Chaos Rules

Do you know how as you go through life you learn things about yourself, things you would never have guessed?

Well, I came to the realization today that I love chaos. How else could you explain my actions and my life for that matter.

First let me say my husband is having surgery in a week and a half, my kids are in the middle of getting ready for school to start, the garden is producing,
I am personally remodeling a basement ( and teaching myself new skills in order to do it), we are in the middle of a coyote invasion, not to mention the fact that I still have a house full of men to run on a daily basis, and a million animals I am personally responsible for. Now this house I am running is not done in the normal fashion for say someone living in 2009. No, I can't do that. I have taken us back a few years and I do things the old fashioned way. So when I say a house to run I mean laundry to hang dry on the line, dinner to cook from scratch ( now where did that hatchet go ?), etc. Any how, back to the enlightened moment. Today as I added a new dog to the batch and threw in a extra kid I began to question myself. Why would I purposefully go and get a dog ( my husband and I have been considering it) and then turn around and tell my 10 year old " sure your friend can spend the night what is another monkey in the barrel".

The answer is I must love the crazy topsy turvy life. Who knew ?

In A Pickle

I spent the day today making dill pickles from an old family recipe and ingredients from the near by farm of a friend. All in all it was a lovely day in the kitchen made even better when some friends stopped by and chatted with me as I cooked away. They only had moral support to offer though not having any know how in the canning department. I have not made pickles in many a moon, and don't really know if this recipe is even any good. My family is not known for its cooking heritage. But I am out there trying, learning, and sometimes failing.

If You Show Me Yours, I Will Show You Mine

Mowhawk Mike is now officially a contestant in the local county fairs poultry show. He is mean as fire, and looks like the devil. Isn't that the chicken you would want to carry around in a cage?

I wonder how that will go over?

Better yet, I wonder what his views will be over the situation?

Five !

It happened.

Yesterday my sweet little baby left behind his babyhood and entered his childhood. Yes, that is right he turned 5 and will enter kindergarden in a few weeks. How did it all happen so fast? Why can't I rewind time? If you have not noticed I am having a bit of a hard time with the fact that he turned five. He did, however, have a wonderful time at his army party. It was the first official party of his life, and all his little friends came.

Done

I can't believe I did it ! In only around 2 1/2 hours this room went from uncarpeted to carpeted. Of course moving the furniture and toys in and out took longer, but it is all worth it. Now my older son wants his room done also. I think we have turned an important corner here at Skunky Acre.

Now I wonder if I can dry wall ?

Full of Myself

With all the success in fighting the school board I am a bit giddy with power. So I have decided I can now do all sorts of things. Things which lead my husband to question not only my sanity, but his choice in a wife. This leads us to our story today.

I have come to the conclusion that I can install my own carpet. Yes, you read that right. It can't be that hard, can it? The guy at the home improvement store laughed when I said that, by the way. I just figure that if we can raise and butcher our own meat, take on social injustice, etc then we should be able to do something as simple as install carpet. OK, OK you can stop laughing now. But this really has the potential to save us some real hard cash. Tomorrow is the big day. I will keep you posted as always.

School Fight Update...

After several weeks of pure work and literally hundreds of emails and other attention grabbing antics, it appears we have prevailed in the fight to save our local school. The governor announced he will be reviewing the school budget and will provide funding to make up the difference and keep the school open.

Politics in action. Gotta' love it.

They Are Back

The coyotes are afoot once again here on the acre. Yesterday ( at 5:45 in the morning !) they got a particular favorite of ours. Junior the rooster is no more, and we are sad. He was the comic relief around here. My favorite story is the one where he steals the chicken head from the butcher block and runs around the yard with it for most of the day. What a character. As you can imagine we started the coyote reduction program upon juniors death. We have not had any success as of yet, but we will prevail. Until then the chickens are on lock down, and super pissed about it.

There Is A Snake In My Boots !

Well, he may be in there or any where else for that matter. You see my kiddos found a nice sized garden snake the other day. They did like all little boys and kept him in a clear shoe box with a lid. You know the kind that organized women keep their nice shoes in. They are plastic and make great animal containers. The kids wanted to sleep with their "best friend in the world" so off to bed everyone and his snake went the other night. Fast forward to the next morning when there is an empty snake container in the bed and a slightly irritated mother. Now I am not sure what happened, or where mr. snake went but I do know that his "food", a nice juicy grasshopper who was in the box with him at some point, emerged later in the afternoon. He hopped right into my open paint can, then hopped right out again leaving a trail of grass hopper prints all over the house. It was a very exciting day as you can imagine.

My Sense Of Humor Is Returning

The rains are letting up a bit, my house only slightly sinks of water damage, there is no longer a Christmas tree in my living room, we have word from the school board about a meeting to " voice our concerns", and now my sense of humor is returning. I am feeling a little over whelmed with all the activities at the moment, but a lot of good is also going down.

I may have to rip a ton of water damage out of the basement, but at least it is in the guest room and bathroom. Those areas can be out of service for quite some time and not be a big pain. I also get to finally decorate down there. We have chosen Fresh Grape Juice for the color in the bathroom. Sort of cool in a Harry Potter kind of way. Oh, we also got a ton of junk cleaned out of our storage area. A bunch of it was " stuff you hang on to but don't really have a need for". Gee, once that is water damaged it can go. Talk about feeling groovy.

The school board has agreed to give us another meeting so they can hear our concerns. Like they don't already know we are going to come in a throw a fit. It is, however, giving us some amount of hope. Maybe we are winning over a few people, and maybe we can win this battle. The lines are already drawn and the vote is in 6 days.

Washed Away

As many of you know our lovely little town clings to the side of a very tall mountain. Yesterday said mountain was hit hard with hard fast rain. So much so that most of the roads, and some of the houses are washing out. We are lucky and only have minor water damage in the basement, I guess that means I should reconsider putting carpet down there. Some of our neighbors have mud slides in their houses. Thank goodness for sandbags, and lets all hope it stops raining.