The Bugs, and the Beginning of the End

My kids have always been fascinated by bugs. Spiders, worms, crickets especially ants. As a matter of fact, 1 of 6 used to pull the legs off of crickets and keep them in her drawer. No legs= no jumping away.
This is what 4 of 6 did with the spider she picked up. I don't usually let them pick up spiders. I have a black widow phobia. Like severe phobia. They used to bother me so much, I would get the chills every time I would even think about them. Now I can kill them on my own. I used to have Trent do it. I don't kill spiders. I like spiders. But black widows aren't spiders. They are evil creeping poison black shiny yucky......
Then we had the first of the 4 finishing school for the year. 4 of 6 is officially a kindergartner.

And Then There Were 4. I Mean 5

It was quite an exciting evening last night. Nothing like a dog chicken combo to get the ol' blood pumping.
From the beginning.....
I was talking on the phone to a neighbor around the corner at 4 yesterday, and she started shooing dogs out of her yard. I'm thinking 'go round up the birds, make sure they are locked up'. Wandering dogs are bad when you have chickens. Of course, the kids walked in the door, and that thought was long gone.
Fast forward to 6. We're cleaning up dinner and I get a pound on the door. There's a man I have never seen before and he's spinning this fantastic tale of dogs and shooing them off of this chicken... and the bird is mangled and on and on. Honestly, my first thought is 'oh man, I get to go clean up dead chicken again. I hope it's dead so I don't have to relieve it of it's suffering'. Then I remembered Trent was home. He's the man right? SO I get Trent and we go out to see the damage. The only bird out there is the rooster. He's perched on the widow sill by our garage. No Dogs, No chickens, but there are feathers EVERYWHERE. I'm thinking, theses dogs have wiped out this poor roosters entire harem. Including the 3 baby chickens we just got. The only one we found, was the one that Trent did have to put down because the dog got to her. We are assuming it got away when the man ran off the dogs, and it came home. As we're standing there deciding if the bird can be salvaged, some neighbors come over to tell us their tale, and then we notice 3 little birds run across the street. All is not lost. How they got away? We'll never know. Then the people from up the street come down to ask if we're missing some dogs because they had just found and picked some up. Trent let's them know how he feels about those dogs and lets them know AC is on there way.
We get all the kids inside to finish cleaning up dinner and to wait for the animal control officer we called. She shows up about 6:30 and we go out to tell her what we know, and up wanders one of our hens. Nice, we only lost 2. (I say only because I thought they were all gone). And, Apparently the people with the 2 dogs in their truck saw her and turn over the dogs. She went off to find the owners, don't know what came of that.
So, this morning as Trent is going to work, up wanders bird #5. We only lost 1. It isn't hurt, but it is missing most of it's feathers. It is partially naked. And probably cold. I went out this morning, to go see if it was hurt, and the rooster wasn't letting it go anywhere. He had both of them corralled. I think out of all of this, the rooster was the one who learned the lesson. And for at least today, he will make sure they stay in the coop.
Long story long.

Am I Crazy?

I am going to start a summer 'Keep 'em busy co-op'

What do you think? Interested?

On My Mind Monday

Another reason to garden...
I was watching the news this morning, and this story piqued my interest. We have always known, chemicals are not to be ingested. I was listening to this story, and the reporter was saying that they tested the urine of a number of kids, and the kids with ADHD, had elevated levels of pesticides detected. I am not a big subscriber to the fanatical 'do this dont do this' with your kids, stuff. I didn't stop feeding my kids specific food under a certain age when they said it caused allergies. Turns out, they are now saying you should feed specific foods under a certain age, to prevent allergies. My kids sleep on their bellies after 6 weeks old. They just sleep better. I don't replace my car seats after they "expire". I know gasp.
So I was not surprised to hear this story this morning. I don't think pesticides are the cause. I think it is a number of factors. Including genetic predisposition. I do think there are more than 1 culprit. Top on my list, are the preservatives found in the food we buy for convenience. But, that is just my theory. (Oh, the worst, American cheese. I'm almost embarrassed to have that cheese labeled American ;-)
But, I do think that growing a garden, and providing for yourself, will head off more than 1 problem.
Money saving. I have not bought 1 can of fruit in the last 5 years. I think I have bought 1 case of tomato sauce.
Teaching. My kids could put in and grow a garden if they needed to.
Following the prophet. We have been instructed to grow a garden.
Self Reliance. If we needed to.... we could live off of what we grow. Between our chickens, and our fruit and veggies, and hopefully dried beans this year.

Now, I have never understood the way they have been building houses lately. 4000 sqft homes, on .07 of an acre. What are you going to do when gas is 10.00 a gallon, so the price of food quadruples.
I just make sure we grow enough for you too.

Alright

I guess I can't put it off anymore. That last storm system gave me hope though. It is spring, and summer is coming. (above, is the garden with the peas coming up. We will pull those out and after they're done and put in our squash. Pictured below is the grass planted last year and the new patch)
My goal this summer is to get the yard put in. I am so tired of stepping on goat heads. And kids bringing them in on there shoes. The only way to get rid of them, is the best way. Grass.
(this is the other section of grass we just put in, the bare spot is where we will plant our garden after Trent pulls the trees down. We will spend the next 2 years killing weeds in there)
The first year we lived here, we moved in too late in the season to do much of anything. The house had been empty for 3 years, and there really was nothing we could do short of a few tomato plants.
Year 2, I was pregnant with 5 of 6, and year 3, I was pregnant with 6 of 6. So, this is the year. Now that we are on top of the grubs, we have tilled, we have rounded up the weeds..... I'm ready to spend the next 6 weeks keeping the little seeds wet. Constantly. endlessly. wet.

