well, hello there!

SO - it's been a while! Tons has happened and all is well. There's no way I can get it all on here, so I'm just going to write from now forward. Today was a good day - we are still beat from the trip to Oxford, where we acted like we were in college. We so aren't in college. I'm hoping to be over Saturday by tomorrow (Tuesday) when I'm heading back up to Oxford for Dr appt and a Juice Plus meeting. I'm really looking forward to the JP thing. Joining JP at this time is so good - we are really on a wellness journey here at the Hi Five Ranchero and the two clearly go hand in hand. Driving up and down the road three days a week is not at all healthy though - and we have months to go of that. Juice Plus will help our bodies with all that stress! 

Sweet Cheeks is poised for take off - but has been sitting on the tarmac for the last couple of months. I'm stressing out about it - but it will happen when it's meant to. Moving five hours and then going back and forth constantly puts everything way down the totem pole somewhere under keeping the kids and ourselves sane. Just a few more months.... Weaning James Clay...weird. I've been preggo and/or b-feeding for almost 7 years straight. I have no idea who I'm going to be after I'm done with these cabbage leaves...I keep thinking I'm suddenly going to have more energy and clarity. Wouldn't that be nice? Here are me and my Boogie Bear doing what we do best - burning up the pavement:

Good night! Gotta hit the road early tomorrow! Woop! 

Blondie's first day in the hen house

Well, I put Blondie in the run/coop with the older chicks today. I put her in, then went to get the feed. I was back in all of 20 seconds and she was up on the coop ladder. The other two don't seem to realize it exists until sundown, so I figured she was safe enough for me to go on to work.

I came home at lunchtime to check on her and she was peering out the coop window. She was still in there when we came home at 5:30. I'm going to go outside and check on her one last time after I get the monkeys to sleep. Hopefully they will all be roosting together peacefully. I'm hoping she's not terribly hungry or thirsty from her day of hiding out. She seemed very energetic when I checked on her, so I'm thinking she's perfectly fine.

....ok, so, she hasn't been invited to the roosting branch, but she's doing ok!
Have any of you ever gotten side-eyed by a chicken? To be fair, I think that's really the only way they can look at you, but I'm pretty sure they were annoyed by my after-dark flashlight shining tonight...










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Listening to the hens wake up over cheerios.

Or...

I could just hang out on the porch swing with my early rising fella " target="_blank">fella


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Mama Hen's survival plan whilest she's sans Her Rooster

If i don't make this into a project with goals I'm going to descend into Pity Purgatory. So, the goals are: keep the kids healthy and happy, train the new pup, lose 15 pounds, continue raising the chickens into prize winning layers, grow our little vegetable garden, and, oh yeah, launch my company. I can do it, and I'm excited about all of it! Go, Lizzie, go! This plan starts with my waking up at dawn so I can feed the chickens, dogs, cats and plants before I feed the monkeys....so, goodnight!


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Blondie's new digs

To be filed under "awesome repurposing" Blondie is spending her still-too-little-for-the-coop days in an old play pen we found in the attic of our last house. The thing is nice and big, but doesn't keep my car out of the garage. She flys up to the top of the railing to roost at night, and then back down to her food and water with the sunrise. No escape attempts yet... knock on wood!

I've lined the bottom with cardboard for lickety split cleaning, and done the same under the big girls' roost in the coop outside. Recycling at its best! Then, we can compost it maybe. I'm going to see how that works out.

Hello, Summer! Whatchew know good?

Well here we are and it's summer for damn sure! It's been as hot as blue blazes, but the last day or so had been a lot cooler and pleasant outdoors.
Here at The Hi Five, we've added two furry and feathered family members:
Blondie Chick and a to-be-named Giant Schnauzer puppy! The picture of Blondie is from when she was tiny, she's much bigger now. As soon as I can get my damn Android phone to mail the new pic of her I'll post it!
Work at Woodson Ridge Farms continues to be wonderful and good times are abounding. God bless America and y'all, too.
Talk at ya later!
Lizzie

Chicken Mansion

My husband is nothing short of a badass. Please look at the coop he designed and built all by himself:

TA-DAAAAAA!!! It's WONDERFUL!!!!

