Saturday - Baseball and kittens

 

We have had a very nice Saturday.  We had to be at a baseball game at 8:30 which meant that we had to leave here at 7:45 but we made it and Nathan played very well.  I forgot my camera and so no pictures but he hit a high ball into the outfield.  It would have been a 2 base hit but the boy on 1st base didn't know what to do and so Nathan almost out ran him and had to turn back and run back to first.

After the game we bought Glenn some shoes and ran over to Shelly's to return some things she had left behind.  Then we had lunch at our favorite place - where else but McDonalds!  The kids played for 30 minutes and had a great time.

We headed home and bought a yummy ice cream cone at a recently opened pizza place that has blue bell ice cream.  We sat outside as it is a near perfect day and then ran to the feed store and headed home. 

The only sad part of the day was that as we were unloading and putting away the chicken feed, fish food and duck food I heard one of the kittens meowing and went to check on them.  I had noticed that they weren't as chubby as Emma, Sarah and Cali but I didn't think it was a problem.  Well, two of the kittens died some time today so we took the remaining kittens into the house.

These are the two remaining kittens and Cali.  Keep in mind that Cali is 6 weeks old and weighs around 1 1/2 lbs.  I think they will be ok but the one on the right (Becca has named her pumpkin) is very weak and we are hand feeding her.  Yes, for those keeping count we now have 7 cats/kittens living in our house. Wow, we haven't had a cat of any kind living in our house since Bob lived with us many years ago.

 

                 

Name the Dog

  

I finally received Duke's papers for the AKC registration.  I need a formal name for this dog who is afraid of everything.  The kids keep coming up with very strange names - i.e. Duke Fane Ball (Nathan), Duke brown/white dog (Mandy).  I was thinking along the lines of Master Duke Ball or something like that.  OK family - I need some names.

Last Weekend

 

 

 

Mandy at the High Meadow Ranch

 

 

 

 

 

We had a busy weekend.  On Friday, Glenn and Nathan went to baseball practice and Mandy and I went to hear the Super Singers.  Sammi and Jessi are part of the Super Singers and the night was fun.  The girls did a good job of singing and following the director's lead.  Afterwards, we went and had ice cream at the old TCBY place on Grant and Jones.

Jessi, Sammi, Elizabeth and Mandy enjoy cookies after the performance.

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, we went to Nathan's baseball game - we won although this is the YMCA and you don't really keep score.  The kids are beginning to actually make plays.  A batter hits, the ball is found if not caught and thrown to a bass for an out.  It makes for a little more exciting game.  Nathan is in the process of changing from being a right handed thrower to a lefty and while it is taking a little adjusting it will be good in the end.  He does take his baseball seriously.

 

He is a White Sox this year.

 

 

 

 

 

While playing Nathan was playing baseball, Mandy decided to try on some accessories.  What is a baseball game without matching accessories?

 

 

 

   She is growing so big!

After the game we went to a big open house (kind of) for a new section of High Meadow Ranch. They did a western theme and pulled out all of the stops.  They had a mule drawn carriage, rope tricks, free food, a pretend gunfight, we mined for gold, and Glenn won a free round of golf for getting the most in-one-putts (or something).  Oh, they also had a great petting zoo and everyone really enjoyed it.  Shelly came over and joined us.  Oh, they also had musicians and the kids got up and danced a jig.

 

 

 

Yeah! Jason fixed it.

I don't know what he did but I can blog from my computer.  Wonderful!  We have had several interesting weeks since I have blogged.  A deer hit my car, Spot brought home a deer leg and then came home covered in blood and proceeded to spray blood every where.  Ugh! Blood is sticky.

We have fallen in love with our three little kittens!  We have named them Emma (white one), Sarah (dark fluffy one) and Cali (orange coloring tabby).  They are so much fun to play with and watch.

 

 

I did it!  Isn't everyone proud of me?  Actually Jason made it very easy!

 

 

 

 

Emma is my favorite. She is very calm while her siblings are more into everything.  By the way, a funny story.  We kidnapped the three from their Mother, Kimball because she is wild and the kittens were becoming wild also.  Kimball's sister, Benson (alright we thought they were boys) had 4 kittens about 4 weeks after Kimball had hers.  Since we kidnapped Kimball's kittens, I guess Kimball decided if we could so could she.  She now has taken 2 of Bensons kittens and are raising them.  I have never heard anything like that before. Since I had to catch up I think I will do it in two postings.   Take care.

