The Weekend

 JD went to Ghana for work last week; if you are wondering where that it, it is in West Africa. Ghana, unlike Liberia, has escaped devastating civil war, so JD had power and AC! Ironically, our AC here is America is BROKEN and we are waiting on our home warranty company to do its job (which they aren't, but that is a separate post). 

Here he is snacking on a coconut.

  
The day he came home, we hit two days of King's Fest, where Christian artists perform at King's Dominion. My older kids had gone, but this was a first for our younger crowd.

We heard several big name artist, including Toby Mac, King and Country, Crowder, Zach Williams and Big Daddy Weave. 
 

It was hot and rained on us the first night, but stayed cool and relatively clear the second night.  

Tori and I won backstage passes to meet King and Country, and we missed it by 5 minutes because I didn't answer my phone during another concert. I think I was more disappointed than she was. 

They walked through the crowd though, Selah got to high-five them both. 

  
Saturday JD and attended a "teach the Bible" conference in DC. Then Sunday we celebrated Alyssa's birthday about a week late. She is 19!

Happy Summer

 It's been a great summer thus far. Last week I completed my three days of CC tutor training at the beginning of the week and then hit the state home school convention at the end of the week. There are many things going on around the house on top of daily swim team, but they are all exciting progress. 

This is the extent we have gotten on JD's new home office. When we built the house, it was a "sun room" turned bedroom, with a wall and regular door built here and a armoire instead of a closet. When we took the door down, we loved the natural light, so the office got as much glass as possible while still sealing it off for working. When we came out with the new flooring into the entry area, there was a lite by the front door leaking water that has grown mold on the sub flooring.I ordered a new front door (with more glass!) five weeks ago and it still isn't in. I need to call about that...

The background of JD needing a serious home office is that he left the defense industry and his new job is working from home more than the DC office. He moved all his Navy memorabilia home from a previous local and DC office and it is also waiting for a home. This office should accommodate him with enough room for visitors to come meet with him, etc, out of the traffic flow of the rest of our home. 

See the new floor? One day it will cover the entire downstairs.

 The garage apartment has had some progress, but nothing impressive enough for pictures yet. In the meantime, we had a landscaper finish the retaining wall and circle in the front.

 It's a pretty large area; not sure what we should put in there other than the flagpole JD has picked out.

I make four trips to and from the pool every weekday morning, which means I stop and move a lot of turtles off the road. This large snapper didn't get my usual courtesy; he got left right where we was, which fortunately was close to the side of the road. 
 

 Luke's four baby chicks are doing great and are able to fly to the top of the coop to roost now.
 

 We have not been to the neighborhood pool even once yet, but have spent many hours at the lake. The other night I took the kids, picked up pizza and got some work done at the picnic table while they played. We had the place completely to ourselves part of the time. 

I have to show a few humorous gifts JD got from his children for Father's Day. Read the shirt, then read it again with the grey lines. 

  
Fine Trump mug from another daughter -
 

 And Alei bought me this fine new unicorn mug - it says, "me? crazy? I should get down off this unicorn and slap you!" Gotta love my unicorn mug collection!

And The Crazy Animals too

We are wrapping up school and swim team has started - I feel like this Facebook post sums me up pretty well! 

 Things are always moving. Yesterday, the garage crew came to work on the garage and apartment. The retaining wall builders also showed up to work on the wall. I remembered at the last minute, before I was even dressed, that the bug man was coming to spray for our ant invasion. I also had a call in with the  eye-tracking Dr. to find out if my phone or home calendar had the correct time for Julia's appointment. At 9:30, they called to say I needed to be there at 10, so I had less than five minutes to shower and get out the door. It left JD to do the last two pool runs before he had to make a garage supply run. I texted a friend to bring Bella home from swimming since she said she is willing anytime and Bella is done swimming an hour after Elijah and Selah. Once my friend texted back that she didn't go to the pool that day and couldn't bring Bella home, we were all long gone. Thankfully, I have good supportive friends, so a few frantic texts later, I had a pick up person for Bella. 

After two long hours at the eye doctor, I picked up pizza to feed the kids and rushed home for our usual Friday afternoon frantic clean, because we host home group at our home each and every Friday evening! 

A shot through the living room window yesterday morning - one day we won't have a construction zone out front. One day....

