Better late than never

There was no post last night because J. and I went out to dinner with his sisters and husbands. Well, one husband, the other had to work. It was so good to see them all since it had been since before Covid began that we had. Too long. It also very good to just be able to go out; we don't get to do that very often. Since I missed the Friday bullets yesterday, I'll do them tonight.

• Look at this beautiful butterfly I saw in the dry lot today while we were doing stalls. I love anything with blue on it.

• Last weekend, J. took a few children (those who were interested) fishing. L. decided that maybe fishing is not her thing.

• On Tuesday, Kenzie and Aster got into a rare tiff over a treat that had fallen on the ground. They don't do this often, thankfully, but every so often they boil over. Usually there is little to show for all the noise and teeth, but this time, Aster managed to nick the very end of Kenzie's ear. This wouldn't be a huge deal except that ears bleed. A lot. We would get the blood stopped and Kenzie would shake his head again causing it to start bleeding again. To make it worse, Kenzie was extremely anxious and just couldn't hold still. By the time we got things sorted out, the kitchen looked like a crime scene. I didn't look much better. W. confirmed that the lower parts of ears are incredibly difficult to bandage. If W. can't do it, it made us feel better about none of our attempts working. (I ended up needing to order more vet wrap after it was all over.) Kenzie is fine now and life is calm again.
• Christina Rossetti is proving to be a little more work than we had thought. It turns out that pheasants fly quite a bit better than do chickens, and she has all her flight feathers. We could trim her wings so she can't fly, but that makes us worried to put her into the coop with the other birds since she wouldn't be able to get away if the mean red hens decided to go after her. We can't let her out without her wings trimmed because she would probably fly away. Pheasants are considered exotic birds and it is illegal to release them... even if release them means they just flew away. J. is now in the middle of building Christina Rossetti her own living quarters. 
• There is also a groundswell of support of changing her name to Flavia. The majority says it goes well with pheasant, as in Flavia pheasant, or Phlavia pheasant as some have suggested. It is also because they really like the character of Flavia de Luce from the mystery novels which we have been reading. When I say majority, what that means is everyone except for me. I'm still kind of taken with Christina Rossetti, though no one else agrees with me.
• D. has begun giving me a countdown of days until he moves into his dorm.
• For the most part, no one of the last five who got their second Covid vaccines had any reaction. A couple of people felt a little more tired, but that was the worst of it. Happily, R. was completely unaffected.
• Logic and critical thinking skills seem to be in short supply. Based on the item this comes after, I'll leave you to infer to what I am referring. I could go on and on about this... and have gone on and on to J. ... but I'm afraid it would be a waste of time and just raise my blood pressure. Again.
• Finally, E. - 1, Vienna - 0. I have figured out a way to safely keep the pony's grazing muzzle on so she can stay out with the big horses and not be brought in. Before this it was E. - 0, Vienna - 28. 
• I wanted to show you our cat storage.

• I got out my embroidery unit for my sewing machine for the first time in a very long time. I am currently working on getting my logo digitized so I can embroider it on shirts. 

It's still very much a work in progress, but I'm excited. I think I'm going to try doing it monochrome next.

• I love how the back of the storage shed looks in late summer. 

The clematis is just about to burst into bloom.

• And so it begins... again. The questions in homeschooling groups from people who want to homeschool, but what they really want is a private tutor because they have no intention of doing any of it themselves. I know it's splitting hairs, but it annoys me. Homeschooling is so much more than a program you sign up for, spend a lot of money one, and hand over the keys so to speak to someone else. 
• I had a written interview that our documentary film maker friend and I wrote published. It Takes No Special Power to Love a Child
• We took everyone to get ice cream cones at our local ice cream place and then went to play in the local park late this afternoon. I could suddenly remember sitting in the very same place we sat this evening, when J. and I made a trip out by ourselves before the move, wondering what life was going to look like. It all felt so odd and different from what we were used to. Today? It felt like home and that was good. I really do like our little town we ended up in.

And with that, I'm going to say good-night.