Senior Swimming

Here's what I learned about water aerobics...

1. Don't wear your cute cruise suit to class because your boobs float out and your skirt covers your face and you lose your spot.
2. Seasoned water aerobicisers are very serious about their spots.
3. You can't hear directions so you  have to copy what everyone else is doing and if you don't do it right your neighbor will quickly correct you. 
4. Old people are stronger in water.

Walking from the showers to the pool was the longest walk of shame I've ever done. It was a cross between Miss America and the final loser on The Bachelor. 

I was all by myself in my fabulous suit with thirty waterlogged seniors staring at me, and even after I got in the pool, no one talked to me, so I just started talking to them, which was no easy feat because they're all half deaf and the music is blaring, but I just kept talking. 

By the time the class was over I felt like I'd earned their trust and they had accepted me as part of their group.

Even though they hadn't heard a word I'd said.

I love the class and even though I can't go in this morning, I'll do the 6:00 class tonight, which really blows, because the morning class will think I'm a quitter, and I'll have to do another walk in front of another group, except this time I won't be in a cruise suit, I'll be in swim shorts and a swim top so I won't be a vag flasher when we do the scissor kick.

Yesterday I walked on the treadmill for 60 minutes.

Small potatoes for everyone else, huge milestone for me.

Last time I was near a treadmill I had gone in for my stress test and before I even stepped on the stupid thing they had me locked up in the Hospital for three days.

I haven't told my doctors what I'm doing, but I think they'll be really proud of me.

Last Friday was Chick Day!

Hunter and I went to town and got ten chicks, so that will make twenty two layers by the time they get up to peek manufacturing, and I'm going into the egg business.

Right now I'm getting more than we can eat, but not enough to sell so I either need to get up or get out.

I don't think there's big money to be made in the egg industry, but a little "pin money" will be nice.

Hunter loves the chicks and wants to go out and do "chick checks" about every fifteen minutes and each check consists of counting the chicks and holding his "favorite" one.

Can you spot his favorite?

Neither can he, they're all his favorite.

The tree guys are coming today.

I have an out of control Italian Plum tree, two run away dogwoods and a Japanese Maple that's taking over the driveway.

They're also going to prune my roses and the fig tree that one of our renters destroyed "pruned" for us five years ago.

I'm excited to see the results, I imagine it will go something like this...

I'll also be listing some Etsy goods and restocking the shop today, and reformulating the lip balms.

The last batches had shea butter in them which goes scritchy when they get cold and warm up again, so I went back to the lab and reformulated and ended up too waxy so today I'm back at it with a new plan in hopes of finding the perfect formula.

I'll let you know how it all works out.

Blahging About Blogging

My very best blog friend 4 Shoes is back to blogging!
You really have no idea how happy this makes me, she has inspired me to blog again and now I want her to blog every single day!
It seems as though most of my circle of blogs fell out of the loop somewhere along the line and moved to the ever expanding, thought sharing, junk food shaming, over memeing, totally addicting, soul sucking Facebook.
There I have watched children grow, marriages come and go, holidays celebrated and meals prepared.
It is so satisfying and such a quick fix, but here's the problem, I have no reference on my life.
I don't post about the happenings of my day or the funny or horrible or horribly funny things that happen and even more often don't happen in my own life.

When I started this blog it was The Trailerparks Farm.

It was a place for me to post every day about what was happening within my family and for my family as I cared for our aging grandparents, but it quickly turned into a thing that I loved to do and I found a community that made me laugh and sometimes even cry as they shared their lives with me and the rest of the world.
And so, I blogged.
And blogged.
And blogged.
And blogged.
And then, I stopped.
And now I have no reference to the things that have gone on in my life, except for what sticks to the sticky part of my brain and the BIG stuff that I would remember anyway.

I want to get back to my blogging basics and start posting all the boring stuff.
Pictures of cats, crappy arts and crafts and I want to talk way too much about the kid that calls me "Tranny" because he can't pronounce a hard "G".

And I suppose if I talk too much about that stuff, you could just click out and go find something interesting on Youtube or call your mom or something.

And I guess if you're one of the thirtytwoeleventeen people that end up here because you think I'm the Dirty Jobs Fat Bottom Farm (I'm not) you will figure it out and keep looking for them on Google
(They're not there) and just for the record, our farm is NOT named after their farm, we were fat before they were on T.V and our fat bottoms are donkeys not goats.
Jack asses, fat donkeys, fat asses, can't say fat ass on the internet, fat bottoms, Fat Bottom Farm.
Donkeys.
And I do make soap, but I do not make goats milk soap because I do not have goats.
I have donkeys.

And a pig.

And sheep.

And dogs and geese and chickens and some cats.

None of which would make very good "milk" soaps so I stick with the basic home made, cold process milk free soaps that you can buy here at the Fat Bottom Etsy.

So, what all of this has been about, is, I'm going to try to get back to some basic blogging, and if most of my other blogging friends are gone, I hope to make a lot of new blogging friends who like to talk about a lot of boring stuff and look at pictures of cats and kids and crochet projects, and cake, and soap and failed craft projects that would have been better off just left looked at on Pinterest.

Sound good?
Good!

Peas.