Bagged my first one

Well, hello - yesterday was a strange day. 1st off Pepa calls and tells me Grannie is in the hospital but gives me no details and said he would call me back when they find out what is going on. The kids and I went to pick up Asia and Aurora who are visiting with us for a week. We talked and visited with Shelly and girls a while and Nathan really hurt his back by falling off the scooter and failing onto the handles. It's going to be a bad bruise.

We ran over to Sam's and picked up the meat for the picnic on Saturday and headed home. Nathan and Asia with Aurora in tow went to collect eggs and rushed back to tell me that a snake was eating the eggs in the chicken coop. I went to the workshop and retrieved a shovel and a hoe and went armed to battle. I walked in and yes, indeed there was a snake in one of the nesting boxes with an egg in his mouth. It is true what they say that they swallow them whole and it does look kind of strange. Anyway, I went to battle with this rather big snake and I won! He is now a very dead snake. It felt very primitive to be whacking a snake with a shovel.
Living in the country what can I say?

 

A very dead snake!

 

 

 

 

More about Grannie when we find something out. Right now she is stable but I am afraid they are going to come back with a diagnosis of liver cancer.

Last weekend

was, of course General conference and everyone has written something about it. I am looking forward to reading each talk as even though I listen closely, I can't remember half of what was said. I am very impressed with the new Apostle, Elder Christofferson. I listened to him talk and the Spirit was very strong and I enjoyed his talk about his wife's conversion and also his sister-in law's. I was very glad to see President Monson smile on Sunday. He had seemed so very solemn.

This weekend was very busy for us and so I taped the Saturday session and watched the morning session while Glenn and Nathan were at Priesthood. The Solemn Assembly was interesting - I don't remember doing it that way before but I am sure it is my memory and not something new.

We also had another adventuresome animal day. We have one male Mandarin duck and Glenn thought it would be nice to get him company and so around 6 weeks ago we bought three little balls of yellow fluff and brought them home. Boy, ducks are incredibly dirty animals and I will be glad to take them to the pond. We tried on Saturday morning and it was almost a final act on the part of the ducks. We took them down to the pond and watched them get in the water and take that first swim and then off they went into the middle of the pond. They looked like they were having a great time and then Ducky Wucky decided to join them. He swam up to them and we thought "awww" he is making friends. Not true, he tried to kill them! He grabbed one on the back of the neck and started holding his head under water. Glenn threw sticks and rocks and finally we all pulled the boat into the water and Glenn rowed vigorously to where they were. He slapped the paddle down into the water and Ducky finally let go. The baby duck did survive but then we didn't know what to do. By the way, there were ants in the boat and Glenn was standing up in the boat and trying to get rid of the ants and not fall in. Sorry, I didn't have my camera. We talked to Shelly and she looked up ducks and etc. and then we called the Feed store and were told that he was trying to show who was boss and we need to wait several more weeks to make sure the ducks can survive. Funny, we had put the dogs in the garage thinking they would be a problem but no it was the other duck! So, we were in a quandary trying to figure out how to get the ducks back in the kennel and take them back to the workshop. We have two fishing nets and Glenn went on one side and I went on the other and actually caught all three ducks in the two nets at once. I guess practice with the chickens have helped anyway they are back in the workshop and will be there for several more weeks.

Oh, we finally have found the three kittens that Kimball had several weeks ago. They are very cute - one is white with light grey and one is a grey tabby and the other is dark.. They all three have long hair like their mother and the little white one (it is adorable) was only born with one eye. I don't know what that will mean to the kitten. He/she won't be a hunter as he won't be able to see on that side.

We are looking forward to this week - Asia and Aurora are coming to stay for a week starting tomorrow and Kathie will be here on Friday. The big event is Victoria's blessing and we are going to have a picnic at Meyer's Park on Saturday and then travel to Donna's Ward for the blessing on Sunday. I can't believe how blessed we are to have so many wonderful children and grandchildren!

Making assumptions

I have been guilty of making the wrong assumptions about people twice in the last few months and I have learned, hopefully a really good lesson even though I did no harm. First, was a Sister that I visit teach. At first, she was just a letter because she was moving around a lot and had her address here. She came back in October and I made an effort to get to know her as I knew she would be traveling again soon. My assumptions: Her family goes from Renaissance Festival to Festival and her husband is not a member. I assumed that she was uneducated and inactive and probably some others too. I found out that she is very well educated, comes from a Pioneer stock family of the Church and is as active as her life style will let her be. I also found out last Wednesday that she has a Temple Recommend and so must have taken out her Endowments. I feel very judgmental and am humbled that I could have been so wrong about such a nice person.

Second assumption - (This is a little harder to follow) - In Mandy's dance class there is a little girl named Hannah. I met Hannah's Grandmother (Elaine) first as she was bringing Hannah to dance. I like Elaine, we are about the same age and she has three grown children and several grandchildren. Elaine is not a member of the Church but Amanda , her daughter is. Amanda is now bringing Hannah to dance as she bay-sits her during the day - Hannah lives with her Dad and he is divorced. Mom is not a desirable influence _ Elaine was the person that told me in a round about way that Amanda was LDS. She and her brother joined as teenagers and she is now married to a return Missionary and they have a little girl named Jillian. Here is where the assumption came in- Elaine was talking about Amanda's wedding and that Bishop Stutz (my Bishop) married them. Ok- so being me I put 1 & 1 together and figured that they couldn't get married in the Temple and were less active. Wrong assumption again. I was talking to Amanda the other day and she talked about the fact that both of their parents were either nonmembers or less active and couldn't come to the Temple so, they prayed and decided that for them, in this particular case they would marry civilly and then wait the year and be sealed in the Temple and they did.

So, as I try to learn my lesson I thought I would share this one with everyone. In both instance, I did no harm - I befriended my Visiting teachee and it has been rewarding for both of us and I never said anything to Amanda and accepted her for who she was but I could have done damage and I have repented of the thought processes that I went through. So, hopefully for me this is a lesson learned and I won't repeat it.

Have a great day-Oh, by the way, it was not my fault that I couldn't put the pictures in - my computer refused to do it and I finally had to get Jason to post on his computer and so we are trying to find out what setting on my computer will not let me post to my blog??????

Catch up

I have been "told" by everyone lately that I need to be better at posting! Ok. Let's see over the last month we have - gone on vacation to San Diego - we had a wonderful time, the weather was perfect, finally got to visit my Uncle Buzzy and his wife, Kathy and see their lovely home, and spend wonderful time with Cyndi, Jeremy and the boys and our Kathie. We went to Legoland, the coast at LaJolla where we saw harbor seals and played in

the sand, visited the lagoons of Carlsbad, went to the zoo, and again played on the beach and got very wet. Roll drum please! pictures to follow.





We also have three new kittens presented to us by our "male" cat Kimball - they are white, tabby and brown - and two new calves from two of our cows. Our three ducklings have tripled in size and are almost ready to take down to the pond. Also, Ducky Wucky, our Mandarin duck has a girl friend that is a coot. That is a different type of duck that swims under water. Spring has finally found our corner of the world and all of our trees have bloomed since we left for California. Duke, our paranoid puppy is still paranoid but is getting better. One thing you can say for him is he is obedient - at least to me. He does love to be outside and so we are planning on building him a kennel. Oh, and one of our chickens is broody which means she is sitting on a nest and have 5 eggs she is trying to hatch. We will see. She will leave them for a few minutes to get food and water and then be back in her nesting box.





We came back from California on Saturday night and went to Church and then went over to Shelly's for a yummy Easter dinner and the kids had a egg hunt. Interesting side bar - Nathan and Mandy are not big sweets eaters and so all but a couple of the stuffed Easter eggs are still upstairs in the bags and will remain there until I get tired of looking at them and throw them away.





This weekend Becca came to spend the night on Friday and then helped us with the garden on Saturday. She needed to put in 10 hours worth of work on a garden for her Young Woman program. Anyway, we had a good time with her and we worked for 4 hours on digging mint out of our garden and as Becca so wisely put it "don't ever plant mint!" By way of defense - I didn't plant it, the previous owner did and it had spread everywhere. We were very busy on Saturday and got the garden rototilled, the chicken coop flooring down and repaired a fence that had been broken by the cows. Now, I am going to try put some pictures in this post! My head is down in shame but after picking the pictures and trying to send them over the computer said it couldn't do it! Big sigh, I will have to have another tutorial with Shelly.

fist tooth

Today I am looking out at a hazy outline of trees and a slate grey pond.  It is not so much foggy but grey.  It is lazily raining now but was raining in sheets earlier.  Well, on to the big news – Nathan lost his first tooth last night!  I don’t know why but it makes me feel a little sad.  Even though I have children in their thirties Nathan growing up is kind of a surprise.

 

All of the little birds are coming back now that the rain has calmed down.  We have the feeders in front of the house so that we can watch the birds as we work on the computers or I do the dishes in the kitchen.  It is amazing to see the life in our small part of the earth.  Some of the trees are starting to green up a little and I am glad as right now everything is a little barren.

The strange things

That you will find on a farm.  Last week Nathan came in from “observing” which is part of his Science curriculum.  He has to go out and observe nature and then draw a picture, etc. anyway he was very excited.  He had found something big and black that Spot was chewing on!   I went outside with him and Spot had drug home the head of a wild hog.  The hog must have been large as the head was big and very black and bristly.  One ugly head.  Evidently someone had killed a wild hog: they run wild here and destroy pasture trying to up root grass to find something to eat and had cut off the head and Spot and Blackie had found it. YUCK.  We took it over and put it in the firepit and burned it.

 

We have also added two more cats to our menagerie, not by choice but they are here.  Beth brought over two grown cats and said their owner couldn’t take them to the apartment he was moving to.  One is a long haired white female and very friendly and the other is a black and white cat that isn’t friendly and doesn’t like people.  We were told to leave them in the house for several days to get them acclimated to our family and house before we introduced them to the workshop.  Well, Nathan went in to the half bath, where we were keeping them, to pet Blanca (white cat) and the male took a swipe at Nathan and cut him above the eye.  He came to me crying with blood running down his face.  The cats are now in the workshop.  That is it for animals for us.  We are becoming a zoo instead of a farm!

 

I am planning on buying several baby turkeys this Spring and some small ducks and raise them.  We will see how hard it is to raise a turkey and then slaughter them.  We can raise them in the chicken coop as they grow very quickly.  The ducks are so that Ducky Wucky won’t be lonely.  I don’t know if a male duck will help raise baby ducks on not.  We will see.

 

Spring is beginning here.  We have flocks of birds wintering here and they are very pretty.  We have visiting cardinals and blue buntings and a small pretty bird that I don’t have a name for yet.  Nathan and I started a bird feeding station and he is keeping track of how much bird feed we are using.  We also have cranes and egrets and crows and woodpeckers and chicken hawks (not crazy about them). Oh, we also have a dead tree in the very back and a flock of buzzards perch there.  The wild flowers have started coming up and the daffodils that Loyce planted are up and blooming.  We had many yellow wild flowers last year and I put out 2 lbs. of different wild flower seeds so hopefully they will come up also.

 

We are starting to prepare for our reunion which is in July in Nauvoo.  I think it will be wonderful to be there with our whole family.

We have a new

Granddaughter – Victoria Rose Leavitt was born on Friday, January 25^th at 3:41pm at the Oakbend Medical Center.  Both Mother (Donna) and baby are doing great.  Wow!  That makes 5 babies born since last January and we just heard that Laura, Bob’s wife is expecting!  We are indeed blessed.

 

Last night I was going to a yearly home schooling meeting.  There were 5 of us from Magnolia area and we drove together.  We chatted about school and kids and all the challenges and joys of both.  We arrived a little early and were pulling into a parking spot when one of the women said “Oh my gosh, that man just broke a car window!” and he had.  He grabbed a package; something then looked straight at us and then jumped in a car and took off.  One of the women said “get the license plate” as another Sister called 911.  As Grace was talking to the dispatcher we saw a Security car drive by.  Marie Gossling, who is incredible and probably weighs 95 lbs. wringing wet reversed her big 8 passenger van and zoomed after the Security guard.  We chased him around a Target parking lot until he finally stopped and we told him what happened.  We told him we would follow him over and gave him a description of the thief, their car and license number and approximately when this had happened.  He told us that probably the thief had stolen a laptop computer bag or something that was on the back seat.

 

We drove back to the hotel and then got a little concerned because Marie’s van in highly recognizable and it was very dark.  So, as we start to get out of the van a black sport car pulled up beside us and freaked us all out!  Luckily, it was fellow home schoolers and we walked into the hotel with them.  What was so funny is afterward Marie said ”ok, Ladies lets see your power walk” so that we wouldn’t look like victims if someone was watching.  It was an interesting and rather exciting night.

 

Oh, and after a horribly rainy, drab, cold week we have a beautiful blue sky and warm weather.  It is a good thing we live in Houston as dark winter weather does not suit me at all!   I forgot something, we have 3 new additions to our farm!  The day before we left to go see Asia and baby Aurora we heard and then found an abandoned kitten.  She was very loud (that’s how we found her) and we looked around but didn’t see any more kittens.  It worried me as I was pretty sure someone had dumped a litter of kittens.  We fed her and named her Josie; it was supposed to be Joseph (Nathan) but since she is a she we thought Josie more appropriate.  We left Friday and Shelly came and stayed at our house for the week.   On Sunday as they returned home from Church the big dogs had treed something.  They were worried that it might be Josie although they had left her in the house and guess what – Josie has a sister.  The second kitten had spent several more days out in the wet and cold and was sick but they brought her in and took care of her.  So, her name is Tiger Ann.  Then Glenn surprised me at Christmas with a puppy!  Asia’s Mother-in-law is a dog breeder and he bought me a Sheltie puppy.  We brought him home with us from Amarillo.  I have decided to call him Duke after John Wayne, the actor who was called the Duke a lot.  Anyway, we have one paranoid puppy on our hands.  He is simply terrified of humans.  No problem there – big sigh.  I don’t know what happened to him but he slinks around with his tail between his legs and grouches to the floor if you reach out to touch him.  He is getting a little better and Nathan is actually very good with him.  We took him for a walk to the pond and he seemed to enjoy being outside so, we will see.  Have a wonderful day.

Six things

No one knows about me.  Cyndi challenged me to this and I don’t know if I can come up with six somethings but I will try-

 

1.   We were leaving in California at the time this happened and I was 9 with a birthday coming up.  My best friend, although I can’t remember her name asked me to go camping in the desert with her family.  The only complication was that it was my birthday weekend.  I wanted to go soooooo badly but my older sister, Linda was having a fit.  She told me that I was a traitor to our family and would hurt Mama badly if I left for the weekend instead of spending it with my family.  It was a terribly hard decision to make as I didn’t want to hurt my Mother but so wanted to go on this trip.  My Mother solved it by having my birthday celebration in the middle of the week.  My friend had a camper and we rode in it to the desert and slept in the camper.  We had a fantastic time looking at stars and had a wonderful camp fire with the other campers.  To that point in my life and for quite a while after, it was my favorite birthday.  By the way, when I got back my Mother was in the hospital having collapsed at work and my Sister convinced me that it was all my fault.

 

2. This is a bit of a confession, I suppose.  Right after the above happened, Mama was very sick.  I don’t remember what she had but we got behind in bills and she wrote (or called, I don’t know) and asked my Grandparents what to do.  They wired her money and we started back to Texas.  In the middle of Arizona somewhere the car broke down.  We didn’t know what to do and so we all got out of the car and walked to the nearest “town”.  It consisted of a gas station, a hotel, and a café.  We spent one miserable week there.  They didn’t have parts and had to order them and Mama had to contact Grannie and Dad and get more money.  Now the confession part – by now I am 10 and was usually a good kid.  We were bored out of our minds, it was hot and we had no money.  There was a coke machine at the gas station and I wanted a drink.  I tried to figure out what to do and came up with nothing.  I finally found a piece of cardboard and tried to fashion a coin to trick the machine and get my drink.  It didn’t work and I broke the machine – I also didn’t tell a soul until now what I had done.  So now, you all know one of the worst things I have ever done!
3. Right before I found out I was expecting Kathie, I took an H & R Block Tax course.  They asked some of their more promising students to go to work for them for the tax season.  I was a tax preparer for the following season of tax preparation.  I remember going to have lunch and ordering something Italian but I couldn’t eat anything with bell peppers in it.  By now, I knew I was expecting.  I had gone to lunch and actually had a customer at my desk and realized that I was going to throw up.  The bathroom was out of the office and at the end of the hall.  I must have been a little wild eyed as I said very quickly “excuse me for a second”, left my desk and the room and ran the length of the hall, rushed into the bathroom, threw up, and then washed my face and walked back to the office and finished his taxes.
4. Before we left for Singapore I was taking a writing course to become an author.  I continued in Singapore for awhile but it became too difficult to finish the assignment and get them sent in with the time gap of mailing from overseas.
5. Something I actually told Shelly today, I played the flute in elementary school.
6. I wanted to be an artist when I grew up and had filled out one of those drawing courses advertisements.  They contacted me and wanted me to take the courses and in fact, came out and talked to my Mother about taking the classes.  It didn’t happen but I really wanted to it at the time.

 

I guess I did it and now everything will know me a little better, I guess.  Have a great day or night or whatever.

our latest adventure!

We had an interesting and tiring weekend.  Life on the farm is always so...unexpected!  We had an apartment built in May/June timeframe last summer and that is another story but once we had people in the apartment we found the septic system um... shall we say inadequate.  Glenn took a long plunger-like thing and tried to find the stoppage but to no avail.  When Cyndi moved out, actually before I guess we had a septic man come out and check into it and found that Loyce, the original owner had done a home made septic system – eew!  Anyway, we finally got to fix it this weekend.  We rented a large piece of equipment called a Ditch Witch which had a huge –what looked like a giant chain saw – on the back.  Glenn actually had fun driving it.  Anyway, we discovered that when Oscar worked on the apartment someone evidently made a large gash in one of the large pipes leading away from the building and so that was another problem in its self.  We worked as a team because I had to make sure that Daddy was going deep enough to bury it.

 

 After the tractor stopped working and we had to call someone to come out we stopped for a short while and drove to Tomball to see Santa.  Nathan was sure he would go right up to Santa and set on his lap and for the 3^rd year running he wouldn’t even come close to him but now because Nathan was scared of Santa, Mandy wouldn’t come close either!  Oh well.

 

Back to the trench and we had to measure along the line, it is 120 feet and make sure that the pipe was at an angle downward but it also had to meet up with the existing pipe that we are going to connect into from the house.  It was a lot of measuring, shoveling in dirt, leveling it and then putting in the pipe and then using a level to make sure it was at an angle.  It took us all day but it is accomplished.  I would love to put pictures here of Glenn running the big trencher but I still am not sufficiently knowledgeable to put pictures in here.

 

Also, Nathan had his first piano recital Thursday night.  He did great and had a wonderful time.  He looked so grown up and was very confident in himself and his playing.  We were very proud of him. 

 

Now, on to the rest of Christmas with decorating, cooking, wrapping, etc.  Kathie will be home on Friday and Cyndi and family are going to come around New Year’s.  We are looking forward to all of them being home again.

It's General Conference

Weekend.  We have had a busy but nice weekend.  Saturday morning Nathan had a soccer game and so we recorded the first session of General Conference and went to the soccer game.  Nathan wasn’t to in to the game which is rather unusual but when he played goalie he did great!  He stopped two scores and was really involved.  We stopped at Home Depot afterwards and by accident ran into a Kids Day workshop with Firefighters and Fire trucks and both kids made a cute little crayon holder fire truck out of wood.  They also received a Home Depot work apron and pin and a hand out which we will use for FHE on fire safety tomorrow.

 

Today was nice to be able to sleep in and listen to the Spoken Word and sit and enjoy listening to the speakers.  Nathan and Mandy received a packet in the mail from Kathie and they worked on it and also a page I copied out of the Friend magazine.  Nathan had fun checking out the ties on the General authorities and Mandy enjoyed the maze and coloring Joseph’s coat of many colors.  The page we copied from the Friend had a list of key words and if you heard the word “scriptures” then you decided what you would eat.  The only problem was that they did listen but they would hear a word and then search in their bowls for a pretzel or a cashew or a Trix cereal.  Glenn did keep up with the kids and kept eating Nathan’s pretzels.  Just for information we ate the most cashews (Jesus Christ) and then teddy grahams (Heavenly Father) and the third was pretzels (family).  In fact, we ended up bringing pretzels to the living room because we kept running out.  My guess is the theme of the conference was basically the family. It was fun though and the kids enjoyed the session but they weren’t very hungry for lunch after all of the teddy grahams, cashews, pretzels, gold fish, and marshmallows.  As I watched the sessions and President Hinckley didn’t speak until Sunday – he may have in Priesthood, I wasn’t there – I was so very glad that President Hinckley spoke on Sunday morning.  He is amazing at 97!  We hope you all had a wonderful General Conference weekend.

 

PS – the chickens are doing better and some have started laying eggs again.

On a September evening

I have had qualms about exactly what to write on this blog.  I don’t read others so I can’t compare – do I write just about the farm or about the kids or about me but I guess since it says ball family that is what it should be. All kinds of things have been going on lately.

