rain....ahhhh

Sunday we went to a fourth of July celebration and the girls got to ride a pony, jump in a jump house and the youngest got to catch a trout. We seen a sky driver and had so much fun, but didn`t see the fireworks ,thanks to the rain, but I am no complaining we need the rain so badly.I waited in line in the pouring rain to get a piece of cobbler, needless to say it was a long line, the cobbler was worth it, yummy peach. Later that day my sister-in-law called and we went to pizza hut and had pizza at closing time, but she lives in Texas and only up here for a couple of days. We so enjoyed the pizza ,basically we had it all to ourselves.

The buff and red cochin aren`t laying as of yet, since I put them in with the columbian rooster. The only cochins that are laying are the black and the golden lace and the one frizzle hen. I have one setting Birchen in color on frizzle and other cochin eggs, she insisted on setting on nothing, so I put eggs under her.
Taylor and carrie are now setting one in crate that was used for a chicken house at one time and the other is in hole of a stump from last years tornado.

The bunnies are a male and female, thank goodness I can have them in the same pen for a few months.I forgot what the girls named them.

another swap meet,new addtions, blackberries

We went to another swap meet today and rehomed 27 baby ducklings and came home with three new additions to the animal family. Two baby bunnies and a red turken chick. The girls have not named their bunnies yet.
Last night I picked almost a gallion of wild blackberries, of course bandana( red heeler pup) and trixie came along and was picking and eating the berries as well, but they picked the red ones instead of the black.
Blackberry cobbler and blackberry jelly sounds so good, yum,yum

swap meet

We went to a local swap meet today and We took some muscovey duckling along with my pair of frizzles and a pair polish . I did get rid of about 7 muscovey ducklings. Still have the frizzle pair and the polish pair. I came home with a old english game rooster for my little bitty banty hen. The roo I pick out is a blue , I really don`t know what my little bitty hen is but I lost her mate back in the winter months.The gentleman I got him from stated that someone he know is breeding blue roosters with wheaton hens and calling them blue wheatens.I also got a black standard cochin chick, looks like it gonna be a roo, so now I need to find a hen cochin chick, hopefully another black or a blue . I also picked up a siamese kitten ( I so love siamese and bob-tail cats), we named her Frosti.Now I need to find a bob-tail male kitty, so I can have bob-tail siamese running around.
I knew what I had in mind to find when we went ,the kitten wasn`t it, but who can resist a siamese kitten. I went looking for old english game rooster for my little bitty hen ( I did want a blue one),a pair of standard cochins ( I didn`t really care what color, but was thinking of buff or blue),a mottled banty cochin roo to breed with my buff cochin hen( trying for milli color), A blue banty cochin hen, since I lost my one last blue hen, of course more welsummer, and last but not least a solid white muscovey.
Their was alot people there with ducks, pekins, campbell breeds, call . of course chickens of every size and shapeand color escept mottled or blue cochins , bunnies, pot bellied pigs, goats, dogs, rats -yuk, mice-yuk. Tomorrow we are thinking about going to another local swap meet,but its not as big, so maybe I can find white muscovey or a blue cochin hen, or a mottled cochin roo.
We did get a few sprinkles today , we are need of some rain. I picked some wild blackberries last night and gonna pick some more tonight, I so love to pick blackberries, even with the thorns.Homemade blackberry cobbler ----yum-yum

update on farm

The red silkie hen hatched out 5 babies, In which I don`t remember what eggs I put under her, lol, I know 1 is a welsummer and 1 is a silkie. Oh well, 3 are reddish in color and 1 black and of course the little welsummer.
Something got my one blue cochin hen, I think a possom,I had her in with a cochin/frizzle roo with smooth feathers.
Last night I decided to let the baby ducks have some fun and I fill up the wheel barrel with water and put lavender`s brood in there first, which only has three in it but, a black pied drake, a grey pied drake ( which I am thinking about keeping just to see what color he turns out to be) and violet a chocolate hen. They had a ball ,so next I put in mascaras brood ( 5 in total), I have not named the one I am keeping in this bunch yet., Then it was elizabeth`s brood time and they all were having a very good time. I put Elizabeths bunch back with her and it looked like she was asking are you alright and the babies was peeping back ,ma we went swimming ,ma we went swimming. This sure looks like what they was saying to each other.I didn`t put blue eyes bunch in there ,I just thought they were to young just yet.They do have a shallow dish they can get in to in their pen and play in.
I am planning on keeping at least one from each bunch for right now.
Lavender is back free roaming with chocolate, which makes him very happy as his other two girls that roaming with him are wanting to set, at least that is what I think.

