My Brain is Tired, Plus Pretty Pictures

Mid-October, I got a call from my boss. Our safety guy had been poached, I mean, borrowed, by another plant and would be out until at least the end of the year. Would I be interested in helping out here and there with the safety needs at our plant? My answer, was, of course, absolutely! I love, love my job in the lab, but we'd been fairly slow and I was starting to feel stagnant. Helping out in safety would engage my brain and keep me busy.

Holy cow, did my brain get engaged! I only had a few hours with our safety guy to go over things I needed to know to lead the weekly safety trainings and entering things into the corporate sites. When I say they poached, I mean, borrowed, him they did so very quickly. He learned he needed to be at the other plant, in another state the following Tuesday. I got the call asking for help on Thursday evening, which left Friday for me to get up to speed.

I've been exhausted since. Of course it wasn't just the two things I was tasked to do. After a couple of weeks, when I had gotten the hang of what I thought I'd be doing, a few more things got added on, and then the corporate people learned my name and next thing I know, about 75% of my day is safety and the rest in the lab. Thank goodness, my lab coworker can pick up my slack.

I learned last week that our safety guy is now going to be out of state until June, and he may choose not to return to our plant, which potentially leaves his position open. It's become pretty clear that I'm being groomed for his position, and for the most part, I'm game. The hardest part for me, if I took over his position, is that I'd have to leave the lab. I love the lab. I've poured my heart and soul into getting it running smoothly and efficiently. The thought of leaving the lab hurts my heart, even though I'd be given a chance to grow. 

It's a quandary.

On top of learning all I can about the safety side of things (and there is soooooooo much), I'm working on a book project. What little brain power I have left at the end of the week is spent sitting in front of my computer on Saturday morning trying to break down complex concepts into easy-to-digest coherent sentences. It's slow going. I'd like to complete a chapter a month, and have the book to the publisher by July. NaNoWriMo this ain't. Besides not having the dedicated time to sit and write for hours, like I did during NaNo, my 'spoons' are lacking by the time I get home at night.

It's no wonder, then, that in the evenings I'm doing low-brain activities. I've crocheted hats for the cats, yes I did, and am working on a few little amigurumi as gifts for the girls for this upcoming baking weekend. I'd better get a move on the last one! I only have tonight and tomorrow night to complete it.

Growing up, I was not a kid who played dress up. At all. I thought it was silly. But now, in my Feral Fifties, I'm having a great time dressing up the horses, the cats, and the outbuildings. I managed to get the Christmas decorations up for Whimsy and Maggie the day before the weather turned to crap.

The Magical Potting Shed (Maggie) in her Christmas clothes.

The Whimsical Treehouse (Whimsy)
with her Christmas colors on.

As I was standing on the stepladder, trying to get everything hung, I was feeling so grateful for my aerial classes, which have given me the confidence and strength to do things like this. (I was even more thankful for my aerial classes as the Bionic Cowgirl and I were building Whimsy! There was a lot of climbing, balancing, and strength required that came directly from my circus classes.)

The day after getting the decorations up, I woke up to hoar frost coating everything. I absolutely love looking at hoar frost, but don't love that in order for it to show up, humidity and cold are required.

Thanks to a tip from my tattoo artist, I was able to get a good close-up of the frost. She takes pictures of all of her tattoo work, and told me last time she uses the 2x setting on her phone's camera for better detail. I am by no means a photographer, but when I wanted to take a picture of the frost coating the red bulb, I remembered her telling me that and gave it a try. I love the results.

It didn't look like much from the
outside, but inside looking out
was gorgeous.

Two days after the hoar frost, the snow came. I have to leave for work before the sun comes up, and with these stupid shorter days, it's dark when I get home, so I asked L.E. to take 'first snow' pictures for me.

Though the outsides were decorated, I hadn't completed decorating the insides yet. There's not a ton that goes in each, just a small Christmas tree and a few decorations. Whimsy's decorations haven't changed much from last year: a tree, stockings for her and Maggie, and this year's addition, a chicken ornament for Mary Kathryn, Queen of the Retirement Home.

I'd hoped the lights would show
up better in the dark, but this is 
what I ended up with.

