Prayers

I am weary with my sighing, every night I make my bed swim...
...the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping.  The Lord has heard my supplication.  The Lord receives my prayers.
Psalm 7:7-9 


Life has been hard the past nine months since Bill died.  There have been many trials, and they are not over yet.  I admit sometimes I am scared, and I have fought a lot of depression.
Nights are the worse.  My mind runs and runs.  In order to turn it off enough too sleep, I take Valerian Root and Kava Kava, although I have heard that Kava Kava is hard on your liver.  Sometimes it works, usually it does, sometimes it doesn't...

Depression creeps up on me in the afternoons, when I start to get tired.  It can escalate by the night hours.

I know this is not God honoring, and I really do trust God.

Yesterday afternoon, I pondered how easy it would be to just give up.  I thought how much easier life might be.
'Might be' is the clue.  That's Satan talking, and I know it. Life would be a terrible thing to face if the Lord was not with me.  Things would not really be better if I gave up being a Christian.  But in a weakened state, it's easy for Satan to hit the target with his darts.

So I prayed a lot.  I told God there was no way I was going to give up.  But I really, really needed encouragement.  Could he show Himself to me?  I know it's not good to be asking that all the time, but once in a while, was it okay to ask, when we really needed it?

He had already been good to me a few hours earlier through his people.  My car had had a flat tire the day before, and a man from our church, who owns a tire shop, fixed it for me.  When I asked for the bill, he told me it was already paid.
That's humbling, friends, when you know you don't deserve the kindness people are showing, over and over.  My children deserve it, but I don't, especially when I spend too much time in the "slough of despond" (if you don't know what that means, go read  Pilgrim's Progress).

So I went to bed last night after taking my Valerian Root, and I "made my bed swim" and I prayed the hours away.

Then I got up this morning...

And I walked outside in the bright morning Texas sunshine...

And I knew God had heard my supplication, because I saw His glory everywhere I went...

First in the farm newborns:

And in the rooster that considers me a threat to his ladies, and tries to spur me everytime I walk near him, and thank you God that his spurs are not big yet, because I still haven't taught him who is boss even though I try to remember to pick up a stick whenever I see him:

In the goats that run to the fence to say good morning.  At least, that's what I tell myself they are doing.  Probably, they are trying to see if I have the feed bucket in my hand.
I really like this goat:

And in Samantha the goose, still my most faithful farm yard friend:

The Bible tells us that a man's life is threescore and ten.  I am 61.  Whose knows if I will live 9 more years, and reach threescore and ten, or if I will even reach the end of this day.  The women of my family do seem to have long lives, my fathers mother died just before her 95th birthday.  My own mother is 81 and very healthy, and her sister, my aunt Joy, just turned 88 and has hardly slowed down.
Even so, I thought if I do have a few more years, now is the time to try and do some of those things I always wanted to do.  I had better not put it off any longer.

I really want a fiber farm.  I want to learn to spin, and I want to raise animals that will give me wool.

I had the Angora Rabbits, but I wasn't doing much with them, so I bought a "husband" for them.  He is absolutely gorgeous, a rare white rabbit with blue eyes, and the beauty of this animal could only come from God.  It's hard for me to believe this gorgeous rabbit is considered "pet quality" rather than "show quality":

My spirits greatly lifted in my rabbit house this morning.  I had spent the last days cleaning it and moving air conditioners into it.  It's still a mess, but I am trying to do a little every day to get as much out of it as I can.

Yesterday, I picked up this beautiful rabbit that I am in love with, and also picked up some Jersey Woolies I got a deal on - buy the baby buck and get two older does for almost nothing.  I was pretty happy with the seven week old buck:

And one of the does, who the lady assures me is pregnant with at least three kits:

God shows himself and His glory in all His creation, including the human ones.

Like a little girl who rides her bike to a neighbors house, and comes home with a kitten (yeah, THANKS Tammy...if I remember right, the mother of that kitten was one of ours who ran to your house to escape the very child you gave her offspring to this morning...)
Then when I tried to take her picture, three photobombers had to get in on the action:

And in a young girl who made her first dress yesterday, and was so proud.  And to make it even better for her, her first handmade dress matched one her mama has:

So, although my nights are sometimes hard, I purpose to take more walks outside my own house in the mornings.  Because the goodness of God is everywhere, all we have to do is open our eyes.  It won't be long before we reach the "Celestial City." (There's Pilgrim's Progress again, I got it out recently to read to the kids during school this year.)

