Freaks of Nature

I got my Cornish Cross fryers last Thursday. They were a day old and this picture was right when I put them into their temporary brood house aka plastic tub in the garage. Bryon helped me make a screen over the top to keep the critters out and the chickens in. You can see how fluffy and yellow the were. Cute right?

By Sunday they were starting to get little wing feathers and at a week and a half here is what they look like.


NOW they are getting tail feathers too. They are already so fat they just lie on their bellies by the feeder and eat. I'm having to fill that trough 3 times a day!

I'm definately going to have to get a bigger feeder soon.

I think I'll be able to butcher them the first weekend of June if all goes as plan. Assuming no predators devise a way to get to them in the chicken tractor between now and then. They should be able to go outside in a couple of weeks if it ever warms up again.

Game Day

Grace had her first soccer practice Tuesday night. She loved it. It looked a lot like herding cats to me but she had fun. There are a dozen kids on her team and basically the coaches tried to show them how to "dribble" the ball, stop the ball and pointed them in the right direction, which is harder to do that it sounds.

The "coach" setup a line of little orange cones for them to dribble the ball around one kid at a time. Did I mention there were 12 kids? You can imagine how long THAT took and how patient they were waiting. The team is composed of 3, 4 and 5 year olds and one little guy that has to be two. He just sits on the field a lot.

At one point the coaches asked for a couple of the parents to go down and stand by the goal to encourage the kids in that direction. I went down there and when the first kid, some little boy, got to the goal he goes, "YOU aren't the COACH!" Well duh! You are going to be a little rocket scientist aren't you?

I didn't last much longer after that. It was hard to keep my mouth shut though because it was PAINFUL to watch them flailing around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. Of course I know NOTHING about soccer so I really have NOTHING to offer except for my turn at snack day, but still, they could have had TWO lanes of cones on one side and been kicking goals on the other so all the kids were doing SOMETHING all the time. Trust me, as a former teacher I CAN tell you that the ENEMY is free time. Free time will get you eaten alive baby, regardless of the age.

I wasn't expecting too much along the lines of organization today, but something clicked for them because after about 5 minutes they all (okay MOST) got the hang of it and our team (RED Jaguars) won! We aren't supposed to SAY we won because they are little kids and THAT would be gloating. We won. 4-1. Grace made two goals all by herself and her new little friend Mattie made one too. Chris and Austin and Grandpa all came to the game to cheer her on. She did great! Grace and Grandpa and I all went to Freda's to celebrate afterwards and Mattie was there with her folks too. They were revved up!

Now just five more Saturdays in a row and a weekly practice until complete domination.


Life is good.

Catch Up

I've been so crazy lately that I'm really far behind on the blog. Sorry about that. Really I am. I'd rather be living a life of complete leisure for sure! Finally some peace and quiet tonight. The dog is in the crate, the kid is in her bed (she slept in mine last night) and the husband is in Arkansas recovering from a long day of pig hunting. He got one.

I've decided there is just no WAY everything will EVER be caught up. Not the laundry, not the garden, not work, not the housecleaning, not anything. Forces just keep conspiring against me.

Thursday night as I was trying to organize my trashed out car for the next day of work and my now once a week trek into Springfield, I locked my keys in my car. Yes I have a spare (people have been regailing me with their spare key contingincy plans every since). The spare was conveniently in my purse. Which would have been just fine if my purse wasn't also inside the locked car.

I called my boss who lives two minutes from the Blood Center and asked if he would break into the building op guys office to retrieve the spare for me. I was 8 pm of course so that meant a two hour ride into and back from town with the keys but Bryon was heading out to hunt the next morning and I just wanted everything back to normal asap. He said he was glad to help and would even drive to meet me somewhere...like Marshfield. I told him no way was I going to let him bring them all the way to Marshfield but I might meet him on the north side of town if he could. He called back 10 minutes later and had the spare keys and just as we were making plans to meet the weather alert radio went off with a tornado warning. Great. He said he didn't mind and could head out but Bryon didn't think I should go (he's much smarter than I am) so I thanked David for his trouble and told him I'd figure something out for the morning.

We all got up at 6 am Friday morning and dropped Grace off at daycare and Bryon off at Grandpas and I headed into town all but naked of technology and identity: no phone, no debit card, no driver's license...nothing. We went by the atm and got some cash with Bryon's card and that was it.

It was weird day without any of my stuff. I ended up taking a half day and getting a massage. I was READY for a massage!

Then last night I was washing the throw rugs that Ruger CONTINUES to pee on in my house and the load got off balance and sounded like it was going to come through the laundry room wall. Grace freaked out. The next load I washed it wouldn't spin out the water. Despite all my tricks I can't get the damn thing to work so now I have wet stinking peed on laundry piling up on top of everything.

I gave up on Ruger at 8 pm tonight after about the 10th in house accident (last night he only had two..one on the training pad and one off) and put him in the crate in the garage. I pulled up every damn throw rug I have, shampooed the floors again and told Bryon the dog was done in the house until he grows up...whenever that is...the dog not Bryon. We can't have one moment's peace in the house with him bouncing off the furniture and us like a furry pinball and he can't be trusted to roam around free outside because he'll R-U-N-N-O-F-T. I actual sent him packing tonight at one point while Grace was playing outside sort of hoping he WOULDN'T come back. Grace started crying as soon as he was out of sight and figured he was lost forever. Nope. He came back. Back into the house. And peed.

It's been a long night.