Maggie got no Christmas love last year, so all of her decorations, inside and out, are new. Since Maggie is named after Dame Maggie Smith, of Hogwarts fame, I tried to lean into the Harry Potter theme with floating candles. Jay helped me hang them, and I enjoyed turning them on with my remote-control wand.

She looks so warm and cozy from the outside.

The floating candles make me smile.

From the inside, looking out.

Eventually, Maggie's walls will be insulated and finished. I had the entire north wall insulated, but hadn't gotten around to hanging the OSB on that wall and the upper insulation blew down. I've hired Autobot and her boyfriend to do the finish work for me later this month. Right now, Maggie has become a catch-all, and I need to be able to hang shelves and organize her. She's also supposed to be our "guest house", so I need to get her warm and sealed up.

Baking Weekend is just two days away, so I hope to have some lovely updates from that to write about, and I'm hoping that my full brain will start to adjust to the new job so I have the energy to continue to blog.

Northern Lights, Take II

After I'd taken my fill of pictures on Veteran's Day, I finally called it a day and crawled into bed. I was scrolling through social media, as one does when they're supposed to be sleeping, and I saw so many pictures of people who thought to use the Aurora as a background for other pictures.

I saw people standing with their horses, dogs, friends, family ... so many different pictures using the gorgeous lights as a background, and I cursed myself for not thinking of doing it myself. However, the meteorologists said that the Aurora would make another appearance the following day, and they'd be even more spectacular. I'm not sure how they thought they'd be more spectacular than what I'd already seen, but I was willing to trust them. 

I knew I didn't want to bother with pulling the horses from the pen once the sun was down, and I didn't want to try to get pictures of them in the pen, so that was out.

However ... I knew I needed pictures of Whimsy and Maggie in the foreground of the lights. I waited and waited all day, excited to see the lights again and planning my photoshoot of the buildings. Dark came and I waited and waited.

Nothing.

No extra bright visible lights as had been promised by those lying meteorologists. I mean, I shouldn't have been disappointed, because when are they ever right more than 50% of the time? But I persisted. I went out every half hour or so with my phone and took pictures of the sky, just in case the lights weren't visible to the naked eye.

Eventually, it paid off, and I had a full-on photoshoot with Whimsy and Maggie. I stayed up way past my bedtime, and the next day at work was rough, but I got some pictures that I'm happy with.

Whimsy (left) and Maggie (right) 12Nov2025

I tried a little different angle to see if I could get both of them.

I love this one of Whimsy

This one of Maggie is probably my favorite of the bunch.

The chicken coop/repurposed silo on the far left (barely visible),
then Whimsy and Maggie.

I'm happy with the pictures, but still kicking myself that I didn't think to do this the night before. I need to give myself some grace, because the night before was all about wonder and awe. I'm still so thrilled to have finally seen the dancing lights that I think it might go down as one of my top ten days this year.

Hallowe'en Decorating

Last year, Nebalee found the coolest Hallowe'en craft that we were unable to do, because finding pool noodles in Colorado in October is practically impossible. However, this year, I stumbled across some at the Dollar Store, and snatched up enough to make both of us the gothic candle craft that we couldn't make last year.

All it took was $20 in pool noodles, $5 in spray paint, $5 in black ceramic plates to act as bases for Nebalee's, and $83 solar tea lights. Yes, you read that right, eighty-three dollars! So much for a cheap craft, lol. The solar tea lights are worth it, because of the time saved in not having to turn on and off all of the tea lights if they were battery-operated. To me, it's worth it to not have to waste time remembering to go out and turn on twenty lights, then turn them off in the morning.

I knew I wanted two sets to put at the end of Whimsy' archway, and two sets to put into Maggie's gothic bird cages, plus two sets for Nebalee's house. The first thing I did when I got home was to cut them in staggered heights, then tape them together so I could glue them.

All taped and ready for gluing.

For a smart person, sometimes I'm not so smart. Do you know that hot glue and foam pool noodles don't play well together? If I'd stopped for three seconds and thought about it, I might have picked up some glue when I picked up the pool noodles. I finally figured out a way to make the hot glue and the foam pool noodles play nicely enough to stick together. Jay then added some wood glue (the only glue we had at the time) around the top, and let it run down so it would look like melting wax once painted.

