Feed prices are driving me buggy!

Can you believe these prices? In the few years we have been raising pigs and chickens we have seen the price of feed double and then triple, thus driving those of us to be creative in the venues of feed.

We started out buying from one feed elevator, then another, then moved into cooking beans and grain. If it hadn't been for all the nails, and chipping out buckets of feed, freezing our opposable thumbs off.....well no we probably wouldn't have stayed with that.
The we broke in to the wonder of mechanized feed production.

With a tractor and a chopper we could chop enough food to get ahead of ourselves far enough we were even able to take a short vacation as a family. Life was so much easier.... until our tractor was fatally wounded. Thankfully we have had friend to help us
out with chopping feed for our one solitary pig, but that leaves the chickens.

We've done crumbles and scratch grains with oyster, and for the most part now that the weather is warmer and the bugs are out they can forage for the majority of their food.

Then one day while browsing pinterest, Eureka! I found it! Two very affordable sustainable ways for feeding my flock. Crickets and meal worms.

While I haven't got the farm started yet(I'm still trying to work out a set up for the would be escape artists.), I'm very excited at the possibilities, both varieties can be found online, at pet stores, and with meal worms even in the bait shops.

I will list start up cost and pictures of my setup for my critter snack shacks as soon as I can. Until then here are some fun things to try as snacks for your feathered friends: Lettuce a whole head hung in the coop gives the flock hours of pecking(which is great for relieving stress I am told), sprouted wheat or sunflower seeds, warm cooked oatmeal(i add some unsweetened applesauce to mine),and squash. Mine went crazy over the pumpkins we brought home from the left-overs at the produce stalls around the area.

I hope you have as much fun as I have in discovering your chickens favorite little treats.

Kar-mon!

Here we are again, February. There is still over a foot Snow on the ground. Going out of doors

Leaves us snow blind, or with a set of chattering teeth. It seems a bit odd to me. The groundhog

has been out and still we're hitting sub zero temperatures.

This wouldn't be an issue if it didn't cause a revolt with various vehicles.

Buses, big rigs and domestic alike. This normally would be something that I could cope with,

but today's circumstance left me wondering if Old man winter has some grand design

to be sure his final breath of the season is well noted.

Recently we made the trade for our family vehicle, the durango, for a dual purpose vehicle.

A 2003 dodge ram pickup. We got a smoking deal on it and were very pleased with it, even though

it was diesel. It did everything our old pickup, and durgano did, but it was only one vehicle

as opposed to two.

"Great karma", My husband says. I should have told him to hold the thought to himself.

It wasn't more than a week after we signed the papers, that the battery on our work

Commute vehicle decided it didn't like the battery, and drained it beyond charging. Though we managed a temporary swap for the time. Long enough for the sting of the smoking deal to come

to come back to haunt us.

I asked Jacob to take the pickup so i could have the Nissan to take Wylliam to Occupational

therapy, cause lets face it, those long beds on an extra cab pickup are pain beastly to turn around in such small parking lots. Which I began to regret, about forty-five minutes after we got to the center.

All finished with his treatment we climbed in the car, and turned over the key....Nothing.

I popped the hood and wiggled the terminal chord to see if it was the connection. Sizzle, pop...Nothing. In the end I was driven to call a friend, whos was most happy to lend a

desperate woman whose grip on calm was easing away.

The plan was to wait for Jacob to come home after work and we would pick the car up then.

Jacob promised it would be a quick simple fix. If only we could have looked a few hours into the future. One ticket quota grubbing officer, a sober(very embarrassing) sobriety test, and a gas run (for the Nissan which had run out of gas just a mile and a half ahead of where i got pulled over) we were finally able to roll into bed and try to forget about our stint of bad luck.

A huge sigh of relief....right? Well today Old man winter decided to to jostle my mind a bit more.

Jacob worked midnights last night, and was so excited because it was one of the last days of his Ice fishing season. He had planed on loading up his prized ice shanty, my dad's Mr buddy portable heater, and a friend from work. Half an hour goes by after he gets home, then 45 minutes. Then we heard the tale tale ring of Jacob's Cell phone. I called it. "he can't go."

Nope he couldn't -HIS- pickup refused to start.

I should have taken this as an omen, but after much pleading, and all-be-it poorly produced fake pouts and tears, I agreed to bundle Caity and myself up to accompany him.

Pickup started fine. It rumbled away in it's bar atone manner while we finished getting all our supplies gathered and in their proper places, then off we went!

The pickup hummed along fine and dandy until we came to the bend in the road head for the

I-15 intersection. Growl, jerk, jerk, putter, putter....Then rolled to a stop just as we were trying to make a turn around.

This is where I preform what is called affectionately by many world of war craft gamers, "Psycho scream". I had no idea why it would run perfect in the drive and then 3 miles down the road just die. I was certain that something major was wrong.

Jacob did his best to way-lay the stress, but i felt that familiar dull roar building up at the sides of my head. I felt i was going to go to pieces as I sat in the passenger side of the pick up ticking off dollar amounts for the towing, fuel additives and various little addages that Mechanics charged for their labor.

