Disarray...

Did you ever have one of those days...or weeks, when it seems like your whole house just imploded from within?  I guess maybe that is a part of summer, with the kids home and not as much structure...things get left behind.  I looked around yesterday and realized that even after our massive cleaning the other weekend we still have work to do. 

Some of this is because we went shopping for camp today.  It amazes me how much we always need to buy just to go to camp.  You would think they would have all of these things already, but there is always a long list of things to buy.  Then when we get home and they unpack everything it ends up all over the house...hence the implosion in the house. 

So the rest of today and probably most of tomorrow will be cleaning up this monster mess of camp gear and clothing.  I just hope it doesn't take too long since we have other things to do.

Violet has left the farm...

This morning the neighbor called and said he wanted to buy Violet and he would be coming for her this morning.  Luckily I was still home (because the girls were slow getting up this morning) or I would have been out shopping with the girls for camp.  So we switched gears, changed clothes and then prepared to load her up.

They arrived just as we were getting out there.  So we got the trailer backed up to the gate and I worked on coaxing Violet into the chute.  She is a smart girl and she knew what I was doing so she didn't want to go.  I walked in the trailer with the food and she followed...not enough to get all the way in the trailer, but enough to get her in the pen.  After that all we had to do was push her a bit and she was in the trailer and we were closing the gate.  Chore accomplished...but in the process the 2 little guys got out.

Getting them back in ended up being more of a chore than expected.  They really only followed Violet so now the fun begins.  I decided to put them back with the goats and sheep, so we walked them back to the house and around to the gate.  It wasn't too hard, but they didn't want to follow the bucket and they always tried to go off to the side.  Finally we got them in there and closed off the extra sheep pasture.  They seem very happy now to be in the shade and have the stream.  The next difficult part is to get the one that didn't get out back over there...he is much more stubborn.

We went out and tried to get him in the pen so we could rope him and lead him back.  Wow that did NOT work.  First he is smarter than the other 2 and knew he didn't want to go in that pen, then when we got him in it was incredibly hard to get the rope on him.  I got it on eventually but it didn't go around his neck, it ended up around his chest and I couldn't pull it tighter with all of his moving around so he ended up working it off completely.  We decided he had been through enough...and I realized her was stronger than he looked and I probably couldn't have held him anyway, so we let him in that pasture and we will try to move him another day.

So now we are all dirty and sweaty and smelly...because it is 98 degrees here in TN right now.  So we all go in to shower and change to go camp shopping.  Morgan was happy because she was getting the sneakers she had been waiting for.  They were all happy because they love going out to shop...usually means they get at least one meal in a restaurant we haven't tried yet.  Today it was Panda Express.

After all the shopping it was time to get to church for the nights activities.  Since camp in so close and we still had things to prepare we were working on the buddy burners they will be using to make their breakfast on Thursday at camp.  Seems like whenever we have these learning activities the leader does lots of preparing the girls listen for a bit, the leaders then end up doing a lot of the work while the girls talk and good off.  Then the leaders clean up.  I think I need to do something about that.  All in all, it was a good night and we all went home tired.

I am just happy I don't need to worry about chasing the calves anymore :)

What a week..

It has been a really busy week, as you can probably tell since I haven't posted all week.  So what have I been doing all week you ask...I have been chasing cows.  These calves have gotten out of the fence every morning for the last 3 weeks.  I love having fresh grass fed beef in my freezer, but I am beginning to think that it is not so important after dealing with these 3 calves.  Up until the last 10 days or so Violet wouldn't get out, she would just moo at them and let me know they were out.  The last week or so she has been going with them and they have found the feed barrel.  So every morning bright and early at 6am the cow and calves are in the feed barrel and I need to chase them back and put them inside the fence.

This week got a bit more dicey.  Tuesday when I was leaving for the evening I saw one out and asked Madison to put him back in.  She did and I expected all to be fine.  I got a call from her later that evening that they are all out and what should she do?  Well I am over 80 minutes away so I really couldn't just rush home so I told her she knows what to do and she can handle it.  She did and she did a great job too.

However since Violet went a different way that night she decided to go that way the next morning too...up the ridge across the street.  So when I saw they were missing and I didn't see them in the feed barrels I had no idea where they went.  So the cow and calves were gone all day on Wednesday...add to that I had to work that afternoon and couldn't look for them or go get them if someone found them.  Then later in the afternoon I had divorce drama and friend drama to deal with.  By 6pm I was mentally exhausted, but I had to take the kids to church and go to a special church council meeting. By the time I was on my way home I could care less if the cows came home, just not needing to worry about them seemed like a vacation :)

What do you know...when I pulled around to the house there they were...in the feed barrel.  So Morgan and I got the flashlight and a bucket and walked them back to the pasture in the dark and that is no easy task...they hate moving in the dark.  Then I fixed the fence issue and charged the line to 7000 plus volts.  They will stay in now...well for a little while.

