Memorial Day

Troy worked last night, so again, he's sleeping today to work again tonight.  I stayed home this morning and didn't help with milking cows.  Sleep just seems to get less and less...so frustrating.  Dad and Zack attended an auction in Joplin.  Zack is shopping for a tractor to rebuild and resale.  He is such a busy 16 year old.  Sometimes my head hurts from listening to all he researches!  We went to mom and dad's for tacos and then homemade icecream.  Not our usual crowd, my sister and her family were out of town, but hey, it's more ice cream for us! 

On our way home, we stopped at Atwoods and noticed their trees were 75% off.  The past 2 years, we have been able to get nice sized trees for nearly nothing.  Unfortunately, the store closed while we were outside looking at the trees...just our luck!  We're planning on getting there early in the morning to get a cottonless cottonwood.  They didn't have a huge selection, but what they did have were all good size trees.

I spent some time this morning signing up for free samples and coupons.  I'm really gettting into this savings thing..not a bad thing to obsess about I guess.  The more "stuff" that comes in the mail, the more "into" it I get.  I'm sure my family thinks I'm crazy, but I just keep telling them...go ahead and laugh at all my little bottles and packets...I'm gonna prove it's all worth it! 

Lazy Sunday...

Well, Troy worked last night, so he slept this morning for work again tonight.  I missed out on church this morning, I just can't bring myself to go by myself.  It's one of the drawbacks to having a husband working nights.  I pretty much had a lazy day.  I went in to take care of cows morning and night, but other than that, I didn't do anything productive. The little chick that spent the night back in the barn was brought back in today.  It's just not keeping up with the others and wasn't doing well.  I kept it in the incubator for warmth, but unfortunately, later in the afternoon it died.  Losing animals is the hardest thing for me to deal with.  I know that it is part of life and sometimes there just isn't anything you can do, however, in this house, all options are exhausted before giving up...that's just how we are.

Saturday!!

What happened today??? I woke up just after 5am. Why? I have no idea, and wasn't very happy about it either. It did give me more time to take care of all our animals before leaving to milk Daisy and Belle. To my surprise, our second momma turkey had hatched a 3rd poult and our 3 silkie mommas had hatched a 4th chick! I found later in the day that one of the chicks had died, and the newly hatched chick had been beat up on pretty bad. I've had it in the house with me for several hours to make sure it's still able to eat and drink by itself. At dark, I put it back with a momma. I'm sure she does a much better job keeping it warm than I do! Hopefully by morning it'll be going strong. If not, I'll bring it back in the house and probably set up the brooder. The new momma turkey has moved her brood to a new location...AHHH! I'm panicked at this point! With acres of chest high grass behind our property...and hay baling season here, I'm thinking that I may never find her. I did though...up against our fence by the corner post. These girls can figure out how to fly out, but can never manage to figure out how to fly back in. Enough about animals. Troy and I finally were able to buy plants for our garden. At the rate we are going, we may have tomatoes by October! I seriously hope it is earlier than that. We found pink and regular brandywine tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, black diamond watermelon and okra. We still have peas and green beans to find. I was hoping to find plants of those started already, but because we are late, there isn't much to from as far as vegetables go. We may have to try other locations when time permits, or just start from seed. We bought a few flowers also to fill in our flower bed. I keep telling myself that they aren't a necessity, but they sure do make the day a bit brighter. I'm excited to get started, and can't wait for that first garden tomato!

Payday means Shopping!

Ok, so we are working seriously at becoming debt free.  With only our mortgage and one loan, we really aren't far from it.  I am looking forward to only having utilities to pay!  I've set our goal at 7 years.  That means that approximately $85,000 will have to be paid off by then.  I'm trying to stay positive and take things one step at a time.  We've paid off our medical bills and one small loan already and are working toward an emergency fund.  In the mean time, I've set up an "envelope" system to start working primarly on a cash only basis.  I know it will take a bit of time for us to become used to it, but in the long run it will be well worth it.  Friday is my payday and my designated shopping day.  I plan on being armed with the week's menu,  a list of needed items....and COUPONS! I have issues with remembering coupons, so this is going to be a challenge.  My collection is really small, so I keep them in a small expandable folder for now.  I've read of people drastically cutting their grocery bill by using coupons, rebates and specials...I hope I can get the hang of it.  With a family of 5, including 2 teenagers, I've been spending about $150.00 a week on groceries.  The plan is to cut that back to $100.00 a week, and hopefully even lower.  We do have a few things working in our favor...my parents have had 2 steers processed, so we have a very good supply of beef, we raise our own chickens, mainly for the eggs and, right now we have a endless supply of fresh raw milk from my parent's dairy cows. Today, I only used 3 coupons and only saved $3.00, but it is a start.  I spent 136.16.  Once my collection of coupons and my experience grows, I hope to do much better.  My family says they are behind me on this, but I can tell that they liked the foolish spending much better.  I know it's hard for kids (and husbands) to see the light at the end of the tunnel...I just hope the light is really there!

A New Me???

Well, I'm waking up to day 5 of my "new me" plan...is it going well? Maybe...I've not gone over my target calories, and I've tried to eat more fruits. I've only had 2 Dr Peppers and not 1 fast food value meal! Do I want it to work? Of course. Do I hve the will power to stick with it? I'm not so sure. With my 20 year class reunion in just about 7 weeks, I really don't have time to reach my "ideal" weight....Lol. Wishful thinking! According to all th online weightloss calculators that ideal would involve me losing around 150 lbs! My non-professionally measured BMI is 45.6, morbidly obese...yuck! Fact is though, I only feel FAT, morbidly obese just sounds horrible! Of course, I know I'm overweight...the mirror tells me everyday. And, NO, I don't want to remain in this condition, but my confidence in myself is pretty low and I'm not sure I believe enough in myself to stick with it. I just keep praying that God will give me the strenght to keep going...even when I'm ready to give up.

