I'm Back the Update

Made it in and out of St. Louis this morning without an incident. I thought I was going to have to go into Illinois but turns out there was a miscommunication on that score and I only had to drive into one of the wealthier inner suburbs known as Creve Coeur. Well at least the part I went to was pretty wealthy looking down near I-64 in a section called Oak Hills. Lot's of big McMansions although you could tell they were no longer "new" and starting to show some age. Still they were huge.

Seriously I cannot understand how someone can live in an urban cesspit such as St. Louis. Maybe if I was single and had one hell of a good paying job I might think about it on a temporary basis but to raise a family there? No friggin way. If I had to drive through that mess on a  daily basis I think I would explode and start chucking hand grenades through someone's sun roof or something after about a month.

The one way streets, center medians, single use lanes and traffic would literally cause me to snap.

Once I made it back it was time to get started on the chores that have been piling up around here. Cleaned out the wood furnace and got a good fire going in it once again. Split an extra large load of firewood this time mixing it up between old Oak, Box Elder and Maple with a little bit of Mulberry thrown in for good measure.

Speaking of Mulberry. I drug a Mulberry trunk out of an over grown area that I cut down almost 20 years ago this Summer. I finished cutting it into usable lengths and was amazed at how well it has weathered 20-some-odd years just laying there on the ground. It also burns wonderfully. I may have to look into burning a bit more Mulberry in the future.

While I was carrying and loading the split stuff my dad came over and ran the splitter control. At one point a hen was right under the splitter and I had just broke a big chunk of wood from the ground and noticed a nice pile of wood roaches hibernating under the log.

There were a bunch of them down in there so I reached over and grabbed the hen, who needed moving anyway. She of course started screaming like I was getting ready to put her into the pot but I carried her over to the bugs and pushed her head down almost into the group of them. She immediately shut up and started attacking them.

My dad was laughing so hard at how fast that hen's whole attitude changed he almost fell off the chair he was sitting on.

Of course Rocky wasn't very happy about the fact I was feeding his hens but he will live.

Man it's good to be back home and getting chores done.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!