I got more awards!!!!!

What a great cause - There is a little gal that we 'visit' everyday because she had a transplant and has had SO many ups and downs.

Thank you Nancy for being so thoughtful. Sorry it took me a bit to get to this, I appreciate it very much. :) http://nancysnonsense-catlover.blogspot.com/

And Train Wreck - Girl you are just to much!!! LOL You are one of my favorite blogs because you are yourself. Thank you for the award, it really tickles me to be able to be part of this big family we have around here!

I am taking a blogging hiatus till Milk Dud gets here. So Auntie Train Wreck, you better pick up Auntie Mrs. Mom and get your bags packed, cuz I am gonna need some MAJOR help in a couple of days!!! I will try to post pictures from the hospital if I can get to a computer, my sis has a digital camera and she is bringin it with her!!! LOL So until then I wont be able to finish the award specifications, please forgive me... but I will get it done soon!

Until then, I am going to get my bags packed, the house needs a quick scrub, I need to get some extra sleep, I have to finish sewing a baby blanket, shave all my major 'area's - that may take a while, I am NO LONGER flexable - Milk Man may need to help, cant hurt anything I am already pregnant.... and I need to make a few meals to throw in the freezer. So girls - Love to you all, hugs to you all and prayers for Wednesday at 9:00 for my c-section would be greatly appreciated!!! If I get caught up, I will try to post somthing - Lispy has a couple of new 'words'.... ya, this will be good!!

LOVE TO YOU ALL!!!! The French Milk Maid.... (or was that the Naked French Milk Maid - Train Wreck?) LOL

I got an award - and I did'nt end up pregnant!!!! Oh and our bear adventure.

Fresh Fixins gave me an award for being a 'hoot'.. I love that people want to come and read my blog!!! I explained in her comments that the only other award I was given was by the Milk Man and I ended up pregnant. I made her promise that it would not happen this time - you must be careful when you recieve awards - wait, or was it a reward?? Thats what it was a reward!!! Milk Man gave me a reward - so why do I get the short end of the stick? I mean if it was a reward for somthing nice I did, why do I have to have a baby for doing somthing nice.... that bites!!!!
Anyway!! Sorry to be skeptical Deb.... I wont let it happen again. I promise to be much more grateful in the future!


SO - where have I been right? I have been trying to get things together for when the baby gets here. He has already got a blog name - I was going to have a contest but when Train Wreck called him a Milk Dud, I could not pass that up!!! It will fit him perfectly.....

Not much exciting going on at this point, so I thought I would post about an exciting time we had this spring - in March to be exact. We had a late spring so there was still A LOT of snow on the ground till mid April. In March we got a phone call from the University of Wisconsin asking us permision to go onto our land. They further explained that they had place a tracking collar on a bear cub 2 years ago and wanted to 'retag' her. This ment they had to dart her while she was hibernating and put a new collar on her. We got to go along and see the whole thing - Big Son was so excited, Lispy on the other hand - well, it wasnt like chasing a basard wooster... The pictures I have of that are from a disposable camera that I had made into a disk of pictures....


This is a picture of where we started - I am standing on our land going onto our neighbors land. I want to make a note right here that we would NEVER NEVER NEVER log our land the way this has been 'clear cut'. Its important to me that you know this because we feel there is NO NEED for clear cutting like this. However, this piece of property is in a government program and 'they' decided that it needed to be clear cut. Yet they promote you to select cut or let them 'manage' your woods - my answer is to that, Ya right buddy.... sorry to get on a soap box... ANYWAY!

The bear, we named her Helga, was WAY up on the tree line which is at the top of the photo. Its a long way up there and I was about 5 months pg at this point. Palmer carried Lispy all the way to the top of this ridge - and it was a LOOOOOOOONG way up there.

This picture is half way up - its a long way and we still have a ways to go. I kept stopping and putting the camera up to my eye pretending to be taking a ton of pictures, when really I was waiting for my butt to catch up. It was dragging about 15ft behind me! I was trying to catch my breath, the snow was about 3ft deep still and at some points your foot would go through the upper crust and my leg would get stuck clear up to my 'ho-ha'. Talk about embarassing, I was with about 8 differant men.

Here we are almost to the top - praise God from whom all blessing flow...
We had to wait here for a little bit until the guys from the University found out exactly where she was and darted her before we came up.

