Another Year Older

It was my birthday today, again. When will it end?!? I haven't quite grasp hold of the whole "The Thirties are the new Twenties" concept yet. I was not this tired and wrinkly in my twenties. Oh well, until I'm ready to go under the knife I guess I'll deal with it. I had a great birthday. I got to go out to eat for lunch and dinner. Nothing like good greasy food to make you feel better, until you get home that is. If you're ever in town you gotta go by the Broadway Diner and try the Stagecoach Burger. It's your basic large, greasy, bacon cheeseburger but with one extra topping...a fried egg. You read that right, a fried egg. Nothin' Better. After dinner we came home played outside with the neighbors and then had cake. Mmmmmm....cake. Now I may have to be rolled to bed, but it was all worth it. I'll worry about my cholesterol tomorrow.

Where did the camera come from?

Top Ten Ways You Know You're In A Small Town

10: You can't take more than two bites of your lunch at the local sandwich shop without someone
stopping to say hi.

9: You can't complain about a neighbor to a random person without them knowing them
personally (open mouth, insert foot).

8: The crime report each day consists of four people being detained for being under the
influence, one is always from Arkansas.

7: You need a family tree mapped out for the local church.

6: There are only 3 food stands at the county fair, and no fried twinkies.

5: Everyone you see on Monday, wonders why they didn't see you at the Stew Cook-Off on
Saturday.

4: You don't have to worry about traffic on Friday night because everyone, I mean everyone
(including myself) is at the high school football game. (By the way, ESPN covered one of our
games on Sept 11th and I was on TV)

3: The ONLY place in town to buy socks and underwear is Wal-Mart.

2: Every gas station in town is named Joe-Bob's and I actually know Joe Bob, (really I do, he's
super nice).

1: Your son makes the front page of the local newspaper for learning to wash his hands.

Jonathan's class had some high schoolers come in to teach proper hand washing techniques and the paper was there to take pictures. Apparently this was the biggest thing going on that day so it made the front page. That's him in the bottom left corner with the dark shirt. When I picked him up from school and told him there was a picture of him on the front of the newspaper his only response was "AGAIN". We've already been in the paper for Jeff's grand opening and evidently the fame of it all is getting to Jonathan. When will those paps leave him alone.

All kidding aside, we really love it here and encourage all of you to move.

Ah...farm life.

Well, we had our first farm fatality yesterday. Jacob's chicken, Nugget, got sick last week. He kept falling asleep standing up and bobbing his head around. Then he started getting "foamy eyes". Then he started making weird noises in his sleep. So Jeff reads up on chicken illnesses and everything says just kill it. Well, neither Jeff nor I could do it so I head to the local feed store to pick up some OTC general antibiotics. We isolate the bird and give him meds for a few days but it just didn't seem to be working. Yesterday morning, before school, Hannah and Rachel go out to check on the animals and Rachel comes back in yelling "the chick is dead, the chick is dead". Yep, it was. So after I get everyone to school I get a trash bag, scoop up the chicken, put it in the trash (don't worry trash day was today), and I'm done. But wait, I'm not. Jeff calls to say we should probably take a picture of the bird with the date so we can get a replacement. Did I mention I had already thrown it away. You guessed it, I exhumed the body, and boy was it stiff. I started to post the picture but thought it might be too much. Luckily the kids took it well. We told them "that's farm livin".
So.... You were a good bird Nugget, Thanks for the memories.

Lesson Learned

Don't you just hate it when your kids are smarter than you. Well, it happened to me this morning. We've been getting the after effects of the hurricane and therefore alot of rain. Last night Jeff and I had to put tarps over the bunnies and chickens to keep them somewhat dry. This morning Jacob offered to go out before school and check on everything. He comes back in a minute later and says the hurricane opened Sundae's cage and he was gone. I start freaking out and spend the next 10 minutes searching our small backyard to no avail. I come back in and announce that the bunny is gone forever. The kids are sad and asking what to do. I say "nothing he's gone and we're not going to find him". They're still upset so I half-heartedly say "maybe you should all say a prayer to find him". So my four kids gather together in the dining room and Hannah says a prayer on behalf of them all. I, being the terrible mother I am, am trying to finish up packing lunches. After the prayer, everyone gets up to finish getting ready for school. Not 30 seconds later, our neighbor rings the doorbell and says our bunny is out front. I'm lucky my kids have such faith.

It's all about the poop!

TRUE STORY: Two women in the neighborhood are out taking a walk around our block. The first woman turns to the second and says "Have you noticed it smells more like cows around here lately?" The second woman says "Yeah, it's that new family on the block, the Smiths."

Unfortunately she's telling the truth.

We finally got all the beds made and placed in the ground. Now it's time to fill them with dirt, no wait I mean poop, and lots of it. Being that this is one of the dairy capitals of the world there is a surplus of cow waste that you can get pre-mixed with chicken waste and other such fillers. Apparently it makes really good compost and therefore a great garden mix, according to Jeff. So we borrow my dad's truck and I'm off to the land of stink. By this I mean a long tunnel with piles of different kinds of animal waste along each side. The very sweet old farmer says he's got a nice mix for me and we head to a pile in the middle. He gets in is mini bull-dozer thing and gets a big scoop to drop in the bed of my truck. I immediately see all this steam coming from the pile and then the smell hits me. Rachel says "that's some stinky poop mom". So true Rachel, so true. Well we make it home OK bringing with us countless numbers of flies. It just sits in the back till Jeff gets home and then we start a-shoveling. This is sooooo not what I thought it meant to be a doctor's wife. I not really that much of a snob but come on I'm shoveling manure. After we're done we've got three of the six beds filled and I've got to go back. The next day I head back and get another load and bring it home and start filling beds on my own. When Jeff gets home we mix in a few other non-offensive things and we're done. I must admit they look really nice. This really dark dirt in contrast with the new wood and the green grass. Luckily the house next door is empty because our whole back yard smells like a pasture. Oh well, at least I'm done with the poop part.

But wait, my lovely husband has more plans. Who keeps giving him these farm books????

You know what would make great fertilizer for the future garden. Rabbit POOP! You heard me, rabbits. My next task is to go to Canton and get rabbit cages and then go to Tyler to pick up rabbits on Friday. "We'll just rotate their cages around every so often and it'll be great for the garden" he says. OK fine. Friday morning I talk to him before I leave and he slips in "get one cage for the rabbits and one for the chickens". WAIT, WHAT?!? Now we're getting chickens. "That was always the plan" he says. Whatever.




So now we have 2 rabbits, Carmel (all brown) and Sundae (white with brown spots). Get it... Carmel Sundae! And, 4 chickens Leggs (white), Midnight (black), Nuggett and no name (white and black Bramas). If you have any good chicken names floating around I'm open to suggestions.

All the new animals are a big hit. Jake's the bravest, He reaches right in and grabs the chickens and he's the official feeder of all the animals. We did have one close call the first day we had them. We didn't have a very good shade system set up and Jake went out to check on everything and one of the rabbits was drooling and not moving much so we had to bring it in and get it cooled off. Now before you call PETA we fixed the problem and all animals are doing fine. The chickens spend their time pecking in the grass for bugs and the rabbits are getting plenty of treats.

So just in case your keeping track.....
That makes 1 dog, 2 tortoises (coming shortly-our last ones died), 4 snakes, 2 rabbits, 4 chickens, and thousands of flies. We could probably charge admission by now.