Homestead Update

J has been working on a PVC watering system for our chickens and bunnies. I call it irrigation. The goal is that there won't be daily refilling of watering containers, they can't contaminate the water, and for these two full time workers the homestead workload will be lighter every day. The system isn't up and flowing yet - waiting for the PVC cement to cure so we can avoid leaks. 

Last night we were working late to get all the parts in place and attached. 

I spent some of my evening hanging with the bunnies. They were confused by the lights being on so late. 

We call this one Q-Tip. She's tiny and her short curly fur looks just like a soft cottony tip. 

Today I got a group shot of a bunch of the bunnies. 

Also on today's todo list was one of my last harvests before winter. The broccoli and cauliflower were late plants for our garden but I'm excited to have the veggies in our fridge. 

This is one of our young roosters. I think he's so cool with his coloring. 

Five on Friday - A New Trend

I said I was going to try and stick with blogging regularly; what better way than themed posts throughout the week...

1. Thanks to my sister for an invitation to a DietBet I have been introduced to POP Pilates (over at Blogilates). I may have found my new workout love!! Upbeat Pilates with Pop music!! I'm all over it, and it'll be nice to my knee. I'll keep you posted with how it goes.

2. My nephew got married today! I am so excited for him and his new bride and their family! Wishing them lots of years of love!

3. One of my new favorite albums is by Lorde, a young woman from New Zealand. She was born when I was in High School, which really just makes me feel old. Something I'm still processing I guess.

4. The baby chicks are just so cute. They pile up on each other to sleep each night, in the egg box portion of the coop. I think its cute that they sleep where they originally arrived; this concept is lost on them. They definitely know how to stick together. Interestingly there are 6 babies from each mama hen and though they have all 12 been together since day 1, they will divide themselves off into sibling groups. I don't know how they know, but they gravitate to each other.

5. Its a 3-Day weekend!! It has been so busy for us lately, full of long days and not enough sleep. I am looking forward to plenty of relaxation and downtime. Hoping to finish my current book, kayaking is planned for Saturday in Moss Landing - Elkhorn Slough, I would love to bike ride a little bit, do my new found love of Pilates, hardcore clean my pantry, and sand/paint the shelves and walls - they don't match the kitchen. We started off with a food truck dinner at Moveable Feast for a friends birthday, which was a great, relaxing, but all to brief way to kick the weekend off.

Off to kick off the weekend with that book I was talking about, enjoy your Friday night and  find some relaxation!

Summer 2013 Recap

 Well HELLO THERE blog!!! It's been awhile. I have big goals to actually actively blog going forward (heard that one before?). I make no real promises, just putting my intentions out there.

So since I was last here, summer has come and (almost) gone... at least in the everyone is heading back to school sense. We have a growing chicken coop, 16 birds now. J is working hard as always, I changed jobs and am all settled in at the new place now. My knee is still bummed out; can't run longer than 1.5 miles or so - trying to find new training ideas that will help me lose weight (always the goal) and work on the continued rehab of my knee. I would love it if I could accomplish that half marathon goal before 2013 is over, I've eyed the local races through the rest of the year and have a target picked, if I can really start seeing improvement in time to actually train back up to that distance. We've spent time with family, kayaked, seen a couple of great concerts, had some beach days, just generally lived and enjoyed life.

Check back... hopefully I'll follow through and be regular with the blog again. 

Here's the summer in pictures...

 July

A dozen chicks hatched on July 1st.

4th of July on the roof, waiting for the shows to start.

Picked up a new sunshade at the flea market.

We enjoyed some evening bike rides at the lake.

Waiting for Counting Crows at the America's Cup Pavilion

The Bay Lights in San Francisco

Zeus checking on the chicks.

Ms. Molly celebrated her 12th birthday!

A great beach day @ Twin Lakes in Santa Cruz.

Waiting for Justin Timberlake & Jay-Z at Candlestick

The show! First time I had been to CandleStick in about 20 years. I'm glad I went before it's final season.

August

Kayaking on the SF Bay from Redwood City

Power tower on the Bay.

Awesome shorebirds on the Bay.

Catching up with the rooster!

The 'baby' birds moved to the coop.

One of the many ways that I used our zucchini.

The babies like to snuggle on each other.

Working on my running... took the dogs with me. Let's just call it interesting.

And finally we celebrated our 5th anniversary yesterday!!

Half Marathon - Week 8 & some Jelly Beans

So here we go, the second running recap... Well mileage-wise, not as good as last week. This week's plan was a bit of a step back from last week in terms of total mileage. I was supposed to run:

Tuesday: 4 Miles
Thursday: 4 Miles
Saturday: 4 Miles
Sunday: 6 Miles (I amended this mileage to be 6.2 for a 10k for Run With Jess' virtual Jelly Bean race)

Tuesday was a success, 4 miles done in laps around the lake/park. It was looking to rain and I wasn't feeling up to getting stuck 2 miles from home in the rain, so laps I did, never too far away from home. Of course it didn't rain. The run felt good though! No soreness and right on my 10:30 or so pace that I expect of myself when I'm not trying too hard.

A sad thing did happen on Tuesday morning, we lost a hen. She had started drooping her wings on Friday and we knew something was up with her over the weekend. WE watched her, tried to keep her fed and watered, but by Tuesday morning she had died. This was one of the 'baby' hens that we had incubated. Fortunately, whatever it is that was wrong with her doesn't seem to have been contagious. We have cleaned the coop and are keeping close watch on the rest of the flock, but they all seem dandy so fingers crossed it was just a fluke thing.

