The Taming of the Ewe

One of "Those" Days!

Today really started last night when Chad was hooking up the trailer to his truck in anticipation of making a trip to Rexburg to buy some hay. When he went out this morning, he realized he'd locked his keys in the truck. No big deal...I have a key to his truck. The problem was that he'd left the key turned in the ignition and the battery was DEAD.

I had no clue that there was a problem until Daniel mentioned something about Daddy having a hard time getting the van out with the truck in the way. I threw on some pants and went out to help. By that time, he'd unhooked the trailer, put it in the garage instead of the van and had the van up to the truck as close as possible (there is a fence in the way). We got the truck started and headed back inside to finish getting the kids ready for the day.

I changed back into my pjs and finished getting the kids out the door. Chad had already said good-bye and had been gone for at least 5 minutes when I looked out the window to check on the kids (waiting for the bus). There was Chad again, trying to tow the truck into a good spot so that he could get the van up to it. The engine hadn't run long enough and the battery was still dead. So while the bus is pulling up to get the kids, we are straining to push the truck. We were no match for it, but were able to get the van closer (barely).

Once he was on his way, Chad had no more trouble. But he was late and couldn't stop at the bank to get the money for the hay. So I took Joseph and Sarah with me and pulled out what he needed. The plan was to be waiting for the afternoon bus to immediately take the boys and the money to meet Chad at work so he could get to Rexburg on time.

WELL, the school called just as the final bell was ringing to say that Leah didn't feel well and thought she might throw up. Did I want to come and get her or just have her come home on the bus? I couldn't load up the kids that fast, and how many times have we heard a child say they thought they were going to throw up and never do it? Besides, Sarah was constipated and I had just given her a suppository that I was waiting on.

When the bus was late (and Sarah still had not pooped), I wondered if Leah had thrown up. It finally arrived and Leah got off with a red and tear-stained face. Yes...she had thrown up...twice. The bus was late getting to the middle school because of it. I'm very sorry for her having to get sick publicly and to have the bus driver get that nice present, but I'm grateful it happened on the bus and not in my van! They can just hose down the inside of the bus!

So she and Rebekah stayed home while I drove the boys to meet Chad. Joseph and Sarah came along for the ride. :) Everything was nice and calm and Leah only threw up once. It took Chad a while to get home because he was over-loaded with over a ton of hay and was sticking to back roads. (He fell off the half-loaded truck once while he was loading it and is still finding places that are sore.)

When he got home, I went out to help him unload. We got the trailer backed up and unloaded and Chad pulled out to park the trailer so we could unload the truck bed. Remember that we recently got a new drain field? That left us with loose dirt. Normally, this time of January would give us frozen ground. But because of the warmer weather, we have MUD. And the truck found a really soft spot, burying the rear driver tire up past the bumper. It was still loaded.

That began the job of unloading the truck on the other side of the pasture from where we wanted it. Meanwhile, we were fighting off two very hungry calves. Once the truck was unloaded and a bit of digging was accomplished, Chad was able to free the truck. That began the job of REloading the truck to drive around the soft mud to get the hay bales where we needed them. It took 3 trips.

At one point, Chad was chasing after the troublesome cows and stepped (fell) right into the hole the tire had been in. He was in mud up to his knee. Maybe it sounds mean, but I laughed so hard I almost fell out of the back of the truck! When a cow fell in the same hole and also struggled to get out, I thought the show was well worth my money. :)

We finally got the hay moved and were driving the truck out of the pasture, so I walked ahead to open the gate. I stepped right into a different mud hole up to the top of my chore boot! I had to pull my foot out and have Chad pull out my boot. Ah...more laughing. And now my foot was cold and muddy. We had to move the trailer by hand and get it out of the pasture.

The best part? That isn't even half of the hay that Chad paid for. He has to go back! It will take two more trips. We are sad farmers, but we laughed a lot. Our coats went right into the washer, including Leah's coat with throw-up on it. The pants and socks still need to be laundered. Chad's shoe came in filled with water because he's sprayed them off. His sock was dripping mud. We both have sore muscles and new bruises.

BUT, I was able to accomplish something during a quiet moment this afternoon. I made this menu chart for our dinners. We chose some of our favorite meals then I divided them into categories and color coded them. We'll pick from our tried and true favorites and add a new recipe every once in a while. Knowing what I'm going to make for dinner has really helped this week!

We expect tomorrow to be boring after the day we had! How was your day?

