It is Friday evening, and the plans to go out were melted by late afternoon heat that jumped from 103 to 115 while Missus and I were out on the front porch. We decided to stay in and enjoy the now working A/C unit that is actually keeping things under 90F! When I say working, I only mean working better, like we changed the filters better. I don’t mean it is a mean, cool, efficient machine! But it is keeping smiles on our faces nonetheless!
The summer days are still hot, and that scares me as it is still generally a cool summer here. When there is a cool spell, and there is enough gumption in this old man, I do like to go out and work on the chicken coop! We are finally under way on building one, and we would not be if not for Jordan’s efforts in procuring wood from one of the neighbors. He takes apart old floor joists, and she pays him in old 2×4’s. Well, who needs new ones for a chicken coop? Then again, this thing looks like it may end up with an attic, so I will want some strength! But even at their age, the 2×4’s seem to be in good shape internally, and I am sure that with the engineering I am putting into this thing, it will hold up for many days to come under the intense weight of chickens!
All told, settling into America seems to be going along well, though the heat is holding us back where I know that if we were somewhere cooler, we would be out and about much more! There is some consensus that grass growing in the field would make horse feed a lot cheaper! But thankfully, the guy who supplies us without Alfalfa cubes has found a new source who will put in an extra 200 pounds of food into the bags, and our final charge this month will be $200, not the $215 it was last month. This is the first time in almost a year that the price of feed has shown some stability, and the possibility of not rising again for a few weeks! The American economy is in trouble, I have no doubt of that. Hopefully we can stop exporting so much that there is better supply available here.
With the heat being what it is, most of what I have to talk about at the moment has to do with trying desperately to stay cool, and spending an hour or so outside of a morning when it is genuinely cool enough to feel comfortable (albeit in only shorts, not in clothes, unless you like sweating).
There should be more to say right now, but some of the things under consideration by our family are thoughts not well enough developed to talk about just yet. So, I am going to leave it at that for the moment, though I am sure that you will be hearing much more from me the instant the outside midday temperatures drop below 98F. That seems to feel quite comfortable right now!
Kelsey J Bacon