Summer is Over!

The summer is over and the kids are back to school. Most people are really happy their kids go back but not me, I have been very lonely! They are having a great time and love their teachers so far. Brooke has a huge work load this year. She is taking Algebra 1 honors, advanced civics, advanced science and spanish 1! She will be a busy girl for sure. All of these classes are high school credits and she is only in 7th grade.

We didn't do much for the summer but the kids ended the summer with a chicken clinic for 4H so they could learn more about chickens. Pretty much it was just to go because I don't think we really can learn anymore!!! Brooke got a new chicken that is only the size of a pigeon. She is so cute but has to stay in her own cage because the other chickens try to kill her. Her name is Lemon.

New chicken- "Lemon" sleeping during class

 

My friend Karin had to find a home for her 2 chickens so we offered to take them also. They are cute! They are Cochins and are only 5 months old but they are bigger than our laying hens so they will be giant for sure. I have a picture but for some reason it won't post right! It is sideways but here it is anyway! HAHA!

Weird I know but what can I do! Spotted one is Bobalena and black one is Cozy! I did not name them!!!

I start back to school on Monday and I am really nervous about this semester. Two of my hardest classes on top of fair time! I hope I can dissect that brain and eyeball without throwing up! I just keep telling myself it is only 15 weeks but that seems like a lifetime.

So not much else going on. Brooke starts the new show year September 8th and Ashlyn will start December 1st at her show. So I am praying it will all go well and they will be safe. Fair will be in November so it will all be a very busy few months.  I will try to keep up with posting but I'm not sure how good I will be at that!

Busy!

It's been so long since I last posted! It has just been a tough month and a half!

The babies are growing fast. We had a little set back though. We found out that they are not pure bred chickens so the kids can not show them! Becky made a mistake because she thought there had been enough time passed when she took the other rooster out of the pen but there must not have been. She gave the girls 2 pure breds of hers and ours went to live with my mom.

On Father's day Brooke's new horse, Summer, got sick. She coliced for 2 days and the vet said she needed surgery. We just couldn't afford to do it so I was going to put her down. They wanted me to wait but everyday she was sick was vet bills that were rising. The vets husband said he would take her and try and save her so thats what I did. She ended up living but we don't own the horse anymore. It was a huge blow to us! With purchase price, vet bills and other things done to her we have nearly $6000 in her that we have lost! I am still paying on the vet bill she incured while she was sick and I owned her so every week I have to pay on a bill that causes me to just be ill. I am just ready to move on and forget the whole thing. In the mean time we have brought Kitty back home and hopefully we can make her work for Brookes shows right now. There is noway I can get her another horse right now.

On top of all of that my truck blew its engine!!! I have been without it for 2 weeks now. They are putting 2 new heads on it this week I hope and maybe it will be done by next week. The guy that is working on it has been really good at trying to get us the best price for the fix. $1600 is what it will cost and we have been told that it is a good deal by other people.

So our summer plans have been really pushed to the side with all this set back. Now I am focusing on getting what the kids need for school. They start back August 20 and I start back August 27. It seems to be right around the corner! It has seemed like a really rushed summer and its getting b use so quick.

The kids bought a pool with their gift cards from Christmas so we have been chilling in there. Its nice to be able to cool off when its so hot!

I will try to post back soon!

Hatching early!!!!

So the babies are coming!!! Let me tell you they were supposed to start Thursday but they picked Tuesday. Two were hatched yesterday and one hatched over night. I spent an hour yesterday putting crates together and putting the chickens and their babies in them in the garage. Now the garage is a chicken nursery!They are so cute!!!!

Here is a little one peaking out!

They are just too cute!

Each Hen has her own cage. One hen has 1 baby and the other has 2. We will see how many actually hatch. There is a total of 10 eggs that I put under them. I seperated them because yesterday one hen took the other hens baby so they were not happy about that. Now they dont have to fight!

One Little chick

Our experiment with the 4 eggs under the chicken failed. The day after i put the eggs under her 2 eggs dissapeared! the other 2 were not fertile. So i got 5 more eggs and put them in a friends incubator. Only 1 of those eggs hatched and now we have peeps the chick.

