Bad Blogger...BAD..shame on me

I have been informed by my husband that his father and Christy are missing my blogging. That in itself was enough to get me back on here blogging. ;) I got a lot of catching up to do, so lets just start from this past weekend and go backwards from there. I won't try to cram EVERYTHING into today, but will put a good bit in here.

Christy, I want you to know, I did it! I asked Ian if he had told you I did it myself, but he said no. Oh, well you probably want to know what I did. I gave Derby his shot! It was easy! He was a good boy.

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Soon I hope to be taking pictures of a new addition to our little farm. This animal is going to actually be claimed as Ians very own. He has not thought of a name yet for him, but he is working on it, I hope. I told him he needs to be thinking on it.

It all started with a phone call from Joe, you know Joe Tilley, they man that does the auction every other Saturday at the sale barn in Taylorsville, and that I got the emus from, and that helped me out when I brought the goats home and Eddie was sick.

He called me and said, " Kelly you got to come over and see what I got! You are gonna love him, I just know you are gonna want to have him!" and I said, "Joe, you are gonna get me in trouble! I just got rid of two goats and now you are tempting me with something else!" He says, " No, you just got to come see him, I promise you are gonna fall in love with him!"

So of course I said okay. I mean, he doesnt live that far from here. We are practically neighbors in the country sense of the word. We were planning on going out later anyway to get groceries and the animals food, so I said we would stop on by.

Well, I will tell you what the animal is now. It is a 10 month old male llama. Yep. I told Ian maybe this will turn out better than the goats. Llamas have soft feet, soft pallats, and no horns. So they can't be tearing up stuff and chewing on everything.

We got over there and Ian seemed to really like him. What was really attractive was the price. For those that don't price llamas very often, they can go for anywhere from 300 dollars to into the thousands of dollars. Joe bought him at the auction for 135 dollars. He said we could have him for 150 dollars.

My first thoughts were that he would be a good guardian for the back half of the property. The emus were good for that for a long time, but since getting big they have had to have their own pen area and are only let out under supervision because of their habit of wigging out and deciding to stomp a chicken here and there.

We had a good time over at Joes...he took us down to the creek (Euharlee runs on the back of his property)...but that is a story for another day. I didnt bring my camera that day, so I will save that for later. Needless to say it is beautiful out there.

Do you remember me talking about chasing his llama he bought awhile back, trying to corral him in? That llama is his buddy now, silly thing. Thats the thing about llamas. Once they know they are yours, they are super loyal and affectionate to their owner.

Anyway, Joe has to catch up the new llama and then he said he would deliver him to us and we could pay him later. He wants us to have him. Some other man wants him, but he said he doesnt want him to have him, he wants us to have him. :) So we got him. He isnt here yet, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will have him here.

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Saturday we went down to Newnan. Ian frequents a board that caters to the Viper truck fans. For anyone that doesnt know, we have one of those trucks. The SRT-10 Dodge Viper truck. Ours is red. Someone from the board wanted to have a get together and so we decided we would go. I am not good at meeting new people, its very uncomfortable for me, especially a whole group of people, but it went over fairly well. The hosts were our age, thereabouts, and we were first to arrive (I know, SHOCK, we are always the late people) so that made it all the easier to get to know our hosts before everyone else arrived. She had quite the spread for drinks and food. They live in a neighborhood, nice houses, but VERY up against each other. When we got home that evening Ian said, you know, being there really makes you appreciate what we have here. I agreed wholeheartedly. Postage stamp lots make us feel claustrophobic anymore.

I took some pictures of the trucks there, one person brought their Challenger instead, which was pretty neat too. Here are some pictures...




I don't know why I didnt take a picture of OUR truck, guess cause we have seen it plenty before...lol. Our truck was the only one that was an extended cab, everyone elses was a standard cab. If you look in the picture above, the one by the mailbox is ours. Isnt this Challenger handsome? Here is one more of it...




This truck below was my favorite of the ones there. You can't tell by the picture, but it wasnt just black, it had that sparkly stuff in the paint! I love that. Ian says its the redneck in me, that its like, bassboat sparkle...lol. His car has it though! I wish my truck had it in the paint, I think its pretty.









I took a close up of the hood, love this hood! There was a red one that had a hood like this also. Here are the rest of the trucks...



















Loving the window decal on this one. Anytime anyone is asking about these trucks...their first question seems to be..." That thang got a HEMI in it?" and the proper response is NOOOOOOOOOOO...its a V10 VIPER ENGINE!!!! Being asked this so much, I can relate to why he has this window decal. A V10 Viper engine will blow a hemi out of the water.

