Freezing Rain, Sleet, and then some Snow

The weatherman was calling for 4" - 7" of snow... of course they were wrong.  After freezing rain, a bunch of sleet, and then a little snow we were set!  The kids have no hope of going to school any day this week and the driveway is perfect for sledding!

The designated 4 wheel driver - Christina

Nathan

Hope

Bear

Standing on the pond

Rod and I walking on the pond

our neighbors dog, Osce, getting a stick for Bear

The view walking back up to the house

Here are a few links to the sledding videos... not sure why some of them are blurry.. guess that would be the photographers fault.....

Tina sledding down with Bear hot on her heals!

 Tori and Hope.  Notice that as soon as Rod says "don't forget to wreck"... the wreck happens immediately!

Rod and Tori coming down from the road side of the driveway and making the turn toward the barn.

Driveway.. part.. who can keep count?

When you really clean or do a big project do you make a mess as a means to the end?  I know I normally do and this is what I have told myself over the last 24 hours... it will be better in the end... it will be better in the end....

This weekend was another driveway project.  As most people that know us can attest - our driveway is the worst part of our house.  One day I dream it will be paved... until that day, we will continue to work on it and put gravel down.

The biggest problem is the driveway is over 100 feet of elevation change - down and back up... Water runoff is a big problem that we have worked to overcome.  So this weekend Rod started work on the road side of the diveway.  There has been a huge rock shelf that sticks out toward the driveway causing water to run from the hillside across the drive. We used a skid loader with a breaker drill attachment (ok, I might not have all the names correct for these pieces of equipment, but I think I do).

So this post is about the mess part... hopefully I will be posting in the very near future about the cleanup of the mess!

Here are the pictures from this weekend:

Before they started.  A look from the house side down and the road side is in the distance

Yes, this used to be the drive way.  This was after digging had started

All this rock was broken up by the skid loader

The new improved ditch to catch the water

Looking down from the top from the road

Add caption

The rock shelf that was in the way

I don't think these two loads are going to do much....Buying gravel is something I hate to do!

Amateur Spelunking - Prowell Cave

For Christmas, Rod gave Laine a work day at her house.  He is helping her to clean out the garage as well as the basement.  Yesterday was his second day out helping her and we all tagged along.  After working, we had lunch at True Love Pizza and Gritts.  Once our work was done and our bellies were full... we headed to the land that Rod leases to hunt on.  It is located in rural Maury County in Santa Fe.  One this land is a cave that Rod has been in a time or two and wanted to show us.  After having to crab walk to get in the first few feet, it opened up and was pretty cool inside.  Here are some of the pictures.

20 Years

20 years ago today at about this time, I was probably nervously going through a mental list of things to be done!  At 22 years old, I was probably not really understanding how big the decision to get married is.  But 20 years later - wow!  Looking back now I am very glad that I have Rod as my teammate going through life.  I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Our biggest accomplishment in this marriage is raising Tori and Tina.  I couldn't be prouder of the daughters we have raised.  We have always taken life head on.   When we were ready to do something, we held onto each other and we just jumped right in. (like living in the campers!)

Here is to a  long, long life together.  Rod, I love you and couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone else!!

A few of the pictures from that hot day - July 2, 1994

Molly

Tomorrow we are going to have to say goodbye to a four legged family member.  It is finally time to do the humane thing and let Molly go.  I have known this day was coming for a while now, but I still sit here crying thinking about it.  She has so much personality and we have so many fond memories of her.  (and a few not so fond).

Molly came into our life as a very young 13 pound piglet.  I came home from a work trip and Rod and the girls had went to Kentucky to get her!  It was 100%  surprise to me!!! I had NO clue that I was coming home to a new pet pig.  Little did I know that she would grow the most attached to me.

She was potty trained very quickly!  Easier than any dog I have ever housebroke.  She lived in the house for a little over the first year of her life until she just got too big.  She has done everything from car rides, eating at Fido's, gone fishing with us, and many more things.   She went through a stage where she was aggressive and My Mom... wasn't her best fan in those days because she chose her to chase the most.  After getting Dolly, that all went away.