Thursday we decided to spend the day at the beach since Wednesday was so busy and exhausting.  We all had a bit too much sun even though we had lots of sunblock on, but we had a great time.  We got home and the cow and calves were still there...good day.  Next morning I go out to open them up to their shady pasture and guess what...they are gone again!  I spent all day in a state of anxiety wondering where they were and if they would come home... no luck.  Finally at 8:45 the neighbor calls to tell me they are in his garden eating his corn...he is a very nice guy, but I could tell he was really mad.  So the kids and I walk down and walk them back to the pasture.  I had fixed the fence earlier so I knew it was working again.  Hopefully this time they will stay in.

This morning I was a bit worried when I went out, I didn't see them right away, so I walked all the way into the pasture calling for Violet...she usually gets up to check me out when I do that.  Finally I saw them, thank goodness.  Now I just have to hope they stay in while we are down in Chattanooga at the Aquarium for the day.

A good father

This is my father with Tanner.  I have a picture that looks like this with him and each of my kids (unfortunately the others aren't in digital format yet).  We call it Papa position.  I have such a great father and I appreciate everything he has done for me and my kids. 

I have always been Daddy's little girl, but never really thought of myself as such.  He taught me the value of hard work.  I know that if he could he would do whatever I needed and I am so thankful for his presence in my life.  As a child we spent time working together in the garden, even though at the the time I hated weeding and shelling peas.  He was the one that instilled that love of gardening in me, it is just such a shame that I didn't realize it until after I grew up.  We also worked on a lot of projects around the house.  Together we finished off the basement in our house so I could have a 16th birthday party.  Then just 3 years ago he helped me build the house I currently live in.  There are so many things that I couldn't have done without his love and support.

 

Both my parents love my kids so much and it is wonderful that we can live close and they can know them so well.  I couldn't ask for a better Nana and Papa for my kids.  Happy Father's Day Dad, I love you!

Now after saying that I need to also say a big thank you to my mother.  I didn't talk about her on Mother's day because I was a bit self-absorbed that day...it was a great mother's day for me and I thought of nothing else, much to my chagrin.  My mother is always there to help and listen.  Sometimes it is for a day of grocery shopping with the kids, other times it may be helping me move the cows to a different pasture or putting up a new fence.  I know she never expected to be doing a lot of these things, but she is always there to help when I need an extra pair of hands.  As I said about my father, I wouldn't have been able to do even half of what I do here without her.  So thank you mom for all you do.

Saturday morning happenings

I know there are many different ways people spend their Saturdays.  When I was a kid Saturday morning was for laundry and cleaning and then outside work in the afternoon...or at least that is how I remember it.  For some it is spending as much time with their kids as they can because they are so busy at work during the week.  For me it is whatever ends up being dropped on that day...I have learned to be flexible.

Every year in April (on a Saturday)our church gets together all over the southeast region of the US and in their towns and cities they organize with the local community to do a project to better that community.  We have cleaned storm drains and creeks of debris and picked up trash and planted gardens.  This year we built a community garden. 

The boy scouts, leaders and some of the men started earlier in the week to begin assembling the sides to these garden boxes.  While the men were doing assembling the first boxes here the girls and I and some of the other helpers planted blueberry bushes and fruit trees all the along the border of the garden area.  I wish I got a count of the number that we planted...it was a lot.

We built and filled a total of 36 of these boxes.  It took us all day and we had over 150 volunteers working that day in various places around the city.  During the filling of these boxes we had over 10 wheelbarrows running nonstop with people filling them with mulch, dirt and mushroom compost.  At the end of the day all were tired and walking a lot slower, but the wonderful feeling that we got from serving our community was amazing.  These boxes are now available for people in the community to rent for $25 a year.

Some saturdays we spend at church activities for the girls.  Basketball is one of them and they have so much fun even though they only started playing 2 years ago.  Other church activities include camp meetings, youth conferences and service projects.

Some saturdays here at the farm we have big projects, like when we were moving the carport and enclosing it to make a goat barn.  That one took a lot of Saturdays.  I try to put some of those fun days in as often as I can, but with all of the work we have here it isn't always possible, especially when we lose so many to other things.  

