One of my favorite parts of fall is the first day you go out to feed your animals and you realize, my feet are FREEZING!!!! This morning as I ventured out in my orange plaid pj pants, old holey too big t-shirt of my hubbies, and my dependable brown flip-flops I realized something! Okay I realized a couple things.
1. Man I need to invest in some decent jammies!
2. Man I am glad I live where neighbors can't see me in the mornings!
and finally
3. My Feet are FREEZING!! YEAH!!!!
In that moment I became so excited, because that is my official sign that fall is in the air! I don't depend on the weather people, they only recognize the area where I live when a tornado is going to blow us away (which I am thankful for) but for the most we aren't here, so since they ignore me I ignore them! I don't depend on the trees losing their beautiful leaves! That happened months ago because of the horrendous dry weather and heat! I have always depended on my trusty toes, and this morning they were dancing for joy! (not actually dancing, my kiddos are embarrassed when I dance in the yard! Geesh!)
As I walked out to the barn to feed our kitties my toes told me that it was time to break-out the slipper shoes that I basically live in all fall and winter! Sorry Sara, I still haven't been able to locate a pair for you. This are wonderful farm shoes! I have accidentally worn them out in public forgetting I have them on since they are so comfy! Whoops! Nice and softly lined on the inside, not that terrible thick fuzzy stuff, who can wear those and not have their feet die of heat exhaustion (and odor)? These are soft flannel lined, fake sued-ish on the outside that cleans up nicely, and a hard rubber sole that lacks any serious tread! AWESOME!! I realized their awesomeness quickly and hurried back to the store and bought a back-up pair, because if they are great they will only have them for one year?!!? Very puzzling concept for me!
For those of you who have to feed critters in the morning I am sure you quickly realize the amazing benefits of these shoes! Not too fuzzy inside. This helps with the too hot problem, but also helps keep those little grass seed thingies that stick to everything and then poke the crap out of you later, from getting stuck in your shoe. The easily cleaned outside, well that should go without explaining but here's a little. Animals equal: mud, sand, fur, and yep poop! Washable shoes are good! And lastly the great bottoms that lack serious tread. That goes right along the same lines as the washable top. Where you have any type of out-door animal you have items that you really don't want attached to your shoe all day!
I try to approach all things in my life this way! Find what you like, what works for you, and stick with it! And take the stuff that drags you down, and doesn't bring joy to your life and well, scrape it off your shoe!
So in short FALL has Arrived at our little homestead! I am sooo excited and ready. This summer has been long, hot, dry, hot, dry, and did I say hot! Our animals have gotten their spring back into their step as have I. They are awake, and moving and running for the feed dishes in the morning saying right along with me, "Woohoo! My feet are cold!" So in the spirit of fall I am busily creating some fall crafts that you can do along with your kiddos! So check out the upcoming blog: Crafts with Kids for some fun projects ideas!!
Thanks for reading, and happy crafting!
Showing posts with label Silly Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silly Stories. Show all posts
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Crafting ADD!! Do you have it too??
Crafting ADD! Do you have it too?
I ventured upstairs to the craft room disaster lastnight once all the little ones were laid down. Oops, guess that's a lie, husband was rocking the littlest one so she technically wasn't asleep. Yesterday was a long day for the two of us (me and kate) running errands, cleaning, playing, etc.. So mommy was in need of a little quiet time before I went onto overstimulation mode! Not pretty.
See what I mean! I quess I not only have craft ADD I have typing a story ADD as well. What the heck is wrong with me? Seriously. Do any of you other mothers out there feel this way. I can just simply not focus, and that is one of the go to sayings at our house with the little ones, "Gracie! Focus!" and they usually will. Maybe I need a sign that says that and I can whack myself with it each time I get off track. So back to the point of this story.
I ventured upstairs to see if I could tackle some of the disaster that has happened in my craft room. I have recently received huge boxes of goodies from relatives, purchased items to make new things and none of this stuff has found a home yet. So it turns out if you turn your back on your craft room for a couple nights all of these things will kind of thrown-up onto the floor, tables, chairs, pretty much all over. I decided to sort out a couple piles, notice I didn't say one pile, because I started with one and say something shiny in the other, so I jumped to that one. ADD in action! In these two piles I found several projects that were anywhere from about 1/2 done to just the pieces piled together that would make a cute project. A little later I ran upon the same thing. Then again. And then again!! What the heck have I been doing with all this time I spend creating stuff?? Apparently being a poster child for ADD! Maybe I should join a drug study and see if it helps! Ha! just teasing!
