Mostly photos

Snow had her pups on 2/6/13 5 altogether, 4 boys 1 girl.




 
 


 
 
We had more chicks arrive in the mail last weekend- Golden Laced, Silver Laced, and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes and a freebie Dominique.

I hope to get some regular meat bird chicks in a few months. The pan friers take entirely too long to grow out to eating size, not that we had many last year to butcher after the foxes, so I think we're going to go with the cornish cross that take about 6-8 weeks to reach butchering age or something like a Red Ranger broiler. Given that they take so little time however, I'll order them when the weather warms up and they can be in the shop in a brooder. Right now the brooder is shoved in the hallway bathtub and it's a real pain to shimmy out being wedged so snugly in there. Although, sometime this week they can probably go down to the basement to the back room where it's about 62-65 consistently. Right now they are pretty cheap to raise though being upstairs, all I have on them is a brooder lamp and a regular old 70 watt bulb. Moving them to the shop even with a 250 brooder bulb would probably not be enough to keep them warm right now with our temps and moving them downstairs may require a hotter bulb. May as well keep them upstairs where I know they are toasty, even if it means listening to peeping while ya pee! Any idea what they are saying? "Food, food, water, water, food, food, water, water." That's the extent of their vocabulary until they become old enough to lay and then it's "food, food, water, water, I just laid an egg!". The simple life, right?

The glass on the woodstove suffered a bit of a mishap last week and was broken. Ordering a new piece from a company in Wa. saved us about $160 as opposed to ordering it in town. With shipping it was still $80 and although it only took 5 days to get here, those 5 days had me sick and tired of that furnace!

We're still growing fodder for the goats, pigs and chickens down in the basement. We're still not growing as much as I'd like to. I'm at about 2 trays total a day, I'd like to be up to 6 but it's working very well so far and I am pleased with the results. We're not on an automatic watering system as of yet so I haul water down everyday. It doesn't require too much, about 3 gallons 2 times a day. The valve is there to install a hose from the pressure tank, we just haven't gotten to it yet and with the sump down there, I just dump the water straight to that though eventually once I find a tub that fits well in the shelving until, Jeremiah will just plumb a pipe from the tub to the sump.

Jeremiah's been gone 3 weekends in a row, last weekend being the first full weekend he was here. He's been trying to come up with ways for the students to raise money for Skills so if they go to Nationals again this year, they would have to come up with little to no money. Being winter and all (is that what this is?), we figured firewood may be a worthy sale and being as how we have LOTS of wood that would just go to waste if left to sit and rot, we had 3 students come over last weekend to help split and stack. Our wood pile was looking rather pathetic really, which isn't entirely a bad thing. It allowed us to use up the wood that would not have been "FIFO" (first in, first out) because we stack from back to front. We should stack side to side but anyway, the log splitter worked really well and we got about 2 truck loads split and stacked and enough rounds of hedge pulled out of the woods to give them at least 1.5 good size truck loads full, it just needs to be split. It's well seasoned as it is and ready to burn and that hedge, if you're not aware, burns LONG and HOT! It's our favorite for night time fires and there's always really nice coals in the morning.

All of this seems very redundant and boring to us, day to day living, you know?

I mentioned around Thanksgiving we installed an invisible fence for the dogs since their desire to wander had become increasingly irritating and we'd had enough and the choice was find a solution (not that we hadn't been trying) or re-home them. That fence has worked wonders and we've not had an escapee since they day we hooked it up and had the settings set correctly. Don't tell King, but he doesn't even wear a collar, we never did end up getting a second. Snow wears the one full time but I am fairly sure I could take it off of her or unplug the unit and both of them would still be where they are supposed to be in the morning. Though, I am not going to chance it for one, or teach them them to test it, though Snow won't go far now at least for a couple months with her new pups.

