Kindergarten School Picture

Grace got her school picture back already. Pretty cute I thought!

Pig Heaven

We finally got the hot wire fence up and working for the pigs. Now they have a nice luxurious place to root around. They have already eaten every acorn and hickory nut that had fallen onto the ground and just wait around hopefully for more manna from heaven. Lucky for them the trees in the pen are loaded this year.

They rooted around the entire perimeter of the fence as close as the could without getting shocked the first day and now the entire area is rooted up. They will have been in there a week tomorrow and haven't escaped so far. We stayed out there and waited until they had both gotten shocked a few times to make sure they wouldn't just bolt out of the thing, then Ruger came over to greet them and got the same treatment but on the other side of the fence.

So far it all seems to be working out. I finally dragged the trough and water bucket out from the dog pen they had been staying in the other day and now feeding and watering them is sooooooo much nicer. I don't have to schlep through the boot sucking muck anymore! Love that!

You can see the boy pig is significantly smaller than the girl pig. She's a HOSS. She is mean to that boy pig. She roots him around and rides him and bites his ears but we hope now that they have more space that he'll start catching up to her.

The last time we had pigs (which was also the FIRST time we had pigs) we had two boys and Bryon and Chris castrated them. This time we got a boy and a girl and Chris had the vet castrate him. Next time we think we just need two girls!

All I know is I am so ready for some sausage but it will probably be January again before we can butcher them. We'll take them to a local packing plant for the job. We can handle chickens and a deer from time to time if we HAVE to but that is such a big messy job. Until we have an outdoor kitchen of some sort (which we might someday) I saw take it to the packing plant.

Although I always worry as to whether after all our hard work with the animals that we are actually getting what we take in there. I just don't want to think about that too much.

On another note, my broilers are coming along nicely, this is week three for them. I should be ready to butcher them mid Oct. And my Buckeyes should start laying eggs in a couple more weeks. I am ready! I've only had to buy three dozen eggs so far but still, even the organic store bought eggs aren't the same. Bryon said the other day he wasn't eating another egg sandwich until we had our own eggs again.

I still have two roosters. One is dominant and crows a lot but I never can catch it crowing so I can't figure out which one it is. I want to keep the most dominant one, but until I can determine which one it is for sure, I guess I'll keep them both a while longer. One has a much redder head than the other so I THINK that might be the dominant one. I know turkey's get real red headed when they are "excited" and I figure these two guys are probably starting to feel sort of warm and tingly about things ;)

I've been letting them out in the evenings and unlike my previous laying hens, these guys, so far, will come running when I call and go right into the chicken yard so I can lock them back up. When I need to leave early, that is a big help. I hope they never wise up that they could hold out if they wanted to and I couldn't do a thing about it except wait until they go in. In this case, dumb birds are a blessing I think.

We got the garden all cleaned out last weekend and have planted some late lettuce and carrots. Some cantaloupes came up volunteer. I don't think they'll ever ripen before frost but we are just letting them grow just in case.

We also planted some winter wheat in our old garden plot out by the kennel. It's growing so fast though we are worried it will be done too early and we won't have a harvest off of it. We really have no idea what we are doing with it but hope to be able to harvest it and get enough flour from it to make some bread. We'll see. It's an experiment and it won't be easy to be successful at it but we figured it was worth a try.

Dolphin Diving

So, Wednesday I get a call from the school nurse about 10 am saying that Grace is fine but she told her teacher that she had a dolphin up her nose.

Nurse Cheryl took a look and sure enough, there it was. Grace is almost 6 so I figured we were pretty much home free on the whole, let's stick objects into our orifices thing. Turns out not so much.

I was in Springfield so Bryon went and picked her up and took her to the doctor's office for a dolphin extraction.

We still aren't sure we have the entire story but she wore a dolphin bracelet on Friday that broke so I'm pretty sure she stuck it up her nose then sometime.

We asked her if someone told her to do it or if it was her own idea. She claims it was her own idea. We've made so much fun of her, I don't think she'll do it again. Bryon has been calling her Fish Stick.

I told her that was almost as ridiculous as shooting a flare into the trampoline and burning a big hole in it (her Daddy) and if anyone in this family does something that ridiculous there will be ridicule.

Of course, then I had to explain what ridicule means.

Still.

Even the dolphin was laughing.

Armed and Dangerous

Bryon had his shoulder surgery a couple of weeks ago and is doing well with his rehab so far. He's not had much pain (so he says) and he only took his pain meds for the first two days and stopped because he didn't like feeling loopy.

He's by no means back to full capacity but he doesn't have to wear his sling all the time and can finally sleep for most of the night in bed again.

The bad news is he still snores and now I can't kick him and make him roll over because he can only sleep on one side. Oh the humanity!

He has found a few fringe benefits to his incapacity and talked Grace into buffing his nasty man feet. She actually got this for us for Christmas last year. I don't know whether to appreciate it as a thoughtful gift or as a condemnation on the appearance of our feet.

Bryon's the one with the grody hooves, just for the record.

Isn't it great to have willing slaves?

Date Night

I spent all last week in Rolla for one of four FOUR day blood drives this year at Missouri S&T. It was grueling but worthwhile since we saw 880 donors and collected 763 units of blood, thanks to the Student Council and the Greeks, right before the Labor Day weekend.

Bryon and Grace spent the week together at home and Thursday night he decided to take her out for a Date Night to The Cave, a restaurant in Richland that is actually inside a cave. They got all dressed up and had a fun night together. Apparently the restaurant staff had caught a bat right before they got there.

You don't see THAT everyday.

I, in the meantime, ate five meals in four days at Subway and read two trashy books about naughty Argonauts when I wasn't at the blood drive.

I came home late Friday night to a completely clean and tidy home, all the laundry caught up and fresh flowers in a vase on the table.

