Sat. April 18th… Waiting on concrete… lumber… help… fun……

We have things to do, but nothing to do them with right now, so I suppose we need to find something to do to occupy our time. Perhaps we could go fishing!!! Maybe we should forgo that and go pick up materials we need. UMMMMMM…… lets see now… fun or work…fun or work??? Maybe we’ll just go to GNH and pick up the posts and stuff for the rear deck roof, make sure we have enough rafters and order the purlins from Ed Pooters, at Middle Field Lumber. Sometimes you have to put off fun for necessity.
Yesterday, I leveled the rest of the dirt in the yard and today I will finish it up. We also need to rake and pick stones so everything is nice and level……… ready for mowing. It won’t take as long this year because the alpacas are mowing the pasture beside the barn as we speak, so that eliminates a large section. Maybe this summer, we will see the need to wire off the other part of the yard for them to browse in too…… we’ll have to see if the grass can grow faster than they can eat it in the existing pasture. If so…… we need not do anything more. If they eat faster than it grows…… again no fun out of necessity!
We also finished the picnic table on the deck yesterday. We removed the old plywood table top and installed individual composite deck boards for a new top. Boy does it look sharp. Below is a picture with several of the barn and alpacas grazing.
I was hoping our friend would show up today to frame out the concrete pad for the hospice house. I’d kind of like to have the pad finished and ready for construction as soon as Middle Field Lumber delivers the pile of wood. Maybe he will come through……

Composite deck boards do a nice job...

About as far as we got with the Hospice Gift Shop. Our friend must have gotten lost!

This is where the cement pad will be. He dumped his form boards around the perimeter and left.

Remnants of the ditch.... smoothed out.

Needs to be raked yet.....

Raked and stones picked... real fun!

Like I told Helen, This is called kushing when they lay down like this. In this case, Luke thought the grass looked soooooooo delicious down this close to it.

Let's roll and scratch our backs!!

The classic kush

Ya'll come on back now ya hear!

Friday, April 17th… A Beautiful Day Emerges from the Darkness …

Was up this morning at 6:00 when the silver, gray landscape painter is still at work. It is just beginning to turn daylight at that time now and the full color, scenery painter takes over and paints over the grayscale of twilight’s last hold on the darkness of night. How nice it is to sit on the rear deck and sip a steaming cup of coffee as the day begins from near darkness to the raw brilliance of day. It begins with developing vision in that grayscale, with birds starting to sing… one…then two, until you hear a chores of singers chirping their song. Gray squirrels frolic and play, as they chase one another up and down trees, cork screwing the way around the trunk of the tree as they rapidly ascend and descend, first one three and then another. Occasionally, I’ll watch a deer either drinking from or bedded next to the Pupskill Lake Pond. Sometimes a group of them. There is always a bunch of wild ducks and geese flying to and fro, as they begin their day of paddling, feeding and mating…… always ready to start their new families. Later this month and next, I’ll be able to watch wild geese swim up to the yard and bring their babies to visit and spend the day picking bugs in the short, yard grass. They will all stay close, somewhere along the creek bed or just off the side, in the swamp section until their brood is grown enough to teach the to fly, and then off they will go, but we will have plenty of watching until that day.
Yes, it’s Vicki and my dream to live here and it’s G_d’s gift he has bestowed upon us to make it happen. We’re retired and able to enjoy our farm and watch the critters and wildlife all day long, together…… just as we have dreamed of for so many years of our working lives. Funny how we were from different worlds a few years ago…… and ended up together living our dreams as one.
Again, THANK YOU G_D!
(FYI…the spelling of G_d, speaking reverently, this is a method of writing the original, which insures that the original name is never destroyed or erased.)

Thurs April 16th… Another day gone… but got some stuff done!!

Went today and picked up twenty five Bantam chicks from Agway…… had lunch here primarily enjoying a huge hero made by the P&L Deli in Westerlo. They make the best hoagies around.
After lunch, we went to Middle Field Lumber and worked out the lumber list for the Hospice Gift Shop. Ed said, that within a week, he’d have the lumber order cut and delivered, unless he ran into a problem. Doesn’t really matter if the guy doing the concrete pad doesn’t get her and do something. We’ll have the lumber to start building and a hole in the ground without a concrete pad to build on.
The insurance inspector was here again today to look at the pool, which he did… and we don’t know any more now than we did before. He say’s the ice did it. I don’t even care anymore… we won’t get any help fixing it, so it’s either a patch or a new liner. I’d suspect the latter. Jeeze…… went swimming in it twice, I believe, before having to buy another liner……… Are we nuts?
Perhaps…… POSITIVELY!
Went fishing a little bit in the Pupskill this afternoon. Caught one little largemouth bass. Went across the road to neighbor Tony’s pond……… caught nothing… Went to the beaver pond beyond and walked out (and fell off of) a log and cast out one foot beyond the grassy edge… into what looked like two inches of water. Fully frustrated… (and keeping an eye on the attack pterodactyl in it’s nest, overhead) I walked the log back until I could step onto solid ground…wet foot and all…… and that, my friends, was all I got for my effort in the beaver lake... beyond. Now we’ll forget about wanting to fish there, which was something we threatened to do from day one, up here. Nevermore!!!
Guess we’ll go close everyone in for the night and come in and see if we can find something good for dinner.