May we be strong and of good courage.  Heaven is near!

Call to me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.  Jeremiah 33:3

raising bunnies

Job 35:11 Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the fowls of heaven?

 I have decided that a riding lawn mower is the most stress relieving thing in the whole world.
I was up before 8 this morning, leaving the kids still sleeping in the house, riding and riding and riding.  My mind churned like it always does when I mow on a riding mower, thinking of the things I want to do with my little farm, and praying for all my children...

 

So, as I rode and mowed, a blog post came to my mind.  This one is a bit of a tutorial for raising rabbits in colonies, which means that instead of each rabbit being in an individual cage, the rabbits are raised in one large pen, usually, as in my case, with several does living with one buck.

I know people have lots of questions about that, but here are a few things I have learned since beginning my rabbitry:

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The buck will not harm the kits (baby rabbits) if you leave him in the pen with the nests.

It's not hurting the does to let them bred at will with the buck.  I have lots and lots of more nests this way, yes.  But the does are all fat and healthy and doing very well in colonies.

Rabbits can and will dig out every chance they get.  You MUST put something over the ground that they can not dig through.  Chicken wire is NOT a good choice, they tear right through it.  I learned this the hard way.

First time mama rabbits will sometimes give birth EVERYWHERE.  Picking up the kits scattered all over and making a nest for her sometimes work, but most of the time doesn't. Catch mama rabbit and pull hair from her tummy to make a nest.  That's what she does, it doesn't hurt her.  If a doe consistently fails to make a nest, it's time to cull her.  It happens sometimes.

The old wives tale that a mama rabbit will abandon her babies if you pick them up is absolutely not true.  We handle baby rabbits all the time, and I have never had a mother rabbit reject a nest because of it.

 It's no more cruel to butcher your rabbits that it is to eat a hamburger or chicken nuggests.  Yes they are cute and cuddly, but have you ever seen a doe eyed baby calf?  Or a downy newborn chick?

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Back to the riding lawn mower...

Rabbits were made to eat grass and plants in the wild.  I have 12 wonderful acres.  And it keeps the food bill down.  Rabbits do not have to eat only pellets, and at around $13 for 50 pounds, that's a good thing.  I pull grass all the time to feed them, but gathering cut grass after I mow is sure a lot easier.  So this morning, after I got a wire stuck in the mower and had to quit mowing until Luke woke up to help me cut it off, I gathered grass:

 

And yes, if you read my blog or facebook page, you are familiar with Samantha the goose.  She is a terror to everyone but me, but the children are bigger now and have learned if they throw their arms out and hiss back at her, she backs off quickly.  Samantha's sidekick the brown duck is my neighbors, or at least, it used to be my neighbors until it married Samantha the goose or something and came to live with us and follow her around all day long.

The bunnies LOVE the cut grass.  In fact, if I feed them grass and pellets at the same time, they will usually run to the grass first.

These are my "grow outs", which means I have removed these rabbits from the does.  I put them all in one big cage to finish growing up.  These bunnies are the ones for sale, or if they do not sell, they go into the freezer:

 These guys are getting big.  They have one more chance at a garage sale this weekend.  Anyone want to buy a bunny?

They love the cut grass, too!

This cage of breeders, the big white rabbits, always look so dirty, and I wasn't sure why or what to do about it.  But reading a rabbit blog, I learned that what I am probably doing wrong is cleaning the cage too often.  According to this blog, rather than clean the cages each week, I should be constantly adding hay and grass up to 12 inches deep.  Then clean it when it begins to attract flies or smells bad. The bedding of hay and grass absorbs the urine instead of letting it build up on top.  That means I have been doing a lot of work for nothing.  So I started doing that this week.  No improvement so far, but the bedding is not very deep yet, as you can see.  It's going to take a lot of grass to make the bedding 12 inches deep in this big pen, especially when they are eating as much of it as they can hold. I'm hopeful, though, and thankful to know I don't have to clean so much after all!

