Getting Them Off The Porch!

It was a long hot summer, but fall has finally arrived!  It is nice to have daytime temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s again.  I hope to get out and get some major cleaning of the coops done this upcoming week.  I also need to put some rafters on the run of my breeding pens and roof it. I need to get the last of the babies off of the porch.  They are to big for the brooder now, but not really old enough to put with the adults.  I had far too many males hatch this year, I needed females...still need females.  I need to do a head count.  I want the young chickens off the porch...the flies get awful quickly because they dump their food a lot.  I am tired of cleaning up the poop trays too, they play with the waterers and water gets in the trays, mixes with the spilled food and poop, then you have a fly breeding nightmare.  I try getting the poop trays cleaned every few days, but it doesn’t always happen and then the maggots come, and then the flies.  Lots and lots of flies.

Cleaning the poop trays is one of the worst things I have to do, especially if the waterers leak or rain comes in heavy from the north and fills them up with water along with the feed and poop.   I have switched the young chickens on the porch to fermented feed now, so that helps a little...but if the dogs startle the chickens and they start flying and food sprays everywhere and babies are hitting me, biting me, and landing on my arms while I am trying to put the feed in their dishes, I can get splattered pretty badly.  I forget to check myself sometimes before my husband gets home, sometimes I have it on my eyebrows or glasses, or in my hair.  I wash my hands and arms when I get in the house, but that is usually at the kitchen sink.  What is really bad is when I am trying to remove a poop tray, with the wet poop and feed mixture in it and it is heavy and falls and splashes all over me...I have learned to keep my lips pressed tightly together...so nothing gets in my mouth, but I am battling flies at the same time.  Gross, huh?  I don’t know why I hate cleaning the liter boxes for the cats, when I can do the poop trays without gagging.  It may be that I have to do it so often and to so many coops it just doesn’t bother me that much any more....it is still one of the nastiest, most gross things I have ever done.  So yeah, I need to get the babies off of the porch!

On a more exciting note...my husband wrote a book!  He finished it...I did the cover art for it and it is now on Amazon.  It is just an ebook that can be downloaded and read, but it is a start.  He has started another book...the bad part for me is trying to come up with a character without reading the book.  I guess I may have to read the next one prior to trying to create the cover art, and I may need to do the editing...but it has been so long since I have played any type game like World of Warcraft that I just don’t remember that much about it.  My head can only retain so much information for so long before I replace what I know with new more relevant information to my current projects and interests.  Since  we moved to the country, I don’t have time to play computer games, nor can I sit for long periods of time doing it.  With the degenerative disk disease and my feet swelling the way they do since my foot surgeries, it is just too painful for me.  I worked on the book cover all day Monday and have paid dearly for it all week, but I needed to get it done.  I had to use three different computer programs to do it, and I had to figure out each one!  I actually drew the characters, but scanned them into my computer, used Coreldraw to color them and put a bit of details and shading...they are cartoony, not realistic.  But, to save time, I used an actual photo and manipulated it with photoshop, oh and the characters too because I wanted to place the characters without a background or paper in the photo, then after using some of the style features to make it look like a watercolor...I put it into Illustrator to add the text and some shadowing.  It was far from perfect, but...like I said, it is a start.

I decided not to plant a fall garden, just some corn and a few squash...I need to get things cleaned up, hauled off, build a retaining wall, get some more drainage work done, prepare the coops for winter, probably build a duck house...just a small portion of things I need to do.  Anyway, I need to get busy...always lots to do here on the farm and we need to mow, weed eat and trim bushes before it rains.  That and feed the critters.

Company Coming!

We don’t have company very often, not really...and this time we had company three weeks in a row!  It is always good to see family, my youngest son Mitch usually comes out to the boonies with his family every 3 to 6 months and most of the time that is it...this year his wife’s mother Janet came to visit too.  It was for my granddaughters birthday...hard to believe how fast time has flown, the oldest just turned five and has now started kindergarten.  His youngest daughter is a hoot, she is a tiny little thing, both of them are smart, funny and I love them to pieces!  It always is wonderful hearing the sound of children’s laughter and the pitter patter of little feet through the house...and the squeals of glee.  I always wanted a little girl, I was unable to have more kids after I had twin boys (I had three boys)...but my granddaughters are pretty special to me.  My youngest granddaughter started walking at an early age, and she loves to dance...she is a tiny ball of pure energy and just remembering watching her wiggle and sway to the music brings a smile to my face even now.  I actually got to see them two months in a row!  First for Madeline's birthday and then for Eden’s.  Janet seemed to have a good time out here too, we chatted a lot and she liked it out here enough that she is thinking about moving to Texas.  Out in this part of Texas, a calm comes over you...my way to explain it...once you hit tall pines on the highway it is just serene, the smell of the pines and cedar hangs in the air and everything seems fresher and more alive, houses are few and further apart and the rolling hills, the ponds and cattle grazing makes you long for a simpler life.  We had birthday parties for both girls, although Eden is rather young and hers was mainly just gifts, and Janet could not be here for Edens birthday at this grandmas house.  Mitch, Megan, Maddie, Eden and Janet spent a few days, then Mark, Mindie and Solomon came for the party in July.  It was almost a repeat for August with the exception of Janet.

The weekend after Eddie’s party, we had Crew’s daughter Sara, her husband Mark and granddaughter Ellie come out and spend a couple of days.  We don’t get to see them often either.  Sara and Mark are always on the go...so it was nice to see them.  Grandpa made sure our “redneck” swimming pool was ready for the kiddos and went out with them to watch them.  It was pretty dang hot when they came out.  Ellie turned 3 this year, she is a loving little girl and even though we have not seen each other but a few times I got some good hugs and one on one time with her.  It would be nice to get to see everyone more often...I do miss some aspects of being away from the city, seeing family and having cookouts is one of them...and getting to see my grandkids grow up and change.

Then, believe it or not...my Mom drove out for a visit too!  My Mother is 79...she was a few days later than expected getting here, and it was almost dark when she arrived...so I went and fetched her to get her to our house.  There aren’t a lot of streetlights out here, not too many landmarks to go by and most of the street signs are just numbers, so I met her at the Walmart and we both got gas, stopped inside for a few minutes so she could have a bathroom break and then we took off for the house.  It took awhile, she has some nightblindness and was going slow enough to feel comfortable driving (35 mph most of the way).   We had a nice visit too, it had been almost four years since I have seen her!  We are pretty much tied down with all of our animals and not knowing a lot of people out here...no one to come feed, water and check on them daily or put them up for the night.  It seems like every time I am gone extra time even going to the grocery store or to town to spend the day shopping and running errands something happens.  Anyway, we had a great visit and I tried to talk her into selling her house, getting a tiny house or granny pod and putting it on our land and moving out here.  She is very independent and set in her ways...I doubt she will ever do it, but I think she would enjoy being out here.  She helped me in the garden, seemed to enjoy the animals and although we didn’t get out and about much I think it was a good visit.  She doesn’t really sleep that much though...I guess that may be why I don’t, if I don’t take my Melatonin and Aleve PM!   Mom gave me a bit of a scare too, when she left, we set up the GPS and we thought she would follow it...but, she didn’t.  She was hungry when she left...stopped to eat something and apparently the lady who had lived here in this house before us called us about two hours after Mom left, and said they found her sitting in a parking lot in Linden confused.   She wasn’t suppose to go that way!  Lol, anyway, she had stopped to eat and decided to go back a different direction.  I had told her that Interstate 20 wasn’t as bad through Dallas and she ended up going back that way!