Wed. April 15th… All’s well here on the Cluckin’ “A”… It’s thunder run time……

This morning we will make a thunder run to the CVS in Cario, to pick up Vick’s blood pressure medicine, which has been there for over two weeks. That… is how very busy we are! We go today, because she used her last pill yesterday, so it’s off we go in a cloud of dust……Hi Ho Silver….AWAY!
I don’t know what we will do when we return. I’ll let ya know this evening when the day is done. We could work here… run all over, looking for supplies for the Hospice Gift Shop too. We need windows and a door………… maybe we’ll hit Kingston’s outlet called Grossmans Lumber. From there we could travel up route 28 to Shokan to the Door Jam, where they have thousands of doors and windows. WHO KNOWS WHAT TODAY WILL HOLD?????

Tues. April 14th… A Perfect End to a Perfect Day… Almost…

We had a perfect day today with our sightseeing trip to Schenectady, where we dropped off two of Vicki’s latest artworks. One was of our insurance ladies’ dog, which she contracted Vicki to paint in Watercolor. The other is a wild, rooster compilation that came out of Vicki’s head one evening. The entire picture is rooster, rooster, rooster… in any and every direction in the painting and in any and every space available. It is one neat painting! I can’t wait for it to be matted and on the wall.
Anyway, we dropped the pictures off at Kim’s and she will have them completed in three days, when we will go back and pick them up.
We put the roofing section, which blew off the lower barn roof the other day, back on this afternoon. Once we had that completed, we then went to our neighbor’s, across the road, where I removed the blocks and bricks around the flower beds in front of his trailer. He asked if I could do this for him, so he could make a new border around them or maybe just remove it all together. That’s now up to him. The blocks and bricks are gone.
All this said, we had one bad time today. I looked through the incubator and pulled all the eggs that were three days past due hatching and got rid of them. Over 70% had chicks in them that had died in the egg, just like the one that was trying to hatch, which we wrote of before. Something is causing them to die in the egg! The turner is working… and the temperature is a constant 99.5 degrees with humidity. We removed the eggs from the turner on the 18th day and let them spend the last three days in the other incubator with added humidity at 101 degrees in the still air, which is vented. I guess we’ll just comb the internet to see if we can come up with any reasons to cause it…… but that was the only low point of the day!
Tomorrow, I’ll start to work on the sonna tube in the floor of the rear porch. I need to remove some decking and dig a four foot hole in the middle of the deck. In that hole, I will fit a sonna tube and pour it full of concrete to form a pillar for the center post of the new porch roof we are going to install over the rear deck section. Since it will be the heaviest load bearing post, We figured it should be placed on a solid footing to support the snow load, etc., so I will not skimp on this one… it’s gotta be a full four feet, making sure to go below the frost line on the worst winter imaginable.
Now I’m ready to finalize the lumber list for the hospice gift shop… but we still need to wait on Jeff to come…… that might take awhile…

Tuesday, April 14th… Bollero was accepted into the ranks… Doing fine……

We were pleased to find all three of the boys in the barn this morning, bedded in their own respective spots, all the way inside the barn. They were all calm and receptive to their feeding as all the animosity and dominance of yesterday had completely waned and each stood in their own feeding spot, without spitting at, or nudging one another and finished their morning grain & pellet munchies. After feeding, they went back out to the pasture, where Bollero appeared to be tethered to the older boys. He stuck to them like glue, everywhere they went and he "moo moo’s and murmurs" contentedly. All is well in alpaca land…. and we’re relieved of that!
Today, Vick wants to go to Albany to have a copy of her latest art works made, so she can finalize that stuff and start anew, with a large watercolor of the barn and surrounding fencing of the alpacas. It’s looking good already and she just started the preliminary pencil work last evening. I can’t wait to see the finished product on the wall, matted and framed!!

