The Bunch Enjoy a Stretch of Nice Weather and a Cold, Soggy, Low Key Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

We finally had a true fall week here in north Texas. The highs were in the mid-seventies and low's in the upper 40's. There was no strong winds just beautiful weather. We enjoyed the weather by riding our horse twice. It would have been three times, but the next cold front came through a little earlier than anticipated. For the first time ever, my husband and myself rode our horse. Granted, we each only rode her for about 5 minutes, but this was the first time we felt she was to the point where she is in shape enough for "normal" work. She wasn't exactly thrilled with her heavier weight load, but she did fine and we really had fun. Riding the horse is so much more fun than just leading the horse around with the kids. The horse is doing wonderfully with the new farrier and we haven't had any major issues. My only complaint is if the horse and donkey don't see that I am awake exactly 10 minutes after sunrise then the donkey proceeds to bray loud enough to wake the entire street (and that is no small feat since everyone on our street has a minimum of 2 acres!). The chickens are in the middle of molting and not only have bald spots from losing their feathers, but also are NOT laying. I have had to buy eggs from the grocery store for the past 3 weeks. It just feels wrong to have to buy eggs. I am hopeful that their little fluffy butts get back to work soon. Fresh eggs taste so much better than store bought!

The cold front brought with it a lot of rain which has made the horse pen a super muddy mess. Every time I go out to feed the horses I feel pretty sure that I will die by being crushed by a 1200# horse that goes crazy whenever she sees food and slides me into a fence/building when she can't catch her footing. It really is that scary. I try to distract her by throwing some hay on the ground for her to nibble on while I clean the stall and fill the hay bags, but that only works for a few minutes at most so I really try to hurry up.

The horse wasn't to sure, but went along with it.

I had fun

Yep. That about sums it up.

Besides being cold and rainy on Thanksgiving, it was absolutely perfect. We woke up and all managed to prepare for the over eating by getting 30 minutes of cardio in. We then watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, ate lunch, watched the National Dog show, ate some more lunch, built our gingerbread houses, ate pies, watched 6 episodes of Friends Thanksgivings, played Christmas Monopoly, and ate left overs. It was very relaxing and low key. It was exactly what we like. We absolutely love having parties and seeing our family, but the kids and I really enjoy just being able to watch the parade and dog show. We, basically just enjoy a day where we feel we have permission to not do any chores and focus on quality time with each other. Yes, we home school and yes we are together ALL the time, but we are really busy a lot of the time. We have farm chores, school, and all of the other little things that everyone just has to do. We also have sports practices, games, and church activities so setting aside an entire day of nothing is a big deal. However, as much as we love our low key day we also love our big family parties and are already planning our next party to celebrate the holidays. I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving with no drama!