Washers Dryers and other conveniences

I have a small laundry area with the dryer stacked over the dryer.  They are in a niche I recovered from bathroom space when I remodeled my bathroom several years ago.  They are only a couple of steps from the plastic bins, one for white clothes the other for dark clothes, that fit under the bathroom counter by design.  This makes it very easy to do laundry in presorted batches.  My son Richard is the only other person who does laundry in my washer and dryer, aside from occasional use by my grandson during football season.  Now and then I have needed to wash clothing by hand and I have figured out a good way to wash silk and wool garments using my shower wand, but most of the time I am satisfied with the arrangement provided by my compact laundry area.  Now that I use pods the process is even easier and less messy.

Learning

I am grateful for the opportunity to go to youtube and follow various subjects.  My most frequent views lately have been about chicken coops and ketogenic diets and their benefits.  A video I watched today addressed the problem of overcoming previous programming about food.  I wasn't particularly attracted to the fruit I saw at Sprouts or Walmart, but in anticipation of the visits to those stores I played over how delicious it would taste to eat grapes.  I now don't recall seeing any grapes although they played a large role in my fantasies.  I bought heavy cream, pork rinds, lettuce and a baked chicken but by the time I had visited Lucinda I was outside the window of consumption that I practice and I will have to be content with lettuce wrapped chicken for breakfast in the morning.  I have gained some useful insights about chicken coops as I viewed various videos.  I find that installing an automatic door on my coop holds no interest for me.  I am reminded of a demonstration of effective ways of feeding fish.  It turned out that having a man on the edge of the tank throwing in food was the most economical way to operate.  When the fish began to stop rising to feed he stopped feeding.  It wasn't a matter of time spent but of sensitivity to the behavior of the fish, a technological feat that remains outside the range of practicality.  Visiting egg layers twice a day is just a matter of due diligence. 

Order

Today I was able to make some progress on my chicken coop and when I quit working for the evening I cleaned up the trash I had generated and put my tools where they are protected from the weather.  I find I am grateful to be able to restore order.

So Much

As I reviewed the week gone by I can be grateful for so much.  I am grateful for the atonement of my Savior and the restoration of the Gospel.  I have a large and loving family who have helped me in so many ways.  I have relative financial security.  I have my health and know how to become more healthy.  I have the opportunity to make progress and achieve new goals. 

Strength and KIndness

Today I woke up to another day of rain with a forecast that seemed to indicate it would be drizzling all day.  I resolved to do what I could under cover.  I went out and brought up the plastic bins I intend to convert to nesting boxes, worked on my picture of James and Patricia and planned what I would need in terms of plywood.  I had an appointment to meet with Christine Peters for ministering report with Sister Perry and I arranged to pick up Adam and Calvin and go to Home Depot afterward.  A mixup in the plywood pricing involved the man who had cut the plywood who offered a steep discount because of the confusion.  I got the plywood panel I needed for under 15 dollars.  Earlier in the day I had forestalled disaster by transferring funds from my emergency account into the checking account.  I stopped by Wendy's and got shakes and sandwiches for my helpers and stopped by Smith's to take advantage of a sale on butter as well as getting some pork rinds and some rubbing alcohol for my painting.  In the afternoon the girls came up and cleaned and worked on stained glass and I stabilized the coop platform and my three grandsons who are weightlifters lifted the coop onto the platform.  So a lot more was accomplished than I had anticipated. 

Timely Intervention.

It has rained almost continually the past 24 hours.  This afternoon I decided to go into my backyard and I found the chicken tent had begun to collapse.  I was able to stabilize it and later removed the plastic roof.  Calvin and Adam helped me corral three chickens who escaped.  I'm grateful I checked in time.

Alignment

I have been obsession about my chicken coop and chicken run.  Today we made a great deal of progress, putting in three posts in the morning when Calvin mixed the concrete and then, in the evening when I realized that it was important to have the entire set of posts set up and curing for the next few days, I had Ralph and Adam come over to help because Calvin was at the library. Much to my surprise and gratification, Adam was able to mix the concrete and we set three more posts, completing the setting of posts with the one remaining bag of concrete.  The most difficult aspect aside from mixing the concrete was aligning the various posts and avoiding a trapezoidal affect.  Fortunately the diagonals were reasonably congruent.