Monday, April 7, 2008

Farm Happenings, and a lot of it!



I'm back! Last week was a whirlwind- a good kind of whirlwind filled with lots of exciting things.

April, 2nd- We survived the morning o' chicks. Jason promptly received a phone call at 6 am from the post office and off he went. And off I went straight to the coffee press to get into the java groove.

....Chicks in a box....

He arrived with boxes packed neatly with chicks. We unloaded them, dipped their beaks, and showed them where their food was. They are doing great! We've lost a few here and there, but that is to be expected with 300 chicks.

....Jason unloading the chicks....


....the brooder house....

If you are wondering what the purpose of these birds will be, the answer is for eggs. Jason has plans to build a ginormous egg mobile that will follow behind our cattle. The purpose of this is to help cut down our fly problems and to fertilize the pastures.

After the morning o' chicks, I headed off with some dear friends of mine- Shauna Maness being one of them- to Warrenton for a fun day of antiquing, chatting, eating, chatting- you get the point. I was one of four girls who went and the only one that wasn't expecting so you can imagine there was lots of chatting and eating! Shauna and I go waaaay back. I met Jason through her and will be forever grateful. I'm so thrilled for her and Brandon and cannot wait to see them as parents.......in Texas!! Yee Haw!

I had such a blast. I found a few cool things. I will post pictures of these later. There is also a very interesting purchase I found pictured below from a later trip to Warrenton with my hubby.

I was one blessed girl. I went antiquing to Round Top and Warrenton a total of 4 (FOUR) times!!!!! That is an amazing perk to living in Brenham.....one of the many perks (blue bell being one of the others). I told you I've been a busy gal!

April, 4th- We celebrated Laney Rae's birthday with friends and family. I had a very low-key party. I'm NOT really a fan of having enormous parties for first birthdays. We had a very small group out to the farm, grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and did the rest of the stuff that all good birthday mom's do- smash the cake and open presents. The picture below really sums up what it is like being the birthday mom of a one year old.


....Me, admiring the gift. Laney Rae admiring the curly ribbon....

April, 5th- Bib received another friend!!! Our other female goal, Louise, had her kid. She is a female that Kaylyn named, Bambi. She is absolutely precious.

....Bambi....

I have to say that baby goats are the most precious baby animal around- bar none. I've never seen another animal look this cute from birth. Bib and Bambi seem to be doing really well and are experiencing new life together.

....Bib and her momma....


....Friends....

....The baby Daddy....

Also on the 5th, Jason, me***, my mom, and Kaylyn made the last and final trip to Warrenton.

Jason loaded the truck down with chicken coops. I always love the looks we get as we are loading our truck full of coops. Fancy women dressed in straw hats with giant beaded necklaces around their necks wearing sunglasses as big as their entire face pass by with perplexed looks written all over them.

One lady asked me,"What are you going to do with all of those coops?"

I know she was expecting me to say something ultra creative since we were smack dab in the middle of the creative capital of Texas. Something along the lines of "use it for flower pots" or "organize shoes" or "make a magazine rack" or "paint it really funky and make it into a cat condo" or "jewelry box".

But, instead, I answered her,"We are going to put chickens in them."

"Oh, really?" she exclaimed as if that were a new concept. She probably would have been bored if I would have answered that I was going to make it over into a funky cat condo.

This, my friends, is a gutting cart.

It was one of my Warrenton Antique's Fair purchase. I didn't know it was a gutting cart. I thought it would be a great garden cart. See the opening on the end? Can't you just imagine me shoving dirt off the end of it into the flower bed? And the little table shelf up on the top- can't you imagine me potting a plant with my dirt resting below? I was so excited about this 'cart'.

Apparently this was used in a pork processing factory to carry guts off. I found this out as we were loading it up. It doesn't sound near as cute as a gardening cart. But, oh well. I'm sure we can find a good use for it out here. We got a great deal on the 'cart'.

April, 6th- Uncle Durward and Aunt Debbie came home yesterday. We love it when they come home. The farm feels complete with all of us being together.

Aunt Debbie is an incredible lady and a gardening machine. I can't even take credit for the garden looking this great. I have loved getting work alongside her and learn from a garden pro!

We've been doing lots of work out in the garden last week and this week. Really, the garden in general is an ongoing process. We still need to get some more things in the ground for the spring and summer. Last year we had an abundance all at one time so we are going to do a few different rounds of planting.

We had some perfectly poo-filled hay and made compost hay out of it to help keep the weeds down and the moisture in. It has helped tremendously and makes the garden look pretty.



