A new post

Gee I haven't been very faithful in posting lately. Oh well :)

Lets see what has been going on... The goats have all found a new home. We've made the decree that never again will goats be found in our pasture. 'nuff said.

Hubby wants to get some baby cows who can get fat and then hit the freezer. We will need a fence upgrade though. So we'll see about that. I still wouldn't mind some more sheep. They don't push through fences (stupid goats) and eat our garden (ARGH!) 3!!! times and devastate our newly planted fruit trees, blueberry bush, cherry bushes, etc etc, and walk through all of our garden beds making huge dents in the soft soil and then make off with most of the salad greens, some corn and various other plants (but not the tomatoes thank goodness).

But I'm not bitter.

They are gone now. Some to continue with their life as fiber animals. Some to be roasted over a spit.

I can now feed the chickens in peace.

The baby chickens are not so baby anymore and we heard the first rooster crow the other night. It was pretty quiet and we haven't heard it since. I'm crossing my fingers that this will turn into a rooster we can keep.

C finished her tball season and was running the bases and hitting the ball pretty well. Now if we can only get her to pay attention to the ball. She is so cute dancing around the outfield though.

They will start swimming lessons in a few weeks. That should be a lot of fun. I have fond memories (for the most part) of when I took swimming lessons. and Mom would ask me what level I was at and I would say "Beginner 1". I think I took that class a few times.

There is a lot of fruit on all of the trees and I'm so excited for the harvest. Speaking of harvest, the tomatoes are doing awesomely. Hubby has pruned all of the suckers and used pantyhose strips to tie the plants along the fencing we have there for support. I was a bit scared but within the first week we noticed that the tomatoes we had were growing faster than I've ever seen and we had gone from 4 tomatoes to 20 tomatoes in about a week and a half. Very worth it.

Did I mention the goats ate the pepper plants again. We replaced them on Saturday with some of the money we sold the goats for. Should be interesting. We got green, purple, orange, and chocolate green peppers. Yes, I may have gone overboard, but they all sounded so cool and we had the room!

We also planted a bunch of dent corn. This is the kind of corn that they use for animal feed. We've gotten a few tips on how to grow it and then after drying will use our hand wheat grinder to crack it a little for the chicken. Hopefully this will cut some of the costs associated with feeding chickens.

Another chicken benefit is that we are trading 5 doz eggs a month for $10 off of preschool tuition. This and getting 1/2 price for me helping out half the time will bring tuition down to around $22.50/month. Believe me that is a bargain! This lady had C reading and I am so proud of her!!!!! I think that because A will have her for 2 years, she will get even further ahead.

The baby chickens are now about 13 weeeks along and should be laying in about 5 more weeks. I'm still uncertain how many roosters we have. I know we have 1 RIR rooster, but the 2 Ameraucana chickens are really hard to sex. So maybe 1 rooster, maybe 3.

On a serious note -

Since my last post I've had emotional ups and downs. I had a really bad day where I came face to face with reality about the baby. Yes it was a baby. Yes it didn't have a chance. But Yes, it needed to be mourned. I was pretty emotional for a few days and was sad. But I'm doing great now. I think my avoiding the issue and not facing it truly, might have made it harder on me and everyone else. But once I faced it I realized that that was why I had been so emotional about the whole changing calling thing and other things that were going on at that time. But I still say it was very wrong of the counselor to release me on my answering machine. I will make a point to say that to him. but now I know that I'm over it and it will be more of a by the way point as opposed to a super emotionally charged thing that it would have been a few weeks ago.

That last paragraph sounds a little unemotional, but just to assure you, I was plenty emotional about it for a little while there. I just think I've processed things and accepted it since then.

Anyway...

We're off to Utah next week for a family reunion. I'm not sure why we are going there since no one lives there. And I'm not sure if more than 3 families will actually make it. But! We're going. We'll stay at my brother's house if he hasn't forgotten about us.
I think the only activities are going to Lagoon (because my b-i-l 's F-i-l is the head grounds keeper there. But can't get us any free or even discount tickets. We're not going because we are not stupid enough to pay almost $140 to take a 3&5 year old to an amusement park which would only amuse them for a few hours. Maye as many as 4.

And the other activity is dinner at the Olive Garden.

Oldest bro won't make it. Sister can't make it. Gay bro will make it due to nothing else to do (currently living with Mom and no job) and another bro may make it due to same issue. Oh, but he is on disability. so that makes it better.

Mom, Us, bro from AZ, and bro from BYU-I, and maybe 2 live at home bros. I guess more will make it than I thought. I think I'm actually looking forward to it more. Still seems like a long way to drive when the cost of gas is so much. Oh well. Its a vacation and we will have fun.

Anything else to add? I think that may be it.

Over and out.


fight.