Happy Halloween-2011!!

Our yearly scary (?) family picture! The first one for Kylee-and there is another extra-the little boy on the left is a friend of the kids that went Trick-or-treating along with them! They made the trip around the neighborhood-family only-then Alana took her crew over to the Fire Station for fun! They enjoyed themselves!

Garden Pics & Happy Cows!

Sugar & Oreo enjoying the grass I pulled from the garden this afternoon. They're eating out of one of the troughs Jeff made from the hollow tree he cut down. He's made 2 planters from pieces as well.

Here's a picture of the baby turkey we hatched in the incubator-SHE'S getting so big!

Broccoli plants growing!

Cabbage plants growing!

The carrots are in the lower right side bed-The squash-Jordan & Suzanne planted the seeds-are in the upper left-and the snow peas are growing up the fence at the top!

Well-no baby rabbits, yet. I forgot to add the extra days-I only added 28 days. One has pulled fur-so hopefully tomorrow.

We had Homecoming at Church today-we had well over 100 people-had to pull out a few folding chairs to seat folks! It's always great to see some of the older people-but sad to think of the ones we've lost this year. We had one couple come "home" from Missouri-it was great to see Danny & Linda! And of course-LOTS of good home cookin'!

We are planning to take the Youth Group to see the movie "Courageous" on Tuesday night. Minnie & family tried to go see it tonight-the Texan Theatre is showing it for free-but they couldn't get in. We had plans for Wednesday-the last night-but decided we might better try for Tuesday instead. It'll be hard for me to get from work-and picking up Hailey from Drill team practice-on time to leave. Gonna try not to worry about it!

Have a great week!

Wow! Time is flying by-Again!

We got to work again on the greenhouse today-yeah! Jeff got it framed in and Curtis, Jr came by before dark and they got the glass put in! It's looking good. We've got to go get the plastic for the roof now and decide what we will put at the bottom below the glass pieces.

I spent part of Tuesday afternoon trying to get this tomato plant up and back into the cage-it is loaded with tomatoes and blooms! It-and a few others-survived our HOT summer and are now blooming and making tomatoes like crazy! We have 2 other ones that look very much like this-one I've been able to work a little on-the other I haven't gotten close to as of yet. This one will be inside the greenhouse-so hopefully it will keep producing through the winter.
The rest of the garden is doing wonderful-I need to take some pictures of it as well-but my camera isn't taking very good pictures these days. I've asked Santa for a new one already! ;) All the pics I take with it are just fuzzy and it has a very low zoom on it-I can't get close ups like I want too. Anyway-the broccoli has finally taken off-along with the cabbage. The brussel sprouts are still a little slow-the carrots are doing well and the jalapeno peppers just won't stop-they are still blooming as well. The beets never did come up and the lettuce is a little spotty-but they were all old seed-so anything from them was good. We've gotten a little rain almost once a week this last month and you can really begin to see the difference in things. Our first cold front hit Thursday-if you want to call it that-and we lit the first fire in the wood heater last night. I love to watch it burning!

The cows are doing well-I just wish we had more grass for them! We keep rotating pastures and give them a roll of hay every now and then-but it just isn't enough somedays. They love to see me working in the garden-cause they know I'm gonna throw the grass over the fence to them and will stand there and hollar at me to give them more-they are SO spoiled. Glory is due to have her calf around Thanksgiving-I need to check for a more precise date. Oreo is growing like a weed and I can't wait for her to have a buddy to run and play with-they can be SO cute! The 2 rabbits are bred-and have been busy building their nests-they are due to kindle in the next day or 2. This will be the first litters since summer began because of the heat. The pair of turkeys are growing nicely and the kids just love to hear the tom gobble. The one we hatched in the incubator is growing very fast as well-we moved her (hopefully!) into a cage next to the older ones so they can start becoming aquainted and won't fight when we add her to the flock! We did finally get 3 more Aracauna hens 4 weeks ago-but no eggs yet. Actually, we haven't really been getting any to speak of-be glad when they start laying again. It's almost time to start all that holiday baking!

