Sitting with a cup of coffee. (coffee lovers)

[Chicken Ladies]

Sadly, I do not FaceBook.  I'm pretty sure that I'm the last person on earth who doesn't have a FaceBook page, but I don't.

My dad doesn't Facebook. He will ask me for pictures sometimes.

 

[Peep_Show]

Hey TeaChick!

I don't Facebook either. I know if I did that I'd never get out of my chair and see the outside world. I spend too much time at the computer, anyway. Gotta set some limits on how much cyber-intrusion happens in my life.

 

[Chicken Ladies]

Good Morning everyone,
What a crazy busy week. Work, Chickens, dogs, Kids, Dads....

I have missed a lot. I am so sorry to hear about the chicken losses. I don't know what I could do if a dog came after mine.... I know that has got to be heart breaking. And having chickens disappear or just die like that...
Einstein (3 year old dog) gave me a scare this week. I was on my way to work when I heard him barking. I looked out back and he was in the chicken run. I have not had him up next to them yet, because he still likes to run at the fence to see them fly...

(yes I am guessing why he does this)... I go running out there and get him on his side of fence... and I look he has a pear in his mouth... (no chicken). The chickens are in coop and feed area relaxed and having a sand bath.

I have been helping dad around the house ever since mom died in January. We planted a garden in back yard with mom ashes and lots of different flowers... mostly yellow because she liked yellow. Dad decided we needed to work on the front garden on Saturday. It's father's day weekend so I went to do that, started expanding garden and planted Lantana. (I will go back on Tuesday morning, My usual time to help dad).
My oldest son came over so we could set up surround sound (my dad doesn't hear very well.) on his dvd player... and dad decides that we need to go to lunch. I am covered in mud and dirt, He is covered in sweat and changes shirts. I'm at restraunt and I look like the bum child... I of course washed my hands

I would post a picture of my in the yard look, but I don't think I have one. I'll get DW to take one next time I'm out playing in the yard.
Love the random pics y'all have posted. Alaskan What are the baby chicks called, your first picture. I am always amazed at how many different looking chicks there are and then to see what the turn into.

I do get on facebook, it helps me keep track of my brothers and my sons. When Michael (youngest and my avatar this month) first went to Illinois for college it was an easy way for me to know he was alive with out having to bug him all the time.
I know I am just rambling. Just seems like I have been away for to long... Not as long and Puffin'.

Last one, (Maybe),
Alaskan, a few years back my parents were going out of town on a cruise and mom called " If something happens to us, do not look into the Cracker Box in the Freezer."
Me, "umm, why not?"
Mom, " Well your father found a dead squirrel and we did not want it rotting in the yard while we are gone"
Me, "so you put it in a cracker box in the freezer?"
There is now a running joke at our house about cracker boxes. I tell the guys all the time, they have to check the cracker boxes...
That's my family...

 

[TeaChick]

Cool pics Teachick. What breeds laid those eggs?

The green one was an OE from my WL and a mutt rooster I got from a neighbor. The rest are from my Golden Comets.

Yer cup is empty. Did yer DH make the cup or drink half of it on the way from the coffee pot?

I had already had half of it by the time I took the pic.

that was great @TeaChick

OK... Here are random photos from me!

Cool and cute pics!!! I like the chick on the jeans. =)

Hehehehe!!!! I'm sorry Teachick but that just struck my giggle bone when I realized the closest I've been to a pet store in at least 20 years is the fish tank in the new Walmart in "big" city to our north!!! I can ask at our feedmill. The 4-H here really isn't active with livestock, the whole county only has two or three animal type farms, just potato growers in the southern corner of the county. Our county fair can be taken in entirely in less than an hour and most of that is dedicated to the 4-H displays of sewing, crafts and logging displays. Sometimes the northwoods can be really depressing. I really do miss the family farms country I grew up in .

I understand. =)
It's about the same here. This county doesn't even have a county fair. lol They do have 4-H, but it's small and not very active. When I was a kid, my brother and I were two of six kids in the 4-H program for our age group.