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Before we went to this truck party, we went over to our dear friends house, Adrian and Teddy. We visited them for awhile and had a very nice visit. It has been so long since we have seen each other. Everyone gets caught up in the day to day life and sometimes it is hard to stop and take a break for just a day to visit, but we did it Saturday. Shelby had been wanting to see their son Matthew for awhile now. They have known each other all their lives. Its funny, now that they are teens they are all shy and awkward with each other, its kinda cute. ;) Here are some pictures of them, and then Ben, Matthews brother jumped in between them and was clowning around. :)



















While we were there, Teddy mentioned their little ornamental pond, and how she was going to just take it out. It was for her Dad, and he passed a year ago. Ever since he passed she has not kept it up. Who has time with Ben running around? Ben keeps her VERY busy. While we were gone to the truck party thing they cleaned it all out and put the two fish that were left in there in a bucket for us to take home with us. We have always wanted one of those little ponds and she said we were welcome to it.

Yesterday we went to Lowes and got all that we needed to get the pond running while the fish waited in the bucket in our kitchen sink. I was periodically changing the water to keep the oxygen level up in the water for them, and to keep the water clean for them. One fish is believed to be ten years old, and since they were her Daddys fish, I want to honor that and take good care of them. This is why we were rushing to get the pond set up to get those two fish in there and comfortable.

Ian spent til almost dark digging out the hole, leveling, and repacking. While he did that I hauled bricks over to the steps. These bricks will be hidden by decorative bricks. The ones we bought yesterday are mainly to support the upper half of the pond as we didnt want it ground level. Here is a picture of the work that got done yesterday and the fish put in. It's not prettified yet, but its functional. We will add the bricks and put our tropical plants all around it and things of that nature to make it look nice before the week is out.





This is enough for today...tomorrow I will get on the subject of what has been going on around here with the chickens.

Love y'all John and Christy. :) Hope you enjoyed todays entry. XOXO

How To Make A Chicken Diaper: For Donna W.

This is probably going to be a train wreck and clear as mud Donna, but here goes. Let me know if you have any questions as to what I am talking about.





First, we are going to measure for the elastic straps that go on top. I use 3/4 inch wide elastic for bantams. Measure from about the spot I am pointing to on the front there, to about the spot I am pointing to on the back. This is not a precise science, but it is usually very close. My first diaper was a disaster, but the second, much better.












Next, your going to measure from the point I am pointing to on the breast, going under the bottom of the chicken with the measuring tape to the point I am pointing to in the second picture. For the actual pouch, you need to add about three inches of material on the top, and the bottom. This will be the poo catching pouch. Looking at the picture, the second picture, go a little lower than where I am pointing, and then add three inches. I am a bit high on that one.

The first picture below is of the pattern. You have the long piece that is going to cover the breast and through the legs and out the back end. The short piece is going to be sewn onto the top. Remember, you are going to be sewing inside out, so when it is finished you will turn the pouch outward so the seam is inside the pouch. The top piece is just cut from the bottom piece to match. I leave a little extra at the top of the second short piece, because you are going to fold it over and put elastic in there, so the end result looks like the third picture here,














Here is a picture of it finished...so you can get an idea of where you sew the straps onto the outfit. Put the elastic in that section first though, like shown in the picture before this one. You can see, you sew on two little patches, I just make two little squares and sew it up, turn it inside out, then sew it on the elastic about halfway down. I then take those super sticky velcro squares and stick them onto the material, one side up, the other side down, so they match up and close together. That line you see on the short piece is the part you fold over to put the elastic in.











Of course on all the edges you want to hem it up, you can probably see my hem, and then you can also see where I messed up. In the middle of the breast part I had to cut a little bit out, it was too long in that area and drooped, so I cut out a portion and sewed it back up. The next one I made was better as I redid the pattern to be a bit shorter there.

Now, what you want is some Carefree panty liners. You take two of them and criss cross them like this, inside the poop pouch. Take the strip off and stick it into place. I use safety pins to hold them in place on the back and the sides, just to be extra sure they stay in place. Here is what it looks like...











I would have shown you his John Deere one, but it is dirty right now and is in the wash...so this was his Christmas outfit. :) Chickenmom on Youtube has some really fancy outfits for her chickens. I am not THAT good. I go for function and thats about the best I can do. ;)

Donna, I hope this helps. Please keep me posted as to how this goes. Who is it for?

Summer Is Busy

Seems I should be doing something right now. Something entailing cleaning up, feeding, doctoring, looking after something is always the theme around here. Not that I mind, its what I do. Its where I have put myself. Sometimes it just doesnt make for too much time sitting on the computer though, and that is something I like to do.

So let me tell you what has been going on.

