White Sands

We took the boys to White Sands National Park this week and had a blast. I forget how much fun it is to go down there. The weather here at Skunky Acre has been fantastic ( in the 60's) and the weather down there has been even better. The day we picked was perfect and it allowed the boys to let off a little steam.

Rocky

At last a picture of the famed Rocky. The hens are starting to accept him which can only lead to some hanky panky. Go Rocky, Go !

They Came, They Saw, We Partied

Here are the only decent pictures I have of the weekend. Boy does it really suck being camera free. I had to depend on everyone else and no one takes pictures the way I want them. That is all solved now. I went and bought a camera so that I will no longer be dependent on others. That said it was a great weekend. We went to the zoo, the space museum, and made stuffed animals at the bear factory on Saturday. I also got to spoil my sweet little niece ( that was the best part of the day). Then we partied hardy on Sunday. I wish I had pictures of that but I don't. How bad a mom am I that I don't even have pictures of my sons 9th birthday. Maybe someone will send me some so my kid does not have to bring that up later in life. I am quite sure that would lead to" you love him more" accusations and lots of therapy. The party was a great time and I enjoyed seeing the big guy play with all his friends. All in all it was a great weekend full of family, friends, and fun.

Woman Power

One would not think the life of a rooster penned with 4 hens in a chicken tractor would be all that bad. I mean he has all those girls to service any need he may have, and food magicly appears twice a day. Not to mention all those kitchen scraps that just fall from the sky. One would of course be wrong in poor Rockys case. You see the hens hate him. They will not let him eat or do anything else for that matter. They even wait until he is under their perch and they poop on him. So sad is his life that he hides all day from his own women. I guess we are going to have a problem hatching any chicks from this arrangement !

Welcome Sweet Rocky

Today my soon to be 9 year old received an early birthday gift, Rocky the Rooster.

Yes, I bought my son a rooster for a birthday gift.... doesn't everyone ?

He is a beautiful 3 year old Barred Rock who so far is nice and my son adores him. I bet you would love to see a picture of him and I would love to show you one. The problem is I dropped my camera in the stream from one of the previous posts. I can't believe 3 days before a big birthday party I dropped my camera in a stream and now it does not work. Lovely ! I am just hoping that my youngest son was not listening to closely to what I said when it happened.

Hey, it could be worse. My dogs and I could have mange a week before my wedding!

On a good note, the projects may not be entirely wrapped up but they are looking somewhat complete. The house is getting clean, I am staying sane, and we are as ready as we will ever be for company.

The Big Push

We had a giant snow storm come through this weekend and thank goodness because the big push is on. I have 4 days until my entire family comes to help celebrate my oldest sons 9 th birthday. He has also invited a few friends over for a little party. The snow helped keep the kids entertained while I tried to get some things done around our construction site of a home. Boy, am I starting to sweat it out too. I have about a million projects in various stages of completion. I am finishing them as I find things on sale. Well, with every one coming I am trying to wrap them up while my poor neglected kids play in the snow. The little one was particularly cute as he has just figured out how to catch snow flakes in his mouth.

My Kids Like Butts, and I Can Not Lie

First let me wish everyone a Happy Valentines Day.

Now to the topic at hand. Yes, my kids like butts. They find them down right hilarious. The way a chickens booty looks like the ruffles on an old 50's prom dress and shakes while they run from you just cracks them up. How about the way a cats butt looks like a question mark, or the fact that you can make your own butt talk. Having a house full of boys leads you to all sorts of new realizations. You could say it is a whole new way of looking at life, now excuse me while we go have more tooty booty fun.

Surprise

Yesterday we had a great big surprise,


and no mom I am not having a baby.....

We are done with that.

Our surprise was an orchard full of water. You see we have this lovely little stream/ irrigation ditch that runs across our property up by the road. It is the left overs from the old settlers. It is even registered as historic ( I got a special paper at closing about how we could not change it). The kids love to play in and near it, in fact they rebuilt the fort so they have to climb over it to get in the club house. Any way, we had another lovely day outside so we were out starting to clean up when I ran across a giant pool of water in the orchard. Apparently they have been running a good deal of water in the ditch and it was overflowing onto our property.