With the dogs staying put, there was no need for the back yard fence to remain and Lord knows those panels are expensive enough so we went ahead and took the panels down in the back yard. There was a locust tree that has been dying and needed to come out so last weekend Jeremiah felled that with the panels gone so it wouldn't hit it. I think there were 7 full panels that came off the fence and a few shorter pieces. With spring around the corner, I want to get a green house up to get some seeds started. I've seen several ideas using cattle panels bent into a hoop shape and covered in thick plastic. It was the intent last year to get one underway and we bought the plastic but it never came to fruition, this year however, I am bound and determined to get it done and next weekend is the date! The front and back will be plywood and it'll be sort of framed up with lumber. It's a little hard to explain but I'll take photos as we go along. It need not be elaborate but it needs to be something! Every season puts us a little bit farther ahead.

I fully do not expect to have a summer of average rain fall again and running the sprinkler non-stop so the plants won't die just isn't working. We have several blue plastic food grade barrels, one of them with a spigot already on it. My plan is, since the main garden sits on a hill, is to put the barrel in the highest corner and run drip irrigation lines from it to the rows. Filling the bucket with the hose is easy and it may need to be done once a day, maybe less? Jeremiah put in that water spigot in for me last summer near the garden & pig pen and it's made life so much easier! Little steps =).

I occasionally let the pigs out to graze in the orchard and they have done a good job rooting up a bunch of bermuda for me. We had picked another location for the garden originally but the bermuda was to thick and too much of a hassle to try to get up so we moved it to the hill. However, if I can keep the chickens off of the place the pigs have tilled up once I plant, I'd like to put in row crops of corn and other tasty treats for a "pig and goat" garden. I planted some oats last fall but I don't think we got enough rain for them to germinate before the turkeys came through but I'll try again in about a month or two here and see if we can't harvest a little hay. It's more of an experiment than anything.

We've had 4 goat kids born so far. One of the buck kids went to his new home at a week old as a bottle baby. Iris fell ill during her last 2 weeks of pregnancy. How's she's still here, I don't know but I swear that goat is determined to get as close to dying as possible and rebound. She drives me nuts, truly. She's not making a lot of milk and to feed a buck kid who would probably end up in the freezer when I don't have another goat in milk and the freezer supply quickly dwindling, it was better to send him off early.  And a nice family from near the Ok. border was going to use him as a home milking herd breeder so it was win win. The little girl is a sweet thing and has nowhere near the CBB (Crappy Bottle Baby) personality that the full time CBB's have. I am sure that has a lot to do with the fact she may still get some milk from Iris and she's left full time with her, or maybe it's just her. Who knows. She was sick at about a week old. I am still not entirely sure what from but this weather we've been having reeks havoc with everyone in regard to respiratory issues! The cold again hot again, single digit nights above freezing nights just throws everyone off. I had wool and cotton goat coats but ended up tweaking my pattern a bit and changing fabrics and came up with these dandies...

That's Dawn's doe kid, by the way. I call her Roxie. She's full of it but super sweet, very outgoing. I think we're going to keep her. She has spots, they are dark right now but they will lighten and Dawn has such a nice udder, I am glad we kept her. Andy is the kid's sire and it's a bit of a line breeding on the kids but I think they turned out really nice and Andy has thrown so few doe kids so far that I'd really like to keep what he does throw to see how they turn out. His kids are always really growthy and mostly spotted. His doe kid from FD last year grew out so well we bred her to freshen as a yearling. We'll see what the udder looks like on that one! His buck kids put real nice meat on quickly and I've debated selling him as he can be such a pain in my rear in rut but he is herd king and when all the bucks run together, I can understand he wants the others to know who's boss. For now, I think we'll keep him around.

Iris' doe kid, we call her Mischief, is on the mend, though has suffered a bit of a setback growth-wise but she'll catch up, I'm sure. She gets 3 bottles a day right now and is almost 4 weeks old. She's not as jumpety as the others but I did pump her full of stuff to save her, most of which was immune support. She'll probably be like her mama, determined not to die no matter the circumstances!

I have had people calling from Mo. and Ok. and Kansas of course for milkers and I just don't know that I can fill the requests this year for everyone asking. Most of the does have not even kidded yet but we did, or I feel we did anyway, such a herd cut last summer and fall when hay was still high that what we've got is a lot of what I'd like to keep! Though, I do have a few does in mind so we'll see.