I got a phone call back last weekend from Joe. Joe is the goat man. He is the one that sold the emus to me when they were babies. I met him through needing help with one of my goats when I first got them. Oh, speaking of which, not to get too far off the subject, BUT I have neglected to tell that...that being, I sold the two goats. Yes, I know, it is hard to believe that I could part with any of my animals. Remember the guineas? I had had enough of them, and had to sell them. The goats had reached their breaking point with me, as the guineas did. I can only take so much. It seemed they had to make work for me on a daily basis. If they weren't busy tearing something up they were chewing up the side of the garage...it really does look like a T Rex snacked on the side of it. :( I was always fixing something, they were tearing up the pens, chewing through the chicken wire if you can believe it, to get to the chicken feeders. They had a whole three acres of pasture, but NO, they had to get to the chickens feed. Same goes for the fenced off area where the chickens reside. They found ways to break into this area too. I had had enough. They weren't even pettable anymore as they stunk so bad from peeing on their faces. This is normal buck behavior, but I found it stinky and nasty and smelly, not attractive at all. All the stinking, snorting and scrubbing on everything annoyed not only me, but the poor pigs too. The goats were trying to take over the pigs resting spot. We had all had all we could stand of the goats. So I put an ad in Craigslist. They have gone to a farm somewhere in Rockmart, not too far from here where there is nothing they can tear up or get into and there are nannies there, so they should be happier.

So I said I wouldn't get too far off track, but there you go, I did it anyway. Lets get back to what I was talking about. I was talking about Joe, his phoning me, and needing help right away. He had a mama goat die that had two three week old twins to feed. They are kiko/angola cross. He asked me if I could finish up feeding them on the bottle to get them on pasture and then he would take them back. I said that I would, so he brought them on to the house right away. When he got there nothing was mentioned that they had scours. :( Scours is goat diarrhea, and in baby goats can be fatal in a few days time. They get dehydrated fast. One was already weak and not doing so good. I put them on blankets in a small pen I keep for temporary enclosures. More or less a rabbit play pen type set up. I put them on the floor in the dining room. I really expected them to be small, and not have scours. That was the only reason I had this set up for them ready when he got there. It turned out they were larger and messier than I expected, so the next day they were out in the back pasture. It was good I set them up for the night in the house though. We had a terrible torrential bout of storms come through that evening and into the night.

So, with these two to care for, then I am caring for the neighbors animals again while they are away for a week on vacation, plus my own animals to care for, I have my hands full. I had to get some supplies to get these goats fed. Joe brought over a lame excuse for a bottle (an empty water bottle with some old nasty nipple pulled over the top) and some powdered milk replacer for livestock, that had weevles in it...which would just make them sicker, so that got thrown out.

I made a trip up to Tractor Supply, and Stephanie said the same thing that Joe had said, that I could mix 1 part buttermilk to 2 parts whole milk and it would stick with the babies better than the milk replacer formula. I made the trip to Walmart buying two baby bottles and the milk, along with some Pedialyte and Pepto bismol. I read up and found that in a case of dehydration a tablespoon or so of the pepto and pedialyte would help. They sucked this down with gusto when I got home, along with the milk.

While at Tractor Supply I was telling Stephanie all about the babies and she wanted to buy them, but, her husband would prove difficult to convince, so a guy that works there also wanted to buy them. Fine by me, I called Joe, he said sell them if I can. Brad came to pick them up that evening. He said one might not make it, but he would do all he could for the little one. He didnt have the money to pay me until payday, which is tomorrow, I know where he lives and where he works, so I am not worried, I will get the money for the goats. Part of the money will go towards reimbursing me for the things I bought, the rest I will give back to Joe. I don't want any extra payment, I am counting on good karma to come back around to me, like if I am ever in a bind he will be there for me in a pinch.

Here are the babies, they were only with me one night and half a day.





Onto other news. The chicks I got on Friday. I love them. I have lost four though, and am a bit disheartened by this. I have lost two buff laced polish chicks and two golden laced polish chicks. One of the goldens was weak when I got it though, and he was given to me in the event I could save him from dying. I wasnt able to do that unfortunately. I don't know what is causing these deaths, but I have put Terramycin in the water now, an antibiotic. I am hoping that whatever is wrong will be corrected by this.

I was also surprised by one of my silkie hens this morning with three brand new additions to the flock. Silkie hens are determined. If they are wanting to hatch, and they can hide those eggs from you, they WILL hatch. She had three little babies in tow this morning. I had to take them from her, poor girl. If I didnt the cat might have gotten them. Mocha is pretty good about not messing with the grown chickens, but with chicks, I am afraid she would kill them. Though silkie moms are dedicated I don't think she could have kept the babies from Mocha. I put them in with the polish chicks. Mama was clucking at the porch door and babies were crying for Mama, but I had to take them from her for their own safety. In a few days she will be okay. The chicks will learn to eat and drink from the feeder and waterer from the older chicks.

