Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Hello Again



The kids gave me a little potted plant for my birthday one year and now it is a big ol' bush in the backyard.  I took a leap a drew it in black pigma pen (gulp! no erasing), but I'm happy with the result.  I started to paint the label in pink but I didn't like it so after a couple of letters I switched to purple, then as I was painting along I thought wow, maybe I'm being very clever because hydrangea blossoms will change color depending on how you amend the soil.

So I've been missing for most of the month.  I found out I have sleep apnea, and I wake up 44 times PER HOUR every night.  That's 44 episodes of non-breathing for ten seconds or more PER HOUR.  I must be brain damaged, it explains a lot!!  I finally had a medical explanation for my exhaustion (I guess 2 jobs, 3 kids and a husband wasn't enough), and I decided to rest a little, only do the essential (which is still a lot!).  I  have had my c-pap machine for 4 nights now.  It's not the miracle cure I had hoped for but I am told to give it time.  Normally I am aware of waking up 8 to 16 times per night, and now I am down to 4 times, so the  44 times per hour must be down as well.  I did feel pretty good today. 

As it is now 9:11pm here, I wish you all a wonderful night of sleep!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Springtime Morel


It's been kind of crazy here lately, lots of end of the school year activties (x3!).  Not to mention the construction of a chicken coop.  We have built (okay, by "we" I mean my husband of course) a nice run and perch addition onto our garden shed, and will continue with a winter proof coop in the fall.  Rosie continues to lay an egg almost every day. 

Emily received a second place trophy today for her entry into the school science project contest, which happened to be an egg drop ( don't worry I'm covering Rosie's ears).  Students were to use their knowledge of acceleration, friction, aerodynamics etc. to come up with a way for an egg to survive a 30 foot drop in the lightest possible "container".  Emily came up with a mylar balloon/ bubble wrap contraption.  I forgot to ask her how many store eggs she went through to arrive at her final design.  Her science teacher, Mr Freud (yes that is his real name, not sure what the implications are), went up on the roof of the tallest building on campus for the drop.   Another student's egg also survived and his delivery system weighed slightly less than Emily's so he won first (even though Emily's balloons said "A+, Number One Teacher":)!

Anyhoo, we found this morel what seems like ages ago now, and it was so beautiful I had to sketch it (before we ate it).   Hopefully you will see some chickens sketches here soon!