Truly Country

(I actually started this post months ago, but when I edit WP re-dates it.  I wish it didn’t because then it’s all out of order.)

Saturday night Jason dreamed he was at a Lutheran church and babies were being baptised and then immediately floated up to heaven.  I think he said something about helium too.  It’s a reflection of  what we’ve been talking about lately.  There was more to the dream, but that’s it in a nutshell.  It’s kinda funny since as far as I know he’s only been to one Lutheran service in his life, but that was within the last year or so.

We’ve had a lot of discussions about baptism and at one time considered delving into the differences between the Lutheran church and conservative Presbyterian denominations.   J decided we had made all the doctrinal moves we were going to make and that we aren’t going any further even if the Lutherans are right.

Yesterday we counted up the churches we have been to as at least regular attenders since we’ve been married.  The total is NINE!  And we don’t consider ourselves church hoppers.  We have been members of four of them and Jason had a part in getting the first and the ninth ones started up.  We also counted the ones who helped us greatly ( 2 1/2), ones that hurt us beyond belief (4), and ones that we just never quite fit in(1 1/2).  That was interesting, and one church we didn’t know how to count because the pastor was a great help to us by the love he showed us when we were in extreme need of kindness, but yet doctrinally we never fit into the church itself.  I counted it as the halves;) I don’t have the ninth one included in that count because we are here and don’t intend on leaving even though we at times are terrified(is that too strong of a word?) of what commitment and membership will involve.   I’m still gun shy or church shy, but I’m back in the saddle again.  I just don’t feel like a good trail horse, I’m too easily spooked.

We worked on fencing yesterday.   The main thing I wanted to get done was to construct Doggie Alcatraz.   If we were hardcore country I suppose we would get rid of our two, count ’em two, chicken killing dogs.  But no, I just can’t seem to penalize them for having been raised in the city and just not getting it about the chickens, ducks and turkeys being off  limits.  So we are building Doggie Alcatraz.  I’m real proud of the design; it uses 6 cattle panels with added on inner welded wire fence.   We used the existing garden fence and attached 2 cattle panels to it and wired the bottom of the chicken wire garden fence to the panels.

I forget the best parts.  The whole bottom of the fence is set in a trench and concreted in.  No more dig outs or escapes!!  AND there is no gate!  No gate means no mad dash to freedom and roaming chickens.  My dh built stairs on the outside and there is a stepladder on the inside to carry the dogs down. 

I am happy to report that there have been no escapes since Doggie Alcatraz was constructed in May 2010. 

The thievery of dogfood by chickens has dropped 100%.

Chicken killings are at 0.

The number one cause of dead chickens, ducks and turkeys on our place is city raised dogs that get loose.

The number two cause is a meetup with the freezer on the way to their destiny on the table.  Only a few chickens ever make it that far.

The dogs have eaten more chickens than we have!  One of them got ALL my turkeys.  We had to eat store bought! dried out tasteless yuck, only fit for turkey salad and only choked down because of tradition    I was not happy!