Whew!

Oh my goshness! What a crazy last few weeks it has been. I just noticed I hadn't updated either blog in about 2 weeks and for a while I was doing almost one a day! I'm slacking! I have a lot of pictures to share of the Hammer Happenings from the last few weeks. I shared a few of them on Facebook, but I know there are several of you out in reading land who are not on Facebook with me, so I will just post them again. For those of you who have seen some of these before, then...deal with it, I guess. Here we go. 

One of the best things that happened around here is that Goatilocks FINALLY had her babies. It was two weeks ago yesterday, which happened to be her exact due date. Ashlee and I had left earlier that day for the State FFA Convention in Oklahoma City, and we had given very stern instructions to Goati to NOT have those babies until we came back. That evening, Brent and the kids got home and the kids went to the barn to check on the animals and feed before it got dark. Tack saw two little tiny gooey blobs in the dirt in the outside pen and started screaming for Brent. Then Tack started crying because he was so excited that the babies were here. Callee ran down to the barn and saw there was one baby that was so much tinier than the other one and it was having a hard time. Goati had cleaned off the bigger baby but wasn't paying much attention to the tiny one. I understand that can be normal for a first time Momma with twins. She was confused and wasn't sure what to do with both of them. Callee started clearing the placenta off the baby with her bare hands because she knew it was having a hard time breathing. Then she found the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck so she got it unwound and dried the baby off with a towel. Miss Callee saved that baby, so we decided that one is hers and she will be showing her in livestock shows in the fall. The other one did pretty well and that one will belong to Ashlee. Both of the babies were does, so the girls decided to name them "Lucy Lou and Ethel Grace" aka Lucy and Ethel. I think that those names fit them perfectly. Just little balls of sweet,. funny mischief. 

 This is Lucy after she was born. I was glad she was able to nurse even though she was the size of a yorkie puppy.

 Here is Lucy at about a week old. She likes to sleep, and she thought Ashlee's crazy, fuzzy pajama pants were the cat's meow. 

 Tack is playing baseball for the first time this year. He usually gets to be the catcher one game and they also put him on second base and he bats on the other game. He has a natural athletic ability that he did not get from me. At all. His P.E. teacher told me he was amazing at basketball as well. Jake is playing non-competitive t-ball, but right now we are just doing practices twice a week and games will start in a few weeks.

 I had the chance to go walk/hike out at the Washita Battle Site again. I love doing that in the early morning before it gets hot outside. This spot struck me as odd. It is the place where hundreds of horses were killed by Gen. Custer's soldiers to debilitate the remaining Cheyenne tribe. There is new, green grass growing underneath, but on the surface, there is still so much death and ugliness from the other plants. It just struck me as symbolic, I guess, so...there it is. 

 I went in to the chicken coop to feed the other day. When I went in, I noticed the ducks and chickens were all huddled together. That was weird because usually they segregate themselves. I walked over to the nesting boxes to see if I had any eggs. And I came nose to nose with this.....

 I saw nose-to-nose because I was down in the alley way next to where you see the panel to the left of the box and snake. I was literally 2 inches away from the face of that snake. I almost passed out. I saw it was a bull snake, but the bull snake was full of my eggs. And the bull snake was freaking huge. I wanted him gone. Now I know why the birds were all huddled together. 

