Woodwork and wiring and crappy phones and hay-cutting and sick chicks and pregnant pups.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

First three doors, stained and sealed.

It has been a day. No sleep last night; nothing but derailments all day long. Ginger the chicken is badly egg-bound, and I spent part of the morning holding her in a warm-water bath in a small horse feed tub. She hasn't passed it yet, but she is the most stubbornly bad-tempered of them all, and if anyone can beat it, it should be her.

Victor was going to come today instead, but then he wanted to bump it to tomorrow, which won't work, so we had to go around and around on that. They finally settled on next Tuesday, which is the fourth, so I'm guessing it won't happen then, either.

Then we lost four hours (in other words, the whole afternoon) dealing with Verizon for Wings, because his phone's been barely functional for weeks. Between us, that's eight work hours, and I. am. not. happy. He has been through this them three times already, and it keeps crapping out, and we don't have a full day's work to waste on this bullshit.

And then the guy who was supposed to cut our hay didn't show.

So. Yeah. And it's still 83 degrees at 8:10 PM, with light smoke haze everywhere, and I can't breathe.

I hope tomorrow goes a little more smoothly.

On the plus side, the guys got that up there done, plus some of the downstairs window casings and sills:

Photo copyright Aji, 2017;
all rights reserved.

Yeah, I know; the lighting's not great for photos at that time of day. But that's the east window in the utility room, right above where our old dryer will go. [Yes, we have an old washer, dryer, and fridge, so that's going to save us some money on appliances.] I chose this one rather than the north one, because here you can see the gloss on the sill.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

And that is the north window in the kitchen, where they've just gotten the first coat of stain on it. That's what it looks like with the window itself removed. Reynaldo, bless his heart (and I say that with absolutely no sarcasm whatsoever; I mean it) came back about six o'clock tonight to rehang the window. Certainly not something we ever expected him to do.

Tomorrow is potentially another day devoted to materials. Or to dropping the hay — I mean, who the hell knows? He may show up; may not. 

For today, I managed to get my first-ever photos of a mourning cloak, and first of a blue darner mating with a green darner. None of the chipmunk who last night discovered the bird feeder, and returned tonight. But little preggo girl has apparently moved in; she now thinks this is her home, too:

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

So does her boy Smoky, who we assume is the baby daddy-to-be, but Raven gets extra-turfy with a young unfixed male pit bull pup, so he can only eat over here when we're able to get Raven indoors. Yes, they've both come over and been fed tonight already; apparently this is my new job.

::Shrug:: whatever else goes on wherever they supposedly live, they'll get food and water here consistently.

Speaking of food, I need to check on dinner. Thank you all for everything.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.