Oh my goodness! It feels like forever since I have posted here again! I thought we were busy in the last post? Ha! That was nothing.
My oldest daughter was back from Tomah for about a week before she left again. This time she went to San Antonio, Texas (her first time on a plane. Her mommy cried.) with her youth group from church. She had a great time. They left on the 30th of June and then got back on the 5th of July. Then she was going to leave on the 7th for Nashville, Tennessee. At least I thought they were leaving on Sunday. At 8:00 in the morning her advisor called and asked where she was. I was like “Um, in bed.” Well, lo and behold, they were leaving on Saturday morning! We had got home after picking her up at 11:00 or so the night before. Had a load of her laundry in the washer that needed dried but no time. I told her advisor for them to go ahead and go on, I would catch up to them at some point. We got her packed (with wet laundry) and out the door in 30 minutes. It was horrible. We caught up with her group a little over 100 miles down the road. Did you know I have a pilot’s license and can make my van fly? Neither do the cops, so don’t tell them, okay.
So I didn’t have time to be sad that she was leaving because of all the chaos. But I was sad. So she was in Nashville until Thursday with FCCLA for a community service project that she did with another girl this past year. It was the No Kid Hungry project. They raised money for our school’s Paw Pack program. This program sends food home with needy students on Friday after school so that they have some food to eat over the weekend. We lost our funding from the area food bank and now it is all donations. So they competed against 7 other teams that were invited to the National Competition. Which was awesome. They got a Silver medal for their project and now it is growing this year and Elizabeth is the chairperson or something (I really can’t keep up with it all right now) and they are going to take it to bigger and better places this year. She is really excited about it.
Meyer Family
The rest of us left our little homestead on Wednesday morning to go to Nashville to pick Elizabeth up. We got there about 9 (at the hotel) after almost getting killed between two semi trucks. So we decided not to get out anymore that night and had to wait until the next day to see her. We picked her up after her recognition ceremony, spent one more day in Nashville and then started home. We camped on the way home and had a good time. First vacation we’ve had since before Kevin and I got married and that was in 1996. Ugh. It was interesting.
Kids playing in the river at Silver Mines campground
Daniel learning to use flint and steel to start a camp fire.
Got it.
Hiking up to Silver Mines
Elizabeth had a bit of a culture shock going from the Hyatt Regency hotel in San Antonio and the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville to camping. But she did it. I really think she was just happy to be with her family again. We were happy to have her back with us.
On the home front. Let’s see. Before we left we had a snake try to get into my redneck duck tractor to eat my baby ducks. I had put the newest baby ducks out there, but realized that they were smaller than the others when I had moved them, so they could stick their heads out of the little squares. Well to me that is just putting them on a platter for the cats and the dog. So I took some wildlife netting and draped over it and held it down with bricks. Gabby came in one day after playing on the swing set (about 5 feet away from the ducks) and said there was a dead snake by the baby ducks. I was working at the time, so got up and went out with her. *shiver* I seen the snake there and was turning around to go get Kevin but he was already on his way out there.
Snake tangled up in wildlife netting by my baby ducks
The snake all stretched out. Yuck.
(Kevin didn’t like this picture, but it’s the only one I have showing how long it was. Sorry Kevin.)
This thing was pretty big. We don’t know if it was just a black garden type snake or a king snake. All I know is it tried to eat my babies and got itself caught up in the netting and killed itself. I had just moved them and been out there a few hours before. It also gives me the willies that the kids have been playing out there around it. Ugh. I know that those snakes aren’t going to bother the kids but still. We do have a bigger one somewhere because I accidentally stepped on it after taking the goats back to the pasture. It was stretched all the way across our one lane road/path thing and still had parts of it on both sides. It was pretty big in the middle where I stepped on it too. I shrieked and ran like the girl that I am a little ways away and then turned around to make sure it wasn’t following me. I know, I’m such a girl.
So the turkeys and the roosters that we are growing out are getting big. Yay! It will be about butchering time for the roosters.
Turkeys and roosters
On that last batch of chicks that we hatched and had 8 live, I do believe that 6 of them are hens.
The 8 chicks, hopefully 6 are hens.
So those along with the other 4 from the hatch before that and one from the farm store that survived we have our replacement laying hens for next year. So we will be retiring the laying hens we have this fall probably when we do the roosters. They are three years old and are slowing down on the egg laying.
Our first batch of ducks have gotten so big. I can’t believe how big they are.
On hatching ducks I have learned at least one thing. I read that you shouldn’t play with baby ducks too much for like the first 3 days or else they will get overly attached to you. But I read this about a day and a half after our first ones hatched so then I was trying to keep the kids out of them for a bit. But the brooder was on the floor and they kept going over and picking them up. Well those ducks are fine. No problems with being too attached or anything. Nice calm ducks. The next ones we hatched, I had the brooder up on a table so the kids couldn’t bother them too much. I think that was a mistake. Those ducks are the flightiest things.
The Three Stooges
I think the one that is almost all dark is a chocolate color instead of black. That will be neat. Then the one is all solid white. Hope a few of all of these ducks are females.
I go over to give them food and water and they just run back and forth in their tractor bumping into each other like the Three Stooges. They are nuts. Hey, I think we are going to name them after the Three Stooges. Just thought of that. I don’t normally let the kids name the poultry because around here with all the wildlife, you just never know and I don’t want them to really get attached to them. But these guys are just asking to be named Larry, Curly and Moe even if there are some girls in there. So I know what we are doing the next time we hatch out ducks. Letting the kids play with them.
The goats are doing fine. Always hungry like normal. Well, they think they are hungry. Silly goats will eat themselves to death if you let them. (Sorry didn’t get any recent pics of the goats. I put them out to pasture today and they were all confused because the hay was gone.)
We finally got the hay done. The friends that do it for us and we split with them had quite a few places to bale and he works full time so it took a bit longer. And the stupid weather wouldn’t cooperate long enough to give us hot, dry days. But it is done. We have double what we got out of it last year which is awesome. We finished putting it up yesterday and sold the last 30 bales to a friend because they wouldn’t fit in our shed.
Hay in shed.
After looking in the shed I think we could have fit those 30 bales in there but Kevin would have had to get the first 15 or so out for me. It’s going to be tough as it is. It goes up to the roof of the shed.
I checked on my zucchini today. I haven’t been picking the squash bug eggs off of it since we got back from vacation because I knew they got attacked while we were gone. So at this point it is a lost cause. I might pull them and plant some new. But I got this pic today while looking for any baby zukes.
Frog on zuke leaf
See that baby frog of some sort on the leaf. He scared me. But not too bad. I wish he would eat the squash bugs or at least those eggs he’s sitting beside.
Well, I think that is about all I have to update here at The Funny Farm. Sorry for the extremely large post. Hopefully things are going to slow down a bit, but I’m not holding out any hope for that.
Tracy's Funny Farm 