Google Map Pedometer

As part of a walking program at work we were shown a link to Google Map Pedometer. You can put in any zip code to find your starting point and then click on the points of a route you are walking/driving. It will give you the distance. I found out I've been riding my bike 5 miles in the mornings or walking just under 2 miles.

A two-year old at the pool

A family came over to Renae's Thursday night to look at the chicks and then swim. The 2 almost 3-year boy was quite impressed when he would get out of the pool and the water would stream down between his legs. He bent over a little and was watching it. When his mom asked him what he was doing he said, "I tinkling." Then he had to continuously get in and out of the pool to see himself "tinkle".

It was interesting that as soon as he walked in the pool area he immediately went to a rock that was holding down a screen and threw it in the pool. Later he had to pick up the turtle planter which unfortunately had a broken leg so the leg fell down and the turtle wouldn't stand up anymore. What a boy!!!

His older sister was going to help him jump off the board because he wanted to. Unfortunately, he wasn't all the way to the end of the board and instead of jumping out she jumped to the side which meant he fell to his knees and got dragged across the board into the water. I don't think he's going to want to jump off a board in the near future.

And then last and probably best when they were ready to leave he was pushing a swing. His mother said, "What do you say when I say 'Come'?" He very politely yelled back, "I coming" while he continued to push the swing. I think a better training question would be, "What do you do when I say 'Come'?"

Happy One Week Birthday

A couple chick pictures on their one-week birthday Wednesday:


This is the most yellow one that Renae has named Sam. He/she/it is only one of two with a name. Brian named another Lil' Bish. Sam did not like being in the grass and promptly hopped back to the asphalt.


The chicks are getting bigger. You can kind of see the tail feather on the chick at the bottom of the lineup on the left. Several have very definite tail feathers. Others have a small puff where the tail feather is forming and others are pretty late developing.

Hot, hot, hot

Yesterday Grand Rapids hit an all-time June high of 96 degrees!!! It's the hottest it's been since the early 90s!

Thanks, Renae, you're pool is wonderful in this heat.

Thankful Thursday

Air conditioning is a wonderful thing.

So glad I have a friend with a pool.

Fresh broccoli from the garden, and we got our first small bunch this week.

Despite the continuing negative economic news, my company made some very positive

Goodbye Chicks.

The runt chick met an untimely demise last night of what appeared to be natural causes. Sometime overnight another chick had an untimely water incident resulting in his demise as well. Unfortunately for Renae both of them were her chicks. : )

We are down to 18 and they haven't even been outside in the chicken tractor yet!

Chicken Tractors in Ministry

Don't worry--every post won't be about chickens, but this was funny from Sunday School this morning.

We had a missionary speaker telling about the variety of ministries they are involved with. He told about how they have animals and people from town visit to see the animals. He said they raise chickens. Did anyone know what a chicken tractor is? From the back row I raised my hand and told him that I built one this summer. He seemed surprised that anyone knew what a chicken tractor was and others were surprised that I was involved with chickens.

We did find out today that the chicks were born on Wednesday and shipped on Thursday. Today they are four days old. It's interesting how they are already changing. The wing feathers are much more pronounced and they chicks are bigger in size each day.

Chickens Day +2

And my new name for the chicks:

Cha-ching chickens.

All 20 appear to be doing well. It's amazing how their feathers are more visible in just one day! We walked next door to see the neighbors chickens which are about 6-7 weeks ahead of ours. They are on dirt a lot and are dirty. Our chickens are not going to be dirty.

Tonight we had chicken at dinner with Renae's parents and Glenn's mother; Renae and I cooked for father's day. I looked at my plate midway through the meal and said, "Just think. Next year this could be one of the babies."

Project Reveal

So this is the project. Renae and I are attempting to raise chickens this year. The chicken wire covered pvc and irrigation tubing is our "chicken tractor". Our chickens will be pseudo-free range as they will be out on grass and we will move them every couple of days in the "chicken tractor". We have started with 20 and may be down to 19 already as one appears to be a bit more than traumatized from being mailed from Pennsylvania, getting unloaded at friends house, being picked out by Renae, driven to her house, and slid into the holding pen.

