Is this Heaven? No, it's Sparta.

The Farmhouse

"Happy Valley" One of the lovely vistas I drive through on the way to and from my house.

Many of you probaby remember me saying that this place was Hell on Earth back at Christmas time. Well, I was way wrong. Holy fire, this place is amazing! It just gets greener and more glorious as the summer continues!

So, the kids are out of school now. It's early enough in their education journey that they loathe being away from their friends and the excitement of the classroom still. I miss the freedom of having only two little kids at home during the day instead of a team of five at all times. It's harder to go anywhere or get anything done with all of them bouncing off the walls. Here's a fun way to get a glimpse at life at my house. Take a mason jar and pop five rubber bouncing balls into it. Glue a little toy soldier or other miniature figurine to the bottom so it looks like it's standing up in the jar. Slap the lid on and shake it up good. See the balls flying all over, richocheting off of eachother and knocking down the poor little guy inside? The balls are my kids and the casualty of war knocked down at the bottom is me. Man, I can't wait for school to start again! Of course, then the soldier weathering the two remaining bouncing balls has some major bags under her eyes from having to get up at 6 AM... Oh well. Twenty years from now, that soldier is going to be pretty darned lonely in that empty jar.

Clyde & Heidi both finished the year on the honor roll and were awarded medals with their names engraved on the backs. They were so excited! Jack got his pre-k graduation certificate, and is officially registered for kindergarten next year. He and one of his best friends are the tiniest kids in the class and I just melt with stupid mother hormones when I look at him with all those bigger children. He's such a teeny little guy!

Eric is being a stubborn little sucker about potty training, although he's suddenly talking up a storm. He, like his siblings, took forever to really open up verbally. He could spell (and type) all of our names, recognize all kinds of words in print, and get into all kinds of trouble on the computer, but he didn't say much until now. It's so funny to hear his first big monologues coming out all of a sudden. He went from being a speechless toddler to a talkative little person practically overnight.

Josh is a chunky little angel, and actually looks like he's almost eight months old. No one would ever guess he was so early! His eyes are definitely blue and getting bluer everyday. Weird. Everyone but Heidi & Ron (with their dark golden hazel eyes), have big brown eyes. Ron's getting to revel in his "I told you so" glory, since his prediction for this baby was a blue eyed blonde boy in December while I was guessing a brunette girl in November. Crap. Not only was I wrong about our baby for the first time, but he was deadly accurate. Josh was born in October, but he came home in December, so it's oddly on target in his prediction. Anyway, Josh is always cooing and grinning. He's started laughing and eating solid foods now, which makes me want to cry. I don't necessarily want him to stay little forever, but I do so wish that time would slow down so that the itty bitty baby days would last longer. I don't remember him being tiny enough to fit into his preemie clothes already!

So, the circle of life in my chicken coop is ever changing. My adult chickens are gone. We sold Fred and his women to another local farmer, and Elvis spent a week by himself in the coop. He was pretty freaked out and was crowing all the time. Finally we decided to put him out of his misery, and Ron trekked out there with big old knife to do the job. It didn't work. He came inside and sharpened the dog out of that blade, but it still just bounced off Elvis feathered neck. After quite a while, Ron came inside with a shotgun and the news that Elvis had left the building. He brought me a warm, lifeless bird (with muddy little legs jutting out of the bucket) and told me to pluck him while he ran to town with his dad. Oh, and they recommended that I put the bird in warm water to make the feathers easier to remove. After ripping a handfull of wet, bloody feathers out of the thing (what an evil sound that was!), I felt a strong impulse to have a stiff drink before I kept going. I debated this for a while. Do I dare get really plowed before I plunge elbow deep into the bloody water and rip out the rest of these stinky feathers? What if I get reckless in my inebriated state and splash muddy/bloody raw chicken soup all over my kitchen? Feeling fairly certain that the plucking process would result in me puking, I decided to forego the alcohol since it usually results in me puking anyway and two puke-inducing activities together might just make for a very unpleasant afternoon. Not that the afternoon was headed down Pleasant Lane or anything as it was at that point, but oh well. I had most of the feathers off, had broken quite a sweat and was stinking of wet fowl when I determined that his week of solitude had left him quite thin and there wasn't enough meat on him to justify hacking off his legs and trying to cook the stupid thing. I tossed him, the bucket, all the sticky wet feathers I could find and the sponge I used to clean up with into a huge 30 gallon trash bag and took it out to the big trashcan out back. Ron came home with a big grin and asked where Elvis was. I directed him to the trash and went about my business. He was pretty disappointed. He did rescue the bucket and clean it up for me though.

OK, long story short (I say that alot, I know), we've moved the next generation of chickens into the coop now. There are eleven young birds zipping around in the yard, learning how to cluck and crow. Three are from our old chickens, and eight are from the flock of a neighbor of ours. We hatched all the eggs together and sold most of them. These eleven were left over and ended up getting big enough to keep. My Martha Stewart blue egg-layers (Ameraucanas) are pretty chicks with stripes on them and they're out in a cute little playpen thingie that Ron built in the coop with a heat lamp. We turn the light on only at night since it gets pretty hot in the wooden henhouse. I can't wait until fall starts and those guys start laying blue eggs! We were given two duck eggs and six turkey eggs as well, but only one egg resulted in a chick after all of that. I had a stillborn duckling (that was a heartbreaker) that made it most of the way out of his shell and then pooped out. He was a cute little guy with webbed feet and a flat bill. I want ducks now. Crispy Pekin Duck, Duck Confit, Duck L'orange (or however the heck you spell that)... yum. About the time they stop being cute, they start being yummy. Anyway, the bird that lived is a turkey. He seems to have imprinted onto me, since I was the first thing he saw after hatching. He cries when he's lonely, and sleeps on my chest or shoulder when I hold him. I've named him Mr. Bean, which will become Cocoa Bean if he turns out to be a she. He was crying a lot, which I attributed to being alone, so I moved him to a crate that would allow him to see out around him more. That didn't last long, since I caught him strutting across my kitchen floor about an hour later. Weenie. He fits right in around here. We need to get him a friend. I have a batch of tiny quail eggs in my incubator now, and I'm just dying to see those guys hatch! My kids were pretty bummed that I didn't make lilliputian deviled eggs out of them this time (boy, was that a hit!), but I think they'll get over it when they see how cute they are as baby birds!

Well, Ron is probably getting lonely in the living room, so I'd better sign off now. I love and miss everybody! You guys are in our thoughts and prayers all the time and we hope you are as happy as we are!