The whole flock

Back in May we made a 'small' investment and bought a flock of sheep. There was a ram, 8 ewes and 4 lambs. (We are hoping that these sheep will multiply enough to at least get our initial investment back.) Less than a week after we got them, we had a little surprise. A little ewe lamb was spied bouncing around in the pasture! That was one of those nice surprises.



They were quite wild when we got them and did not come close. We knew we had to get them sheared, so we started coaxing them in with grain. It started working, but not without some stubborn sheep leading us around the pasture in circle!

This is the more friendly lamb. She'll be the first one to come up and see what you're going to offer. But she'll run away pretty fast when you put a hand on her head. She got a little too close for a picture here!

We got over 70 pounds of wool off of the 9 sheep. It's still sitting in our shed as we try to figure out what to do with it. Apparently, we just missed the big wool-buying time around here. That figures.

Don't those sheep look so beautiful out there in the pasture? (Now the grass is so long that it's a little hard to spot them.)

Sadly, we lost a ewe last week to an infection. It's a very contagious disease that creates swelling and abscesses in the lymph nodes (sheep and goats are most affected by it). The flock must have already been infected when we bought them. (That is one of those bad surprises.) We've had a vet out and he's OK'd the rest of the sheep, but we're still waiting to see if there are any outbreaks. It's successfully treated with antibiotics, but a vaccination has not been created yet. I'm just glad it's not a death sentence for the whole family of sheep! (That would be a very expensive lesson for us!)

One of the lambs is a ram. We're trying to decided if we should sell him as a ram, or castrate him and keep him. We have him separated from the rest since his hormones seem to be affecting his behavior. We don't want any inbreeding (more than might be there already, that is)! He's got about another week of quarantine left before we feel better that he is not infected.

So that adds to our adventures of part-time ranchers; four calves and a small flock of sheep, in addition to our 15 hens and cats and dog and fish and birds.

For Now

I just finished watching the latest episode of Persons Unknown. It's an NBC mini series and I'm quite fascinated. Of course, they switched the viewing time on me and I missed it on Monday. That's annoying, but at least it's available online to view later (which is what I did this evening). What would I have done 10 years ago? I would have been more than annoyed and out of luck, too.

Chad is working in the bathroom. He's putting up the cement board tonight. Little by little, we're getting this bathroom in shape! And little by little the kids keep coming out of bed. The boys went to Cub Scout Day Camp today. I would expect that at 10 PM they'd be in a deep sleep!

I've been working on cutting out our traditional matching shorts (kids only) to wear with our 4th of July t-shirts. I got the final two pair cut today. The fireworks are in 3 days. I should be sewing...not blogging.

It was HOT, HOT today. All the kids were red in the face at dinner and we had to bring in a stand fan. When I looked at the temp on the thermometer we keep in the back room, it said it was only 84 degrees outside. Good grief! We're going to have to toughen up around here! Or just play in the water a lot.

That reminds me. Sarah played in the baby pool for the first time last week. I scrapped it. Here it is. She's a cute bundle of rolls!

I went to a friend's house to introduce her to the addicting world of digital scrapbooking. She had the program right at her fingertips all along. Now she's on her way to hours and hours of sitting at the computer, letting the creative juices flow. She said her husband will be mad at me now. She may be right! ;)

Joseph is talking more and more each week. Sometimes it seems he comes up with something new each day. He's been saying "Mommy" and "Daddy" for quite a while now. He's picked up a lot of single syllable words. Recently, he's learned how to yell out the window at the dog. With all the other kids doing it, I'm surprised it's taken him this long. But now he gets up on the chair and puts his face right up to the screen and yells, "Maw wee!" (Molly) It's very cute! And this week Joseph finally started calling the older kids by name. Well, only Rebekah actually. He calls her Bocky. It's funny. I think she feels honored. :) Maybe by the end of summer, he'll have names for everyone. Little Sarah is still "Baby" for now.

We are 1/3 through our summer now. This year, the summer seems to be longer than last year. Maybe that's because the sun didn't come out until after the 4th of July last year. And this year we have a lot more to do outside because we have upped the animal count. We did have the lambs and chickens that you should know about already. We incubated some eggs and got a few chicks and then got more from the mill to make the flock big enough. We also have two turkey chicks. They'll be a nice feast in November if we can keep them alive that long. I have pictures of all that, but I'll save that story for another post.