I was reading a friends blog this morning, and thought 'hey I have some of those'.
You know what would make these even prettier? A kitchen that didn't have all of my kitchen living room stairwell and entry way items crammed into it. Oh well.

On My Mind Monday

Yesterday was a nice day.
Nothing major happened. Nothing fabulous or mind blowing occurred. But, it was life altering for me.
As some of you know, I have mom issues.
My mom didn't raise us, which creates issues.
My mom is now raising my brothers kids, which creates issues.
We are really close to our dad, which creates issues.
Our family goes through phases. We like each other, then something happens, and there is major upheaval and extreme contention. This is the dynamic of our family. It's not fun, especially for my dad, but it is us. I think I could safely use the word dysfunctional. This has pretty much consumed me off and on, for years. It's a disruption in all of our lives.
We have been in the middle of one of our family struggles, and I have just been searching for inner peace. I can't go through these upheavals anymore. It takes a toll on myself, my family, and my husband. I have been searching for where I stand in this, what my part is, who I owe what to, and what part I play. SO as I'm sitting in Sacrament yesterday the speaker ends with this. "This life is a test, that is all it is. Nothing more. It is a test to see how badly we want what comes next." The next part I am not quoting, but this was the jist of it. We will need to have learned forgiveness, charity, long suffering, emapthy, hope, compassion. I am not sure if he was saying what I took from it, but I needed to hear that. My job in this life is pass this test, and to raise my kids to the best, no, better than I am able to. That is where my responsibilities lie.

Day 6

Here is Capitol Reef. There were some cool trails our here, but we had some sleeping kids and a caravan, so we settled for the scenic drive and a picnic.






Trent says he has a picture from 20 years ago in front of the same tree.

This is 2 of 6 at the hill out side of Moab. The kids insisted we let them go to the hill again. So 2 of 6 climbed to the top and ran full speed down the hill. I had Trent capture this gem. When he got down there was a crowd of HS kids at the bottom laughing at him. Then when they went to the top, they were too scared to run. It was pretty funny.
h

What Are We At? Day 5?

Friday was a fun day too. This was the day my parents came up, to spend 2 days doing the stuff we like to do.
This is Thompson Springs and Sego Canyon
We love old cemeteries. We like to go look at the dates and figure our how old people were when they died. There was one family who lost 3 sons in one year. One was 6 months, one was 12 and the other 1 day. Not even the same day, like an accident or something. We went to a cemetery once in Castle Gate, and more than half the people died on one day, in a mining explosion.

This was the old Thompson springs train stop. One of those old railroad stops that were not needed anymore.
This was an old neglected home, that looked like someone had just bought the property it was on. The fruit trees out in front were newly pruned.
Our other stop was Goblin Valley. If you haven been there, it's a fun place to go. The weather in April was perfect. Last time we went, it was August, and really warm. Well, hot.



This was a little town outside of Green River. Elgin was an old peach orchard town where they were growing peach trees quite successfully until coal prices went up and they couldn't afford to run the pumps to pump the water out of the green river.
Green River is a ghost town too, but I have heard rumor they are trying to get set up to build a nuclear power plant.

And this is the sand hill just north of Moab. We have passed this too many times promising to let the kids go play, and we finally did it.
Tomorrow I'll post the video from the sand hill. Well, maybe. May 8th is already packed.

I'm starting with a 5k at 6 am, then we need to get the tiller running so I can till the rest of the yard so I can start grass. Then I need to take back the cable box because we have decided that no one watches it, we're not paying for it. And the phone is going too.
I also need to put a top coat on the bathroom project, so I can get it finished next week. 2 of 5 has a scout activity at 10 am, and all the kids have a Primary activity at 2. Oh and if we can cram it in, the Magna Health Fair is ALWAYS a fun activity. I remember this being a problem every year. Whatever Saturday the Health fair picks, is always too full.

Day 4

I had a hard time picking pictures for this post. I had so many awesome shots. This I have to say was my favorite day. (or did I say that about day 3?)
I LOVE LOVE LOVE ghost towns. We don't get out and crawl around old buildings, especially with little kids. But we like to look. I love to picture what the town would have looked like in full swing.
This was in castle valley, Most of the town was pretty well taken care of, and had lots of people still living there. It looked like a lot of people were retires with some money. There were a few turn of the century homes and barns on their property. The picture above was the drive to get out of there.
This was Cisco. Off the main road, maybe 2 residence still there. But the buildings were still in tact. Most of the ghost towns out here are old railroad stops. The trains would stop and reload with coal. Once trains started going diesel, there was no need for these stops.

Day 3

We went out to the hills east of Moab, where the slick rock bike trails are. The is also a little locally know secret buried back off the beaten path.
It's a hike about 1.5 miles in, and after taking a wrong turn at first, and adding another mile, we found it. 5 of 6 crashed as soon as Trent picked her up. The younger 2, as I mentioned, were carried almost the whole time.
I'm sure someone got in trouble for loosing this baby off the cliff.