Adventures in Babysitting

It's Friday, and do you know what that means?
Babysitting day!
Friday is the day that the neighbor Butch goes to some big farm where he can't take Baxter so I get to babysit him ALL day!
During the week I just get to babysit when Butch goes out for the evening or goes to school, or goes to the store, but Friday is an all dayer and he's here in the house when I wake up.

You see, when we met Butch he had a black and white dog just like our black and white dogs.

His name was Cassidy and I got to babysit Cassidy all the time and Cassidy and Bart and Buddy were like the three musketeers and they would play until they dropped.
But then one weekend Butch was working in Central Oregon and there was a terrible accident on the highway and Butch lost Cassidy.
It makes my heart hurt to even tell you that.
But now Butch has Baxter

And everything is coming into balance again.
The big boys love to play with Baxter and Baxter does his best to keep up, but it's never long between naps.

And that's when he and Pooter spend their quality time together.

Everyone knows short legged dogs love a good nap.

So that's what I'm doing today.

Yesterday we cleaned the garage and thank gawd for Craigslist.

We had people here to haul off our old broken dishwasher and Wyatt's old mattress and saved us having to take them to the dump.

I hate taking things to the dump especially if there's any chance that someone else can use what you're trying to unload.

Reuse and repurpose.

That's how we got Gary the roof ram.

We traded a bunch of old chicken wire and some garbage cans for him.

Repurposed Ram.

Anyway so today is also clean the upstairs day because......

We have company coming on Monday!

It's some big motocross weekend thing somewhere around here this weekend and so that means Val and Kate and Joe and whoever else can fit in the truck will be here Monday night!

I am SO excited to see them.

Val and I have been friends ever since she gave me  a bloody nose in the fourth grade because she didn't want to hold hands in the lunch line.

That's all, I have to go smell the puppy now.

Peas.

End of Summer Update

What a summer it has been!

I knew it had been quite a summer, but looking back through photo’s to post really brought home just what a summer it has REALLY been!

Lets start with first things first.

I am going to be a GrannyMa.

Yes, you heard that right, a GrannyMa.

To a real live baby, not a sheep or a pig or a donkey baby, a real live person baby!

Wendy has been very busy this summer making a baby and she should be done sometime around the end of February.

Can you even believe that my twenty-seven year old baby is having a baby... I know, I can’t either!

So with the biggest news out of the way we can move on to the other stuff.

Maddy came for her summer visit the last week of June and it is AMAZING to me how much she grows each year. Six see’s her throughout the year, but I only see her when she’s here for her summer visits so the change is DRASTIC. 

Seis and I have been together since the kids were two years old so I have obviously seen a lot of change in Matilda but this year pretty much knocked me on my money maker. 

Seriously amazing.

As soon as she got here we got busy with all the usual stuff.

Swimming...

 crafts

 and cooking. 

But the biggest thing for Maddy this summer was Bruno.

Wyatt aquired a few parakeets that he is nutso about and Maddy was really into how into Wyatt was over his bird and she developed quite an interest in  birds too only her interest leaned towards cockatiels so before you know it Bruno came to be Maddys new best feathered friend ♥

Bruno was a little hand trained when he came to us and that made Wyatt a little more nutso, so it wasn’t long before he had his parakeets all hand tamed and since then has become known as the Birdboy of Beavercreek. 

I can tell you all about the visions I have of him living upstairs with thirty five hundred birds drinking MiO and eating donuts when he’s thirty.

Our shoer Randy took a big flake on us and all of his other clients this summer and fell off the face of the earth.

It turned out to be the best thing ever though because we got Butch the new shoer who is now the new neighbor and we LOVE him. You know I love him because we cleaned out and fixed up the little house for him and we had pretty much agreed to let the little house fall to pieces around all the crap that was being stored in it because the last people we rented to turned out to be one f’d up mess away from a reality show.

But then came Butch and he changed our minds the minute he asked us if anyone lived in that little house next door.

He moved in two weeks later.

This part is very hard to say and I’m only going to say it once and then we’re not going to talk about it anymore.

There was an accident in the driveway and Butch’s brother did not see Pepper and of course since Pepper was blind he did not see Butch’s brother and that's all I can say about that.

Rest in peace beautiful Pepper bird.

We sold of all of last years sheep except Belle and Judy and found a new little brown ram Gary.

Gary is great although it seems he has some kind of magical powers as we discovered him on the barn roof late one night.