Here are a few pictures I took this morning of the new little babies. You can see the two in front are smaller, they are the silkies babies. The black one is hers too, it just wanted to hide in the corner though.

I realize that the polish chicks may have something, and may pass it on to the three new babies, but I am hoping this won't be the case. I really don't know what could be causing the deaths. I have had them for almost a week now. It would seem if they had anything, really HAD something, they would have already died.










Forgive the fogginess of that one picture. It was so humid and steamy this morning when I went to take the camera out onto the back porch the temperature change from the camera being in the house caused the lens to fog. I kept having to wipe it and quickly take a picture before if fogged up again.

We had a double rainbow the other day after a pretty good thunderstorm rolled through. I took many pictures hoping to capture the fainter outer rainbow along with the main rainbow. See if you can see it...I can see it, but then I was there, so I am looking for it knowing it was there! :)














That should catch my blog up for a few days anyway. :) Ian is off on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. When he is off, I am not on the computer, so it will be Monday before I will post again. I hope everyone has a wonderful summery weekend!

Can Chickens Play?

The answer is YES.

This woman is my hero. She is the one that taught me how to make chicken diapers for Phoenix so he could be in the house without the obvious down side for me. Check out her rooster Phillip fetching his toy.

Good Saturday Afternoon

It is a sunny and warm day here in NW Georgia. Just a fine day! Yesterday Shelby and I went to visit my parents. Erin and her boyfriend stopped by also and we had a real nice visit. While I was down that way, I went about thirty minutes south of where Mama and Daddy live to pick up some new chicks. I also got to see the parents of the chicks and it looked promising for these chicks to turn out to be show prospects. You never know for sure until they are grown and you take a good look and choose your best and put them in show, but I am keeping my fingers crossed. Here are a few pictures of the parents. I had a picture of the Buff Laced polish rooster, but it turned out blurry, so I won't include it here. These are of the white crested black polish group and the Golden laced polish group. Then, pictures of my new babies I brought home yesterday.











You can see that his tail is not in condition, and the girls are a bit ratty, but that is to be expected at this time of year. It is mating season after all...and soon they will molt and lose a lot of their old feathers and by the end of the year they will have their new feathers coming in. All mine are like this right now too.

Here are the babies.








In other news, day before yesterday I heard a ruckus out on the front porch and two mockingbird parents were having a hissy fit. I knew the problem was going to be one of the cats...and I was right. Mocha had snagged their baby bird. It had feathers and could hop and flutter, but it was not ready at all to fly. I hollered for Ian to come and help me. He crawled under the porch and got the cat. The baby hopped away and I pulled some of the lattice on the front of the porch away and picked the poor little thing up. I brought it right in for inspection. It did have a small puncture wound, but didnt seem to be bleeding from it. I packed on the antibiotic ointment. I fed it at regular intervals. I have done this before with three baby robins many years ago with success. You wet some dry cat food down and let the water soak in. Use tweezers and feed the baby small pieces.

Things looked okay at the moment. Yesterday morning it seemed a bit less enthusiastic about eating, but I made it eat anyway, along with a few drops of water out of a syringe to help wash it all down. I packed up the baby mockingbird along with us to go for our visit to see my parents. Baby birds have to be fed all the time...all day. It wasnt an hour and a half we had been there, and it was not looking good at all. The baby started breathing heavily and after about fifteen minutes it fell over on its side. Minutes later it passed. I believe that nasty cat puncture was the cause of death. It had bled some out onto the babies chest feathers overnight. The cat must have done some internal damage. Poor little thing. I had to try though.

So far today I have not been productive at all, I have been fooling around on the computer for a few hours, Facebooking, posting pictures, emailing, just catching up on here, but now I have to go. I have much to do around here, and it doesnt look like my little magic fairies are going to appear and do it for me. ;) I just wanted to make a post about these precious new babies of mine I have.

He did give me five extras. One was weak and not expected to live. He thought maybe if I took it it would survive. What had happened was some lady had come the day before me and was looking at the chicks in the brooder, and buying some. All the while her two children were messing around. He thinks one of them slid the side door open to the brooder just enough that the chicks got out onto the floor that night. Newborns can't survive without staying warm, they will die. He found seven of them on the floor and obviously away from the heat lamp. All but one bounced back, poor little buddy. I did everything I could. He wanted to sleep a lot, so weak and tired. So I put him in a shoebox, in with the others, but seperate so he wouldnt get stepped on and could rest. He had his own little water and food. But he was just too tired. I found him passed on this morning. Poor little buddy.

I will focus on the ones that are living now though, and not be too sad. I sure do love these new babies, they are so much fun! :)

Everyone have a great Saturday! :)