Last week Becky gave me 10 more eggs so I have two chickens that are broody and they are laying on 5 eggs each. They are due to hatch on the 31st. Hopefully we get atleast 1 from that batch so this little chick will have a friend! The hens are sitting in the same nest together laying on there babies. If this doesnt work this time, we are done for this year. They are both getting really skinny because they don't like to eat much. They don't want to leave the eggs for very long.

I will update as soon as we have babies!!!!!!

Drill Performance

Brooke had a drill team performance at Cracker Day. We just met the group at 11am to do the performance at 12 and then had lunch and came home. It was way too hot to be hanging out there all day. It seemed to be 100 degrees out there. Willow did awesome and all the girls looked and did great! They all worked really hard all year and it was nice for them to perform for a crowd. I posted a video for all to see. It is a little shakey because I was standing on the bull shutes and they were moving.

Drill Team Performance Video

Project of the Month

This is Chelsea chicken. She is the baby we got last year and raised with the stuffed animal bunny! She is sitting in this nest because she is broody. This means she is laying on eggs, that are not hers, because she intends to hatch them out. Only problem is, we don't have roosters and it doesn't matter how long she sits there, there will be no babies!!!!

The eggs she took over were not even her eggs. They belonged to the big chickens so they were double the size of her eggs. The picture shows the big chicken egg on left and her eggs on right. Very big difference! Soooooooo.....

My friend Becky has bantam chickens and does have a rooster so she brought me 4 of her eggs to trade out for the big chicken eggs so Chelsea will not be sitting for nothing! I hope they are fertile! So we wait now for 21 days to see if Chelsea will become a mother to babies that are not hers. In the mean time we have to take her off her eggs 2 times a day to make her eat and drink because she insists that she is not leaving the eggs.

I really don't know how I get myself into these things but it is what it is! I should really be worrying about my math final in 3 weeks but to be honest, this is more fun! I should really think about changing my career plan to being an AG teacher, but thats probably not a good choice! Anyway I will keep every one posted. I will check the eggs in 10 days and see if I can see a glimpse of the little guys in the eggs by using a light.

The Computer Curse

Most of you know that I am in school and this is my second year. This year has been my most challenging so far. When I started school last year, Tony bought me a laptop to do all my work on since I was taking online classes as well as in class. It was a very nice computer and I loved it. Well 1 week before I started school this January, My laptop crashed! It is only 1 year old and 9 days out of warranty. Needless to say I had a major breakdown and had no idea how I was going to start school. Especially when the online class was a computer class on Office 2010!!!! So I race it down to the computer guy begging for help. He said it would take a few days. He called me several days later, we are now down to about 4 days till class, and said to come in because he thinks it is fixed. I get there and he turns the computer on to show me how well it works but the screen is black! Really?! I knew then that I was in trouble. He says he needs to keep it and look into it more.

Tony decides we will go buy another computer so I can start school and when my computer is fixed he will take it because he needs a computer to start back to school himself.So we go to Walmart to get a new one but this time get the extended warranty. Don't need anymore breakdowns for school!From day one I hate the computer, it just wasn't like my other one. 1 week later computer man calls and says to come get computer, it is not fixable because it could be 1 of 3 things and it would cost more than the computer cost us originally. Now I'm really freaked out because now Tony still needs a computer and that one was only a year old.

Well time allowed me to chill until my new computer, which is only 3 months old, crashes on me this week!!! I have 3 PowerPoint presentations due Friday and have a broken computer. I call the warranty, they send me to Dell and I get to talk to people that can barely speak English. They walk me through a bunch of tests and say the computer is fine. I just about lost it, the computer is not fine.They say they fixed it so today once again it has crashed. I made Tony do the call relay tonight, they found 5 crashes to the driver and now say it is fixed. We will see!!! I'm using it now so we will see if it can hold up.

So I am now sitting here waiting till midnight because fall registration opens the 4th and I need an online class that has only 27 openings.I really need this class!!!  I have 2 classes left and then I can apply for radiography. I am hoping the computer will be OK and allow me to register. Mean while we have ordered computer # 3 that will be deliver Thursday so I can at least finish this computer class, in the event this computer goes out again, and allow Tony to start back to school next month. I think I have for sure been slapped with the Computer Curse!!!!