3:00 snapshot #733

Alexis drives past Lanes and Games.

Great weekend, from my perspective. Alexis was in and out of the house getting extra dog-walking gigs, but I ended up NOT working when I thought I was. My boss offered me some overtime to try to undo a painting mistake in a couple hospital wards before they fill up with quarantine cases. I'm not really into the idea of using a pressure washer to fix a mistake I didn't make, especially on my day off, but then it turned out I didn't have to. I'll have to do it this week in whatever spare time I can cobble together between regular work and crises.

But back to the weekend. Yesterday I had the chicken class, which was really great, and built my confidence--made me feel like it wasn't going to be that daunting. One part I was worried about was how do you keep the chickens warm out in their coop in the New England winter? The teachers explained that the chickens will huddle together to keep warm (also, you can choose breeds that have "rose combs" so they have less vulnerable exposed flesh). I told that to a friend on facebook and immediately two other people said that good heavens no, you need a heat source for them you fool. Well, you need to have some way to keep their water from freezing, so I guess you need to have electricity at the coop anyway, so why not hang a heat lamp.

Then Alexis and I went to the hardware superstore and bought more fun stuff for the yard including a golden raspberry bush (I can't wait, but I'll have to!) and a weed whacker. I feel like I've really crossed over to the dark side with the weed whacker, but it makes so much more sense than almost any other kind of mowing/trimming system I can think of. We bought a cheap rechargeable one, but it seems to work fine.

Today I spent almost the whole day outside, and it may have been the first day in months (years?) that I never once left my property. It was great. Our yard is almost fully enclosed, and we improvised a full closure with some fence scraps and old screen doors, then hung out with Alex and Jim and our dogs. Charlie just took the opportunity to eat grass and urinate in new places, and Jim just wanted to play stick, but Maggie caught the scent of cats and ran around the yard following the trail and looking around trying to find them. It was really nice to see her run at full speed and do what she was born to do without being tethered to a leash.

Almost every day we stand back from our house and remark at how much we love it.

Standing by the Charles

I led an Urban Nature Walk for Boston University's Ecolympics. I parked at my old place in Brookline and walked to BU. I planned to be a little early, but the walk there was shorter than I anticipated, and I got to BU a full hour early. I walked from the meeting point, over the footbridge to the Charles, and balanced some rocks to pass the time.