Green Rascal Design

I've been terribly busy this month! Mom is visiting from Minnesota. I got my car back from the body shop after 1.5 months of waiting. Finals at Philadelphia University went well. I put up plastic on the chicken fence to shield them from the wind, and then I promptly got a cold from being outside for 2 whole days in freezing temps and heavy winds. Then the hubby got sick too, and we had basically a whole week of staying home and recovering. Now I'm busy helping Brian Billings with one of his projects. It's amazing I got a christmas tree up!

Oh, and I only managed to build one gingerbread house. But I suppose since I've never made one from scratch all by myself before, that could be considered an accomplishment. One thing is for sure; the gumdrops at Whole Foods Market are too big for my tiny little house. I need to adjust the scale of the house or find a different place to buy gumdrops!

Anyway, I feel sad that I've basically taken the whole month of December off from the Rascal blog. That's what happens when you get business I guess.

Happy holidays to everyone, and we'll talk more around the new year. :)

It's fall, so that means it is cold and windy. Recently I described how one of the hens is molting, and she is still half bald in my opinion. So we went out and got some plastic drop cloths to put on the cage. I did this last year as well, but at that time the cage was smaller and metal so it was a bit easier. It might not seem like having a metal cage would make it easier to attach things, but I was able to simply wrap some laundry lines around the poles and through some holes in the plastic sheeting. Now I have to secure the sheeting with staples so I have enough time to tie it down with twine before it blows away, and it is taking a long time. And boy! Is it cold out there! The fluffies are not happy about all the plastic flapping about either.

Right now I'm just taking a break from the frigid task at hand to complain about it online. But hey, at least the sun is out. I wouldn't get anything done if it weren't at least bearable outside. I have put up 2/3 of the plastic. Most of that is tied down fairly well. I still have a few tension lines I need to install to reduce the flapping. Then I will work on the third piece of plastic.

It's a good day for hot chocolate!

So I was all set to get to work on gingerbread houses when the oven stopped working. (correction: it would not shut off and was overheating!) Hubby and I were concerned how much it would cost to fix, and scared we might need a whole new oven. But he did a bunch of research and found out this is a common problem for our brand of oven. We ordered a new relay for under 10$ and it will be here middle of the week. Having a nerd around is so handy sometimes.