2019 has been a very "interesting" year

Not much blogging has occurred, well, non actually, this year.  It's not that nothing has happened, it's just that I have let things get in the way of keeping on top of the blog, so, here goes a long update, hopefully not too long.  

Christmas 2018 was quiet and fairly uneventful.  Our oldest daughter was in South Korea teaching English in a middle school, but, everyone else was at home.  There was lots of snow, lots of cold, and a perfect Christmas Eve luminaria display at our local cemetery where our oldest son is buried. 
It's our tradition on Christmas Eve to wait til dark, go to the cemetery, where half the town also goes.  Everyone decorates graves with candles and Christmas decorations.  Small groups gather around grave markers of departed family members and sing carols while holding candles.  Some even light the floating lanterns that whisk up into the sky, only occasionally getting hung up in a nearby tree.  After we sing a carol and share a memory of our son, we all head to see the lights around town. 

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It was during the holidays that our second oldest daughter announced she was joining the Air Force.  That changed the focus of our entire year to come.  Well that and the fact that our second oldest son was going through the immigration process to bring his fiance to the US to be married.  We had no timeline for how long it would take, so, all wedding plans were on hold.  

Winter passed slowly, and with Spring came happy chickens, the start of a new growing season, and a fair well party for our soon to be Airman daughter.  

I learned a lot about starting seedlings, but, am still figuring out how to keep them growing to the size I want them to be when planting time comes.  I think I need to invest in more growing equipment, just not enough sunlight where I currently start them and until I can build a greenhouse I won't be able to improve on that location.  So, again this year, I waited til people were basically giving away their extras from their greenhouses, and snatched them up, often for free.  

Still, the soil is definitely improving dramatically, just from leaves and chicken droppings and wood shavings and household compost.  It's amazing.  Vertical growing is my new favorite thing, too, so much easier to manage.  

So, then it was Summer, and we were finally in full wedding planning mode, and had a basic training graduation to attend in San Antonio.  Our second oldest son announced he was also joining the Air Force, so, it seems to be a trend.  

And then the wedding.  It was beautiful, but, oh, tons of work.  As a wedding planner I know how to run an event, but, as the mother of the groom I made the mistake of trying run the whole wedding.  It was exhausting, but, surprisingly successful.  

And just like that, summer was over and life kind of went back to normal. 

I added some new breeds to my flock, sold a bunch of my surplus chickens to keep my numbers in check, and started hatching quail so I can have an endless supply of quail eggs, which I love.  They're so easy to raise and process, too.  

And now here we are in November, looking back over a big year.  Tomorrow our second oldest leaves for Air Force Basic Training, and our oldest daughter just got back last night from Korea.  All of the chickens and quail are happy and healthy and active.  They stopped laying for a few weeks, I try to give them a month long break in the fall so they can molt and just in general recover from laying all year long.  But, then it's back to business, and I mean the egg business.  

I added an LED light to extend their total light time to 14 hours, starting at about 430 AM.  I also upped their protein in the feed I buy them to 20%, and added scratch grains and a brewers yeast supplement in their feed.  They are back to laying, at least the ones finished with their molt, and are loving their freshly bedded nesting boxes with the herbs and flower petals.  The coop smells amazing, and the girls are happy..

So life goes on.  I will try to keep this updated, I really will.  Next up, how I keep my chicken coop cozy and comfortable through the cold Rocky Mountain winters.