 

[TeaChick]

Wow! That is kinda depressing...

I like variety

So... I went out on the town.... Don't worry... I actually showered AND brushed my teeth AND put on totally newly clean clothes (but the dog might have slept on them a time or too

)

Anyway... I came back... The youngest two had been babysat by the neighbor..... And I was greeted to squirrel!

Which is awesome... Except they were killed, and ONLY killed... Not gutted, not skinned... JUST killed. I looked at them with eyebrow raised... Really? I asked......

You know my skinning and gutting boys are at camp, right?


He said yep...I might want to put them in the freezer to kill the critters living on them.

I shrugged and said OK...

So yep... Two bloody squirrels with NOTHING done to them, are in my freezer. Dude! My neighbor is a great hunter... He should have taught my little kids how to gut and skin... But nope... I have two gut filled squirrels in my freezer.

Yum....I mean,

Definitely not my freezer.

By the way... My little kids are only 6 and 9.... Which is why they don't yet gut and skin...

However, the 9 year old has gutted chicken.... But that isn't quite the same.



Also.. I am SUPER excited and happy... Because my ducklings just hatched!!!

Bunched of fluffy cuteness that I get to sell for ten bucks each... Or have spouse turn into pastrami!

Wow!!! I am so super happy and excited!!!!!


-insert loud happy noise-


My duck FINALLY hatched out her ducklings!!!!!! However

they are all HER ducklings, so they are ALL the same color!!!

Sniff (remember, I lost TWO of my breeder ducks this year)

Ah well... It looks like she did a good job.... No pictures though... I went to peek before I went "out" tonight... And I saw a duckling WAY far away from the nest.. Sorta crawling (too newly hatched to walk) over toward the water bowl.


The drake was just looking at him.. GLORY TO GOD I HAVE A NICE DRAKE!!!

He just looked at it! With older ducklings he will snap at them to tell them to go back to mom... This one he just looked at... He was actually smart enough to know that it was too little to be fussed at!

So, I then grabbed up the duckling, and then HOW to give it back to the duck? My ducks will peel off your face if you get close to them when they are brooding, and even more so when they have ducklings... I kid not! They have a pointy end on their bill, and pointy claws on their webbed feet, and they launch themselves at you with all of those claws trying to peel off skin!

Anyway, when she launched herself at me to skin me (I had sturdy pants on... So I remain unscathed), I managed to put the baby in the nest box (half of a dog crate) close to but not in the nest (she was too fast). I also managed to roll one egg that had rolled out of the nest, back towards the nest.

She tucked the egg back under her, and peeped, and the duckling, though it first got turned around and looked like it would crawl BACK out of the nest box, in the moment before it leaned so far out over the edge as to tumble out... It actually decided to turn around and crawl toward mom! And yes, it made it!

Whew!

I probably won't know how many ducklings there are until.....

My kids call me and tell me!

She probably won't lave the nest until Monday... And I am leaving town Sunday night. Ah well.

sounds super typical for me... Doesn't it?

Yay for the chicken gutting vole!

Yay for ducklings!

Yay for pastrami! (Can I get a recipe? Wait, I don't have ducks. Eh, I'd take the recipe anyway.)

Yay for good broody duck!

for lost breeder duck.

Yay for good daddy duck!

Yay for face-peeling momma duck!!!

Yay for sturdy pants!

Yay for smart baby duck!

Yay for kids who update dads when they're away!

Yay for typical?