 

One more interesting note.  When I was out in the goat pen yesterday, I found a very small baby bunny.  No nest or anything, just a bunny laying in a goat pen in the corner.  I am not real sure where it came from.  I looked around for more, but couldn't find any.  We do have one bunny loose, one that was a pet of one of my children who doesn't live with us anymore, so rather than butcher it, and rather than keep feeding it since it's mama is one of those who doesn't care for her kits, I let her go to live in our yard.  But she is black, and this kit is white.
I gathered it up and put it into the youngest nest I could find, my Dutch bunnies who are several days older than this little one is.  She has lived for 24 hours in that nest, although she is not as fat and full looking as the rest of them.  I hope she makes it.

 

So that's it for my morning musings while riding the lawn mower. I am wondering where to go with my rabbitry now.  I'm not sure I want to continue raising the Dutch bunnies.  I may sell or butcher them soon, and stick with the meat rabbits and the fiber rabbits.  I am hoping to buy an Angora buck next month for my two does.

Let me know if you want to buy a bunny.  My grow outs will thank you! 

Pride

Luke 12:16-21  The land of a rich man was very productive.  And he began reasoning to himself, saying, "What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?"  Then he said, "This is what I will do, I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come, take your ease, eat, drink and be merry." " But God said to him, "You fool!  This very night your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared?" So is the man who stores up treasures for himself, and is not rich toward God."

All my life I have wanted to live on a farm.  Or maybe a ranch is what I wanted, because I certainly don't have a green thumb.  Any garden I have ever tried to grow has always been a flop.  I put off taking care of it, I forget about it, I don't want to do it.  And even when I do put feeble effort towards it, it dies, or grows beautiful plants profusely, but no vegetables or fruits...

But I do love animals, and I enjoy taking care of them.  It's one thing I usually do well.  Many times in the mornings, one of the first things I want to do is walk the pens and just see how they are thriving.

When we thought about moving last year, it seemed all we could find were houses with no land.  I ended up selling most of my chickens and rabbits in anticipation of not having anywhere to keep them. 
Then when we ended up not moving, I began to rebuild.  I had gotten well on my way to being restocked and in fact was getting enough eggs that I dragged my incubator back out.  I was able to load up a tray each Saturday with eggs, which amounted to about 72 eggs a week, and we had plenty to eat.  I also found a lady who was selling fertile chicken and duck eggs, and I added those to the incubator.

The rabbits were doing well, also.

And some friends asked me if I would like to raise puppies for them.  I jumped at the chance.  I set up the pen they gave me and looked very forward to this new venture.

The night the three dogs, two females and a male, one pregnant, arrived, I walked around the section of land the animals were on, feeling pretty good.  In fact, I was patting myself on the back...I had this down now.  I had a lot of hens laying eggs.  I had chicks in the incubator.  I had prolific rabbits.  I was going to raise dogs.  I pictured myself at Antique Alley, selling chickens again, something I really enjoyed doing when I first moved to Grandview.  But this time, I would add rabbits and crocheted things. This was going to be great!

Then disaster struck...

The dogs were getting out of the pen.  I stayed up until 11 that night, and patched holes.  Finally thinking I had it fixed, I went to bed.  The next morning, they were still in the pen.  I checked on them once an hour or so as I went about my daily housework.
But around 10 that morning, when I went to check, they were out.
One goose was in the yard, dead.
And one dog was in the chicken pen.

I caught the dogs, secured them in a crate, and then went to check the damage.

Almost every hen and a rooster were dead.

As I surveyed the damage, Luke 12:16-21 ran through my mind.  I had been prideful.  I had been full of myself.  And I remembered it was GOD who gives the increase, I can do nothing on my own.

I repented, and I thanked God that he had not required my soul quite yet.  I have six of my 12 children to finish raising.

I didn't feel like God was telling me to quit.  Just that he was reminding me who was in charge here.

So I sent the dogs back.  They were not farm dogs.  It wasn't their fault. I would still like to raise dogs, but if I do, I will stick with Great Pyrenees.

I cleaned up the carnage in the chicken pen.  I gathered up the four that were still alive, added the rooster I had put in another pen because he was mean, and I began to look around for more hens.  I have added four so far, young hens that are not laying yet.  Two of the four that were saved were also not yet laying, and the two that were have not quit recovered from the attack, and are laying sporadically.  It will come again, I imagine.