 He finally slithered out of the nesting box and I cornered him. I haven't been that scared of something in a long time. He looked to be as long as I was so I did what any rational woman would do and I called my husband. He was on a trencher digging junk up at work and wasn't about to stop and come rescue me. He just told me to whack it in the head with a shovel, stun it, pick it up, carry it outside, and chop its head off. Uhh...hell no. I did try to whack it in the head and all I did was anger it. I didn't even come close to having the strength to kill that thing. For an hour, I threw bricks at it, whacked it with a shovel, I even got the rake and tried to hack it to death. He was striking at me and his reach was far enough for his body to travel up the length of the shovel handle. After over an hour and I'm almost in tears, the snake is wanting to eat my soul, and the animals are freaking out at all the racket, I finally called my dad. Dad has one of the biggest fears of snakes I have ever seen, but he didn't hesitate to offer to come kill it. He drove about 10 miles one way and it took him about 5 minutes to do what I had been trying over an hour to do. When Dad whacked him with a shovel, he started throwing up (the snake, not Dad) and he was throwing up all the eggs he had eaten out of the nesting box. I was glad to see Dad chop his nasty head off and throw it in the bushes. The snake was as tall as I am. I am 5'4. I'm glad he is dead. 

 We have barn swallows that made a nest in the chicken coop and they are using the ducks feathers and down to line the babies nest with. I thought that was cute. 

 Lots of awards assemblies and whatnot going on since we have only 2 days of school left. Tack was recognized last week as reaching 100 math objectives. I thought it super appropriate that he chose to wear the chicken hat to celebrate. The kids that reach special goals for math and reading get to wear crazy hats to "Bear Beginnings" which is the morning program for the elementary. Since our school is so small, the whole elementary goes in to the front lobby of the elementary school every morning and they say the pledge, the state pledge, sing the national and state anthems, have a moment of silence, they have a creed that they say that is darling affirmations of who they are and what kind of compassionate character they all posses, and they recognize birthdays and special accomplishments of all the students. Whoever thought of Bear Beginnings is a super human. 

 Ashlee had her FFA banquet last week. She tried out for an officer role and wound up being elected as the reporter. She gets to be the admin for their Facebook page, write articles for the local paper on all things ag/FFA related for her chapter, and is held in high esteem because she was selected to office. FFA around here is not anything like it was where I grew up. It is taken VERY seriously, there are strict guidelines that must be met, and a ton of opportunities to those who will take them. This picture is blurry because my Dad took it with my phone, but here is Brento Beans and I with Baby Ashlee. 

 The kids didn't have school last Friday, but Ashlee was running the sound board for the school musical and they had practice. So, after dropping her off, I took the other chitlins' to the local cafe to eat breakfast. We visited and had a great time eating our food, until the "Price Is Right" came on, and this is what we did until it was time to go. Nice. 

 After Tack's baseball games that night, we went to eat at the chinese buffet. Brent was working so he missed the games, but he had to go in to town to run an errand for work and was still there when we got done with games, so we went to celebrate. Callee decided to try a steamed clam. She was NOT a fan. At all. As sister was spitting hers out in to her napkin, my fearless Jacob said, "Here...let me try it!" So he grabbed it off her plate and told me, "I'm not afraid to try ANYTHING!" Yeah, kid.... unfortunately, I know this already. 

 He smells it......."If it smells good, that must mean it tastes good!"

 He takes a BIG bite!

 At first, he tried telling me it was good. But after quickly spitting it out in to his napkin and making this face here, I knew he wasn't a fan of it either. 

 Apparently, holding your tongue on ice cream helps take the taste of the steamed clam away. 

 I spent Saturday night and part of my Mother's Day Sunday with this group of crazies. This is the cast and crew of the Cheyenne High School musical department who participated in the play "Rock Around The Block". We don't have a lot of fine arts programs like bigger schools do, so all of this has to be worked on outside of school with kids who have no acting/drama/singing experience and they always pull it off. I helped to the make up and I loved getting to spend Mother's Day with my extended babies. 

 So...this was on my front porch behind my front door and quickly ran in to my mud boots that I wear to feed animals right after I took this picture. This time of year, these critters are all over the place. Won't be long, and the scorpions will be coming around as well. Yay.

 Ashlee was recognized last night at the athletic banquet for being the school mascot this last year. She wore this large, awkward bear costume and head that was so hot and heavy it would make her have nose bleeds, pass out, and a few times throw up. She won't be doing the mascot next year. :)

 Today was the Pre-K parent program. Jake wanted his hair spiked in a mohawk and he took the singing of songs VERY seriously. They all did a great job. 