Here we are weaving our way through the tree tops, yes they are really the tops. When 'some' loggers log a place off, they leave the tops for waste. ALL loggers top trees, but a lot of them will use the tops for fire wood or chip it up for compost. These loggers obviously could not have cared less, soap box again.. sorry...

This is the view for where she was found. It also shows where we started from WAAAAAAY down in the vally where the trees are uncut. She fell asleep under a bunch of tops that were bunched together. The researchers from the university said that she will hibernate within 100 yrds of this spot for the rest of her life, unless she decides to leave the area or is pushed out of the area by another bear.


The next few pictures are of the where she was and her. I wont comment on any of them or it will take forever to get this post done!
This is where she was sleeping:


This is a picture of her in her 'den' - she had not dug a hole like most do. The guys from the University said that she was so young and not pregnant, I blusehd then, so she did not need to burrow to keep the snow off of her babies. She was on the south side of a bluff - yes bluff, it was almost straight down from where her den was. This picture is crappy, but her head is facing right and her body is at an angle. Looks like all black fuzz to me!!


Here her head is facing down and the red thing in the picture is her ear tag. She weighed about 125lbs and they figure next year she will be sporting baby's on her teaters....

Here is a random Lispy picture of that day.

So that is about it for my bear story. It was a great learning experience for Big Son - he got to do show and tell at school with the pictures and thought he was really all that.
I will leave you with a picture of Big Son petting Helga his new girlfriend....


5 days till Milk Dud makes his appreance and from the way he is kickig today, he will be wearing tap shoes....

Makin Bakin.. or Bacon.....

Sorry for my absence the last couple of days - and no camera - please dont punish me by not coming over anymore! I have been busy with butchering our 2 pigs. I am hopeful that I will be getting a camera tommorow - dont hate me if I dont - so I can take PICTURES!!!! ya know those things I have been promising for the last week or more! So instead of giving you pictures, I am going to tell you about our pigs - Fred and Ethal..... they were good pigs..... They are going to be even better meals. Talk about beautiful pork, they are some of the nicest meat pigs we have ever had. They were a york/tamworth cross wich is very hard to find because Tamworth pigs are getting to be more rare all the time. They are a bacon pig because they have an extra rib, so I am told, and are VERY long in the belly were bacon comes from. I am curing 1/4 of a belly today, but without a camera I can't show you how it is done. I wont explain right now, because I am going to show you in steps how I do this, with PICTURES!!! HOORAY!!!

But first I want to ask if anyone is really interested in knowing this? Otherwise I will just show how to make hay for my first picture post? My goal here is to keep people interested and informed not bored so that they go looking else where and leave me like yesterdays stale bread ok!!! LOL If you would be so kind as to leave a comment about how you want/want not to hear about making bacon at home I would be more than happy to post either way!!

SO - in the mean time I am also rendering lard. I know it sounds gross, but it is gold for cooking and baking I swear it. I will show/explain how I do that if you want me too. I use it for making bread, popping popcorn, frying anything and everything - that is only if I am not on a butter binge... I like butter - I lust for butter almost as much as I do for the Milk Man.... ok, not that much but its a close one. I am a firm believer in natural fat is better than ANY OTHER SUBSTITUTE. God gave us butter and lard, so our body knows what to do with it. Margarine is 1 molocule away from being plastic, tell me how that is good for you? I love to cook and bake so I take the time to make lard because if its good lard you have a gold mine of flavor there. Have any of you ever used the 'store bought' lard? That is SO gross... sorry to all of you who may use it or like it. Most of it has a very 'piggy' smell/taste to it. What I mean by that is that most of your store lard comes from old, over fat pigs that are cull pigs, not raised for market but for breeding. They are usually old or crabby so they are culled out of a herd and sent to market. People really dont realize what they are eating at times. These pigs have bred or been breed so the hormones have went through the body and in a way 'tainted' the meat. If you have ever eaten a frozen pizza that had a funny smell to it, the peperoni on it was probably 'boary', thats my own word. It just tastes like a pig smells, ish.... Man, this is lengthy... sorry... but I have to keep going, I have a purpose to teach you not to eat boary meat!! LOL The pigs that we eat are NEVER bred nor do they breed. The boys are castraited, remember the word barrow and the girls are never bred, remember the word gilt - same thing as virgin - oops did I just say that, sorry cover your childrens eyes, or tell them I was refering to olive oil...... SO, do any of you fine friends of mine have hang-ups like I do about the food you eat, where it comes from, the processing of it, lack of flavor etc? I am curious to find out if I am the only food freak around these here parts? Ya'll got yer work cut out for you now dont you!

