Vrooooom…

I’m too busy embracing my inner materialist to post today.  I’ll be back when I run out of gas.

(Which probably won’t be long!)

Spring has sprung!

My nose is running and my eyes are burning…  and it’s not just because the flowers are blooming and the trees budding.

Meet Mohawk.  Please pray with me that Mohawk is a SHE.  First rule of living on a farm… don’t name anything you’re going to eat…

My folly…

Times have changed…. NOT!

Finally did it!

Thursday the steering completely went out on my van.  Friday we stopped at a local dealership to check out a 12-passenger van they had on the lot.  Drove it.  Hated it.  This morning bought the Expedition that was parked next to it.

At the park this afternoon, a Toyota hybrid parked next to me.  As if a message from Satan sent to make me doubt this decision.  But, as much as I would love to drive a more ‘green’ vehicle, the reality is that I have three children.  Two are very large teens with equally large friends.  I have to be able to haul people.  Hybrids that meet our seating needs are $30,000 used IF you can find one on a lot.

Check back in 2011.  My teens will be in college and I’ll only be hauling Flower Child around.  Hopefully there will be a better selection of used hybrids on the lots by then!

Sweet, cuddly chicks

NOT!!!

They are stinky, they make way too much noise, and they get nasty stuff stuck places where *I* have to remove it so they can keep on stinking up the place and making noise.  And top of this, I’m horribly allergic.  I’ve been kicked off my desk because their box sits right beside it and I can’t breath in that room.

It’s all worth it in the freezer end, though!

Confused…

Breakaway Episcopal churches win round in property fight

“This fall the court will consider our property claims against those who have left the Episcopal Church and yet continue to occupy Episcopal Church property while loyal Episcopalians are forced to worship elsewhere,” the diocese said Friday. “That is simply wrong.”

“The people in the CANA congregations were free to leave, but they cannot take Episcopal property with them,” the diocese said.

What confuses me is that these congregations are NOT leaving the Episcopal Church, just shaking up the chain of command a bit.  And if anyone asked my opinion (which they won’t, that’s why I love to blog… I share it even when no one asks!), it’s not the newly minted Nigerian congregations that are leaving but the congregations and diocese who are rewriting the Bible rather than reading it.

Spring Break

Do kids who live and go to college in Florida go up north for spring break?

A typical homeschool day…. NOT!

It’s only 9:30am and our day has already gone topsy-turvy.

The phone rang at 7am, call from the post office to come pick up our chicks.  The post office 30 minutes away.  (I will never understand why we have a Big City address when the County Seat is MUCH closer.)  So, that’s an hour.  Fortunately, Big Daddy is home for the next two days, so I stayed home to fix breakfast and do other chores.

Twenty six little balls of fluff.  We’re already down to twenty-four.   A bad lamp and the realization that the box is bigger than we though required another trip to The Store for another light fixture and bulb.  The Store is just ‘up the road a piece’, but still required a 20 minute trip because of the necessity to ’sit a spell’.

Lawn Mower Guy is coming to pick up our machine at 10am.  Big Daddy and Rooster had to push it to the driveway from the back of the house, with Flower Child driving.

Finally, breakfast.  Nice big breakfast, although normally we have whole wheat bagels or english muffins with some kind of protein.  Dad’s home, so not a normal morning.  Had to save a chick from drowning twice during the egg frying.  Uncle stops by to ’sit a spell’, so Big Daddy eats his breakfast out on the patio.  Why is it he only stops by when we’re eating breakfast at 10?  What these country folk must think of us…

Flower Child’s chore is to empty the dishwasher.  I need her to empty it so I can fill it with breakfast dishes and wipe down the counters.  While she’s emptying, complete with FREQUENT trips over to check out the chicks, I wash the tables, shelves, and tv cabinet with Murphy’s soap.  Every time I rinse the cloth I have to remind her to get back to emptying the dishwasher.  While I’m chasing her around the kitchen/useless room, Princess re-sorted the darks and lights that had gotten mixed up and started a load of lights.  Rooster took some things out to the chickens I cleaned out of the fridge and fed the dogs.  Yes, I also cleaned out the fridge during the time Flower Child was emptying out the dishwasher.  I think it took her over a half hour.  Ack!

Kitchen cleaned, dust banished, twenty-four of twenty-six chicks still breathing.  It’s now 11am.  Rooster is working at the desk in the living room, Princess is working in her room, I’m typing this blog, and Flower Child is singing and staring out the window.  Her assignment book IS on the table, which I suppose is a good start.

11:20am.  Coffee’s done.  Time to finish this post and get back to work.  Lists to make while I drink my coffee…  shopping list for the new flower bed on the south side of the house, supplies needed to start the Kitchen Makeover.  Before picture to take.  Bird feeders to fill (or children to bribe to fill).  Weeds to pull (while the ground is nice and soft!) And smoothies to make for snack later this morning.

LIFE IS GOOD.

So much for technology!

Last year at the annual Amish auction it was freezing.  Folks were excited when the temps were much more friendly today.  They forgot one little problem… the rain.  We’ve had LOTS of it.  And lots of rain makes lots and lots and lots of mud!

Truck after truck got stuck in the mud.  Including one particular big, honkin red pickup with dualies.  (Names withheld to protect the reputation of the guilty.)

Good thing these guys were around!

In pictures…

So me:

(Expensive Dark Chocolate)

So NOT me:

(Cheap Milk Chocolate)

Water, water everywhere!

But not a drop to drink!   Where is that quote from anyway?

Back to the blog.  Lots of rain today.  Lots and lots of water everywhere.  Which reminded me that my little ole bloggy notebook where I write quick notes to myself about possible future blog posts had an entry about water.  Tap water, to be specific.

I read about Take Back the Tap! in my Sojourners magazine.  The idea was intriguing to me, so I jotted the website down in my little notebook so I could check it out later.   Their treatise is that tap water is safer than bottled water, in addition to the whole plastic bottle trash problem.

Before I could find the time to pull my thoughts together, I heard about a little town in Colorado on NPR.  More than 3oo residents of Alamosa have been infected with salmonella bacteria from their water supply and about half the victims were under the age of 11.  Somehow, I’d bet that a few of these folks won’t be joining the Take Back the Tap! campaign.

What is a person to do?  How about try out one of these water filtration systems from The Urban Homemaker!

Of course, given the profuse amounts of precipitation that has been pounding us recently, I could just order one of these babies from REI and purify the precipitation pooling on my property.

In pictures…

So me:

So NOT me:

Although I could LIVE in the RV full time and use the MSR Mutha Hubba on weekends.

Vocational Education

Schools are for Fish

Why is it that the people we need  most in our country are the ones who get the least respect?  Even doctors have been marginalized thanks to insurance companies.
I’d love to give a kick in the pants to certain IT professionals and remind them that garbage pickup can’t be outsourced to India.

Need a good laugh?

Homeschool moms everywhere will appreciate this post by La Paz Home Learning.  I look forward to seeing them on the cover of Homeschooling Today. ;)