I Love This Guy...

The Long Trail Home   Click that link!


He has passion!  How many of us have passion left?

Please follow his journey, encourage him and pass this linky on to everyone you know to do the same!

More importantly encourage everyone to DONATE to the wounded warrior fund.  Let's help him reach his goal.
 

So many of us dream of making a difference.

He IS making a difference.


Let's get the word out there and help him out!

Remember Our Flower Garden?

Well, we finished it and it looked great!  These are taken just after we finished it all...

I will take a recent picture in a day or two and share - it sure has grown a lot since I took these!  And we have added a few more things...


I had started laying rocks around my Iris in the next pic - did you know Iris are my favorite flower of all time?  Oh how I love the smell of an Iris!  My mom's best friend's hubby (got that?) gave me these Iris.  Every year, LeRoy (pronounced LA-Roy) thins his out and I get the ones he culls.  I just keep adding them to my Iris bed and am surprised every year when I have new colors pop up.  I added a few to my flower beds above, too... they kinda look wilty here, but have no fear, I have decided you cannot kill an iris!

I still need a light lavender and deep purple mix, a deep purple solid and some pink mixes - those will be on my 'buy' list.  And maybe some pinks... I should just start thumbing through a catalog, right?  Until then, I just toodle along and enjoy the reaps of fresh bulbs from LeRoy until I get my 'round tuit'.  I know spring has arrived when the Iris bloom.  When they are finished, summertime has arrived and I watch my other plants thrive... like my veggie garden.


Don't you think the Iris are pretty?  The rocks around the bed are gonna look great too!

Speaking of the veggie garden, we have started work on it - and we have plenty of help:

Charlotte (black in the middle) brings all 9 of her babies and has them watch for bugs.  She coaches them along and fusses when we turn dirt over a bug or worm - in fact, she dives right in to dig it back out for her little ones.  She is an awesome surrogate mom for those chicks.  None of them are 'hers' but try telling her that!

And try gardening with 10 chickens supervising... 

Itsa lotta work!  

Poor Clara!

Clara has been broody, which means she has been sitting on eggs and waiting for a clutch to hatch.  What she didn't know, is that I had put wooden eggs under her in hopes that I would get a few day old chicks to stuff under her and let her raise.  

Well, my day old chicks ended up coming in at a week old.  She took one look at them and pecked at their little heads and made no bones about not accepting them.  She. Would. NOT.

So I removed the wooden eggs from under her, but she sat for two more days.  Then she decided since the eggs were gone, and the chicks - well she wasn't havin' them - so she got up and stomped out of the hen house.

Two days later, she lays an EGG:

See her egg?  The eggs behind Clara's egg are normal sized!


So I decided I needed to measure her EGG:

YEEOWWW!  Yeah, it is a big egg!  

I bet it is a double yolk. 

Don't need it today, but when I crack it, I will let you know.

What do you think?  Double?  Single?

This is what I think...

Poor Clara!

So I Went to South Louisiana with a Friend...

I took a week off and went for a crawfish run to Louisiana with a friend.  We brought 250 POUNDS of those mudbugs back for a boil!  Enjoyed every moment of the run AND of the boil!

I had high hopes of visiting all those treasured people I have left behind, but a couple didn't pan out for one reason or another.  If I missed seeing you, I am sorry.  I am truly sorry.  I don't know when I can get back down there again - the trips are taking entirely too much out of me right now.  I hope every day for a miracle, but until then I am just tired.  Maybe you can come see me!


Anyhoo, as usual, I took way too many pictures.  I have decided that pictures are what brings those warm memories back, so it is ok if I do an overkill on pictures.  My kids can just delete the ones that don't make them smile when I croak. 

Today, I am going to share a few of the good times we had:

And how in the world did I not get a picture of Mrs Dottie?  We visited with her for several hours!

Oh the good times we had!  I do miss Louisiana and all my wonderful friends.

Those skeeters and bugs, I do not miss.

God was good to us - we had a cool front come through while we were there.  I had to eat my "you won't need any warm clothes while we are there" words...

We did - and we didn't have them!

What was I thinking?

Thank you for the good times, dear friends.  You mean the world to me.  I love you and miss each and every one of you.

And if I missed seeing you?  I am so sorry.  My heart aches with emptiness... maybe there will be a next time.  

Or maybe...

You can come see us!

Rest in Peace, Frankie and Cole :-(

We had to butcher 2 roosters today.

They have started attacking Raelee, Steph and friends that come over.  We just couldn't take that chance anymore.  You can see how mean Frankie looked:

But instead of just butchering them and tossing them out, we dressed them out and are putting them in the freezer.  They went to chicken heaven. 

Wow, what a thought.

Becoming a farmer is sometimes difficult, but it is the lesser of all the evils.  I am enjoying harvesting fruits and veggies and I might as well enjoy raising our own food, giving them a warm and cozy home with lots of tender loving care prior to harvesting them.  I have to tell myself that... instead of livestock yards, teeny chicken cages and inhumane treatment we will care for them until harvest day.  They will never see the inside of a cruel slaughter house.

So with no further discussion, rest in peace Frankie:

And Cole:  

We loved you when you were nice and sometimes even when you weren't.  

We already miss your warning crows... chatter crows... 'all is well' crows...

We will especially miss your morning wakeup crows...

But the hens will not miss your lovey dovey selves... you wore them slap out, pulled their feathers out and were even mean to each other.



And you attacked people who loved you while protecting 'the girls'.




Being a farmer is not always fun.