another doctor`s visit,

I took the oldest to the doctor because of running a temp and complaining of ear pain. My sweet soon to be teenager has an ear infection and strep throat. I hope and pray the youngest don`t catch it.....it will probably be next week when she gets the strep....I hope not. In which I am trying to keep the youngest away from big sis, which is hard to do sometimes. The oldest is laying in her bed sleeping, A warm compress to her left ear and a cool cloth on her forehead and ac running.The youngest in the front room watching cartoons on pbs.
The youngest had local OT eval today , her vincinstine neuropathy wasn`t that bad and they will see her before school starts again and that I can work on doing therapy at home with her on a daily basis, instead of making weekly trips to springfield.The doctors in st louis will OT eval her in december when are do to go up again.

another trip st louis..purina

Well ,we are back from another strip to st louis, the youngest had echocardiogram done besides labs. Everything checked out ok. I was worried though when they was doing the echocardiogram the techs ,which were two in there( not a busy day) they said they seen something, ( something that doesn`t close). When the doctors called with report they didn`t say nothing about it. So I guess the techs didn`t see anything or it isn`t nothing to worry about right now. I also got another book regarding information on late effects from the chemo....She goes to Ot eval and treatment thursday morning, thank goodness close by instead of another trip to st louis, but in 6 months she will checked by the OT department in st louis.Not another echocardiogram until 5 years down the road.She is ready and packed up for another trip to st louis now...6 months away lol.
We did enjoy ourselves while we was up there ,went to purina farms , the girls enjoyed theirselves. The youngest got to milk a cow, by hand. beautiful dogs..as a dog show was going on at the time, play in a hayloft, take a wagon ride,very enjoyable day,the youngest was tired out. She so enjoyed herself. The oldest enjoyed the dogs and the rabbits and of course the cats and the horses.
I sold three baby ducks and the young couple who came and got them were very nice and never had seen a horse, so he petted Cocoa( miniature horse)
Blue Eyes hatched out her babies 20 of them as of right now, their is still one more egg that was pipping.So a total of 60 baby muscovey ducks and 2 more to finish laying and start setting.

more ducks.....doctor visit

elizabeth hatched out 14 more baby muscovey ducks, all chocolate ,chocolate and white in color, three or four even have chocolate legs.One has a white ring around head and chocolate head named ringo. So now drum roll please, a total of 24 baby muscovey ducklings.most are chocolate and white. Still waiting on blue eyes to hatch out-(lavender colored muscovey with blue eyes..hence the name). Carrie( Underwood, yes famous singer) and Taylor( Swift, another famous singer) haven`t really started setting yet, but are laying.

I went to the doctor today at a local clinic, when I got there the computers are down and told me you can wait and see if they come back up if not you might have to make another appointment....what happened to old fashioned paper work in the doctor`s office..they can`t see any patients because the computers are down...come on, it`s not the computers that look at the patients, it`s the doctor...duh.I was seen ,I have a sinus infection, which is what is causing the headaches in the front , possible pinch nerve in the back of my neck for the neck and back of head pain.On an anitbotic for the sinus infection and steroid for the neck for now.

