Signs of Spring

The snow is all melted and the green grass is poking up through the ground. I love seeing the big fat buds on the trees and flowers poking up. Signs of spring are everywhere.

The minions are turning into the little predators they become in the spring and have brought me their first kill of the season. A poor Garter snake. I sure wish they would just stop killing everything in sight.

Another sign of spring? The kids are outside all the time. It's lovely. We are on the trampoline at least once a day. I think it's one of the best workouts ever. I thought buying the trampoline would be for the kids but I get just as much out of it as they do. They also have a newfound love of the swing set (it's getting re-stained this spring). They've become brazen enough to jump off the swing while swinging and have contests to see who flies the farthest. They come in with all sorts of scratches and bruises. Fun times!

I wanted to do something with my hair this spring, something different. I didn't want to chop it all off as I've been growing it out for a couple of years now. So I thought highlights would be fun. I haven't had highlights in over a decade. My hair dresser specializes in balayage, which is like traditional highlights but it's painted on with a brush instead of wrapped up in foil. He painted particular strands and then put plastic wrap to keep layers apart. When he was finished painting my hair and plastic wrapping me, I looked like some psychotic Saran Wrap monster.

It lightened up the hair nicely and it looks natural....like I've been out in the sun all summer. He did a great job.  I took a before and after just to see if I could tell a difference.

With spring here I knew it was time for the Cub Scouts to start having their outings. On Friday they went to the local nature center to learn about wildlife we have in our neck of the woods. Then the weekend after next they have their first camping trip. I'm kind of nervous about that one. But like the scout leader said, it's a nice way to "cut the cord". He's sure having fun in Cub Scouts.

Thankful

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. We stayed home this year and kept it small and cozy, just the four of us. We have all been battling the creeping crud and getting well is what we want to do this Thanksgiving break. I made several pounds of snow crab, a small ham and several side dishes to gobble up. It was a hit. We are now sitting here listening to the sound of ice pellets hitting the roof and thankful we have a nice warm house to stay cozy in. We aren't Black Friday people and there will be no braving the roads to get a good deal on anything. My Christmas shopping is officially done and now I get to sit back and enjoy the Holiday season.

We put up the Christmas tree a week ago and the kids really enjoyed packing the ornaments on it. We decided we might need to buy a larger tree to accommodate all the wonderful homemade ornaments that I receive every year. Our "slim" tree is a little too skinny these days. Maybe next year.

The animals are all keeping warm outside in their houses with oodles of bedding. Dym, my old goat, is going into the winter season in great condition. She's fairly fat and sleek looking which is just what I want to see. I did buy her a new coat this year, my old cut up fleece jacket wasn't cutting it any longer. I found her a Thinsulate XXXL dog turnout coat which fits her great. I can't imagine the size of dog that was made for!

I'm trying a new method of bedding in the goat house this winter. It's called the "Deep Bedding" method. Normally in the spring and fall I clean out the goat house and start with fresh bedding but this year I didn't and just kept piling on fresh straw on top of the old soiled bedding. Eventually the bottom layer starts to break down and produces heat from the composting waste. This heat travels up and warms the goats through the winter. It hasn't gotten bitterly cold yet (although 26 isn't too warm either) so we'll see how it goes through the winter.

Adjusting well

I think he's adjusting to indoor life well. What do you think? I bet he's wondering why he didn't gouge his eye out earlier.

Frankenkitty

Poor Brother Minion had his eye removed on Wednesday. I took him in to the vet for the third time on Tuesday and the vet said we could try some more medications in the hope of saving the eye (even though it would be non functioning) or we could remove the eye. Brother Minion had been miserable and stopped eating that morning and I was getting more than a little tired of hauling him (and Greta) into the vet clinic each week so we opted for eye removal.

He's been home for a day now and he's a whole new kitty. Nearly back to his normal self.

Here is his before picture, he'd been on eye ointment and antibiotics for a week. This actually looks better than it did before antibiotics. Yuck.

Here he is now with the eye removed. He's a bit of a frankenkitty now but so much happier. He'll be resting and recuperating inside for awhile.

