Manasota Key 2010

Every year we spend a week on the beach in Manasota Key. It has become tradition that we stay in the same house. This is a true vacation for us. We spend our mornings looking for sharks teeth on the beach. We build sand castles and play in the pool during the day. In the afternoon we grill out and fish on the beach. We catch everything from sting rays to sharks. At night we catch crabs and check the sea turtle nest for hatching turtles.

For many people this sounds boring but for us it is the best family time. We slow down and just play with the kids and enjoy our time together. I hope one day when the kids look back they will remember these trips fondly.

Rescuing Tom & Jerry

We got a call from a horse farm in South Georgia that they had rescued two pygmy goats from the highway. We agreed to take in the goats and bottle feed them. We named the goats Tom and Jerry. Tom had been attacked by dogs while he was in the highway and needed some vet work. Our free goat ended up costing over 200 dollars. We feed Tom and Jerry out of bottle made from 20oz Dr. Pepper bottles.

It is quite a site to see the kids walking around and the two bottle baby goats following them around like dogs. They think they are part of the family!

A New Puppy

Noah got a new puppy for his birthday. He wanted a red-tri male australian shepherd puppy. We found one in Lexington, Alabama. Wendy and Noah drove 4 hours to get him and 4 hours back(man we love our kids). Jade had googled for two months to find one exactly like we wanted. The new puppy is named Rocket's Red Glare. Noah is planning to train Rocket to herd animals.

Rivera Maya

Wendy and I decided to take our first adult only vacation in a few years. It was our 15th Anniversary. Wendy had dropped lots of subtle hints like "You better take me somewhere for our anniversary if you want to see 16". I "surprised" her by planning a trip to Mexico. I did get some help planning from West Georgia Travel:) They set us up with a nice stay at the El Dorado.

We had the best trip! We went to the Mayan Ruins, cliff diving into the sink holes and snorkeling. Wendy kept insisting that she was seeing a giant fish while snorkeling. I could hear her hyperventilate when she would see something. On the third day I finally saw her imagined fish and it was a 5 foot barracuda. She made sure I said she was right.

I know it sounds selfish but i think every couple needs to get away every now and then and forget about work, kids, and everything else. We were able to spend time with just each other. You almost forget what it is like to not have your life revolve around others. We would simply lay on the beach and wait on someone to bring us food and drinks every day. What a life!

From The Simple Life

Baby Buzzards in the Barn

We have a Buzzard that has been living in the Old Barn(Pic) for a few years. Every year she shows up in the spring and lays two eggs in the loft of the barn. It is a nice dry place for her. I was brave enough to climb up in the loft to get some pictures this year. I must admit I had Wendy watching for the mother coming back. Last thing I want is to be trapped in the loft with a buzzard pecking my eyes out!

The babies are about the size of a grown chicken.

From Our Farm

Baby chicks are born

Our broody buff has hatched her first eggs. The kids discovered the chicks had made small holes in the egg shell after church this morning. We checked again after church tonight and the first chick was completely out of the shell but still wet and cold.

It is truly amazing that an egg can turn into a chick in 21 days. We have been trying to hatch some eggs in an incubator and i am amazed at how much has to go right to get an egg to hatch. The eggs do not start hatching until all the eggs are laid and the hen starts to sit on them. They lay in a suspended state until somehow all of them knowing exactly when to start growing so they all hatch the same day. The temperature has to be exactly right. If the incubator is off just half a degree the chicks will not hatch yet the hen gets it just right. If the humidity is to high the chicks will drown in the egg or to low and they dry out. Again the hen knows exactly what humidity level the eggs should be at. The eggs also have to be rotated a few times each day. If they are not rotated the chick will stick to the egg shell.

Struggling with all these rules in the incubator leaves me amazed that God can create a hen that instinctively knows how to do it all without any training. The miracle of life is truly amazing!

From Our Farm

New Fainting Goats

We got new fainting goats this week. Wendy and I have a morbid sense of humor because we have enjoyed watching these guys go stiff legged and belly up like they are dead.

The kids named the goats Billy and Blue Bell. Hope my mom is not upset our goats are name after her dad Billy Beal? He would find it funny:)

I spent two days building an electric fence for them and decided to put them in the new pen today. I read all the web sites on how to keep goats with an electric fence and was confident my design would hold them. I turned on the power and put the goats in the pen. As soon as their feet hit the ground they ran toward the fence and went right through it. They acted like it wasn't even there. They never slowed down as they crossed the fence and ran across the open field. Then they hit the road and kept going down it until it ended and then went into the woods. They just kept going and going... I just sat there with my mouth open. It was like they knew where they were going and planned to go as soon as I put them down. I went and got the golf cart and started riding around the woods and looking for them. After searching for an hour I started on my way back home and they were at the old house place eating grass. They had circled back on me somewhere. I knew my only chance to catch them was to floor it and blow the horn when I got right on them. It worked! Billy fainted and rolled over like he was dead. I jumped out of the golf cart like a rodeo cowboy and tied a rope around his neck before he regained his legs. I successfully got him on the cart and Bell followed as I carried him back. She wanted to be with him more than she wanted to be free.

I am starting over on the pen design. I took the electric fence charger back to Tractor supply today and got some real fence post for a traditional fence. We will see if this works.