Other than that, Jeremiah is finishing up writing all of his test questions for the state revamp that he volunteered for. He has one more meeting to attend, probably in Denver again. His students did pretty well in Mo. those 2 weekends he was gone for that. I don't think he's attending the Tulsa competition this year. The only student who wants to go is being taken by his parents and really, Jeremiah needs time off from traveling.

We've had some major issues with his blood sugar being entirely too high the past 3 weeks.  I was unaware he was not taking his evening medication while we were gone to Ca. as he was afraid of his blood sugar dropping while driving. For a while his BS was in the 400 range and normal for him is about 120. He saw the dr. a couple weeks ago and had to take his BS 5 times a day for about 10 days. Toward the end I could recite word for word what he'd say about his "poor fingers" each time he got his meter out. It's slowly dropping and we're slowly getting it back under control, it takes a while for the medication to do its work but the dr. still wasn't pleased it wasn't coming down fast enough so she put him on something in addition to his regular but that was just a couple of days ago and we've not picked it up and just the past 2 BS readings have been almost "normal" for him (and he had low BS at work the other day when all he ate for lunch was a salad and skipped his soup) so I'm almost reluctant to have him take the new medication seeing as how it just looks like his body needed more time than "usual" to readjust (and just because that run on sentence wasn't long enough, I thought I'd add in that it was a very long winded sentence, wasn't it?). Who knows though, it has literally been like ALL over the place and there's been no rhyme nor reason.

I am sure the stress and constant go go go we've been experiencing the past 2 months has not helped matters. We really need to get things under control. We've been fortunate enough that he is not insulin dependent and I'd like to keep it that way, for as long as possible anyway.

It has made us more aware of the ever constant battle that is diabetes...and health, for that matter. We've been fortunate that he is not worse. Our biggest issue is not crappy food, it's portion control! People who don't love food scare me. All kidding aside, we're determined to get more cardio activity because despite the grunt work we do around here, the cardio is what we need. So, here's to getting our heart rates up and keeping them up for it to do any good...unfortunately, the military was not kind to Jeremiah's knees and shins so we'll have to figure out something for him as even walking is kind of high impact. As for me, walking my happy butt around the pastures is sufficient! It's getting out and doing it...same song and dance, I know. Jeremiah wants to know why I bother to clean stalls by hand when we've got the tractor...I figure it's at least a work out...it's just not exactly the kind I need. But with warmer weather on the horizon (not that it hasn't been on again off again warm), I'll make it happen...somehow.

Well, I guess this turned in to more than just a photo post. Like I said, all pretty mundane to us. We've talked about putting up a new milk barn. The school's building construction will build us a custom shed if we come up with the materials first. I don't know if that will get done this school year as we really don't have a spot for it yet.The lean tos are still in good condition but do need some work and since the southern lean-to does not have access to any of the pastures, I think we'll disassemble it and put the milk barn there.

The assessors just came by here recently and with our nice hike in taxes (due to a stupid school bond), our taxes went up. I think we'll just keep the same footprint and call it a day so as not to see our taxes jump any higher! There is already electricity run to that shelter, no water but that's easy enough! It's nice for the bucks in the winter to be able to run a de-icer for their water but those things get expensive running them all the time and the past 2 winters have not really been bad enough to need them much anyway. Anyway, it's not a big deal to run electricity and water to the northern shelter (which is accessible from the western pasture), it's just a matter of doing it. However, that lean-to needs more work than the southern one and I'd like to cut the pen down some anyway so we may as well sort of reconfigure it and maybe, finally, finish out the 3rd pen we started when we put up the high tensile fencing and either turn that into additional buck area or make it pig area.

I like the pigs a lot I just don't know that we'll keep them here for breeding. Granted, finding them at a decent price was not entirely easy but keeping them is not entirely cheap either with the drought! I'd like to see if maybe we can try to pasture them over the spring and summer in the back corner of the woods and see how that goes. The fencing is electric and they have been trained to it. It would require fencing off two sides to form a grid square but that's easy enough by just running some t-posts or fiberglass poles and aluminum wire. They take so little care and there would be plenty to eat out there. Trucking water would be required but that's not a big deal every couple of days with a big enough tank and the glorified lawn tractor. Or heck, 2 buckets morning and evening and I get a good work out! It just takes time, not something we always have a lot of but I am sure we can make something work!