Baby update I have 10 days till the baby gets here - I dont count the day I am in or the day I deliver..... panic has started to set in... help me.......

Big Sons New Shower Phrase....

Well everyone I am still here waddeling around like a pond seeking duck. They are going to take the little bugger on the 30th so I have 14 days - 14DAYS!!!! to get all the stuff done in my life that I have ever wanted to do - like till the garden. I have a dr. apt tommorow and WILL be picking up a digital camera so that I am able to have that in the hospital with me instead of the frigin disposable ones. With this purchase comes the oportunity for me to take pictures of our farm and its contents, going ons and etc. We bailed 200+ big round bales in the last 2 days and not a picture was taken!! This need to be remidied immediatly I say!! So to tide you over till then, I am going to give you another post about Big Sons transition into showering on his own.

He really must be enjoying this part of his life, because all the years I would assist him with his hygene he NEVER ONCE made up stuff like he does when he is alone. Yesterday morning he was in the shower early because we have Vacation Bible School this week and he wanted to be mr. clean jeans. I came up to the door and knocked, he now wants me to knock, and reminded him to clean is 'wiener'. Our boys are uncircumcised (spelling?) so it requires a weeeee bit extra maintanance. Here is were I will apologzie if anyone doesnt not like to read about my childrens body parts, but as thier mother I find it imperative to make fun of it - just not in front of him of course!! As I was standing there, just in the door way, he said "Ok mom, here it goes - Open Seasame...... There he's out!" What the heck am I supose to say??? He is talking about his "manly hygene' here like it was a game show answer!!! At this point I am trying to remain serious about making sure he is washing properly, without watching because he is modest remember, and not laugh myself into a coma. Finally, he assured me that 'he' was clean and properly 'put away'......

The Milk Man's point of view was - "He hasnt named him yet?" This brought an exagerated eye roll from me of course - how goofy to name 'it'.

Hopefully I get that camera tommorow so that I am able to show you things that are of importance around here, not wiener songs.
So that is where I leave you today, probably wishing you had not read my post for today. That or thinking of asking hubby what his 'manhood's' name is!!!

Lispys Thief Catching Theory....

As I begin this post I need to put up a disclaimer: The language used by said children in this post is not taught nor encouraged by said parents... However, said children pick these words up from older brothers whom are impossible to correct when said language is used - there for we end up with a swearing Lisper! Let the fun ensue -

A few weeks back my mother and I were running some errands for the farm. I had to get groceries, farm supplies etc. so she was along to help me wrangle the boys and load/unload the crap I had to get. Its amazing how much 'stuff' it takes to run a house - like food.... tons of food....

We had stopped to get Pappa Murphys Pizza, which I lust after by the way - almost as much as I do for the Milk Man - and were waiting in the truck for them to be finished. It was a long line so it was going to be a bit of a wait. This particular store is in a strip mall that has a small pharmacy next to the pizza joint. You can get anything you want there, cards, toys, games, knick knacks, candy etc... We had parked outside of this store because we could 'window shop' and watch the pizza shop at the same time. Before I go any further it is probably a good idea to give you a weeee bit of background about somthing that goes on in our house - other than the swearing lessons - Big Son and the Milk Man watch war movies but not graphic stuff - WWII documentations etc. One night they were watching an episode of the Nazi infestation of France and how horrible they were to the Jews etc. Milk Man said "Take them out back and shoot them - then they will stop - quick justice"... For some other reason we always say when someone/somthing is being stupid shoot em... not sure why we do this, but we do.

Back to Lispy -

As we sat in the truck ogling the pretty window sun catchers in the pharmacy, 3 kids walked past. They looked a little shady and kept looking behind them. About 20 feet behind them came the shadiest one of all - he wore a hooded sweatshirt, butt crack showing jeans - the whole 'gangsta' look ***vomit here***. He proceded into the pharmacy, hands into sweat shirt pocket in the front. I said to my mom, "Theres a wanna be thief - bet he steals somthing from in there and comes out on a fast run".... I worked for human services as a parent aid/welfare worker for 11 years you can spot these a mile away. ANYWAY - not 3 minutes after he walked in, sure as crap he was running out hands in pockets, down the street where is little freaky friends were waiting. Big Son yells in my ear from the back seat 'MOM call the cops - he just robbed that place! MOM its your duty to report this!! MOM arnt you going to do somthing to stop him?" MOM - MOM - MOM!!!! He is all worked into a lather as Lispy sits in his car seat calm as can be and out of no where were says (and I dont condone this word, I hate it with all of my soul)