We recently acquired a goat. She was free and we occasionally put her to work on the weeds.

We also took a deep breath and got a horse. Yep. We own a horse. Or she owns us. She's 5 and hasn't been through much training. I guess we're the least qualified to train a horse, but we're trying. We can get on her, with some effort, but she's not really very interested in doing what we want her to. She chases the lambs around the corral sometimes. She's been a bit spoiled, I think. Meet Dandelion. :)

I have a lot more to catch up on, but that's all for now. I need to get up and get something done before bed. It's 10:15. It feels like midnight.

Little Buckaroo Rodeo 2009

It was rodeo time just recently. Our little town holds a rodeo for kids ages 18 months to 12 years. While all of our kids fit into that category, Joseph did not participate in any events. But the rest of them did!

It started with a parade of all the contestants. The rodeo takes up two nights. They had a little over 300 kids sign up this year. I hear if they get 350, they'll have to hold it over 3 nights. Nathan is the kid in the tan shirt, followed by the girls and trailed by Daniel in the navy blue (in other words, our kids are the one who aren't wearing cowboy hats).

Nathan was first to "compete." He had signed up for the mutton bustin'. The poor kid ended up on the toughest ewe in the circuit. He barely got out of the gate before he had a face full of dirt. She was just as rough on the other kids unlucky enough to be put on her back. But he was a good sport.

Rebekah's event was the stick pony race. She was to run around two barrels with her (borrowed) stick pony and come back. Daniel took her to the gate and then she said she didn't need any more help. She darted out towards the barrels as soon as they said "go" and didn't slow down until she tripped and landed in the dirt. Then she just sat there. Apparently, she was waiting for a rodeo clown to come and help her up. We must get the most from the experience!

Next up was Daniel (notice how the sun has gone down?) He was very excited to ride a calf. He's vowed to never attempt it again. The calf and the ewe must have collaborated before the boys got to them. They both dumped their riders fairly quickly. Daniel flew off sideways and landed on his side, with his arm tucked under. He looked to be a little hunched as he left the arena and I wasn't sure he wouldn't cry. He didn't, but he didn't want to talk about it, either!

Leah was last and the most reluctant to follow through with her event. She had signed up for stick pony goat roping. She made Chad go down with her and I wasn't sure she was going to even participate. Then they said "go" and the competitive side of her took over. She ran out to her goat and threw the rope over its neck before the boy competing with her ever got started. Don't mess with Leah.

All the kids that participated got a couple of tootsie rolls from the rodeo clowns and a little silver belt buckle with the rodeo name and a bronc riding cowboy on it. Sp now we have 4 belt buckles kickin' around the house...but no belts to put them on.

But that isn't all we left with. At the end of the rodeo, they have a Chicken Scramble for kids 5 and younger (no parents, friends, family, etc. are allowed in to help). Rebekah and Leah went in. Rebekah hung around the guy with the camera...as if he's going to protect her from the chickens? Leah ran her little heart out, chasing chicken after chicken. When it came to actually reaching down and really grabbing it, she "chickened out." Fortunately (or is it unfortunately?), someone had more than their limit and Leah happened to be standing nearby. So she got her chicken after all.

You'd think she'd been given a puppy. She and the boys lovingly carried it to the van and held it on the 5 minute ride home. She first named it "Sleepy" but by the time we pulled into the driveway she'd changed it to "Sticky Feet." I know of no other creature with that name.

We already have 12 chickens, but if we put this new bird in with the bigger, older ones, there will be a lot of ruckus. So Sticky Feet lived in a cage on the back deck for almost two weeks before I was able to talk Leah into letting him out and seeing if he could survive the cats and freedom.

He now roams the yard during the day and returns to the cage at night. We lock him up to keep him safe from tom cats. He has started eating cat food, so it's not an uncommon sight to see him surrounded by 6 kittens as he pecks to get his meal. This sure is a crazy place to live.

MOO!

It's time for the running of the bulls...Eastern Idaho style. Every spring a local farmer runs his herd down our road, headed for the mountains and cool, lush grazing. Every fall he brings them back so he doesn't have to go so far with his load of hay.



It's spring (according to the calendar), so here is the cattle drive. It runs right past our house. It's kind of exciting. And it gets the dog really excited. (Joseph, too!)

Farm Girl

We were listening to a kids' CD of music today while we rode in the car. One of the songs had some lyrics that went..."Scat like that. Have you ever seen a jazzy cat like that?" It's a catchy, jazzy tune and Leah had it stuck in her head. She just changed the wording a tiny bit.

