It’s supposed to get so cold this weekend so I decided that I’d better get the chicken coop all closed up for the winter. I’m not planning on locking them in yet, but just trying to get ready for when that day comes. It wasn’t too windy after work tonight, so off to the milk house (that’s been transformed into a work shop) to get the supplies. Daryl had some plastic in there that I was planning on using and I needed to grab the staple gun. Now I was set. I thought I had cut the length just perfect until I started to unfold it. It was like the fish story in the bible… it just kept growing and growing. Since my scissors was dull from cutting the living room matting, cutting this plastic again was more of a bother than not. So as I was unfolding it, I realized that it could be doubled over and work even better. Yea! It almost looked like I had planned it this way. As I was working on this, Daryl’s brother was visiting and came over to give me a hand. We needed a small ladder to hit the high part of the plastic so off I ran to get it out of the basement. And that’s when I fell for the first time this winter. My shoes hit some ice and the next thing I knew I was on the cement. Lucky for me that I hit mostly on my backside and there’s a lot of extra cushion to absorb the shock. But I have to admit that my neck and butt is pretty sore tonight. But I didn’t break anything and Daryl didn’t fall…. so it’s not a bad thing at all. After I got the ladder and we got everything stapled up, Daryl’s brother went to his farm quick to get some small lathes to help hold the plastic on. With the crazy wind that we’ve had this year, I’m sure that it wouldn’t take much to tear the plastic off. Once we got everything on, I must say that this plastic shouldn’t be going anywhere this winter and it’ll sure help keep the snow out of the chicken coop. I’m not sure that the chickens like it so much yet. But once the first couple of feet of snow starts blowing, you can bet they’ll you’ll find them all nestled in the straw.
I also wanted to make some cookies tonight. Now there are things that are just staples in our house like butter, salsa, chocolate chips, nuts, and cream cheese. So when it came to start making the cookies, I guess flour isn’t something that I worry so much about. I tried to find a recipe that only needed 1 cup of flour, but even taking the recipes in 1/2, I didn’t have any luck. So I thought, let’s just see if I can find something that takes oatmeal. Score! So out comes the ‘quick’ oatmeal container and it felt a little light. Yup, you guessed it. It was also almost empty. Now I did have ‘old fashioned’ oatmeal, but I’ve learned my lesson that you can’t swap one for the other. Finally I was able to put what flour that I had in the kitchen cupboard and the remaining oatmeal together and made a half recipe of some cookies. They were looking pretty good before they went into the oven so I had high hopes for when they were done. 
And I was right, they weren’t too bad after all. My plan for Saturday? Get groceries. 