The animals have been really fun this spring and I am really enjoying Butte and Glacier, the llama and "lapaca". I'm glad we got them. We had a coyote stalking the goats one evening when Tori was in the barn, so it gives me comfort to have big Butte in there. We also recently had a fox snag a rooster at the edge of the barn while we were cleaning it out on Memorial Day. James chased it into the woods, across the road, and into the woods on the other side before it dropped the rooster. The rooster came home missing most his feathers but alive and well.

(On a side note, the fox came back the very next day and I wouldn't let JD shoot it, as the neighbor saw it's den of fox pups; and I'm not killing the mom of anything, even if it snags a rooster here or there...). I have some family members that think my logic is flawed, but then I remind them that I will bring home the fox pups and we will raise them and they stop talking. 

Here's some of my animals - 

Bella and her friend with the goats

Last week, Montana hurt her paw and didn't put any weight on it for three days. She appreciated all the extra attention it got her!

On Memorial Day, I paid James and his friend to rake and dig out all the animal hay and poop out of the barn from the long winter. It was deep and took most of the day. While they worked downstairs, I cleaned the loft. Duke and Hans hung out up there with me. It was funny was how they parked themselves in the hay shoot and watched me work.

This is our last baby goat, Barley; her twin brother, Banjo, left for the Berry Farm to join our other three little boys this week. I was trying to be tough and sell all the babies this year instead of increasing my numbers, but I have to keep Barley!

Duke has totally figured out that the electric wire on the fence isn't on, so when he is in the pasture, he escapes all the time. The girls never follow which is funny.

My five "teenager" chickens are nicely tame and fly onto my arm when I'm in the coop. They aren't smart enough to come in at dusk though, so I have to tuck them all in every evening.

Next blog for real....new JD office and a future wedding!

Jenny

Sheering!

We did it! My friend, Wendy, drove over three hours to participate in our first annual llama sheer! Honestly, we had JD on stand-by to tie them down if necessary, since that is what the majority of people do when they sheer. Neither of them spat or kicked even once though, although they did clearly did not enjoy it. 

Glacier, who is half alpaca and half llama, had about three times the fur that Butte had; I can tell the difference now between a llama and alpaca beyond size. 

I didn't get pictures of Butte; we did her first and were in full concentration mode. Glacier got her one side trimmed on this side of the stall -
 

And then we moved her across the stall to get an area to stand again to trim the other side!

Raking the pile -

Bagging the pile - 

Butte, who is much more out-going, hung out in the next stall and watched all of Glacier's trim time. Glacier was more than happy to hit the pasture when we released her!

 They are feeling so much better in the heat! I'm down to one yappy Pomeranian that needs her summer cut.

Rain, Rain

 The day after day of territorial downpour is getting old, but every night I lock up the animals, I think how blessed we all are.  Even my animals all have lush accommodations and stay dry and warm. With five more days of rain in the forecast, I even moved the teenage chickens and bunnies into one side of the indoor coop to allow them room to run in the dry; the bunnies were happy hopping through the mulch.  

Another thankful note, we have parts on order for our broken AC, so it's been nice that it hasn't been 90 degrees all week!

The mud is getting the better of Alaska 

Fiona is getting her spring cut on Monday (I am actually having a dog groomer come and do it) and then Tuesday is our big planned llama and llapaca sheering day. I have four people, counting JD on stand by, for this duty. After getting a quote of $600 from a professional, I decided we had to learn to do it ourselves. After several You Tube videos, I decided to go with the sheering scissors over the noisy sheers. They won't look quite as nice, but it will also hopefully be less traumatic and scary to them. 

Next blog will be JD's home office that we are renovating. He moved all the items from his DC office home and he needs a larger room. I get the now home office as my own, which means it will stay clean, at least cleaner than it does now!

Chicken Drama - Luke and Her Chicks

 Spring generally brings a lot of drama in the chicken realm at our farm. First of all, thanks to hens hatching their own eggs last spring, we are once again at about 10 roosters rather than the only needed one. Also, last year there was a nest of abandoned guinea eggs that we hatched out in the incubator, so they thought they were chickens and bedded down in the chicken coop at night. Feeding time in the mornings was chaos,  with the roosters and guineas out-pigging the chickens.

So a month ago, I decided to remove the roosters and guineas from the coop and cease letting the ladies free roam during the days until everyone established new routines and knew where they were supposed to report back to at evening time. 

