What do you say?

...when your child asks you "Why on earth would anyone with animals not give them food and water?"
Well... pleading ignorance on their part just seems too far fetched.
Downright intentional cruelty? ...maybe. Maybe not.
Greed? Most likely. Wouldn't want to cut into the profits by buying FOOD and HAY ya know!

There is a long story behind my little rant, but I'm too tired to go into it right now.

I'll be busy trying to save a life for the next several days, wishing I could've saved them ALL.

Sugar...

Here are a couple links I found while researching the effects of sugar. I specifically wanted to know if sugar can cause depression.

Sugar's Health Effects

Processed Sugar Can Cause Addiction and Depression

From the above link, here are just a few of the effects of sugar that really stood out to me:

Sugar can cause hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.

Sugar can cause arthritis.

Sugar can cause heart disease.

Sugar causes food allergies.

Sugar can cause a permanent altering in the way the proteins act in the body.

Sugar can cause headaches, including migraine.

Sugar can adversely affect school children's grades and cause learning disorders.

Sugar can cause depression.

Sugar can contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.

Sugar feeds cancer.

A quote from http://www.holdthetoast.com/httblog/archives/000169.html:

Please, please, stop looking for a way to have lots of sweets without consequences. Stop trying to make your low carb diet look like your old diet. There's nothing "normal" or "natural" about eating a lot of sweet stuff; the typical American intake of sweets, especially sweetened beverages, is nothing short of pathological, and changing sweeteners doesn't make it any more normal, historically speaking.
We need to back to the notion of a "treat" being something that we have on special occasions, not something we have every day.

One of the Marans hatched out a single chick today! But, I feared for it's life so I took it from her. Red can get in the chicken house... or she could! Kris fixed that problem this afternoon.

But the reason I was really worried is that there are two broody hens in two of the upper level nests. There is a little platform outside the nests that the hens can walk on if they want. Both hens jumped out to eat some scraps that Erinn gave them, and that is when she saw that one chick had hatched. Then, hen #2 got back in her nest making a clucking noise.

So the chick decided to travel the dangerous path from it's own nest over to where the other hen was. When it somehow arrived without falling off, the other hen was NOT happy to see it and she started clucking madly and ruffling her feathers up. At which point I snatched it away from the beak of death and brought it in the house. I brought the other eggs in and put them in the incubator. Out of the 10 eggs, only 5 looked like they had something in them. I sure hope we don't end up with a lone chick to raise! I gave the hen the eggs that had been in the incubator since Feb 11, so she can try again. This time I will move her to a safe place BEFORE hatching time!

On 2-12, we had a nice surprise visit from Kris' cousin Jeff and his family. They were on their way home to Chicago, and stopped by briefly. The kids sure enjoyed riding Susie and looking for arrowheads.

Murphy's Law

Queen of the Mountain!

Now that Kris can't work for awhile (which has NEVER happened before in all our 16+ years of marriage), Murphy has arrived for a visit.

So far, Murphy has broken, damaged, or destroyed the:
sewing machine
bamix
bosch mixer/blender
milk machine
printer

and the tiller!

All is not lost, however! We can live without all of those things. Kris may well be able to fix most of them. And we can eventually order parts if necessary.

Today I got the potatoes planted because the tiller didn't die until Mooky got one whole long row tilled properly. YIPPEE!

And I sold 16 Maran eggs for $20 to a sweet Chinese lady.

Karen and Hannah came to pick up Oatie. They left Astro for awhile so she can have time to get bred. We sent Diamond home with them as a temporary companion to Oatie.

this 'n that

Erinn milking Dana.

The new steps!

Historical Marker on the way to the cabin.

Ice, Bean, Mattie, Sprite. Little Piggies! It's all I can do to feed four at once, so I am getting them used to the black rubber nipples that go on the lambar bucket. As soon as I can pour 80 ounces in the bucket and let them have at it, I will be saving a lot of time since they eat four times a day! Eighty ounces is just for those four. Sasha drinks nearly 15 ounces 5 times a day. And we are "kid sitting" a little Boer orphan for Erinn's friend. His name is Bud, and since he is just a week old he only drinks 10 ounces 5 times a day. They are providing his milk though since we are rather short on the white stuff right now, due to the piggies in the pic.

Sasha and Bean eating separately from the others. Sasha is too small to compete, and Bean is a really slow eater, although he is quite strong.