Achy, Breaky, Older Body!

 Achy, Breaky, Older Body!

 

Lay down earlier today and just fell asleep as if that had not happened lately at all. And let me just tell you right here, what does not ache just sort of throbs. Climbed. Don’t remember how often or exactly why, but my legs are telling me about it. Walked around Sutherland’s a bit this morning and just felt the pull in the back of each leg. Oh! Sure! Someone is going to tell me that it is SO good for me to get that kind of exercise. Ok, it keeps the folks in business who sell that stuff you put in the bath water for such aches. If it were any other day of the week, this soreness might be good for Local Boys Liquor sales. Don’t really think it would help, but Granddad Pollard was a firm believer in apricot brandy on a really bad, cold morning. This has not been such a cold day, but dang! It is coming! The dreaded negative 17 degrees with wind!

 

Bought ONE sheet of galvanized iron {$49.99} for the last piece to go on the new roof for the chicken coop. Stephen and boys should be here in a bit to put it on and fill up the cracks with some other stuff. Hope one of those caulking guns is still out there in the workshop. Can’t remember. Oh well. This flex paste came in different forms, but just could not imagine putting it on with a paint brush! Bleah and yuck! That stuff would get all over a body!

 

Threw a pork butt (shoulder) in the oven this morning and will have it the rest of the week in all likelihood. Had a cup of beef noodles early this morning after returning from Sutherlands. They don’t open until nine on Sundays. How about that. Got to sit there in the truck and gather wool. Sometimes just sitting still is good for a body.

 

Cleaned out one part of the lower kitchen cabinet. Robin Christian has kept an old woman in seedless raspberry jam and some of the best pepper jam ever. It’s a toss up as to which is best, but the raspberry still has to be my favorite. The pepper is so good with biscuits, sausage, and gravy! Would let my son come make some of his biscuits, but he would probably claim he could not find things in my kitchen. Hmm. Come to think of it, he probably has not been in my kitchen enough in the past 20 something years to know where to find the silverware, but less the baking powder, salt, butter, flour . . . Sigh. Guess we will just have to suffer in silence or make our own biscuits around here. Been a long time since that has happened. Wonder if they would be decent if some were made before someone totally forgets how.

 

Have to figure out where Pinnacle has its office here in WF by sometime tomorrow. They have already taken out this month’s payment, but you can almost bet they won’t return it or any part of it. Think Spectrum may be ok as a change. At least the cost is considerably less.

 

Think one of the hens is going broody. She wants to just sit on that nest and hatch something. No rooster on this hill, so no fertile eggs for her to hatch. And to tell the truth, with the winter about to get full blown disgustingly cold, this would be a pretty bad time of the year to hatch out anything.

 

Stephen and Ben just left. Ben got the last sheet screwed down to the top of the coop. We did not put in any flex paste because he wanted the spray kind. Don’t think he said spray, but whatever. Will go back in the morning and exchange the stuff. Stuff like that is NOT cheap--$14.99 a tube!! Hope the spray kind is not that much more expensive. Did not even SEE spray kind. But not knowing to look might make a difference, hmm.

 

Stephen said they could put up the weather station when they come back to get his ladder. It should be interesting to see how fast the wind is blowing through this next spell of weather. He said his entire body feels cold all the way through. Sitting here wondering if we feel colder as we get older or if it is a matter of having thin blood. We certainly have all the practice we need to gripe about it more at this stage of life!

 

Will be glad when it is time to close up the coop for the night. They have two bowls (one heated) of clean water and plenty of feed, so they don’t have to get outside until the old woman feels like getting out there. You watch! Probably wake up before dawn’s earliest light!

 

Have decided that everyone in the world should have a friend like Michelle Malay. She bought me some gloves a few years ago. Love these things. They are wooly on the inside and tough on the outside. They are easy to use because they flex so well, too. Driving with a cold head isn’t necessary either. My sister-in-law made two of the cutest hats for me some years ago. The white one fits the best, but the other one has good colors—green, yellow, and white. Anne was always so good with sewing and crochet. She made a couple of dresses for me when Lance was just two years old. They were the old-fashioned kind with long skirts and long sleeves. When one of the older women here in the neighborhood was going to go to the Old Settlers’ Reunion, she asked to borrow one. Gave her both of them as this old gal was not ever going to be that size again in this lifetime. Hard to believe sometimes that we were ever young and able to do just about anything!

 

The coop doors are shut and the hens talking about the dingbat who keeps moving their little ladders up to the roosts. If this old woman were any good, she would make a nice ladder with the right size foot-steps/rungs for these hens. Maybe later. Have some dowel rod, but it is too thick for their claws. Oh well. This is not the biggest thing on the agenda, and if it were, we would all be in some kind of fantasy life! Chicken ladders!

 

Have about decided to start putting six eggs (beaten) in a Ziplock bag with labeling for date and amount and just freezing these extra eggs. Not sure how long they last that way, but it beats not having any eggs or trying to find someone who needs them. My children can let me know when they plan on coming, and they will get fresh eggs in cartons that way.

 

Really don’t know much except that it worries me to see this country in deep freeze weather from one coast to the other. Think South Dakota is socked in so bad that nothing is moving at all. Someone posted a picture of a few of the big rigs (trucks) up to their sleepers and then some in deep snow. Let us ask God to bless them and those trying to keep the power lines up and working. When all the trees start breaking down on the lines, it makes me wish our electricity came over the air like our internet or TV and cell phone signals. Or even a satellite signal! Folks without power are almost helpless no matter if they live out in the boondocks or in the inner city of Houston. Not many of us can have a wood burning stove either. It might be simple if we were all young and sturdy enough to haul our wood pellets or split wood inside, but that is not very realistic either. Oh well. The old woman needs to stop worrying about things that we can ask God to take care of in HIS way!

 

Let your animals stay inside with you this week, and remember that these little furry family members need your reassurance as much as small children. The sound of the wind makes them nervous, too. A small furry toy helps mine, but they still want to touch me often. Praise God for these loving creatures. And pray for the ranchers and farmers who are caring for all their livestock no matter what the weather is like.

 

Rest well, my friends. You are loved.