He's a brave one, isn't he?

I do practice what I preach. I head out in the early mornings or early evening to water my plants by hand, ok with a hose in hand. It is one of the nicer solitude moments that I get around here. I may only have 3 boys, but they are just as busy and noisy as 12 of them. Call me exhausted.

Even in this Kansas wind, hair flying about blinding me, I still venture forth to to this simple plant life saving thing. By far the orchard is the easiest to water. Lay hose down, mull around pretending to inspect plants, pick hose up, move to next tree, watch the bird flop around attempting to take my attention away from her eggs.

So I water, we have established that. One evening I was out doing exactly that, diddling around, acting like I was important. It was exceptionally windy out and some where along the line I had this brilliant idea of not tieing my hair back. It might as well have been midnight for all I could see. Suddenly something very hard hit the side of my boot. I looked down, in between whirling hair, and saw nothing. hhhmmm...odd. I picked the hose up and moved to the next thirsty tree. Just as I was about to pick the hose up and move on again, something hard hit the side of my boot, once more. This time I saw what it was, but it took me by surprise, and I howled!

A Gopher snake had followed me from tree to tree, attacking my boot! It was huge, easily 5 feet long. Nope, not exaggerating. Good thing it wasn't a rattler.

And with that, have a great weekend everyone!

Blogoversary

We had a much needed rain shower last night, it knocked out my electricity. That is why I am late with posting this morning.

Before I get to my normal posting, I wanted to tell you guys about All Foods Natural's Contest;

We are offering Food Naturally readers the chance to shine and get their recipes published.

The winner will get a set of three cookbooks and an Amazon voucher. All you have to do is sending us your best recipe for a warm salad. Or recipes, we will consider each individual recipe as one entry. Our mailbox is open and ready to receive your entries for the Best Warm Salad recipe competition and it will remain open until 31 May 2007. A set of cookbooks will be awarded to the winner, who will be announced in the June 2007 newsletter. Send your words by the last day of May 2007 using this form or by email to the postmaster@all-foods-natural.com, and good luck!

Now back to your regularly scheduled Post;

Today I have been posting for 1 year. It has been and interesting year to say the least. I have made many mistakes, and learned new skills. And you have told me how to fix my mistakes, gave me helpful tricks of the trade, and told me when I was flat out wrong. You have also been wonderful companions, cheering me up when I was depressed, Giving pat on the backs even when I thought I had messed up. You have been my cheer leading squad when I want to give it all up and run away to the suburbs. I am grateful that all of you have decided to follow me along in this adventure. eeewww. . . now I am getting all mushy. But it is all true. I am so happy I am not sitting here talking to myself.

Over the past year, I have learned to do many old school things, as those of you that have been with me since the beginning have read. Many yucky things, painful things, sad things, as well as overwhelmingly happy things. It has been quiet the figurative roller coaster. But now I would like to hear from you. Even if it is to say hi. But what I would really love to hear is one thing you have learned this past year, weather it be a lesson in humility, or a new skill, I would love for you to share it with me.

Killi, I want to thank you for the book; One Hundred way for a Chicken to train its human. I was so surprised when it showed up!

And I did get the asparagus seeds. I must confess that I have forgotten who sent them, Monica? I thank you for them.

Are You. . . A Pioneer Woman!?!

I will have to take a moment to think about this question. . . no.

I am new country with old school ideals. But does that stop my husband from yelling "Are you. . .a pioneer woman!" like a drill Sargent while we are lifting 250 lb bridge boards, or I have been left alone to pull out t-posts that a draft horse should be doing? No.

Yet I might as well be one, when I am throwing corn seed that is piled into my shirt, or when I am hoeing rows...tilling by hand, or when I am down in the mud, on hands and knees pulling weeds in a 4,000 square foot garden. I wake before the sun to bake bread, and prep breakfast for all the men folk. I dress out my own birds {chickens, ducks, turkey} by hand, no professional processor here. Now all I need to do is wear a skirt out into the field so I can just squat when need arises.

For the past two weeks I have been doing all of it on my own. I tip my hat to those single homesteading moms, I don't know how you do it. To my new readers, we are not completely back field around here. My husband builds and repairs custom motorcycles. And these last two weeks he has been on the road and working a rally. All the gardening, all the fence work, and the spooky sheep, I have dealt with alone. I find it daunting at times. I wish that I could wait for my husband to return before doing some of it. But I know that it can't wait. The success of the homestead depends on me doing my work, and my husband's, daily. He returned home yesterday, and relief washed over me. I was struggling with some of the repair work that needs to be done, now he can do it.