I started talking about the garden and our plans this year but didn't finish my train of thought. The drip irrigation lines will be run to the individual rows and each row will be covered with straw, hopefully that will cut down on water waste and time by avoiding having to go out there and change the sprinkler location every couple of hours. We were loosing a lot of potential growing room too with where the sprinkler wasn't hitting and watering plain dirt is a waste. Live and learn what works! I should not have to do a bit of tilling thanks to the pigs! They have tilled that entire garden right into the corner...saves me from having to run the 'tiller and ya can't beat that. It would be nice to move the pigs and use their pen for growing corn, but it's not something that has to be done right away, if at all this year.

Well, I suppose it's time to get going. The kids have a birthday party to go to and then it's back home to work around here. We may get some rain later today...no snow since New Years though we did get a real nice thunder storm a couple days ago...didn't drop a whole lot of rain but any is better than none. It was really foggy yesterday morning and below freezing so all the moisture froze on the trees. Even when I went in to town about noon it was still very cold and all the trees looked like they were coated in glass. Kinda pretty.

Hope all is well for everyone. Have a great weekend.

FiRsT dAy Of ScHoOl

Tracks & Footprints

It snowed on Tuesday, as I already mentioned. By afternoon, the temperature had fallen enough that it was sticking. We got a decent enough covering for the kids to go out and make some dirty snowballs and require their snow clothes to be washed. Yay, more work!

Speaking of work, as some of you already may know, the principal of the kid's school called me a week ago a wanted to know if I wanted a job. I don't really need another job, but they needed someone and were in a pinch and so, after 10+ years of being out of the outside workforce, I am now a district employee. Strange how that works. I swear, if you want work, come to Kansas. There's jobs (and general work!)  here! Shoot, sit at home and they'll call you, apparently!

The school receives grant money for fresh fruit and vegetables. That produce needs to be washed, cut and divvied up between classes ('three-school' (friday's only), pre-K (2 classes, AM & PM), Kind., and 1-6th) and since I do that on a smaller scale at home, they need someone now and I am free (sort of), I figured, why not? So, hi ho hi ho, off to work I go to do what's necessary to calm the fiery dragons keep the kids healthy and fed. Tuesday I counted raspberries....I don't even want to know how many I counted. Yesterday I cut and counted cauliflower and then apples and I did a good 150+ apples- cut, core, slice, divide. I was beat! BUT, the cool news in all of this is, the goats benefit too! Guess who gets all the 'throw away' goodies?

Since there is often much to much for the girls, it's yet another reason to get some pigs! I hadn't even thought of the school cafeteria for excess food. This should work out real well and if we're lucky, these pigs will cost us near nothing and provide a lot of yummy bacon...and imagine this, it may already come pre-apple-seasoned <grin>!

It'll take some time to adjust my schedule and certainly Rachel and her leg has thrown a bit of a monkey wrench in things in that we're taking them and picking them up but on the days I work late enough, I'll just stay and hang out and help in the classrooms until school's out.

They asked me if I wanted to be a back up cafeteria aide (if someone were to call in sick (there's only 2 of them!) and I quickly nixed that, they have to be in at 6:30! Not that 6:30's a problem, goodness knows by the time stamps on some of my posts, but with milking chores (and kidding coming up) and store business and work + general life, there's no way. And to be on call? I just can't (and don't want to) do that. I love being at their school, I wish everyone could attend a school like this but I have to draw the line!

On to snow though, here's some photos of the kids out playing. Yesterday Rachel asked me if people with broken legs can sled. I told her people who sled end up with broken legs. I'm so not fun! Bwaahahahahaha

Note the crawl tracks on the left and the footprints on the right. Oh, and the kitty prints on the far left.

Notice Rachel tasting the snow!

