Ben and Susanna took a few minutes tonight to play “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” together. Ben on his trumpet and Susanna on the piano. I’m impressed because I can’t play anything…
Category: Family
Feeding the Chickens (when I’m away)
I’m mostly happy with the chicken coop I built last summer. The biggest problem is that I made the entire top a single hinged lid. It is heavy. With 6″ of snow on top of it is really really heavy.
The feeder for the chickens is inside the coop and requires that I lift the lid every week to refill the feed. One option would be to saw the roof in half, and have a left and right side that are easier to lift individually. Or I cold build a new feeder that can be refilled from the outside.
Susanna voted for the second one. She doesn’t like the chickens, and would appreciate being able to care for them without having to hang out with them in the coop.
Today I went to the box store and for less than $20 I picked up 3″ piping and connectors to make a new feeder. It is a simple feeder, with a tube to hold the feed on the outside of the coop and a tray in the coop. Even though you can’t easily tell in the pictures, the tray does have an end – the feeder doesn’t just dump the feed into the coop.
I installed and filled the feeder today. Hopefully the birds won’t stand on it and poop in their own food. But they probably will.
Overall, this was a quick easy project. It may have worked better with 4″ piping (it would have held a lot more food – almost twice as much). Or maybe I could have used a longer section of piping to hold more food.
Melodifestivalen 2014
Today was the final for Melodifestivalen 2014 – Sweden’s music competition for the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest. Susanna is a huge fan of the contest.
The time zone difference means that it is a 2pm show local time. We pushed the streaming video to the house TV and the whole family watched. Susanna and Ben both dressed up for the show. Will, Targa, Tucker and I didn’t so much. But we all enjoyed the concert. It helped that the songs we liked did well in the end.
Vacation Day at the Spa
Today Susanna and I took a day for ourselves. My Christmas present from her was a gift certificate at the Spa at Norwich Inn – not too far down the road from us. We headed out the door shortly after the boys left for school.
Our first appointment was a yoga class (and not I am not very flexible at all… I would probably benefit from some more yoga) followed by swimming and enjoying the hot tub/sauna/steam rooms. After a wonderful lunch at the restaurant upstairs, we had an afternoon massage session, followed by more time in the hot tub/sauna/steam room.
We finished up around 5pm, with plenty of time in the day to enjoy the cold Connecticut weather.
What a perfect way to start the week! It also means a short 4 day work week.
Soccer Sunday
This morning, Ben had a soccer game for one of the two leagues he plays on. Susanna isn’t feeling well tonight, so I figured I would try my hand at making a very short video of Ben playing. It is at least a little more creative than watching TV. The video was made on my iPhone, and edited on OpenShot.
Ben was the goalie for the first half, and then a forward for part of the second half of the game.
Morning Snuggles
Dogs are good for snuggling on cold Saturday mornings…
Friday Night Minecraft
The boys convinced Susanna to join them playing Minecraft. I helped them set up a small server so they can all wander around the same Minecraft world. I think Tucker is just along for the ride and warm space on the couch. Time to “kick” them so they will go brush their teeth and go to bed.
Lounging Around (A Lazy Start to Saturday)
Susanna is snuggling in bed. The boys are playing on their electronics, and I am playing on the computer. Targa and Tucker are sleeping. After breakfast we will put down the electronics, and enjoy what looks to be a beautiful day. I’ll just pretend that I’m outside when I’m sanding the ceiling in the hallway.
A Tucker Sort of Morning
There was nothing really special about this morning. We put Tucker out early. Targa was still sleeping in Will’s room.
The weather was cool and rainy, and Tucker was barking to get back inside not too much later. When Targa got up, he went out and Tucker followed. That was the start of the problem.
I brought Targa back in a few minutes later, but Tucker was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t returned 45 minutes later when it was time for the boys to head out to the bus stop and me to work.
We waited at the stop. I waited for my neighbor to arrive. The plan was to ask her to put Tucker back in the house if she saw him during the day. But before I could ask her, I saw a slightly overweight beagle mix wandering down our road. Just in time.
So, thank you Tucker for making the morning just a little bit more stressful than it needed to be.
Washington’s Birthday (or Presidents’ Day) – Playing in the Snow
It felt like a somewhat disorganized holiday. At least it did for me. The boys arrived this morning, so we took it easy for most of the day. Plus, I think I’ve been spending too much time playing on the computer – I was going to take a break today, but Will wanted to install Linux on his netbook and download games. And that took a little assistance. But the day wasn’t all wasted on the computer or chasing other shiny objects that my ADHD latches onto.
I did get the hall ceiling painted, and the light installed. The light is flush to the ceiling, and the raking light highlights the imperfections in my drywall work. The ceiling looked good before the light was installed, but I will need to try to smooth out the ceiling a little more this week, and repaint the ceiling. There is a huge difference in how smooth a surface looks with a raking light compared to the same surface with normal ambient light. That is life. A bit of a bummer, but not a huge pain.
This afternoon we went out to the Ledyard Middle School and went sledding. The sledding hill was perfect, and the weather was reasonably warm. I didn’t bring a good camera, so I only have pictures from the iPhone.
We also took a look at a mooring for the boat on the Niantic river. Last year we parked at the Submarine Base marina. The marina is reasonably priced, but a mooring is still cheaper. And the Niantic river looks much nicer than the Thames. Though it is covered in ice right now. It is just nicer looking ice. We will get the mooring for the season for about the same price as two months at the marina. The drawback of the mooring is that we will need to row out to our boat. I didn’t plug the boat into shore power once last summer – so I don’t think not having electricity will be much of a problem. Maybe I’ll get a solar panel to charge the battery.