"Thust (just) soot (shoot) the futter'..........You know what word that was, I need not explain. Quick simple justice. That is the way Lispy is, deal with it and be done with it - no need to get all worked up and out of sorts - take care of buisiness once and you wont have to deal with it again.... The picture of him sitting in his car seat, buckled in, with his left leg ankle on his right knee, leaning back like there is not a care in the world, with his hot wheels sun glass's on is enough to bring fits of laughter at any given moment. My mom and I had the worst time trying not to laugh, thank God the pizza's were close to done so at least I could leave and let it all out.

Like I said, we dont use that kind of language as a practice, but its out there. You cant shield them from everything, just guide them when the oportunity brings itself to light....

So I leave you with a Lispy picture - can you imagine that word coming out of this Cherubs mouth?

As I have stated before:

4-H Meat Animal Auction....

A little while ago I posted about Big Son and his fair pigs last year. I was going through the pictures that I have and came across a few that I thought (hope) you find interesting.

This is Big Son and Otis last year before the local fair. Otis, Maude, Bessy and Tillie were like HUGE dogs. Pigs are smart animals and are very interesting if you take the time to learn about them.



This has NOTHING to do with pigs, other than we were feeding them, but who could do without a Lispy picture every few days?


He was riding his 'Harley Bikin' - he cant say bikeing... Milk Man and I splurged and both bought Harleys - No we could not afford them, but our reasoning is that we have NEVER went on a vacation in the 16 years we have been together and have only stayed away 3 nights in the 16 years we have been together. We thought we were justified in having somthing fun. We DONT go out on 'dates', to see movies, or just to get away -So there I dont feel guilty, really I dont, can you tell I dont feel guilty - I will shut up now...

Anyway the auction:

Milk Man was taking pictures and unfortunatly didnt get any good ones of Big Son. This one is of one of our 4-H members, not sure wich one. The kids bring in their animal to the show ring and the auctioneer starts the bidding.



I think this is Dale, one of the older boys we have. He took 3rd that year and won the carcass clinic. The carcass clinic is judged by the butchers and this is where the rubber meets the road. This SHOWS who is breeding or raising meat producing animals - not just what the arena judges percive as being a quality meat animal. Not one person who has won the show has won the meat carcass judging. Unfortunalty, the carcass clinic gets little, if no attention because there is no $$ involved in it..

The auction is a very stressful thing. Its hard to find buyers for the kids' projects because things are getting so expensive! The kids usually get over what market price is, but the people who are the good buyers are being 'tapped out' financially when they try to buy a little bit from all the kids. Big Son was required to send out invites to the local business's that we use - like our feed mill, seed plant, vet, lumber yard,etc. BUT, living in a small town most everyone goes to or uses the same stores. The ones who spend the most $$ at these places are usually the ones that they buy from. Luckily our neighbor, a butcher named Denny, bought Big Sons pig. He paid $2.10 per pound which was the 3rd highest pig bought that day. Denny is a great guy and his son was bidding against him so they could buy Big Sons pig at a nice price for him. We baked Denny and his son a batch of cookies for being so nice..

There is some STIFF COMPETITION when it comes to showing, even for 4-H'rs. The bigger farmers, or people with 'old' money, can afford to buy the BEST calves, pigs, chickens, sheep etc. Sometimes spending $100's of $$ for an animal that will only make them a bit more than they paid for it. But for those of us who raise and breed our own, its not as easy. We have registered Black Angus and trust me they are gorgeous in every sense. The sad thing is that some people buy what are called 'club calves' and they are bred ONLY for showing. For me 4-H should be about breeding a good meat producing (hence "meat animal project"), genetically sound - not inbred or 'linebred' which is the same thing to a degree, and well taken care of animal. Sadley, so many times this is not the case and the same people win year after year afeter year. This sticks in my craw a bit and its hard for me not to want to buy THE BEST for my boys to show with just to kick someone else's rear - BUT - I am adimant that our boys learn about the morals of breeding stock and the principal of what good morals stand for. When Big Son did not win, he was not so disapointed because he had done a great job. We told him that even if he didnt win, Otis still was a great pig because HE did the work, took care of him and that at the 'carcass clinic' we would see who had the best meat producing animal. Big Son won that hands down - na na na na - sorry about that. I hope this post doesnt sound bitter, but I am sure it does!! LOL My point is how sad is it that parents feel the need for thier children to ALWAYS win or ALWAYS be the best at everything. Showing animals is NO DIFFERANT than being a soccer mom or the freak at the football games that gets pissed cuz his kid didnt play or whatever. We need to teach our kids how to be kind, appreciative and most of all thankful for the experiences in life that help us grow. Education about life is the most important thing we can teach our kids. When these kids get older, how are they going to handle disapointment or rejection and still be ok with who they are? So disapoint them and reject them now so they are used to it when they are older!!! LOL LOL!! JUST KIDDING!