Wood glue on foam takes forever to try, and I impatiently waited until it was "dry enough" to take outside and paint.

Once they were all painted and dried, I took them to their assigned spots. I wired the two for Whimsy to her arch, since I knew the winds would blow them away if I didn't. I mean, if the wind can blow down a whole outhouse, my foam gothic candles wouldn't stand a chance. With them in place, I again had to wait for the tea lights to be delivered. And then I had to wait until I had time to go add them to the candles.

The tea lights didn't fit down inside the hole of the pool noodles, so some creative carving was required, which was messy and time consuming, but so worth it!

The first night, I only had time
to carve holes in one set of candles.

But look at how amazing these are!

It took a week after the first tea lights were installed to get the rest installed. Digger and the Gremlin were over the night I was carving and installing the rest of the tea lights and I basically just ignored them in my quest to complete the project. I think they'll forgive me.

I love them in the gothic birdcages,
and they're protected from the wind.

I realized that my candelabra would go very nicely on the shelves I moved into Maggie, so I moved it from the potting bench over to the shelves. Those tapers are battery operated, so they only get turned on for "special occasions", i.e. when I feel like walking out and turning them on.

Last month, Jay had won a gold skull in a game, and he thought it would be great in Whimsy, if I added a tea light to it. He's right - it would look amazing in Whimsy, but once I moved the candelabra to the window shelf, I decided that the skull needed to go there, too. Since we live on an old farm, "treasures" resurface every spring, and I've been collecting them. This year's treasures included a lot of animal bones, so I made a temporary wreath of rib bones for the base of the skull.

I just love the way this all came together. Yes, Maggie is a bit lopsided, with the candelabra and skull in one window, but I still love it. There's still time, I might find something to go in the other window before Hallowe'en. This is honestly the first time I'm disappointed that we never have any trick or treaters.

This just makes me so happy. <grin>

Whimsy, the Whimsical ... Retirement Home?

L.E. added three pullets to her flock a month or so ago. The current hens are getting up there, almost to hen menopause, so she needed to bring in layers that would take over when the older ladies finally quit laying.

Meet Hi-ho Silver, Andarna*, and Princess Buttercup
Aug 15, 2025

Mary Kathryn, our oldest hen at almost 8 years old, wasn't having it, and immediately went after them. She was placed in time-out for a little bit that day, then allowed back in with the rest of the ladies.

As the pullets have grown, though, they've not forgotten her hostile welcome and she's slipped to the bottom of the pecking order. For the past few weeks L.E. has been taking her out each morning and putting her in her private suite, the chicken tractor by the strawberry/mint patch. Mary Kathryn has not complained about this one bit. She's always been a bit spoiled.

Her history is amazing.

She started her life with my niece, Autobot, who tamed her, and carried her around like a pet. When Autobot enlisted, she needed a good place for Mary Kathryn. At that point in time, Beel had become a crazy chicken lady (or, as he preferred, a chicken tender), so Mary Kathryn made the move up to the lodge with his girls. 

While at the lodge, she fought off and survived two hawk attacks. During a coyote attack, she was smart enough to fly up into a tree, and lived to tell the tale. When Mom and Beel evacuated during a big fire a few years ago, the flock came down to live with L.E.'s until they got the all clear to go home.

Then came the bobcat slaughter. Beel found Mary Kathryn huddled in the coop, surrounded by the evidence of the attack. By that time, Beel's heart had been broken enough by losing hens, and he asked L.E. if the old girl could retire down at our place. L.E., being the kind-hearted woman she is couldn't turn him down.

Her introduction to the existing flock didn't go well. They ganged up on her, and she was just too traumatized to fight back. Instead, she became L.E.'s best friend. She would walk up to L.E. and ask to be held and carried around, just like Autobot used to do when she was just a little chicken nugget. She was the only hen allowed to free range. But free ranging meant that she just followed L.E. around the yard.

Eventually, she managed to integrate, and remember she was a hen. For the past three years, she's done really well. Until the new pullets came and the drama started.