.....Potato Patch.....

.....Onion.....

.....Herb Garden.....

April, 7th- We just got back from taking photos of the girls in the wildflowers. That was exciting! Crawling and photography don't work well together. I can do sitting up or walking- but crawling not so much.

Check back for the final product soon!

Meanwhile, the pigs have been lounging around a lot more with it warming up while we've been working harder and longer outside. I'll leave you with Dudley, our male pig.


***I still can't figure out the proper use of 'me' 'my' or 'I' in a sentence. Especially when referring to another person and myself. It gets me every time. Is there a nifty little rhyme to help or a rule I should follow. See sentence with the *** for an example and help a sister out!

I do not guarantee the proper use of words, sentence structure, or spelling. After all, this is a farm blog. Right?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Friend!

The farm looks great and Jason's chicken coop is amazing!

I have to teach you the great rule for me and I...
"I" is always before the verb (in the front seat of the car), the verb is in the middle seat, and "me" is in the back seat, after the verb. My students would decorate cars that we made into mobiles to practice sentence structure.

I can't wait to see the pics of the girls!! I still need to take Addison's 4 year pics. call me soon!

Heather

Sarah Shalley said...

The explanation above is good, but could still be confusing without examples.

Here is what we English teachers use --

I and me are prounouns. A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun.

I is a subject pronoun. (Use this when you are doing the action)
Subject pronouns are used when the pronoun is the subject of the sentence. ______ took out the trash. I, you, he, she, it, we, and they all fit into the blank and are, therefore, subject pronouns.

Subject pronouns are also used if they rename the subject. They follow 'to be' verbs such as is, are, was, were, am, and will be.
EXAMPLES: It is he. This is she speaking. It is we who are responsible for the decision to downsize.

Me is an object pronoun.
Object pronouns are used everywhere else (direct object, indirect object, object of the preposition). Object pronouns are me, you, him, her, it, us, and them.
EXAMPLES: Jean talked to him.
Are you talking to me?

When listing a group of people, we should list ourselves last. The trick is to, in your mind, remove the other people from the sentence and see whether or not you would say "I" or "me" when ONLY referring to yourself.

You wouldn't say "me went to the restroom", but would instead say "I went to the restroom".

EXAMPLES:

ORIGINAL SENTENCE: On the 5th, Jason, me***, my mom, and Kaylyn made the last and final trip to Warrenton.

WOULD YOU SAY - 'Me made the last and final trip to Warrenton' OR 'I made the last and final trip to Warrenton' ???

SHOULD BE WRITTEN: On the 5th, Jason, my mom, Kaylyn and I made the last and final trip to Warrenton.


*Make sense? I have a ton of other exampes and exceptions. :) Anytime you have an English/Grammar question...send it my way! If I don't know, I'll ask all the other super intelligent English teachers that I work with.
Hope this helps. LOVE YOU!

ps - Those baby goats are the cutest things that I have ever seen!

QuiltedSimple said...

Couldn't point you in the right way on grammer - looks good to me. Love the "gardening" cart, chickies and kiddies - you've been 1 busy lady!!! We hit 70 yesterday- whoo hoo!!

Take care,
Kris

Anonymous said...

Another is: if you drop the other person does it still make sense.

Jason and me went to the store? _________ Me went to the store... you know it should be Jason and I went to the store.

The cook the baker and me ate all the cookies = me ate all the cookies... should be the cook the baker and I ate all the cookies.....

Your blog is sooooooooooooooo well written. I would not worry about it.

Connie said...

Honestly...I had to stop reading the comments b/c I had the beginnings of a panic attack coming on..."me"and English don't jive.

I use "......" instead of comas because I have no idea what the comma rules are but I really don't want to know....I prefer "...." b/c it requires no mental debate whatsoever.

I don't care if people think I'm dumb. Takes the pressure off. But I do admire all of those who know all of the rules.....I just know that is not God's plan for me.

See how nicely "....." slipped right in?

Nice gutting cart. I think it needs a flower painted on it. That might help the healing process my mind has to go through now that it knows that pig guts once lay sloshed all over it.

Anonymous said...

I was going to give you a lesson in grammar, but I see it's been taken care of already... good.

Jennifer Bacak said...

I'm not going to give a grammar lesson, but tell you I love this blog.
I love the way you roll.
I love your farm, and I still haven't seen it.
Y'all are super cool.
jenn

sugarcreekfarm said...

Those goats are so adorable! Makes me want some :)