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| See he can slam dunk! |
Ahhhh, the country life. Gorgeous sunrises (ok I am actually usually not up for these) and breath taking sunsets (these I do see almost nightly) and the ability to have whatever kind of animals we want are the great benefits of our country life. People always say that chickens are the easiest animals to care of. I guess they are, but they still require a lot of maintenance. We just lost one of our favorite hens to mites. Apparently, we had an unknown infestation and it caused her death. We have since been working to eradicate ALL coops of any possible mites and it has been a tedious process, made all the harder by the fact that they hide in crevices of wood during the day where YOU CAN"T SEE THEM. Unfortunately, L was the one who found the deceased hen. I am not sure why she is the one who ALWAYS finds the dead ones. It really upsets her so I wish D and I were the ones to find them, though since D doesn't do a whole lot with them it would probably just be me.
We also have a small pond growing in our yard that has about a million tadpoles in it. I love that the kids are able to experience so much here. They see crawfish in our ditches after a heavy rain (and catch them), watch birds hatch from eggs and leave the nest, and find all kinds of neat things in the ground just by being able to go explore and get dirty. They have lots of room to play golf, volleyball, or pretty much anything they want to do. This is exactly the kind of childhood I wanted them to be able to experience and I am so happy that they are able to now.
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| Our tadpoles. My eldest daughter says they look like sperm cells. |
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| I hope we can see them change before we leave. |
The worst part about having chickens is how it hinders our ability to travel. We like to travel about 3-4 weeks out of the year, which to me isn't a whole lot, but now I have to try to find someone to take care of the animals. There is no livestock boarding facility like dogs and cats have. So far I have been able to find people willing to earn some extra money, but it is an extra cost and kind of a headache. However, the rest of the time we really love having animals. They are so fun to watch. We are inheriting a horse and donkey from my in-laws. We had (read I had) a discussion with the kids about getting more animals and how it would make longer trips harder so we would not go as often on long trips, but make more frequent short trips. They said they would rather have shorter trips and get the animals so that is what we are going to try. I already have to hire someone for the chickens so getting them to check on the equine while they are here won't be any big deal. I love horses and grew up with them so I really like seeing a halter on the coat rack by the door again! The kids are super excited. They have big plans on horse back riding. I hope the horse learns to enjoy being ridden or the kids might really be disappointed. We have horse trails near the lake by our house so we hope one day to be able to take them there and ride.
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| Not night time, just a big storm heading our way. |
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| We bribe the chicken with treats to sit still while we clean her feet...she has an infection we are treating. |
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| Some days are harder than others. |
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| My ever present faithful companion. |
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| That won't ever leave my side no matter what I am doing. |
We leave for our big trip up to Chicago soon and I am a little nervous. Chicago had 5" of snow 10 days ago and the stormy spring weather pattern makes it highly likely we will encounter some storms on our trip. I guess we will play it by ear and make any necessary adjustments as needed.
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| Hanging out with my husband's wonderful family. |
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| I guess that sign covers it all. |
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| D and his friend. |
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