This weekend Sunday was Mother’s Day so Britton and I decided to take both of our moms out to lunch. We went to our favorite restaurant, Bisetti’s in Fort Collins. We had a great meal and then took a little walk around downtown Fort Collins afterward. It was nice to take a moment to appreciate our mamas. Without our parents, none of this could have been possible. Thank you, we love you!
Out with our moms in Fort Collins on Mother’s Day
The baby chicks aren’t really babies anymore and really don’t belong in a (human) house all day long. So, we’ve been letting them spend most days in the greenhouse when we are at work and then we take them in at night since it can still be down in the high 30s at night
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This weekend, though, it was such a nice day that we decided to let them out in the main yard. We weren’t sure how the big chickens would treat them, and I was (am) a little overprotective of them. They are still only about 5 weeks old. But they are looking little miniature chickens now already! They grow so fast!
The chickens were much more interested in their food than they were in the chicks themselves. It does look as though we have one that will be competing with Henrietta as the top chicken. She is the barred rock (black and white one) in the video. She is still being told who’s the boss of the yard, but it will be interesting to see how that pans out as she gets bigger.
Also, here are a few pictures from around the yard. This weekend we finally got some nice weather -it has been so windy for all of April.
I think these are called grape hyacinths
The tulips have been blooming for about a month!
So have the dandelions
One of my jobs at work is to help coordinate a teen health coalition called T.H.A.T. The kids came up with the name because they thought it would be fun to say they are going to THAT meeting or THAT event. THAT stands for Teen Health Alliance of Today. The group does various events related to health in the community and wanted to host the 2nd annual THAT Battle of the Bands.
Me with two of the other adult coordinators of THAT
We usually meet and wanted to hold the event at Zoe’s, a cool funky warehouse style coffee shop that is run in conjunction with an area church. However, on the night they chose (this last Friday) it was already reserved. So they decided to work with another group that hosts at-risk teenagers in an indoor skate park/coffee shop that also has church ties. This organization is called Higher Grounds and they try to help intervene and prevent high risk behaviors in teens. It has a great mission and purpose and a perfect audience for health messages and music!
With some of the group (yah, THAT group -haha)
We didn’t have very many bands sign up to perform -in fact only two! So it wasn’t a big battle by any means. But they chose Britton as one of the judges (Simon Cowell!). One band was a garage band that mostly played reggae and punk reggae like Sublime. The other band was the jazz band from Eaton High School.
Jazz Band
The jazz band ultimately won the prize and will be playing at the Greeley Stampede this year on the free stage. Before and in between the bands they showed health messages on a big screen, had health trivia and handed out prizes.
The whole group afterward
Overall it was a fun night and a fun event. My work has me do some very interesting things like be an MC for a Quinceanera fashion show (in Spanish!!) and help run events like this. Pretty fun for work! I also made some headway with the coordinator of the Higher Grounds group to talk about making it a tobacco free property. Unfortunately even though it is for all underage kids, they still condone smoking in an outdoor cage area. As a health advocate, I’ve found my work is never done. However, I was pleasantly surprised that my idea to bring “cutie” mandarin oranges and apples as a snack was a hit! No one thought these kids would eat them, but they were all gone by the end of the evening.
Whew! We had one tenant move out today, we did the walk-through with him and had the new tenants show up approximately 20 minutes after he left to sign the new lease! It has been quite the whirlwind. We are pretty happy with the new tenants and hopefully everything goes well with them. We were able to get almost $100 more per month and we have some better terms in the lease that we’ve learned over time as landlords to add.
Saw this as we were driving around Greeley -winner, winner (chicken dinner?) indeed!
So…we’ve managed to stop feeding the alligator, add some much needed cash to help us when we close in PR in three weeks, and killed a huge zombie that was lunging at us. We still have a few bugs to work out (a few minor repairs/cleaning that needs to be done). But overall, we are tremendously relieved. The timing of this has been so strange and so perfect.
Hooray for the weird, little-known under-workings of the universe!