# 420 - Chickens, Confetti and Cancer

The chickens are doing great. Every day they lay an egg each, so there are a dozen eggs every two days. That's a lot of eggs.

My sister is now addicted to these ultra-fresh large brown eggs.

I love being outside with the egg-laying girls. I think they are beautiful and full of fluffy goodness.

Having chickens has taught me that the majority of expense and hardship is with setting up their housing and designating a safety-zone for them to roam, whether it be a fenced-in zone or protected chicken-run. After that, you can develop a relatively easy system to feed, water and collect eggs.

As for cleaning the coop, for a long time my preferred method had been to carry a large bucket with a handle and to tackle the nests in the coop with the help of a small hand-held garden prong to sift through the hay to remove chicken poop. I'd use the garden prong to shake the hay over the bucket, the prongs would trap the hay in their poky-thingies and the heavy poop would fall into the bucket with a little shake of the prong.

This effort helped to save money on hay and is easy to do. Of course, it's easy and enjoyable when no one is constantly taking your bucket and prong away to make the daily task impossible. I don't like people messing with my routines nor do I like them removing my designated tools that are in a particular place to enable me to accomplish my routines. It's kind of like going to brush your teeth first thing in the morning and finding that someone has, again, taken your toothbrush and toothpaste and put them...????

Augh!!!

The picture below is my Aunt and Uncle's house that was renovated years ago to restore it -- this photo was taken a few days ago. Can you tell that organization runs in my blood-line? I can promise you that if ONE THING were out of place or if an area was not adequately sanded and painted, my uncle would know it, right way. The two of us are a LOT alike.



 

I've asked if we could just move this house from Houston to the acreage, but my uncle and aunt are not agreeable to the idea.

In fact, I am a very routine person who likes for things to be organized and in the SAME place for twenty years. Period. Don't mess with what works and don't make life harder on yourself by having to search for the same thing ten times per week. Upfront organization prevents a lot of wasted time. That said, this will be the difficult part with moving. Things will be changed...my mental map will have to be re-worked until a new pattern is in place.

So, if someone is thinking it's no big deal to mess with YOUR system of organization...maybe a few threats of "misplacing" the other person's important tools might be in order or perhaps a strategically placed Karate-Chop might work well so you can enjoy a non-interrupted routine.

And this weekend I was dealing with eggs, the kind that are filled with confetti. My head got pummeled and the confetti became a part of my attire. The Texas sun burned my eyes, but the Easter gathering at my sister's house was awesome!

And my dad enjoyed his built-in confetti-preventative physique.

Baldness came in pretty handy this past Easter Sunday. No confetti hair for dad.

Me and my dad, Easter 2013.

I was glad to spend a lot of time with my dad this past week because the surgeon finally implanted the port in his chest that will deliver his chemo treatments. He had that surgery yesterday and said he felt like he's been punched in the chest. I remember when my mother had this same procedure for the chemo treatments she received that became more and more aggressive. This past Sunday, upon the confetti moment, I realized my dad is starting his chemo without hair...that's a plus, I think.

I am digging deep right now!

In all, my mom went through five different chemos. Sadly, M.D. Anderson didn't get to add my mom to their "success" statistics, but to be honest, her body was already worn out from the Polio that chewed up her body at five years of age. Polio continued to prompt physical complications for the rest of her life. Before the cancer fight began, she was already physically weakened. That made it seem more unfair, but life is never fair to any of us. That's the reason we must gain our strength from more than what we can see.

So, it's hard to watch both your parents go through these measures in an effort to defeat cancer, but never fear, my dad is a true fighter! I mean...really...he was a fighter. For the light of heart, it might not please you to know my dad bit off another man's ear during a serious fight on a construction site when I was young. The man who ended up without an ear almost killed my father on the job because of idiotic behavior and dad let him know that he didn't appreciate it.

I told my dad that he needs to think of the chemo port as BODY ARMOR! The battle is about to start; those cancer cells better hold onto their ears!