Many of you out there I am sure have the same feeling as I do! For those of you who don't, I just had a naughty thought about you! This insane feeling of not being able to focus on one thing for longer then maybe 10 seconds, is not so great. I recently went to a craft store with a friend of mine to get some specific items on a list. Yep I had a list. The list even made it into the car with us, and yep it made it into the store! Pretty sure that was an act from God! Those of you who know me personally will vouch for that. Well after about an hour in the craft store we had taken a trek to the bathroom, a hunt for a missing headband, toured the same aisle about 4 times, and looked at stuff I in no way shape or form needed to be looking at, we headed to the check out! I really didn't have too much stuff for one of my trips to a craft store, and as I unloaded stuff for the checker I realized 3 different things.
1. I had some mystery items that my child had put in the buggy for me!
2. I didn't have 1/2 of the stuff on my list!
and 3. I had stuff to start even more projects.
CRAP!!
What the heck is wrong with me. I gave the cashier the small pile of things that Kate had put in, and I'm sure I heard her mumble a potty word about that. SOrry store workers! If I went back through the aisle to attempt and find where they came from, we would just end up with more mystery items. So really I'm saving you work! ha! I place the items that were on my list up there, and there in the bottom of the buggy was the makings for 3 new projects. Did I hand them to the clerk and say sorry we don't need these either? NO! and it wasn't because I thought she would call me a potty name, I really really wanted to try and make these things! Stupid craft ADD!
So as I sit here typing this story, holding a wiggly almost 2 year old, checking out several other sites while I am thinking, and keeping our laundry moving, I realized something! Having craft ADD is really not that bad of a thing to have. I guess it allows to me use my creative gifts, keep our household functioning, take care of my babies, and LOVE every minute of it without going clinically insane. So to those of you out there that don't have craft ADD, maybe you should be careful! ha! And maybe it's not really craft ADD as it is simply, Being a mommy with creative ideas! If you are like me you never really get enough time to truly finish a project. You either have to go wipe a small bootie, break up a fight, feed someone, or you simply fall asleep.
I decided I am going to try and embrace my craft ADD and make the best of it! I ventured upstairs while my kiddo was napping and pulled out one of the new project ideas I had from the other day and do you know what? It worked! It went together super easy! And IT IS DONE!!!! So due to the case of ADD I have I now have a new exciting creation that I other wise would not have if I would of stuck to my list!
So don't get down if you have several piles of unfinished crafts! Save them for the day when your little ones are all miraculously playing well together, or when you can't get to the craft store to pick up the one item you need to finish the project you are currently working on! Stand up, say your name, and state that you have craft ADD. You will feel better, and maybe it will motivate you to finish off one of those projects.
Keep on craftin!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Guinea Genius??!!
Not sure how this relates to crafting but wanted to share this thought while it was fresh in my mind. Maybe by the time I am done typing I will have figured out a way to tie it together! Gotta worn ya it's a little long, but had to write it all down. Leaving part out would lose part of the fun!
Guinea genius! Well, anyone who has ever raised guineas knows these two words do not generally go together. Guineas are African type chickens that are usually blackish gray with white dots, and have the gift of flight a little better then chickens. Very pretty birds, but apparently not the brightest. They are flock birds that love to be with their buddies, and panic when they are separated, and apparently when they are separated their brain goes with the flock and they are left to manage life brainless!! Not the best situation for the bird, but does bring some funny moments to my life!
I decided we needed guineas this spring when the grasshopper herd in our yard became so bad it was alot like you were parting the red sea of hoppers when you crossed the yard. My oldest daughter figured out quickly that you wanted to be the first person crossing the yard so that all the hoppers you scared up jumped up and landed on the people behind you, not on you! Which of course led to screaming from my son and littlest girl and to me yelling, "Stop screaming! They're just grasshoppers!" But I have to admit when 20 to 30 little beggers are flyin around ya and landing on ya it is hard not to holler! So the guineas were bought.
Raising them up really wasn't too hard. Water, feed, clean cages, water, feed, clean cages etc.. Except for the extreme heat we experienced getting one, and not realizing they could fly getting two (the cage was cracked, two flew the coop, and I chased them with my youngest on my hip through the creek and alfalfa. note to self: guineas are fast next time take a net!) So we had to move them to something a little bigger, which turned out to be the rabbit hutch! Yep guineas in a rabbit hutch. The rabbit was moved to the ground for awhile and she didn't seem to mind. The guinea raising all in all so far was uneventful! Until the first sign that guineas are not so smart.