We will keep this in the barn until the chicks have feathered and then move the contraption to the back part of Renae's four acres. The lady we got them from suggested solar lights to keep the chickens calm and help with keeping out predators.

It was kind of neat when I was telling my dad about about our wild-brained idea that he had a transportable coop when he was a boy that he moved around their yard.

Another idea given to us was to use a red light to give the chicks a pinkish/reddish color. If they see blood on another chick they will peck it to death so the red tint protects them in case they get scratched and bleed. Who knows? We're pretty much buy whatever people tell us we need.

Cotton-Eyed

To my Michigan friends:

This is not cotton just because it blows off a cottonwood tree and bunches in garages, barns, and driveways.

THIS, my friends, is cotton:

I don't know what is more beautiful than a field of cotton white and ready for harvest.

Housing

The last few mornings on my walk and bike ride (see previous post) I’ve stopped to pick up papers on houses for sale—not because I plan on moving but I like to keep my eyes open for what just is “out there”. Every house I’ve looked at the paper has been a “bank owned property” aka foreclosure. Somehow I thought Hudsonville may be a bit more immune to the foreclosure epidemic the rest of the state and country is experiencing.

Bike Ride

This morning I decided rather than taking a walk I’d take a bike ride. I had no planned route so I was just wandering up and down streets planning to ride for 30 minutes. About the furthest distance from my house, my seat slid down to its lowest position. I got off, raised it, and tightened the lever. I proceeded on my ride only to have the seat again go back down. I got off and repeated the process of positioning and tightening the seat. Before I even began riding the seat slid back down. I crossed Chicago Dr and went back to my condos with the furthest my leg extended to just beyond 90 degrees and holding onto the handle bars just below chin level. I’m sure it was an interesting sight. Crossing 32nd I could barely keep from laughing thinking that those truck drivers must be thinking “If she’d raise the seat it would be a lot more comfortable and easier riding.”

Day -2

Two days until the next major step in the project.

Running with the big dogs

In the last few months Fortune magazine named the Most Admired Companies and the 100 Best Companies to Work For and Fast Company named the 50 Most Innovative Companies. Only six corporations made all three lists: Microsoft, Cisco, Apple, Google, Whole Foods, and a small furniture company in West Michigan—Herman Miller.

Miscellaneous Monday

A few miscellaneous items from the weekend:

Saturday a.m. I went to an estate auction. I love watching the dynamics of an auction, and this one seemed to have more than its share of worthless junk. Of course, we all know that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure and apparently some were finding treasures. My treasure consisted of three boxes of canning and jam jars. The jam jars are pint and a half I think and have various fruits molded in the glass. They are really pretty so if you get jam from me in the next year in one of these jars, I really want it back. : ) I won the bid with what I thought was $1 choice so I chose three boxes of jars rather quickly knowing that people don’t want to waste time on $1 things. I went to pay and expected to pay $3 (really was breaking the bank on that auction!), but it was only $1. Had I known it was $1 for anything I wanted I would’ve taken all the boxes of jars.

Yesterday when driving home from church, a wild turkey flew across my exit. A small bird was right behind it. Apparently I killed the little bird because it was lying on the road as I looked through my rear view mirror. Right then another little bird flew up to it and just sat beside the dead bird. It was rather sad.

Last night at Renae’s I built a fire in the fire pit. I really like sitting around a fire and watching the hot colors swirl on the coals.

Friday was a fun day of walking through Saugatuck even though we missed Darryl Hannah who was there for the Waterfront Film Festival. We ate dinner on a restaurant deck overlooking Lake Kalamazoo/the channel and watched the boats go by.

Of course, the evening was rather spoiled by the Penguins beating the Red Wings for the Stanley Cup. Jayne from Handbells you have my sympathy. I noticed the black dress at church yesterday and realized you must be taking this pretty hard.

Father's Day

For those of you who rushed out Thursday to get a Father’s Day card to get it in the mail even though you knew it wouldn’t get to Alabama before Sunday, I hope you have found out that Father’s Day is June 21 and not June 14. Be glad you didn’t call early Sunday morning to be the first child to call and wish your father Happy Father’s Day too.

At least you can rest in the fact that your card will be the first your father receives—at least hopefully!

Shipshewana

Went to Shipshewana yesterday. It was a great day to go—sun was in and out with temps from high 60s in the morning to high 70s in the afternoon.