And last, but not least...I just took a picture of the communal gathering when I let the birds out a little bit ago. Brent's dog killed one of my big chickens as well as my little rooster and hen that I got when they were chicks and they were only a few months old. The dog has been on a very long leash under a tree in the yard with plenty of food and water until we can take him to the dog trainers next week. I'm sad about the chicken eating dog, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. At least not now. 

Around the homestead....

This morning, we went to church. It was a good morning. We came home and fixed a quick lunch then Brent and the boys went to work in the yard, Ashlee went to work in the kitchen cleaning, and Callee and I went to ranch headquarters to clean the hunting lodge. It's been a hot minute since the hunters were in, but since we all had the bug this week at our house, I hadn't gone back to get it clean. So Callee and I did that. We left about 8 this evening to head home. I like that time of day when the sun is going down and the animals are all eating and it just seems peaceful around here. I took some pictures of stuff on my short trip home. These are things that made my heart happy today. I promise there is not one single picture of a chicken or any bird related incident. Just a bunch of other stuff. 

 This big guy was in the pens behind the office and hunting lodge at headquarters. He looked so big, yet peaceful while he was resting. 

 This is one of the longhorns that belong to Mr. Turley (who owns the ranch). She wasn't very interested in me, but I thought she was pretty. 

 This view really made me happy. I like to watch the bulls because they are so big and dare I even say pretty. This ranch has some dang good lookin' cattle, if I do say so myself. Maybe I like red Angus so much because they have the same color of hair as my oldest child. 

This big fella wanted his picture taken. Badly. He kept following me along the fence and he was bellowing very softly as if to say, "Hey, girl. I know you want to take a picture of all of this manliness." So I did. I took a few pictures. I got in the car and texted Brent and told him that the bull 1012Y and I had just become besties. I don't think Brent believed me. 

This is a scene that soothes my soul. The 1 mile (or so) road that comes to this point (which I usually refer to as my driveway or my tree row) is absolutely horrid. It's just bad red dirt, washboarded, and oil field traffic has tore it up something fierce. This road dead-ends in my yard. When I get to this point, I am at home. I am at peace and whatever is going on around me, seems to just stop and I feel ok again. This is a safe place for me. I'm thankful for the view around our home. 

 Long before this property belonged to the ranch and became our home, it was home to another family. Their original farm is still up and is practically in our back yard. It's on the same lot as our house, and I love it there. This is the old barn. I don't know how old it all is, but it's old enough. I wish I had a picture of what it used to look like. I imagine chickens just like mine running loose in the yard. A big garden. Pigs. Milk 

cows. Laundry on the line. Hard work and hard life, but I hope there was as much love and laughter for this family as there is for mine. I know our yard and our home aren't kept up to measure up to what some think it should be, but its our home and I am so thankful for it. 

 This is about 150 yards or so from my home. This is the original house. It's just an empty shell now but I think it's beautiful. 

 This is the view from my backyard. There is my trusty steed, Woodrow. 

 I always take a lot of pictures of this. This makes my heart happy, too. I love to look out the window and see the feed bin silhouetted with the sun setting behind it. 

 Callee and I went to check on Woodrow. As usual, he just cared about licking the car. So weird. 

This is next to the old home. I like it. 

 This is the view from my front yard. I'm standing in the driveway next to the car. Yeah.....I need to water the grass. I know.

As promised, I did not post any pictures of chickens or chicken products. I will post a picture of their house though. That's where the critters live. 

Bye-Bye Birdie Part 2

Bye Bye Birdie 
I'm gonna miss you so; 
Bye Bye Birdie, 
Why'd you have to go? 
No more sunshine, 
It's followed you away; 
I'll cry Birdie, 
Till you're home to stay. 
I'll miss the way you smile, 
As tho' it's just for me; 
And each and ev'ry night, 
I'll write you faithfully! 
Bye Bye Birdie, 
It's awful hard to bear; 
Bye Bye Birdie 
Think I'll always care, 
Guess I'll always care, 
Guess I'll always care! 