Morning everyone!
Yep, I agree Alaskan, some times it does get a bit depressing. I've always been a country girl at heart even when I spent most of my working life in the city even as a computer professional at a college (must admit I only managed that for a little over 5 years before I ran screaming back for the dirt roads). Otherwise most of my life I managed to work in one world and live in the other. That is until I met my present DH. Next thing I know I am living in the burbs of a very large city (and going just a bit crazy until I discovered places like the botanical gardens and Barns and Noble and then when a coffee shop moved INTO Barnes and Noble, heaven!) and I did enjoy the learning opportunities, some of the great festivals in summer and only a short distance from the state fair where I spent almost the full time in the animal barns, but not being able to go for a walk in the evening, the stinky air, the constant noise.the crazy people, yuck!. Next thing I know we are living in the middle of NOWHERE starting to make our home in the middle of 65 acres that has never had anything on it but a small pasture and a long ago disappeared homestead that once stood on a small corner. I love our solitude and privacy but I also miss the "variety". I truly hated the few times I had to actually live in the city but always enjoyed the occasional visit to "civilization" when I didn't. When I worked in the city I would get all girled up and take myself out for a good lobster dinner in a proper restaurant once or twice a year. Haven't done that in more than 20 years now because there literally isn't a restaurant within several hours drive that folks can't walk into in their logging boots. I swear if it weren't for our satellite (which I had to talk DH into but now wouldn't do without it) and my computer, and you folks, I would probably be certifiably insane by now! My biggest adjustment, which honestly I have never completely made, is to northwoods itself. I can handle the winters, (tho a bit shorter would be nice) the changing seasons are amazing but the trees, nothing but trees, always trees is something I didn't grow up with. When we go to town, it sits at the southern end of what is referred to as the potato flats. It's actually a large ancient lake bed full of potato farms. When we hit the top of the ridge and start to drop down into the flats it's like a breath of fresh air being able to actually see further than a short way. This is what I grew up with. Tho these farms mostly aren't the animal based ones that I miss, there is still an old red barn or two visible off in the distance.

I have lived in the suburbs of Miami and Orlando and in the middle of nowhere. I prefer the middle of nowhere with a few neighbors w/in walking distance, but not too many (right now, we've got too many for my liking, but we tolerate it b/c it's a good place for us to raise the kids and have the chickens and teach them about them). We both want to live on a large but manageable piece of property (well, he wants to live on an unmanageably large piece of property) and have chickens and a few cows and a garden and probably a few other animals and I want a horse and I think I can get him to let me teach him how to ride. And just be able to live a peaceful, somewhat subsistent lifestyle. We'll see. Right now, our focus is raising the kids, so every decision revolves around them.

How's this for a mug of joe

I like that mug!!! =)

 

[tjo804]

Chicken Ladies"
Sorry to hear about your mom I lost mine in March.

Still trying to figure that out.
Enjoy your time with your dad it is precious!

Handsome boy you have! My youngest is 16 I have a facebook for the same reasons you do but I rarely use it the Children hooked me up and it is amazing how many people I used to know are on there.

The Squirrel? My mom had her pet cat put in the freezer by the catsitter so she could bury her when they got home from vacation. MIL has her puppy in the freezer for when they move into their newly remodeled home so it will always be with her.

Honey could you get me the lasagna it is in the freezer next to Sylvia.

It just goes to show you humans do not all do well with loss!

When mom passed I had just a pinch of her ashes taken out by the funeral home and they sent them to a glass blower who made them into a bead and I wear her as a necklace now in a beautiful glass ornament.


Wow must be get it off your chest weekend. Thanks for letting me share.

 

[TeaChick]

Sometimes it gets cold by the time I drink it all.......doesn't matter to me.

My cups hold about 16 oz -ish.
I nurse the same cup of coffee until lunch time. I like coffee from cooled enough to drink until it's stone cold. I used to not toss it until it got that spider web looking design on the top.

Evening everyone

Guess our earlier chatting kind of got me nostalgic. This evening when I went out to tuck the girls in, the mist was rolling up from the river, across the field and giving everything a fairy world appearance as it crept toward the house. The smell of it reminded me of the same smell I used to drink in as I would set on the pasture gate in the early morning watching the mist roll up from the Cumberland River valley at my (great) uncle Champ's small tobacco farm on the side of the Pine mountains. My mom's side of the family were Kentucky "ridgerunners" and my dad's were Michigan dairy farmers on a place just north of Lake Charlevoix . Our house was an old farmhouse on a lake in a small town a few miles west of Pontiac where my dad worked as a master tool and die maker. I spent a couple summers in Kentucky as a young teen helping uncle Champ with the tobacco and I loved the place. You got the drinking water with a dipper from a spring coming out of the side of the hill in front of the house and the wash water from the creek running down the holler out back. Us kids weren't allowed to go too far up the holler behind the house tho because that was where the "cash crop" grew (somebody told me it was the kind that came from the big copper thingy)

I was there the summer they finally ran power up the mountain and somehow Champ managed to get hold of a small black and white tv. The boys (my twin cousins, Rayvel Darwin and Darwin Rayvel, no kidding!!!

