Monday, December 31, 2007

Mrs. Tweedy

Those of you with older kids will know who that is. For those of you who don't she is the wife on the movie Chicken Run who has a check list of who is laying and who is not. Those not laying are turned into dinner, and those laying get to live another day.

Well, I have become Mrs. Tweedy.

We have an obnoxious rooster and a bunch of nonproductive hens out back. I love our chickens but it seems that we are going broke feeding animals that do not do us a lot of good. I spent the morning at the library digging up every book on how to kill and clean a chicken for food. The question now is can we do it? Can we really look into the eyes of our little pets and turn them into soup? Can we clean them with out making a mess of it and have to end up throwing out the meat? I guess you can tune in to see how it turns out.

See you next year.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Christmas Eve Fun

This is how my day started..... at 5:45 in the morning. Do you think they might have been excited? I will say that as a mom I am pleased with their use of safety equipment.





This is my living room before Dad got home from work this morning.









This is my living room with in 10 min of Dad getting home this morning !





We decided to take the boys sledding this afternoon for a little Christmas fun. Notice how both of my feet are safely on the ground.


Both boys wanted to ride with Dad, and some how they all fit on one sled.




They loved going really fast down the hill. I just didn't look!

Friday, December 21, 2007

Merry Christmas To Me

Let's start with ....

How cute is that Santa cake. It is actually made of cupcakes !

I love to order them for school parties. Yes, I am one of those awful moms that bring in all sorts of sugary crap for the kids. I am sure all the teachers and parents love me for it.

Now let me start with the fun morning I am having. I got up today and got everyone out the door and on their way. Even kiddo's to school with adorable Santa cakes intact. Then I discovered 1 inch of water in my main bathroom, and big rat holes where some thing wanted to come in out of the cold. What fun! I know, it could be so much worse. At least with a little clean up I can leave it all for my husband to fix when he gets home. Today is my last day of peace and quite as Christmas break starts this afternoon. I am looking forward to having everyone home and enjoying the family, but I am also trying to fit all my personal time into today. My fireman husband is off this Christmas FOR 3 DAYS straight. We are so excited because we get to spend Christmas like normal people this year. I can't tell you the last time that happened. I guess it could be argued that one would have to be a normal family to have a normal Christmas, but that is a topic for another day.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The Christmas Concert

Sorry the pictures are so dark, but I had to take them from a distance.


Our oldest had his Christmas concert tonight and yes, that is the entire elementary school on the stage. I thought our little one was behaving so well during the concert only to look over and discover him making faces at all the kids on stage. That kid is going to give us a run for our money when he is in high school. I guess it is just pay back ! Santa showed up and handed out treats for the kids. Our big guy, being a pro at this by now, meet Santa with a list of what he wanted but refused to sit in his lap. He just flat out told the man in red that he was to old and big for that sort of thing. We all breathed a sigh of relief when his list matched what the elves have already purchased. Our little one was terrified of Santa. One would have thought we were insane to even suggest something as crazy as sitting on some strange mans lap.

Friday, December 14, 2007

The Amazing New Chicken Tractor


Well, here it is the new and improved chicken tractor complete with 4 pissed off chickens and a very happy rooster. There is still a little work to be done. We plan on painting it and adding a door to let the little guys out every now and then but this is it for the most part. I don't think they did such a bad job considering all they had was one dad, 2 boys, a pile of wood, and some ideas off the internet. Now that we have a basic working design we plan on building a few more for the rest of the flock. We can then move them up and down the rows out in the orchard. Hopefully then we will have happy chickens, no bugs, and a fertilized orchard. I am sure I am asking to much.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Now Would This Face Do Anything Like That ?

I can not get pictures to load right now so scroll down to the shameless kid photo and ask yourself the above question.

I had a very interesting day today. I dropped off my youngest at preschool and headed into town to do what Santa does when no little kids are looking. I picked up a friend and we had a great time buying leg lamps, pretend tools, and candy. When I went to pick up my sweet little angel I was informed that he missed me today. Oh, how sweet right ... wrong. Apparently he decided he missed his mom and if no one would supply her he would just find her. Yes, my son left the preschool building and took a stroll around town. The teachers were franticly running around the school looking for him, and he was headed home. They finally realized he left the building and stopped him before he got to far. You can bet on Thursday they won't take their eyes off him !