As if murdering my bird wasn't enough, the husbands dog thought it would be appropriate to eat it and leave a gut stain on the porch just as soon as I walk out the door. This is all that was left of my bird after the dog got a hold of it.......

 Well, the gut stain and pile of her precious black and red speckled feathers. Bye-Bye Birdie.

 Goatie-Goat is still pregnant. I think her official due date is in two days. I am leaving in two days and I will be incredibly sad if she has the baby(ies?) while I am gone. Incredibly sad. This picture is not Goatilocks. She is not in to picture taking since she is 5 months pregnant, so I just leave her alone and let her give me dirty looks because I think she blames me for getting her in to this mess. This picture is of our youngest goat we call either Baby Goat or Tammy Faye. The markings on her face make her look like she has been crying and smeared black mascara all under her eyes so she looks like Tammy Faye Bakker after one of her episodes of...whatever it was that she was doing that made her cry and look like a clown. Baby Goat does some weird acrobatics alllll the time. She jumps up on the wall like this and then does weirdo back bends. She does it a lot. I don't know why, and I keep forgetting to Google it. 

 I cleaned the chicken coop out this week and I decided to rearrange their furniture. The girls have been laying their eggs along this wall in the dirt and poop instead of in their nesting boxes with fresh hay and plants. I had a large chicken cage there that the smaller birds liked to sleep in and the hens would scoot it out from the wall and lay behind it. The nesting boxes were in a different spot and only got used a couple of times and were mostly used as a napping spot from the smaller birds. So...I just changed out the spots of the cage and the boxes and stepped back to see if they just liked the spot or hated the boxes. Turns out they liked the spot. This girl jumped in there pretty quick and got to business. She turned her back to me and started with her weird trance-like dancing, plopped down, stuck her head in the corner and laid it down on the edge of the box and waited.....and waited.....and waited.....I tried filming her and after 10 minutes my phone died. 

 She would get up and rearrange the hay in to a different spot, give me the evil eye, then lay back down with her head in the corner and get back at it. I finally left her alone and came back a few minutes later, and sure enough...there was a big ol' egg waiting for me. Thanks, Little Hen.

 The two smaller birds that are remaining don't act like they like me as much as the big girls do. They keep to themselves and don't want me to pet them like cats. One of them is a rooster, and I am excited for that. He is the one with the visible comb on his head. After getting outside and scratching around and laying in the sun, they decided to go inside and take a nap. Here they are snoozing. 

Used to, the smaller birds would all get in one box and sleep together. Now we are down one bird (Bye Bye Birdie) and the guinea is getting big enough that she (he?) likes to sleep alone a lot. She went over next to where the chicken was trying to lay her egg and got all up in her personal space and took a nap. Right now, the guinea is ugly. It has some of its baby feathers that are brown and a lot of its grown-up feathers that are spotted. It doesn't have it's trademark "helmet" or comb like grown guineas have yet, but it's head looks like a buzzard head. It was hiding its face under it's wing while napping so I didn't get a good pic of that. After collecting the egg, I left all the critters alone and came up to the house. I still don't have names for any of the birds yet. I need to get on that. 

