Copycat neighbors

The two neighbor kids got baby turtles over the weekend.

They came over this afternoon to introduce the turtles to our tortoise.

They were (understandably) concerned that Tammy the Tortoise might mistake their turtles for particularly active pieces of lettuce and try to take a bite. Tammy didn't seem all that interested, though.

Chicken Eggs

One of our younger chickens has started laying!

I never did catch our egg thief. But we went back to finding one to two eggs per day (as opposed to the previous two-week drought) the same week that school went back into session in our county (three days after I started recording). I think I'll just be satisfied with that.

Video Monitoring

Our chickens have mysteriously stopped producing eggs over the last two weeks. I'm a deeply untrusting person, and it occurred to me that one of the neighbor kids might be harvesting our eggs for us.

I set up an old iPhone as a motion activated camera, using an app called Presence. I put the phone on a tripod and aimed it at the backyard.

I got over 40 false-positives, caused by bushes moving in the wind, and one short video of Eva. I didn't catch any humans on video today, though.

Free Stroller

Tomorrow is Trash Day, and one of our neighbors set out a stroller:

It's fairly dirty, and the plastic handle is cracked, but I think both those things can be fixed. And the price is pretty fantastic. (We did knock on their door to make sure they actually wanted to get rid of the stroller).

Neighborhood Kids

I got a knock on my door this evening, and found these two young ladies, who asked very politely if they could see "the tortoise and the chickens". After that they wanted to see the fish. And eventually Eva got some pats and kisses.

Trash and Recycling

I am really impressed with our Trash and Recycling service. Not only did they pick up all those trash bags full of insulation we pulled out of the garage, this past Friday, they picked up a ton of cardboard from our flat pack furniture that didn't fit inside the Recycle Bin.

Trash Day Find

Friday is trash pick-up day, and this particular week someone down the street had set out a small chest freezer with a "free" sign. We snatched it up, transported it via car with me driving and Brianna stabilizing the fridge.

Really high-quality photo taken with my phone in the dark. :-/

We put it in the basement, right where the previous owners had kept theirs.

Not sure how well it runs yet, but it's hard to beat "free"!

As we were moving the freezer down the street, we met Sherrie, who lives three houses down from us. She seems like a very nice woman in her sixties who spends her time teaching special needs children in the kindergarten to 3rd grade range. She was very friendly and seemed genuinely glad to meet us. She also told us that the family who put the freezer out on the sidewalk is a couple about our age with two kids and a third on the way. I suspect Brianna we will be making a point of meeting them this weekend.