Fortunately, Jacob had the good sense to call a family friend, who alluded to gelled fuel and perhaps a plugged fuel filter. Now all we had to do was find away to get us back home.

Enter the good Samaritan.

For all the stress and fretting i neglected to actually listen as he gave his name and gave my trembling hand a warm shake. While his conversation with Caity on the way home seemed to keep him whole heartedly amused, i sat in the back seat thanking the powers that be, that he saw fit to see my Prayers, no matter how rushed and heated they might have been answered.

Now here we are, pick up running, in a warm house enjoying simple comforts. Thanks to Karma.

I wonder if our lot is now reset.

Heily has a Booboo

Teen girls, do you ever wonder at thier ability to develop an unflinching attachment to boys

that they have never met?

For instance Justin Beiber, the blond crooner with a baby face. As well as Robert Pattinson, and

His wolfy competition Taylor Lautner. Girls are swooning over these young fellas.

My thirteen year old daughter, Heily, is no exception. I'm certain that you're aware of her

obsession with the Twilight movies if you read the earlier blog:

Life with a teenager who is in love with vampires. It cites her raging favoritism for the

stars of the shows. I though she had reached the zenith in her climb toward freakishly

insane. That was of course before Eclipse came out, and with it two new members of

One of which is a young, and very cocky boy portrayed by, you'll love this, Booboo Stweart.

From the moment Heily saw him walk on screen she's been taken with him. If you so much as mention his name, the house bursts in to flames around you for the blush.

it amazes me to know end how she can be so caught up with a boy that she has never met and likely never will.

Reso-who-tions?

Here it is. January again. Another year has flown by without really knowing where it went. Amongst all the endless tasks and time just disappeared.

I know it's customary to at this time of year to look back on the past year to see our short comings and to make goals, but am i the only one that finds that more than a little depressing. Yes I know that New Year's resolutions are a grand tradition. They give us motivation and something to aim for, but also a huge sense of failure when we stumble off the plotted course, or find a flaw in what we thought was a perfectly thought out plan. One more reason to beat ourselves up.

I know I have faulted myself many times during the previous year without looking back to see, "Oh I missed that 10 pound mark." So Why devote what is supposed to be a joyous event to berating ourselves. We all know there is room for growth and improvement. That is one of the great things about being human. We have a chance to learn from our mistakes.

Don't get me wrong I'm right up there with the rest of the populace that would love to lose weight to feel better about myself. To set a goal and meet it, but I want something to look forward to. Not something to dread or fight. So I've decided to take a bit of a different direction.

My hope is that it will help me in the battle I already face.

Everyone has those days when you wake up to look up at the ceiling and just want to roll over in bed to go back to sleep. Where our thoughts are so heavy on our mind that they seem like a wheel that would run constantly.

This is my battlefield. Over the course of the last two years I have developed sever social anxiety, depression,and insomnia. Depression is not a big surprise, I've been fighting that for years. The Insomnia and social anxiety are new however.

The combination of the three stems from the loss of my daughter, Aseneth. I suspect partially from the long months of isolation in a hospital room watching her slowly worsen. I know that there is a natural process to grieving. Anger, denial, bargaining, acceptance, what have you. You can read books and pray till your knees bleed, but nothing ever truly prepares you for that crushing loss that follows. For that matter the effects it has on you after the numbness wears off.

My mom told me to surround myself with people that cared about me. Let them help me shoulder the burden and talk to them. Which i had no problem talking to my close friends one on one. Even being with my mom, dad and our immediate family, but being in a room with more than a dozen people at a time produced a new experience for me. A need to run an hide. A tightness in my chest, and a spring that as long as I was around these large groups wound tighter with each passing moment until i thought I would break.

This new symptom i had been familiar with only a few times in my life has become a near constant companion, coupled with a loss of sleep that is so severe I nearly wept when I managed to keep my eyes closed for more than two to three hours at a time.

I have talked to doctors, and counselors, but thier solution all involved drugs that often times left me feeling less myself. More a run down, beaten version of the person I used to be. I don't want that. This is where this new set of "Goals" is supposed to come into play.

What are these goals? Well I contemplated a bit of lipo....No, no not really. I don't think i could subject myself to that. though instantly losing a few pounds has done wonders for some, I think that it's better to address the issue that sit a little deeper. Like what i enjoy.

I used to have a very clear sense of what I liked. Music, food clothing. Over the years it kind of got lost until it completely blurred out of focus when Senny passed. I came home after we laid her to rest and turned on my i pod and I was surprised at how much angry and spiteful songs I had on there. Perhaps it was in relation to everything that was happening at the time. or maybe it was something inside of me crying out. So goal number one is to find myself in music. The notes that can transport me from a chaotic day into a place where i can find repose.

Goal number two is to develop some of my true interests. Writing, cooking, being able to draw, and use them as a release. To channel some of the energy from the spring to the medium.

Goal number three is to remember how to relax, enjoy the sunshine, the smell on the morning breeze. Find simple reason to remember that not everything in life is going to turn over on me. This is going to be extremely hard for me because just about everyone who knows me know I beat myself up for every minor flaw, and my negativity tends to leak out to my kids and my husband. Not a healthy thing for a family.