Cody, our beloved son

Cody is a son I lost and is now a angel and able to run and play. Cody was born December 19, 1998 and passed on December 4,2001. He was born with HIE ,which stands for Hypoxic Ischemic Encelphathy, which bascially means lack of oxygen to the brain.I was in labor with him. I would have contractions for an hour and then they would stop for about hour and half.He had Cerebral palsy as well.He was tube fed as he could not swallow and he had to be suctioned out with this.He was a very special little boy ,who had curly hair and long eyelashes. I learned that most children with brain injuries have long eyelashes.He walked for me in the last year of his life, of course I held up his upper body ,but he did walk for me., I was so proud of his accoplishments he made in his short time here on this earth. He outlived what the doctors thought he would. They did not think he would make it when they pulled the machine off when he was three days old, but he surprise them and he breathed on his own. and even cried, which I didn`t hear until he was 4 months old ,but he did cry. I did not ever hear him say mom, but that`s ok. I met so many people and friends with some of them people still.I remember one time ,when we took him to the doctor and the oldest daughter wanted something to eat so we stopped at mcdonalds and I was feeding him and these two young boys asked what I was doing and I explained it to them and the mother came and told them to stay away from us and to leave us alone, like what Cody had was catching.
I feel like I am special as well, as God entrusted me with a special gift like Cody, a special child who laughed and didn`t shed a tear when he had blood drawn. He would always smile when his big sis got in trouble.
I consider him a christmas present from God in his being born and a christmas present from God in his passing. He was having such a hard time when he passed with breathing.I wrote this poem the weekend before he passed , it was Thanksgiving weekend, this poem was also read at his funeral.

My Beloved Son

Your spirit is so strong
Your body so weak
One day your earthly body
will wither away
your spirit will soar
way above this world
to the arms of the lord
from my arms to his
You have been so stron
fought so hard,
Fro every breath,
Every accomplishment that
You did
I will always be proud
of my little boy,
who taught so much
and never said a word
when blood was drawn
you never shed a tear
you just smiles and took it all in stride
like you knew
you
could wipe away the pain

more ducks,more varmits

Well mascara hatched out yesterday with a total of 12, three eggs didn`t hatch out ,all chocolate and white in color. I sold three of them to a lady who has a duck that has been setting for 6 weeks and not hatching anything.
Lavender hatched out a total of 15 , varing in color from chocolate and white, black and white, grey and white. I have sold 7 of them to a lady who bought from me last year, she took all of the chocolate and white except for 1 little one.I think biggest part of the rest will be drakes ,except for the wee little one.Muscovey babies are easy to detect whether male or female by their size ,the larger ones are almost always a drake and the smaller ones are hens. The next to hatch out is elizabeth, she has 15 eggs under her. Taylor and Carrie are now laying as well. Carrie is on the other side of the tree trunk that mascara was setting. Taylor is more close in ,she is in a crate I have used for a chicken pen.
Funny law in norfold ,virginia It is illegal for hens to lay an egg before 8 am and after 4 pm during the day, I just heard this on the radio.I wonder if they told the hens that lol.
A coon has gotten two my chickens in the last 4 days. A little red rooster and a red hen.The rooster was in a separate pen, both were mixes . The red rooster was a favorite of my oldest. Both pens were dog kennel pens with out a top. The coon had crawled over the pen and took the chicken and crawled back over the pen and ate them.We found the carcass of both chickens.
I just posted three recipes on my other blog Hillybilly annie`s kitchen. I posted crazy meatloaf and crazy cake which is good with out frosting, along with bacon cheese bubble loaf.
My husband just got the cemetary mowing job, he had this back in 2008. He does such a good job in mowing it. This same cemetary is where our son ,Cody is buried. I will post on him in another blog.

baby ducks

I have now some baby muscovey ducks, I don`t know how many as of yet. Lavender( a blue and white) who, has been setting under the porch has hatched out, despite a snake 3 days ago trying to get her eggs. She did not even come off the nest, I would have killed the snake but was under the porch , way under the porch.This happened last year as well, that is where she set at last year too.I know their is at least 3-4 babies and chocolate and white in color as I can see some thru the cracks in the porch. So I think the next duck to hatch out is mascara, a chocolate and white duck), then Elizabeth and blue eyes.
We had about 2 inches of rain last night, so I don`t have to water the garden today , I water it every night by gallon jugs.I have been watering my blackberries as well.It is about 90 degrees here today and possibly storms again tonight.