Here is a picture of Milk Man on his Harley - not that this as anything to do with the meat animal auction... See how sidetracked I get - sorry - again. This is a picture of him in his barn cloths, riding his new Harely. What a tard.... For some reason he was wearing high water pants and making a stupid face. He is about 6.5, weighs about 210 and is built like a brick SH!T house. His chest is.... I need to stop talking about him or I will end up pregnant, wait - to late. Well, lets just say he does 230 push ups a day on his knuckles. This pictures does NOT do him justice... man am I ever off task.


This is Palmer 4 years ago - he won reserve champion and took 1st in the carcass clinic...

What a GORGEOUS steer he had. This steer is a purebred Aberdeen Angus and his name was Tank - fitting dont you think?!

Well - thats it for now, sorry to get off on a tangent but sometimes it just pours out like water. We try to live our life here as one big example and I just tend to forget that some things have nothing to do with other things!!! LOL See you in the morning!!

The rest of my morning....

So its about 7 am right now and I left you hanging my a thread yesterday! So here ya go - and dont forget you asked for it LOL

After I get the first load of laundry in and the Rug Rats up, dressed and fed I try to make sure that I have the kitchen cleaned and ready for lunch. Dinner (lunch) at our house has a way of being at any time of day - 10, 12, 3 - you name it. When they are hungry they are fed, so there is a revolving door on the kitchen! As the boys are eating I make thier beds, pick up the cloths on the floor and try to make it look habitable. Then I go scrub the toilet while the boys watch either Curious George or Veggie Tales - we have most of those dvd's I think. Anyway, the dreaded toilet scrub - I hate it - We have 1, yes I said 1, toilet in the house and 2 showers. With boys I am sure that you all know they have an 'aiming' issue. The little boys are not so much of a problem because they are closer to the rim of the toilet. The older boys, Palmer and Dale - well they chose to go outside because we have a walk out basement and wiz in the woods next to the house - that I can handle. However, the Milk Man is 6 foot 5 1/2 inchs tall so he has aiming issues. He says its becaue he is so far from the toilet - I told him to kneel, he did not laugh, but I sure did.. **snort snort** In other words the outside of the toity needs as much work as the inside. I have threatened to put a gutter around the bottom of the toilet because they know what that is for! LOL Here again I laugh - he doesnt.... Getting away from this nonsense, I am supose to be posting about my morning, man do I get sidetracked.

So after the potty scrub I clean up the dish's from breakfast wave #2 and start the dish washer - thank our Gracious Lord for those. I scan the fridge for anything that may turn into a science experiment and either feed to someone or throw it to the pigs/cats/dogs/chickens/kids - they eat anything ya know.

By this time its 9:30 ish and I am headed for load of laundry #3 - the kids are done with the little bit of tv they get in the morning so we have devotions out of a kids Bible - they LOVE this. Needless to say Lispy has so many questions that I could have the pastor come over and he would be stumped... He is SO in the why stages! When we are done with these they head outside to feed the hord of cats, Big Sons racing pigeons (homers that we dont race)and to pick up anything that is in the yard that should'nt be - twine, toy tractors, dog crap - no wait I do that - then we do any yard or garden work that needs doing before it gets to warm out and the sun hits the house to much. We dont have central air so I let the house get good an cool in the early morning. After that i shut it so its stays cool in there till evening comes again. Most days we look at all of the gardens and flowers to check for water needs, weed pulling needs and the bird feeder/water needs. We take care of that stuff and try to enjoy a little bit outside - an hour or so - I REALLY try to educate my boys on why we need to care for things and to enjoy/appreciate what we have been given. Everything in life is a gift and should be treated with respect and appreciation for what it is - especially animals.