I figured the other goose was dead somewhere, but a couple of days later, I found it staggering out of the tall grass, heading for water.  It drank and drank, then disappeared back into the grass.  It's not recovered yet, but it will be okay.

I have some half grown chicks, and the eggs in the incubator should start hatching tomorrow.  The lady with the fertile eggs texted me yesterday to let me know she has some more.  I will go get those today.

I have a new litter of rabbits, and built a new pen yesterday for my growing herd of Dutch rabbits.

But I will work on my pride, as well as my little farm.  I learned my lesson, and I will try not to forget it.  I will remember to give God the glory from now on.  I will not "count my chickens before they are hatched", and I will not 'tell my soul' how well I am doing again.  When I walk pens in the morning, I will thank God for what He has given me.

And I will enjoy what I have.  If we have enough for Antique Alley, maybe I will still get a booth.  But I do love just shopping on those two weekends a year, so maybe I won't!

We will see.  And be content!

"Rocking" our babies

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait til tomorrow
For babies grow up, I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs, and dust go to sleep
I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep.

This morning, I was awake around 6.  I got up for a few minutes and bushed my teeth and did a few other things, then settled back into bed to do my Bible reading on my nook.  Wasn't long, though, before Tommy came creeping down the stairs.  Still not quite 7 in the morning, he crawled in under the covers and burrowed into my body.  Soft breathing told me he had fallen back asleep.
I laid there and held  him for a few minutes, and contemplated my day.  There were quite a few things I wanted to get done before I took my newly adopted daughters (well, okay, it's been a few months, and I have procrastinated terribly...), Cynthia and Selah, to the Social Security office in Cleburne to get their names changed on their SS cards.  The more I thought about all there was to do, the more I wanted to get up.  I was getting hot and sweaty laying there.  I started to try and move my arms out from under my sleeping son.  His eyes slowly opened and he looked up at me, then his eyelids drifted slowly closed again and he snuggled closer.

And I remembered this poem.

And I thought, "I'm 'rocking' my baby.  All those things I need to do can wait."  I tossed the covers off my hot body but left them on Tommy, and I settled in to enjoy holding my little guy a little longer, because I've been a mommy long enough to know the truth in the line "babies grow up, I've learned to my sorrow."

We did finally leave the soft bed, and my day began in earnest.  But I've thought about "rocking" our babies all day long.  And I realize that the "rocking" should never end just because they have gotten too big to fit in our laps.

Tommy came to us a sick, sad little boy.  One day shy of six months old when he moved in with us, I was his fourth mommy.  He had attachment issues that we had to work through.  He was a large baby and I'm a small mommy, but we could rock.  And rock, we did, and it got us through those first few months, and helped us learn to love and trust each other:

Tommy wasn't the only baby I rocked.  I've gone through a lot of rocking chairs in my 37 years of being a mother.  I only wish I had more pictures on my computer to show them all...

Rocking carries on into the next generation, too.  I always made up songs when I rocked my baby.  Brillant song writer that I am, I sang lyrics such as, "Mommy loves her little baby.  Mommy loves her little baby.  Mommy loves her little baby.  Oh how Mommy loves her baby."
Imagine my surprise as those first two babies grew up and had babies of their own, and one day, when baby number two, Celeste, was visiting, I heard her in the next room, rocking her baby and singing, "Mommy loves her little baby..."
"Hey, Celeste!"  I called.  "Where'd you learn THAT song??"
"Oh, mom!"  she laughed.  "It's just so mindless..."

Her babies grew up, too, and her oldest is leaving for college in a few weeks.  Not much time left for 'rocking' now...

As I thought about rocking babies today, I thought: should our 'rocking' stop when they outgrow our laps?  Just because they are big, does their need for 'rocking' stop?

I don't think so...

What are some ways we can 'rock' our older kids, even on up into the teen years, and beyond?  Don't big kids need to feel love, too?

I remembered a lanky firstborn son who always waited until all his little brothers and sisters were in bed to come into my room and talk.  He would pace and wave his arms as he told me the things he thought about during the day.  I remember I would close the book I was reading to make sure my eyes did not travel back to the pages.  He needed me to concentrate on what he was saying.  It was my way of  'rocking' my big boy.