Bye-Bye Birdie Part 1

The night before last, it was snowing. Yesterday, it was a glorious 65* spring day. So incredibly weird. Yesterday evening, I was in the house, Jake was outside, and Ashlee was in the kitchen. She heard him screaming like someone had chopped his limbs off and ran outside to see Brent's dog, Buddy eating one of my chickens. It wasn't one of my big girls, but one of my chicks that I've had since it was about 2 days old. She was a beautiful Rhode Island Red (I believe) and was really shy and gentle. My chicks do not have their wings banded, so they can fly. I don't ever let them out to free range unless the dog is gone with Brent to work. The chicks apparently got smart and figured out how to get out of their coop, (which wasn't too hard to do once they figured it out, it's just the lay-out of the barn) and they got too far from the barn and Buddy got one. I went outside and the dog was so excited to show me what he had done. He thought he was a true hero. I could have killed him. This is the first chicken he ate, and the last dog we had was shot because he was eating chickens and attacking goats. Buddy is young and we do love him....so I called Brent fuming and told him to bring home an electric collar or the dog was going to disappear. I took my dead chicken by her feet and swung her up on the car. Then I started looking on the internet to see if it would be worth defeathering, gutting, and cooking or if she wasn't meaty enough. Then I locked the dog in the feed room, and got the rest of the birds out since it was so nice outside.

 I was so stressed out yesterday. I'm trying to pull money for Ashlee's trips this summer out of thin air, my house is a mess, I've had two kids home sick with the stomach bug this week, I have cleaned poop and puke off the couch, floor, walls, beds, bodies, and clothes two different days this week, and Brent called and said he is officially the only cowboy on the 20,000 acre ranch (there will be some help for a few months at least) and so my dream vacation I have been planning that is based on Ashlee's two week trips to Washington, DC and meeting my family in West Virginia are now at stake. I needed a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes (but I don't smoke), and a chocolate cake or something. All of it. I am so sad that one of my little chickies was eaten by the big, bad, dog but I'm glad something happened to get me outside because I was on the verge of a melt down yesterday. As strange as it is, my birds brought me some happiness. (GROSS SIDENOTE AND DISCLAIMER...the last time I was able to just go out and throw away a bag of vomit from one of my children was when Ashlee was in pre-school. She will be graduating in two years. So, having a dumpster has made me happy, too. Love having a dumpster.)

They had dumped their water bucket over so they came running out when I opened the door. They all went straight to the ducks baby pool to drink and play in the water. The ducks don't like to be petted very much, but they are fun to watch. 

Notice how when the water comes down on them like its raining, they squat down and puff their chests out? I think that is really funny. (And yes, that is my 5 year son singing "Handlebars" by the Flobots. Not sure where that came from, but he's being taught right.)

 I've been contemplating giving the girls a bath, because their little poopers are getting dirty. The egg comes out of the same hole as the poop, but through different plumbing. There's TMI for ya. I have looked online and people do, in fact, give their chickens baths with Dawn soap. I was wondering how the girls would like getting wet with a hose so I tried it. They didn't really seem to mind too much but this one threw dirt on her back and got really muddy. I bet it wouldn't be too hard to give them a bath. It just sounds really weird for me to say it out loud. I might keep it a secret if I decide to do that. 

 The ducks had a great time taking a bath and playing. They make me laugh. When they decide they're done, after 10-20 minutes they get out and preen forever. I've decided ducks are the original divas. They know what they want to look like and they don't stop until each feather is perfectly in place. They are so sweet and fluffy even after bathing in dirty water. 

 Buddy watched us playing outside from inside the feed room of the barn. He was. not. happy. at. all. He howled and he even tried banging on the window with some sort of stick (like from a shovel or something) to bust out of jail. Here he is watching us a telling me what a horrible person I am for not letting him eat ALL my chickens. 

 The ducks (Larry, Moe, and Curly) had enough of bath time and preening, so they headed back down to the barn to take a nap. It's exhausting making yourself so beautiful and fluffy.  I loved how they were all marching in single file.

I took this picture to show me being weird and petting a chicken just like a cat. They squat down and spread their wings out a little. Then their eyes roll in the back of their head and they just lay down and let you pet them. Until they decide that's enough. Then, they just get up and walk off like nothing ever happened. I have more hen house antics for later. I've found I post more about the chickens now than I do anything else...but hey...if you're upset and that's what makes ya happy, then that's what you need to talk about. Chickens.