Monday, December 10, 2007

It May Not Be Exciting, But It Is Our Life

Silly is sad. I don't just mean he is upset, he is the sort of sad that makes me think he just may lay down and die. We are very concerned and are starting to wonder how long to give him and what to do if he does not snap out of this. I know, I know what do I expect he just lost his girl but I am worried. We are starting to think we may have to get him a girlfriend or take him to live down the road with the other African geese. I say a month and we will know, but then again what do I know about geese.


On another note we trapped another raccoon last night. Boy is this one honking big! I really don't know how he fit in the trap. We are calling the game warden today because I am starting to think we just may have a problem with predators. I am sure he will love to take time out of his busy day to come out here and protect our flock of chickens and a sorry looking goose.

On another note I have great news. I found a dress , well a very special dress. As all of you know I am cheap. Yes, I own up to it. Well, I have been looking for 2 dresses to wear to my brothers high class country club wedding. I need one for the rehearsal dinner and one for the actual wedding. The thrift stores are my best bet at this point. One because I have time to look and two because I don't have a big need for dresses out here in hillbilly heaven. I was at the King's Treasure the other day and found a great dress on the 90% off rack and it fit me perfectly. Now it is long, black, and very sexy so if I gain a pound it is out. The best part of this story is that the dress was sixty cents. Can you believe that ! I am thinking that just might be a good deal. People have been asking for a picture of this dress and I would love to post one, but it does not photo well. I guess everyone will just have to wait until the wedding to see it.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

The Long Dark Night

I have been up since 2 am and the news is sad.

I guess we should start at the beginning.

Last night my husband kept coming in from the observatory and say he smelt something strange and animalish out there. It had been a long day so we just ignored it. Then around two in the morning we were once again awakened by loud, violent goose screams. My man got up and ran outside only to find two scared geese. Right before his eyes one of them was snatched into the darkness. I am going to say I think it might have freaked him out just a bit. He ran inside to get a gun and I joined him. I sort of thought something had gone wrong when the goose screams went from 2 birds to one solitary animal. We went outside and found both geese, only the girl goose had no face........ Yes, you read that right she had no face. I will say that I was horrified. She was stumbling around and the boy goose was trying to comfort her. It was such a sad sight, and we had to shoot her to put her out of her misery. We loved that goose and it was such a painful thing to do, but her brain was hanging out and she had no chance. Now this is the worst part. When we shot her the boy goose looked at us and started to cry. He is wounded also, no doubt from trying to protect his girl. We hope he has a good chance of making it through but after a night like that who knows. We sat up trying to decide what on earth could do such a thing and have come to the decision that it must have been a bear. We are heart broken and will miss Lucy terribly. Now to break it to the kids.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Update

Thanks to everyone for sticking with me through the shameless kid photo. You know that we parents are required by law to do that several times a year. On another note Lucy is doing well. She seems to be healing up nicely and has started honking at us and acting very obnoxious again. We are all very pleased to announce that the culprit has been trapped and relocated. He now has a nice home in another canyon, and much to the disappointment of my children has not been petted. The chicken tractor is still under construction. The men around here took a short break from working on it in order to complete the award winning rocket but are now talking chicken again. I am sure we will have another lull in the construction for the completion of a pine wood derby car .. but they have a few weeks before that becomes critical. Christmas is in the air around these parts, and I am becoming more busy than I prefer. I look at the calender and all I see is ink. I love this time of year, but often feel as if I can not do all that is required of me and my family. Such is life........

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen we have a winner


Our oldest son won second place at his first Boy Scout rocket derby. He is so proud and so are we. The directions told us to " lubricate the rubber bands", so we did. I guess no one else read the fine print because the Scout master was shocked at the presence of vaseline. Let's just say that they were less than thrilled and spent a good deal of time washing their hands.


Oh, and so far so good with Lucy. She is holding her own and we are optimistic about her out come.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Just plain sad

My first post for December is a sad one. Last night ( when my sinus infected youngest child was sleeping for the first time in I don't know how long) something attacked one of our geese. We woke up to hear the most terrible goose screams and my husband ran outside only to find what we believe to be a raccoon on top of Lucy, our girl goose. Silly, the boy goose, was doing his best to protect his woman and it all amounted to a giant animal rumble in our back yard. Lucy is " hurt real bad" as my youngest son puts it, and we are all very worried. I am particularly worried that the raccoon will come back tonight to finish off the job. I hope she makes it through, I have become quite attached to that obnoxious animal.