He might need an eye patch.

Weekly Winners

I don't have much to write about this week. It's pretty slow around here. The weather is back to being yuck. I sometimes wonder if this winter will ever end. I know it's only February (nearly March, I round up in the winter) and it could always be worse than it is. But sometimes I feel like I might explode unless I get outside in some warm weather. I even told the hubby last weekend that I feel the need to go running again. I've pretty much stopped running all together. It's not something I miss but I do miss the way I feel after a run. It's very hard to recreate that feeling on the treadmill. So maybe I will start running again in the Spring. Anyways, I digress, the point of this post is to share some photos.

The kids and I started quite a few seeds this past weekend. It might be a little early but I'm ok with that. We got six types of tomatoes started (36 tomato plants in all), two types of bell peppers, broccoli and a whole tray of basil. It's a good start. I'm really looking forward to rototilling everything. Can't hardly wait.

I just love this picture. Greta, with her crazy morning hair, helping Sean mix up the waffle batter on Sunday. He makes us waffles with berry sauce every Sunday morning. It's a nice routine that I and the kids enjoy (and Papa Rich).

Having outside cats has been quite the treat. You just never know what they will bring home. I was on the treadmill yesterday and looked out the back window to see one of the minions prancing through the yard with something big in its mouth. Upon further investigation I found it to be a bird and a snake.....together. It was a big haul. Both were completely eaten by the time I went out later. Yuck.

The kids have been asking to ride their bikes so Greta and I stopped by the store to pick her up a bike helmet (she's been using her brothers helmet to ride during the day while he's at school). Walmart had some rather unique helmets. The unicorn helmet didn't fit too well so we went with a traditional one, but still very cool. Then this past Saturday when it wasn't too cold I loaded up the bikes in the back of the truck and I took them to the high school parking lot to do some bike riding. Living on gravel roads does not make learning to ride a bike very much fun. They had fun on the pavement, I had fun getting out.....it was great. I'm looking forward to doing it again when the weather warms up.

Keep on keepin on

It would be so easy to focus on how nasty of a winter this is. How the winds howl at night bringing the lows into the negative digits. How there is hardly any sun anymore, and how desperately I need sun. I try to keep busy inside and reassure the little bundles of energy (aka my kids) that Spring is on it's way and we'll soon be running around outside again.....even though Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today meaning another 6 weeks of winter. Darn groundhog. The other day I got in the car and saw this:

This is about average it seems for morning temperatures when I take the kid to school.  The bad thing about an electric car is that the gas engine runs in these temperatures. It runs a lot. My average mpg is 67 right now, down from 165. I say this while smiling because that mpg is still super cool even though I have to buy gas.

The animals are all doing ok this winter. I can tell they are all ready for spring as well. The big dogs have become indoor dogs and spend their days lounging on the couches. The cats have remained outdoor animals (since I value my marriage) and I can always tell how cold it is depending on how many cats are crammed into the little wool bed outside on the deck. Today was a "two cat day" so I knew it was in the 20's. When it's a three cat day it's bitterly cold. At night they get put in the shop and cuddle up in the hay. I have peace of mind knowing they aren't getting eaten by coyotes too.

Sean has been passing the time out in his heated shop working on the Range Rover. It's pretty much ready to go. He's been tying up a few little loose ends....headliner issues, burned up light bulbs and a few more chewed through wires. I think a couple more weeks and he'll start putting miles on it. That will be fun.

The kids have found out how much fun games are on the tablet. About once every few weeks I get on the Google Play Store and we download a few new games to play. Greta gets the preschool learning games and Wesley likes the racing games. Together they play matching games and have a blast.

I'm kind of in a blogging rut, there isn't much of anything going on. We're all just trying to stay warm these days. I don't want to dwell on anything because I know there are people all over the country with worse weather than we have and with all the problems that come with prolonged cold weather. One lady blogger I read on the east coast has had her pipes freeze and been without water for weeks. She has to visit her neighbors house to lug buckets of water home to her livestock. I can't even imagine. I feel so lucky having a warm house with no frozen pipes (knock on wood) and a healthy, happy family.  Stay warm everyone!