 

I am still enjoying the wonderful sunrises!  We have had some very foggy mornings and it is like walking into another world with fog shrouded tall dark sentries in the distance and swirls of clouds caressing my face.  There is also a planet, I don’t know which one that is very bright every morning and positioned directly in front of me as I head east towards the chicken coop.  Speaking of chickens my chickens are sick.  They have chicken pox!  It is actually called avian or fowl pox but it is yucky.  The chickens all have black crusty looking sores on their combs and wattles (the red part above and below the head) and slight sneeze sounds.  They also have stopped laying and for a while there Fancy wasn’t crowing al all and Fancy loves to crow.  Fred crows occasionally but Fancy will crow dozens of times a day.  It took me several days to come up with what they had, actually Shelly came up with it (research specialist) and then if was confirmed by Brett, the rancher that rents our pasture and then the Montgomery County Ag extension agent.  We just need to wait and they will be better in a month or so.

 

We also have lost a cat.  One day Spencer was just gone and we haven’t seen him in almost two weeks.  My guess is he became someone’s dinner but I guess he could have found a different home.  Our duck is still doing well.  She came waddling up to the house the other day, we hadn’t fed her yet.  If she doesn’t have a mate we may buy some baby ducks for her to raise come spring.

 

Meanwhile, I think I may have broken the third toe on my left foot.  I dropped a very heavy plastic thing on my foot and then jumped around a bit and finally soaked it in ice water for a while.  It is really a very ugly toe right now and I still can’t wear shoes. I was supposed to get it x-rayed today but it just didn’t happen so I am just going to treat it like it’s broken.  It would help if my children would stop stepping on it.  So far today, Mandy has stepped on it three times and Nathan once.

 

I was very proud of myself last Friday as I mowed the entire yard in one day.  For those that haven’t heard about our mowing issues, they seem to be ongoing.  When we first moved to the farm we bought the old riding lawn that the old owners sold us.  It lasted about 2 ½ mowings.  Then we bought a rebuilt mower from Johnny the lawnmower man and then it kept breaking down.  I think it took 3 times of Johnny coming out and fixing this or that before we could actually run it.  Ask Jeremy, the poor guy kept climbing onto the mower and mowing a strip and then the mower would break and the circle would repeat itself with Johnny coming out, etc.  Finally, right before Cyndi and family left for Arizona it was finally running smoothly.  Anyway, in all this time I had never accomplished mowing all of it in one day until last Friday and I was able to get it mowed even thought I had to pick Nathan up from school and do some running around afterwards.  It looks so much better when it is mowed!

 

Glenn isn’t coming home until Friday night as he had a management meeting in Denver and Nathan doesn’t have school tomorrow and so we get to sleep in, Yeah!  Sleeping in at my house usually means 6:30 but it beats 5:45.  We hope to work on the road some tomorrow.  I am not sure how I am going to do that with a broken toe but it really is getting bad.  With all of the rain we received in early summer it has many and deep potholes and so it is time to do the dirt/gravel fix.  We have priced a tractor with an attachment that would fix the road but Glenn is waiting, I’m not sure for what but he is waiting.

 

Hurrah – we also received Mandy’s Social Security card today!  It’s been a year since we brought her home but we finally have it.  That’s it for the evening.  Ya’ll have a great night.

 

The sunrise

Since I take Nathan to school every morning, I need to get up fairly early to get myself dressed and feed the assorted chickens, cats, dogs and children.  This means that I am feeding the chickens every morning about sun up.  Each morning as I walk across the back yard to the chicken coop I am greeted by this beautiful scene.  Yesterday, the sun was sending orange shafts of light toward to sky and the surrounding clouds were laced with orange and pink and dark blue and white.  Other mornings, there is a mist that still clings to the ground and around the trees and I am in a nether land of contrasts.

 

 It is fast becoming my favorite time of day and even though I still am trying to figure out a time to go to bed so that getting out of bed that early is ok, I am loving the sunrises!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to our Mandy, who is 4 years old! Wow,  it has been over a year since Mandy’s gotcha day!  We are going to have a birthday party for her on Saturday but we did celebrate at Preschool with homemade cupcakes and juice and then we met Shelly’s girls and had a fun lunch at McDonalds and we play, play, played!  She has come a long way from the little girl that cried for hours and screamed “My Mother has left me!” at any passer by in Mandarin.  She is quite a character and has Attitude with a capital A but is turning into a loving, creative little girl.  Her language has finally caught up with her mind and she is now truly talking and describing what her life is to her.  On Saturday, we were driving to Shelly’s to take some things to her house and Mandy talked nonstop about Cinderella.  She went into every detail and every scene. It takes almost an hour to get to Shelly’s’ house and she didn’t’ stop talking.  Her monologue included sound effects and when the Royal messenger comes to the Cinderella’s house – she said “and he went ding dong” and just continued.  Anyway, again Happy Birthday to Amanda Paige Xin Jie Ball who is now 4 years old!