In fact, I remember another lanky teenage son who still laid on the end of my bed and listened as I read to his much younger siblings.  And now that he is a grown man who lives only part time at our house, at the end of the day, when all the little ones are asleep, he comes to talk, too.

 Angel-Leah, even at the age of nine and a good reader, wants to be read too.  If I will read just a couple of chapters, it is the equivalent to 'rocking' her.  Her love tank is filled up.  Surely I can find time to do that for her?

Mary Susannah likes to stop at Starbucks.  Other coffee shops won't do, there is something special about that one.  A trip to the thrift shop where she can buy things for her hope chest are a thrill for her.  I like to 'rock' her by doing that with her.  I should do it more often.  Maybe I will!

I only took Cynthia to the SS office today, and we stopped off at Braum's afterwards for ice cream.  Just the two of us.  And yes, I bought a large, the best way to 'rock' her!!

Take time, and 'rock' your babies.

Because they grow up, we've learned to our sorrow...

Yeah, there is always a goofball in the bunch...

In fact, sometimes there are a whole lot of goofballs...

But regardless, they grow up:

 So quiet down, cobwebs, and dust go to sleep..

...while you lay in bed and cuddle a few more minutes, or make a trip to Starbucks, or read another book...

...because babies don't keep...

Update on Steve

A few weeks ago, my grandson Mikey found a HUGE turtle, and we made a home for him in one of my animal pens. Mikey named the turtle Steve. You can read that story here .

Well, today, Luke came rushing into the house. Steve has laid another egg!!

We sure wish it was fertile.  I guess we need a "Sue" to go with "Steve", so these eggs can bring forth fruit?

Or at least, baby turtles!

small Texas town

Eleven years ago, I moved to the very small Texas town of Grandview.  I moved with big dreams of being a member of a church that is here.  Although that has not worked out quite like I dreamed it would, I still love living in Grandview. 

Part of the reason is that even though this little town only sports ONE stoplight:

It does have one glorious thing that we visit all the time:

A snow cone stand!!

This little stand makes the most wonderful snow cones.  My absolute favorite is caramel apple.  The very talented lady who owns this stand puts caramel on the bottom, half way up in the middle, then over the top.  It is out of this world!!  I wish I had thought of taking a picture of it before I dived into it, but I was too anxious to get it in my mouth.  I did get a picture of Angel-Leah's favorite, though, rainbow:

Yes, she puts gummy bears on the top of her snow cones, which is the little kids favorite part.  Today, Luke and Tommy decided to try a new flavor, frog in a blender!

That sounded a bit too gross for me to even taste, but the snow cone lady assured me it was nothing more than watermelon and strawberry.  But hey, a little boy can dream, can't he??

Do I look happy?  Yes, I love this place:

I have learned that if at all possible, the best place to go right after the snow cone stand is the next most wonderful place in Grandview - the Water Park:

And that's because usually, after a snow cone, the kids look like this:

That's "frog in a blender" all over the front of his shirt.  And look at that napkin wrapped around his cup.  Yes, he needed the water park.

The best part of the water park is that it's free.  So we go there a LOT!!

Luke's little sister has learned to love it as much as we do!

Here's big brother, Luke:

And we even got Mary Susannah to go with us this week.  She thinks she's getting too big for the water park, but sometimes she likes to come and take pictures.  She took most of the pictures on this blog, including this one:

She's a master at "point the camera at yourself and shoot".

Grandview, Texas...I plan on being here for the rest of my days!

Country Life - my heart's desire

Psalm 20:3-5 May He give you what your heart desires and fulfill your whole purpose.


I don't love EVERYTHING about the country life.  Rattlesnakes bother me a lot.  I had already had one experience in May, when one surprised me in the henhouse.  You can read all about that HERE.  That was quite enough, thank you very much, especially since we have lived in this house for ten years, and it was only the second time we have encountered one.  I figured it should be at least ten more years before we had to do that again.  So I was quite dismayed to hear the kids coming running in screaming earlier this week that there was one in the baby bunny cage.
Beau quickly came to the rescue with the .22, but not before the snake had struck two baby bunnies and they died an awful death.  Poor little things.  Why would even a snake want to harm something so sweet and cuddly?

