Doing the Best I Can

If I was a busy person a year ago I can honestly say that I feel busier these days but with less to show for it, except this little guy counts for 99% of my time.

          *Ace is wearing a sweet beanie knitted by my good friend Martha. It's made from angora yarn she spun from her bunnies.*

I had honestly forgotten how much time babies consume, and this guy is no different. Warm weather is on its way though and Baby Bear loves to be outside. The last 2 weeks have been busy here as we start the post winter, clean the crap from the yard and get ready for baby animals process.

We sent the remaining of our pigs to process and then started the much needed clean up of fencing. These pigs challenged fencing every single day. We had a mess of barbed wire and pallets. 

Once the pigs left we spent a day pulling up electric wire fencing from the woods and pulling up pallets. We plan to clean it all up and allow it to recover. We will not run pigs again until fall so that will give it time to recover and us time to run new electric wire.

We did have sad news when we discovered a heifer, who was due in April, had miscarried her calf.

Of course these things always happen in the dark, so finding her dead baby was nearly impossible. We discovered the heifer, Chance, with membranes dangling when we took hay out for the cows. 

Because I feared she might have a calf inside we called the vet, only the vet was on vacation. I was able to call another vet out and he confirmed she had miscarried. 

We gave her a shot of lutalyse to try and get the membranes expelled.

I was disappointed that we did not get a live calf but happy Chance was okay.

The next day we did find her dead fetus in the 20 acre field we rent. On the upside, she is milking well.

Her membranes finally expelled after 5 very smelly days.

The day after Chance lost her calf I woke up and decided to move Molly closer to the house. Molly was due any day and I was worried she might suffer same fate as Chance. 

I was happy to walk out and find Molly had calved during the early morning hours. She had a healthy bull calf, a wagyu cross, at her side.

We did move them both closer to the house, but Molly has been a great mama cow and her calf is doing great.

This is the first official start to my beef herd.

Between these happenings we had two birthdays to celebrate!

Quinn turned 19 years old! 

Indiana turned 17 years old!

We celebrated with a huge family dinner/party.

This week I am finally catching up and taking a deep breath. I am getting our lives back on a routine, no thanks to the daylight savings time change, and I actually went grocery shopping yesterday.

I cleaned out my fridge and was feeling good about my day yesterday. Have you ever just really felt like you had it all together as a mom? That was me yesterday......until this happened.

That is Zeb wearing overalls that are about 3 sizes too small. He refused to take them off too. 

When my girls were all little I was really good about keeping their clothes folded and tucked neatly in their drawers, and I was always good about switching out clothes seasonally and taking out clothes they had outgrown.

I don't know what happened when I had the boys. I honestly try not to enter their rooms for fear I will see something that needs purging or cleaning. Apparently I am past due needing to remove clothes they have outgrown.

Mom fail.

I redeemed myself by ordering both boys a new pair of overalls though.

Thank you Amazon Prime.

                                                     *Valentine soaking up some sun*

                                                   

It has been freezing cold here the last few days, but I am confident spring warmth will return soon, hopefully, because we are very low on hay. 

The cows are starting to shed their winter coats and the grass is really trying to grow.

Just a few more good days working outside and I think the yard will look decent again :-)

Now to spend the remainder of my day tending to this guy.

Happy Thursday Ya'll!!

Sami

My Solo Week

I haven't been posting updates, but rather surviving my first week without Devin. He went back to work and was gone for a week.

I will sum it up in one picture...

Seriously, it wasn't terribly difficult the entire week, but we had some moments. I am glad he is home, especially since things seem to be breaking left and right over here and my elderly Weimaraner decided to unload her plumbing all throughout the kitchen last night.
Some days are just crappy, literally.

In much happier news, my oldest daughter Journee and my youngest daughter Rose had birthdays! When you have lots of kids, there is ALWAYS a birthday around the corner :-)
They share a birthday, so we tend to have joint parties. This year we celebrated at my sister's house!


Journee turned 21! I don't know where the times goes, honestly. I still remember taking this picture of her in the living room of our first house, back when we lived in Tennessee.

Rose turned 11. She has really shot up in height this year and will likely be taller than me, just like her older sisters.

I do have a picture of the two girls on the day Rose was born. We had planned to take Journee to a movie on her birthday, but she woke up to a new sister instead!

Two amazing girls!!! Two fantastic birthdays! I am so lucky they are mine.

        **** Note that my big brother is photobombing. You have not met him yet, but just know he loves to photobomb. Now that he lives in town, I will eventually make a formal introduction!****

Here's to a weekend that finally arrived! I hope everyone has a great one!

Happy Friday Ya'll!

Fletcher at 6 Years

Yesterday was Fletcher's birthday.
 He officially turned 6 years old, which is almost unbelievable to me. So much has happened over the last 6 years.
6 years ago we were still mourning the death of my dad, who had died 5 days previously, and yet we were also celebrating life with the birth of Fletcher.

This year we are just a couple of weeks away from celebrating another baby. My dad would have loved being here for all of the excitement.

Because of Devin's ER schedule, we celebrated Fletchers birthday a week ago with a family trip to the local jump park.

The entire family loves the jump park, and on Monday evenings they offer a family special. The entire family gets in for a grand total of $35. I missed being able to jump with everyone, but enjoyed watching from the sidelines.

After jumping we grabbed a few pizzas and an ice cream cake and came home to open gifts.
Fletcher loves Blues Clues so Willow crafted a "notebook" for him. She did a great job and it has actually been his most favorite gift. Hand made wins every time.

