Last night we came home and Cabol, proving she is right as usual, pointed out that some of the d’Uccle chickens looked rather small. And sure enough, there were two new babies running around. Good thing we’re trying to reduce our flock, eh?

After dinner, I went down to set up a little ramp so the chicks can hop back into the house at night, and I found a sad wet chick outside the cage, all soaked from the rain and cold and on its side and cheeping pitifully. I picked it up and rubbed it with my shirt, and was torn whether it was so far gone as to just put it in the bushes or what. I decided to put it in the chicken house and see if mommy chicken would warm it up later, and this morning all three chicks were alive and running around!

Our gardening output this year has been pretty bad. Sure, we did have a disruption during prime planting time (hi, Anya!), but we also have been kind of lazy. Or basil is doing ok, but I never took them out of the smallish pots, so none of it is much taller than a foot. Our ‘main’ garden is completely overrun with weeds. And grass. The peppers pretty much disappeared. The pole beans never got poled, so they are intwined in the grass. The tomatoes are small and stunty, but at least they have (green) fruits on them. We have a drip irrigation system I installed, which has at least kept things alive, but I think the weeds suck out a lot of the water. It’s depressing.

Even more depressing is my hop plants, chewed to the ground by the sheep during the winter and early spring, have produced more hops than they ever did when I patiently watered them and put up a trellis. Oh, and there are two HUGE tomato plants growing…in the compost bin.

EDIT: I was down in the garden this evening, doing some weeding (although it’s more like mowing since the ‘weeds’ are 90% grass), and there were a few ripened tomatoes. I also started pulling out the bush bean plants, since they are mostly all dried up now. I think the beans still need to sit out a few days more to dry completely.

Well, the floor is finished and covered in polyurethane. The walls still look like crap, but we haven’t really decided what color we want to paint them. Plus, Cabol wants to put a real wall up behind where the dresser is, and possibly another one dividing 2/3 of the basement into a room that could be used as a bedroom. I guess that will be the next project when her parents visit this fall! Muahahaha.

There is still a little bit of cat pee that is wicking up in the corners when it is really hot and humid (which it has been all week). This should eventually stop – and any stains will eventually be hidden under base trim anyways. Once the new walls are installed.

And here’s what Anya thought of it all: