The Front Porch Swing

[Triple Willow]

I'll have a bite then I'm off to bed.

It was actually pretty good.

 

[Oldmomma]

Growing up many of us wish our life was perfect like so and so's. When I got older I realized no ones got perfect, some got better but each have different miseries. Im finally where I want to be in life but its still not perfect. Im alone with 2 of 7 kids. I left behind 2 lovely daughters and 4 grandkids to fullfill my dreams. Hubby is getting worse from what little I hear from him and I worry that im fated to be alone here. Not fitting into my dreams plan. I dont mind being alone. Im content and capable of providing my own survival but wondering if we ever get our dreams? Everything I ever wanted in life has been taken from me at least a few times and I know im a survivor. Now all I can do is start building on what I do have with the skills life gave me and do the best I can for my kids. I look at friends who seem better off but they only have paper lives. Its all on paper and a match can burn it all away. Everything they thought they built for their kids they are finding their kids didnt want and now they are left holding so much with no way to get out without taking huge losses. I look around at all I dont have and some days im thankful. Yesterday my daughter asked me about prayer. For the first time in years she asked about it. Ive never pushed our faith onto my kids I preferred to be the example and at times I guess I failed. The big fight with my son last month showed me I missed a lot of stuff in my kids lives when I thought we had a very open relationship. They never told me about abuse at school, teachers abuse, other kids teasing. Why? I dont know since I would have raised hell in their defence. Im looking back now wondering what else I missed.
But in reality I cant fix past. I can only move forward. My lowest point in life I decided that when I died all I wanted was for my kids to know I loved them and be proud of who I had been. So I try each day to do good deeds and let the past stay put.
On the 13 roos its funny, you only hear 1 during crowing sessions, they take turns! I see few of them stretching out their necks, open their beaks but no sounds. They just mime...still hoping for a few to be hens but until this problem with posting pics is solved I just have to keep taking notes and pics. Got my kitchen scale working now so maybe at lunch I will try to weight them. Will keep trying to post pics. It lets me choose them but then it doesn't load them. Maybe I will boot up my pc, transfer yhe pis to it and try from my pc.
take care all. Im feeling better today and need chicken feed today. Might try going out. Stiff in the hip butvi didcsome yoga exercises last night too help stretch my joints.

 

[heartsizedfarm]

I confess that sometimes I've gotten so wrapped up in the day to day care of my grandkids that I'd kinda forgotten the fun factor. Austin's death reminded me that I don't want to miss a minute of laughing and smiling and silly-time with the amazing little people I have left. In a few days it will be the second anniversary of his death. I usually don't dwell on it - partly because I can't change it anyway and partly because I still haven't accepted his death completely. But his lovely wife, Joy, just posted something on Facebook that reminded me of his amazing sense of humor. Austin was a kid who made fun wherever he went - please allow me to tell a little Austin story I learned from the young lady he married 8 months before his death. It began with a question about a photo of Austin wearing a fake moustache. After he died Joy took a photo of herself wearing that same moustache. I knew there was a story there, so I asked her about it. Their first winter together the kids were broke - way broke! But it was their first Christmas as man and wife and he wanted it to be memorable. He and Joy, with a handful of quarters, set out on a quest to find their Christmas. They hit every quarter toy machine they could find and the goodies went into one bag. Christmas Eve Austin took the few ornaments he could scape up and decorated their car for Christmas. He put a warm, red blanket in the car. Then he and Joy sat out in the Christmas car during a freezing cold, snowy Iowa Christmas Eve, and took turns pulling items out of the mystery bag. A huge, gaudy "ruby" ring and that moustache were Austin's favorite gifts that year. Austin actually wore that ring for days, until the cheap plastic finally broke! They had no way to know that their first Christmas would be their only one - but they knew they had to make it count, the way they made every day count! Austin in his Christmas moustache. [COLOR=B42000] [/COLOR] When he was little we all called him "AJ". Somehow that got corrupted into "Ajax", which we all called him for years. So he proposed to Joy by buying them each a bottle of dishwashing liquid, his way of telling her that from that day forward they would work together as a Dream Team.

That boy had a sweet nature and a well-oiled funny bone, you can see that. I wish he was still around for you.

 

[heartsizedfarm]

Deb, you and I should have been buddies in grade school! I would have loved a horsey friend. I galloped to school every morning on my imaginary horse and tied him to the bicycle rack. Never had a real horse of my own because my parents thought they were too dangerous. But I was horse mad! Sat for hours on farmers' fences talking to their pastured horses.

Flash forward twenty or so years and I have an eight year old daughter who is horse mad! Ta da! All she can talk about is horses, so I buy her a helmet, get her riding lessons, lo and behold, she loves it, so I waltz out out and buy her a pony. Biggest craziest best thing I ever did. She's 28 now and still a good horsewoman. And that same pony is chomping the grass in my own back pasture this morning.

But you and I would have had good times Deb, if we'd met as kids.

 

[lazy gardener]

I think we all might have enjoyed each other's company growing up. I dropped out of 4H as a kid b/c all the leader wanted to do was sit around and stitch pin cushions out of felt. At that time, i was sewing my own clothes, and already had my first flock of chickens! My 4H expectation was to get into animal husbandry with larger animals!

 

[perchie.girl]

Deb, you and I should have been buddies in grade school! I would have loved a horsey friend. I galloped to school every morning on my imaginary horse and tied him to the bicycle rack. Never had a real horse of my own because my parents thought they were too dangerous. But I was horse mad! Sat for hours on farmers' fences talking to their pastured horses.

Flash forward twenty or so years and I have an eight year old daughter who is horse mad! Ta da! All she can talk about is horses, so I buy her a helmet, get her riding lessons, lo and behold, she loves it, so I waltz out out and buy her a pony. Biggest craziest best thing I ever did. She's 28 now and still a good horsewoman. And that same pony is chomping the grass in my own back pasture this morning.

But you and I would have had good times Deb, if we'd met as kids.

Ponies are either good or very very bad.... LOL. I love em.

Till I was twelve I rode my moms saw horse with chaise lounge cushions fastened on and a broom for a head. We never lived any where that had horses....

When I was about seven or eight we went to visit my aunt Lucia at my grandpas place once. she had this beautiful bay Stallion Called Apple polisher... Oh I wanted to ride him sooo bad. The next morning I got up before any one got up and went out to the corral. He was standing next to the fence... Barefooted I climbed the fence and I could see him watching me out of the corrner of his eye... I stretched one foot out over his back and was reaching for his mane to get on when he took a quick step sideways and Boom I went into the dirt at his feet. I must have climbed that fence in about two seconds and was back in the house in less than thirty... When everyone got up I was watching cartoons on TV. no one found out till much much later. I was afraid I would get in trouble... LOL I guess that would be my very first "dump"...

I think we all might have enjoyed each other's company growing up. I dropped out of 4H as a kid b/c all the leader wanted to do was sit around and stitch pin cushions out of felt. At that time, i was sewing my own clothes, and already had my first flock of chickens! My 4H expectation was to get into animal husbandry with larger animals!

I never knew 4h had a horse program.... I would have loved it. I wonder if they had a horse program in the late 60s.

I was fortunate my first stable owner got the whole barn involved with Equestrian Trails... Which was a trail riders association. I think we we belonged to corral number 80 ish back then. We would go to meetings once a month and there was a guest lecturer usually we would learn about the parts of the horse, Or the types of equipment and their uses and the proper names to call everything. And laws about riding on city roads... How to do first aid... then we put on Horse shows and Gymkhannas.... All to support the club. I believe the organization was also involved with retaining access to trails for horses. So they did some lobying and working with communities. There is one community in Norco California that has trail access through out town. The zoning in town is quarter acre to have a horse or two. Most of the town fit that bill so instead of alleys there are bridle paths. Communities like Poway and Ramona have some of that set up... but not as much as Norco.

deb

 

[tntchix]

I confess that sometimes I've gotten so wrapped up in the day to day care of my grandkids that I'd kinda forgotten the fun factor. Austin's death reminded me that I don't want to miss a minute of laughing and smiling and silly-time with the amazing little people I have left. In a few days it will be the second anniversary of his death. I usually don't dwell on it - partly because I can't change it anyway and partly because I still haven't accepted his death completely. But his lovely wife, Joy, just posted something on Facebook that reminded me of his amazing sense of humor.

