Sunday Evening

Folks, it's been a long week for us here at Calamity Acres. 

My brother's death and all that went with it... we are worn out, and I admit it. 

But things are getting back to normal. 

Life goes on. 

Yesterday, it was a sunny, bright winter day to lay my brother to rest.  I filled the duck pond

for the third day in a row... and they had such a good time cleaning themselves. 

Today was a different story, however, and the ducks got to wade around in what I poured from their pool.  I won't fill it for the next few days, we are going to be down in the twenties and thirties again, with teens at night.  In fact, I went out just now and poured out the plastic water fountains in the old henhouse so I won't have to bring them in in the morning to that them.

Yesterday, I took the lids off these cans and took them outside and washed with the hose all the nasty poop off the top.  It smells dreadfully, in case you are wondering.  It's starling poop.  And while I am not having hundreds of invaders this year, the score I have had has been enough.  Tonight, this is how the lids looked. 

Ugh. 

I went in the house and we had our dinner, and when I went out... the plastic waterers were nasty again.  

Double Ugh. 

I have emptied them for the night, because we are dipping below freezing. 

And while I was working, Speedy, the smallest rooster, got his tail whapped by one of the Elvi, and came running out the front door of the henhouse, which I had propped open.  I let him peck around for a while... he never did notice the flock that was on the other side of the yard... Ferdie's flock from the henspa, and after a while, I took the net and caught him and put him up on the closet, so he could get a drink and eat something and get back up into the rafters.  I'll be so glad when they can all go out in the sun for a few days, like earlier this week. 

I'll try to get back on a normal schedule of posting now.... 

And close today with a view of the beautiful church in which I grew up.... my family lived just a block away, and I went to school here, and church until I was 20...

That's Keith and my brother Pete standing down below.  I had fun going up to the choir loft, where I sang hundreds of times while in grade school.  Our children's choirs sang in parts, even at a young age... and were quite beautiful. 

We were the first ones there. 

The steps down from the choir loft... they show the footsteps of hundreds of people over the last century. 

The organ.  This is not the organ of my youth.  This organ had been dismantled at some point, and a large organ sat on the left side of the loft in this picture... and that was what we used when I was young.  I was given lessons on that organ, until the teacher contacted my mother one day and told her it was 

useless.  She was right, I was just not musically inclined as far as playing. 

This organ and it's pipes (you can just see the top of the organ) take up most of the loft now. There is a riser in back of it, and a kneeler along the inside.  I got a sense of vertigo looking down to take the picture of my brother and Keith.  I don't remember that happening when I was in grade school.  There is a storage office off to the right, you can see the door.  

Everyone have a wonderful Sunday night... I am going to tape the Downton Abbey finale, and watch the Olympics closing ceremony with Abbie, cuddle on the couch!