How could I forget?

Oops, I forgot to mention that Kris is feeling LOTS better! His pain is almost gone. He is drinking lots of kefir smoothies, as well as taking acidopholus and O7. It was a intestinal bacterial infection caused by the antibiotic he was on for his rotten tooth. He usually works Monday through Thursday but this week he was sick all the way through Thursday so he worked Friday and Saturday instead. Thanks everyone for praying!

Please also pray for Loy as she is going through a tough time. I don't really know if she wants me blogging about it, so I have to ask her first before I say anything more.

Kiwi, we are praying that your poison ivy clears up quickly!

I posted a yummy sounding recipe on GlutenForPunishment, so if anyone has ever made something like it please let me know! I am going to try it ASAP.
And, here's a picture, because what's a post without a pic? ;o) Erinn has been playing with this hammock for days! She has thought up about forty-eleven things to do with a hammock. One of them was to let Mooky get in it and yank on the rope and call it "Bull Buckin'" Well, you may be able to imagine how that ended when I mention that the hammock is old and the ropes holding it up are rather rotten. Oops, one bruised tail bone later, we do NOT have any pics of that fiasco!

Reading

Mooky loves cats.

It doesn't matter if they are in the middle of the calves pen.

Cats love Mooky.

Erinn's hair is driving me NUTS. I can barely handle it anymore, and she CAN'T handle it! When it is not braided it is hip length. When braided, it's a little below her waist. Anybody need a couple of feet of hair? Just kidding, she'd freak. But seriously, if I just cut off 8 inches I think it would be manageable again. The problem is that she doesn't want it cut. What do I do? HELP! I'd like her to be able to have it as long as she wants, if we could just come up with a workable solution...

Mooky has been SO hungry ever since Tuesday. He was always starving for the first 14 years of his life, no matter how much he ate, until we got all the gluten out of his system. Now, every once in a while, it happens again, and it makes me cry out to God for mercy! I am spending so much time figuring out what he can eat and it's driving us both bonkers because his list of allowable foods is pretty darn short. He asked me this morning if he could have the last brownie from Tuesday - the very brownies that caused this whole downward spiral and I am sorry to say that I snapped at him. NO WAY, NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brownies are evil!!! Then I had to apologize, and tell him that I was glad that he at least asked, and didn't just eat it.

I got the pantry halfway cleaned out this morning! The floor and all the food shelves are organized and clean. Anyone who has been here knows what a huge mess it was in there. It was just plain disgusting. Now, all I have to do is organize the half that has papers and school related stuff stacked practically to the ceiling.

Erinn and I brought Lily back home this morning. Mooky was shivery and nauseous, white as a sheet, and on the verge of throwing up, so he stayed home. We didn't have any problems this time because Lily is not in heat any more. Who knows if she is actually pregnant or not. She was bred twice at her last home before we got her and she didn't take. Lily let one or more of those cute little black calves across the road nurse! NO MILK. Period. So, I fed her some alfalfa pellets when we got home, to boost her milk production and hopefully there will be enough there to milk her tonight.


Our kids still love to be read to, and this is a good reminder to do it more often!
Check out this lady's blog: http://www.dominionfamily.com/

She writes:
As I was saying ….I don’t remember a whole lot from when I had 4 small children only. I remember I didn’t wear make-up and I didn’t read a whole lot for pleasure. Reading to the children was my reading and it worked.

I am not an original person. My good friend calls me a plodder. I repeat myself often.

The best thing you can do is just be faithful. Get up and serve your family. Read to your little ones. Don’t come up with some grand scheme to read to them. Read to them. Right now. Stop reading this and go read to them. That is one of my secrets. Whenever I was reading some parenting book and got a good idea, I refused to make up some new chart, instead I just put the book down and implemented the idea right that second. If you can master that concept your time on the Internet will bear fruit, otherwise I fear the Internet is just a stumbling block.

I hate charts and schemes. The best way is often the simplest. If you want to take a nature walk with your children walk out the door right now. That is what I am going to do.



Yesterday Erinn rode Thunder over to the Parker's bareback and he threw a hissy fit when it was time to leave. Dancing sideways, trying to turn around and go back... I guess he really liked those cows! LOL, just kidding. They have horses over there, and although we didn't actually see them, he remembers them from other visits. Erinn handled his little fit quite nicely, and forced him across the road. As soon as he hit the grass on the other side she made him canter down the fence line a ways, and then canter back. Then, he tried to refuse to go in our gate and she said "NO Thunder!" and reached back to whop him a good one. Before she whopped him, he quickly put his head down, relaxed his whole body and went submissively through the gate. Ha! Quick learner, that boy. So, in this picture (taken across the road in the Parker's pasture), she has the saddle on him because she had grand plans on how hard she would work him if he dared to disobey her again. He didn't bother.

COWS

This group of cows met me when I went to milk Lily yesterday.

And this adorable blue eyed kitten was over there,

weaving her way amongst the cows.

the Cornish are growing FAST

Here's Mooky filling up the waterers.

He is the Chief Waterer for all the animals around here.

Erinn is the Chief Feeder.

We do it that way because most of the feed has gluten in it,

and we have to avoid cross contamination.

Here are the little dummies enjoying the oat grass in the garden.

I want...

...to learn to knit!
AND I want to learn to shear sheep (not that we have any) and clean and spin the wool, and whatever else you have to do to it. THEN, I want to learn to knit. :o) Halcyon and Mum have inspired me. I want to teach the kids to do these things as well, but I doubt Mooky will cooperate. Knitting and spinning aren't a high priority for him. Erinn likes to crochet, so she might like knitting as well.
And while I'm at it, I want to learn to make cheddar cheese, get better at making mozzarella, learn to quilt, and last but not least, raise all of our own food for health reasons. (There's probably more, but that list was just off the top of my head.) That's not too much to ask for, is it?

