Sing joyfully unto God, all the earth: serve ye the Lord with gladness.
Come ye in before His presence: with exceeding joy.
from Psalm 99, Jubilate Deo, omnis terra.....
No matter what! Sing joyfully unto God.
The last few days have been (?) interesting. The pullets, hens and guineas are now free-ranging in the pasture. The resident buzzard sits atop a light post at the end of the tennis court (un-used) and surveys the flock. Dog, Blue, yaps at it, daughter and I throw things and yell. It now seems to be getting the picture and usually will fly off to pout somewhere in a pine tree. The trouble is, there are a pair of them with a nearly grown offspring. ALL of them sit out there sometimes and intimidate the chickens, who wisely head into the run and the hen house ----just in case.
Of unusual interest are the tiny eggs that are being laid almost daily. They must be guinea eggs, which are about 1/2 the size of hens' eggs. They are too small to be the early output of pullets, due to start laying next month. However, the guineas are supposed to take even longer to begin laying. Pullets and guineas were four months old this week. Hmmm! The miniatures have been found on the ground in the run, on the floor of the hen house and even in a nest. This indiscriminate laying will be problematic when all the girls have the run of the expanded pasture, in time. There will probably be clutches of guinea eggs, hidden in the bushes, that will be hatched at some point. That's o.k., though. We can use all the bug-snake-weed destroyers we can get. Of course, their alarm system might eventually disturb the neighbors - even though they aren't that close - if a dozen or so guineas tune up at the same time. They aren't exactly the Mormon Tabernacle Choir! Their calls can be really grating! Think a goose with a bad cold!
As I mentioned awhile ago, we are setting up a cool room in the shed. The window air-conditioner is in, the room has been scrubbed down, although not as pristine as we would have liked. Some more cleaning had to done. The shelving needs to be assembled and a table and chair set in. The refrigerator, however, is up and running. Thereby hangs another tale.
We bought a beautiful, big refrigerator for the kitchen. We had been using my small, 18 cu.ft. job, big enough for a single old lady, but not for a family. Mine was to go into the laundry room where my other daughter had her little fridge for snacks, milk, sundry items for herself and my grandson. Hers would go out into the cool room in the shed for eggs, etc.
So - we were told that the delivery men would move one refrigerator. Fine. But - although we could have moved the one to the laundry room that was being replaced by the big, new one, the Sears delivery men said they could ONLY move the one being replaced, not the other one. Our musical refrigerator game was becoming complicated. Not only that, they couldn't hook up the water-icemaker gizmo, because we have copper tubing. They can't be responsible for leaks or whatever, etc., etc.
For a day we had two refrigerators in the kitchen. Lone Ranger to the Rescue. Our friend - contractor - fence builder - all around fella came over the next evening after a full day's work and hooked up the water hose, moved the one fridge to the shed and the other one to the laundry room. Mission accomplished.
Yesterday proved to be more interesting than we could have wanted. It was July 13, recognition of the third appearance of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal (third of six such apparitions to the three children), also our regular Hour of Adoration, Benediction, followed by Mass held each Friday night for the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to pray for reparation for blasphemy and for the sins of the world. So, I managed to get to church, not always possible. When I got home, about 8:30 p.m., daughter had been sitting on the veranda sipping her white wine, Little Dog Blue keeping her company. She saw the car approaching, pointed it out to Blue, who began her usual high-pitched squeal of delight, and they came into the house. I decided to get my wine and join them before changing from skirt to jeans (or jammies, actually).
Blue, as usual, had her nose to the ground, sniffing every possible aroma for future identification, or maybe a lucky gopher sighting. Suddenly she jumped back from around the bushes next to the veranda and barked like crazy. She ran onto the veranda and we could see blood and foam. She had been bitten! Our yard mowing handyman had told us that he saw a copperhead near the house. Well, Blue found it in the down spout just a few feet from where we were sitting.
I called our vet, knowing the office was closed, but could get an emergency number. After trying the vet's home first and getting an answering machine, I called the emergency number. There is an all-night emergency vet in Tyler. It took us about 25 mintues to get there. We had to wait, since the only vet on duty was in surgery with another dog. An assistant came in and gave Blue a benedryl shot. Her face was beginning to swell up. She had a puncture mark on her nose that we could see. The vet eventually came in and gave Blue a steroid shot and prescribed antibiotics to fight any infection. Blue was miserable. She couldn't lay her head down in any position that was comfortable. Her little narrow face was changing into that of a pit bull!
It was about 10:30 p.m. when we got home. I got ready for bed and got Blue to snuggle up next to me. She still couldn't lay her head down, eventually leaning one side of her head into a pillow so she could fall asleep. By about 3:30 a.m. she stirred, got off the bed and ate her dinner. I turned the light on and could see that the swelling was going down. She got back onto the bed and laid herself down in a normal position, sleeping soundly the rest of the night. This morning she was more like herself. I gave her the first antibiotic capsule hidden in a piece of hot dog and later a benedryl capsule in a piece of bread for the swelling that remained. It's almost completely gone by 11 a.m.
Now - how to get rid of that danged copperhead. We're just supposed to sprinkle a recommended something that the snake won't like so that it will leave.??? I wore my mucking boots this morning to go let the chickens out to pasture. There's plenty of tall grass and weeds around for sneaky snakes.
"Beasts and all cattle: creeping things and feathered fowls" are all supposed to Praise the Lord (Psalm 148). Those creepy creeping things surely have a strange way of praising God! But cluck away, my feathered friends. Your cackling psalms are music to my ears.
7/14/12
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