Chickens, bosses and early wake ups

Sunday morning I cleaned out the chicken coop and put in new pine shavings. Thankfully DH had gone back to bed so I didn't have to have him standing there over my shoulder telling me how it should all be done. He has no more experience or knowledge cleaning out a chicken coop than I do! But, he always feels he has to tell me how to do just about everything. After he was done with the 2 planter boxes and filled them with dirt, later I went back to put the flowers in, while he was outside in front working on something or other. I had one halfway done, when he comes back and says "oh, I didn't know you were doing that now, I would have helped". I  just said "oh, it's really only going to take me about 10 minutes to pop in these flowers", but what I was really thinking was "because I don't need you telling me how to put flowers in the dirt, LOL! I was putting some bottles of water in the fridge the other day and he walks up to get something and says "make sure you put them to the back and keep the cold ones up front". OMG. I said ya, I've been doing this for 20 some years, I think I have it down.

The coop cleaning took about 30 minutes, though I'll probably take some time off next time, LOL. I started out with a garden rake but it wouldn't fit back in the corners of the nesting area, so then I had to go get the hoe, which worked better. Then I forgot to bring something to cut open the bag of pine shavings with. One cube/bag of the shavings is perfect size for this coop. I do go out there almost every day and scoop up poop and put it in a bucket, but there was still quite a bit under where they sleep that's harder for me to reach with just my arm and little scoop, so that was the most part that needed cleaned out/replaced. I supposed I'll learn what works best as I go along.

I also bought a big 50# bag of feed and a 50# bag of scratch. I ordered online Saturday morning and then did a curbside pickup at the feed store when I saw my mom Saturday. That 50# bag of food was $5 cheaper than 2 #10 bags I bought the first time. I had gone inside the store the first trip and just bought those smaller bags because I couldn't pick up the big bag and was in a hurry and didn't want to take time to find someone to help and then help get in car, etc. Those big bags will last a long time but from now on I'll just order and pick up and have them load in my car.

One of my dogs keeps waking me up early this week, like 30-60 minutes early. GRRR! I can't even move a muscle in bed or he's jumping down and then pacing around thinking I'm getting up. It's only 9am and I'm already tired and feel like I need to go back to bed, since I've been up early the past 2 mornings in a row. If he does it again tomorrow, I'm just getting up, letting him outside to do his business and then going back to bed and making him wait until normal schedule to feed his breakfast and get up.

I ran out of printer ink yesterday. I thought I was printing out a few pages of my mom's medical records and I got up to go to bathroom as it started and came back and it printed out like 50 pages and then ran out of toner. And sure enough, I needed to print 2 checks this morning for my side job and had no replacement cartridge. So, I just had to hand write them. Oh well. I ordered 2 cartridges and they are supposed to be here Friday.    

It smells like our neighbors are burning their garbage now, at times. I don't get it. They have this big expensive million dollar home/property (they own 2 lots), but won't pay for garbage service (which is like $42/mo). When Mrs worked in town she said she just took their garbage in and used the business she worked at big dumpster. When that business closed, then Mr. was using the dumpster where he worked. Now he just works odd jobs/temp jobs, so they have nowhere free to dump. There's a dump station literally like 2 miles from us. If you aren't having garbage service, then take it there! DH has a very strong sense of smell, so something like garbage burning is such a rancid smell. Normal burning like brush and wood is fine. Our other neighbors down at the end of the street have garbage service. It's just part of maintaining a home and living in a neighborhood - geez. Who wants to be outside, working in your yard, or sitting on the patio and smell that. I could see it if you lived on a bunch of acreage and no neighbors very close.