About now the Milk Man will call from the farm and let me know what is going on in his day and what he is going to need from me so I can plan for my afternoon. Most times he just needs to have a bit of help but depending on the time of year it could be anything. Dehorning, castraiting, vaccinateing, rock picking, hay unloading, wagon hauling, shit shoveling or a variety of all! LOL If he doesnt need me for anything I have a little bit slower of a day and try to catch up on the things that I dont get to do everyday, like patching and mending the boys/Milk Mans pants/shirts etc. So here we are at about noon and I have LOTS to try to get done yet! But Big Son and Lispy are usually great helpers, well at least they are a warm body! LOL

I am going to skip ahead to evening, my favorite time of day when this walks through the door to meet me with a passionate kiss and loveing embrace:



Of course thats me with him! Why would you doubt! Sure I had to wear a blonde wig and all but thats me - I SWEAR!!

A Random Poll....

When I started blogging a few short weeks ago, I had in mind for a few posts but was not sure what people wanted to hear about. The Milk Man thought I should post what I do in a day - like the cooking, cleaning, child wrangleing, cattle tossing, pig poking, chicken chasing etc... I plan on doing all of that, but what else would you like to hear about. Would you like to know how hay is 'made', or what I cook, how to feed a new calf, how I smoke and season my own bacon, my garden, my obsesion with Antonio Banderas (did I just say that out loud), the Milk Mans habits..... I LOVE to write about my boys, but I would hate for anyone to get 'fed up' with hearing about Lispy's lack of language etiqute or Big Sons 'body' songs!! Would you want to hear about how Palmer and Dale came to live with us, how I met the Milk Man, fell in love or anything else?? Leave me a comment and I will try to post on a variety of things throughout the next few weeks/months. The thing that I want to use this blog for the most, is to further the education of people about REAL FARMING - not comercial farming or corperate farming - But the honest to goodness family farm that has all but disapreared. I want people to be able to understand how hard it is to farm - physically, financialy and emotionaly. SO - I would love your opinions and comments about this.... AND I plan on posting a little today about how most of my mornings go - so here you go..

I am the first one up in the morning and my alarm is set for 4am. I am not one that can 'lay in bed' and hit the snooze because I have a list in my head of things I need to get done that day. That list gets longer as the day goes on, but ya gotta get a head start ya know. However, I do set it later at times, depending on my 'list' and what Milk Man needs from me that day. By 4:30 I have dressed, gotten cloths ready for Milk Man, he needs some assitance with this because he is the youngest child and his mother spoiled him...did I just say that out loud? Yup, I did!! SO, in honesty, he doesnt like to 'mess up' the drawers in the morning - translation: its to far to the dresser when I am already up!! LOL Or I have not had a chance to put away all the socks and underwear for a week ok!

After I get him started, I yell down to the older boys and start getting breakfast ready. Sometimes, depending on what we are having for breakfast, I yell at them after I get started. They have a 15 min time limit to be dressed and to the table for the meal - they tend to drag their butts so I have no choice but to have an iron fist about this! While they scarf down a dozen eggs, 6 pieces of toast, 1 1/2 lbs bacon, I try to get a start on my 5 loads of laundry for the day, then they go feed the pigs and I make thier lunchs for the day. When this is acomplished they leave for the farm where the milk cows are and I am left with what the whirl wind left behind. Most of the time they are out of the house between 5:30-6:00 am.

I get the kitchen cleaned up, 1st load of laundry in for the day and then have my coffee. This is when I sit and weep like a baby at what I have put on the list for myself.... So many people say, I could'nt/wouldnt do all that - but when its your life and your family, you will do what needs to be done to take care of them because that is what your part is, to make sure that the family runs well and that they are happy. For 13 years I worked full time, but now with 5 kids, hubby and farm I am no longer able to do it all. I am wearing out I think. LOL We have SO much less $$, but I have found that I am SO much happier... Its been a good trade! ANYWAY, by now I have made my bed, hung out the 1st load of laundry, put in the 2nd and read through what I have planned for the day and see what can be doled out to the free labor around here, I mean the kids. I make a meal planner for 2 weeks at a time so I can make less trips to the store and know EXACLTY what I need to purchase, so I am already makeing plans for supper. I go to the basement where the older boys have thier rooms and look for toxic waste for the night before - i.e. popcorn bowls, pop cans, cups, plates - you name it. I tote that all upstairs to be decontaminated and then wake up the second shift of breakfast seekers, unless they have already gotten up... its about 7:30-8am

I think this is enough reading for you all today - I dont want to fuse your retna's on the first day of my crazy life in words! So till tommorow - keep your pants on or end up like me..