Friday, November 30, 2007

First Snow ... Busy Family

Sorry it has been so long since we posted anything. As you can see we have been quite busy. Along with the first snow comes a ton of work, and a little play. We have been building snow men, sledding, and all the other essentials. Oh, and I have been drying A LOT of clothes, gloves, and shoes in the mud room. I love it all and it just confirms that there is just something magical about the first snow. I will tell you that the chickens do not share our love for this white stuff from the sky and have been bunkered down in the chicken house. I don't think a team of wild horses could drag them out into it. The geese on the other hand are right at home in all this. They are playing in it as much as we are. Sadly enough yesterday the weather warmed up and all this beauty was replace with rain. The chickens are now happy !

Friday, November 23, 2007

A Happy Thanksgiving

I do have some great pictures of our day, and then I am off to tackle the giant piles of laundry.

Well, this about sums up our Thanksgiving ! We all had a great time and everyone is worn out. It was really wonderful to see everyone and to play with our niece until she passed out.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Amour

Friday is it, THE day.

On Friday it will be 16 years since my handsome husband took me as his bride. I must say it is going to be a less than romantic day filled with preschool Thanksgiving lunches and early elementary release for a long Thanksgiving week. It does, however, make me reflect on the wonderful life we have had together. We have been in Alaska for the salmon run, in New England for the fall leaves. We have been through earthquakes, blizzards, and the birth of 2 lovely boys. We have lived by the ocean and in the desert, on a mountain, and in the city. It does seem that no matter where we go the best part is we are doing it together and I can't wait to see what is next.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Ode to Dinner


Meet Dinner.........


He is a problem..........

Lets start with we never planned to get a rooster. We wanted to stay with laying hens. Well, as you know life never goes as planned. This spring we all piled ourselves in the truck, went to the feed store, and bought some laying hens to replenish our sorry looking flock. They were of course one day old chicks and all so cute. Well, as they grew we started to realize that Dinner may be a rooster and so we jokingly named him Dinner. Now we usually stay away from naming our chickens because it seems like those are the ones that always get eaten by something. So we though our problem would be solved. If any one would get knocked off it would be the little one with a name..... then no rooster. As he got even older he became so pretty and he was ( at the time) soooo sweet. We came to the conclusion that it could not be so bad to have a rooster.

Here is a news flash .....

He was fine until he lets say he hit his stride, became a man, got his chicken groove on, started putting it to the hens.

Now he is an ass to say the least and we can not even get near some of the hens or their eggs some days. He attacks both the kids and me, my husband he is scared to death of. The boys have come up with the idea that dinner knows Dad is the head male around here and so he leaves him alone. My husband does not mind this idea at all and does not correct them. I have gotten a little sick of it all lately and have been threating to make Dinner dinner. It is quite funny to be roasting a chicken and have everyone go out back and make sure all of ours are there. Any way, there have been quite a few meetings of my men's minds and they have come up with a wonderful idea. They are going to build a chicken tractor. They researched them on the internet and drew up plans last night. Now I have been informed that we can have even more chickens ( great) and they will all be able to live happy little lives free from predators, and no one will attack us anymore. Sure..... I will let you know how that works out !

Friday, November 9, 2007

Strange days

It seems as if my days here at skunky acre are getting stranger and stranger. First there was the day my mom called and my vacuum cleaner had just caught fire. Then there was the morning I found myself standing in the chicken coop with a gun defending my chickens against something that had just jumped off the roof of my house. Oh, and did I mention that it was 5 in the morning! My washing machine has also decided that it will only work if you kick it just right, and the blender exploded all over the kitchen. At this point I am wondering if I should laugh or cry. The strange part of it is that I would not trade it all for the world. There may be a good deal of strange hard work out here, but it really is a fun adventure. I love that we had to put curtains in the dining room because the deer would look in a watch us eat, and that my kids spend their free time hunting lizards. I actually like finding strange scratches on the deck and then spending the entire afternoon out there trying to figure out what made them, and that my youngest son's preschool requires him to own snow boots. Speaking of schools, my oldest son attends a 2 room school house that is 100 years old, and has the most wonderful teacher. I can't help but feel so lucky that we get to live some where we can watch for elk in the yard, even though we have a bit of a skunk problem. I think life is funny and sometimes you end up in the darnedest of places and end up loving it.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Free Fall


Yes, this leaf really did fall in our orchard and it is just absolutely beautiful down there. I love all the leaves of red, gold, and yellow. The chill in the air has chased us indoors more and more each day. I find myself turning to my half finished projects inside the house, and dragging out my soup recipes. All the dry air and indoor play has also brought a lovely cold virus to the house . It is visiting each of us in turn and we will be very glad to see it go. I guess this should lead to a wonderful list of all things our family loves about fall.

