Well after about 6 weeks of little to NO rain we have puddles!! What a wonderful sound is rain on a tin roof. As it is it's a bit late in the year and our neighbors, who we have a deal with for grazing, grass is dead. Ours is still alive because we've been watering like crazy people :) But we still ran out of grass about 10 days ago and the cows have been on hay for that time. Papa brought home two more bales. One for now and one for stocking up for the winter. Fall apparently is here and we are looking at the place and making 'to get done before winter and snow' lists. Firewood is mostly done but we do want to cut up some pine as we've been told that we could be in for a very cold winter. Jim, our neighbor has been in this country for 50 years and has seen it this dry only a few times (3 or 4) for this long and he remembers the winters after were VERY cold! So we are stocking up more then normal for this winter!
Billy the steer will soon be on the chopping block so I'm finishing the last of our last years steer, Bobby, out of the freezers. Believe it or not ( and I can hardly!) the beef from last year is almost gone. The hamburger is gone and we have some ribs and steaks and a couple of small roasts left. The chicks, what we've been calling our meat birds, have a few more weeks then it's their turn.
Maggie will need to be dried up soon as she's due to calve in November. She's bred to a red bull and so her calf could be red, black and white, red and white or black. I'm looking forward to meeting it. Maggie will be a good mother. Bullseye Bindy's calf from this spring is still getting about 2 gallons of milk a day and will need to be weaned before Maggie stops milking as we will not have enough milk for everyone if we don't wean him. The chicks are 7 weeks old and will be butchered just days after Maggie should be dry so that will work well. Right now the chicks are getting about 5 gallons of milk a day mixed into their feed. Bindy is milking only on the back two teats and will only fill in for Maggie until Maggie calves.
We have a new dog. His name is Brownie, he's 10 years old, and so far he's fitting in well. He has little to no interest in the animals, which is good as he doesn't chase them, and loves the kids. He does like to wander on the road though which means we have to keep him chained whenever we are not outside. We are going to give him a bit more time to settle in and hope that he breaks the habit by himself. We got Brownie and a gray female cat named Smoky from a neighbor family who had to move into the city. They have 6 kids and the dog loved them a lot!! The 1st few days after we brought him home he pouted and refused to get up or look at us when we went outside. After 3 days though and meeting the kids, which he LOVES, he's settled in and now gets excited when he sees us. The cat has been back once and we're hoping she sticks around. Oh and I have NO idea what kind of dog Brownie is, but he's cute! He's about half the size of Chip who is now a year old. Brownie and Chip have 'had it out' several times, Brownie starts it and wins! Chip is learning dog manners very fast! By day 4 the two of them were playing nicely together and enjoying each other. Though they will not share dogfood which is good as Brownie eats less then Chip and Chip could just eat all day! Brownie LOVES his food and it's totally off limits! Brownie will share his blanket!
The little pigs are still creep feeding out of the pen and totally enjoy eating what ever they can get their snouts into. Poor Bullseye often drinks so fast as to get indigestion trying to finish his milk before the pigs get there!! He can sure eat fast!! We had fireweed over our heads in the lagoon area and now that the pigs have been in there for a couple of weeks there is not a stick of it to be found. Too bad they loved my new blueberry plants as well... We sold all but 13 of the piglets so they make quite the herd wandering here and there on the acreage. They have recently found the peat moss pile by the driveway and we often see them digging away in there! People still drive really slow past our place.. I guess roaming pigs, chickens on the lawn and milk cows grazing near by are not normal sights :) Never mind the little people jumping on our 'hick' trampoline (it's up on old tires so it is not so high.) and the 'big green roof.'
Those little people sure are growing up. It's amazing to me and Papa how very fast it's all going. J will be starting home school this fall, L is riding his bike, sometimes, without training wheels, E is making people laugh everywhere with her wit, R is RUNNING and I mean she can really move!! and talking but funnily still can't jump! Baby J is smiling and rolling and can sit while leaning on something. It's amazing.. I was sure I only gave birth to him a minute ago and here he is starting school this fall! We are still having fun as a family of 7. I took all 5 of them to the Fall Fair the other day for most of the day. Papa joined us in time to have supper with us, see Glens pig (Grand Champ!!), pet a horse, watch some roping (very cool!!), and get some balloons before we headed home. The kids and I had a great day together looking at animals and petting them, playing on the playground with friends, watching the horse jumping; stock dogs working; draft horses showing, playing games and winning prizes, eating fries, cotton candy and goodies :) Baby J slept in the snugly a good part of the day which was a total blessing as he doesn't always sleep when we go out. Little R climbed up the jungle-jim half way and beamed, she was so proud of herself. J overcame his fear of heights and made it almost to the top! They stuck together well during the day and we used the 'buddy' system while walking which works great. J and R together holding hands and L and E doing the same. I had put them all in red shirts so I could easily spot them and as the day was cool they had their red sweaters on too.. boy does that every make them easy to spot in a group of kids. I took 4 pictures all day but that's ok cause they are great ones :)
One of the pictures I took at the fair! All the little Grigglets dressed in Red :)
Papa's gotten back in to the work rhythm and now that I'm doing morning chores isn't feeling quite so crazy busy and has been able to take a few deep breaths lately. I've been milking mornings for about 2 weeks now which gives Papa more sleep and less work so he's feeling like he can do more then chores at night when he gets home. I enjoy milking with the machine and Baby J is a great sleeper which makes it easy for me to help. I also feed chicks and the calf in the morning and move the chicks as needed.
J is feeding chicks most afternoons and L is our new egg collector! L gets so very excited about his eggs that I normally get a run down on color, possible spots, cleanliness, and shape of the 'interesting' ones :) I think it's funny that my kids know how many eggs go into their favorite foods and connect with the no eggs= no favorite foods mentality. If he finds 2, they think we should make cookies ('cause that's how many eggs cookies need Mom!). If we get 4 it's 'enough for ICE CREAM!' or ' for egg in a holes Mom!' J has even figured out that we can make multiple batches of things.. like 6 eggs is 3 TIMES the cookies!! ( I find this funny because my recipe says 2 eggs but I only ever use 1 for cookies.. but we say '2 eggs and we can make cookies!' Maybe because we almost never make just one batch!) He loves his math! The other day I asked him how many apples he'd have left if I gave him 2, L gave him 2, E gave him 3 and R took away 2. He figured it out super fast!! He also loves to count by twos and we were reading a book and he had to count to nine. 2, 4, 6 + 1 is 7 +2 is 9! Without my knowledge or help! He's really looking forward to school and can't wait to read so he can bury himself in a book!! LOL. Not like he doesn't now! He's constantly in their new book. It's an kids encyclopedia and he loves it!
