Kids :)

Here are some recent pictures of the kids. L, this picture shows the teasing side of his character!!

Baby J relaxing in the tub! He's about 14lbs at 7 weeks old and quite the little roll boy!! He's covered in rolls :)

J with his 'smiley face' holding Baby J. J loves Baby J and loves to make him smile! Baby J is wearing an outfit from D&A!! Papa calls it his 'coat of many colors.'

E in one of her 'new' dresses that she LOVES!! She loves to prance around in them on her tiptoes singing and having a great time!

R, also in a 'new' dress and hat, looking like a little angel... she has A LOT of people fooled :) She smiles so sweet!!

Fried Fish!!

The boys were so impressed that they got to eat the fish they caught!! Papa fried them up and BOY were they good!!

Smoke Pictures..

This top one is my favorite!! Mom took this one.. show quality!! This is out at Beaumont Beach.

That's not mist that's smoke coming our way!

These were taken at the beach on the 18th of August~ Pretty nice there really as the wind off the lake kept the smoke away. This smoke was behind us in the hills behind the beach. I can not take credit for all these pictures as I did not take them all. My mom, sister Ang and I all had a time with my camera.. Mom took most of them I think :)

The sun when we could see it.. after a while we could not find it anymore. Then we went home. Kinda creepy being in twilight all afternoon. Felt like a storm was coming.

Nap Attack!

FISHING!!!

Grandma F called me a while ago and asked if my boys could take a day and go fishing with them out at a nearby lake. When the boys got up from their naps I told them they'd had a phone call and needed to call Grandma. (This is how she wanted to tell them.) So they put in a call to Grandma and both their faces LIT up when she asked them if they wanted to go fishing. So that night after supper Grandma and Grandpa helped them pack up some stuff; PJ's, life jackets, clothes for the next day, dug some worms in the old garden area and took the boys off to their house to spend the night before a big day of fishing. Here they are with some of their fish. J LOVES to fish and told me when they got home that now he wants to be a fisherman when he grows up. L enjoyed the day but really fishing's not his thing yet. L caught 2 fish and J caught A LOT. Most of them they released because they were too small, but they kept a few. J even casted from shore whenever they weren't in the boat! Thanks Amber for the picture :) Turns out they had a even more awesome day then was first planned. That night U. Dan and A. Amber, U. Korey and A. Ang took them with cousin O and M to the local theater where they watched Toy Story 3 in 3D!!! VERY COOL. (The boys are the 1st ones of the family to watch a movie in 3D as Papa and I haven't even done this yet!) Thanks to you ALL for giving the boys the time of their lives :) They'll be talking about that day for a LONG time yet.

Some More Baby J Pictures!

We've had quite a few visitors since Baby J was born and I've tried to take pictures of them but I've missed several. Sorry!! Here are some of them anyway :)

Auntie R in Wa. State :)

Great Granny Vivian also in Wa. State :)

Our neighbor Joy. Wonderful Grandma who loves babies :)

Had to stick this one of R in here as she looks SO pleased :)

My friend Mrs. T with Baby J on the left and Baby Boy T on the right. They are 15 days apart, Baby Boy T is older and heavier, and roughly the same size!! We got some great pictures of them together but I'm rabbiting.

Our neighbor Linda! And her daughter Kara is below. Great friends and wonderful neighbors.

My sister Ria.. in the hospital in the pictures. She's seen him several times since then.

My cousin Karina. Was wonderful to see you again!! I wish you lived closer! Oh and he's wearing a outfit from A & D here. SUPER CUTE!!

My cousin Amy :) She finally got away from the kids long enough to hold the baby. They kids LOVE HER!!

Marci, the girl M of M&M :) My cousins wife :) At the park.

Carlene, the other half of E&C, another cousins wife.. also at the park. Some of the cousins got together to play volley ball and the kids and I went to watch Papa play. They played for hours and a good time was had by all!!

Crystal, another cousin, and Karina and Amy's middle sister :) Expecting their 1st child this winter. YAY for cousins having babies :)

My sister A of A&K with little Miss Courtney her 1 year old. Courtney LOVES Baby J :)

Some people I missed was Uncle Joe, Mike, Uncle Dan, Uncle Korey, Auntie Dana, Kerrin, Suzanne, Annette, Grandma and Grandpa Griggs (though these are getting sent to me :). These are just people that are not in other posts :)

Bullseye and Kaffi

We had the calves in a 'training pen' which is 3 strands of electric fence with little pieces of tin foil on it. They were fence trained in very little time :) Now they stay in, most of the time, with only one wire. Kaffi can tell if the fence is on or off so we keep it on and they stay in :) We put them in with the cows as sort of an experiment. IF they would behave themselves they would be helpful in the cow pen by eating the grass the milk cows won't. The 1st day was fine.. the second day Papa got only a gallon and a tiny bit from Maggie.. and I heard Kaffi sucking when I walked by. Didn't see him do it but the evidence was there!! Bullseye also got all the calves milk that night as Kaffi was not interested! Some one was a thief!! So they got their own calf pen in the back close to the lagoon. Bullseye is 2 months old already and Kaffi is 6 weeks older then him so they could both be weaned but Papa has taught them both to drink out of a bucket so all we do is pour the milk into the bucket and they both stick their noses in and GULP GONE!! LOL. Sometimes there is a little pushing involved :) Kaffi will be going home here as soon as his owner comes to get him. He's old enough to be weaned, his owner is home now, and he's kind of a trouble maker :) He steals milk and gets out when ever the fence is off.

