Everybody is Working for the Weekend

It was a labor filled weekend for us. Jason borrowed a bobcat from one of his friends, and he had to do some dirt work around the house. He also had to move a bunch of random farm equipment around. All of this was accomplished with Barrett sitting in the bobcat cab with him. Nothing like sitting in a two by three box with a two year old!

I mentioned, in passing, that I wanted to grow strawberries next spring. Sometimes I think my husband doesn't listen to me, but I guess he does. I said I wanted to live in the country, and he made it happen. I said I wanted chickens, and he made it happen. I said I wanted goats, and he made it happen. I said I wanted to grow strawberries, and he is working to make it happen. He moved a giant stock tank for me and filled it with dirt. It is going to be my mini strawberry farm come spring.
Looky!

I have been researching how to grow strawberries, and it seems that everything eats them. The tank will prevent ground varmints from getting them. I will also have to put a net over them to prevent air varmints (birds) from getting to them. Did you know that strawberries are the state fruit of Oklahoma? I didn't either.

This is totally unrelated, but every time I walk past this, I chuckle. Apparently Jeepzilla, our giant Jeep Cherokee, had a hard time exiting the barn. I have figured that we have four good car batteries and about eight vehicles that must share these batteries. Jason used the old Vietnam era Jeep to yank out the Cherokee instead of playing "musical batteries". They have been sitting in our side yard, connected by a chain for a few days. ahhhh.....Viva la ruralia!

Wordless Wednesday

I Want Candy

So....I'm trying to lose weight, just like ninety percent of women who have had a baby in the past year. I don't want to talk about how much I need to lose versus how much I've lost. It's depressing. If I wasn't breastfeeding, I would just solve the problem with a nice crystal meth habit. Instead, I am trying to eat right and exercise when I can. The weight is coming off, slower than I would like for it to come off, but it's coming off nonetheless.

In general, I eat pretty well. I don't eat fast food, I eat a lot of veggies, blah, blah, blah. I do have ONE problem that is setting me back: my love for candy. I'll find any excuse to buy and consume candy. My main foes are Hershey's bars with almonds, Twix, and the evilest of evil Reese's peanut butter cups. There is a correlation between my candy consumption and my stress level. When the babies are are both crying, the husband is grumpy, and Dammit Farms is more dammity than usual......"I Want Candy" by MC Pee Pants of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" begins playing in my head.

I dare you to watch and listen. It'll be stuck in your head for life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQvLKYu7izQ

That's what I hear in my head while I'm shoveling mini peanut butter cups down my gullet. It's a blissful moment for me.

A Boy and His Turkey

One of our girl turkeys, Mallory, is a little "off". She tends to follow us around, and just lay on the ground right in my way. She is often my shadow while I am doing chores. I mistook her odd behavior for illness several months ago. I was certain that she would just drop dead at any moment. It turns out that she's just crazy, and not ill.

My mother in law was over the other day. She came in from playing with Barrett outside, and asked: "Is that Turkey hungry or something?"

I immediately knew which bird she was speaking of.
"That's just Mallory. She's not right in the head."

"She kept coming up to us and making noise, then laying down." My mother in law reported.

"Yeah. She does that."

It's difficult to explain a crazy pet turkey to visiting guests.

Mallory follows Barrett around like a puppy. Every once in a while Barrett will stop his play and pet her. It's really sweet actually. Despite the fact that she is CrAzY, Mallory is a very tame and lovable bird. She'll eat out of our hand, and she truly seems to enjoy being petted. The dogs are indifferent to her, and she has no regard for their presence. Dammit Farms is a place where poultry and hound dogs coexist peacefully.

Kittens

I figured out where my hens are laying! Last night I was trying to find where my silly goat had put her bowl that I give her treats in. I was poking around in her little house, and noticed they were all piled in a nesting box on the wall (Patty's house was used for chickens like seventy years ago). The hens have nesting boxes in their house, but it would be plumb crazy to lay eggs in there. So, I squeezed my giant booty through Patty's little door, and began collecting eggs. It was getting dark, so I couldn't see very well. I looked up from my egg collecting to notice a ball of fur. My first thought was: "Oh, crap. What died in here?" Upon closer inspection, I realized that the fur was breathing and had a tiny pointed ear. It was a kitten!