We have a

Happy Labor Day everyone!  We have done just that this weekend – we have labored.  Shelly and family came and stayed at the Ball family Bed and Breakfast over Friday night and spent part of Saturday with us.  I think everyone had fun and we got some work done.  We have a beaver that has moved onto our island at the pond.  It looks like his/her den is actually on the island – there is a pile of gnawed on sticks on the bank and a big whole in the ground under it and a larger hole to the side , which I am assuming is the escape route.  When Jason was out walking Bevo on Saturday morning before Bevo decided to be a bad dog and run away (he came home later) they saw the beaver at the island and watched him jump into the water.  So, we worked out on the island and wrapped the trees with chicken wire, hopefully if the beaver can’t get to the trees he/she will go away. 

 

Ducky Wucky (the kids named the duck) is doing well and has made her home under the little deck we have at the pond.  It would be nice if a male mallard would come along and we could have baby ducks.  We will see.

 

Jason figured out how to mow the long drive all the way to Riley Road and now you can actually drive with out hearing the grass hit the bottom of your car.  It is very nice.  Thank you, Jason.  He continued to mow a little after and then this morning, I got up and mowed for about an hour, Glenn took over for a little while until he had to stop and then I continued for another hour or so.  I still have some left to do but it definitely looks much better.  The day has been over cast all day and about an hour ago it let go and rained!  It is still raining some but not with the force it was before.

 

 We are busily thinking of plans for our Reunion in July 2008.  We are getting excited; I think it will be a wonderful time for our family.  Have a great week.

Summer 2007

Yeah!  I finally was able to get back into the blog that I was supposed to be typing into.  An English teacher would tear that sentence apart!  Our summer has been hectic-more about that later and now school has started back.  Nathan is now officially in Kindergarten.  He started August 20^th and is loving it.  Mandy has also started preschool and she seems to be doing very well.  Nathan is going to play soccer this season.  He has never played or even seen a soccer game before but he learned to play baseball this spring and I am sure he will do fine.  Mandy is starting dance-ballet and tap- and is very excited to do that.  She took her first lesson last Thursday and enjoyed it once she realized that the teacher was trying to get her to pretend.

 

Our farm menagerie is interesting.  It is growing for sure – we have a brand new duck that has joined us.  Our first duck – I believe she is a female mallard.  We don’t know where she came from but she seems comfortable around people.  She also seems to want to stay.  The kids have named her Ducky Wucky.  We are now up to 16 grown chickens.  There are two roosters – Fancy, who received his name because he has feathers sticky out of his head and Fred, our Rhode Island Red rooster that looks like every rooster should.  That leaves 14 pullets and they are laying well.  We have 2 white hens, 2 brown hens, 1 gold Brahma and 2 white Brahma, 1 black her (one of the dogs killed the other one) 1 rather unusual one that is black and white, 1 that is mostly brown but has different colored feathers around her neck and that leaves 4 others that I can’t remember.  I received a mixed group when I ordered. Anyway, I get white, tan, brown and dark brown eggs.  They started out very small but are getting bigger. We are averaging 7 a day so we are able to give Shelly about 18 a week. Again, I will try to figure out how to put pictures on here.  We have two dogs that have been with us basically since we moved and 6 cats.  Yes, I said 6 cats!  We started out with 2 male cats that Asia brought here from a litter her cat had and then I noticed a strange grey cat.  She has stayed and we have named her Smokey.  Well, Smokey presented us with 3 kittens and that brings us to 6.  We don’t want any more cats or dogs at present.

 

We have had a challenge of trying to keep up the acreage that we have.  We bought the riding lawn mower that the previous owner had and it lasted about 2 ½ mowings.  So, we bought another one from Johnny, the lawnmower man.  While Cyndi and Jeremy were here for the summer, Jeremy was able to get it to work well but now it’s my turn.  Whew! 

 

We have been going to the Magnolia Auction House each Friday night that we can and have brought some neat stuff.  Two weeks ago we found a swing set and we have finally accomplished putting it together.  The kids are loving it.  It is so wonderful to see them enjoying life so much here.  That as much as I can do tonight but at least I am back to writing.  Later.

update

Hi.  Just checking to see if I can get through.  Me