Went out to feed them in the evening and one little guinea had his head stuck in the feeder. He was panicking and flappin around and raising a lot of ruckus, and of course freaking out the other ones, so I picked up the feeder and guinea and began to wiggle him carefully free. He was very stuck! Not sure how this happened since they were only maybe 3 or 4 weeks old and their heads were tiny and the feeder was plenty big enough??? Anyways, set him free and he seemed fine running around with his buddies happy to be free. But by the next morning he was no more. Guineas babies don't do well with stress. So in the end we started with 29 guinea babies, and raised up 25 good looking adolescent birds! I was pretty proud!
I wanted the guineas to be caged at night to help cut down on the lose of birds due to predators, so we built a temporary coop. Our chicken coop is still in the planning stage. Now we just had to get 25 half grown birds from the chicken coop, up the yard about 100 feet into a make shift coop with the help of 3 small children, 3 very curious cats, and 2 extremely bird hungry looking dogs! So I grabbed my trusty cat carrier, (you must have one if you live in the country) and stuck my head into the rabbit hutch to grab up some birds. My husband was holding the carrier, and I'm pretty sure he was mumbling something about me being mentally nuts, while I tried to grab flapping, scrambling guineas. I was at first trying to be oh, so careful not to stress them out but that fell by the wayside when the first little sucker pecked the living crap out of my arm!! @#** @#%% is what I said to the bird, and began to grab and shove not go gingerly into the carrier deciding I didn't care if they were stressed. My kids were a little concerned telling me to, "be carefuly mom, their just babies." These little suckers were kinda mean! We decided to move 1/2 the first night just incase our coop was not so predator proof.
This is were the guineas truly showed what highly intelligent birds they are. ha! They slowly came out of the carrier, and sat there looking around like "Hey, this is new! Where's Frank, and Tony?" They must of decided their buddies were lost and not coming back so they got their wits about them, huddled into a mass and sat there. Then after 10 min. or so they began to attempt to fly away!! This is a coop. With a wire top!! Granted maybe they couldn't see the wire on top, but now that I have been around guineas for awhile, I am pretty sure they could, they just didn't care! They would fly up, whack the wire and fall back down, every once in awhile one would grab onto the wire, and it would hang upside down for a moment before plummeting back to the earth. Brilliant!
The next morning proved our guinea coop building abilities to be solid, as all of them were still there, and nothing had burrowed in! Yeah! My husband was at work so I wasn't sure how to get the rest from the hutch to the coop. Lucky me, my parents and sister pulled in for a visit. So I grabbed my sister, handed her the cat carrier and said follow me. She has awhile back decided that I am nuts, so she asked what the carrier was for, listened to the answer, and just said Ok.
We get in the rabbit hutch, I give her instructions on how to hold the carrier up at an angle so they can't fly out, and to keep the door of it shut until I have a bird ready, and we begin! I will say, this is the one moment when the guineas showed some brain power. They had watched their buddies get taken to who knows where yesterday, so today they were putting up a fight! After several scratches, beakings, and wings in my face the rest were wrangled into the carrier. My sister even got pecked through the holes in the end of the carrier. These birds do have a little fight in them!
We deposited the rest of the guineas with their long lost friends, and this is truly how they reacted. Like it was family they had lost years ago, and they finally got to see again. They rushed to each other and cheeped, and chirped and carried on. They must of been telling the new guineas about the top of the cage, because not a one of the second bunch tried to fly out? But a couple did walk right over to where our dog sat and stuck it's head right out of the chicken wire to get a closer look! Dumb! Luckily we have a hot wire around the cage so the dog was just far enough back not to get a snack, and we quickly decided to add screen around the bottom to avoid this happening again.
They have been happily living in the cage for several weeks now just being released in small amounts in hopes of training our dogs not to attack them. SO far so good except for two casualties! But they have brought me several moments of sheer laughter! They will come out of the cage in their tightly packed flock, and go out bug hunting. One will almost always have its head down in the grass, not paying attention to the rest and get left behind. It will look up, look around, and when he realizes he is alone he panics! Then he will proceed to run around, truly like a chicken with it's head cut off, squalling for his buddies until they are reunited. If they get separated by the wire of the chicken coop, meaning some are inside the coop and some are still out, they panic! Instead of working their way around the coop to find the opening, they will continuously run their heads into the wire trying desperately to get in in the same place over and over again! Doesn't hurt them any, since there is nothing in their heads, but is kinda funny to watch. Alot like watching someone walk into a glass door that they think is open. We do always take pity on the little lost guinea and shoo him around to the door!
