Spring On The Farm!!

Laying hens got let loose, for the days, last week! They are doing their job of spring clean up and loving every minute of it!! 

G was having a blast playing with this toy. Big brother L was helping and hiding behind the stroller. 

The sandbox emptied itself this spring (water washed the sand out?? We think?) and the kids turn black if they play in the empty tire so they are playing beside it in some leftover sand. J3 loves the hat the girls got from our neighbor! 

Green leaves :) E wanted me to take a picture of 'all the pretty leaves!' 

So nice to see Green again after all that White!!

Nice to see you Spring :)

Or did we miss Spring and just hit summer?? With temps higher then we often see in July it felt a lot like August around here last week!! 

Ham and Bacon; A Piglet Story.

Saturday morning Papa and I were having a nice relaxing coffee in bed before a busy day and the phone rang. It was my uncle and he had a interesting quandary. Would we help him out?? I told him we'd talk about it and get back to him. Soon.. So we chatted about it for a minute and Papa gave me the go ahead.. I was a bit surprised I will tell you. I honestly didn't think he would say yes.

Turns out my uncles sow had a batch of piglets the night before and he was pretty sure she was not going to be able to keep up with them all. She had 15!! 14 lived and he wanted to give us the two runts to raise! I had a chiropractor appointment that morning so I got to go to town, have a wonderful lunch (you may have seen pictures on the fb page) all by myself and then visit with my folks a bit before heading out to pick them up. I had a great visit with my Aunt and Uncle and totally enjoyed seeing all their pigs before heading back to town with these two little piglets sleeping in a tote in the back of the car. They slept all the way to town and only woke up when I found the M family and dragged them, 2 parents/6 kids, to the car to see them :) Then I almost couldn't get out of the parking lot! People I haven't seen in years saw the piglet and I was swarmed :) The kids LOVED them!! Cousins K and RJ were out shopping with their grandma and got to see the piglet too!

It was a bit crazy in here when I brought them home later that day, but I did manage to get some pictures. L has Bacon and E has Ham. Bacon is quite small but makes up for it in attitude!! 

It's amazing how fast they grow! We got them on Saturday and they were less then 24 hours old. They slept most of Saturday, ate a LOT in the evening, slept all night, ate like crazy (4 times in about 3 hours!) on Sunday morning (we took them to church :) ), slept most of the afternoon, ate like crazy again Sunday night, slept all night and woke up starving this morning. All we really have to do to feed them is stick the bottle in the tote.. they fight over the bottles until they are both sucking and then they eat, switch, fight over the bottle again, and eat some more.. The whole feed takes less then 10 minutes and if you can keep them from fighting over the bottle too much or if they are really hungry you can feed them in about 5 minutes. 

The girls really love them and I often see E crooning over them. I named them Ham, the bigger one, and Bacon as a constant reminder that these pigs are just like our other pigs (except white) and will be food just like the others, no matter how much fun they are now! 

Today they will get a bigger tote and a bit of milk in a short container. Uncle Joe told me that, as early as next week, they could be eating out of a trough and not needing the bottle so much! That is fast!! I'll, hopefully :), keep you updated :) 

New Kid Pictures.

G at 18 months.

J3 at 2.5 years old.

R at 5 years old! 

E at 6.5 years old.

L at 8 years old.

J at 9 years old!! 

More Mystery Bird Pictures.

Patch Having Fun.

A Couple of G Pictures!

Reading books on my bed in the morning.

Playing outside before all the snow was gone.

Summer Has Arrived :) Sun Burn Anyone??

What a great day in the sunshine!!! 

Yup everyone of us had a 'bit of red' after our fun day in the sun on Saturday! 

I did oil them up with JenK's Burn and Rash Salve that night

 and the next morning we had 6 little brown faces :) 

I guess Spring decided to skip us this year and Summer moved right in :) 

We had great temps of 23 and 24C (mid 70'sF) for the last couple of days!! 

AND WE ARE LOVING IT!!!! 

The Calves Are Out On Grass :)

The cows think it's wonderful!! 

So cute to see two great big milk cows go gaga over two little cute calves!! 

The cows even sleep by the pen now! 

J, L and I set the fence up and then J and L held the fence up, turned off!, while Papa led the calves one at a time to the fence and I walked behind them as 'motivation.' Milton did quite well on the lead but little Patch fought and fought and fought!! When he finally did get in the fence Papa sat down and let him tire himself out on the lead rope until he stopped fighting it. J ran to turn the fence on and we watched while the calves learned electric fence. 

Milton checking to see if Papa had anything to eat. 

Yum.. green stuff!! 

Ah.. this is what we were looking for!! They are about a month apart in ages.. Milton being older. Patch is very small though for his age. I wonder if he will catch up! We shall see! He sure has attitude!! 

New Bird On The Place!

Seems to us this is a male/female set but we can't figure out what they are?? 

They make a funny sound... almost like they are throwing up (nasty I know) while sitting up in trees! (Mating call??) and there are about 12 of them around in a flock.

Bird Houses :)

Well this weekend we had a extra day and we got a couple extra things done! 

One was the bird houses got put up! YAY!!

L under the tree with his birdhouse. 

J3's bird house.. he was asleep when we put them up but he knows this is his. 

Each birdhouse has a letter on it.. J's has his name as it's short enough to fit :) 

E supervising Papa putting up her bird house.

J chose one of the last pine trees on the place for his birdhouse! 

One of the extra 3 went in this big old spruce tree beside the house! 

One of the few trees Papa and I want to keep around the house.

R wanted hers on the chick barn. 

There is also one on Papa's shed and another poplar tree right behind the house.

8 new bird houses! I was a bit worried we'd be too late with Spring all of a sudden showing up but there were birds fighting over at least two of the houses the next day!! YAY!! 

The kids are very excited to see if their bird house gets chosen and if the birds like the locations they picked! Time will tell :) 

I will HOPEFULLY keep you updated.. I'm able to sit for short periods of time these days but it's going to get even busier around here for the next oh.... 6 months :) lol.