Jeff & the Hen

Jeff let the chickens out today-he decided he wanted to have free range chickens(hehe)-and you can see right where one decided to spend her time-on the bed of his truck!

GET OFF MY TRUCK!!!

Well-we didn't have much luck with the egg hatch-only 8 of the 20 hatched and we had to help each of them out of the shell. Three have since died and one doesn't get around too good by itself. Neither of our eggs hatched-I don't know what happened this time-several of the eggs were rotten! Anyway-I'll take a picture of the remaining ones in a day or two.

We went into Lowe's on Monday and bought a new stove and ordered the microwave/ventahood to go over it. The micro combo was out of stock and should be in tomorrow-so that means a trip into Conroe. Then as luck would have it-our TV in the livingroom died yesterday-we couldn't remember what year we bought it in! So now we are owners of a new flat screen.

We are still waiting on an answer from Social Security on Jeff's back-we really hoped to hear by today-the mail is running late today! We are planning to go spend New Year's Eve with Sheila & Alfred at their cabin on the Trinity River. The sun has FINALLY come out and it is beautiful out right now-it has even warmed up-although another front is due in by midnight and it'll be cool again tomorrow. Jeff plans to butcher Freckles tomorrow-we'll keep the meat on ice for a few days to bleed out-then we'll grind all of it into hamburger. I bought some 1 lb meat sleeves from an ebay store-1's for venison, pork sausage and hamburger. They should make packing up the meat alot simpler.

Have a safe & happy New Year!!

Jeff & Rascal

These 2 are just like best friends! She is actually chewing on the snap on his shirt!

I'm finally feeling much better!-still coughing some and feeling a little weak, but I got outside yesterday and piled some limbs and helped Jeff hang his deer feeder(that I got him for Christmas) and move the game camera. He got 132 pictures last night of the does-we haven't seen the buck since Dec. 17th.

The eggs are due to hatch any hour now-I did find 2 pipping this morning-I know-I'm not supposed to open the incubator-but I can't help it! I was thinking they were due yesterday-but we didn't set the eggs until bedtime-so that does kinda throw it to today. I have seen some of them jumping around in there-just can't wait to see what we get!

I'm missing the cows a little bit too-it's bad enough getting rid of them-but the insult of getting such a pitiful amount for them-they were worth SO much more than that! I know-I get just a little too much attached!

We had another COLD morning-but the sun is shining. The weather we got before Christmas tore up the greenhouse-broke the pvc pipe in several places-it'll have to almost be totally rebuilt-don't know when we'll get to it.

Well-I've been invaded by grandkids-Grandpa went and bought doughnuts for everyone this morning! Have a great day!

Rough Week-so Far!

Well-I'm still sick! I finally gave in and went to the urgent care clinic yesterday and got 2 shots and 2 prescriptions. I really don't feel too much better today-but I did get a little bit of my cooking done today. Christmas Eve is tomorrow-no stopping it!
We got the check from the sale barn yesterday, too. What a HUGE disappointment!! Mama cow only brought a little over $100! Total of only $739 for all 3 of them. It will pay our taxes for the year-but nothing left over to repair the fences and buy the goats. :( I weaned the pen of bunnies this morning and bred another doe. This is the last day to turn the eggs-they sit now for 3 days before hopefully hatching!
We are supposed to have rough weather over night-another cold front coming through. There have been some tornados way north of us.
Kaytlynn lost one of the caps off her front teeth yesterday-so Alana had to get her in to the dentist this morning to get it fixed before the holidays. Randy works half a day tomorrow-Julie works the whole day-but does have an earlier shift. I believe everything is in place and we are ready for Christmas!-as ready as we're gonna be!
Merry Christmas everyone!!

Rough Weekend

Well-the cows are gone. :( Jeff took them to the sale barn on Friday afternoon. I came in from work sick and running fever-so I didn't go with them. We still have the 3 calves-the heifer will go to Jeff's brother-in-law. We've had a pretty good cold snap around here-it was 29 degrees this morning. Jeff tried to run the saw for a few minutes yesterday-but it nearly killed his back! He suffered all night with it. I'm not much help at the moment-feeling like I do-the flu got me good! I do feel a little better this morning-but still have a little fever and coughing. Jeff's been taking care of everything and says if I'm not better tomorrow-I'm going to the Doc-I'll be better! I have all my Christmas baking to do!