Austin was a kid who made fun wherever he went - please allow me to tell a little Austin story I learned from the young lady he married 8 months before his death. It began with a question about a photo of Austin wearing a fake moustache. After he died Joy took a photo of herself wearing that same moustache. I knew there was a story there, so I asked her about it.

Their first winter together the kids were broke - way broke! But it was their first Christmas as man and wife and he wanted it to be memorable. He and Joy, with a handful of quarters, set out on a quest to find their Christmas. They hit every quarter toy machine they could find and the goodies went into one bag. Christmas Eve Austin took the few ornaments he could scape up and decorated their car for Christmas. He put a warm, red blanket in the car. Then he and Joy sat out in the Christmas car during a freezing cold, snowy Iowa Christmas Eve, and took turns pulling items out of the mystery bag. A huge, gaudy "ruby" ring and that moustache were Austin's favorite gifts that year. Austin actually wore that ring for days, until the cheap plastic finally broke! They had no way to know that their first Christmas would be their only one - but they knew they had to make it count, the way they made every day count!



Austin in his Christmas moustache.



When he was little we all called him "AJ". Somehow that got corrupted into "Ajax", which we all called him for years. So he proposed to Joy by buying them each a bottle of dishwashing liquid, his way of telling her that from that day forward they would work together as a Dream Team.

He sounds like a magnificent soul. I am honored you shared that story with us. We should all be so lucky to have an AJ in our lives.

 

[lindz8504]

Just popping in again to say hi and share more pictures! I haven't been able to keep up lately, so I hope everyone is doing well! Prayers for those that need it! Good news about Kendra!

It has been a crazy busy week around here. I put eggs under a broody, picked up a new puppy, had to take the Great Dane to the vet because he got into a fight, and found out that he also had Lyme disease, had 2 cookouts (one at our house and another the next day at my uncle in laws).... Shew, busy busy.

Zauk (dane) showed up Tuesday all muddy with wounds all over him. We cleaned him up, but over night he started having some neurological symptoms, so I took him to the vet. They kept him for 2 nights, and he has to have medicine for a month, plus his wounds cleaned and medicine put on them twice a day...

My kids begged and pleaded for a new puppy, and wanted to use their birthday money to get it. We agreed because since Parker was hit and killed, we have put our oldest to bed crying because he was gone. We thought that maybe a new one would help her cope. So, I went to pick up a 5 month old parti-colored yorkie female. She is the perfect puppy so far, and isn't small enough that I really have to worry about the two littlest ones hurting her on accident. So far, no barking, chewing or any of the normal bad habits puppies tend to have. We are working on potty-training, but even that is going well! Since Zauk tested + for Lyme, we decided to go ahead and get her the vaccine, and she did have a reaction to that, and had to have some Benadryl. We caught it really early, and other than some mild swelling and being drowsy from the benadryl, she was fine and is back to normal.

We saw this in a fresh cut hay field on our way to a graduation cook out! I have only seen 1-2 ever in the wild, and this was amazing!

Broody jumped off the nest to grab a bite to eat, so I snuck a picture!

Our new puppy.... Paisley

Happy Fathers day!!!!! This is my hubby and all our kiddos!

Miss Harriet.... the broody Golden Comet (RSL)

Salmon Faverolle chick, 4 weeks

Mystery chick 4 weeks

Mixed chick, 4 weeks old, suspected roo

 

[Blooie]

Our chariot awaits!

 

[lovingmyhens]

Soo excited for you blooie!!!!