Just Photos: Like Glass

Random...ness

If you would have asked me 2 weeks ago if I thought I'd be sitting in the living room thankful to have a fire, the answer would have most certainly been 'no'. Good thing you didn't ask me, I would have had to open mouth & insert foot.

It's probably in the 60's out but darnit, it's overcast, and drip drop rainy and it just feels cold. So, by the fireside I sit...warm...and cozy.

So much going on...I had lunch with Drew today. I went to school specifically to have lunch. The children get to eat lunch at school once a week, any more and they would hate me. My lunches are better and it's not everyday they get to gross their ham and cheese eatin' friends out (while teaching them about REAL food) when they open their thermos and have warm red beans and rice, or tomato soup or things like that. What kid (other than a select few) would dare admit they like tomato soup, after all. Speaking of red beans and rice, it's been a long time since I've made it. I'll have a recipe up one of these days for it if in the event you feel like making it too.

Our layer chicks arrived yesterday...25 of them. I sold 2. I don't need 25 layers! I don't need 23 either but I figure we'll loose some. They are silver laced wyandottes and let me tell ya, they are cuter than the average chick for sure! See?

Course, the model doesn't hurt either. Wouldn't you want to take a chick home is a kid like this was trying to pawn it off on your like a girl scout cookie? Yeah, me too! Come to think of it, forget the chick, I'll take the boy.

Right now the chicks are living in a large water trough in the shop basking in 250 Watts of heat lamp with water and food at their disposal. The butcher roos moved out to the chicken tractor in the barnyard and we've yet to loose one, which is a good thing...loosing one means not eating...kidding. 

We're up to 8 baby goats- 4 boys 4 girls. We had 5 girls but one left us last week. Such is life on the farm. We've still got over half the does yet to kid with one holding out for God only knows what reason. Their photos can be seen on the farm site (www.marmaladehollow.wordpress.com) if you're so inclined.

Rachel reads up a storm, in case you didn't know. She reads every night before bed. I suppose we should take a hint, but watching TV is more mind numbing and who doesn't need to be numbed before slipping off into slumber? I'd drink, but TV's cheaper. Anyway, back to Rachel, she made it to the '100 point' club 2 weeks ago and today received recognition and her t-shirt. She's actually up to 108 points. I told her if she made it to 115 points before the end of the year we'd go out for a steak dinner. Books vary in their worth by how hard they are and each book has a test to take which turns into points depending on how many questions were answered right. At her last parent/teacher conference, I believe her teacher said she was reading at a 6th grade level. It blows my mind she can pronounce words like 'victorian' and not bat an eye or have to sound it out.She just flies through books and it's fun to have her read outloud as most time she will even

Life is...going.

The kids' Sunday school teacher mentioned to her husband, who mentioned to Jeremiah, that our kids our kids are so well behaved. What the heck does that say??? It tells me parents need to lock their children in the closet more often. Kidding. It means we are doing a terrific job and not only are we doing a terrific job of raising well behaved children, more importantly we're raising good people. All parents should be like us <gafaw>. Lots of people say it so it's not like she's nuts or something. Our kids really are great, and while I am bias, it has little to do with the fact that they are great people and yes, thankyouveryuch, I do take great pride in this because it's the hardest (yet most rewarding) most important job we have! Everything else takes a back seat to our two great kids.

On to other news. We've gotten a lot of rain the few weeks. Yesterday morning I was in the barn doing chores and it just POURED. It's such a nice sound. The thunder was pretty cool too. Jeremiah and I watched a really cool lightening storm one evening around 9 PM off to the east. The storm just skirted us so it was amazing to watch the sky light up over and over while we stood in the front yard in our jammies and it was pleasantly warm too! It reminded me of our living room in El Paso. The window faced north towards New Mexico (which was literally a stone's throw away). We'd lay on the couch and watch the storm come up and over the mountains that cut West El Paso from East El Paso. The lightening would crack across the valley and light up the sky, cool stuff. I love thunder storms. They are really neat here too.