Family, I don't know why but to us fall always means family
Smores
Hot chocolate
Nuts
Fuzzy slippers and Fuzzy PJs
Old movies on TV
Pop corn
Fires in the fire place ( or wood stove)
Apples
New snow boots ( this one is my youngest fav. He wears his everywhere even though there is no snow.)
Fresh baked bread, pies, cakes

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Halloween Fun


One of my favorite things about living out here in the absolute middle of no where is the wonderful feeling of community. There are only around 1,000 people in our town and most of us are separated by miles. That means trick or treating is out of the question. The solution is ,of course, to hold a festival. Our town loves a festival. We tend to hold one for everything and Halloween is not any different. It was really nice to see everyone in their costumes and you know a great time was had by the kids when they can't even pick what they think was the most fun.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Raccoons 0, Farmer 4


The Great Raccoon Invasion is now over thanks to the assistance of Mr. Browning.

Friday, October 26, 2007

An egg of a diffrent color


Here it is the much anticipated picture of our " easter eggs". I have finally gotten around to posting it. They are quite fun I must say and we enjoy being a little like Dr. Seuss. We did not have any white eggs that day to toss in the mix, but you can see those at your local grocery store.

Isn't it uncanny

I have a question for you....

How may cans can a canner can if a canner has 2 kids????
The answer is zero.

We grew our own cucumbers this year in hopes of making pickles. We bought jars, which can also be used for all sorts of lovely creations next year, and other supplies. I dug out my aunts pickle recipe from when I was a kid. Boy did we have big plans. The boys were thrilled to make their own pickles and I was feeling a bit nostalgic. Fast forward a few weeks, and now all I have is a pile of rotting cucumbers and supplies taking up my precious cabinet space. I ended up feeding the cucumbers to the chickens.

Well, there is always next year, Right?

I feel like I have been saying that a good deal lately. It seems as if we bought this place with a big bag of dreams and are falling behind in the making them happen department. I think we forgot that between moving in and having the place running smoothly is a huge learning curve. I guess you could say we have wonderful visions and just not enough time to get them all done. I know it will get easier as we learn and the boys grow. Hey, dare I say as the boys get old enough to really help with the chores.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The Big Freeze


We have officially had our first freeze here at Skunky Acre. We are putting the new wood stove to good use and it is already becoming a great asset to the place. It has kept us toasty warm and we have only had to light the heaters in the far flung rooms. It also means that I now have to keep the wood split for starting all those lovely fires . I just tell my husband that it is the sexy part of my day. The geese are not to happy with their slushy water. They kept getting in an making funny goose faces and honks. Yes, geese can make funny faces... well, more like funny eyes. They have very expressive eyes you know. You can really tell someone is in there looking back out at you. I just hope they are not planning anything.........

Monday, October 22, 2007

Apples , Apples, and more Pumpkins?


This weekend our town had it's annual apple festival. We all went and had a great time eating and visiting with everyone. It was nice to see some fresh apples since our orchard was caught in a late freeze and we lost our whole crop this year. We did manage to grow our own pumpkins. The boys loved seeing them go from seed to fruit. A pumpkin is a fruit right ? Being a city girl I am new to all this farm business. Anyway, with the festival weekend here, pumpkins in the yard, and Halloween around the corner fall is here.



We have had requests for pictures of the " Easter Eggs". Stay tuned as we are working on getting some on the site. Not only am I new at the farm business, I am also new at the Blog business.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The Great Raccoon Invasion

As some of you may know Skunky acre is under attack. The offender may be cute, but underneath is a killer. I am speaking of the great raccoon invasion of 2007. We have tried every thing we can think of to send them packing and they continue to eat our chickens. Needless to say we have spent a lot of sleepless nights out back in the coop. The boys are getting quite a thrill out the circus but the chickens are a bit freaked out. They have all but stopped laying and are a little torn up but hopefully will recover soon. We will keep you posted on our progress and please we beg you keep a watch out for the great raccoon menace.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Green Eggs?


Yes we have chickens that lay green eggs! They are a special breed called a Silver Americauna. They are one of the breeds known for being "Easter Egg" chickens, who lay colored eggs. The eggs can be any color from deep olive to lavender to sky blue. They have proven an interesting addition to the flock.

Happy Chickens at Skunky Acre!


Here are a few of the happy chickens that make their home at Skunky Acre.