Happy Pigs and a Walking feed bag :)

Papa had 4 days off this weekend and we used it to do 2 things. Catch up on some farm stuff and REST!! I'm happy to report we did both very well. In fact our 'to do' list was finished by day 3 and day 4 was spent doing pretty much whatever we wanted with an evening out at Grandpa and Grandma's to top off the weekend!! Very nice.

One of the 'to do's was to move all the animals. The chicks got moved out, the cow's got the neighbors pasture we rent, Billy the steer got a path to more water as his was out thanks to almost no rain in 6 weeks, the calves got a new piece of their own as Kaffi steals milk!, and the pigs got a new pen farther from the house. We had to keep them close by for selling purposes. The creep feeder and catching area was in the straw bale barn so as long as we had people coming to pick up pigs we needed to have them by the barn. I'm happy to report that we sold 8 little weaner pigs and have decided to keep the remaining 13 ourselves. We will be selling butcher hogs this fall!! We are also planning on keeping our sows to breed again next year :)

Papa, the "Walking Feed Bag" bringing the last of a bag of chop to the pigs. The bucket is a mix of grain and milk. The pigs are also getting several gallons of milk a day.

A happy sow in the new pen.

Some little piglets eating the dumped grain. Several people have commented on the size of these weaners. One man who got weaners from us and from some one else said that ours were much bigger then the others he'd gotten. Maybe even as much as half again as big! He said that they were all roughly the same age as well. Papa thinks these weigh as much as 75lbs.

Chicks are Out!!

These are our broiler chicks this year! They are a month old in the picture and outside at last. We normally put them out at 3 weeks but it's been too crazy, but a week late is not too bad. We found they moved out much easier and wanted to stay out much faster! Bonus!! They spent the 1st four weeks in the barn you see in the back there. The wheel barrow is full of a mixture of ground grains, supplement, and milk. The chicks are getting several gallons of milk a day mixed into their food. We are also doing the Willard's water in their water this year as we had GREAT results with this feeding solution last year. So far out of 208 birds we got from the hatchery we have lost 4. Two were VERY tiny and one was scarred on it's rear.

Can your Cornish Giant Cockerels do this? LOL. Happy healthy birds!! This morning when I went out to feed there was close to 10 of them in the wheel barrow!!

These birds will get moved farther away from the barn, they are already cut off from it, today. From now on they will be moved inside the electric netting every 2 days for the 1st little bit and then every day as they get big enough to use the whole space in one day. Their feeders get moved everyday even if the pen does not so that they graze the whole area. The feeders are old eves troughing which work great as they tip if they stand on them and are really light to move! They will go out on our newly scythed piece in the next few days. In this way they will mow a lot of our grass in the next 4 weeks. They eat bugs, grass, seeds and whatever else they can find and fertilize the ground as they go! In 4 or 5 weeks we'll butcher them and they'll be our chicken for the year. Yes we really do eat that much chicken :) We have a standing trade with one couple, hay for chicken and milk, for 50 of them but the rest will go into our freezer.

Family Campout!!

WELL!!! The annual Fehr Family Camp out was a couple of weekends ago.. Since it was only 30 minutes from our house, or maybe because we wanted to travel back and forth, we decided to travel back and forth to do chores and spend the night at home. Much easier all around. This also meant we could spend MORE time out there, a whole DAY!, and less time packing to go out!! It worked great and we had a great time. Only one of my 5 siblings wasn't able to come so there were 6 couples including my folks, 14 grand kids ages 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 and Baby J at 3 weeks :) We always have a lot of fun!! And this time it only rained once and only for a little bit!! MUCH better then most years where all it does is rain!!

Cousin Kacey holding Baby J. Love her curls!!

Cousin Ruger holding Baby J. They were both so TOTALLY in love with him and held him several times. Cousin Courtney was too but I didn't get a picture of her!

Auntie Ria helping set up the tents, or was J the one helping?? Oakley, Rugar, Kacey and R looking on!!

Auntie Ria had freezies!! Left to right, Kiresten, Oakley, R, Ruger, Kacey, Courtney, L, and E!! We had several nice afternoons at the beach. The water is so shallow that we don't have to worry about kids to much and it doesn't get deep fast which is super nice!

Such a girl!! CHOCOLATE!!!

Funny face boys!!

The coolest of the cool!! E with her 'loot' from the long awaited Treasure Hunt!!