"Scat like that. Have you ever seen a JERSEY cat like that?"

You can see that we don't have Holstein steers! :)

One year on the farm

October 29th was our one-year mark for living in the new house. It doesn't seem like it's been that long! We've turned into quite the little farm in that year.

We've finally been enjoying eggs from the chickens. This is the 2nd container full of these beautiful brown babies. We have 12 hens, but average about 4-5 eggs a day so far. We got 6 eggs one day this week. We've already given one dozen away!

Leah learned that if you hit the egg on your forehead, it will crack (the egg, not your forehead). It made her cry. I think she thought she was in trouble. Often times, the chickens will peck at the eggs and crack them anyway. But let that be a lesson to all of you...no hitting your heads with eggs!

We recently got 3 more cows in the corral. I know some of you are shocked and some are just slowing shaking your heads. The cows are part ours and part Chad's business partner. That brings us up to 5 head. (Sounds so farmer-ish, right?) All 3 are steers (males that can no longer be daddies). They are much more vocal than the two we already had. I'm sure the neighbors are glad.

Here's a little picture of the "farm" one year after we moved in. It's already outdated, though. We butchered one of the roosters, so we really on have 13 chickens. We hope to be down to 12 soon, when we get rid of the second rooster. Roosters are pesky things.

The kids have enjoyed playing in the pasture all summer. Here is one last shot before the snows come in and bury all the tall grass under a couple of feet.

And isn't this a beautiful sunset? I'm really glad we live here.

An Egg-stra Special Day

We have an egg-citing announcement! We have our first egg from the chickens!

This is a long-anticipated event on the Collett Farm. We'll remember it fondly.

Isn't it a tiny beauty? *sigh*

23,000+ words

You know how a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, you'd better put on your reading glasses! I haven't posted any pictures for a while because my computer was having trouble and I got tired of reinstalling the camera. I've now been trouble free for a long enough time that I was willing to reinstall yesterday. Now we play a little "catch up".

Joseph is growing up! He has recently discovered that he is tall enough to reach the piano keys and make his own music. This is really good, because we can always use a little more noise around here!

Look who's almost the same size as his walker! He is actually using it, too. He's about a week shy of 10 months in this picture. NO. He is not allowed walk yet.

Joseph learned a new trick this past weekend. Isn't he cute? You can't see it, but he's smiling (proudly) under there.

Nathan got upset by something I said while he was doing his homework a few weeks ago, (I never did figure out what it was.) so he started pouting. For those of you who don't know Nathan very well, he is a master pouter. He has stamina that would make Olympians jealous.

He pouted so long that he fell asleep! Please giggle along with me.

Feeding time on the farm. Look at all those cats! Why aren't they out catching mice? Let me introduce (top to bottom, left to right) Nightmare (up for adoption for anyone looking to add free animals to their new farm), Shadow, Trouble (our best mouser and the sweetest cat ever), Tabby, Patches and Fair (she only has 3 legs, but eats like she has all 4).

We've been enjoying the fruits of our labors. Unfortunately, our labor tapered off and so did the quality of our fruit. The peppers and tomatoes are doing fine on their own. Apparently, the watermelon and cantaloupe wanted to be watered. They grew, but not very big.

We also enjoyed the fruits of others' labor, too. Chad parents gave us some produce a couple/few times. Once we had some blue potatoes. They were fun. They reminded us a lot of the geodes we bought on our honeymoon. The kids thought we were feeding them a plate full of mushrooms. But they tasted just like chicken, I mean potatoes.

Rebekah turned 3 on the 30th. She was so proud to be honored on her own special day. She'd requested a kitty cake. I found a picture in a coloring book and did the best I could motivate myself to do. As a 3 year old, she loved it.

Joseph enjoyed the cake at least as much as everyone else!

Rebekah had plenty of help opening her presents. Daniel would have helped if he hadn't been in his room at the time.

We went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair on Rebekah's birthday (purely coincidental...they didn't have it then just for her). Daniel stopped by a local new station's weather booth and got to stand in front of a blue screen.

We let each kid choose one ride. The girls both chose the elephant ride. When I was putting them on, the ride operator informed me that Rebekah was too little to ride without an adult (couldn't he tell she was a whole year older that day?), so he made me get on the ride, too. He said he wouldn't charge me. As I was squeezing my ample behind into that elephant, I was thinking, "Believe me, I'm already paying."

