M.I.A.

Wow! have I been MIA





Things have gotten so busy and top that with two...count them TWO complete computer crashes the last one finally managing to get me a new computer and hence back online to write again. Of course school having started last week does help ALOT!
FREEDOM AT LAST!




So...November, huh? I left you hangin' since November. Man, am I a slacker.





So let's see. December netted us Snow, more snow and ice.

So kids were out of school for winter fun. Christmas came and went and Barbie girl did surprisingly well with getting only homemade gifts...good thing too it'll be the same this year also.

Had another birthday in January *sigh* Barbie girl is starting to wonder why I have birthdays but every year we tell her I still 25. Wonder what she'll think when she can finally do the math. She had a birthday too, by the way. She's now 9.

In March we started having problems with our neighbors. BIG Problems. Let's just say the cops were called out, I no longer watch the L kids and we don't wave to anyone on this road anymore. Since then the L Family has moved out. I pray daily that the other will leave as well.
In the midst of all the discord, Big Dog came to live with us!

Boy, was that a stressful thing, Trying to get the paperwork filed in So Ca from HERE, when he's was still in Tenn. UGH! Lots of prayer and determination. And God pulled it off. I drove to Arkansas to meet him while the rest of his family were moving from Tenn. back to So Ca.

I was actually worried abut being able to get to him because of all the rains we have had, but that particular day it held off raining until after we had gotten back home. We have had the wettest year on record so far and all the flooding we saw sure convinced me of that. It's rained so much that it flooded under our house. We only found out about it when it shorted out the water well controls that are under the house. I sent City Boy under there to see what was up cause we had no water he came back reporting that there was about a foot of water under the house. So we had to go buy a sump pump to pump it out. After that, anytime it rains I have to go check if it flooded or not. You see, there is an underground river, under the bedrock, under our house. Our house was built during severe drought years, so no one knew it was there. But this year the rains were so high that the underground river filled until it seeped up through the ground, right under our house. Ahhh, the joys of living in the country!

We registered Big Dog in high school asap and he was able to complete the last quarter of the school year here. We really are thankful that we have such a small community here. Most of the people, that work at the school ,go to our church and the high school Principal is also in my Sunday school class. It's nice to know that we have extra eyes looking out for him and Barbie girl.

We've had a few new additions here on the farm and a few losses. Spring time brought us a few young roosters, which promptly entered freezer camp shortly after learning how to crow and a couple of new hens. In April we lost one of our girl ducks, Super Duck. In sorrow and anguish to that loss I immediately put 3 duck eggs under the first broody chicken I found. Later we were blessed with two new baby ducklings . As cute as it was I really should have known better. I happened to stumble upon a hidden duck nest in one of our burn piles and it had about 13 duck eggs in it, ( it's hard to make a living selling eggs if your employees are hiding all the inventory!) but in a moment of sheer stupidity I put all 13 of those duck eggs under a broody chicken. The good Lord blessed us again 22 days later and we now have 10 ducklings running around long with the original ducks and the 2 rebound ducks. Having lost yet another female duck just the other day to a coyote ( RIP Notch) and City Boy having sent one to the freezer camp ( it couldn't get it through his head he was a duck, NOT a rooster and my chicken hens hated him) I believe we now have a total of ...da da tada..... 15 ducks! I lost a few chickens here and there, one to a hawk and one to the rooster/duck, yea..don't ask but all in ll things are good. Our biggest (and will be bigger) addition is our new PUPPY.
"Gabby" is only a couple of months old now, but she will be HUGE. She's a Great Pyrenees. We got her for the sole purpose of guarding the chickens, but so far she's just been a house dog. Damn, my soft heart.
As for the rest of us, well City Boy and I have started becoming very active in our church and I am the Church Librarian ( no snickering please) and I help out in the kitchen during our bi monthly church dinners, City Boy helps out with odd jobs and helps with the serving at the dinners, Big Dog works with the youth group and helps out the with media equipment during Sunday services and weds. night youth group. Barbie Girl just has fun.
She's just started the 3rd grade and I believe that this will be a good year for her also. Big Dog is now a Junior. We looked at class rings for him this week. And at the moment he's thinking real serious about joining the Navy when he graduates. I pray he does. I feel it will be the very best choice he ever made. City Boy is working hard as ever, which is great considering the housing crunch, he works around here breaking his tractor and trying to fix it and helping out our friends who live on the NEXT road.
City Boy and I had a great time helping our friends with their cattle. We helped to sort, tag, vaccinate, and castrate about 18 calves. Good times, good times. It was dirty, smelly, sweaty, hard work and I'd do it again in a heart beat. We've offered to help them with their miles and miles of fence mending that needs to be done because of the Great Ice Storm of 2007 and as a thank you they've given us a cow, that we had butchered. City Boy named the cow "Barbie" short for Bar-B-Q. So now every night the family asks... " Are we eating Barbie for dinner?" or "is this meat Barbie?" To an outside this has gotta sound strange if not wrong on many levels, but for us it's just funny.

Well, Fall is right around the corner, and the garden is just about done. The chores are still plentiful and there are lots of projects to start and lots left to finish. the Almanac is predicting a very cold and snowy winter for us this year so I think I had better start my winter preps sooner than planned.

I guess that's it for right now. I promise, promise PROMISE to write more....and soon. I've got to reload some programs on this new computer so I can get my pictures back, when I have it up and running I've got some great pictures to show you.
TTFN
V.