Monday Morning Update

Well, Easter 2010 is almost packed up and put away for another year.

Wendy is coming out for dinner tonight and that'll wrap things up for us, but what a fun time we had. In case you live under a rock and haven't see our pictures, you can find them here...

Easter Flickr

We made cookies, ate cookies, dyed eggs, hid eggs, found eggs, ate candy, played new DS games, watched all the Mummy movies had a great dinner and went to bed early!

Ok, so listen to this.

Remember last year when I quit sugar and caffeine and quit smoking?

Well I started again with the caffeine and sugar sometime in the late fall, but I never started smoking again.

Anyway, after watching a few to many "where your food comes from" movies I am completely grossed out by meat and dairy and have given it up. It wasn't even hard to do, every time I thought about a steak I just invisioned a broken down old cow in a feed lot standing in poop up to his ankles, and then how long it takes for said cow to get to my fridge after he's been cut up and wrapped and then how long he sits wrapped in my fridge before I put him on my grill.

Don't get me wrong, I would still eat meat (I think) if it came from my pasture but the thought of eating it six months after he's been knocked off still kind of gives me the heebes.

Ok, I know you think I'm nuts, but here's the deal...

We haven't had any meat or dairy for almost two weeks, well, a smidge of Parmesan on pasta, but that's it and really, I feel pretty good. I've even been making my lattes with vanilla rice milk which means I don't need to flavor my coffee with sugary syrups, and I even made cookies with rice milk.

We've been eating a ton of veggies, nuts and fruits and having fish for dinner.

~Be sure to only buy wild fish not farm raised.Gag~

Here's something amazing that has happened.

The dark circles I've had under my eyes my WHOLE life...

Gone.

Maybe I've had an allergy to dairy all along and just never knew it.

Also, the best part is, I don't feel all pusy, pudgy puffy anymore.

I can see my ankles and my face isn't bloated like a Macy's parade float.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fatty, just not a bloated fatty.

The first few days were a b!tch. I was really sick and I think I may have even been a bit cranky.

Don't ask Wyatt, just take my word for it.

It was the same way when I quit caffeine though.

Ok, thats enough about that.

Now for some

BIG NEWS!

My niece Fahren got engaged over the weekend!!

I am SO happy, you can't even believe it!

I love first weddings, they are so exciting and so fun.

I remember mine like it was yesterday.

I am dying to see the dress, and find out what colors she chooses, and see how she wears her hair, and what color she polishes her toenails and rather we'll get to eat fish or chicken and what the wedding cake is going to look like and where they'll go on their honeymoon and where she registers and what am I going to get them, maybe I'll crochet them a rug or make them a lifetime supply of soap or crochet them matching grocery bag bags, there is just SO much to think about!

I know, I know, she isn't my daughter and it isn't all about me, but it is kind of about me and it's even better than Wendy getting married because Fahren's fiance has a job and a nice family and a drivers license!

I think I'll get a perm for the wedding : )

Bacon and Eggs

This week when I've gone out to feed and collect eggs I have been repeatedly disappointed at the lack of eggs the ladies have been leaving me.

I wondered if it was the weather, or if I needed to turn their lights back on, or maybe they were striking over the same hum drum diet.

I just couldn't figure it out.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday I went out earlier than usual and things were still pretty quiet in the barnyard.

The goats were still asleep in their boat and Gina the cross dressing rooster was still on the BBQ*.

As I started rustling the feed bags and filling the buckets everyone quickly came to life, everyone except for Pearl that is.

I looked all around and didn't see her anywhere so I began calling her name, casually at first but then a little louder as I began to worry.

I was sure she would stick her head out of her house at any moment, but there was no movement in the pig house.

Then I heard her.

I heard her, and then I saw her...

Coming out of the hen house.

That sneaky pig has taken up residence in the hen house which must be like a 5 star bed and breakfast for a pig.

Comfy cedar bedding, wood floors and fresh duck eggs every morning.

As she emerged from her new digs covered in shavings, she looked at me as if to question my intelligence, like maybe I'd never seen a pig with good sense.

But there was still the question of the missing eggs, Pearl can't reach the roosts.

The pig house.