But the last, and truly funniest thing I have seen them do is fall out of a tree! Yep! They like to roost up in trees so the first day I left them out for awhile unattended I went back later to check and they were all 10 feet or so up in a tree. They were happily roosting and peeking the tree branches and apparently fighting over good spots because right before my eyes, Flumph!! One was pushed off a branch by another and in a flurry of feathers, it landed at my feet. He laid there for a minute stunned, then he fluffed himself up, and looked around like he was saying, "what the crap?" He looked up and saw his buddies, I think they were laughing and hi-fiving the pusher, and he flew right back up. It wasn't 10 minutes later and another bit the dust! It was truly amazing and tear rolling funny to watch. I do believe they are better at roosting now as I haven't seen any fall in a couple of days!
But anyways, that is the story of my guineas! They are weird, fun birds to have that earn their keep in the amount of bugs they eat.
What I can take away from this story in the world of crafts, and I guess life is, don't be a guinea! Don't follow right along with the herd. It can cause you to beat your head senselessly against the wall, or coop. Think for yourself when you are crafting, find what works best for you. ANd I guess if you fail, or get shoved out of the tree, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and fly right back up there!
Okay that was pretty cheesey! But it is so true~!
Hope you enjoyed my oh so true story!
Keep on crafting!
Guinea genius! Well, anyone who has ever raised guineas knows these two words do not generally go together. Guineas are African type chickens that are usually blackish gray with white dots, and have the gift of flight a little better then chickens. Very pretty birds, but apparently not the brightest. They are flock birds that love to be with their buddies, and panic when they are separated, and apparently when they are separated their brain goes with the flock and they are left to manage life brainless!! Not the best situation for the bird, but does bring some funny moments to my life!
I decided we needed guineas this spring when the grasshopper herd in our yard became so bad it was alot like you were parting the red sea of hoppers when you crossed the yard. My oldest daughter figured out quickly that you wanted to be the first person crossing the yard so that all the hoppers you scared up jumped up and landed on the people behind you, not on you! Which of course led to screaming from my son and littlest girl and to me yelling, "Stop screaming! They're just grasshoppers!" But I have to admit when 20 to 30 little beggers are flyin around ya and landing on ya it is hard not to holler! So the guineas were bought.
Raising them up really wasn't too hard. Water, feed, clean cages, water, feed, clean cages etc.. Except for the extreme heat we experienced getting one, and not realizing they could fly getting two (the cage was cracked, two flew the coop, and I chased them with my youngest on my hip through the creek and alfalfa. note to self: guineas are fast next time take a net!) So we had to move them to something a little bigger, which turned out to be the rabbit hutch! Yep guineas in a rabbit hutch. The rabbit was moved to the ground for awhile and she didn't seem to mind. The guinea raising all in all so far was uneventful! Until the first sign that guineas are not so smart.
Went out to feed them in the evening and one little guinea had his head stuck in the feeder. He was panicking and flappin around and raising a lot of ruckus, and of course freaking out the other ones, so I picked up the feeder and guinea and began to wiggle him carefully free. He was very stuck! Not sure how this happened since they were only maybe 3 or 4 weeks old and their heads were tiny and the feeder was plenty big enough??? Anyways, set him free and he seemed fine running around with his buddies happy to be free. But by the next morning he was no more. Guineas babies don't do well with stress. So in the end we started with 29 guinea babies, and raised up 25 good looking adolescent birds! I was pretty proud!
I wanted the guineas to be caged at night to help cut down on the lose of birds due to predators, so we built a temporary coop. Our chicken coop is still in the planning stage. Now we just had to get 25 half grown birds from the chicken coop, up the yard about 100 feet into a make shift coop with the help of 3 small children, 3 very curious cats, and 2 extremely bird hungry looking dogs! So I grabbed my trusty cat carrier, (you must have one if you live in the country) and stuck my head into the rabbit hutch to grab up some birds. My husband was holding the carrier, and I'm pretty sure he was mumbling something about me being mentally nuts, while I tried to grab flapping, scrambling guineas. I was at first trying to be oh, so careful not to stress them out but that fell by the wayside when the first little sucker pecked the living crap out of my arm!! @#** @#%% is what I said to the bird, and began to grab and shove not go gingerly into the carrier deciding I didn't care if they were stressed. My kids were a little concerned telling me to, "be carefuly mom, their just babies." These little suckers were kinda mean! We decided to move 1/2 the first night just incase our coop was not so predator proof.