Another funny story - one day we couldn't find her.  We looked and looked and looked!  Then I walked into my bedroom and who was on my bed and under all the covers?  It was MOLLY.  She had jumped on the bed and snuggled in and all that was visible was about an inch of her nose!

Once when she had been too aggressive, we took her to a farm and gave her to them... I spent a couple of months worrying about her. You should have seen the look on the farmers face when we pulled in with her blankie and toys.  After a few months, we went back to a Halloween festival that they had and she recognized me.  I told the farmer, Mr. Owen, that I wanted her back.  So we loaded her back in the car and brought her back home!  What was I thinking that I could let her live there with his other pot bellied pigs?

After buying the land and moving to our new "mini farm", we got her a friend in Dolly.  Once shortly after we moved over to the new land, we were going on a long weekend trip to Gatlinburg.  We had Zac house sitting.  (ok this was when we lived in the campers, so he was technically camper sitting).  The morning we were to leave, she had some type of cyst rupture (at the time we didn't know what had happened).  It was a Sunday and a holiday weekend.  I could not find a single vet that was open to do farm calls to come look at her. So we were stuck not knowing what to do.  We couldn't get her to come out of her house and she was pitiful.  I thought she was dying and I was sitting in her house (Rod had to take the top off so I could climb in), crying over a pig,  and hand feeding her Chicken Noodle Soup.  Holding the bowl up to her because she couldn't stand up.  We left for our trip, but not until after I showed Zac how to hold the bowl for her.  The plan was that if she made it past the holiday that I would try to get a vet out.  She had chased Zac during her aggressive years and he wasn't real keen on doing the feeding!  But a couple of days later she had bounced back!

Over the last year she has gotten worse with arthritis and probably something like Crones Disease.  She passes a lot of blood and is pain.  We have been giving her daily pain medicine as well as an arthritis medicine.  I knew this day would come... but it is still hard.

Here is the link for the youtube video of her playing her keyboard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23TF7BDK-54

And her giving a piggy back ride to the barbie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES14P_tyFo4

Some of the more memorable pictures of Molly:  I narrowed it down to just 8 pics

Tina and Molly napping in my bed

The father's day present for Rod that hangs in my house right now!  The photographer had a "pet" special.  He was surprised when we showed up with a Pet Pig!

Rolling up the carpet to get under it.

Always rolling up in blankets

she was worried during the swine flu outbreak!

Rod giving her a spa treatment.

Loved getting in the pool on a hot day

Bath time!

Notice the blue nose?  This is what happens when you leave markers on the floor when you have a pig!!! 

Chicken Whisperer

We had some decent storms overnight with more predicted later this afternoon.  So this morning I went to check on the baby chicks.  These chickens were born on March 10th and were moved out from under the heat light and put in a blocked off section of the coop about two weeks ago.  They had a round plastic tub turned on its side as their shelter.  So I get over there and they are all wet and huddled together in the plastic tub.  Looking into the tub, I noticed that there were two that had been trampled.  I get all the ones out and the two that are there I leave on the floor of the coop for a few minutes while I go look for a larger container to put in there.  I want a larger one so that hopefully this won't happen again this afternoon when more storms come.

After setting up the larger container, I get the two chickens out and they are mostly dead.  They had very shallow breathing, they were mostly flat (picture pancake here), caked in chicken poop, their wings, legs, and neck in odd positions and the worst - their eyes were already glassed over.  One of them even had another chicken standing on his head!  But since they were still breathing I couldn't just leave them out there.  I got another bucket and brought them in the house with a heat lamp.  I told my co-workers that they probably had a 5% chance of survival if I was going to place a bet.  An hour later I took a work break and went to check on them.  They were still alive but had not moved.  Another hour later.... not much improvement, but they did open one eye each and look at me.  Two hours later... They were sitting up!  Now about 5 hours since I brought them in the house, I went down there and they were eating some food.  I think their chances now are closer to 80%....

I didn't take a picture at their worst... because honestly, I thought their chances were just so slim!  But here they are now.