What a day...

The morning started out earlier than I wanted it to.  Sometimes, the dogs just can't wait to go out.  Then it was off to work...to milk Bessie and Belle.  In tow this morning was a cute little fuzzy newly hatched chick that just wasn't in good shape this morning.  It spent most of the day held against my chest since it cried when I put it in the box.  Thank goodness, after a bit of water and some attention, it was reunited with momma after work. Work was rather quiet, other than the quiet chirping.  Zack had to make a trip home to get Kyle.  He wasn't feeling well and needed me...I'm glad at least one of the kids still really "needs" me. He felt better as the day went on and by the time we made it home, he was back to normal.  We had a busy evening after work.  We discovered that a second royal palm hen had hatched a couple of poults.  We aren't sure if she is going to leave the nest now, or continue to sit on the remaining eggs.  Only time will tell.  We had tacos for supper...one of the few meals that we all sit down at the table to eat.  I try hard to make meals that require the family to sit together, but it just doesn't always work with kids activities and Troy working nights.  All in all, a good day...ready for bed!

A Little Good With the Bad

This morning, all 3 kids went with me to work.  I'm thankful that I am able to work for my parents and have the opportunity to have my kids with me.  I'm also thankful that at 16, 15 and 10, my kids still want to be with me.  We are pretty much on a break for a few weeks from homeschooling...at least at the moment.  We may try to do some more before the actual year ends on June 30, but after having our first year kind of a year of confusion, I really need a bit to regroup and plan for next year.  I'm hoping to do much better at choosing curriculum this time and have gained a bit more knowledge on the whole homeschool process to make things a bit easier.  On with the day...Troy called mid-afternoon to let me know we have chicks hatching.  Our poor silkies have been trying to hatch babies for nearly 3 years.  Currently, 3 hens are on nests.  We candled the eggs a couple of weeks ago and removed all the non-fertile ones.  Troy closed up the barn with netting in hopes of saving these babies.  Our track record this year with poultry hasn't been good.  Predators have pretty much wiped us out of chickens, and today I found a pile of feathers where one of our royal palm hens was nesting.  Turkeys are pretty good size, I'm getting really curious to find what is killing them.  Zack drove the tractor home from work to till us a garden spot, better late than never!  I wanted one done and planted by the first of May, but that just didn't happen.  I have big plans this year for preserving and freezing, I just hope my plans work out. There would be nothing better than to go through this winter with canned garden tomatoes.  I'm hoping for enough veggies to give some relief from our grocery bill.  So far, we couldn't be more blessed...fresh milk from mom and dad's Jersey and Holstein cows, beef also from mom and dad, eggs and chicken from our own back yard, we have apple and peach trees with fruit this year, and if I can stand it, we will be having heritage turkey in our freezer. 

Second 4-legged baby “fixed”…

This morning, Troy had to make a trip to the vet with Sammie.  He was next on the list to be fixed.  With 7 dogs in the house, the process has to be stretched out this year.  First was Mack, the oldest in the house and the quickest to nip at anything that passed in front of him.  It’s been 2 months since his surgery…finally, he is noticeably calmer, still on the quick to nip side, but much better than before.  We decided to get all the males done first (4 of them) and then work on the females since their surgeries are usually more involved.  After work, I headed to pick Sammie up.  They carried him out with his hind feet dragging…he weighs about 60 lbs and wouldn’t put his feet down and walk…LOL!  Kyle was the only human kid with me today, so he got the job of occupying Sammie while I drove.  He didn’t have much work to do, Sammie was very well behaved, and rode in the car as if he does it every day.  After a short 10 minutes or so, Kyle yelled..seems that a certain well behaved puppy threw up all down his arm…ewww! Thank goodness for saved napkins in the glove compartment…otherwise I wasn’t prepared for any mess.  He threw up a second time, nearing Webb City, in the floor.  I tried to catch it all in a ball hat that was laying in the seat…missed though.  This time, Kyle was wanting to move to the back seat to keep from getting it again.  We finally got to a place that was safe for Kyle to crawl over to the back seat and Sammie made himself comfortable in the passenger seat.  By this time, drool was being flung everywhere.  It was like someone turned on a faucet.  Of course what is a person to do?  Well, you HAVE to take a picture!

Finally, after one more episode of throwing up in the seat, we made it home…what a nice 25 mile trip from Neosho to Webb City!  Next time, I’ll be more prepared…with cleaning supplies!

Still Raining...

From the way things look outside, I'm guessing if April showers bring May flowers, then May showers just bring more mud!  I'm pretty sure at this point that we won't have grass in the back yard this year...almost all mud now. The turkeys, goats and chickens outside have been drenched for days.  This morning we I woke to Troy coming home from work.  I'm beginning to think that 6:30am gets earlier and earlier every day!  While feeding this morning, we found that we've lost my last buff polish hen to something in the night.  We have had so much lost in the last few months.  Last Saturday, we came home to find one of our turkey hens missing...remains were located in the field behind the house.  She was sharing a nest with another hen and they were sitting on 39 eggs...no eggs left now...  Thursday, I went to check another nesting site to find that all but one egg was gone.  At last count there were 14 eggs there.  It's just not a good Spring for poultry!  I've since decided to collect the eggs from that nest to incubate.  We are assuming due to the condition the remains are left in that we aren't dealing with a raccoon or oppossom this time.  Troy is thinking that it may be a fox.  The field grass behind the house is so tall at this point, that pretty much anything could get right up to our fence and we wouldn't even notice.  We brought the trap back home from my parents property, hopefully we'll catch something. Troy is concerned that whatever it is will need a bigger trap.