Rich is bringing the kids sometime this week, to see the alpacas, since everyone over there had been sick and they couldn’t come for Easter, nor, could we go there for Passover dinner. Everyone is doing better, but still we didn’t want to chance going over…… as we can see them later, when the bug is well gone from the house. With my having the two heart attacks some years ago, along with two separate bouts of pneumonia, we are probably being over cautious, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. We were really worried about Joe, Vicki’s Dad, who had it bad, along with Robin… our sister-in-law. Everyone over there have had the same thing and Joe and Robin are on medicine and are now on the mend. May God speed their recovery so we can all be together again soon, to make up for the lost time.

Mon. April 13th… Got em‘… Lost em‘… Got em’ back again… A Real Drama…………

This morning we started off by dropping off a bunch of eggs in Coxsackie, at Halsted’s Outdoor Supplies on route 9W. From there, we went to Isabelle’s farm, picked her up and was on our way to Monticello to pick up a little fuzz ball, by the name of Bollero and bring him back to our herd. All went well, since we were using our GPS unit in the truck, which directed us perfectly, to Robin’s little farm on rout 42. After admiring her herd and talking with her for a little while, we started for home with Bollero in the back of the truck, calmly riding and enjoying the sights along the way. The funny story for the day was relayed to us by Robin shortly after we arrived, which went as follows. A friend of Robin’s called her and mentioned that she was on an internet blog…… stating that these folks were on their way… after picking up an Isabelle along the way. They then asked… are you getting company today? Yes! That’s right…… they were reading my morning blog which indeed stated that we were going to pick Isabelle up and head to Robin’s farm in Monticello. COOL Eh? People are now reading our blog from all over the world… and some are so close, they are actually, personally involved with our adventures within hours of the post time!!!!!!! This is starting to happen a lot. Many friends and acquaintances are reading our blog… not just once, but many have become faithful, daily readers, interested in what we do and say each day. Believe me…… it is somewhat humbling at times. We truly love it. Below are a few pictures of Bollero with Luke and Iggy which we can comfortably post now, but there is a funny story, (now that it's over) about today, which I must recount. It was frightening at the time, but we can laugh now. (and thanks to you Isabelle, for remaining the cool, calm help that you were)
We stopped here at the farm to unload Bollero, while Isabelle was with us, just in case there was a problem of any kind with fighting or dominance over a new arrival. When we turned Bollero loose in the pasture, he made it very obvious that he wanted to be with the boys. They however, had to perform the dominance routine that we knew would take place. All went well, so after a half hour of watching them and Isabelle intervening occasionally, we decided it was safe to take Isabelle home, so we jumped into the car and was off. When we returned about 45 minutes later, we looked for the boys, but didn’t see them in the pasture, so when we parked, we naturally started over to the barn and when I slid the barn door open I was shocked at what I saw. No alpacas in the barn… the rear door was slid open about three feet (which is where we left it) and the stable gate, inside the barn, slung wide open, with the latch hook torn off. NO ALPACAS IN THE BARN OR PASTURE!!!! They had pulled a remake of the “Escape From Alcatraz” and were gone!!!!! Iggy, Luke and our less than an hour old arrival, Little Bollero!!!!!
We immediately FLIPPED…… as I ran out one door and Vick the other looking in vain in every direction. I figured they had to cross the road or go into the fields behind the house, because the Pupskill Lake and the creek border the yard in that direction, which would deter their movement in that direction, so I started toward the fields. When I was almost to the fence line, I looked toward the house and noticed all three grazing on the really green grass in that side yard. I immediately yelled to Vicki that they were there. Vicki was talking to Isabelle who was calmly reassuring her that they probably wouldn’t go far. (and she was right) I was wondering how I would get three individual animals that can run like the wind when needed, to follow me and enter the barn or pasture…… which was like imagining an impossibility. As soon as they saw me, the started running directly at me, (which made me think I was going to be flattened by them) passing by me and heading directly to the barn, around the end and went right into the door they had exited the barn through. Until I got there to close it…… they came back out and looked at me as if to say, “That isn’t where we wanted to go”, and headed toward the Pupskill Lake peninsula, where they stopped and congregated, looking back. I opened the pasture gate, stepped back and they all, in unison, entered the pasture and allowed me to close the gate. They then calmly walked to their manure pile and leisurely, one by one, took a big poop on the pile. . . Vicki and I didn't need to... we already had... when we found that they had escaped!!!!!


Vicki's Desert Rose in blossom.

Her Easter Cactus wasn't fooling around on Easter... Look at all those blossoms!

The ducks entering the water when first released every morning.

This is Bollero, our little boy.

Here is a resident at the Pupskill B&B

The GANG!

Aren't they all just TOO CUTE???

Who says a chickens life isn't good?

Bollero is a little puff ball. His fleece is deep, fine and nicely crimped....

Phillip better leave that big Brahma rooster alone. They fight every morning as soon a we let them free.

Like I said... what's wrong with a chickens life???