Doc Visit

Well, I took the day off and went to the Doc with Jeff. It went very well! He is continuing to keep him off of work-until Feb. 15th, but he does have another appointment in Jan. He let us know that he wanted Jeff to do anything and everything he felt up to doing-on a day to day basis-even minute to minute. He DOES NOT want him sitting around in the house-wants him to keep as active as he feels like-so his muscles don't atrophy and get weak. And he said the hot tub was a really good place to do his stretches.
I'm sick again-feel like heck-coughing-was scared I'd coughed up a lung last night! I've taken Nyquil and am going to bed real soon. I did get the rest of my Christmas shopping done this afternoon-well-only a few things left to pick up-but I know what I'm getting-so it's just a matter of getting them.
And the sun made a few small appearances today-HEH!! It is supposed to be a really nice weekend-so I can't wait-hopefully it'll dry up a little! I bought bitty feed today-I told Jeff I hope I didn't jump the gun-and now none will hatch! The day after Christmas will tell!

Another Week Goes by!!

Our visit with Granddaddy on Saturday morning-It was Kaytlynn and Jordan's first visit to the Nursing home-they did great! And he was SO glad to see them! Does his 95 year old self good!

We have had WAY TOO MUCH rain, drizzle and fog-I have had enough-thank you!!! I don't even mind the cold as long as the sun is shining. Everything is just saturated around here!

We separated the calves on Sunday-so it was a pretty noisey night here last night! The cows bellered more than the calves-Randy has gone to spend the night at a friends-he said he was about ready to get a gun last night! He said it sounded like they were standing over his bed-hehe! The eggs in the incubator are doing well so far! Less than 2 weeks left-Jeff has been the mother hen this time!! He gets to turn the eggs!

Jeff went to Houston last Friday for the annual Work Comp visit. It went well-it is only an evaluation visit. We have been filling out SO much paper work! His case is now in the hands of the group in Austin-we sent more papers to them today. He goes back to his Doc on Wednesday-I'm taking the day off to go with him this time. We have so many questions to ask!

Jeff's company Christmas Party was Saturday night. They served bbq-it was really good. We had a great time visiting with friends and Jeff actually won a prize this year!

We have decided to go ahead and take the cows to the sale this weekend. We will keep the calves for the freezer-but our hay isn't good and at this point in time-we really cannot afford to keep them. We will be really sad to see them go. We have also been trying to sell the boar and sow-but no takers yet. Our plans are to use some of the money to fix the yard fences and get a few goats-they will be easier for us to handle. Rainbow got in the garden the other night and ate everything and the brocolli was finally starting to make heads!

Well-that's enough for tonight-gotta check on the deer in awhile!

Weekly Update

Randy and Ricky grinding the pork-with their advisory board looking on!

The eggs I won off of ebay-including 2 of my own!

This week would be easiest described on a somewhat daily basis:

Monday-Back to School and work! Jeff set the whole day waiting on a phone call from Social Security that never came!

Tuesday- He finally got the call-they got all his paperwork-but he was denied for SSI because I make too much money-now that's a joke!! Rainbow went over the fence and woke us up at 4:00am. We are getting 100 pictures on average a night of deer! Mostly 2-3 does-but every few nights we get some of different bucks!

Wednesday-Jeff took his Dad to the Doc-they wanted to admit him to the hospital-but he wouldn't have it!. Jeff met me after work and we went to New Waverly and picked up a barrel of corn.

Thursday-Jordan rode with us to Dewey's for feed-he almost managed to get one bag in the back of my truck by himself! Randy's friend Justin shot a sow in his Grandpa's pasture and they brought it here to us. The guys got it all skinned and on ice.

Friday-Jeff went into town for sausage seasoning and casings. At 10:00-it started SNOWING!! It really stuck in Coldspring-it was beautiful!! But-it didn't stick at all at home-so the kids and me-were very diappointed when we got home! So I wasn't able to get any pictures!! Got the pork off the bones-bythat time Jeff was in so much pain-he had to sit down and leave the grinding and packing to Randy and Ricky and the rest of us! He is just so not used to giving up and having someone help him out! And I forgot to count the packs of sausage and we just left it all in pan.

Saturday-I won an ebay auction for eggs early this morning. The seller is in Livingston-so we'll meet her later this afternoon. And boy did we have a freeze this morning! It was totally white this morning-19 degrees on the back porch! We got all the Christmas stuff out and started decorating the livingroom. We went into Livingston and got our tree-what a bummer-we just got it at Wal-Mart this year. We've decided to just get an artificial one at the end of the season to use from now on. We met Helen-the lady with the eggs-so sweet!! I won 12 and she gave me an extra 6. They are a barnyard mix with 1 aracauna and several marans-the really dark ones! So they went into the incubator before bedtime. I really didn't think this one through very well, though-because the eggs won't be ready to hatch until the day after Christmas. So-we'll have to be very careful of them with a houseful of kids!

Sunday-We have a 50% chance of rain today-so I really don't know what's up for today. Our yard looks awful-FULL of leaves. We need to put up the outside lights and I haven't had the chance to check on the garden since all the cold and snow! We haven't even gotten in the hot tub-although we have talked about it! We've just been too tired to do much of anything different!

Have a great week!