Night raider, teaching, Mama’s business, the weekend

Tuesday night when I went out to close up the chickens, I came across a night raider. A young opossum. I did not have my pistol with me, so I had to dispatch the poor thing with the only tool I had available; a hoe. It was not a pretty sight. The only reason I was able to succeed was the fact that opossum are not quick on their feet. When I got hold of its tail it was not able to comeback around and bite me. It was a sad affair, but necessary. I cannot allow chicken killers anywhere near the coop. When I can catch them in the act, I am required to act. Mama is now raising four sets of chickens. One group is five months old. One is for months old. One is only two months old. The last group – three chicks hatched out on our farm – is only two weeks old. I will process the Cornish chicks (the two-month-old group) by the end of the month. That will leave Mama with thirty or so new chickens coming into the coop as laying hens. At some point we will cull some of the older chickens, but we have not set that date yet. When we do it will cull ten or so chickens from the thirty-five we have on the other side of the coop. Only a dozen or so of which are laying faithfully.

I have spent the last two days in class. I did not teach on Wednesday. One of the other instructors took that day. I sat in the back of the class and shared when I was called upon to do so. My voice would have been totally gone by the end of the day had I taken the class. There were thirty-three in the class. A large class in a large room. That required a lot of voice projection to reach those in the back of the room. I did not have it in me right now. Plus, that gave me a chance to rebuild the apps on the new phone Victoria got me. It took me the majority of the day for get all the necessary apps loaded and grouped properly. Time well spent. Thursday, I taught a much smaller class of five – in a much smaller room. Even still, I wore my voice out by the end of the seven hours of teaching. Both were really good classes. The class taught on Thursday may be my last presentation of that particular class since we offer it only once per quarter. Time will tell.

Mama and Kimberlyn were still crafting when I got home yesterday. They used the shop a lot more yesterday than they have ion the past. Kim Cantrell knows how to use most of the tools in the shop. The only one they cannot use without my help is the planer. It is both heavy and awkward to get out of the place I have it stored. I use it only outside the shop because it makes a mess with the shavings it blows out as it planes a board. It is also very loud. I have to wear hearing protection every time I use it. I generally have all the planed materials ready for them in advance. But Kimberlyn is able to use all the other saws, sanders and drill presses I have set up and available. Yesterday they cut a lot of pieces and built several items that will be painted at a future date.

On Tuesday evening, I set up a couple mini paint booths – made from boxes – in the shop so Mama could urethane some of the signs and placard’s they have already built. She was able to spray some items that are being repurposed and get a feel for how to coat and cover their crafts without getting too much overspray in the shop. They reused all those little booths yesterday as they cranked out more crafts. I do not know if they have determined to go to Trade Days this weekend or not. I honestly do not know how much product they have to sell at this point, but they really want to make a go of it. They are anxious to test the waters. Time will tell how that will work out for them. They certainly are producing some clever, marketable items. At least, I am impressed.

I have purposely made no plans for the weekend. There are a lot of little items I still need to catch up on. There are some projects I have accumulated sufficient materials to begin, but not complete. There is an ongoing list of honey-dos. But I am still dragging around a bit. I will try not to bite off more than I can chew. That in and of itself is difficult for me to gauge. But the fact that we got some rain this morning will allow me to set a few posts and to pull posts in another area. I have avoided both of those two tasks because the ground has been dry and hardpacked. Unrelenting to a shovel. Unyielding to my efforts to pull posts.

We will be close to a frost tomorrow morning. The first of the season. We were at 90° yesterday afternoon. At 40° this morning. You gotta love that kind of weather shift.