Lorihadams-- hi guys...been busy!

[keljonma]

Love the pictures!

Sounds like you have a good plan for tightening the grocery budget demon. Good luck!

 

[lorihadams]

Sunday

Had a busy weekend, Chad got a deer Saturday morning so we got to try out the new processing stand he built and it worked great. Then we got the kids fed and down for a nap and got out the chainsaw and started cutting up some trees that needed to go on the back of our property. We had some that got broken up in an ice storm last year and have needed to come down for a while now. We also had a lot of undergrowth and vines, thorns, etc that needed to be cleared out for a while now. We are hoping that a friend of ours can bring some of his heavy equipment over someday and we can push everything to the far side of the property. Our backyard looks totally different. Chad also has 3 sides of the goat fence posts in the ground.

Then after the kids got up and came outside to "help" they needed a bath before trick or treating. Then cut up a pound cake I had thawed out from the freezer and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top for the halloween cookout and then made a batch of sausage balls and showered myself, into the car and off to the cookout at a friend's house. Got the kids loaded up on the wagon and off we went. First house, Tyler slips on the driveway and hits his head. While we are attending to him Maddie falls of the edge of the driveway into the drainage culvert. What a way to start, huh? Both kids were fine, 15 houses later the rain went from a light drizzle to "Hey, I think we need to get back to the garage". We got dried off, like the kids even cared and ate dinner and then made it home by about 8:30. We kept an eye on Tyler for the next 3 hours (the sugar rush made it easy for him to stay up past his bedtime) to make sure he wasn't going to have a problem from the knock on the head. He's fine.

We had a good time. Today it has poured down rain all day long so we have hung out at home with MIL who came up from NC to go trick or treating with the kids. She had to leave at 3 so we have just played all day! Nice to relax. Tacos for dinner and America's Funniest Home Videos. Now I'm just playing for a while before I head off to bed.

 

[lorihadams]

Here's a pic of the kids Halloween night on the wagon ride! My little glow in the dark skeletons!

 

[lorihadams]

Wednesday

Been a busy couple of days....big news for us! We may be getting a 16x16 shed FOR FREE!!! We will also be getting a hot tub FOR FREE!!! We have the opportunity to get an above ground pool FOR FREE!!! What does this mean for us? BF will probably get the pool, we don't want to deal with it. I will greatly appreciate the hot tub and so will my aching back! We will move our small current shed to the other side of the property and turn it into a big ol chicken coop!!! We will have to go to NC to pick everything up so it will cost us gas money but man am i excited!

We have been contemplating the business dealings for a while now and Chad had papers drawn up at the lawyers that will drastically change everything. He had a meeting last night with his partners and everything went well. They were not happy but he really put them in a position where they had to do the right thing or get out completely. Hopefully we will breathe a little easier now. We are gearing up for the late season so Chad will be out of the house more scouting and guiding hunts.

He called in sick today, he has been having problems with one of his ears lately. Don't know what's going on with that. While I had him home we went through all the kids' toys and threw out all of the broken ones, put some in a pile for goodwill, and most in another pile for sale at the consignment shop. I went through some of their clothes for a friend of mine and will be bringing them to her this afternoon. I also got Chad on the phone with our satellite provider and had him do some fancy talking and saved us $40 a month! We enjoy a lot of the channels with the kids like Planet Green, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, Cooking Channel, Spike TV and the hunting/outdoor channels. They live for the discovery channel and have actually learned a lot of stuff, as have we, so for now we feel it is a justifiable expense.

We also rearranged Tyler's room and have plans to rearrange the living room this weekend when my parents are here. Tyler also released 2 of his fowler's toads and kept the smallest one, then on the sly Madelyn let the other one go so now we have no more toads! One less aquarium to deal with for now.

Tomorrow I think I will tackle the garden. I am going to use some of the hay to mulch everything and I am going to dig around in the compost bin to see if there is anything I can move over into the beds already. I cleaned out the rabbit hutch yesterday and put all the droppings in two of the smallest beds.

I have to go to a friends house this evening to help her put up a deer. She was teaching a cooking class monday night and one of her students slipped and sliced open two of her fingers. Hard to slice raw meat with one hand. Her husband shot it out of the kitchen window and threw out his back getting it in so he is of no use to anyone right now.

Well, off to get the sheets in off the line and hop in the shower before I get the kids ready to go!

 

[lorihadams]

Friday

My husband was home for two days with an ear infection, he wears earplugs a lot and the wax built up and blocked one ear and caused an infection. He was home the first day but couldn't get a dr. appt cause of the backlog of flu patients so he had to go yesterday. Well, he can't sit around the house and do nothing so off to Home Depot I go. He wanted to rearrange the living room and I told him we may as well paint while we had the furniture moved around. We painted everything white when we moved in and it was still white and dirty from the kids, dogs, life. I chose the color River Rock by Behr. It is a blue gray and it is beautiful! My house is a wreck though and my parents are coming in for the weekend tonight. Ugh. The dish network guys showed up at 8 this morning and I was outside doing my chores and hadn't gotten things cleaned up in the living room so they were stepping over books and furniture and deer heads and picture frames and my children. I'm ready for a nap!

