the farm graft......

Since I'm not as talented on the intra-net as my dear husband I am unable to post a chart graft like I would like to of my enthusiasm about the farm. It started out high with the goats, went up a little as we got the chickens, went down a bit with all the poop, went up a bit with the purchase of the baby chicks, it evens out at this point. It stays even with the purchase of the calves. Goes up as I see the calves and bottle feed them, goes down as I see how much energy it is zapping from my husband who has to get out to the farm at 5 A.M. Goes down even more with the smell (warning: its all downhill from here), goes down with the death of our first calf, down with my brother leaving to Europe for 10 (yes thats ten) days (Jeff has to go out to South Weber twice a day with him gone). Plummets with the death of cow #2, #3, and #4.

They are dropping like flies out there. They have caught pneumonia due to the weather going from abnormally cool to outrageously hot. Why can't we just be happy with a dog I say?

Celebration week......

So in the lump sum of six days we have celebrated an anniversary (our 14th), Fathers Day, Jeffs Birthday (his 37th), and killed a rat. For Fathers Day I had the kids decorate some ties for Jeff. Being the good sport that he is, he wore two at the same time.
This is the rat that my mother reported seeing in the garage while she watched the kids on our anniversary. My mom exaggerates a tad so we figured she really saw a baby mouse. Looks like we were wrong, we caught this hum dinger on Fathers Day. It turns out that after my kids heard my mom talk about it they started spreading dog food around to "lure" it into the garage. Thankfully it didn't make it in the house. (Please remember that our back yard has a huge field behind it and I think thats where all these varmits are coming from).
And this is not a pound of bacon sitting on my bed, this is the fabulous "bacon wallet" that Jill sent Jeff for his birthday. The best part is that she suggested that this would be a great place to store all his farm earnings. We are still laughing. Thanks Jill, it was a hit.

some pictures of where Jeff is in his spare (and not so spare) time....

Can you believe that the two farm boys (Jeff and John) bought eight new calves? They have to be bottle fed twice a day. I am begging for the animal buying to stop, its turning weird.but they are cute. kinda. (they slober lots and look for udders under each calf. They are all boys so I think it can get a little iffy when the kids watch if you know what I mean)
Abby and the farm dog, Rocky
Em with Geronimo and Gilly the Billy
Can you believe how big the chicks got? The two white ones are turkeys. The farmers think our Thanksgiving is going to be free range this year. Yeah right. And the best part of a farm is the fashion that goes with it.

Jason the BULLY

Okay, I need some help with this one....... We all know that Gilly has an imaginary friend (named Jason) who is usually an okay guy. He treats Gilly pretty great and he runs really fast. On occasion, he can be a twerp, like the times he tells Gill to say bad things and then messes up his room but for the most part I like the guy.....except.....well, the other night Gill started telling me that Jason punched him in the eyeball and at times he is kind of mean. So here is the dilemma...What do you tell your kid when he is being bullied by someone who is a fragment of their imagination?