Thursday was a no go. Between continued busy-ness at work - we have a production on stage this weekend and there is always a lot of excitement leading up to it - and the last minute project of redoing our living/dining room at home, I just didn't get the run in. Wednesday night J said, "Let's do the front rooms and finish this work." Really he wanted the previously purchased pile of baseboards out of the garage so we needed to get them installed. I of course jumped up, got my paint books (I took every free booklet off the Home Depot shelf the week we got approved for the house), and picked colors. We rushed to the store before they closed, got paint, a new ceiling fan for the room, and a slew of other project needs. Got home and worked until the wee hours moving books and furniture out of the way and ripping out the 1969 original baseboards. Thursday became the day for painting the baseboards and door trim, so that is what I was doing rather than running.

The beginning of the book pile, as we moved everything to paint.

Friday the real painting began. Two coats on the accent wall and cleaning up. Saturday the mission was the paint the remaining walls and to transplant our vegetable garden seedlings who were rapidly outgrowing their little peat containers. I had success with both of those tasks, but the run was not so much. Once again I just totally let it get skipped over. I mean I thought about it. At 7:30 when Zeus first woke me up, I thought about getting up and getting that checked off the list. But I didn't do it. On a personal level to make the progress on the garden and room projects felt good, but I do wish I had made the run.

The front rooms in progress, Saturday night - painting done. Need baseboards and reassembly.

Today though I made it happen! And I had a bit of a milestone. So my plan for today was to run a 10k for the Jelly Bean virtual race. I had paid for and received my finisher's medal, so I kinda had to make the run happen so I wasn't pretending to have accomplished something that I had a medal for. I set off just before 9 and had a great run the whole time - no fatigue, no soreness, worked some things out in my head as I went, and I ended up with a new fastest 10k time: 1:05:25.

The medal I now earned.

So there was a tangential milestone today. Not something I was thinking about or looking for, but I am thrilled with it nonetheless. I hit 100 miles for 2013 so far. I had a modest goal of 200 for the year, so I think that will be no problem! 100 in a quarter, and the first month was only 12, and the last two weeks have been kinda light. Heck, I might be able to pull out something more like 150 for this next quarter, what with the mileage only increasing for the training plan.

Look at that!! Just crossed the threshold.

Well as I type this, J is installing the baseboards. I've left the typing periodically to through a coat of paint on some shelving that is getting an update too. I guess I better get back at it!

Oh and check out some reviews of whats going on at work this weekend.

http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_22856830/review-ballet-san-jose-traditional-meets-contemporary

http://www.sfcv.org/reviews/ballet-san-jose/keep-calm-and-dance-on

Chickens!!! A 'spring' morning in the yard.

On Sunday the chickens got a little bit of 'free range' time. It was brisk and our yard does not get a whole lot of sun in the winter. In fact it stays wet and cold from the first rain through about May. The chickens were searching hard for what little bit of warming sunshine they could find.

This is one of the chicks that we hatched in September. A cross between the Rooster (Buff Orpington) and Jan (Americauna). He takes after his pops in that he is another rooster - his crow has laryngitis so far, but it definitely is there! He is so pretty though, I can't think of getting rid of him, I hope we can keep multiple roosters; I guess we will have to see how much noise they really make - and how they continue to get along.

Baby rooster and one of his sisters and his brother. That's right... two baby roosters plus Big Daddy Rooster. Apparently I need to practice my day old chick sexing techniques... not that I would have 'disposed' of a day old rooster if I had known he was one, I just don't have that in me. Too much of a softy for real 'homesteading'.

All 7 birds in one shot!! Rooster is still very much in charge. The rest respect him, can be seen moving swiftly out of his way when he is on a tear, and he will nip at me if he thinks I'm getting too touchy feely with any of his brood. Fortunately his nips are not aggressive.  I once had a fairly catastrophic encounter with a rooster who escaped the pen at my aunt and uncles house. Well at least it was catastrophic to my 5 year old self at the time - he flew up and bit me squarely on the nose [I like to think a scar still exists but I've always been a bit of a hypochondriac ;) ]. It was a big enough deal that I 'hated' all birds up until last March when I gave in to the notion of raising chicks. Fortunately I was right and the project of raising a chick from day old helped me bond with them as I watch them grow, so I was not disgusted by or afraid of them.

Now I look at this handsome guy and just think that he is fascinating and beautiful. He's inquisitive, smart, like to tease the dogs, and his crow is pretty awesome.

Nutcracker!!

Work has had one focus recently... The Nutcracker!! Well we opened this weekend and all was fantastic!! Plenty of background technical things to give me a few headaches, but when it came down to it, the performers were wonderful, the audiences were appreciative, and the reviews are good! Here's the one from the San Jose Mercury News, and here's another.

Today while I was working the Ballet Boutique our last customer of the day was a Bay Area sports hero, Mr. Steve Young! I was very excited to see that he and his family chose to come to Ballet San Jose for their Nutcracker experience. He was very gracious, taking lots of photos with fans, including mine!

Ballet San Jose has had a fun contest for patrons to submit Nutcracker themed photos of their kids or pets. These pictures are my submissions, even though I was ineligible to win tickets, a backstage tour, or the other goodies, I couldn't resist taking the photos of my pets.

 

 

 

I will continue to live in Nutcracker land right up until Christmas Eve. I hope that coming soon (maybe this week) I will get the chance to Christmasfy my own home... no big gifts this year, but I still want to find time to put up our tree and the lights outside. 

My time away

It's been busy and hectic. Dogs, birthday celebrations, birds, democracy, just trying to settle in to life again.