Weekly Mileage #136 and We Have Chickens Again

Monday morning started with another visit to the pediatrician. Ocean's ear was still oozing and not showing signs of improvement. We switched medications again and the doc took a swab so it could be cultured to see what was going on. These drops did work, thankfully, and his ear is doing so much better now. We heard back from the doctor, and he had a MRSA staph infection in his ear. We're not sure how he managed to get MRSA in his ear, but at least it's finally cleared up.

I dropped him off at preschool a few minutes late, then went for a trail run and a hike.

hike with Ocean

Tuesday morning I spent some time on my bike before we went to music lessons. After lunch Ocean and I went for a short hike at a park near the elementary school. Then we went to his annual IEP meeting. I'd half-hoped we'd be done with speech therapy, but he's not. He's regressed a bit the last few weeks with his ear infection, but even before then he hadn't made enough progress to be done. He is making progress, just not enough to be done yet.

roughly carved bear in the middle of the woods

When we got home from that, I worked on the treehouse a little. The bottom floor planking is all screwed in place, the edges are trimmed, and I was able to start the frame for the mud kitchen before it got too dark to work.

Wednesday morning Ocean was supposed to go to the audiologist for a hearing test, but we had to reschedule it because of his ear infection. The soonest they could get him in is just before Christmas. So I took all the kids on a hike instead. We went back to the park Ocean and I went to on Tuesday- I loved how many pine trees were in the woods. They have a different feel from the predominantly deciduous forests we usually hike in.

That afternoon we took the kids to the Trunk or Treat at Jeremy's work. It's a small event, but the kids still managed to get a decent amount of candy.

Thursday morning I cleaned out the chicken coop and got it ready for chickens. Come spring I will have to rip out the floor and re-do it because it's rotting out (we have drainage issues when it rains really hard), but for now I was able to lay down some pieces of plywood to keep us from breaking through.

I've been meaning to order laying chicks for months, but just haven't had the time. The thought of raising chicks and not getting eggs for the next 6 months made it easier to keep putting it off. In this instance, my procrastination paid off. A family in our ward is having predator problems, so they were giving away their laying hens. We took 6 home and got our first eggs the next morning.  We have 3 Leghorns and 3 Rhode Island Reds.

Thursday evening a storm moved in and trick or treating was canceled in much of the area. Pouring rain, high winds, and a tornado alert aren't the safest conditions for kiddos. So we went trick or treating Friday night instead.

sitting in the hay wagon for a hayride

Thursday was overcast, warm and humid with temps in the mid 60s. Friday dawned clear and bright, and cold. Like 20 degrees colder. The boys and I went to an apple orchard with Ocean's preschool and we weren't quite ready for 45 degree weather. We layered up and had hats and mittens, but it was a bit of a shock to our systems.

Saturday morning we helped with a boy in our ward's Eagle Project. We went to a cemetery and used the app FindAGrave to make sure all the headstones had been photographed and GPS coordinates entered. Super cool, and so easy to do. This is something I can see us doing on our own and when we travel. Sunday evening Sunshine and I went to the Family History Center and helped index the photos. This consisted of reviewing each headstone with its accompanying file and updating the information. Usually this meant adding the birthdate and the day and month of death (year was already recorded), and sometimes correcting misspelled names.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 1.61 mile trail run
Monday- 1.70 mile hike
Tuesday- 10.00 mile bike ride
Tuesday- 1.18 mile hike
Wednesday- 1.60 miles hiked
Friday- .85 miles walked
Friday- 1.15 miles walked
total- 18.09 miles

30 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
2.56 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

120.47 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
41.16 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
100.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
264.19 miles total