Well Armed

I got the dreaded jury summons in the mail a few weeks ago.

I dodged it a few years ago because I was, sort of, breastfeeding my youngest daughter. Apparently breast feeding in a courthouse is distracting so they let me have a pass on that one. This time I wasn't so lucky (if you consider breast feeding lucky).

This morning I trudged into the courthouse, which is about half a hour away. Upon entry into the building I was greeted with metal detectors and police officers. One officer took my purse and pulled me aside to inquire about its contents.

Officer: "Ma'am do you have any pepper spray in here?"

Me: "Hmm you know, I think I do." 

Officer: "Do you have any knives?"

Me: "Gosh, yeah I think I have two." 

At this point I start digging around in the purse to locate all my weapons. I pulled out my keys and on my key ring is a Safety Cat personal defense keychain my father got me.

Officer: (chuckling) "I'll need that too"

Me: "Sorry, I was really not prepared for this!"

Officer: (puts his hands up) "Man, I'm not going to mess with you!"

All my seized contraband. It's a good thing I don't fly much.

Seedlings

What to do on a lazy Tuesday morning. Oh yea, re-pot oodles of baby tomatoes. They were quickly out growing their little peat pots and needed more room. Greta was a big helper taking over soil duties. She's very gentle with the seedlings. We got 35 replanted. It's a bit much, but we do love home grown tomatoes. This year we are trying three varieties called Heritage, Atkinson and (or course) Cherry tomatoes. Yum!

Spring Break

Whew! I somehow survived Spring Break 2015 with the kids. By the end of the week I wasn't sure I was going to make it though. I should have planned more activities but we had fun. It was cold and rainy for a large majority of the week so we stayed indoors for the most part. I took them shopping with me and out to eat, which they loved. Release these kids in a craft store and they can entertain themselves for hours.

If I get the camera out and say "smile" these are the faces I get. Silly kids. I wanted to take them to the movies one day and our options were Paddington (a cute bear movie) or SpongeBob Movie. I voted Paddington, they voted SpongeBob. They won. It was an excruciating hour and 45 minutes. They loved it though and that's all that counts.

The Hubby was busy all day Saturday putting new front and rear brakes on the Edge. It had been squealing when I backed it out of the garage and grinding a bit when stopping. Sure enough the pads on the back where well worn and in need of replacement.  Man, new brakes are nice! A big thanks to my awesome husband.

The 3D printer is still getting a work out. Greta asked to have a 3D printed Olaf made so Sean found the plans and set forth printing each part of Olaf. There were several parts: the body, head, nose, buttons, feet, teeth and arms. I had some modeling glue that did a fabulous job of welding the parts together. Then after a paint job we have the finished Olaf. That's pretty much my spring break in a nut shell.

Update through pictures

As I write this post I'm smelling the lovely scent of dehydrating mango and bananas. Every time I go to the grocery store I scope out the produce section for new and exciting fruits to throw in the dehydrator. This past weekend I found organic mango! Score! They smell heavenly. I'm enjoying the dehydrator.

We've encountered a new challenge to dog ownership. Chance, our little 13 year old terrier mix, has decided to start marking our house. He does it primarily when he gets super excited. So, for instance, say the neighbors dog walks past the back fence, he and the other two idiots go barking madly at the window. Then he finds the nearest thing to urinate on and lets loose. It is incredibly maddening. Sean mentioned perhaps he needed a diaper (the dog, not Sean) and so after a search on Amazon I discovered this is a common problem amongst male dogs. So much in fact that they make a product called a "male wrap" that wraps up the problem area much like a diaper. So I ordered one and once it arrived I strapped it on the little leaky terror terrier. He absolutely hates it. He's normally a frisky little dog, with oodles of personality. Well he turns into a statue when I put on his diaper. Will not move. He just moves his eye balls around in their sockets, head perfectly still. It's pretty funny, but also a little sad. I don't want him to stop being Chance, I just want him to stop urinating. Maybe he just needs to get used to it.

Greta and I started a whole lot of seeds last week. We planted kale, cabbage, lettuce and three varieties of tomatoes. Now a week later and they have all come up and look pretty good. The nice weather is enticing me to think about garden designs and ponder tilling methods. Greta seems to find enjoyment in watching seeds grow so perhaps I've passed that hobby on to my youngest.

The beautiful Spring like weather is making all the outside livestock happy campers. The goat family has weathered another semi rough winter. Each winter I think might be Dym's last, but she keeps on truckin'. I've created a pretty good combination of warm beet pulp, alfalfa pellets, a nice warm fleece jacket and regular de-wormings to keep her in decent condition. Older animals take quite a bit more work to maintain, but she's worth it. Such a sweet goat.

Wesley is a crazy tooth losing second grader. He lost his other big front tooth so he's got no teeth when he smiles. It's actually his sixth tooth. Poor kid can't figure out how to take bites out of food. I bet it feels odd to say the least.

With the nicer weather comes more eggs! The chickens have been ramping up production with Spring on its way. This winter I didn't try to force egg production with a light bulb in their hen house. I usually do that and it keeps me in eggs year round. But after last winter and the dreaded January molt (losing feathers in the coldest month sucks) I decided to give them a break. They look great this winter, five fat and happy hens. They are back up to giving me three eggs a day, which seems to be the perfect number for our family. It's great not buying eggs anymore.

Fun Weekend

It hit 73 degrees yesterday. It was glorious. To me, it means Spring is coming. Technically Spring is coming, it starts in 13 days. The kids and I laid on the trampoline and soaked up the sun yesterday. Then we proceeded to try and clean up the yard. The yard looked similar to the house after a week with no clean up attempted. Sand box toys, baseballs, logs and boards all spread around the back yard. Oh and cat food cans, we mustn't forget those. The highlight of the dogs day is waiting for me to unlock the shop door and open it so I can feed the horses and goats. The dogs then run in there and retrieve their favorite cat food can (with just a morsel of last nights cat dinner in it). They carry them out to the yard and lick each can for a good 20 minutes before going in to retrieve another. This has been going on all winter and there are cans spread all over the two acre back yard. I gave each kid a grocery sack and told them we are going to have a redneck Easter "egg" hunt where instead of eggs, they get to hunt cat food cans. And to sweeten the deal I would pay out a nickle for each can they found. Boy were they determined, each filling their grocery sack in record time. Best couple of bucks I've ever spent.

It's been a long winter and I seem to be lacking the typical Spring motivation I usually have. I did start seeds last week but the thought of actually tilling up the garden and planting them (and the sack of seeds I ordered) is ranking pretty low on the list of things to do. Usually I'm rip roaring to go in the Spring. I did get the leaf blower out yesterday and attempted to start blowing the giant piles of leaves that have accumulated in every corner of the property. We have several mature oak trees and they don't drop their leaves until Spring instead of the traditional fall drop like most trees. So I don't even try to get rid of leaves until Spring. It's going to take several more weekends to get the job done but I got a good start in the front yard.

About a month ago we told Wesley if he read 75 books and wrote them down then we would take him to the local arcade and play games for an afternoon. Well last week he did it. Got 75 books written down. He was super excited! Yesterday we all piled in the car and went out to eat and then to the arcade. We all had a blast playing games, even Greta joined in on the fun with an Ice Age whack a mole type game. It's definitely something we'll do again. The kids favorite part was each game spit out tickets which they collected and got to spend on trinket toys. Kids love those cheap little trinket toys!