And the Army life keeps rolling along...

Wednesday's orthopedist appointment had Rachel leaving in a cast. It's just as well, she's less fragile this way.

She's been getting along better on her crutches. The school has a wheelchair that they are happily allowing her to use. Which is a good thing, because being on crutches all day would tank! Except, the wheelchair needed to see the inside of Daddy's shop on Tuesday evening because (we joked) it had been in an accident. Hey, the humor HAS to keep coming otherwise we'd hang ourselves! So, a little bit of screwdriver-ing here, some banging, a little bit of jumping on it there, and we're all set!

 

Thursday the UPS man showed up with a lovely package for Rachel. The Mischlers, Rachel's 4-H project leader(s) for fiber arts, sent 'get well' flowers. How sweet.

 

Included are also some belated birthday photos. On Monday, we went down to Wichita, and drug our broken legged daughter to the movie theater. It's always amazing how (seemingly) little things can really change the way one does things! But, all in all it was a very good time. I am normally not a fan of 3-D movies, but Beauty and the Beast (even though we've all seen it a million times) was really REALLY good in 3-D. Drew will deny it, but he was sitting on my lap and literally jumped at one particular point. I chide him about it.

And yes, if you must know,  it's wrapped in a bag. We bought several small knitting looms for her and given the fact she's immobile, it was the perfect gift to pass the time. We gave it to her on Sat. figuring, why wait? So it did not get wrapped. Tacky? I don't care!

Thursday I got a call at home half way through the day saying that Rachel's cast was bothering the back of her leg. Before they put the fiberglass wrap on, a cotton mesh sock goes on, then gauze. The gauze is folded over the wrap at the top and bottom and then more wrap is applied. The gauze and netting makes the top and bottom plush. On occasion, the fiberglass wrap is applied too high and there isn't enough gauze and netting to fold over. Such is the case on the back of her leg. So, down to school I went to apply some moleskin to the back so it wasn't slicing into her skin. I thought surely this had to be the end of chasing and we can get back to life as we know it with a broken leg! By the way, I went down to take care of her leg at 1:30, if I had had the time to just sit down there until the end of the day I would have. But I don't! I am already taking Jeremiah to work too and so my day is literally starting about 2 hours late and I am loosing another hour and a half in the evening! More on that later...

Negative on being the end of it all. Yesterday (Friday), I was working away and the phone rang. I am beginning to dread that dang phone! It's the school's secretary/part-time nurse/part-time cashier  (a woman with many hats). Rachel fell in class and her leg was hurting. "Awwwww crap!", I think. I talked to crying Rachel. I calm her down and she wants me to come. What other choice do I have?  THIS is the exact reason I do not work outside of the home and it's beginning to look like, until the kids are married, that I will not ever! SOMEONE has to be their for the babies. So, back down to school I went. Apparently she had decided (which was actually my idea) to try the crutches for a while instead of the chair and she was getting ready to sit down in her class chair when she either hit it with a crutch or it (somehow) moved away from her and she sat down on the ground. I really don't think it's as bad as it sounded over the phone and I am sure it scared her and her medication was late in getting to her yesterday so who knows. She probably added another year on to that cast's wearing life! UGH.

I pulled Andrew out of school early at 2 and we all just  headed home. After everyone was situated, I fell onto the couch and napped. If you know me, naps are few and far between. I just won't take them. But if my nap yesterday was any indication of how my week went, that should say a lot! I was not about to turn right back around and have to lift Rachel in and out of the car just so he didn't have to come home early. I was ready for that week to be over.

Oh, you're wondering how my day goes now? Well, let's see...because the big truck is a diesel, cold temperatures mean things work a little differently. First off, the truck has a heater, it gets plugged in. We forgot to do this Monday evening so it refused to start on Tuesday morning. Jeremiah was supposed to drop the kids off at school but at the last minute I had to throw on clothes and get Rachel settled and explain to half a million people the issue, fill out medication releases so the school can administer it, blah blah blah blah. However, there's the issue of getting her up and dressed and all of that!

