Chicken Feast

So the garage is now built.  We had to dig out and level the spot that it was going in.  Our soil is not very good quality and has a lot of red clay in it.  We spent one day this week raking the rocks out of the dirt that is on the side of the building facing the house.  Tonight Rod has spent a couple of hours bringing up our personal fertilizer stock from the horse area to this spot in the yard. 

After his second scoop I looked out the window and the picture below is what I saw!  The chickens were having a smorgasbord feast!

Of course I have a stupid dog that also went out there and feasted and then Bear came into the house and wiped his yucky mouth on my bed! 

Anniversary Present

The west side of the house has a porch that goes the full length of the house.  My office windows look out over this porch and off into the woods.  It is a really pretty view because there is not anything obstructing it.  For our anniversary Rod bought me a wooden swing to put on the porch.  After painting it red and hanging it up, it has become a favorite spot for Tina and I both to hang out.  Notice the add on cup holders?  There were handmade by Rod in the early-mid 90's for a 72 chevy truck he bought that didn't have any cup holders :-)

Pumpkin!

Our garden has done very well this year!  I'm sure it has something to do with the abundance of fertilizer that we have available to us.  Almost everything in the garden was started by Rod from seeds.  We have tomatoes, green beans, eggplants, squash, zucchini, green peppers, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, cantaloupe, okra, cheyenne pepper, lettuce, corn, and I am sure other stuff that I can't remember while I am sitting here typing.  All of it has thrived, but the pumpkins have been the prize winners.  This year the two best pumpkins weighed in at 94 pounds and 56.6 pounds!

Can any of you who are over 35 see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in the profile of the 2nd pumpkin?

My personal Vet

School has started back. Hard to believe but Tina is in the 8th grade and Tori is now a Senior!

Day 2 of Tori's senior year started off like any other school day.  She got up, got ready, they left the house, fed the horses, dropped Tina off at school for her first day, and then she went to school herself.

And I did my normal morning routine.  I sat down at my laptop by about 6:30 starting work, took my morning break at about 7:45 and fed all the animals.  When I went to feed the goats, one of the young 3 month old babies did come eat.  So I went to check on him and he was burning up.  First thing I did was call the vet that sees farm animals.  No luck - he was off on Tuesdays.  Next I text my friend Denise, who owns her own vet practice.  No luck - she was off Tuesday as well.  She asks me what the problem is and I tell her I have a goat with a high fever.  So now the obvious question - how high is it?  After spending 15 minutes looking for some Vaseline... I got Dad to hold the goat and I got to hold the thermometer...  His fever was 105.3.  Next was weight - 34 pounds.  So I sent all that to Denise.  She said she would text Tori the dose.  (Not sure if I had mentioned on the blog before, but Tori works for Denise).  So my next question to her is can this wait until this afternoon.  Which she promptly told me "goats are delicate and that is pretty high of a fever and the sooner the better"...

So you all know what my dilemma is now?  I have to call the school at 8:40....  and tell them.... to let my daughter out so she can get some medicine for the goat.  I decide best not to tell them up front, I simply call and say she needs to leave for an hour and to ask her to call me when she gets in the truck.  So Tori calls and say "what is up!".  I tell her that I need her to go to the clinic, get the medicine that Denise has texted her about, and I will meet her there.  At this point I am trying to limit the amount of time on her 2nd day of school that she is missing.  So I get to the clinic and Tori says "Where is the goat".  Well.. I didn't bring the goat.  I figured it was pills and I would just take it home and give it to him.  Not so fast - it is an injection.  So Tori laughs at me and starts drawing up the medicine.

At this point I am trying to be helpful.  So while Tori is drawing up the medicine, they have a cat that is boarded.  I go in there and give the cat fresh water and I was going to be nice and scoop the litter box.  Anyone reading by now has to know what is coming next.  Sure enough the cat gets out.  Tori comes in there and gets the cat, laughs at me more, and says come on lets go to the house.

Luckily catching this goat is super easy because he loves to be picked up and held up to the trees to get leaves.  So I caught him and Tori gave him the shot.  So then the only thing left... writing a note to the school to explain why she was gone (she was only gone 45 minutes).  In the end everyone got a big laugh about it and her friends think I am crazy!

Later that evening I started thinking about Tori and my friend Denise.  How wonderful is it that she is so well trusted by her employer and how grateful I am to have a friend like Denise!  BTW - the goat is doing great!

Teenagers!

I think I will cry.  As of August 7th I officially have TWO teenagers!  Tina's is officially a teenager!  She wanted a simple party with - breakfast food (country ham, homemade biscuits, baked potato, and watermelon) a goat cake that looks like our white goat Billy, and to do tie-dye t-shirts.

She told me not to worry about buying a cake because homemade are the best and Tori could do it for her.  So that is exactly what we did.  Tori worked on the cake and I worked on the other cooking.  For her simple party we had about 40 people here eating country ham!

Everyone had a good time and the shirts for everyone all turned out great.