I went to get my flashlight and returned to the goat house. I was able to determine that there were three kittens, all different colors. There is an orange kitten, a slate colored kitten, and a blond kitten. The tabby, who I call Lisa, had mysteriously appeared a few weeks ago. She had given birth. I wonder if her parents found out she was pregnant and kicked her out? The kittens all look healthy, and mama is fine. They are only a few days old, since their eyes have not opened yet. I was truly shocked to find them.

My hope is to keep them tame, so I can take them to the vet. All of the cats on our property are cats that just came with the farm. I feed them regularly, and some even let me come close to them, but they aren't tame cats. I am from the suburbs, where we fix our cats, take them to get shots, etc. So, I have a hard time swallowing the whole barn cat phenomena for what it is. My goal is to get my two females on the property, Lisa and Lulu, fixed as well as the new kittens. After all, we aren't cat farmers! My mom may take one of the kittens. If she does, then it will live it's life as a pampered house cat. The others will ALWAYS have food, and a warm, dry place to live here on Dammit Farms.



This was the best picture I could get of the kitten wad.

Couch Tater Tot

Barrett has never really showed much interest in the television, despite my best efforts. He would much rather go outside and play, or break into the refrigerator, dump baking soda all over the place then proceed to roll in it, than sit in front of the tube. No well intentioned parent wants for their child to be a couch potato, however I am desperate to have at least one child who is content and occupied for fifteen minutes (I have already been interrupted three times while typing this to solve the problems of wee redheaded ones. I'm not exaggerating.).

A few days ago the movie "Cars" came on the Disney channel. Barrett was transfixed. He didn't have ANY tantrums for thirty minutes. My husband and I looked at each other, and realized we had the same thought. "We must purchase this movie!" On my next outing, I happily forked over the $14.95 for the DVD. While checking out, I fantasized about Gunther napping, and Barrett sitting quietly for his movie. What would I do with that time? Put away laundry, clean the kitchen counter, update my blog....so many exciting possibilities.

The movie does tend to buy about twenty minutes of Barrett being happy, he won't sit through the whole thing because, well......because he is two. Twenty minutes is better than no minutes, though. Jason put the movie in for him yesterday because he couldn't candle Barrett flinging himself on the floor and screaming anymore. This was the third viewing of the movie in the past two days.
"Have they made a sequel to this yet?" Jason asked.
"I don't think so." I said glumly.
A horrific realization washed over me. Barrett would soon be bored with this movie and it would lose it's hypnotic effect. Or, Jason and I would go completely nuts from watching it over, and over, and over, and over.

Dear Disney,
PLEASE make a sequel to "Cars"!!! Please have it available on DVD by...uh....next week. It's our only hope.

A Horse Nostril

.....and other images of Dammit Farms in August.

It has been pretty uneventful here lately. That's a good thing, because I do tire of posting chicken obituaries on my blog.

• I weaned the goat babies last month. That first day they went without a bottle was no fun. They would cry "ma ma ma ma" every time I walked past their pen. I felt guilty, but I delayed weaning long enough.
• Wyatt (our first Dammit Farms birth) is a month old now. He is into everything. He broke the hood of the lawn mower by jumping on it. He darts in and out of the horse pen, which makes his mama, Patty, very nervous. She chides him in goat language "bahhhh me ah ah MAH!", which I think means "Stop it, you little turd."
• The horses are still here. We are keeping them until my father in law can find a suitable place to move them. Traveler was very interested in the camera, thus the close-up of his nostril. I love the horses, and don't mind them being here one bit. Traveler is a total brat and knocks over his water trough on a daily basis just to get my attention.
• The "baby" goats have a new pen behind the barn. It is much bigger, and has a lot more shade than their old digs. They are adjusting well.
• My poultry is thriving. I suspect it's mating season or something, since every time I see Shaun, my tom turkey, he is puffed up and trying to impress a girl.
• My chickens are still laying in an undisclosed location. I was happy to find one egg yesterday. I hope it is a "new" egg. I'll let Jason be my guinea pig. (I'm kidding, dear)
• My human babies are doing great too. Barrett lives in his "truck truck" we got him for his birthday. Gunther has four teeth now, and is very close to catching up with Barrett in the weight department. Gunther is a chunk.