The youth group at church is going well. We had our first big outing and they all had a ball. One of our parents took a bad fall from a horse today and had to be Life Flighted into Herman in Houston-but she's gonna be OK-has 5 broken ribs. Please keep Paige in your prayers-Korey told me tonight that her Mom might get to come home tomorrow.

Jeff is hoping to get the hayfield cut this next week-it has gotten enough rain over the last few weeks to really make it come on and grow!! Hopefully it'll make more than the 11 1/2 rolls that it did earlier in the Spring. I think we only have 1 more roll from our half of the cutting. Shorty still has several-but since he sold all his cows-I don't know why he is holding on to it. Guess he's waiting to buy more cows. We still would like to get the milk cow-but until it rains a little more-and I guess we get rid of a cow-we really don't have the pasture for one. Diesel will be going to the locker plant after the first of the year-but we'll have 2 more calves with the one due in a few weeks. I don't know-we'll just see what happens!

New Dexter Calf!

What a wonderful surprise! We came home from Church today to find her! We had gone out this morning to check on Sugar-only to have her lick Jeff's hand and arm to pieces-then she has the calf while we're at Church. Anyway-Oreo is a little heifer and oh so cute! She is half Dexter and half Hereford. This is Fozzie's first calf and Glory is due around Thanksgiving.
We did get a little rain the first of this past week-but just about all the results of it are gone. It was really cool yesterday morning-but was 22 degrees warmer this morning. It's gonna be warm the rest of this week and another cool front is due in by the end of the week-hopefully with a little rain.
We brought the 2 sheets of glass home yesterday for the greenhouse. Jeff started working on it again on Friday and got the old sliding glass door from the house put up for 1 side. We've been working on getting the garden cleaned up so we can plant some stuff-we just seem to keep running out of time. We've bought tomatoes-broccoli (2x's)-brussel sprouts and cabbage plants and still have loads of seeds left over from the spring we want to get planted.
We have all but decided on getting a milk cow. The price of milk is outrageous-but the cows aren't cheap, either! Since we do live on quite a tight budget-we've got to find something very inexpensive. Any excess milk can be fed to the pigs and we might have found someone who will allow us to bred them with. Also have another lead on just buying a young boar-but will have to do some more checking on that! A friend was going to try to pick us up some new Araucauna hens at the Bird Show in Conroe today-but she called and said she didn't see any really nice ones to get -so we'll keep looking! I really miss having a few green eggs!

Good Stuff-Cool Stuff-Sad Stuff

Here's some of the good stuff-the new pigs! They are settlin' in very well-they still don't like creep pellets-they much rather prefer slop-go figure!

And 6 more pints of picante sauce!-This batch came out a little on the warm side-but yummy! I also put up 1 more pint of jalapeno peppers-they don't last long around here!

Ok-now for the cool stuff! My hubby is SO talented! See that small space between the trees-that's one of the laying hens in the far background-that's where the small gate that leads into the little pasture at the front of our property is. We had a very large-very dead black gum tree that's been standing in that area forever. It died about 2 years ago and we kept talking about cutting it down before it fell on top of Jeff's shop. It was hollow-had very few limbs left-and was beginning to crack in several places. We knew it had to be cut before it fell on its' own and caused some major damage.

Well-it's down now! And boy-it really was hollow!

And did I mention how cool my hubby is? He threw that big tree right where he wanted it to fall-right between the gate posts!! One is slightly leaning-but will just have to be reset a little! Boy am I impressed!

We celebrated our 32nd anniversary last week-yeah!! We ran into Galveston Friday afternoon and stayed the night-just kinda hung out and took it easy-we really enjoyed each others company with no interuptions! And as usual-I had the camera-and never took the first picture!