Angel-Leah spent the rest of the evening in tears.  But the dad of this house thought the rattlesnake would make a great snack: after all, they had tasted it at the rattlesnake round up.  So he and Beau skinned the mean old baby bunny murderer (Beau is preserving the skin) and Bill took the rest inside to the stove and fried it right up.  Gross.  No I did NOT eat it - but I think Angel-Leah and I were the only ones who didn't...

Now, on to one thing I do love about living in the country...

Luke's two sisters are staying with us.  If you remember, they were the ones we were asked to adopt, we said yes, went through the whole process to be licensed with the private agency , only to then be turned down by CPS.  You can read that story HERE.  Anyway, they are still allowed to come for visits with their brother, my son Luke.  They will be with us for two weeks.  We are having fun, and so glad they are here.

I also have three grandchildren staying with me for a few days.  To say I have a houseful is an understatement.  But hey, we live in the country and there is a LOT to do.  Big sister loves to build, and she has quite a construction crew.  They have been working on the tree house out in the chicken coop for days.  Big sister is the president, which means she calls all the shots.  Grandson Mikey is the vice president.  Angel-Leah tells me she is the presidents servant, and Tommy is the mascot.  Until today, Luke and Beetle were not in big sisters crew, they were going to make their own clubhouse.  But after two days of watching how much better her work was going, they decided to join her.  Little sister, however, is a different story.  The work is hard.  The boards are heavy.  It's hot.  She didn't know the rules.  She didn't hear the other kids when they read them to her.  She stood on the boards while they tried to build.  She didn't know she was standing on the boards  She didn't know she was supposed to say sorry when she did something wrong.  She didn't know that when you DO say you are sorry, you aren't supposed to roll your eyes.  It goes on and on.  So she is regularly kicked out of the club.  Today, "I" made the rule that each day is a new start, and she can try over.  I think she lasted a total of three minutes before she was kicked out again...

This club has a password.  Before you enter, you must tell President Big Sister the password.  Here is mascot Tommy whispering it to President Big Sister:

Here's Angel-Leah working hard.  I wonder why she doesn't work so hard when it's time to clean her room?  At least it's air conditioned there!  That's grandson Beetle chilling on the bike, and little sister wishing she hadn't broken the rules:

The rules are posted on the front of the clubhouse.  There is a zero tolerance law for breaking them, it seems:

When we found the first snake, Bill spent much time cleaning the chicken pen.  He picked up all the boards, cut down brush and low hanging limbs, raked grass and threw away broken toys.  It was amazing the work he did.  It made hunting eggs back there so much nicer and so much less scary.  Unfortunately, the chicken pen is back to being a construction site, and things are messy again:

But honestly, I don't care.  I have ten kids over here, and the beauty of living in the country is that they never run out of things to do.  It's a wonderful place to raise children and have grandchildren over to play.  I am so blessed to have this messy little place. 

snake in the yard...

Tomorrow is my birthday.  Although I have Tommy fully convinced I am "around 25" years old, I am actually more than twice that - I will be 58 years old tomorrow.  Believe me, I NEVER thought it was possible I would be that old.  Not that I thought I would die young, by any means, I just thought youth would last forever...

And after all, I still see out of the same eyes I saw out of at 25 years old.  Yes, they are a bit dimmer, and the contacts are a LOT stronger, but I see the world out of the same eyes, and as long as I stay away from mirrors, I can convince myself that nothing has changed, much...

Yesterday, when I got home from church, three grandchildren were at my house.  Bill had promised them and Luke that we would all go spend the night at the lake house, and they would fish.  Now spending the night at the lake house isn't exactly my favorite thing to do, but I thought Bill would appreciate my help, after all, he was taking a total of 8 children, even if two of them were 15 and one was 18.  Since our car won't fit ten people, I sent Bill and everyone under the age of 12 off in my car, while the teenagers packed up food, and I went off the do the animal chores before we left to join them.