He was also gifted lots of play dough, and who doesn't love that stuff? The boys have played with it every day and I have swept the floor of dried play dough every evening.

 When we were at the beach and celebrated Zeb's birthday I discovered that Publix had some nice ice-cream cakes. The oreo one is a favorite, so that is what we had for Fletcher too.

It was a simple celebration. It was a family birthday party. It was perfect.

Happy birthday Fletcher Pike!

Today will be a busy day with school and a mid wife appointment. I am hoping Devin and I can squeeze a movie in this evening too. The Magnificent Seven is out and I really would love to see it!

Happy Wednesday Ya'll!!

Summer of Birthdays

It was a summer of birthdays.

Willow celebrated her 14th birthday in June. She loves to celebrate at the lake, so a lake gathering is what we do.
Willow loves having her best friends and siblings at the lake. We always pull out the jet skis, and all of my kids LOVE jet skis!

My ever loving bug boy always seems to find a new critter to hold and examine.

Fletcher loves playing in the wet clay/mud.....so common here in the South.

We also had a new calf born near the end of June.

We came home from a family dinner to find that Penny had calved while we were gone. She had a healthy bull calf that is half Jersey and half Swedish Red.

I usually band my boys into steers and raise them for beef, but I decided to raise this guy for a bull. I will need a bull next year to breed many girls.  Indiana has named him Kai. Here's to a new farm adventure.

Finally, while we were in Florida, we celebrated Zeb's 7th birthday. Actually we celebrated his birthday and a friend's birthday, who came to the beach with us.

Of course Zeb got more items for his constant bug collecting.

We bought a couple of ice cream cakes from a local grocery and ordered pizza for dinner.

The next day Zeb bought a hermit crab with his birthday money. I am happy to announce that his little crab, named Happy, made the trip home and is living happily in an aquarium habitat.
Zeb likes that he now owns two pets. He got a leopard gecko for his 5th birthday and that little guy is still doing great.

It has been a summer of birthdays. It has been a summer of family gatherings and friends hanging out.

We still have a few weeks of summer left, no school here until after Labor Day.

This weekend I plan to work on some sewing projects and finish getting some school stuff organized. I will update next week on my new curriculum.

Happy Friday Ya'll!!

Zebbie

I am recovering from an eventful weekend, but today I wanted to talk about Zebulun.
Last week Zeb celebrated his 7th birthday, so naturally we had a family party.

He specifically asked for a treasure chest filled with goodies. We had a treasure map made up and everything, but Mother Nature decided we needed lots and lots of rain instead. Of course he also got the traditional box of fish crackers that each child loves to receive from grandma. Those crackers are a real treat around this house.

This changed the party from an outdoor pool party to an inside house party, but the boy was happy to celebrate in any way!

Rose made cupcakes and I set out snacks. We also grilled burgers, which are always yummy.

Happy Birthday Zeb!!!

Super Fly Birthdays

Monday we celebrated 2 birthdays in the house! To this day it amazes me that I have two kids that share a birthday.

Journee turned 19 and Rose turned 9.
Usually we have family parties at the house but this year I decided to do something different.

This year we had a party at the local trampoline park called Super Fly.

I must say that everyone had a very good time and it was worth every penny to have a party there.

It was a solid hour of jumping, swinging, and running. There was even an area for playing dodge ball. the kids had a great time throwing balls at each other and dodging the balls too

 The boys jumped and jumped and are asking when we will take them back. They also slept very well that night!

Rose and Willow also brought a friend and they enjoyed hanging out and jumping.
Super Fly had a nice party room set up for us and we brought pizza, a cooler with drinks, and 2 cookie cakes that Willow made for her sisters.



Of course the girls were showered with fabulous and thoughtful birthday presents.

The girls always ask for their own box of goldfish crackers and jerky. Grandma always accommodates with those gifts. Rose is always extra exuberant when she gets the crackers!

Happy birthday Rose! I hope you always remain energetic and witty.

Happy birthday Journee. I hope you never lose your sense of compassion and service.

We will be going back to Super Fly soon. They actually have a family night on Mondays when the entire family can jump for one low price. Devin and I are also thinking it would be a great date night as well as a great place to gather with friends.

On the farm front, it has been busy and hectic and a bit overwhelming. I will update ya'll soon, but for now it's all about the Super Fly birthdays!

Happy Hump day Ya'll!

The Captain's Birthday

Last Saturday was Fletcher's 4th birthday! We decided, however, to celebrate it Tuesday when it was easier for cousins and grandparents to come over for a family party.

Despite the lingering morning sickness, I was able to accompany Fletcher and Devin on a mid morning outing. Fletcher really wanted a balloon for his birthday so we took him to pick a special birthday balloon out, as well as a toy.

We also picked up groceries for the party and ingredients to make cupcakes. Everything was ready for a party by dinner time, and the cousins and grandparents came to help celebrate.

It's hard to believe this kid is already 4! It is also impossible to imagine life without him and his bubbly personality!

So now we have a month break before the next rounds of birthdays, but I can assure they will be filled with fun and family too....and hopefully I will no longer be feeling sick by then!

Why do I call Fletcher Captain? I've had a few folks on FB ask me this question.
His full name is Fletcher Pike Martin.
Fletcher is a family name from my side and Pike is from Star Trek. We named him after Captain Pike. I often times call Fletcher "Captain" or more often "Puppy." When he was a baby he followed me every where like a puppy.
Today Captain seems more fitting for my growing boy!

Happy Birthday!!!