I'm sure that other goals will follow, but for now those three things are the key to maybe helping me heal. Maybe sleep will finally be able to come. Heaven only knows I've been waiting long enough for it.

life with a teenager who is in love with vampires and wolfs.

I'm sure that the majority of you are familiar with the popularity,and like about every other mom in the states i have been victim to the ear shattering screech and uncontrolled hyperventilating that our girls seem to experience at the mere mention of the word twilight.

Now I can't say that I haven't seen the movies, but in my opinion the books are much better, and I am not forced to endure the mediocher acting of Robert Pattingson or Kristin Stewart.

I have been dreading the release of Eclipse for months now. Listening to the fighting that ensued as Heily was compelled to rewind the commericals on our dvr again and again. Her cheeks flush with that clear evidence of the that little girl crush blush. Glassy eyes, sighing, "oh mom i can't wait."

I've tried to impress on her the importance of reading the books,mostly because she needs the boost to her vocabulary. Secondly, because the movies are so much different tan the books and they are not true to sequence. She was constantly asking me questions like "Mom, did that really happen?" To which i felt compelled to reply the answer is sitting at home on your books shelf.

Even through all the taunting and teasing from her father and brothers, she's remained an avid fan. I guess this means I will be obligated to take her to the theatre sooner or later to showing. Pray for me and hope the theater doesn't implode when they next see Jacob without his shirt

The worst and best escape artists

We've all seen seen a prison break film. Whether it was in black and white or whether it was some action packed, shoot-em-up-bang-bang flick. I've enjoyed them as much as the rest of us, although this afternoon i had no idea that i would be reliving an escape I thought we had well under control.

Our pen of tops pigs has decreased by two, leaving only one last sow. A black and white devil of a pig, who seem intent on testing our skills at fence building. She has gotten out three times already since we took the others tot he butcher, but always in the fenced pasture area. All three times she managed to break the twine that we had used to keep the gate in place. No matter how many strands we employed: one, two, three. Some how she always managed to get the corner up and squeeze out.

Becoming frustrated we turned to chains. A thinner chain that came with the kit to set up what is left of the old gate and a thicker chain we had employed on our main gate to keep our cows in when we raised them. I thought for sure that using chain we could keep her in the pen. So you can imagine the sound of surprise and anger when I walked out to the back yard to find not only the big sow, but our two younger sows we are planning to breed this next month. I immediately did my best to get the three of them into a position I felt was safe enough that I could go in and wake the slumbering dragon that was my husband. after some choice grumblings I decided that he was coherent enough to leave him to get dressed to go back outside to try to push them back closer to the pens.

While Jacob was using every device he could think of to get the bigger sow into the pasture, I pleaded, and cajoled the smaller pair of sows to follow the ditch bank back along the fence and to the hill that is the dividing line for our property. Which would have been terribly hard if it were not this little flighty sow. If you so much as look at her funny she wheels about and runs away squealing. it amazing to me how much that pigs and kids run parallel in behavior.

After what seems like hours all three were back in their pens, nerves frayed and tempers flared.

Gates fastened as securely as we could manage. I suppose we will find out soon if our skills at jailing are better than that of our convict pigs.

I long for the soil and sun.

I can't believe that it's nearly the end of May, and yet still so cold. I can't help but sit in the house looking out the window on these cloudy, blustery days and long for warmer temperatures. Most of all I am so excited for our first stab at straw bale gardening.

For years now we have attempted to grow a garden in the land that was left behind after the flood of 1976. The wash of sand gravel and rocks has become as much a frustration as a problem. I've never seen soil so sterile. Of all the things we planted there was very few things we harvested. Peas, beans, spinach, lettuce, and some very reluctant raspberry bushes that actually managed to give us a berry or three. Even our carrots failed to produce anything even worthy of being called baby.

Every year we brainstorm ideas on ways we could make raised beds with out spending a fortune on lumber and top soil. Nothing seemed to meet the requirements that we had. Then one day while we were buying this years seed, we went to Paradise pond and garden. The wife of the owner suggested to us that we look up straw bale gardening. I was skeptical. I figured it would be more like building boxes with the straw and filling it with dirt. Not even close.

As we researched it, we turned out several pages of garden that had been planted in the actual bales after an aging process with nitrogen. I was amazed. I was excited. The prospect of planting a garden without fighting the inclement ground and weeds, and when the bales have been used beyond stability the strings can be cut and the resulting mulch can be tilled into the ground. A major amendment to our soil. I wonder if there is a downside to this.

Now, as the bales aged there is a chance for us to see grain sprouts, which we have in a bale or two. The harvester that reaped the fruit of the parent plant obviously could have been a tad more efficient, but I'll take that over spending days pulling up a carpet of wild oats and other weeds.

As for out other plants, tomatoes, peppers and squash, we will be planting them above ground in tired beds made from tires to be discarded from various tires stores around the area. They absorb heat and hold in moisture, aaaand they are free! What a great way to reuse things bound for the transfer station.

All that is left for me to figure out now is where to put my new strawberry bed, and where i will be transferring my peonies, irises, and tulips later this year. Less dirt under my fingernails, and hopefully a much better harvest.