change very quickly. My management knows that I have my pre-op work to get done Friday of next week and arrangements have been made to accommodate that.

I do not have a long list of projects for this weekend. I will have a list, but I am not sure if I will be able to get much done from the list. We will see. One thing I need to do is get some trash hauled off so I can rearrange the placement of the electric fence at the back of the yard. No urgency on that front. I am going to try to focus on tractor work for most of tomorrow so that I do not have to do much physical labor. That should increase my productive time outside. Again, we will see. I started work on a French drain to relieve the flooding of our back patio when we have heavy rains. I have not gotten very far on that. This weekend would be a good weekend to try to complete that project since a large part of that can be done by the tractor. If not, it can wait until I either feel better or have sufficient help to get it done.

I am looking forward to getting the heart cath done in the hope that it will at least identify if not improve my current health situation. A vain hope? Time will tell.