I stuck my head head into Pearls abandon crib, and sure enough, up on the snack shelf, sat a weeks worth of eggs.

Apparently the hens got the hint and packed up and moved out, and I suppose I better keep an eye out or there's gonna be a pig in a king size fully adjustable craftmatic with heat and massage taking over the remote.

*Gina SLEEPS on top of the the BBQ.

Water Woes

A few weeks ago I received a letter from the county saying our water system for the mobile spaces was in violation.

I wondered what the problem could possibly be and called right away.

The problem was, no samples had been taken since the system was put it forty years ago.

I talked to the people at the county who were very nice and explained to me that it was a very simple process but that I may want to have someone show me how to do it the first time.

I called up the local water guy who knows the property and has done all the maintenance on the well and septic for years, and before he did the work, his father did all the work and was the one to originally put the lines in place.

The first thing I noticed when he arrived and stepped out of his truck was that he was handicapped.

I felt badly as he made his way towards the pump house in the cold and rain struggling to not fall over and wondered to myself why he didn't use some sort of assistance like a cane or walking stick.

It wasn't until he got to within twenty feet of me that I realized that he wasn't handicapped.

He was drunk.

Very Drunk.

As in drunk as an f'ing skunk.

He smelled about as bad as a skunk too.

Great.

Oh well, he did what he needed to do and showed me how to take care of things and get samples and as far as drunks go, he was one of the nicer ones I've met.

Part Two:

There hasn't been any outdoor water from the pond to the mobile spaces for the last few months because when it was so cold last winter #6 disconnected the pump wires so that nobody would go and flip the switch to turn the pump back on and burn it up when the lines were frozen.

Let me re-phrase "nobody" to Jackass know it all, further referred to as just Jackass.

~Jackass has lived in the mobile spaces for many years and has appointed himself king of all things~

The day 6 left for Iraq, Jackass headed straight to the barn to reconnect the pump.

Not having any idea how to reconnect the wires, he just started connecting them willy nilly and only stopped when sparks flew and and smoke billowed.

So, do you know what that means?

NO outside water from the pond.

Do you know what else that means?

Jackass will not be able to wash his cars, his house, his driveway, his dump truck, etc...

Do you know what ELSE that means?

I'll tell you what else that means...

It means that f'ing Jackass has been using binoculars for the last month to look and see if I'm home or not before he washes his cars, his house, his driveway and his dump tuck with well water!

Jackass figured he was really cutting a fat hog and pulling one over on me.

He decided he was so smart he would brag about how smart he was to his neighbor.

I decided he's pretty stupid if he thought the neighbor wouldn't rat on him

Busted.

Now I just need to figure out my next move so I can catch him in the act without revealing my source.

Soaking

Ugh, enough with this weather already...

I know, I shouldn't complain.

We didn't get piles of snow this year and we only had that one week of bazzilion degrees below zero when we almost froze our a$$es off but really, this wind and rain has got to stop!

Every time we get a gust I'm sure it's going to be the one that blows the top off the barn, and the rain makes the ground so slick I feel like Tonya Harding figure skating out to the henhouse.

My floors look like we've been guest hosting the Oregon Zoo with all the mud that gets tracked in and my little little green clean machine is about ready to go t.u.

It just can't keep up.

I think when we replace the floors we'll go with something waterproof that has a drain so I can just hose the place down.

The other problem is that as soon as it quits raining and the sun comes out the grass is going to grow faster than my waistline and you know what that means...

John Deere and I will begin our summertime love hate relationship.

I will love the fact that I'm not pushing a mower and hate the fact that I'm riding one.

How is it that #6 made all this look so easy when he did it and I'm pretty sure it will be the death of me???

Seriously, the inside stuff and a flower bed here and there is plenty enough for me and now I have to figure out how to do all the outside stuff too?

I think the place is going to look like Sanford and Son by the time 6 gets back next winter.

And then, to top it all off, Wyatt has been home for the last week AND today for spring break.

Remember all of those tender endearments about wanting to home school because I miss him so much when he's away?

Yeah, well scratch that.

I'm ready to enroll him in boarding school in Switzerland.

I hear they have great health care there.

No Moo

I'm not quite sure why, but recently I have become repulsed by meat, eggs, milk and cheese.