It was quite the feat to trap and snag the chickens who insisted in sleeping in the barn and laying eggs in random places and put them in the coop, as well as chase all the roosters and guineas out of the coop. Let's just say JD and I both got our steps in that day and really missed James!

For the most part, everyone got where they needed to be. The only two chickens that evaded capture was a little white polish hen that we tried on several occasions to catch. She has either been eaten by a fox or is sitting on a nest of eggs somewhere out of sight. The other chicken was Luke, Elijah's chicken that he named 5 years ago and he turned out to be a she. 

Luke is small and looks like she is half crow, and has always been very difficult to catch. Luke decided to lay 19 eggs up in the this cat house on a dog kennel in the barn. We let her just sit on her eggs and came out one morning to her and four babies down on the ground. I shudder to think she shoved those babies down and they survived, but I'm sure that's how it went down. I locked the goats out of that stall to let her have it to herself, but she promptly moved the chicks back and forth to and from the next two stalls and walked among the goat and llama hooves. 

The following morning, the little black baby was gone and she was out strolling around with only three yellow babies. We attempted to catch her to move her, but she was very stressed at the idea. Also that morning, two more eggs hatched in the cat house and I put the new babies on the ground for her, but she wanted nothing to do with them, so I brought them in and put them under warming lights.

late hatchers in the house

 Last night we successfully grabbed Luke and transported her and her babies to the chicken mansion where they would be safer. This morning I woke to the babies outside the fence and Luke squawking inside the fence. We caught the babies again and had their frantic momma follow us back in; we put up a half wall that will keep the babies from making it outside. Luke seemed pleased. I then had the idea to get the two house babies and present them to her again, and she decided she liked them now that they were fluffy and cute. 

Tonight she had all five of them tucked under her wing to sleep and I am relieved of caring to two more house chickens!

I have also had 3-4 chickens sitting on empty eggs with great passion the last month.  I decided that I will let a rooster back in the coop to allow them to  fulfill their dreams and hatch a few babies of their own. This faithful rooster has literally spent a last month circling the coop watching his lady friends from the outside. The last two days, I have opened the door for him a few times each morning and that dummy doesn't go in. He's sure there is some catch to my plan and runs the other direction. I hope to get him in before any foxes get him! The other roosters have given up and moved to the barn where they are safe, snacking on goat feed and pooping on everything. 

Happy Mother's Day 

Here I am with 8 of my 12 (counting Brooke) children. Elijah is really out-numbered these days with James away at school, but he's holding his own. I'm thankful to be a Mom to this special crew, and as a bonus they sure delivered some fun gifts this year! 

Another huge blessing was the nice cool day, as our AC is out and awaiting repair. Yesterday was hot, and tomorrow promises the same, but today was beautiful!

It's a Dog's LIfe

 Two Great Pyrenees went to the spay and neuter clinic; poor Montana was very, very nervous. She handled the surgery fine. Next is the "real" vet again to treat Lyme disease, then we will proceed to the vet in Richmond to see about getting her eye fixed. Poor dog (and my wallet), but she came in pretty rough shape with several worm issues, along with the unexpected teen pregnancy. I have treated all the dogs a few times now for two kinds of worms. Thankfully, Montana was negative for Heart worm; that would have been a huge expense. 
 
Alaska spent the trip trying to get on my lap to look out the window and me pushing him back down. I gave in for a short run of the wide open road. 

When he wasn't on my lap, he slobbered on my lap. Yes, that's all slobber. Thankfully, he doesn't do that at home!

 This picture was taken by a visitor; Lucca and Alaska enjoy each other's company. 

 While five dogs is a bit excessive (six when Alei comes to visit), these two new additions make me happy. We all love them so much.

  
I took this one yesterday. Alei's friend joked that it looked like they were coming out with a new CD and posing for the cover. Sometimes I feel badly for visitors that aren't accustomed to a dog maze on the porch. We do have other porches, but they all prefer the front door! 

Speaking of front door, I ordered a new one to accompany our inside work. I'll have to show that next blog.  

Last Few Camp Pics

I finally grabbed the picture of the kids with Geema and Grandpa off of Tori's camera to prove their visit and found these also - 

Julia, Bella and Elijah - 

Aunt Deb and Bella - 

Here we are on Sunday when we left camp and all met in downtown Charlottesville - (JD took the picture.)

Nice little walk around downtown and enjoyed some birthday gelato. 

We are enjoying spring finally and working outside; I will try to catch up the blog!

Jenny