This saturday started out at 6:30 chasing the cow out of the dog food barrel.  The rest of the day is Spring Cleaning...technically it is still spring even if it 'feels' like summer here in TN.  So I am working on all of those things that got left behind because I am always outside working on farm stuff :)  One of these includes reorganizing the storage room.  It is amazing to me how hard it is for kids to put things where they found them instead of just tossing it on a shelf.  I know I was a kid and I am sure I did this too.  The person who figures this out and finds a way to curb the 'tossing' tendency will be a rich person.

So I can barely walk into the storage room because things have just been piled up on the floor and then the piles fall over and then more stuff is piled.  Obviously I haven't had need of anything in the storage room for awhile or it wouldn't have gotten like that.  So today that room is on the top of my list.  Another is laundry.  The kids had a sleepover a few weeks ago and all of my afghans and blankets ended up being used.  Instead of getting washed and put away then they got thrown in my bedroom.  So....I have many loads of bedding that I need to wash and put away.  On the bright side the bathroom closet is just about empty and now I can reorganize it without finding places to put everything first..

Now you may be wondering what I am doing sitting here at the computer instead of doing this work...well I am currently waiting for their father to pick them up for the day and not much work gets done while they are getting ready, so I decided to sit here and do a post and when they are gone I will have the house to myself to finish the cleaning.

So happy Saturday to all out there and I hope you are finding something fun to do.

The Chicken Coop

Wednesday morning after getting the calves back in the pasture I decided I needed to get some other thing done outside.  Not sure if you can see me out there on the left, but that is where the coop was.  We moved it all the way across the pasture.

I was going to put wheels on it , but just haven't gotten it done yet...yes it is on my long list of things to do.

So mom came over and she and Madison get a hold of the front and I get the back and we walk it over.  I really need to get the wheels on :)  Thanks again for your help mom!

Inside you can see the awesome nest boxes and roost that dad built for me.  He is so handy to have around and I appreciate all he and mom do to help out.

Yep Madison was snapping pictures as I walked in from the pasture.

The troublemakers

I posted yesterday that the cow and calves had been out and I had to chase them back to a new pasture.  Here are some pictures of the culprits.  In this picture they are in the pasture (behind the house) they have been escaping from.

They drink a lot and I fill this container at least 4 times a day

Yep this was yesterday morning, she was by the front porch and her partners in crime are right behind her.

This is the pasture where I put them...nice and green

This is the pasture they escaped from...I guess the grass is greener on the other side in this case.

Random ramblings of a Wednesday morning

Three little kittens

I found this picture this morning, I took it about 3 weeks ago.  They had been sleeping until the flash went off.  If you know me, you know I am not a cat person...they are ok, but I would rather have them outside.  These are Maggie's kittens that the kids are keeping...why inside you ask?  Well...

As you know we had a litter of puppies at the same time...guardian dog puppies.  And what do guardian dogs do?....they guard.  They thought they were doing a good thing, they took them from the porch and put them in a more secure place...under the shed.  It is a very defensible position, no one could get under there.  The problem was that the kittens never made it out.  The other litter of kittens were 4 weeks younger and didn't make it very long being away from their mother.  We didn't realize what was happening until all of them were gone.  I saved one of these little guys when I saw it happen, he was all slimy from being licked so much.  So in the interest of not having a mutiny in my house I have allowed them to have the kittens in the house just until they are old enough to protect themselves from the puppies...or until the puppies stay in the fence.

 Morgan loves her cats and they love her.  I find it amazing that this kitten likes to perch on her shoulder like this.

I realized I really don't have anymore pictures to post.  It is really sad all of the things we do here that are no longer immortalized in digital format.  While we were building the house and starting the farm I always had my blackberry in my pocket and was easily able to take pictures at anytime.  Last year I downsized my cell bill and went from the smartphone to the basic phone.  The cameras on those really aren't very good, no zoom.  So I have decided to dig out the old Blackberry and charge it up and use it as a camera...it easily fits in my pocket and I can snap all those pictures that I haven't been getting.

Today is one of those days where I have so many things that I should be getting done and I can't decide which is more important.  I just got back in from putting the cow and the calves back in the pasture...they were out of grass and took a wander again...just up the driveway a bit.  So I need to move the electric and check that fenceline.  Since it isn't raining again I could mow some grass, or I could put up the chicken fence.  I should also be working with the kids on their school work and the storage room needs to be reorganized and cleaned again.  Speaking of cleaning I have laundry to do also and the bathroom closet could use some reordering.  I wonder just how much of this I can actually get accomplished today before making dinner and leaving for church this evening?