Well, I guess that's all for now. It's Easter weekend. I mentioned to Jeremiah that if the turkeys didn't shut up and stop waking me up at the crack of dawn on my days to sleep in, we'd be eating them for Easter. I think they heard me because they've shut up! We're having steak, and potatoes and a host of other yummy things for dinner. We did an egg hunt at church last Saturday. I can't imagine they are egg hunted out so I suppose we may hide some eggs too! Tomorrow (Friday) unless this doe decides to kid, we're going to try to go on a drive. You now, it's amazing, despite the drought last summer, the wildflowers sure are prolific this year! I should get out and mow the barn yard because they are nearly as tall as the goat's backs. But it looks so picturesque to see them walking through back high wildflowers.

I have mowed the 'yard yard' 2 times in the past week and a half. Last year I think I got lucky to mow the yard yard twice the whole of spring and summer!

The "What" of Chilly Mornings

What I've been pouring off the buck's water buckets

What the temp is INSIDE the milk room!

What awaits me.

What's on the gate

What I see as I return to the warm house

Neverland

Where boys never grow up.

The post in which I curse...A LOT...about the weather!

Actually, I'm exhausted from all the cursing. I'll spare you.

I'll just have you know the white crap graced us with its presence...again! Hooray! We welcomed it with open shut arms, or at least I did. And please add an extra dollop of sarcasm for me would you mind?

I took the snow shovel and plowed a path for Rachel to reach the bus yesterday in the driveway...bus driver missed it and she still walked in the snow.

I wore Jeremiah's military "jungle" boots out in the snow. Silly me, I forgot, this is Kansas and leaving your boots outside on the porch is asking for them to be flower snow pots.

Deeper and deeper.

Ankles


Above the boots


Below the knee.

Round 4 & A Week In Review

Round 4 of winter storms is upon us. I am SICK TO DEATH of winter. I am ready for a green blade of grass, no sign of snow, no salt on the sidewalks or salt solution on the road, sun shiny days for 6 hours straight even, ANYTHING!

The terrible wind is reeking havoc with our phone line and since we're on DSL, I may or may not get this published.

This week in review: Two Sunday's ago Drew was sick. Rachel said he was down with the sickness. While I don't think it was as bad as the plague, the poor little guy didn't feel real well at all. Monday he was perky again, Tuesday and Wednesdays were snow days and I was about to kill myself with everyone home! Thursday he wasn't acting right. I asked him if he was feeling okay and he said yes so I sent him off to school only to get a call a bit later on to say he was puking. GREAT! Thursday evening he spent laying around, Friday morning he was puking again but by Friday around noon he was just fine. He still didn't go to school so all in all, I got, well, NO work done! And then, even more fun, Rachel started puking on Friday night and so not only did I have a weekend full of regular work, I also had 2 huge blankets and a load of puke covered clothing I needed to wash. Great!

Jeremiah wasn't feeling so hot Saturday but as I write this on Tuesday, I think everyone is over "the sickness". I hope!

Our weekend was spent getting the barn ready for kidding. I have one kidding stall up and Jeremiah is going to weld up a panel for me to place at the back of the barn creating two more pens. The middle of the barn will be the forth pen and that should do it. I don't need the panels just yet though. Will tell you AFTER goat babies are here that they are here. Quite frankly, with this crappy weather, they could wait until July for all I care.







Monday (yesterday) was just a crappy crappy day for everyone. Drew has been making a habit of coming into our room in the middle of the night, waking me up to crawl into my side of the bed. I haven't slept well in ages and it's showing. Jeremiah had some overly irritating students yesterday and for him to come home complaining of irritating students, they must have been heathens.

Time to get the kids up and then it's out to battle the forces of nature. I have some more recipes to share so stay tuned.

The worst is over

Well that was a wallop of a storm! The coldest it got was -24 windchill and Jeremiah and I were out in it. It's odd to think that it's colder at first light than dead of night...kinda like the darkest before the dawn thing. But I've been out enough mornings to be sure that as I am out there it does get colder. I am not sure why they is. At first I thought I was getting overheated and it felt colder but no, it's just always colder around 8-9 AM. Tuesday was no exception! It was COLD.