Big Son's Shower.....

As a mother, there are times when the things our children do or say is GREAT fodder for later blackmail in their lives. I know as a mother we tend to think that the things our kids do are funny and sometimes share things that are probably not going to be funny to anyone else - so comes this post.....

Big Son is a VERY modest, almost prudish about his body. He loves to show that he is now getting 'muscles' and is needing deodorant. But, does not like to be seen naked, in his shorts, or in a compromised position, like on the toilet. I am always in amazement at the male species, which is probably why I am pregnant again - but that’s a different post. That being said, I LOVE to see how much my boys grow in such short amounts of time. Big Son has gotten so tall and lanky, with legs that resemble that of a very thin chicken. Big Son is always saying that he is growing up, getting bigger and is starting - only starting - to want to do things for himself and trust me that is completely selective! He loves to be taken care of still and at times is adamant that he does not want to grow up. Tonight was a night that he wanted to 'do his own shower'. I always wash the boys hair and make sure that the major cracks, crevices, 'appendages' and nails are clean. Big Son decided that he only wanted help with his hair and he wanted to be grown up tonight. Needless to say I was a bit skeptical about this only because his attention span is that of a gold fish on speed....... non-existent. As he was showering I stood outside the door to see if I could hear signs of actual washing and not playing. As I stood there, I realized he was singing a little tune to himself - but I was not sure what it was. After about 15 seconds of close listening this is what I heard..... please be prepared....


Big Son - Washin' my wiener, washin' my wiener, washin my wiener till it shines......

Yeh, I know that I died laughing , was revived and died again. Milk Man of course was wondering why I had fell to the ground in fits of laughter and came to listen for himself - he was not surprised by this and said "We all sing little songs like that'........ So there is proof that the weird things that men do, start when they are little boys - Washin their wiener......

Lispys Rooster Rampage...

As I begin this post I need to put up a disclaimer: The language used by said children in this post is not taught nor encouraged by said parents... However, said children pick these words up from older brothers whom are impossible to correct when said language is used - there for we end up with a swearing Lisper! Let the fun ensue -

Lispy, as we know has a speech 'challenge' and certain words, letters and phrases are not always easily understood. On the farm we have chickens and therefore a couple of unruly roosters. These roosters are mean and if we can ever catch them, they WILL be soup. We also have an AWSOME cow dog named Sambo, aka Sam or as Lispy calls him - Tam.... Early this spring I came home from work and as I drove in the yard I saw Sam take off down the hill on a full run after one of the rotten roosters. As this happened Lispy was pointing a stick and yelling, completely unaware that I had driven in the driveway. As I got out of the car I heard and saw Lispy yelling profanity at the rooster. I called to him and asked him what was going on. He promptly swung around around and this was the conversation - please forgive the profanity used by a certain 3 year old -

Me - Lispy whats going on?

Lispy - Hi Mamma - I tigged (sigged ) Tam (sam) on the damn wooster(rooster).

Me trying to keep my composure - Lispy, why did you sig Sam on the DARN rooster - notice the ok word reinforcement.

Lispy - Mamma I didn’t say darn I taid (said) Damn wooster.

Me - I know what you said but we should say darn - anyway, why did you sig Sam on the rooster.

Lispy - I tigged Tam on that wooster cuz that baserd (bastard) wooster, him tacked (attacked)me! Dirty baserd - pappa thuck (grandpa chuck) told me to tig Tam on the baserd when him wuns (runs) at me and me did it. Tee Mamma - I had my tick (stick) in my hand like pappa thuck told me and him till tryed to tack me - him being real athshole (a-hole) today. You wanna thoot him for me mamma - you pridy dood sot (shot).

At this point, what am I suppose to say? How am I suppose to discipline the language when it seems trivial to the situation that he was in. Needless to say we had yet another discussion with the boys - Palmer and Dale - about the language they use in the barn or anywhere when the boys are around. I tried to emphasize the fact that most of the language is unnecessary but I can understand when someone is frustrated that those are ALWAYS the words that seem to come out. As I said before, please don’t judge my children’s language on parenting skills or lack of. I know ALL kids have a few words now and then - Lispy just prefers to share them with the rest of the world.