It's Starting To Feel Festive

Hello, friends.  In case you didn't see the update on the past post, McNibs made it home Monday evening, thanks to a lovely woman 3.5 miles from here.   After eight days, he was very thin and seemed disoriented.  I've been feeding him rice, home canned pumpkin, meat with broth, and sweet potato.  A neighbor friend brought by some liver for him, which she gets in her cow share, but doesn't eat.  So, he's getting small amounts of that as well, to help build him back up.  He shook intermittently the first couple of days, and peed in his bed, which is unusual for him, so I took a urine sample to the vet, to make sure he didn't have anything going on.  Thankfully, it came back clear.  He started seeming like himself, after a couple of days.  Now it's a matter of fattening him back up.  I'd always felt fairly safe, knowing he was microchipped, but I've got something on the way, which adds our contact info to his collar.  I sure hope we never need it, but one more layer of protection.  I'm walking him on a leash so far.  I laid it down while hanging laundry, but picked it back up, when he strayed a bit farther than I was comfortable with.

Last week, I used discount codes for online purchases.  At the grocery store, I got dogfood at $6 off, asparagus for $1.99, and brussels sprouts $2.99, and earned $8 in rewards for my purchase.  I enjoyed catching up on two seasons of a series I liked, with DVD's from the library.  Two loads of laundry were dried on the line.  While picking up groceries, J noticed Food Lion had marked their Christmas trees down from $59.99 to $19.99, and picked one up.  We noticed only a day or two later, some of the stores had marked them down further to $9.99, but we're still happy to have not paid $60 or more for a tree.  When he got the tree home, he cut a slice off the bottom, and placed the trunk in our pond, to keep it hydrated, which kept it in good shape, until putting it up on Sunday.  We celebrated Christmas with our granddaughter, taking her out for dinner over the weekend, which we all enjoyed.  

pillow I made years ago

I'm not sure why the sad dramas with our animals recently, but we had another one with the hen and chicks.  Shortly after McNibs went missing, our hen began hatching out her chicks.  Of the fifteen eggs, six attempted to hatch.  Two never made it fully out of the shell, but there were four healthy looking chicks.  Within the next three days, all were dead.  We're not exactly sure what happened with the first two, but I did see mama hen fling one of the chicks, while scratching in the straw.  The chick seemed OK at the time, but if she did it again, who knows?  When we were down to two chicks, I moved them and mama into the private broody area, as she kept moving where she was sitting with them, maybe because of all the attention from the rest of the flock.  When we checked on them that evening, she had gotten up onto the roost, leaving the chicks below to die.  Mother of the year, she was not.  We don't know why she changed so much, since bringing up her first batch of chicks.  We're both in agreement that if she finds a spot to lay more eggs, we are not going to allow her to sit on them.  

I've been diligently working on using up our '22 sweet potatoes.  The pups and chickens have been getting some every day, and on Sunday I made this sweet potato soup for lunch, which we both enjoyed.  The critter potatoes are brought to a boil on the stove, then moved to the woodstove to finish cooking, which has been working well.  What's left are the huge football-shaped sweet potatoes, more than a dozen of them, so I'll just keep plugging away at them.  Sunday afternoon, we strung our tree lights, and decorated.  We're having my family's Christmas gathering here, next weekend, so it will be a busy but happy week.  May you enjoy the pleasures of the season!