I have a nice family.

Pierced!

Grace has been asking to pierce her ears for a while. She wants to wear dangly earrings.

Who doesn't?

So a couple of weeks ago after church we were at Walmart and she asked if this was the place she could get them pierced. I told her it was. She asked if she could do it today!

We tracked down her Daddy and he agreed so she did it. There was only one lady working the jewelry counter that day so she had to do one at a time instead of simultaneous piercings.

Grace did great and she didn't even tear up.

I remember how much it hurt but she was determined to have them pierced.

She chose the "sparkly" earrings (no surprise) and hasn't had any problems with them. She's been cleaning them herself and taking good care of them so far.

I think she's home free and should be able to wear some dangly earrings by Christmas.

Maybe this year Santa will bring her earrings instead of so many socks.

I'm sure that would make her a lot happier.

First Day of Kindergarten

At school for the first day of Kindergarten!

Goofy Grace

Grace at home before school

Grace, Mrs. Short and a new friend

Today is Grace's first day of Kindergarten! We went to meet her very nice new teacher and see her room last night. She wanted to stay and said she would spend the night there. We opted for home.

She did pop right up this morning and did all the things I normally have to grump at her to do and was ready in record time! I don't know how long it will last but I liked it!

There are 23 kids in her class and she gets to sit by one of her best buds from preschool so I think she'll have a good day. She has her own little desk and there are class guinea pigs and fish. We took the gerbils back to Mrs. D for the preschool kids last night.

Her room is fun and decorated in lots of bright colors and they have a jungle theme (seems appropriate). She'll get to go to real art and music classes this year and there are now THREE neighbor girls all her age (one is 5 and in her class and two are 6 already and in first grade). I hope they all become good friends. Bryon said Teddy might have to bushhog a trail through the corn field for them all to visit each other someday. Addy can visit from just next door and Ashton from the other side. The other little girl will need some more help.

Grace said in the car one day last week, "Mama, I want you to have a baby, because Daddy doesn't wrestle with me enough and I don't have anyone to play with upstairs." I told her Mama was NOT having any more babies. She asked why. I said "because". She asked why. I said "because". She said, "Well Jesus decides and maybe you will."

Not cool. Definitely not cool. Jesus and I have an agreement. He better stick to his side of things.

Grace can play with the neighbor girls.

Amen.


More first day pics here ...

O' Tomato!

Before

After

Well, once again this year we have not grown enough tomatoes to can. Our heirlooms did MUCH better this year (I think they could sense it was their last chance!) and I have managed to make four quarts of freezer pasta sauce from them. But I have just not had enough to can up for stew tomatoes so I bought twenty pounds from my Grandma and did these last night. I had one quart and two pints of just leftover juice I went ahead and canned and figured we could use it for soup base.

I think she'll have enough for me to get some more from her Sunday and do a few more. Then I think I'm done for the summer. It won't be enough but it will help.

I've heard lots of folks talking about canning this summer. I think everyone is doing it and trying to keep the old home fires burning... at least in the kitchen.

Greenhouse

We got this cool greenhouse this week.

Bryon has been looking at them on Craigslist from time to time and found this one AND the guy was willing to do some trading for it. We had some old farmy stuff just lying around that we had tried to sell to no avail.

Bryon was about ready to just haul it up to our grassy triangle along the highway and put a FREE sign on it. It wasn't even worth anything for scrap really.

Then he found the ad and made the deal. Our seemingly worthless farm stuff plus $500 for this greenhouse that just last week was for sale at Nixa Hardware for $1199.00.

I think it was a GREAT deal! It would have cost $500 in lumber and materials AND we got this rain barrel and stand which is hooked up to the little gutter on top of the greenhouse.

It got me motivated enough to go out and pull all the weeds (well MOST of the weeds) out of the gravel paths in the garden. The ONE night last week that was not unbearably sweltering I went out and pulled weeds. My behind is paying the price. Seems I haven't been doing much bending and squatting for a long, long time. Eeeek!

I always lose my motivation this time of the year and getting that greenhouse out there really perked me up gardening wise. I collected some seeds off the parsley and Devil's Ear and Lollo Rossa lettuces and I've made four quart zip locks of pasta sauce for the freezer from our heirloom tomatoes.

We are still getting quite a few tomatoes but none of them are really the good canning tomatoes. My 83 year old grandmother has a pretty large tomato patch again this year and I'm hoping to buy enough from her to can up for stew tomatoes.

I read a cool article about Community Canning Kitchens in various small towns across the country. It's an old idea revisited. Everyone who wants can take their stuff to the community building on certain days and they all can everything up for each other. Everyone helps by doing various parts of the process.

Bryon's friend Steve and his buddies did that this summer.

Seems like a good idea to me.

Now I just need to talk someone into organizing it... other than me, ha!

Swim Little Fishes

Bryon has been taking Grace to the pool several times a week this summer. By the time he gets off work and picks her up they get there in time to enjoy the last hour the pool is open AND it's FREE that last hour! So they have been taking advantage of the opportunity.

Grace took swim lessons again this summer (second year) and she has become a good little swimmer. She can even jump off the diving board and swim to the side by herself now!

I actually went with her last night for an hour and then stayed for water aerobics with the old ladies. (Okay, so they weren't ALL old ;) As a testament to just HOW out of shape I am, I'm ashamed to tell you I have sore muscles this morning.

Of course we were going to get home so late that I took some snacks for Grace to eat and ordered a $10 pizza at Pizza Hut (best deal EVER) to pick up at exactly 7:05 pm. We got BOGO free wildberry smoothies at McDonalds and headed home afterwards.

I suppose that means I'm 0 for 0 as far as the aerobics go.

Oh well. There is always tomorrow, right?