Now the sad news. Dogs killed both of our sheep sometime late Thursday night/early Friday morning. The kids have been missing Pretzel quite a bit-she was just like a big puppy that followed them everywhere in the pasture and demanded attention at the gate anytime anyone was in the back yard. No animal deserves that and she'll be sorely missed.

We also have a pair of turkeys now as well -they are about 17 weeks old. The tom is starting to try gobblin'-quite a funny sound!

Youth group is going well-we have an outting planned in a few weeks-they want to have a paintball war-we'll see-but we want to let them get their bearings in the woods at the river so they don't get lost!! No really-we want to let them just get better aquaintted with us and learn that as Christians-they can have lots of fun in good, wholesome ways!

RAIN-OK-2/10ths!

We did manage to get a little-but a good drenching rain would be great! It has just been SO hot and dry this year. But we got our first cool front yesterday-it is WONDERFUL!!!
Well-we did our first football game in I don't even know how long. Last Friday night was Jr. High night at the High School game and was Hailey's very first drill team performance. She did great and even won Belle of the week. We were SO proud! And the Trojans beat the Mustangs!!
Only 2 of the turkeys hatched and lots of guinnes. Only one of the turkeys made it though. We bought 2 pigs yesterday-one that is 175 lbs and a small weaned one-both gilts. We'll watch the oldest to see if she comes in heat-she was in a pen with a young boar-and then decide who will go into the freezer-her or Lucy. We really need to find someone with a boar that we can hire to bred one or both-they are becoming WAY too hard to find and expensive as well! I'll get some pics of them when I can remember to take my camera out to the pens.
We start teaching a youth class at church tomorrow night-keep us and the kids in your prayers. We feel very honored to be asked to lead these young minds toward a closer relationship with Christ.
Mom is back in the hospital again-she was holding lots of fluid-Long story as usual-but she's having a bad go with gout now-she's been there for over a week-hopefully she'll come home soon. We didn't go camping for the long weekend, either. Just decided it wasn't worth it with the high gas prices and all. Our anniversary is next week and may go then or might just book a hotel room in Galveston-we haven't really decided-it's hard to make plans when you don't know what's gonna happen with Mom.
We've been having a ball watching the hummingbirds on the back porch-I go out there when I get in from work and watch them fight over the feeders. Jeff counted 8 one day last week-why they can't share is just beyond me-they fuss and screech at each other and it seems like no one gets anything to eat!!

Long time-No Blogin'

First day of School-2011! They were all ready to go-it was Mady's first day of Pre-K. But she cried and really was upset when Julie tried to leave-apparently she was under the impression that Mom gets to stay all day too-Rude awakening! Hailey had Drill Team practice-so Julie had to go pick her up at school-so I haven't had the chance to see any of them. Jordan did come over and said he had a really good day. Alana said Kaytlynn was totally droopy when she got off the bus-at 5:00-she went straight into the AC and onto the couch-she's out like a light! Hopefully the bus ride will get shorter-the usually get off around 4:30-but the bus driver told Alana he has 19 more kids on his bus route this year!

Not much has been going on around here-the biggest reason I haven't blogged in awhile. The hot temps-over 100 degrees everyday-and NO rain! We are still watering the yard in spots and some of the garden-we have jalapeno peppers and a few tomato plants have survived and are still blooming. Sugar never did have her calf-one day she just didn't look bred anymore-but no signs of having a calf-so we don't know if it was a false one or not. But she wasn't bred when we brought her home-so any calf she might have now will be Fozzie's. We had 2 chicks hatch off under a hen-so cute! The turkeys and guinnies are due to hatch next Monday-we'll see!

We were lucky enough to get a camp site back at Crystal Beach for Labor Day weekend! They had a cancelation and called Jeff to see if we wanted the site-you bet! It'll be a great get away!

My boss had to have her shoulder operated on the other day-so we are starting the school year without her-it's been a little hectic at times-but we're getting through it! We are getting more and more Technology equipment and it takes more time and effort to keep it up and running! More job security-Yeah!!