The goats are fine. Cold but fine. It was cold no doubt but they had good shelter. Goes to show that they are hearty and need no other special precautions other than a lot of clean dry bedding and more food to weather through (and some sort of shelter to block the wind too). We've seen horses without shelter who go about their day pretty much and cows, shoot! Cows in this neck of the woods would be considered spoiled if they had shelter other than tree groves. I was just reading an article about what people do do for the their cows when the windchill gets that bad. A lot will move them to pastures with trees. Others will put round bales out so the cows can get behind them and if nothing else, parked vehicles will create a wind break too. The biggets concern is that it's calving season and wet newborns cannot stay out. I'm sure a lot of farmers were on 2 hours watches night and day to move newborn calves in or they would have frozen to death.

Our bucks have a 3 sided shelter with an east open face. The girls barn is south opening. Live and learn though, we are looking into getting some large tarps to place on the front of their barn just to keep the snow out. The winds were so bad it drove snow into the front half of the south facing of the barn (the barn is about 24 feet deep) and left a drift outside up to my knees. The wind just whipped around which it normally doesn't do that badly. Getting some accumulation has happened but not like this. Storms like that are few and far between. Yes they happen and it wouldn't be uncommon to get several in a year but as for the wind whipping around leaving snow, it's not an everyday all winter long occurrence to where doors would be more beneficial. Quite frankly, doors would be impossible to get open no matter what kind they were with a huge drift sitting outside and they cannot slide with snow even a few inches deep on either side. So, there's a good reason as to why there there are no doors. I like that it's open anyway, allows more air flow, etc. and closed barn doors create condensation and condensation would be worse than snow blowing in (think ice ON EVERY surface) Anyway, a good heavy tarp that could be rolled up would be ideal.

There's a place in Minnesota that sells used billboard signs. They are white (or black) on one side and are double the gauge thickness of a canvas tarp, waterproof  (canvas tarps are just water resistant) and have UV protectant built right in, are tear resistant, come with sleeves on all four sides and are cheap! Not only that, but I'd be recycling and they'd last longer than a canvas tarp. So, I think we're going to forgo getting a canvas tarp that would, color-wise, match the barn nicely, for something that is a lot better over something aesthetically pleasing though plain white wouldn't be horrible by any means. Plastic tarps would be ripped to shreds no time which is why that option is OUT.

I've been watching the weather like a hawk. Not that it does a lot of good as it can change in a minute but my first doe is due next week and so far, it seems to be holding with good looking temps. We have plans in place as to what to do if kids came in a storm like that. We would have moved the doe to the garage though that's stressful in and of itself and who could say that it wouldn't cause more problems. You just do what you have to do and hope for the best on the rest.

I've been trucking water out to the goats again from the house. Yesterday I made the mistake of not letting the water run on the water spigot long enough out at the barn to cool down some of the water I took out. I've mentioned before they are special spigots, common as cows here because of the weather. They self siphon water back down into the pipe below the freeze level in the ground but I didn't run it long enough to warm the pipe up (which isn't much more than a few gallons or so worth) and it was so cold it froze in the pipe before it could siphon back down which doesn't take a long time so that should tell you something. Live and learn! It'll probably be another day before it thaws since the temps today are supposed to be in the 20's but even that's an improvement of what it has been.

All in all we've got it pretty good. Our furnace was acting up and not coming on and staying on. Jeremiah would reset it and it would run until it came up to temp., shut off and not come back on again. Perfect timing right? Our wood stove just could not keep up with the windchill bashing the north of the house so we fired up the furnace only to learn it wouldn't stay on. We had a repair guy out yesterday. A sensor was dirty so it's working again just fine and only on the coldest night and day (Monday night and Tuesday) could we really have used it! But, again, we've got it good. The house never did fall below 55 and I know that may sound horribly cold. The LR was always warm and I guess we're somewhat used to it. The house being near 70 degrees makes us, well, the kids and I anyway, feel like we're dying. Sixty five degrees is about perfect for the day and 62 at night, as long as we have PJ's and socks on, is comfortable. I like to get it cooking in here at night so that we can wake up comfortably in the morning without having to stock the stove all night long. Jeremiah does sometimes throw wood in around midnight and I am up early, sometimes around 4:30 or 5 to get it going again so that's its warm when everyone wakes up but anyway...