It gets worse. Their nicknames were Mumbo and Sambo because one was blond headed and the other had brown hair) made me climb the steep pasture hill with the wire so we could get a picture. Two channels when you could get them that went off the air at dark. I still liked watching the fireflies dance across the yard better anyway.

I have so many crazy, wonderful memories and stories from uncle Champ's place. It's all gone now of course. The place went for taxes after Champ passed away, the kids had long since moved to the city and not looked back. It was another time and another world and I would give almost anything to be able to return just one more time.

I'm laughing and crying...this is the kind of stuff that I read about in books and makes me feel like a city kid in spite of living where we had to pipe in sunshine.

I actually don't know what the withdrawal is for eggs, but I think most people wait two weeks.

-Kathy

Thank you. =)

Ok heres one...

When I was young probably about 18 I was constantly exploring our little valley on horseback. My mare and I were partners by now. Santee has a rich history first as being a Kumeyay campground because the San Diego river forms here... before Santee its a bunch of creeks meandering up into the hills. And the water marks on Mission Gorge prove that during the rainy season Santee was pretty much a giant lake at one time.

Then the Mexicans formed big Cattle ranches that covered most of the hills and valleys that formed El Cajon, Santee, and Miramar. There are still old Adobe shacks up in the hills for men that watch the cattle. During World War II the military used some of those as target practice... Mortor shells used to be found all over the ranges.... Long since swept up...

So now the water is formed into lakes up stream and the remainder of the water that flows through the San Diego river is mostly under ground. It seeps up here and there to give cray fish and frogs a place to stay wet and to keep cattails alive in sheltered places. I used to ride around Padre Dam area which is the start of Mission Gorge... A steep canyon that once was lined with a flume of Terracotta tile and the dam was built to serve water to that flume.... The water was transported from there about five miles to the First mission .... Mission De Alcala 1769

http://www.missionsandiego.org (for what its worth Mission De Alcala is still functioning as a Church not just a touist destination)

Now the dam is just foundation and a few bits of wood... a bit of creek still flows past it... I used to ride across the creek and explore the meadows on the other side. One day we were out early and the fog was still hanging on the mountains like a grey jacket.... I spotted a foot trail and pointed my horse toward it... It meandered up and up and up the grass was getting greener and greener..

Once we slipped into the fog the noise of the world dropped away... Like a memory. I found the canyon getting narrower and narrower as we climbed but I wanted to see the trail to the end. My mare needed to blow every once and a while... Then I noticed the walls openeing up a bit and there were Scrub oak treas and a very small meadow like clearing...

Deep under those trees I could see water seeping out in a stream not more than six inches wide... I went further and had to duck under the trees and was forced to stop. There in front of me was a water trough fed by water coming up out of a pipe... hand made out of concrete about big enough for four or five cows to drink... and at the foot of that trough was a Maiden hair fern growing...

I was stunned even then the earth here was becoming more and more parched... Yet here there was a micro climate perfect for something so delicate as a maiden hair fern. We turned and rode back....

Now I am pretty dang good at finding trails and orienting myself... but I never found it again...

deb

One of those once-in-a-lifetime things you wonder if it was a dream it was so perfect, huh?

My dad doesn't Facebook. He will ask me for pictures sometimes.

Hmmm, is that a compliment?
Oddly enough, my dad does. Go figure.

 

[perchie.girl]

Happy fathers day Dad

Time to do your chores
By D L Dixon copyright

1999


He sits up there like a perched crow. Bony knees sharp elbows. The wind turning the old windmill with it's creaks and groans. He dreams of flight and of clouds and of space. Hidden by height as he gazes across the
flat plain. Watching the Tumbleweeds traveling away...