From Our Farm

Rocks, Rocks, and more Rocks

We finally got our spring garden planted!

We finally got a few weeks of no rain so we could plant our garden. We have not had a garden here so we were working with ground that was full of weeds and rocks. We tilled the ground and sheared 4 pins on the tiller during the initial breaking of the ground. We picked up 3 loads of huge rocks. We have since tilled the ground about 5 times and we continue to pickup load after load of rocks! I think they are reproducing as fast as we pick them up. The kids asked if we would ever be finished. My grandmother reminded them that she was picking up rocks in that very same field when she was a kid. So the answer is no we will never be finished.

We did however get our strawberries, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes and okra planted. No we are just waiting on the seeds to come up.

Nicholas's Big Fish

Just look at that smile! Nicholas caught his first fish this year and he was so excited. It is a great reminder that sometimes it isn't the expensive things in life that brings happiness. All kids want is a little of your time and a fishing pole.

From Our Farm

First Place

Jade and Daisy went early this morning to compete in the "Prance Your Paws For A Cause" dog show and expo. They were raising money for fighting cancer. Daisy won first place in the competition!

From Our Farm

New Kid on the Block

We worked hard all day Friday and decided to take Saturday off. The boys all went to the auction. This was our first time at the livestock auction. Lets just say it is a true multicultural experience. We were a little nervous about how the auction worked but we figured it out quickly and bought our first goat. Once Nicholas figured out how we bid he would raise his hand every time a little goat would come out. He want to buy them all. We named our goat Bambi. She weighs about 15 pounds. I am not really sure what kind she is since we bought her off the auction block. The kids are already starting the process of spoiling her. I think we need to get one more to keep her company.

From Our Farm

We are getting eggs again

We have started getting eggs again. We had the one hen that was laying and then went missing earlier but now our baby hens are laying. We are only getting two eggs a day but I think it will pickup as the days get longer and warmer. I have my nice nest boxes but they seem to prefer laying them on the ground. I hope they are just new at it and have bad aim!

Spring is finally here!

It seems that we may have put winter behind us. The blue berries are blooming and the kids are dying to go fishing. We loaded up the Golf Cart and headed to the pond. We had to cut back the summer growth to get in but the kids had fun. It was very dangerous standing on the bank between the boys casting. At one point Nicholas caught me in the neck with a back swing and was swinging feverishly to figure out why it wasn't going out into the water. I left them to Wendy and went to fish with Jade!

From Our Farm

Giving the Chickens a hair cut

Our chickens have learned to fly. At first we thought it was cool. They would fly out of the pen and scratch around the woods. The dogs seemed ok with it and it was not unusual to see the dogs asleep with a rooster sitting next to them.

There must have been some type of falling out between the dogs and chickens because one of the dogs decided to start killing the chickens. We lost one a day for a few days. The only solution we could come up with was clipping the chickens wings so they would not fly out. Like any good techno family we searched you tube for videos that showed how to clip the wings. After a few reviews I went out with the kids and some scissors. It turned out that the hardest part was catching the chickens. All you do is clip one side up to the shorter feathers and you now have chickens that can jump but not fly.

You would be amazed at the looks you get when people ask you what you did this weekend and you reply we gave the chickens a hair cut.

Ordered Hens Nest

I ordered two 6 hole nest boxes from Hen Pals. These are handmade in east Georgia by a couple that started their own farm

I plan to put them about 18 inches off the ground to keep a passing chicken from pecking eggs.

Snow!!!!!

We have about 5 inches of snow. I think this is the first good snow we have had in 5 or 6 years. We have been playing and sledding this afternoon. Wendy pushed me down a hill on the sled. I went down the hill jumped the ditch, crossed the road, jumped the other ditch and proceeded through 30 feet of briars. The whole time she was laughing. I am glad I didn't hit a tree.

We are planning to sled all day tomorrow on the big hill in the pasture.

From Snow_2010

Snow on the way

We are expecting snow tomorrow. This is not a common occurrence for our area. If we do get some it should be fun! The kids have the sleds ready to go.

Johnnie is missing!

We finally starting getting eggs and today Johnnie has left us. We think she flew over the fence? The kids spent the day looking for her and found scratch signs but those could be the turkeys.

Rest In Peace Johnnie!

We got our first eggs!

Johnnie, Our Golden Polish hen laid her first two eggs. We ate them for supper and they were great. We compared them with the store bought eggs and the yolks were much brighter colored yolks.

From Our Farm

Frozen Pipes

It has been said "Your wife is always correct" ( I think my wife said that). We were laying in bed and Wendy said "It is going to be cold tonight should you leave the water dripping?" Neither one of us wanted to get out of bed so we went to sleep without the water dripping. That night it got down into the teens and our water pipes froze. Over the next 12 days the temperature did not get above freezing during the day or night.

We hauled water in five gallon buckets every day.... You don't know how much you appreciate water until you don't have it. We would have done anything to get water back.

I bought an inferno torch and burnt as much of the water lines as I could between the house and the water meter but it is impossible to find a frozen spot with 1600 feet of pipes. I would burn the grass and dirt as the kids stomped out the grass fires.

Luckily on day 12 we woke up to a yard full of water and we found the broken pipes. Now we leave our pipes dripping every night.