Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Some of the Goings-On...

Hello Friends! I know it's been a while, and so much has been going on, that I thought I might try to catch things up a little. It's hard to believe it's already the second month of 2011! Seems the days leave us quicker the longer I live :) And how about this weather?! Never have I seen so much snow in such a small amount of time here...gotta love that global warming, huh?lol And folks around here get so riled up over some white stuff, as if our complaining is going to change a thing about it. I say it would do us all more good to try and be happy that we have the sight to see it and that we have a home to escape the elements...there are so many that are not so blessed as we are! Haiti and Australia come to mind...but we did have some nice temperatures, for January, towards the end of the month. And today we have strong winds, rain and thunder! Never a dull moment.

But, onwards. What's been going on lately around here? Well, aside from the "You might as well laugh about it" weather, there's been some changing of things around the homefront. Some good, some not so good. Sadly, I'll be starting from scratch (no pun intended) with my hens. We have some not-so-considerate neighbors with a few dogs that have acquired a taste for warm birds. There were 3 of them, that I am aware of, that were in on the act, and they managed to break through the chicken wire of my coop and had themselves a nice buffet in the middle of the afternoon a few weeks back and we heard nary a sound. That is my biggest complaint about living in a home made of cinderblocks...the sound insulation can work against us at times. We had issues with this neighbor before when her dogs came after my sweet rooster while he was patrolling our own yard. See, I didn't clip his wings, because he was simply too good...never once showed aggression to me, and would even come and FETCH me when he was finished with his walkabout. Boy he was a sight! :) He never left our yard and was so well-behaved that I hated to take that privilege from him. But, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished, and the dogs came after poor Deuce and destroyed him. All the evidence led straight to their yard. We had called the law, not because I wanted to press charges or anything, but the dogs had cornered Deuce on top of our car and subsequently left scratches all over the sides of the car. We simply wanted to make sure that was on record, should things turn ugly...it is simply nature for predators to destroy prey, but the car was not something DH wanted to simply sweep under the rug.

We tried to be kind with her, I never asked as for retribution for Deuce. He was a rooster, after all, and not a layer. Nor were my hens the kind to go broody. It was right after our terrible flooding last May and her home had been destroyed in it...I simply felt I had no right to demand money from her, we only wanted her to be more respectful and keep her dogs up. We, even the officer handling the event, were under the impression she would be removing the dogs from her property, but that never happened, and so things are going a course I never wanted to see. Sadly, after having been found out by the officer as not abiding by the agreement, and after the last attack on my hens, and several other problems we have had with the dogs, we will be going to court over the matter at the end of the month. I am really really REALLY not looking forward to this, but this neighbor has abused the patience and kindness of several others close by and this seems to be the only recourse we have to get her attention. It seems it has, late as the action may be, as she has just recently put up some kenneling for the 3 dogs. I don't blame the dogs, they're simply doing what they're wired for, and from all indications they were probably pretty hungry already. I feel bad for them, actually. But, hopefully, this will be remedied after this month and we will never have another issue with them.

So, I'll be ordering chicks in the spring, and as the weather gets warmer I will be repairing and reinforcing the coop, so that hopefully this won't happen again! I am trying to decide on getting some meat birds as well as layers. Murray McMurray has some lovely selections and I am leaning toward the meat and layer combo right now...they send out rainbow layers in that combo and I would LOVE to have some more Easter Eggers. I am almost ready to order seeds too. I'm trying not to go overboard, as I am the one who does the gardening and will likely be getting rather large come harvest-time! :) It is really hard to prioritize when you want to do it all!LOL

And the best part of what's been happening! Last Thursday we got to have our first peek at this sweet little child!! I don't know how I managed to keep it all together, but it was beautiful. I have to admit that I was a little concerned at first because there wasn't any movement. But as soon I saw that beautiful little light flickering like mad, I felt alot better. Our little bean had a good, strong heartbeat at 167 bpm and was so calm during the whole process. They say a child's personality begins to from even in the womb, and if that's the case, we may have a laid-back little one on the way! I'll go back at the end of this month for another check-up and then hopefully in March we'll learn if we should start looking for things in pink or blue! Oh, we also got baby's first pictures done that day as well :) From the measurements that day, we're now looking at the end of August to meet this precious little one. I am so excited, and still so humbled at all of this. I do alot of weeping :) Well, I guess that's all I have at the moment. Hope you all have a blessed week!!



The line is where the heart was located in the picture above.

A good shot of our "little Bean". I know peanut is the usual term used, but for some reason Baby reminded me of a bean, lol. So, little Bean it is for now :)