L.E. is leaving to visit her kids and grandkids in a few days, and so we were trying to figure out what to do with Mary Kathryn. I leave for work long before the hens wake up, and I didn't want to go pick her up out of her nesting box in the middle of (her) night. We discussed moving her private suite into the "cat barn", where the feral cats used to live, but as we were standing outside talking, I was looking at Whimsy. I asked L.E., "why don't we just move the chicken tractor into Whimsy?". Then I did a mental facepalm. Why move the chicken tractor into Whimsy, when I could just shut the bottom of the Dutch door and let her have the run of the place?

So, that's what we did. L.E. made her a nesting box out of a cat carrier, I moved out anything I didn't want chicken shit on, and we moved her in.

Mary Kathryn's new retirement home.

She dove right into the food, so we suspect the other
had been keeping her away from it.

Checking out her new digs.

She's kind of hard to see in the shadow,
but she was pretty happy in there.

By living in Whimsy, she's close enough to hear the other hens, and better protected from predators than she would have been in the dark cat barn at the edge of the property. She has Diana, the pomegranate, and a couple of potted plants to keep her company and give her something to scratch.

While Whimsy's not fully insulated, and her interior walls aren't complete, it should be warm enough in her nesting box during the cold nights. Diana is getting a frame covered in heavy duty plastic, so I'll be sure to leave space for Mary Kathryn to get in if she wants as well.

I can't tell you how much it tickles me to have Whimsy used in this way, and I hope Mary Kathryn loves living in there.

*Yesterday, Andarna went cock-a-doodle-doo, so now he's Tairn. 

First Pomegranate, Now Pineapple

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine thought she'd try to propagate a pineapple by using the top of a store-bought one. Now, had I tried it, there's no way in hell it would have worked, but her green thumb is a thing of beauty. Not only was she able to grow from a cut pineapple top, her original plant had "pups" (sucker) and one plant turned into a few.

I had been oohing and aahing over her pineapples, and last year she offered me a pup. However, by the time we got around to meeting up, it wasn't so much a pup as an adolescent plant. She was kind enough to send it to me in one of her pots, but I needed to repot the plant into one of my own.

I know even less about pineapples than I do about pomegranates, and I was certain I'd killed Pina during the repotting process. Lucky for her, she went into the greenhouse at work within a day or two of me repotting her, so she had a fighting chance. 

Greenhouse move-in day

A pineapple's growth is glacially slow. Despite taking pictures of her almost weekly, I couldn't see it. Compared to Diana the Pomegranate's growth, it looked like all Pina was doing was what I expected - staying alive over winter.

In almost three months, she looked the same to me as the day she moved in. I hadn't killed her while repotting her - whew - and she was surviving the cold Colorado winter. I had initially intended to bring her home when I brought Diana home, but decided to wait until we got back from vacation. Pineapples don't do temperatures below 50* F well, and the night time temperatures were hovering right around that, plus it was cold and rainy for about three weeks straight.

Finally, our weather leveled out enough that I figured she wouldn't die in Whimsy, and I brought her home. All that growth that I was blind to? It literally slapped me in the face when I tried to move her from the greenhouse at work. She easily went through the doors on move-in day. On move-out day, I needed help from a friend to get her through. 

Because I didn't see her growth, I thought I'd just slip her into the back seat of my car for the ride home. I managed to get her in there, but it required me to move the front passenger seat all the way forward and tip the seat forward. I'd intended to put her on the passenger side of the car, but she was too big for that. I had to use my foot to push her pot into the middle of the car seat, and even then, I had to bend some leaves to get the door to shut.

During the move from the greenhouse to the car, I noticed that she'd grown a pup. Where that came from, I have no idea. I didn't see one before my vacation, but I also wasn't looking.

The drive home was uneventful, but getting her unloaded and into Whimsy was a bit of a challenge. I learned from moving Diana to pay attention to the way I orient her in Whimsy. I had to back in through the door, but was able to rotate her pot so that her arms weren't blocking the doorway. The pup had to go, though. As cool as it would be to grow a second one, I'm not certain that I'll be able to keep Pina happy enough to fruit as is. She'll thrive in Whimsy at least through the summer, but I'm not sure how she'll do over winter. I'll have to really work to keep her warm enough, and she's too big for the house. The good news is, if I can keep Whimsy warm enough for her (above 50*F, which is unlikely), then Diana will thrive as well.