Favorite

It's 26 degrees outside, there is sleet all over the ground. We are getting ready for our first real storm of the season. I like these kind of mornings. I get layered up, pull coveralls on, hat, scarf, gloves and boots and head outside. The animals really love seeing me on these bitterly cold mornings. I bring a bowl of warm soaked beet pulp for Dym, a head of lettuce for the chickens and lots of yummy hay for all. Stock tank heaters are on and there is no ice to chip. I sit down in the straw in the goat house and enjoy watching the goats tuck into their pile of alfalfa, brome and prairie hay. The minions surround me, their warm little cat bodies curling into my lap. This is one of my favorite places.

Productive Weekend!

I say yea to productive weekends and this was definitely one. It was sunny and beautiful, not raining or snowing for a change so we got out there and tackled several things. The garden was mine. I will always plan to have a well mulched garden that doesn't require tilling but last year some awful weed made their way through (due to me using hay instead of straw for mulch, hay is full of weed seeds) and I couldn't get rid of them so this year I decided to till the garden. And expand the garden. But first we had to remove all the old mulch and dead growth from last year. Now that alone could take a weekend of raking until my brilliant husband mentioned using the little John Deere with the front blade to scrape the top layer off of the garden. Boy did that work wonderfully. He just scraped everything into a big pile so I can reuse all the old mulch this year. Then it was time to till it up. We borrowed my parents ancient tiller (I believe it was my grandfathers) and Saturday I went to work on the 30 X 50 foot garden. Unfortunately I won't be able to plant the seeds for at least another week due to Mother Nature's crazy ups and downs. We are supposed to get another hard freeze this week, ugh. But for now, the garden is a blank slate, ready to go! Woo hoo!

The grass is growing like crazy and in some areas our little terrier can get lost in it, it's mega tall. So Sean went to work getting the zero turn mower serviced for another year of mowing. It needed new belts and blades sharpened. Plus I needed to take this picture because he's such a cutie.

My birthday is coming up and I found my birthday present a little early. Since it was on sale and the sale ended Saturday I made the decision to make it an early present. Can I mention how much I love farm stores? I mean where can you find garden equipment, animal feed and cute boots all in the same place? I can spend way too much money in those stores. Hence my early birthday present, a heavy duty dump cart. It's like a wheel barrow on steroids. I can use it to clean out the hen house, move manure back to the garden among other things. I'm sure excited to use it. The kids even want a ride in it. It's got a 1,400 pound capasity so the sky's the limit on what I can carry. Plus the handle converts so it can be towed behind the little tractor. How cool it that? 

The chicks spent the day in a little cage within the dog kennel in an effort to keep the minions from eating them. The three cats eat everything in sight, I kid you not. They caught a full grown red headed wood pecker and a snake in the past week. Those small chickens would be dinner in no time. The cage within a cage seemed to work at keeping the chicks alive. They are still inside until this freeze is over this week. Next weekend they are going to the hen house....I hope.

I hope everyone had a lovely and productive weekend.

Weekend Update

The weatherman is playing tricks on us this week. We got to enjoy a spring like weekend with temperatures in the 60's and today it didn't get above 29 degrees. We did get outside and enjoy the beautiful weekend. Sean got to try out something he's been wanting to do for quite some time. Powder coating. From what I gather it's the process of coating a piece of metal with some colored powder (that's charged?) and then baking it in the shop oven to produce a nice coating on the metal. He's been researching it and he got a powder coating gun, so finally it was just time to try it out. Thankfully we have an oven out in the shop which I use to bake my sculptures...I can't imagine using the main oven in the house. The finished part looks marvelous and has already been attached to it's spot in the corvette engine. Oh....I should mention he made the part with his lathe and milling machine.

