But that's life out here

Fall is not quite "officially" here yet, but I can smell it in the air and that makes me happy. I'm so ready for summer to be over.

It's been a while since I "blogged in" so I thought I'd hop in here to let you in on the "goings on" around here.

Barbie Girl is doing well in school and I'm feeling that this might be the year for her. I think (knock on wood) that she eneded up with a good and caring teacher this year. As of this moment, so far, so good. But I must confess her new school year sure started out a bad one.

The night before school started Barbie Girl decided to let me know she was having some issues in the bathroom but not to worry because she wasn't going to miss the first day of school. Despite red flags going up in my mind I let her go. Bad Momma....bad, bad bad...momma. But I did call the doctor that morning and they wanted to see her right away. So off I go to pick up Barbie Girl...from school....the very first day.... She was only there a total of ten minutes. *sigh* Doctor's visit came back with results of a whopping kidney infection *double sigh*

Luckily she recovered fast with no side effects.

One week later................
she was running fever with headache, congestion and cough. 3 more days of school missed....the day she finally returned to school.....Barbie Girl got on the bus giving her mommy a hug and a kiss and a special surprise.....her cold.
And boy, did I get it BAD.
Thankfully? I got it over the Labor day weekend so I was allowed 3 full days to be sick and then the family annouced I was no longer allowed to be sick and to get back to my duties and the laundry. They desperately wanted real food, clean clothes and a floor they didn't stick to. The sink was full of dirty dishes and the refridgerator was empty. My alotted sicks days had been used up and I had to get back to work. That's life out here.

I struggled through the week, managed to go grocery shopping and planned City Boy's birthday dinner...he turned 36....I finally got over the cold a week later.
For City Boy's birthday present he decided to have some work done on the place. This involved heavy equipment and a huge mess. That's life out here.
I promise to put up some before and after photos as soon as I can get them out of my camera. We both agree we like the end results.
I went on a crochet frenzy...I have photos of that, too. .. and inbetween cough and crochet stitches I did manage to hatch out 9 chicks in the incubator from the abandoned eggs of the chicken mamas. The last one hatched right before the noon-time bandit struck again.
I lost 2 chickie-mammas, 1 chicken and 2 babies.

THIS. MEANS. WAR!
I was very happy to know that we have a coyote season around here. *insert evil laugh here*
That's life out here.

So in a nut shell....the garden is done, the ducks are duckie, the chicken are...well, you know, less in numbers but still pecking, the temperature is cooling and we are all doing better.
Lots of work still left to do and winter to prepare for, but that's life out here.
City Boy took me out to lunch today, in town...It's been over a year since we've been out just the two of us. Our lunch date was cut short when the butcher called to say our pig was ready.
Yeah.
Our pig.
We ordered a whole pig to be butchered at out local meat market. It's so cool. We have a meat market, with a butcher just like Sam the butcher from the Brady Bunch. He's a real character too. Even wears the white paper hat. Ya don't see that in Southern CA.
So City Boy and I walked across the street from the grill house to the butcher shop, I did say we live in a small town, and said Hi to Harold the butcher. I was hoping his name would be Sam, but it's Harold and that's Ok too. We said Hi, picked up our pig and Harold stopped us to let us know he had half a side of beef he needed to sell too. Soooooo, I now have 600lbs of meat in my freezers. I think I'm good for a while...as long as the power doesn't go out..........but that's life out here and I still like it........well, except for the noon-time bandit....but his day is coming *evil laugh*