We even went to town on Tuesday. The snow drifts were bad in places but we needed a furnace filter from Lowes. We thought a dirty filter was the problem. People were out and about going about life. There aren't as many people out and they drive slower and watching cars slip sliding around is kinda fun. Coming from a place where life isn't like this is somewhat entertaining though will become common place soon enough. In a way, it already is. It's cold. It's windy. It's hard work on occasion and there isn't anything to do about it but do it. Being snarky helps at times when complaining about the weather but all in all, it's really not as bad as it could be.

Back to the old grind again today. The kids and Jeremiah are back to school and work and there's lots of laundry to catch up on. I'll be looking forward to the 40 degrees they are predicting on Saturday. Sad isn't it?

Morning update

If you think this post is coming with photos you're crazy! Putting up photos of warm spring days would be a slap in the face and putting up photos of this blizzard is, well, something I am not going to stand outside to do.

The snow's not so bad depth wise, there's only about an inch on the ground. There are some pretty big drifts of 8"-1' but the wind and extreme cold is horrible. If I ever told you the story of the guy in Eastern Montana who kept calling his neighbor asking if it was cold out, this is about the time where he would say, "You're (choice phrase) betcha it is!"

School's been canceled all the way around. I went out to the goats at around 7:30 AM with 2 buckets of warm water in tow and oh my gosh, it's COLD and wind and the blowing snow and ice hurts! I checked the temp which, I think, is checked right down the road at the airport and it said 1 degree but the windchill is -24 and I believe it!! It's one thing to be cold and have occasional gusts that give you a fleeting feeling of really cold air, it's quite another to be constantly bombarded by -24! It's horrible. The next two days will be a challenge! For now, I'm retiring back to bed where it's warm.

It's official...I'm sick!

Sick of fall and winter, sick of cold, sick of ice, sick of gloves, and hats and runny noses and cold wind and Thomas (our wood stove), and cloudy days and brown foliage and leafless trees! I'm sick of it all. I want Spring!!!

We had some last minute company the past week. Gary, Jeremiah's brother-in-law (Rebecca's husband), Thomas and Sarah visited us from WV. 

It was 66 degrees on Thursday. As you can see...after wearing long sleeves and jackets and hats and gloves for what seems like forever, 66 degrees feels like summer and out came the tank tops, shorts and flip flops! Can you believe it?

 

(Left to right: Rachel, Sarah, Drew, and Thomas. Sarah was 14 months old at our wedding and Thomas was our 3 year old ring bearer...how quickly they grow. How quickly time flies!)

But what a tease...what a horrible horrible awful terrible tease. I knew it wouldn't last. I secretly hoped it would of course but my wishing was fruitless. Thursday evening after such a beautiful day with a warm southern wind, the north wind won out and the temperature dropped so quickly. The clouds rolled in and we had sleet on Thursday night. It was a frozen wonder wasteland by Friday morning followed by snow flurries by 9 AM.



I long for spring! It cannot come fast enough.

Today is Saturday, day one of 2011. We're ringing in the new year working on the basement. We've been slacking off the past few weeks, I'll admit. I have a list of "honey do's" for the next 2 months to include painting the inside of the house. We'll see how far I get with that.

Some new somewhat old news...The Healthy Baby Boutique in Newton (about half an hour due east) will be stocking some of my diapers towards the middle of the month. That's pretty exciting!

One of my goats, PJ, will not settle (as in, she has not gotten pregnant yet). I've run the gauntlet as to the reason for her infertility and narrowed it down to a few possible reasons. I talked to a goat mentor of mine and she said possibly a uterine infection so yesterday, when she came back into heat again (I wanted to wait to be sure she wasn't pregnant as filling her full of antibiotics could harm potential fetus') I started her on a heavy duty dose on Penicillin, after 7 days of that she'll get another 7 days of a tetracycline (which is another antibiotic) and hopefully when she comes back into heat again (approx. 7 days after all the full two weeks of  antibiotics) she'll finally settle. I am hoping an infection is her problem because I have about run out of other possible causes. Her daughter Emmy from this year that I kept isn't settling either...I've put her onto the back burner for now hoping that a dose of selenium may be her problem. I'm still waiting to see if she cycles again or not. As for everyone else that I wanted bred is bred so, at least the infertility isn't herd wide, though it may be easier to diagnose the problem if it was! Oh well.