Around here

I took this picture last Sunday morning for two reasons, really.


The first was that this is the only view of mountains we have at our house. This is absolutely ridiculous: if you walk 1/2 minute up the road, you see that we are in the midst of many mountains and multiple ranges;  but because of the "lay of the land," so to speak, you can see only a molehill of a mountain from our actual house. This causes me to say in wonder, almost every time we go anywhere (store? church? dump?): "Where we live is gorgeous."


The second reason was to document that I was actually up at sunrise. I don't care that the days are getting shorter and sunrise is happening later; that is still a rare occurrence at our house. We are not people who deem ourselves worthy of deciding to get up before the sun has decided to do so. And I'm not sorry.


The other monumental thing to happen this past week, besides me getting up early one day, was the chicken coop getting cleaned.

Chicken coop prior to clean-out

Those of you who have never cleaned a coop may not realize that it is a larger task than it first seems. The method we use requires that you only deep clean it once or twice a year. And that is a good thing, because it's a big deal. You take all the bedding (and poop) out, scrub everything, spray everything, let everything dry, and then put fresh bedding in.


Or you have Ethan do it.

Since Ethan had solved the dishwasher dilemma (in which, I should point out, the drain hose had come unattached -- that is, it had been attached and then unattached itself due to a faulty clamp), he was free to tackle other home projects. (Well, you know what I mean by "free." He has eight kids and a wife to helpfully advise from the sidelines.)

Some of the advice, actually, was superfluous and set to other work.

Ethan called to tell me he was coming home to clean the coop after a quick stop at Tractor Supply. "Anything you need?" he asked.


"Boots!" I said. "If we're cleaning the coop, I definitely need coop-cleaning boots!"


And he got me some.

And, as it turns out, they also work rather well as watching-the-coop-get-cleaned boots.


(But in the interest of dull disclosure...erm, FULL disclosure, I will admit that I spent a turn mucking out the coop. Until I found the mask too humid and the shovel too heavy and the spider webs too sticky and my BOOTS were getting dirty!!)


In all honesty, it wasn't as gross as I thought it was going to be. Especially not from my view on the lawn chair outside of the coop. In fact, the grossest part of the whole ordeal was the strange spiders that unraveled themselves from their little cocoon-like nests under the trash can. That was disgusting, and I may have shrieked and hollered, "Get the bug spray! Get the bug spray! Get the bug spray! Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!" a few more times than necessary. Then again, is there such thing as overkill when it comes to spiders?

See those reddish brown blobs in the white stuff? Those are spiders. Big spiders. They are all about to unravel their long legs and come scattering about. Cue the "Jaws" music. And get the bug spray!!!


So now that the coop has been cleaned and the dishwasher has been fixed, our ("our," of course, being the Royal "Our," which means I watch while Ethan does) attention turns to other projects. Pulling up the rest of the kitchen subfloor. When to take the A/C units out? Putting away the summer clothing (OK, this one is all mine). Getting the desk moved to upstairs. Deciding what to do with the sitting room and living room floors. Deciding when to move the youngest twins over to the "Boy" and "Girl" rooms.


I'm exhausted just thinking about it! How am I going to feel when I have to supervise it?