My Two Roos

The chicken coop is settling back into a normal routine. I expect egg production to increase, both because the pullets are laying now and because the hens are much less stressed out.

The Buff Orpington rooster has resumed his post as clan leader:

I still call him Baby, which is a horrible name for a rooster, but nothing else seems to stick. He comes when I call him, too, so I think he knows that’s his name.

And the other rooster has been christened Dave.

He just looks like a Dave to me, all laid back and cool. He’s getting the hang of being a rooster, too, having figured out that the ladies will like him a lot better if he doesn’t ambush them from behind the waterer. He has also learned to call them over to eat instead of gobbling up the scratch grains. Baby occasionally chases him around, but there hasn’t been any bloodshed.

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I was in town most of yesterday trying to bludgeon my to-do list into submission. I was able to get everything crossed off, although that means that other stuff has floated to the top to be dealt with on the next trip. I met with our accountant for an hour in the morning—we do a check-up every fall to see where the construction company is financially and to make plans for the upcoming year.

I am in desperate need of a road trip of some sort. I may have to make do with a quick trip to Missoula next week. After the wedding, though, I plan to treat myself to a weekend in Spokane. The small quilt store there has a Laura Heine workshop scheduled for the first weekend of November. I have the Laura Heine pattern for the sewing machine collage, and I would be way more comfortable tackling that pattern with some guidance. The owner of that store is an excellent teacher.

I am aware that part of my restlessness and this desire to go on a road trip is a response to this pandemic. I am very weary of the restrictions, especially because I think much of this has been politicized and because the level of scientific (and statistical) literacy in this country is so abysmal.

[And yes, I do know someone who has had coronavirus and spent a few days in the hospital.]

I don’t think we’ve yet come to grips with all the knock-on effects of “14 days to slow the spread” that has morphed into six months of “If you don’t wear a mask, you obviously want Grandma to die.” I sit here in my office listening to the scanner, and there has been a definite uptick in calls for suicides and attempted suicides. Church looks different. We can’t have conferences and other gatherings. (Last October, Elysian and I spent a fabulous weekend at the Spokane Food and Farm Expo, which has been cancelled for 2020.) So many of the personal interactions that serve as the glue to hold communities together are forbidden. Have we considered what those losses are doing to us? What about all the business that have folded and aren’t coming back? Yesterday, while I was in town, I stopped in at the embroidery store that opened in Kalispell last winter only to discover that it’s completely empty. That business never really had a chance.

Part of me is angry that my daughter can’t have the wedding she envisioned when we started planning this a year ago. She will still have a beautiful wedding, but who wants wedding pictures full of people wearing masks?

I have so much more I could say, but I’ve got things to do today. I’m tired of this, though, and I don’t accept the assumption that we’ll never be able to go back to the way things were. I won’t surrender to that level of fear. Life is risky. Ask me how I know.