Get down from that windmill boy, a gruff voice calls up.
There's cotton that needs picking and cows that need milking
No Time for dreamin
Its time to do your chores.

He leans on the fence gazing across the meadow the cows munching alfalfa and the row of corn neatly hoed. He rests his chin on the end of the Hoe. He sees a pattern in the dirt and traces it with his toe reminding him of a wing and the rush of wind in his face. He has saved enough almost to...

Get in from that field boy, a gruff voice calls out. There's tomatoes that needs picking and pigs that need feeding.
No time for dreamin
Its time to do your chores.

He tinkers in the barn with the pieces he bought a wrench for the fittings some glue for the rips. The engine a neighbor gave him in exchange for bringing in a crop. The wind blows the door shut and he looks up in the sky at a Red Tailed hawk coming to land on the telephone pole outside. Some Day.....

Get in from that barn boy, a gruff voice calls out. There's shingles that need replacing and hay to be stacking.
No time for dreamin
Its time to do your chores.

He finishes the wing tightening the wires. He polishes the prop as it gleams in the light with ten coats of lacquer and iridescent wood. He brings it out of the hanger and gives the prop a pull one two three times before it fires to life.
Timetogo....

New that boy was no good from the get go, a gruff voice spoke. Never did amount to much, never learned to farm, will never learn to live, never listened when I told him No time for dreamin its time to do your chores.

Lou Dixon 1930-1999
Son of a Sharecropper
Lived for flight of any kind
Aerospace engineer
Inventor

mostly my dad... I so miss him still

 

[TeaChick]

Hey TeaChick!

I don't Facebook either. I know if I did that I'd never get out of my chair and see the outside world. I spend too much time at the computer, anyway. Gotta set some limits on how much cyber-intrusion happens in my life.

I get that. I keep it to emailing one friend, BYC, and school work. That's about all of the screen I can handle. That and DH and I watch about an hour of TV at night.
I hate screens, I hate computers, I hate TV, I'm not a fan of electricity either, but it has its uses I guess. It's definitely something I'd rather learn to live without.

Good Morning everyone,
What a crazy busy week. Work, Chickens, dogs, Kids, Dads....

I have missed a lot. I am so sorry to hear about the chicken losses. I don't know what I could do if a dog came after mine.... I know that has got to be heart breaking. And having chickens disappear or just die like that...
Einstein (3 year old dog) gave me a scare this week. I was on my way to work when I heard him barking. I looked out back and he was in the chicken run. I have not had him up next to them yet, because he still likes to run at the fence to see them fly...

(yes I am guessing why he does this)... I go running out there and get him on his side of fence... and I look he has a pear in his mouth... (no chicken). The chickens are in coop and feed area relaxed and having a sand bath.

I have been helping dad around the house ever since mom died in January. We planted a garden in back yard with mom ashes and lots of different flowers... mostly yellow because she liked yellow. Dad decided we needed to work on the front garden on Saturday. It's father's day weekend so I went to do that, started expanding garden and planted Lantana. (I will go back on Tuesday morning, My usual time to help dad).
My oldest son came over so we could set up surround sound (my dad doesn't hear very well.) on his dvd player... and dad decides that we need to go to lunch. I am covered in mud and dirt, He is covered in sweat and changes shirts. I'm at restraunt and I look like the bum child... I of course washed my hands

I would post a picture of my in the yard look, but I don't think I have one. I'll get DW to take one next time I'm out playing in the yard.
Love the random pics y'all have posted. Alaskan What are the baby chicks called, your first picture. I am always amazed at how many different looking chicks there are and then to see what the turn into.

I do get on facebook, it helps me keep track of my brothers and my sons. When Michael (youngest and my avatar this month) first went to Illinois for college it was an easy way for me to know he was alive with out having to bug him all the time.
I know I am just rambling. Just seems like I have been away for to long... Not as long and Puffin'.