This is were the guineas truly showed what highly intelligent birds they are. ha! They slowly came out of the carrier, and sat there looking around like "Hey, this is new! Where's Frank, and Tony?" They must of decided their buddies were lost and not coming back so they got their wits about them, huddled into a mass and sat there. Then after 10 min. or so they began to attempt to fly away!! This is a coop. With a wire top!! Granted maybe they couldn't see the wire on top, but now that I have been around guineas for awhile, I am pretty sure they could, they just didn't care! They would fly up, whack the wire and fall back down, every once in awhile one would grab onto the wire, and it would hang upside down for a moment before plummeting back to the earth. Brilliant!
The next morning proved our guinea coop building abilities to be solid, as all of them were still there, and nothing had burrowed in! Yeah! My husband was at work so I wasn't sure how to get the rest from the hutch to the coop. Lucky me, my parents and sister pulled in for a visit. So I grabbed my sister, handed her the cat carrier and said follow me. She has awhile back decided that I am nuts, so she asked what the carrier was for, listened to the answer, and just said Ok.
We get in the rabbit hutch, I give her instructions on how to hold the carrier up at an angle so they can't fly out, and to keep the door of it shut until I have a bird ready, and we begin! I will say, this is the one moment when the guineas showed some brain power. They had watched their buddies get taken to who knows where yesterday, so today they were putting up a fight! After several scratches, beakings, and wings in my face the rest were wrangled into the carrier. My sister even got pecked through the holes in the end of the carrier. These birds do have a little fight in them!
We deposited the rest of the guineas with their long lost friends, and this is truly how they reacted. Like it was family they had lost years ago, and they finally got to see again. They rushed to each other and cheeped, and chirped and carried on. They must of been telling the new guineas about the top of the cage, because not a one of the second bunch tried to fly out? But a couple did walk right over to where our dog sat and stuck it's head right out of the chicken wire to get a closer look! Dumb! Luckily we have a hot wire around the cage so the dog was just far enough back not to get a snack, and we quickly decided to add screen around the bottom to avoid this happening again.
They have been happily living in the cage for several weeks now just being released in small amounts in hopes of training our dogs not to attack them. SO far so good except for two casualties! But they have brought me several moments of sheer laughter! They will come out of the cage in their tightly packed flock, and go out bug hunting. One will almost always have its head down in the grass, not paying attention to the rest and get left behind. It will look up, look around, and when he realizes he is alone he panics! Then he will proceed to run around, truly like a chicken with it's head cut off, squalling for his buddies until they are reunited. If they get separated by the wire of the chicken coop, meaning some are inside the coop and some are still out, they panic! Instead of working their way around the coop to find the opening, they will continuously run their heads into the wire trying desperately to get in in the same place over and over again! Doesn't hurt them any, since there is nothing in their heads, but is kinda funny to watch. Alot like watching someone walk into a glass door that they think is open. We do always take pity on the little lost guinea and shoo him around to the door!
But the last, and truly funniest thing I have seen them do is fall out of a tree! Yep! They like to roost up in trees so the first day I left them out for awhile unattended I went back later to check and they were all 10 feet or so up in a tree. They were happily roosting and peeking the tree branches and apparently fighting over good spots because right before my eyes, Flumph!! One was pushed off a branch by another and in a flurry of feathers, it landed at my feet. He laid there for a minute stunned, then he fluffed himself up, and looked around like he was saying, "what the crap?" He looked up and saw his buddies, I think they were laughing and hi-fiving the pusher, and he flew right back up. It wasn't 10 minutes later and another bit the dust! It was truly amazing and tear rolling funny to watch. I do believe they are better at roosting now as I haven't seen any fall in a couple of days!
But anyways, that is the story of my guineas! They are weird, fun birds to have that earn their keep in the amount of bugs they eat.
What I can take away from this story in the world of crafts, and I guess life is, don't be a guinea! Don't follow right along with the herd. It can cause you to beat your head senselessly against the wall, or coop. Think for yourself when you are crafting, find what works best for you. ANd I guess if you fail, or get shoved out of the tree, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and fly right back up there!
Okay that was pretty cheesey! But it is so true~!
Hope you enjoyed my oh so true story!
Keep on crafting!
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