Why do you suppose that is?

Last night I made an omelet for dinner and found myself puking in my mouth a little as I cracked the eggs into the bowl. Then, when it was ready and we sat down to eat I was so pukey all I could eat was my toast.

It. Made. Me. Sickypoo.

This morning I made my latte and that made me gaggy.

All I could think of was my latte being dispensed from cow boobs and the article I read about the pus levels in milk.

Ohhhh ... It's happening again.

Gag.

Last week I started thinking about meat.

Figure this...

A cow from some place far less than a lush green meadow is knocked off and sent to the cut and wrapper.

Then it's put on a truck and sent to the market.

Then it's more than likely rewrapped and shelved.

It sits in the store for a day or so.

You purchase it and take it home.

You may or may not eat it that day.

Lets just for arguments sake say you toss it in the freezer for a week or so or more.

Now you take it out and thaw it in your sink for the afternoon or in the fridge overnight.

The ground beef your having in your spaghetti tonight could be almost a month old, IF not more.

I'm forty two years old and for the first time in my life, the food I eat grosses me out.

I feel like a great big pusy lump of fetid funk.

I went to the store today and bought rice milk and a bunch of veggies and when I walked down the meat isle I got a huge case of the heebes so I spun around and bought some of those dumb garden burgers and some "tofurkey."

Now don't go thinking I've lost my mind, I'm not going all PETA Green Peace or anything, I just think I'm going through a phase.

I'm sure I'll be back on track and ready for a big thick grilled rib steak real soon, but for now I have to go get some air, this post has made me pukey.

Tax Time

Today, is farm tax day.
I NEVER put taxes off this long, but this year my plate has been full and taxes are the peas that I pushed to the side to eat last.
If you have been reading my blog since the beginning of time, you know what tax time on the farm was like before my Grampy moved to the big barn in the sky.
He would get EVERY slip of paper he had collected throughout the year and make 507 stacks on the kitchen table.
Tax preparations usually started in early January and would end with an extension sometime mid Mayish.
He would have receipts from the sausage egg mcmuffins that he shared with the dogs on Tuesdays and the receipt for the new washer for the faucet for the sink in the utility room.
There were stacks of every electric bill (big house, little house and barn) phone bill, cable bill and car insurance bill.
Saved slips from the dogwash, the barber shop and every restaurant we patronized during the previous year, and for months they would make the daily slide from one end of the kitchen table to the other to make room for every meal, and without fail my Grampy would say these words, "Beans and Rice that's alot of GD paperwork, I need to get that sh!t together and into the tax lady."
Except, he didn't really say beans and rice.
Or GD.
And he didn't really spell sh!t with an exclamation point.
Needless to say, I have simplified the process.
I will use my Mac and be done in about thirty minutes and then take my folder into the tax lady.
I might even take the dogs to McDonalds on the way home just for old times sake.
So, I would love to sit here and talk to you all day, but I have sh!t to do.

Peas~

Another Great Day!

Holy Cow!!
My mail man lady must think I'm a rock star with all the packages I've been getting :)
Today in the mail I got a cat door from my friend Sara who read on my Never blog that I may or may not need a spouse to install a cat door in the pumphouse.
Boom!
She fired one off in the mail to me THAT day.

I'm excited to put it in, but I may wait and have my friend Becky do it when she comes for a visit.
She's really good at handy work like that, and you know what Red Green says...
"If they don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy"

Wendy is coming for dinner tonight!
Well, she said she was coming so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I didn't tell Wyatt just in case.
That way, if she does come, he's happy to see her and if she doesn't come he doesn't think she's a buttface liar.

I swung in to the feed store today to get a pin for the pin to hold the wagon on the lawn mower, so Wyatt doesn't have to ride in the front of it to hold it down.
While I was looking through the gagillions of hardwarey pieces I heard the faint sound of chics in the back of the store.
Well, of course you know the rest of that story...
Two white ducks are now in the tub with the chickens who got their walking papers to the brooding room in the henhouse last night, but they rallied against me in protest.
I am only one but they are many.

This is one of the new baby ducks.
I bet you would keep these guys in your tub too.

Wyatts home, gotta go,