Last one, (Maybe),
Alaskan, a few years back my parents were going out of town on a cruise and mom called " If something happens to us, do not look into the Cracker Box in the Freezer."
Me, "umm, why not?"
Mom, " Well your father found a dead squirrel and we did not want it rotting in the yard while we are gone"
Me, "so you put it in a cracker box in the freezer?"
There is now a running joke at our house about cracker boxes. I tell the guys all the time, they have to check the cracker boxes...
That's my family...

It's good of you to help your dad.
That's sweet about the flowers for your mom.
I like Lantana (and no one can figure out why, b/c I'm a native Floridian so I guess I'm supposed to hate it b/c it takes over, but I like it b/c it's pretty and smells nice). Funny story (well, kind of)...I used to make my little brother play mommy-and-baby with me. I made him pretend he was sitting in a highchair in the back yard by the Lantana bush. I would give him the green berries from it and tell him he had to eat his peas.
Disclaimer: I was like five, and I didn't know they were poisonous and I don't remember him being sick from them (but I wouldn't b/c I was five, so he only existed when I wanted to play with him, right?)
LOL about the cracker box! =)

Chicken Ladies"
Sorry to hear about your mom I lost mine in March.

Still trying to figure that out.
Enjoy your time with your dad it is precious!

Handsome boy you have! My youngest is 16 I have a facebook for the same reasons you do but I rarely use it the Children hooked me up and it is amazing how many people I used to know are on there.

The Squirrel? My mom had her pet cat put in the freezer by the catsitter so she could bury her when they got home from vacation. MIL has her puppy in the freezer for when they move into their newly remodeled home so it will always be with her.

Honey could you get me the lasagna it is in the freezer next to Sylvia.

It just goes to show you humans do not all do well with loss!

When mom passed I had just a pinch of her ashes taken out by the funeral home and they sent them to a glass blower who made them into a bead and I wear her as a necklace now in a beautiful glass ornament.


Wow must be get it off your chest weekend. Thanks for letting me share.

about your mom. IDK what I would do if I lost mine!

Everyone's always welcome to share and get anything off their chest they want!!! =)

 

[TeaChick]

Happy fathers day Dad

Time to do your chores
By D L Dixon copyright

1999


He sits up there like a perched crow. Bony knees sharp elbows. The wind turning the old windmill with it's creaks and groans. He dreams of flight and of clouds and of space. Hidden by height as he gazes across the
flat plain. Watching the Tumbleweeds traveling away...

Get down from that windmill boy, a gruff voice calls up.
There's cotton that needs picking and cows that need milking
No Time for dreamin
Its time to do your chores.

He leans on the fence gazing across the meadow the cows munching alfalfa and the row of corn neatly hoed. He rests his chin on the end of the Hoe. He sees a pattern in the dirt and traces it with his toe reminding him of a wing and the rush of wind in his face. He has saved enough almost to...

Get in from that field boy, a gruff voice calls out. There's tomatoes that needs picking and pigs that need feeding.
No time for dreamin
Its time to do your chores.

He tinkers in the barn with the pieces he bought a wrench for the fittings some glue for the rips. The engine a neighbor gave him in exchange for bringing in a crop. The wind blows the door shut and he looks up in the sky at a Red Tailed hawk coming to land on the telephone pole outside. Some Day.....

Get in from that barn boy, a gruff voice calls out. There's shingles that need replacing and hay to be stacking.
No time for dreamin
Its time to do your chores.

He finishes the wing tightening the wires. He polishes the prop as it gleams in the light with ten coats of lacquer and iridescent wood. He brings it out of the hanger and gives the prop a pull one two three times before it fires to life.
Timetogo....

New that boy was no good from the get go, a gruff voice spoke. Never did amount to much, never learned to farm, will never learn to live, never listened when I told him No time for dreamin its time to do your chores.

Lou Dixon 1930-1999
Son of a Sharecropper
Lived for flight of any kind
Aerospace engineer
Inventor

mostly my dad... I so miss him still

Beautiful, Deb. Thanks so much for sharing!!!
Makes us all appreciate our fathers (or at least father-figures) just a little more, I think. Well, me anyway.