 

[lorihadams]

Oh, I almost forgot, I got my 2 new light brahma hens last night! One is really sweet and doing well, the other is coming out of a molt and looks awful, her feathers are about halfway out but they look good so far. I'll let everyone stop fighting before I attempt to talk pictures. Got to establish that pecking order

 

[lorihadams]

Sunday

My parents came up for a visit Friday. We took them with us to see Cornerstone Farm yesterday and they had a blast! We put reservations on 3 kids for next spring and agreed to take an older doe with a neurological problem that cannot ever be bred. Since we don't plan on having any bucks we agreed to take her as a pet. She walked right up to Chad and put her head in his lap and looked up at him with those baby blues and he said "We'll take her". Barb, the owner, just cried. She loves the goat but doesn't want to take any chances with her getting bred. She wants her to go somewhere that will not have any bucks.

We wrangled up all the chickens and ducks and locked them in the garden to till everything up for me today. We got our first hard frost Friday night and I pulled everything up this morning. Getting ready to go make a loaf of bread but thought I would check in. I'm so excited about the goats!

Oh, we also have a rabbit with an abcessed tooth. I pulled it this morning and gave her some antibiotics and put her in a separate cage in the house so the others won't bother her while she heals up. If she starts to go down hill we will kill her humanely. I can't see spending $50-$100 on a $6 rabbit at the vet. Guess that farm mentality is kicking in, huh?

My mom looked at my dad this morning and said "My daughter is a farmer, I never would have seen that coming. I just can't believe it."

 

[TanksHill]

Ahh sounds like you had a great time at the Cornerstone Farm with your parents. That is so kind of you to take in the handicapped goat. She will have a great home.

Sounds like your turning into a great little farmer. Your parents are probably very proud.

have a great day,

gina

 

[lorihadams]

monday

Mama and Daddy got home okay and we painted the kitchen after they left, it looks great! It is the same color as the living room. We ate dinner and got started on painting the stripes in Tyler's room. We got the navy blue stripes done and now we are going to tape it off and get the orange stripes done tonight when Chad gets home from the dentist. It is cute, Tyler seems to like it so far.

I got the sweetest email from Barb at Cornerstone Farm this morning explaining Tally's illness. It seems that the neuroligical disorder has been traced back to a buck, Johnny Jump Up. Several of the does from his line have gotten the illness and the local university vets have determined that it is most likely genetic. No other does in her herd have the illness but some other does in another state from JJU's lines have come down with the same condition. If they are bred they all die within 2-3 weeks of kidding. From what she has said it is pretty bad. Tally has never been bred and is fine. She is very sweet.

I reserved 3 does but I need to go online today and pick a couple of back up does in case the dams we picked don't produce does. I can't say enough about Cornerstone Farm. Barb is the sweetest woman. She pulled two does and milked them on the spot so that my entire family could taste the milk. Chad is no longer nervous about drinking goat's milk!!! The kids liked it too and so did my parents. My mom drank raw cow's milk growing up so it wasn't a big deal to her.

The new brahmas are adjusting well and they are back in the garden today tilling up my soil for me. I have one more load of laundry to do and then I am getting the kids together to go to the library and park later today. My BF and her family are coming over for dinner tomorrow night and I think I may make a big pot of soup and do some grilled cheese sandwiches to go with it.

Maggie, our chocolate lab, came into heat again Saturday so she will be on the porch until Thursday or Friday and then she will go in the pen with Tonka and we will see if we can get the two of them together and get some puppies this time. I think last time we tried they never got together long enough for it to "take".

Bambi, our rabbit with the abcessed tooth is doing okay, we drained the abcess last night and flushed it out. She will be on antibiotics for the next week at least. She is eating well, I gave her some dandelion greens this morning and she was very happy about that. The kids are just happy to have her in the house.

 

[lorihadams]

Friday

Man oh man this weather is terrible! They have had to cancel some of the school systems in the state from the high winds, flooding and power loss from the remnants of Ida. I have not left the house for 3 days other than to feed and water my poor animals. Everyone is wet because the wind is blowing the rain sideways.

I heard a huge crash last night and went out to check that the animals were okay and couldn't find anything. Come to find out this morning that a piece of stainless steel that DH got blew up onto the roof of the shed last night. Woke both the kids up. Tyler ended up in our bed with Chad and I ended up in Maddie's bed with her all night. She kept rollling over and grabbing for me to make sure I was still there. The house rattled all night. My poor broilers look awful. They are a nasty muddy mess, good thing they will be going to freezer camp soon!

Our bunny, Bambi, is doing well enough now that she is back outside with the others in the hutch....she was starting to stink up the house. I think she is happy too, she kept running in circles around the hutch, crazy bunny.

The kids and I are both going a little stir crazy so I think tonight we'll do pizza and a movie. Last night we played simon says, hide and seek, and read lots of books before bed. Too bad the storm woke them up, poor things are worn out today. Today we worked on spelling and recognizing their lowercase letters and played a game Tyler likes to call "bug club". He hides all the plastic bugs in his bug box all over the house and we go around with a magnifying glass searching for them and trying to identify them. Right now he's playing a harmonica and marching all over the living room I love my babies!

Tomorrow is the first day of rifle season so hubby is going to watch all of the children tomorrow afternoon so that my BF and I can go sit in the woods. She and I are a little panicked cause we are out of ground deer meat. I have tenderloins and roasts and some cubes left so we have been eating on those but I sure will be glad to get some ground meat. Hopefully I can get one tomorrow! Chad recently found out that they put red dye in packaged beef and pump it full of CO2. He's not happy about it and now really wants a beef cow...he even mentioned going to a friend and getting a dairy calf for meat, even if we just ground it all. If all else fails we have an aquaintance down the road that raises meat goats so we could venture down that path. Never had goat meat before.....hmmmm.