We ended up spending the afternoon trying to increase the flow by cleaning out reeds. I don't know if we actually did any good, but I got a ton of old dry damp grass for our compost pile. Hey, at least we will have great apples this spring!

Happiness

" Happiness is a place between too little and too much"

Finnish proverb


Unfortunately ,for me, we are starting to lean towards to much. I swear I have never seen so few people have so many little knick knacks, tiny pieces of paper, and other treasures. It is all coming into focus right now because I am trying to clean out the lower floor of the house for guests to stay in. It is the place where everything we do not want to deal with at that exact moment goes until sorting can occur. I am sure you can figure out who does the sorting. On an up note ,I am taking the above proverb to heart and using this chance to clear out as well as clean up. Wish me lots of luck because I will need it. The temps were in the 50's today and the sun was shinning. Oh, how distracting that was.........

Life Is Good

I have a question for you.........

If it is 15 degrees outside and you and your loved one have a nice slushy pool of water what would you do?


If you are my geese the answer would be to spend the day in it taking a bath. You would make sure the water got down deep in those feathers and washed out any dirt. It might mean that you will slip on the ice the spilled water was making, but that is the cost of beauty for you. It could even lead to some hanky panky since the water feels so nice and cool. After all there is nothing like an ice bath to get that lovin feeling a going.

As for the people here at Skunky Acre we are all well now. We have resumed our crazy but wonderful lives, and we are staying out of the slushy pool.

Our Odds Are Improving

I learned a valuable lesson today from of all people Fred on Scooby Doo. Yes, I know we have been watching to much tv, but what else is there to do when you feel so bad. The gang was feeling a little down after failing to find the ghost in the theme park and Fred just looked at them and said " Well then our odds are improving". That struck me a pure genius. What a wonderful way of looking at things so.........

With every day our odds are improving that our oldest will get better and we can get out of the house. I would say return to normal but I don't think our lives are ever normal.


With everyday our odds are improving that our youngest will feel better and stop wearing a box for a hat.


With every day the odds are improving the chances that the cat will no longer have to wear Mardi Gras beads. Boy does that piss her off, but it sure entertains my kids.

With everyday my chicken noodle soup is getting better.

With everyday our chances of getting to sled in the new snow are better.

And finally with everyday our odds of not being sick anymore are far better. I mean this does have to end at some point, Right ?

We Flu Over The Cukoo's Nest

It is official, both the boys have the " flu like virus". So far the grown ups around here have been spared. We are bracing ourselves for when this thing hits us, boy is it nasty. I feel so bad for my sweet little men. To have such adorable little bundles of energy wiped out flat on their backs is terrible. It is sad to say but Saturday I had to leave and go volunteer at the preschools fund raiser at the Mardi Gras in the clouds festival. It felt so good to be talking to human being that were not whining, vomiting, or not quite making it to the bathroom. I guess it is fair to say that I was there early in the day so maybe ( quite possibly) that sort of thing went on later. It was Mardi Gras after all.

The Sheep Are Laughing......At Us

Yesterday we went to the farm to pick up the next 3 or 4 months of worth of meat. Before I go any further let me say I added laughing sheep farm as one of our links and you should really check it out. It is where we get all of our beef and sausage, and it is the most wonderful place. This time they had newborn lambs and they took the boys over to see them. What great fun it was to see my babies getting to pet lambs. Now, you do understand that it was not as special a time for the sheep moms. They let us get near them but all the while let us know that they were not to happy about it.


I want to say in the end the Sheep had the last laugh because last night around midnight this sweet little boy in the picture woke up feeling terrible. I took him in to the doctor today and guess what .......
He has the Flu.

Well, not actually THE FLU, but " a flu like virus that has the same symptoms as the flu, acts like the flu, and make you feel like you have the flu". I was instructed to take my poor sick kid home and put him in bed for 4 to 5 days. Here is the bonus for the rest of the family. Since this is not actually a true flu the flu shot we all got will not protect us from it. Great !

Don't you want to visit my house right now ?