I just sat her pot down in what used to be Yelena's tires. There's going to be some rearranging in the near future. The tires are going away, and Pina will have a stool to sit on. I still need to put insulation and OSB up on this end of Whimsy, but since Pina's in a pot, it'll be easy to move her and work around her. I have some time off next week, and am hopeful I can finish up.

It's been a long haul, but my greenhouse/garden dreams are slowly coming to fruition.

Out to Whimsy She Goes

The whole point of building Whimsy was to grow pomegranates, and the whole point of putting Diana in the greenhouse at work was to keep her alive through her first winter. Eventually, I was going to have to put them together, right?

There were just a couple of things I needed to do with Whimsy before moving Diana in, and Mom was kind enough to help with them. First, I needed to place screens over the windows, so that as she grew, she couldn't stick her arms out the window. Also, I wanted to improve the walls. I'd put insulation in when we built Whimsy, but I'd just covered it with heavy duty black trash bags, thinking the black would help absorb the heat and act as a heat sink. It didn't help as much as I thought it would, so I put up "real" walls with OSB. The OSB should help block some of the wind and cold down low. 

Both the screens and OSB had to be put up before I planted Diana, because I knew working around her would be difficult. She's pokey and sticky, and, honestly, miserable to be working around/under/through.

(Please ignore the haze on the pictures - we'd been sawing and sawdust coated everything, including the camera lens. Also, I should have given the windows a good scrubbing.)

Just the simple act of adding the OSB makes Whimsy feel ...
more substantial, like a "real" greenhouse.

These windows open from the outside. When it gets really hot
this summer, I'll open them for more air movement/heat loss.

Finally, the day came that I'd chosen to move Diana out of L.E.'s house. She had been throwing a temper tantrum at being moved from the perfect conditions in the work greenhouse, to really good conditions in L.E.'s south-facing window. Almost immediately, she started dropping leaves and generally being a temperamental, rude houseguest. God bless L.E. for putting up with her and not kicking her out.

Jay was kind enough to help me use the auger to dig a hole big enough for Diana's considerable root ball, and I went to collect her from L.E.'s house. You can see the change in her between the two pictures, and it was about a week.

Move out day couldn't come soon enough,
for L.E. or Diana.

For a plant that was throwing a temper tantrum about being in L.E.'s beautiful, climate controlled house, she sure the hell didn't want to leave. She left a trail of destruction in her wake. Her branches grabbed onto the doorways as she tried to prevent me from carrying her out. 

Leaves and fruits went flying.

Eventually, we were able to disentangle her, and plop her down into the Gremlin's little red wagon for the short trip to Whimsy.

I mixed up a few gallons of root hormone/stabilizer to hopefully help with the transition from being a potted plant to being an in-ground plant. She'll have from now until the end of September/beginning of October to stretch her roots and settle herself into Whimsy.

Before pruning.

When I picked her up out of her pot, I naturally went around to the more bare side. The side with the least amount of branches, pokey things, and stickiness. Then I backed into Whimsy to drag her branches in behind, instead of trying to stuff her branches in first. It made perfect sense when I did it. What I failed to do was rotate 90 degrees once I was in Whimsy, which would have put her biggest branches in the southeast corner instead of blocking the doorway. When did I realize this? After I'd planted, stepped on her, and soaked her with 3 gallons of root stabilizer. I was not about to dig her back up to turn her 90 degrees.  I had made a tactical error when I planted her, and didn't realize it until I started pruning. Sometimes, I'm such an idiot.

She stabbed me a couple of times as I was moving her from her pot to her new hole in the ground, and speckled me with sap, but I finally got her shoe-horned into the hole we'd dug. It was about 1/2" too small all the way around, so I kept shaving away at it with the shovel until I could get the majority of her root ball in. Then, I stepped on her. Repeatedly, until she sank down into the hole sufficiently. It's probably not the right way to do it, but it's the GunDiva way. I soaked her really well with the root stabilizer, and Jay helped me temporarily prop her up.