We were walking down an aisle and Renae tapped a lady on the shoulder. It was her next door neighbor! Neither knew the other was going to Shipshewana yesterday.

My list of items bought isn’t very exciting but perfect for me:

A lumbar support for any chair (even better than the Dr. Scholl’s pillow I bought almost five years ago.)
A set of 800 count sheets with 4 !!! pillowcases
4 pairs of garden gloves so I should be set for the year and into next year
grill brush
shower brush
whisk
strainer

I looked for socks but couldn’t find any—a joke you would understand only if you’ve been to the Shipshewana flea market.

And my favorite line from the day: On the drive back I pointed out several deer. One lady said, “Oh yes, I saw a deer this morning on the side of the road.”
Me: “But these are live deer.”
Her: “Oh that was a live deer that was dead.”

New Tool at Work

I rarely used a calculator at work until I started this last job almost 5 years ago. (That’s an entirely different post!) Now I use a printing calculator daily. When I started I inherited the calculator that was on my desk. Over the last few weeks I was getting wrong results—numbers were entered the same and correctly but I’d get different results. Typically I total checks and other things twice to confirm the total but I’ve been getting the same result twice only to find out it was the wrong result twice.

Last week I ordered a new calculator. It sounded as if I was using a machine gun whenever I punched in a number so that one had to go back. I ordered a replacement that is the same model as several others in the department got when they needed new printing calculators.

So now the power button is on the top left of the keyboard rather than on the right side of the machine.
The total button is where the CE button was on the old one.
The old one had a function that automatically placed a decimal two places into the right of the number. If this one has that function I haven’t found it so I must type the decimal.
The old one had the tape a bit elevated so I could see the final number on the tape as well as the display. Now I have to pull the calculator all the way to the edge of my desk and bend over it to see the last number on the tape.

These are all changes that I’m having to get used to. It’s funny that I don’t really mind getting used to changes in a new car but not so much a printing calculator.

I think there is a spiritual application to this, but right now I’ve got nothing.

Was there a new thing you used that took you a long time to get used to the changes?

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off To Other Work I Go???

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Career Builders—don’t know why but I found it interesting that I was a minimal match for these job openings for which I was thankful:

HVAC Service Branch Manager
Executive Assistant Manager Retail
Sr. Food Scientist
Bartender

But I was a fair match for these:
Purchasing Agent/Planner
Customer Service Delivery Teammate for an auto parts store
Retail Store Assistant Manager (diamonds/jewelry)
Manager of Employee Benefits, Health & Disabilities (and HR position???)
And my favorite—Branch Stockbroker.

However the best match was drum roll please Franchise Owner/Sales for a tax service.

Thankful Thursday One Day Late

Yesterday I thought about Thankful Thursday but nothing really "good" came to mind, but by the time I crawled into bed that had changed:

1. I bought my flowers for flower pots on the way home from work.
2. Madelynn called to take a bike ride--we rode 9-10 throughout Hudsonville.
3. My neighbor came over to tell me she lost her job last week. Linda has known more grief in her life but keeps pointing to how God provides for her. I had debated about doing flowers this year with the work and therefore budget reduction; however, I'm glad I got them so I could give her the leftovers so she can have flowers this year.

Hi-ho, Hi-ho, It's Off to Work I Go

I am working today. This should be my Friday off, but since it is fiscal year end Finance is working. It will be a regular day for me so I'm not sure why we have to be here. The consolation is we get off the next two Fridays.

To celebrate I wore tennis shoes to work today--only the second time since I've worked at Herman Miller.

First Summer Garden Report

This is the garden in its current state. In front you can see the tomatoes, to the left are the peppers which aren't as green as I'd like them to be. To the left of the peppers is a row of potatoes which are looking really good above the ground, to the left a row of onions, a first year attempt for us, and then you really can't see but the beans are coming up and in the middle left you can barely see the squash. And then you can see the mass of raspberry bushes. On the other side of the raspberry bushes, the corn is just popping up.

We are starting to get strawberries, the asparagus is over, and like other years we have some rhubarb to supplement what we buy at a roadside stand.



This is our new project this year after two evenings of working on it; there is more work to do. Any ideas on what it is?