I took Mad Cow Lily across the road for a visit with Mr. P's bull yesterday. I snapped a lead rope on, and everything went well until we got to our gate. She got kinda crazy when she figured out where we were going. Luckily she didn't get away from me in the middle of the road! Erinn was riding along behind on Thunder in case Lily got stubborn and refused to walk, but we had the opposite problem. She kept running ahead of me and I had to pull her back and around. She actually could have easily ripped that lead rope out of my hands and taken off, so I am very glad she responded to it. I let her go in his HUGE 600 acre pasture and she took off running. Bucking, kicking, and jumping, she charged away in search of other cows. When she was almost out of sight, and I had to duck down to see her beneath the branches of trees, I suddenly saw dust flying and black cows scattering in every direction. I feel kinda sorry for those cows... LOL. Let's hope they all survive.

Yesterday, Kris went to the doctor and all we know is that we have to wait on lab tests... his pain is no better this morning, but he went to work because his other symtoms are much improved due to the Rx he got.

Karen and I ordered some soap making supplies together to save on shipping, and they arrived a few days ago. We stopped by their house yesterday on our way home from town to pick up our share of the order. We now have a GOAT mold! It's a doe and kid - really cute. Erinn is really looking forward to making some soap using the new mold, so we may do that today.

I'll have to go take all my milking supplies and Lily's feed across the road at milking time this morning. Hopefully she will come when I call her, because it would take a helicopter to find her if she doesn't want to be found.

Wednesday - SICK

Wednesday - UGH, poor Kris, he's going to have to go to the doctor tomorrow. He felt so bad all day, and really had a bunch of things he wanted to do around the farm. He also felt bad because he couldn't help us with any of the chores we were doing.

The "dumpster chicks" (Cornish) needed to be moved again. For the LAST time! They are finally in the garden, with a nice warm pen to sleep in at night, and the run of the garden in the day. The pens are SO sturdy and predator proof, but VERY heavy. There was no way we could pick them up and carry them. So, Erinn pushed them into the garden with the four wheeler while Mooky and I guided them in the right direction. The four wheeler just barely fit through the garden gate.
It worked out really well, and Kris was impressed. :o)

Thursday - I started this post last night and got tired of waiting on the picture to load so I left it to do it's own thing all night long. Kris is not any better at all this morning. I hope he doesn't get dehydrated! I'm going to get all my morning chores done as early as possible so that we can call the doctor's office right at 8:00 and be prepared to be there as early as possible.

Disbudding

Almond and Moonshine, ready to be disbudded.

You can easily see the tips of Moonshine's horns poking through his hair already, so I actually waited a bit too long.

Moonshine, after being disbudded.

Out of all the jobs on the farm, this is the one I hate the most. The kid cries and screams, and the smoke smell is dreadful. This is the only job that Erinn doesn't like to help me with. Neither do Kris and Mooky, for that matter. Erinn likes to help with pretty much everything else though!

I guess if I had to shoot the animals we butcher, that would be my worst job, but thankfully I don't have to do that.

Kris has been sick sick sick since Saturday afternoon. He stayed at the cabin until Sunday night while his dad hunted. If his dad had gotten a deer, he would have helped him clean it, but he didn't get one so Kris came home Sunday night. He has been in bed ever since then! It's either food poisoning or a nasty stomach virus. This morning when he got up he felt better but that only lasted until he ate breakfast. We had scheduled a doctor's appointment for him this morning, but he had me call and cancel it when he got up and felt much improved. Things have gone down hill since then, so I may have to call them back and reschedule. :o(

Mooky has been feeling better and better as the week has gone on. As far as I can tell, the effects of the hush puppy he ate only lasted 3 days. He's been feeling pretty good (staying off sugar), and spending lots of time outside. He came in yesterday and said "I stayed out there so long and felt so good that I temporarily forgot about feeling bad all the time!" But, this morning Kris felt well enough to request brownies, so I made the gluten free recipe. He says "It's hard to believe these are gluten free, they're so good!" And after eating a brownie Mooky started feeling really bad. It HAS to be the sugar, as much as he tries to convince me that it must be something else.

She's out 'n about at last!

Dana is feeling better at last!

She is finally out grazing a little bit, and her milk supply is improving somewhat. This morning when I went out with a bottle for the kids, Almond wouldn't drink any of it, and Moonshine only drank about 4 ounces.
Dana's kids always have the longest ears. :o)

What if...

...you heard a loud bang in the night and when you went out to investigate with your flashlight, you saw 2 eyes glowing at you from within the store room? YIKES!!



That's what I saw the other night! That crazy cow had found a warm spot and she wasn't coming out. I had to go back in the house to get some help, so I grabbed the camera as well.

New Buck!

This is our new buck, Danny. He's on the right and River's on the left. (Sorry Dad, that was his name when we got him. It doesn't reflect on you in any way.) :o)

Danny is Velvet's brother who we sold as a day old kid in early '06. They were 2 of the triplets born to Tiffany last year. This year when Tiffany died, we decided to try to get Danny back so we could have more of Tiffany's bloodline in our herd. Kerry and Prisca graciously agreed to trade Danny for River!

Anti-Soccer Mom

I found this great article this morning while reading someone else's blog: Anti-Soccer Mom
I can really identify with the lady that wrote it, even though her children are much younger than ours.