I had purposely not done any pruning, because I didn't want her to put too much energy into her roots. I'd saved all the pruning until she was planted.

The first things that went were any branches or air shoots on the bottom 18". I chose the strongest, sturdiest looking three "trunks" I could find, and cut away anything else. Then, I took some handy baling twine and wrapped it around the three "trunks" to draw them together to form as close to one "trunk" as possible. This helped her stand up a bit better. I did plant a support pole next to her that I tied her to. I kept the little 1x3" board we'd propped her up with initially, and will keep it there until she's a little steadier and less lean-y.

Finally, I scooted out from under her, and went to town on the branches. Any branches that looked sickly or dry, or that had lost most of their leaves got the axe. Well, not so much the axe, as the pruning shears.

I left her one little fruit, because I couldn't bare to cut all of them off. But I did tell her that it's okay if she drops it. It's way more important for her to establish her root system and grow strong, healthy branches instead of fruit this year.

After pruning.

A couple of days later, I went back and trimmed the branches that were blocking the doorway. If I hadn't screwed up in the first place with her placement, I wouldn't have needed to cut them back. Despite being much thinner, and looking much shorter now that she's in the ground instead of in a pot, she looks good. And, dare I say, happy with her new living situation.

I'll make a small box around her base and make sure that it's mulched well with straw to help her maintain her moisture, but once pomegranates are established, they're drought-tolerant. I think, for the winter, I might build her a cage of PVC pipe and drape it with heavy plastic to help protect her from winds and the cold. For our week or two of below zero temps, I'll hang a heat lamp for her.

Now to just get her to winter ...

Diana Moves Home

Before I talk about my wonderful, wonderful Wonder Woman pomegranate, Diana, I thought I'd give a quick update on my Black Widow pomegranate, Yelena. I did, indeed, love Yelena to death and she did not make it through the winter. I know I said I'd give her until June, but it was pretty obvious a few weeks ago that she had shriveled up and said "screw this". I can't blame her. She was a tough one, and probably would have made it if I hadn't messed with her so much.

Diana was a cute little thing when I got her. Here's a flashback of her baby pictures.

So she wasn't little-little, but compared to
her recent pictures, she was tiny.

She looked rough for a bit during her
transition from Georgia to Colorado, but she rebounded.

Move-in day to the greenhouse at work.
Diana, Pina the pineapple, and Lemony the lemon plant.
Pina looks great, but Lemony kicked the bucket a couple
of months in.

Diana thrived in the greenhouse! I put here in there to just survive the winter, all I wanted her to do was not die. She thought she went on a tropical vacation and exploded. At one point, she was growing between 6-8 inches a week.

Diana's last week in the greenhouse.

I had to move her out of the greenhouse in the beginning of April, because I was afraid that she'd get too big to move. Luckily, L.E. has a beautiful south-facing window that she has loaned us.

She's thriving in L.E.'s window as well

Being a Colorado native, I was completely ignorant of how pomegranates grew until I saw my first pomegranate tree in Italy, so I've been completely fascinated by how the fruit grows.

The buds grow very quickly
into this elongated thing before blooming.

As the bloom forms, but before it opens,
it looks like a demagorgan from Stanger Things.

You blink, and next thing you know,
there are fruits growing!

Diana will live with L.E. for a few weeks, probably until mid-May, before I move her to Whimsy. This time with L.E. is a great time to harden her off. Not that L.E.'s house is cold, but it is cooler than the greenhouse at work, and we're able to wean her off the drip system she was on. She'll get watered on a regular basis, but no more IV fluids for her. Once she moves out to Whimsy, she'll get a good trimming to start to train her to be a tree rather than a bush. And, sadly, I'll remove most of the fruit to encourage her to grow strong roots so she'll be ready for the winter.

I have a few things left to finish in Whimsy before Diana goes in the ground that hopefully won't take me too long to complete. I want to change out the insulation and put screens over the windows so she doesn't try to grow out of them over the summer.