Michael was born with flat feet. He hasn’t been particularly kind to them over the years. We took him to a podiatrist this fall and the nice nurse, upon seeing his xrays, blurred out, “You have terrible feet!” Hmmm, could be why we were there...

On November 27, he went under the knife.

He was off his feet except for bathroom and meal breaks the first four days. Since then he’s been up and making bread, doing dishes, and other indoor chores. He still needs to allow himself time to heal.

The iWalk is a hands-free crutch. Works well!

Michael makes rye bread because he knows I love it.

In the meantime, I’ve taken over the outside chores.

Five gallon buckets, full, weigh about 40 pounds each. I fill them to between 30-35 pounds. When the weather turns colder, I’ll fill twice a day to water the birds. Good core conditioning!

I start the day filling buckets with warm water, to fill inside and outside watering stations.

Long Feather lost one of his spurs recently.

I then put out the outside feed and gather eggs.

With low light, we are down to one duck egg a day. The chickens respond to artificial light, and are up to 9 eggs a day.

I spread straw in the coops about every 2-3 days, and then remove it once every 10 days to two weeks, depending on weather.

Keeping clean coops helps avoid foot infections.

After the birds are watered and fed, I walk down the driveway to deliver any outgoing mail and pick up the newspaper.

My on-line health coach suggested I pick up the pace of my chores, so I try to “power walk” the 1200 foot round trip to the mailbox. Somehow it didn’t mention “power-lifting” 50 pound feed sacks...so I do those nice and slowly, using my legs.

My last morning chore is gathering wood. We don’t have any other source of heat in the original cabin section of the house.

Michael thought it was a good idea to haul wood in the wheelbarrow. I’m not sure how I’d cope without it! I’m learning how to split wood, as some of the logs are too big for our stove. I’ve been doing special leg exercises in order to push that barrow without becoming crippled myself.

It takes me about 2 hours in the morning to get the chores done. Then it’s time for breakfast, a little rest with the sudoku and NYT crossword, before working a bit on construction projects.

Slowly they dry, layer on layer of spar varnish for the shower trim.

Then it’s time to fill feed buckets for tomorrow, empty outside water tubs, and put the birds to bed. Inside to make dinner, sit and knit, then fall in a heap to sleep.

Soon I will put away my tools, sweep the addition, and set up beds for the holidays. My favorite little bird will need feeding!