Boys...

...  You never know what they will pick up for treasure...

I was sitting at the desk working on a menu plan and Lincoln came walking by on his way to wash his hands.  As he walked by, he tossed something at my feet (a strange odor followed the thunk it made).  "What in the world is that?!?"  I asked him - "A horse hoof..."  (The farrier was here trimming the horse and donkey's hooves today)

I just went outside and on the porch there was... a jawbone of some animal (complete with teeth), a hammer, some branches, a fence post, a metal stick, a garden shovel...  oh, and mud... they've been busy today!

All right, guys...

... enough is enough!!!  Two nights in that box with that little noisy guy are two too many!  Tonight I'll do my grandpa duty outside of the cage!

Bedtime for Snowball

Running with the dogs

We let Snowball out in the yard this morning after his bottle so he could run around after being closed up in the chicken house most of the day yesterday and in the cage with Ladd overnight.  One of the babysitting kids arrived this morning and the dogs ran to greet the pickup truck.  The lamb followed right along with them -

Guess who is back to night time feedings...

This morning we found this mama sheep dead in the pasture and her baby was trying to adopt himself out to a different sheep who already had twins

So what else were we to do but bring him in and give him a shower (yes right in the middle of our lunch dishes - we had been away most of the morning and had run home to eat a quick lunch before heading out again - don't worry, the sink was washed well ;) )

All we had was a calf bottle

Just a little too big

So we gave him some milk from a medicine dropper (we had lamb milk replacer in the freezer just in case)

 

And headed out to a graduation party (yes, we brought him along...)

We stopped at a grocery store on the way and bought a baby bottle - a much better size for him!  The graduation party was on a farm and in a shed, so he wasn't too out of place - the hosts were very gracious - and the lamb was well spoiled!

Our very patient resident grandpa very kindly offered to take the night shift so baby Snowball doesn't get lonely!  I doubt if he will be willing to do the night time feeding, though!

A bunch of pictures

Gorgeous moon rise

Our newest class (the 5 girls are taking lessons and then they are giving Lincoln lessons)

Making pretzels

Spinning girl

Moving our meat chickens (as opposed to our egg laying chickens who get to live in the chicken house)

A bittersweet day (this is a controlled deliberate burn) - the house my dad was born in was burned down today - but a our friends who live there now have built a beautiful new house to live in.

Inside of our bluebird house

An update on cooking by ear...

Todd walked into the house for lunch today, and the first words out of Garrett's mouth were, "Mommy isn't a good cook anymore, she got too much salt in the salsa!!!"

The good thing is, when you cook by ear, if you make something that isn't so good, at least you won't be able to make it the same way again.  Of course, that also means if something is really good we won't be having it exactly the same again, either...

Glad we live on a hill!

We've heard of several people with water in their basements :(   I'm sure some places have a lot more water than we do, but this is the first time we've had this much water in our pasture since we moved here.  We're glad our water is only flooding our pastures and not our house.  A big difference from a few days ago!!

This was taken at about 12:25 - notice where the white fence post is in this picture

This was taken at about 1:00 - look how far the water has come past the white fence post

The view out our dining room window.  Normally you can't even tell there is a creek down there!

This is the creek the kids were wading in 4 days ago - and it was about at their shins

Keeping the lights on

Todd came home from the hardware store the other day with a box of 4 of the old style 100 watt lightbulbs.  He was thinking we were getting low on them, and for a while they were getting hard to find, so he thought he should pick up a box while they were on sale.  Abigail went to get one to replace a bulb that had burned out this evening and found... 150 of them...  I think it's time to do a little inventory.

A little of this and a little of that

I don't do a very good job of following recipes.  Very rarely do I follow one completely, and when I do, most of the time the kids remind me that every time I follow one it doesn't turn out very well.  If they see me with the cook book open, they often ask me if I am cooking by the recipe or if I am changing it and then sigh with relief when I tell them I'm doing my own thing with it.  (If I am cooking something I've never tasted before or if it is a complicated recipe, I don't wing it, but I stick with pretty uncomplicated cooking so there isn't too much to mess up.  I also usually follow cake and other baking recipes pretty much).  My mom always told me that if I was using good ingredients, whatever I put together was sure to taste good.

Anyway, Sunday afternoon the kids took a hike in our woods, and I was working on some book work that needed to be done.  All of a sudden there were murmurings about being hungry and I looked at the clock... it was 5:30 and the natives were starving after their hiking and splashing in the creek.  Todd asked me what we were having for supper.  "I don't know... Popcorn?" I asked.  The natives were hungrier for something more than that so I started slam banging around the kitchen and Todd started trying to follow my plan... (If you hadn't noticed, there haven't been any menus posted on here for a few weeks... that's because I haven't been doing my meal planning... and that's why I was in that position at 5:30 in the evening).

We had some leftover rice in the fridge, some Kielbasa, and some other odds and ends which I started pulling out and dumping in the skillet.  Todd watched in horror (well maybe not quite horror, but disbelief)  as I did my thing.  (He doesn't know how many times I have been in this exact same position when he called and said he was on his way home from work and I had no idea what was going to be for lunch or supper... and he works 7 minutes from home...)

We sat down to a nice Cajun black beans and rice supper in about 15 minutes and Todd announced that it was pretty good.  I asked him if he had doubted me and he replied that he wasn't sure how it was going to turn out... Laura said, "You must not spend much time in the kitchen with her, she cooks by ear."

Exploring and splashing

 The kids took a hike to (and through) our little creek yesterday and took the camera along.  Here are some of the pictures they took.

I jump, you jump, we all jump...

...for ice cream.

We decided to give this a try this morning for snack time.  As you can see, it was a success!

The kids decided the best way to shake it was to take turns jumping on the trampoline with the ice cream

Yummm!!!  (Yes you see a couple of extra little ones in this picture.  The girls have started "Little Critter Sitters" - don't you love the name, :) - they are babysitting a couple of little boys today. )