I got the chickens and rabbits fed, then took my bucket and went around collecting eggs.  I got them out of the barn, out of the chicken tractors, out of the two former dog cages turned into chicken cages, and then I walked off to the side of the yard.  This is the area I have shown you on this blog before: the spot where we allow the kids to drag trash and build things.  There is a tree house back there, and all kinds of junk.  Discarded swing set ladders.  Old "18 inchers" (anyone who lives in Grandview and is very familiar with Ulrich's barns knows what an "18 incher" is.  Our barn is built out of them).  Old rusty water troughs. Tricycles.  Dolls.  All the things a 7 year old boy and a 4 year old boy would see as treasures, and their 18 year old brother who tries to keep the yard neat would see as junk.
Anyway, a few days ago, Angel-Leah was in the tree house, and looking down, she saw that one of the chickens we just cannot seem to keep contained had been laying eggs in one of the old peacock pens.  She collected six eggs out of there.  So as I gathered eggs, I went back there to see if the hen had laid anymore.
I maneuvered my way around the maze of treasures/junk and stopped at the door of this pen.  I was in a bit of a hurry.  My eyes swept the corners and didn't see any eggs, so I turned to leave.

And that's when I heard it: the buzz of a rattlesnake.

Now if you have lived in Texas for any amount of time, you have been told what to do if you ever hear that sound.  Rattlesnakes are nearsighted (like young ladies who are having their 58th birthday tomorrow, and manage to not notice rattlesnakes as they look for eggs).  So if you hear that sound, you are supposed to remember to freeze.  Since a rattlesnake will only strike at movement, if you don't move, they will not strike.

So remember, it's important: freeze!

I didn't remember.

I ran.  I ran for all I was worth.  I broad jumped over discarded swing set ladders.  I lept over rusty water troughs in a single bound.  I jumped over tricycles.  I flew over 18 inchers.  I kicked dolls out of my way.  I think I might have scaled a tree or two.

And as I ran, I screamed:  "BEAU!  SNAKE!  BEAU!  SNAKE!  BEAU!  SNAKE!!"

Having an grown son who is still young enough to get excited when his motherwhowillbe58yearsold tomorrow screams "SNAKE!!" is a wonderful thing.

He threw open the guest house door as I panted up the steps.
"I think it was a rattlesnake!" I managed to get out.
"Are you sure mom?  How did it sound?"
I do a really mean rattlesnake imitation.
"That's a rattlesnake, alright!" Beau exclaims, and in one swoop, he pulls the gun case key from the drawer, opens up the gun case, and snatches out a .22.  He shoves a box of bullets in my hands saying, "Hold this."
And then he purposefully strides like John Wayne up the drive way towards the peacock cages.

And I realize I've just sent my 18 year old, blue eyed baby boy after a rattlesnake, and I am right behind him, practically clutching at his shirt, crying, "Beau, be careful!!  Don't go in the cage!  We will shut the door and you can shoot it through the chicken wire!"

He totally ignores me, and steps into the doorway of the cage.

"I see him!  Wow, that's a BIG one!"  he says and levels the gun at the snake.

At which point, I start waving my arms like a pinwheel, trying to keep Mary Susannah and Chloe behind me, just in case the bullets bounce off of something.

Four gun shots later, the snake is dead, and our gun-shy Pyrenees dog is traumatized for life.  I still haven't gotten that dog peeled off my body!

Beau tells me that the bag of snake-away he bought a couple of days ago, that I sprinkled around my "chick nursery", costs $13 a bag.  I wonder how many bags it will take to cover my whole 12 acres?

Snake, before Beau levels him:

Snake, after Beau's gunshot.  See that rattle in the bottom left hand corner:

If my heart is strong enough to have continued beating after this, I just might last another 58 years!!

Bluebonnet time

One of my favorite things about our house happens in March and April, when the bluebonnets come out.  They are profuse here, and it's a ritual to take pictures in them.  Sometimes we do a lot of pictures with lots of people if I can get them over here during the very few weeks they are at their peak.  This year, so far, I've only gotten pictures of my four youngest children. 

And I had to bribe Mary Susannah to get her to take them.  She is so much better at it than I am.

And by the way, Mary Susannah does take bribes - in other words, she would love to do this as a job.  She is very good if anyone would like pictures made!!  Just give us a call.  Here's some examples for you:

Smelling the flowers.  Bluebonnets do smell good!!

Much more typical of these guys!

Luke in a rare, quiet pose...

And my beautiful Angel-Leah

I had a hard time deciding which picture of Tommy to put on here.  I finally chose this one, just one, because I didn't want to overload you!!  :o)

And Mary Susannah can even use her timer to take pictures of herself!  Isn't this a good one?

I'm such a blessed momma!!