What's up with that?

We sold Molly to a home for young women with special needs and they LOVE her!

They will use her as a "therapy mule" and she will be ridden and worked with daily and really that's what it's all about right, having a special purpose.

This is Molly the special purpose mule the day she started her new job.

After Molly left I talked VI into to getting llamas again.

We talked to enough people to be convinced that we don't have the "M" worm that is fatal to llamas because there are a gagillion llamas that live around here.

Meet Tony and Dolly, aka The Llamas.

I super love The Llamas.

We adopted six Sepastopol geese.

Fluffy Butts.

But Lucy had problems with her legs and couldn't walk.

So she slept in the dog crate on the porch and would come inside a few times a day for "hydro therapy" in the bathtub and hang out and watch T.V with us.

Within a week or so she was good as a brand new goose and back out with the others.

Lady Bird and Lyndon had two healthy ugly babies!

A boy and a girl.

They have their feathers now and are almost ready to leave the nest.

Wyatt and Maddy had to help pull tansy ragwort weed in the pasture.

Maddy learned to crochet and made baby booties and a baby hat for her Aunt.

And we got a new peacock Blu.

I think that's all, but I know that it isn't but for now it's all I can think of.

OH!

I'm having the worlds biggest casserole swap!

So far there are only three entries.

Post your recipes here in a comment, on facebook in discussions or email them to me.

I will choose a recipe at random at the end of the month and the winner will get a brand new thirty year old Sears and Robucks rag rug made out of BRAND NEW thirty year old sheets sent to me by Megryansmom and some soap and a candle too!!!

In October I'll make a special section of the blog devoted just to casseroles.

Chicken casseroles, beef casseroles, vegatable casseroles, rice casseroles, noodle casseroles, hot casseroles, cold casseroles, dessert casseroles, fruit casseroles, NOTHING but casseroles, so hurry up and get your casserole recipe in!

Peas.

On Summer Hiatus.


Peas Everyone!

Spring Cleaning

What a beautiful morning!
I went on a walk around the pond with the dogs, the cats and a few sheep this morning and it was so pretty down there with the water rushing from the creek into pond and everything is SO green.
Maybe spring is finally here.

The new farrier came yesterday and he did a GREAT job.
I guess everything happens for a reason and losing our flakey farrier may not have been the worst thing that ever happened to us.
The new kid definitely knows what he's doing.
His brother owns the horseshoer school in this part of Oregon so his techniques are the newest and the best and he is VERY patient and steady AND he has a black and white dog AND he resembles my nephew who I believe is one of the greatest men alive under the age of thirty so as far as I'm concerned the kid has a lot going for him.
So that's why when he told us he was going back to college in the fall and looking for a place to rent we didn't hesitate in offering him the little house.
It's ten minutes from the college for him and twelve hoofs for us.
Plus, the rent money will come in handy towards farm maintenance and if we don't do something with that little house it's going to fall apart.
I believe if a house isn't someones home it won't last so I'm excited to have someone over there again.
And...
If someone who knows something about animals lives there we can leave town for a few days.
The down side of all this is that now we have to do a major cleanup over there.
That little house has turned into a general storage area for the last year or so and will require a little elbow grease (Angie Hillier) to get it back in shape.

Speaking of elbow grease...
I spent the entire day yesterday working on our white stone wall.
You can't even tell I touched it today.
WTH.
Someone HAS to have a stone cleaning secret other than muriatic acid.
Brenda said to try scrubbing bubbles, so that's on today's list.
I've tried, steam, bleach, vinegar, lemon and TSP.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
I think after the fire in the early eighties they must have either sand blasted or pressure washed the stone and then neglected to seal it because it is SO porous and completely unfinished.
I would hate to paint the stone (although I have seen stone like this painted white) but it's not only dirty, it creates so much dust.
Maybe I'll just take the lightbulbs out of that part of the house and call it good.

I took this a few nights ago after our crazy storm moved through.

Have a great weekend.

Peas.

Craigslist Constitution

We got Wyatt a "new" bed yesterday.
We were going to move him back into the big room upstairs but after assessing all the work it entailed we decided against it and decided to just give his regular room a little freshening up.
Six years ago he went from bunk beds to a waterbed that we bought on Craigslist for 75.00 but now because of his hipandkneeandlegandfoot pain it's hard for him to get in and out of, so we're putting it back on Craigslist for the next kid who needs a super single carolina oak waterbed with a lighted headboard and handy shelves.
After going back and forth on how to redo his room we decided on a loft bed and thought it would be cool for 6 to build it.
We found free plans on the internet for the exact bed we wanted, but after doing the math realized that even a DIY bed was going to cost some cabbage, so once again, I'm happy to report, Craigslist pulled through.
Last night 6 went on an interstate bed run (across the bridge) and returned with a sparkly new full size Ikea tromso loft bed for less than the the cost of lumber!