Summer Grass

Well I had great plans for this post.  I had planned to take these before pictures and then take the after pictures of how wonderful it looked after I had mowed everything.  As you can see, that didn't happen.

This is the side of the house going out to the goats, sheep and dogs.  Those really tall patches are where the chickens had been a lot last year.

To the left of the drive is the orchard...if you can call it that.  The moles last year took out most of the trees and the sheep finished off the strawberries and tried to kill the blueberries and raspberries...they still live, but had a tragic year.

This is the dogs area, the shorter area...I use that term loosely...had been mowed not too long ago.  the part to the right is the part that I have been trying to get to for the better part of a year.  I really have way too much grass in the summer.

Better view of the kennel and the out of control grass in front of it.

This is inside the newest pasture.  The sheep are really loving having all this grass to eat.  I am loving not having to mow this part anymore :)

Last puppy delivered

This is Raphael

He was very unhappy about being in the car.  He also REALLY hated having a collar on.

He spent the majority of the time drooling all over Madison.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of Madison's face while this was going on.  She tried everything she could to keep his drool off of her, but he was moving around too much.  She found a towel in the back of the car so she just wiped his mouth off a lot.  All in all, he was a really good boy and he went to a nice family with goats.

Since we met them at Cooliage park we decided to take some time and make an adventure of it.  We walked across the bridge and got some Rita's Water Ice and then walked back to the park in a light rain.  Tanner spent a bit of time running off some energy.

Then they took a ride on the carousel.  They had a lot of fun and then we got in the car for the drive home.

Puppies

We have finally sold off all the puppies!  We had one person who put a deposit before they were born and drove from MO when she was 8 weeks old.  She was so thrilled to have her and I have heard she is doing just great...especially at protecting their 2 year old.

Last week we sold on to a lady south of Chattanooga and just this week we finalized the last 2 to be going this weekend.  I love having the puppies and watching them grow, but once they get to a certain age they really need to go to their new homes.

This was the day they were born.  Lizzy was such a good mother.

This was take a few days later.  These guys grow REALLY fast.

  Here is Tanner holding one at 4 weeks old.  Can you believe how big she got?

Here is Morgan and one of her favorites.  We named him Raphael and we even considered keeping him along with a female, but decided we would rather keep a male out of the next litter instead.  He was the last to be sold.

For some reason the puppies really love me.  I am not sure why, I am not the one that feeds them...I am the one that gives them medicine and shots.  With the other animals that means that they don't want to be around me and run away when I come out.  With these puppies all I have to do is yell 'puppies' and they all come running and gang up on me.  The one in my arms is Momo and she is the one that we are keeping.

Catching up

Well it has been awhile since I really sat down and looked at what we have been up to.  Since the new fence and the goat barn were finished I don't have too many more big projects here this year.  We put off the garden this year because we have excavating to do and I didn't want my hard work in the garden to get ruined...plus I really didn't have time.  

In the last few weeks we have spent out time mowing grass, chasing the cow and calves, mowing grass, doing various cleaning projects in the house, mowing grass, homeschooling and mowing grass.  Do you get the idea that I mow a lot of grass...it just grows so darn fast.

I haven't talked about homeschooling on the blog before so for those of you that may not know we are a homeschooling family and we love it.  It is so great to have the kids home all day with me and to be able to see the light in their eyes when they finally figure something out that was difficult to learn.  This year has been a bit harder on them since the divorce and we have taken a step back from some things. I admit I was a bit of a taskmaster before this year...they had a full schedule every day but Friday.  This year we slacked off quite a bit since I had to be out of the house a lot more and now we are getting to the point where we really just need to get back to a normal schedule and buckle down.  You can imagine that the kids really don't want to do that.  They love the fun parts...but don't mention math.

Now you may be wondering why I had been chasing the calves.  Violet and the calves have been in the pasture behind the house for a few days now.  They ate most of the stuff in their old pasture and the electric was down so Sunday morning they decided to go visit the neighbor.  When I got home from church the neighbor came over to tell me they were behind the house.  So we went up with a bucket and walked them back home and put them in a new pasture thinking they would be fine.  The next morning the calves were out in the driveway and the puppies were barking like crazy...at 6am.  So I went out and put them back and checked the fence.  The electric was fine so I went back in the house to do the morning chores.  A few minutes later the puppies were barking again...because again they were out.  Over the next few days I chased those calves back in the fence at least 10 times.  Hopefully they got it out of their system and will stay in now.