The first Sunday of the month, the small town I grew up in has a swap meet. We are heading down there on this next one to acquire lambs. I have also been in contact with a man that breeds Dexter cattle. Before these past two weeks had passed by so slowly and painfully {no rest even when you have the flu} I was looking forward to these new animals. But now, with the prospect of every riding season, my husband will be missing at times, the realization of, I will be doing it all alone, struck me. I am not a pioneer woman.

Now this is just sneaky

This couldn't wait until tomorrow. Our governement is trying to sneak in some new organic standards and today is the last day to have a voice. {They only had it open for 7 days} The USDA's proposal is to allow certain products {beer, sausage, fish oil and others} to be labeled as organic even when they contain conventionally-raised ingredients.

If you want to keep your organics, well. . . organic, please read this and sign.

They plot

Donkey, the sheep, is beginning to scare me. He just stands there at the fence, staring in his sheepish way. I will be working away in the garden, and can't help but glance over, and there he is, watching me. When I go into the pen to feed everyone, he paces me. No longer does he run and leap over invisible obstacles. No, now he creeps closer, you can see the plotting and scheming in his eyes. My father-in-law says, "don't show your fear!"

He stares just like that!

We still have a banny rooster and his very small consort in the house. I am little timid about placing them outside, even though they are long over due. Last night after dinner, my 5 year old left some fish on his plate and neglected to clean up. When I reminded him, the rooster snagged the piece of fish and ran. It reminded me of the kittens and the way they greedily eat. The rooster seems happy to follow me through the house, the consort which is 5x smaller them him, enjoys chirping as loud as she can when he leaves her sight. It gets rather loud in the smaller rooms.

The geese are not as passive as Donkey. My 9 year old can attest to that. We were out working in the barn and the standard rooster has a death wish, so my oldest son must literally watch my back when we are out there. As I was cleaning and my son was standing guard, the gander approached and bit and beat on my son's leg. I heard the screaming and turned. The gander had already let go and my son was in tears. "I told you not to turn your back on them." He now boasts some very large bruises.

We now have a puppy, a pit bull/Husky mix. Otherwise a Pit Bull with blue eyes. There is no mistake in what she is. She is only slightly squarer than are English Pit is, here is hoping the other neighbors don't notice and freak out. Her name is Buttercup, and she is bent on killing all the children with her licks. She finds them in the middle of the night, jumping up on the bed, her little tail beating them in the sides or back, licking and jumping until one of the boys vocally complains and pushes her off the bed. That doesn't persuade her to stop, she just hunts down the next victim. I need to replace the batteries in my camera, will get you pictures soon.

Who is plotting against you?

Maybe I'm the one that's normal

It feels as though things are starting to fall back into the range of normal, at least for around here. No more chickens have come up missing, my neighbor isn't moving, and I have been able to get chores done without feeling like everything was crashing down on me. If you have noticed that this last week my post have been different, that feeling of impending doom has been the culprit. Several things have caused this, first it was because of some financing problems with the new house, apparently some people like to report you as a bad debt to the credit companies if you pay your loan back long before it matures {they miss out on all the interest}, and then my father and his health. He is not getting better, nor does he seem worse.

Alas! I do not feel I should burden you with a woe is me post.

I have mentioned it before, and thought now was a good time to bring it up once again. If you are homesteading, talk about it. Some people will look at you like you are insane, yet you wouldn't believe the stuff they will pawn off on you. I got all my canning gear for free in this manner {thank you mom!}. Many of my homesteading books and fencing. And on Saturday, I took my boys to their cousin's birthday party and brought back a very nice rabbit hutch and hog fencing. Of course now that we have a bona fide rabbit hutch, I spent most of the day yesterday hearing my 3 year old's new mantra of "bunnybunnybunnybunny." Aren't they precious when they learn to talk?

We have tried our hand at rabbits before. Our first one was a black and white mini rex that went by the name Milk. We had him for years. Our second attempt was a complete failure. We bought 2 mix breeds from a 4-Her. One died the next day, and the other lasted a few. I had no idea what the snuffles was, and when I figured it out, I was too late getting to the vet. I am weary of doing it again.

Sunday was pleasant. I spent the day out in the garden. It's a whole lot of garden. My Brother-in-law arrived late in the day with a truck load of brush that he wanted burned. I quickly glanced through the pile and it was made up of mostly a cedar tree. And there were quite a few pieces that would be great in the garden. Problem is I am allergic to evergreens, have never met a one that I liked. The pile will have to wait until I can get my husband out to it.

I hope everyone had a good weekend.