I was locking up the four remaining chickens a couple of nights ago and only three were roosting in the hen house. So I went out into the aviary to find one hen just sitting there, she wasn't looking good. So I brought her in the house and put her in a laundry basket with some hay. She was bright eyed and tried to peck my fingers but she wouldn't move. She drank some water, ate some hard boiled egg and promptly died.  It surprised me. And then there were three hens. I figure it's time for some chicks, to replenish the flock. My first thought was to get an incubator and hatch out half a dozen chicks. The kids would love it, heck I'd love it. But I don't want to have to deal with roosters. I know I'd get attached to the little buggers and would have a hard time getting rid of them. So I'm going to just go get some sexed chicks from the big stock tank at the feed store whenever they start arriving. I'm kind of excited.

I'll leave you with some random shots I got this weekend. Yes, it was warm enough for dresses and no shoes. 

Thursday Thoughts

-The nurse at the elementary school called to inform me that Wesley failed both his hearing tests. For some reason this doesn't surprise me. The kid can hear great but he's always had ear issues. He inherited wonky ears from his father and we've been battling ear infections for years. Since school started he's had one long cold so failing hearing tests would lead me to believe he's got fluid in his ears. Sure enough, his pediatrician confirmed that yesterday and we are to retest in 6 weeks. If he fails again he's got to go see a ear, nose throat doc. Poor kid.

-We had our first freeze of the season last weekend, which seems early to me. I'm bummed because I had six nice sized cantaloup back in the garden. I was really hoping they'd make it until harvest. But on a side note, I can happily say that some of that grass seed I put down two weeks ago is sprouting and looks like it will make it. 

-I've been keeping busy this week remodeling one of the upstairs bathrooms. I've started a list of projects I can do around this house to keep me busy during the week and this was one of the big ones. The bathroom is nearly done and I'll post some before and after shots this weekend. It's turning out really nice, I'm excited.

-I took a video yesterday this I think is adorable. The Minions (our three adopted cats) have always kept their distance from the dogs. Our dogs are kept in a fenced in area and the cats, up until recently, have kept their distance. The dogs have always barked and lunged as it they would murder the cats if given the opportunity. Well something changed in the past two months. The Minions started slowly entering the dog pen area and lounging until a dog got up and chased it out. This went on until the dogs just stopped getting up to give chase. They gave up and realized the cats were here to stay. And they realized the cats were no longer afraid of them. So now, this, is what poor Cody has to deal with on a day to day basis. Please mute your computer because Greta was in the background chattering up a storm.

It's so hot.....

.....that I can place my entire hand inside the cracks in our yard. I kid you not. It's so hot that the two desert tortoises must be kept inside to keep them from overheating. Desert tortoises. It's so hot that the Minions are panting. I've never seen cats pant before, have you? This is the poor cats first summer and I doubt they are enjoying it much. I know I'm hoping and praying this drought breaks soon as is every animal on this property.

Mommies Minions

The neighbor was given a cat who was pregnant. That cat had kittens, three to be exact, and then she disappeared. The neighbor didn't want kittens and tried giving them away but there were no takers so she kept them back in this old shed in the back of her property. That shed was a stones throw from our horse pen so every day I'd go out and feed the horses and then walk to the back of the pen and lure the kittens from their shed. They'd run over and let me pet them through the fence. They were wild kitties but slowly became tame (to me anyways). Over the weeks they became more adventurous and would get into the horse pen and sleep in the shed in the pile of uneaten hay. I'd find them all curled up with each other sleeping away the day.

Then I decided they would be mine. So I bought cat food. And lots of it. Every evening I would woo them up to the shop with the sound of a can of cat food opening. They'd come running, winding their way through my legs. I forgot how much I missed cats. I'd sit out there and these now tame kittens would climb in my lap and purr like they were in heaven. They became my minions. They have no names, just a collective name: "Mommies Minions". Welcome to the menagerie my little minions.

P.S. All three kitties have already been spayed and neutered thanks to my wonderful neighbor, glad she had that done before they adopted me. :)

 There are two solid black females and one black and white male.

 Brother Minion is super friendly and fearless, going after a large snake yesterday.

 Even Greta is in love with the Minions.

 Brother Minion is sweet but not the sharpest tool in the shed. Took this pic moments before he fell off the roof of the shop.

Sister Minion sleeps in the shop and catches her weight in mice. Gotta love barn cats!