Surprisingly, Chad caught a picture of Nathan as he zoomed by on the roller coaster. That's him in the blue car. I barely got a shot of Daniel on the slide. This was a practice shot because I thought I had some time before they came down. Daniel is at the top of the green section.

Here we are at the end of a long 4 hours. All the kids had a sticker on saying to take them to the lost children booth if they were lost. I thought that was a dumb sticker. Where else would you take them? I wrote my cell phone number on each sticker...much smarter IMHO. (In My Humble Opinion)

We had the Price family stop by for a visit a couple of weeks ago. We showed them around the farm and let the sheep out to play with them.

We tried to get a nice, happy shot of all 9 kids before they left. This is what we got instead.

Sometimes it's a blessing to have a brother. Sometimes it's a trial. Guess which experience Nathan is having. He was wound up in some drapery fabric and got a "friendly" push from Daniel. Darn that coffee table. The bump is gone now, but there is still a bruise and I'm sure it's still tender. In his prayers, Nathan says, "Help my bump to get better."

Daniel has been struggling with some timed math facts in school. To "encourage" (trick) him into practicing, we turned it into an obstacle course/game. He and Nathan raced to complete a strip of 5 subtraction facts, then had to jump a hurdle and circle a cone before coming back to the next strip of problems. There were 5 strips and Nathan was only behind about a strip and half when they finished! (We helped slow Daniel down out in the field.) The next time Daniel did the timed practice in school, he got 100%. He was VERY pleased. And his parents are a little pleased with their creativity.

And there you go. You're caught up with us now (and behind in your chores because you spent so much time reading).

Chad is still working away on a fence that refuses to be finished. He has almost gotten the chicken coop done, too. We're expecting the hens to start laying any time. He's also getting a new calling. Things don't slow down for Chad...they just evolve.

We did some canning yesterday. We've got a batch of pears and a batch of peaches ready to go down to the store room. Therefore, I mopped this morning. It's now a dare for the kids to spill something today. I still have a batch of peach jam to do. I wonder how I can explain this to Joseph?

Holy Cow!

Let me just say that Tuesday was a nasty day. I had invited a woman and her 4-year-old daughter over to play so that we could get to know them better. When she gets here to play, Leah says she doesn't want to play! Great. I'm already embarrassed. (This is the same moment that Chad and his partner are outside with a .22. Read the next post for that info.)

We went downstairs and visited for the next 2 hours.

Daniel was BEASTLY. He was naughty with a grin. I wanted to strangle him. He tried to steal my seat when I got up. He grabbed a chunk of my cheek and shook my face. When I sent him to his room, he sat on the stairs and made me count to three. (Oddly enough, that worked. I can't understand why it does. It's not like I'm going to think of anything new when I get to three!)

He next came downstairs with a set of blinds that had come down earlier that day. I sent him BACK to his room and he came down about 10 minutes later with several of the slats from the blinds CUT OFF!!!! Why is he doing this to me? I'm sure this woman thought I was a very ineffective parent to have such horrid child. OH, the things I could have done to that child if there wasn't a witness nearby!

So as our visitors are leaving, the kids say, "Mommy, there's cows in the front yard!" By this time I've really run out of patience and don't want to deal with any more cheeky children. But sure enough, there were two young calves in the front corner of our yard! So I called Chad to brainstorm with him what to do. Meanwhile, two teenagers are driving around the area already working on that task and do locate the owner. He's had it with these two troublesome calves and offers to sell them. Right about that time, Chad pulls up. So we bought two calves! As far as I can tell, they are both female. They are still skittish and hard get real close to. The guy that sold them to us didn't ever bother to check.

Here are the 2 runaways. They've been named (unofficially) Rose and Peony...in honor of the flowers they crushed when they rested in my front yard.















So now our farm consists of cows, lambs, chicks (growing so quickly), rabbits, cats and a dog. We have other unwelcome pests. (Read on.)


















We are seeing some growth in our garden. We're mostly seeing weeds growing, but we're out there nearly every morning to work on it, so it shouldn't get too bad.















My dad came for a visit on Thursday. He came to Daniel's PeeWee Family Night. The kids love it when Grandpa Peterson visits!















I even participated in the game. Chad got a picture of me in all my glory. If you're truly interested, you can see a page I scrapbooked with it here.