Wake up: Wake up isn't much different. She is able to get up to standing on her own and usually uses the crutches to get down the hall either to the kitchen table or living room where she eats and gets dressed. Her toothbrush is brought to her and she pretty much does everything from the couch.

Getting her dressed: What does she wear? Well, I've taken to cutting a leg off thick knit tights and putting her in a dress. She has a pair of pants that would probably fall off her waist if they weren't held up by her cast and a pair of PJ pants that work well too. One must get creative! The weather has been so darned cold that it's been difficult to figure wardrobe out!
 
Getting to the car (AKA The Explorer): She walks crutches out the front door and either Jeremiah or myself (usually me) carries her down the steps, sets her down where she walks crutches to the car, someone picks her back up and deposits her into the car, loads crutches, loads Drew, loads backpacks and off we go.

Back to the truck. Wednesday, the day of Rachel's orthopedist appointment, the truck started just fine but then quit after idling to warm up after about 5 minutes. Jeremiah can't get it re-started and we figure it's the biodiesel freezing. Biodiesel is good to about 20 degrees and we didn't think to mix it with regular fuel given the fact we had about a million other things on our mind and the previous weeks temps had hovered around freezing over night.  Well  above 20 anyway! It was probably 3 degrees out Wednesday morning  so at the last minute again we all piled into the car, we dropped Drew at the front door and made it to work by the skin of our teeth! I got home, rushed out to do chores, hurried up, got a shower and Rachel and I headed out the door for her dr.'s appointment. We didn't get out of there until noon, ate a quick lunch and I dropped her back off at school. I came home, did 'house' chores (dishes, laundry, picking up, stoking fire) because I hadn't had time before. And then before I knew it, it was time to pick up the kids and Jeremiah...again!

We thought perhaps the fuel filter needed to be changed on the truck, as is often the case when you run 'bio'. The fuel filter does need to be changed more often so we picked up a new one on the way home and some regular diesel to 'cut' the bio enough to get it started and running down the road. Thursday morning, it's the same issue and he really had planned to take them that day so it was late. Back into regular clothes quick and in a hurry I go and out the door we zoom! I was really hating life at that moment.

Friday morning, against my wishes, Jeremiah said if he got it started, he will just leave. He thought that it was just so cold the fuel was freezing in the lines while it idled, which is perfectly understandable. It is cooking oil after all. But, I had said I already planned to take everyone, I was ready that day and me having to go was not coming as a surprise. I told him if he so chose to take the truck and it breaks down between here and the school, DO NOT CALL ME, Call AAA, DO NOT LET ME COME HOME TO FIND YOU HERE, PARK THE TRUCK WHERE I CANNOT SEE IT and let me go about my day blissfully unaware and while you're at it, find a way to get that truck home with YOU behind the wheel. I don't care if it's towed here or what, I DO NOT want to know about it! Capeesh? Capeesh. So, as it was, it drove fine, the fuel was probably freezing. We do have an injector going bad and it will need to be replaced but the source of the issue was this darn cold and the fuel. The problem has been solved by further 'cutting' the bio with regular fuel. I won't say lesson learned, we had other issues come up preventing us from doing what we knew needed done.

So, there's my week folks. Sounds like fun right?

The orthopedist wanted to see us back in 2 weeks where they will cut the cast off and re-x-ray it. He thinks it might be healed. Silly dr. didn't take in to consideration my daughter was going to fall though! I've got half a mind to call him and tell him to give it another week. That sounds awfully quick doesn't it? Yeah, I kinda thought so too but he's the dr. so whatever. 2 1/2 weeks of immobilization is good for me...we'll see!

I was more than ready for the weekend to start to say the least! If nothing else it means a short reprieve from having to do all the lifting and driving! However, one should always be careful what they wish for because...well, for one, it could always be worse (que broken leg) for two, next week may be even worse as I won't have the weekend to look forward to extra help because extra help won't be here! Jeremiah is scheduled to take some students to Mo. for a welding competition...leaving me here...alone. As usual, I am queuing Scarlet O'hara, as I so often do, and, "I'll thank about that tomorrow." One day at a time.