Fat and Juicing and Other Stuff Day 6

Wow, I have to say, so far this has been an amazing experience.
After six days, most of my joint pain is gone. I still have the pain in my ankles in the morning, but I think that is due more to being fat than anything else.
My hips and knees feel great.
Also, I 'm still sleeping like a rock and feeling really clear when I wake up, and let me tell you, that may be the biggest gift of all.
I don't have the huge amounts of energy yet like I thought I would, but that is probably because of my rotten heart and has nothing to do with my diet.
Who knows.

I have slowly introduced some protein.
Lean organic red meat, chicken, some fish (fresh or Costco white albacore tuna) and of course my personal favorite, lentils. Not a lot of protein, just one a day and I have decided that when I go back to my regular every day diet, I will be a "clean eater".
No processed foods, no refined sugars and for me, especially, no gluten. I'm not a celiac and probably not even gluten intolerant but I think I have a HUGE problem with inflammation, and because of my rotten heart, exploding arteries and arthritis, inflammation is not my friend and Wonder Bread and Pop Tarts seem to really poke the inflaming bear.
So no gluten.
From what I've been reading about clean eating, it's pretty basic, don't eat crap.
I can do that.
I'm starting a Pinterest board that will have recipes and ideas, so follow that for some inspiration.

Egg Nog, the Christmas chic that Millie decided she had to hatch in the dead of winter is on the pasture. Of course when he hatched my brooding room was filled with everything except room for a chic so he hung out with his mother in the pig house and then migrated to the dog house after his mother split. We turned the heat lamp off yesterday and he is out in the big world fending for himself now. He's little like his mother, a Mille De Fleur, but red like his dad a Rhode Island Red. So he's a little red speckled, feathered footed roo. Very cute.
I think he's going to grow up and look similar to this.

I woke up yesterday to a heard of sheep in the yard.
Wyatt claims that Bell, the boss sheep figured out the latch on the gate.
I say he left the gate open when he closed up the chickens the night before.
Bell's not talking.

I spent the day with Wendy and the Very Bad Baby yesterday.
You'll be pleased to know that even at three, he is still a very bad baby.
I think Wendy is in waaaay over her head with this kid and I'm also half convinced that he has her outsmarted and outfoxed most of the time.
She stepped out to the driveway to meet us yesterday and he ran around behind her locking the doors.
Oh well, you know what they say, payback is a bitch, and she sure paid me back for the torment I caused my family, but it is so fun watching the hand of fate play out with her!
I've got his number though, the biggest part of his bad babiness is his charm, and once he turns that on you're in big trouble and better just buckle up and hang on.
Now, if we could all just figure out how to resist that charm...

Peas.

Honey

I'm going to the Goodwill today to buy some pretty cups and saucers for soy candles.
What's your favorite scent?
Floral?
Fruity?
Fresh?

I think I'll start with a few fresh, floral fruity ones!

Wyatt makes these.

And rings that say love.

Speaking of love...

Millie hatched an egg.

Not her own egg mind you, a stolen egg.

Millie has wanted children of her own for years, but has never been able to have them, so a few weeks ago I lifted an egg from another hen and slipped it in her nest.

Millie can't have children of her own because she's not a coop chicken like the rest of them, she's a free ranger (she's too little to be a coop hen) so she's never around Red the Rooster.

So she lays duds.

Until now.

Now she has a baby of her own.

Honey.

Because she's so sweet.

Peas.

Spring Fever

I feel like I'm turning into the the crazy cat lady goose hoarder chicken farmer sheep herder.

Kittens

Olive had a surprise batch of cats that are so ugly I almost think she hooked up with a raccoon.
It's a good thing that there are only four of them and that we decided to keep one, because I think they are going to be pretty hard to rehome. We're going to need to find three soft hearted really ugly kitten lovers.
The half raccoon, grey striped, pointy faced, big whiskered twins are the worst and the third one looks exactly like their mother with long stringy black and white hair. There may be hope for her.
The fourth one, Chocolate, is brown.
I'm not kidding.
Brown.
Have you ever seen a brown cat?
Me neither.
So we're keeping him.
Mainly because Wendy's baby licks him every time he holds him.
Because he thinks he's chocolate.
And we think it's funny.

Wendy's baby licking the cats

Chocolate and Astro 

Cat Camo

Chicken

We had a late hatching goose this year.
Wyatt found her cold and freshly cracked in the pig house where the geese had made their nest and laid their eggs, but all the other eggs had hatched and they had left their nest days before.
Wyatt brought her to the house and we put her in the bathroom under a heat lamp and helped her through the night. She bounced back fine, but we soon discovered that she couldn't walk. Her hips were all wonky and she could only turn in circles.
Wendy's baby imedietly named her Chicken because he didn't believe us when we told him she was a goose.
So Chicken started going through extensive physical and hydro therapy and before long she was up and at em' playing with the dogs and the boy.

Here's the problem...

I have been letting all of the geese stay up near the house because of our my dysfunctional attachment to chicken. It's hard for me to let go, but she's befriended the real geese and wants to be with them so I have been letting them all graze in the yard and swim in the pool and poop on the patio...

Well, too bad so sad, they geese have got to go.

Gross.

Do you know how much geese poop?

Exactly how much geese eat that's how much, and I'm pretty sure it goes straight through. 

In one end and straight out the other.

So it's back to the barnyard for Chicken and all of her friends. 

No more cuddle time on the couch watching her favorite shows with the boy, no more sneaking snacks in the kitchen while I'm cooking and no more dips in the tub.

I have got to get a grip and let her go.

I may need a twelve step.