spring-like winters day

toly in his new totoro sweater and kassi are ready to go to the store with me. we had a great time. toly, kassi and myself are an unusual supplies party. i feared it was more than i could handle and actually get the numerous things on my list. they were great. toly was especially well mannered. i got the admiring-the-cute-kids-look during our entire adventure.

toly is much improved since the removal of milk from our diet.

tabitha had a tragic visit with and extremely lame doctor regarding toly. she blogged about it a few days back. stream still puffs from my ears when i think about it. he told her that we were just bad parents and toly needs to be on ritalin. that prescription alone is contradictory enough to discount him. make up your mind are we just bad parents or does toly need to be medicated? then he went on to tell her that toly needed to be in daycare because they won't be afraid to reprimand him.

ok, i think that ritalin is satan. i'd sooner have my son circumcised than get on that stuff. many of you who know me know how passionate about circumcision and keeping things as nature intended. alright i won't do either. but i just want everyone to know where i stand. ritalin is cocaine for the brain and it has no business in my two-year-old's blood stream. i could rant about the stuff for several boring posts and still not change alleged-modern-medicine's mind.

deep breath...

i'm in my happy place...

deep breath...

rome, tristan and mommy stayed home.

tabitha and tristan spent a little time playing final fantasy IV. tristan is learning the strategy and getting lots of reading comprehension practice. he already beat the harry potter game we got him for chistmas and is back on final fantasy. it should take him a while yet. the depth of that game is intense and shouldn't be attempted by any adult unless you are on vacation or recovering from major surgery.

i am very proud of the-girls. they have been laying like crazy--always more than five eggs per day. we have been without "real" eggs for so long that we are eating them almost as fast as they can lay them.

this is their feeder set-up. it is double protected from the cows. kids have been known to leave pasture gates open to the yard. the chicken feeder is like a big box of candy to a cow.

i have extension cords strung everywhere the chicken coop light, the stock tank heater, and the pig waterer.

the chickens love their new light and are showing me how much they love it by giving us so many eggs. i usually have their light on for an extra hour each evening. it makes them settle into their coop more easily too.

i forked two huge pick-up loads of manure into compost bins from the lower hopper-style feeder.

i also added the better part of a truckload to the pig pen.

it keeps them busy and from rooting under the walls of their pen. they also will have this manure and hay pulverized into more easily compostable material in just a few days. i'm still sore two days later from forking all that wet manure around.

kirby and zelda sure are looking tasty these days. they are so friendly that you have to take care that they don't knock you down when you enter their pen. they have killed two chickens that interloped into their pen. they were old hens that weren't laying anyway. i don't think it was malicious. they were just playing and cornered the hen where it promptly had a heart attack.


henry is the-show-dog. he is the best dog i have ever owned. his instincts are so strong to do his job that he needs very little training. like any puppy he doesn't know when to quit playing. he'll grow out of that. he is a foreboding presence on our farm, fiercely guarding his boundary with extreme prejudice.

he is aging into the classic pyrenees aloofness. when you call him he gives the-look "hey i'm busy over here." he still comes though.

the cows still look like hell from being sick.

jerseys loose condition so easily and we struggle and struggle to get them back into shape. the two adult cows are leaving thursday. nimue will go to the sale barn and roary to a friend. we can't have milk cows and a two-year-old that can't have milk. maybe once jocelyn is old enough we'll try milking again. we'll keep phoenix, he'll be phoenix burgers in several months. yum.

jocelyn


phoenix

and tabitha of course. i'm so happy she's feeling better. that was a long recovery.

rome really likes it outside too

he is the speed-scooter almost crawling. he has cross crawled a few times but mostly finds it easier to scoot everywhere.

tabitha took down the obama yard sign. i was going to leave it up until next time.


tabitha made sushi last night. the kids love sushi. i love red tuna sashimi. tristan liked it so much that he cleared the remaining rolls from after dinner and stowed them in the fridge for his "snack" tomorrow. any dinner that prompts a six year old to clean up after dinner is stellar.