(Not our room or bed)
Cool huh!

Two weeks ago our dishwasher finally bit the big one and we found a brand new fourteen year old dishwasher for 40.00 on Craigslist.

The lady that had it didn't like dishwashers so it was only used on holidays when her kids came to visit and then she died and the kids are upgrading the kitchen before they sell her house and we got the deal of the (last) century.
As a matter of fact when we did our kitchen facelift three years ago we did it all from Craigslist for under 250.00 and that included a stove, dishwasher, cast iron sink, pull out faucet and lights and the lights were free from one of the oldest churches in Portland!
We got our new mission style flowered furniture on Craigslist, two cats, a dog and a desk on Craigslist, two donkeys, a mule and rubberneck chickens on Craigslist, a 1996 Taurus wagon on Craigslist and a blackberry on Craigslist.
I wonder if there's a twelve step on Craigslist.
I may need it.
Peas.

Weekend Update

I think we may have had the perfect long weekend.
Not to much lounging and not to much working.
No flooded tents or crowded campgrounds.
(because we didn't go camping)
No waiting in traffic and looking for parking to see the parade.
(because we didn't go to the parade)
We just stayed home.
Well, except for the mini road trip with my mother on Saturday...
Saturday morning Wyatt and I went with my Mom to see her friend Irene about a bird.
You see Irene had recently purchased four birds from a breeder and was willing to cut us a sweet deal because for a very long time I have been wanting a canary and in honor of a certain day that my Mother and I spent together forty three years ago she gifted me with what was in the beginning going to be one but ended up being a pair of red factor canaries.
Have you ever heard a canary sing?

(This is not my bird)


I love them.
Lyndon and Lady Bird.
The Johnsons.
Thank you Mom and thank you too Irene.

These are my birds.

Ummm, I don't remember what we did Sunday.

Yesterday was sheep redistribution day.
All the rams went to new digs, including Big Dan.
It is so hard to say goodbye, but we had to or we would have ended up with a bunch of inbred cross eyed five legged lambs and I since I don't fancy myself a castrater and didn't want to do in Dan at this stage in his life we decided to sell them all at full strength.
I'm pretty sure we will have another round of lambs this summer, but I can't be certain.
I hope so though.
In the meantime, hearts are still mending from the sudden loss of testosterone and the weight is heavy on Jack the little Ass's withers as he looks after his newly acquired harem of shedding ewes, a short legged gypsy goat, an obese food focused pig, a temperamental senior white donkey and one cranky old spotted mule mare.
I tell you, PMS in this barnyard must really be a bitch.

I have a new farrier coming on Thursday.
I gave up on our regular one who has COMPLETELY flaked out on us for the last month.
As I said on facebook last week, I have ex-husbands more reliable than that guy.

Speaking of facebook, if your not on the farm facebook and don't already know, there are new soaps and some great soy tarts just listed on Etsy so you need to go take a look!
You can either follow the farm store link at the top of this page or just click HERE.

That's all.

Peas.

Bad Bra Blues

I hate buying new bras.
I just spent all of Wyatts lunch money a fortune on two.
One fits, one is pure mayhem.

And why is that... Why can't they all fit the SAME!

My armpits are bleeding as I write this, I'm going to need sutures to heal, but if I even try going "comando" I end up with sweat rings on my thighs.

So throw those new two in the drawer alongside all the other bad bras I own and I could open a roadside tourist attraction.
You know, like the biggest rubber band ball, I could have the biggest
(in more ways than one)
bad bra ball and I could display it in the front yard by the gate and sell tickets and refreshments and have Pearl the Pig and Belle the Sheep out there proclaiming their independence from the underwire.
They could be standing in a pen with signs on their back saying they'd rather wear a hot wire than an underwire.

All I ask is this, why can't someone make a comfortable king size bra?
It doesn't have to be pretty, an equivalent to the tighty whitey would be sufficient for me.
Something without stainless steel or too much spandex, just nice cotton containment.
Seriously, is that asking too much?