And it's hot as blue blazes outside, too. Go Bradley! He's my man! If he can't do it, no one can!!

The girls are definitely singing the Jefferson's theme song. These digs are waaay better than their "nursery."

Here's are the five star nesting accommodations:

I almost want to take a napper in there. 

Here the girls are enjoying their new shaded yard:

Here they can scratch and peck to their hearts' delight. And this is their new water fountain. No poop gettin' in this one! (shudder!)

Lastly, here is the people door:

I'll get some pics of the very cool contraption he put together so the kids can easily collect the eggs and post soon. I'll be painting it over the next few weeks, too.

Oh I love my husbin!

Willa Ann loves her some homegrown "pomadoes!"

See her sweet little hand? On the very immature tomato? She was very excited about the prospect of making our own spaghetti sauce. Both the reason and the result of her enthusiasm are evidenced below....



My baby loves her some spaghetti sauce!

(if you didn't see it already, please note the noodle by the belly button. Seriously, how much cuter can accidental noodle flingage be?)

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Colors, colors

I found the cokors for the coop, because we all know that's the most important part.

The Coop Cometh

My precious sweet awesome and handy hubby got a great start on the coop today!

My awesome, awesome job

This is what I get to look at and share with North Mississippi and Memphis three days a week. It's ok to be jealous. :-)

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Pix of chix

Here are the lovelies this morning, happily roosting (and probably pooping) on their water bucket. Aren't their almost-grown-up feathers pretty?

Raised beds, new jobs and adolescent hens

Since the tornado kicked off our month of "Life In A Blender" a few developments have occurred in our little slice of America. Husband and I both got new jobs, mine part time, husband graduated from law school, children finished school for the year and the hens have been moved outside....

Except for tonight when I moved them back into the garage because we were under a tornado warning and we don't have their permanent coop built yet. Miss Cluck hurt her foot while we were herding them with their cage, and I'm hoping it heals without any problems. She's walking/roosting on the pole just fine with it, so I think it's just the skin that got hurt. We are building the coop tomorrow, so they will have somewhere nice and sturdy to ride out any storms.

I'm so over tornados.

We're seeing some promising results from our bell peppers, cukes, corn, basil, thyme, sage, squash, mint, marjoram, onions, chives and tomatoes. We actually ate some of our basil tonight and it was dee-lish if I do say so. And I do.

Speaking of margaritas, you should try Skinny Girl Margaritas. They are the bomb. Just don't try a whole bottle by yourself or you might feel like I do today.

Back to the chicks. They've been enjoying pecking and scratching in the yard and eating scraps from the kitchen. Their plumage is coming in beautifully and I'm looking forward to their red combs joining the show. Yesterday I was feeding the cats and heard Juanita cheeping excitedly. Turns out she's just a narc. Miss Cluck was proudly strutting around ON TOP of their mobile pen. Lord knows how she got there, and I wish He'd post the video on YouTube, because I bet it was hilarious. The gap in the wire on the top, in the middle of the roof was only about three inches at it's widest.  Anyway, I ran down and caught her and put her back in, then added some more scrap plywood to the top. (cue sanford and son theme song).

Speaking of the Lord, Good Him I'm tired.

'Night, y'all and God bless.

Storms!

Well, we were kissed by the tornado, but were blessed to receive only minimal damage. The pond flooded the yard almost to the house, but the spillway kicked in and we didn't get any water inside.
The scariest part is that we had no warning. The sirens aren't audible where we are if you're inside. We awoke to our french doors (all three sets) blowing open as the tornado was reaching our house. I've never heard such a sound. Bradley flew up the stairs and pulled the kids from their beds upstairs as pieces of roof and siding were being pulled from right over their heads. We got into the basement and then about 1 minute later it was just...gone.
It rained a lot through the night and the next day. We watched as the pond rose up over our 5 foot fence and approached the house. The guy who built our house and the ones next to it brought a boat out and went over to the dam to be sure the spillway was working and once we knew that it was functioning, we breathed easy. I still don't like that it flooded our yard, but I'm counting my blessings!
Poor Tuscalosa got it so badly that I feel like we shouldn't complain a single bit.

Here are some pics:

early morning

it took about an hour to cover the fence completely

we had moved the composter up the hill, but the garbage bin that had blown into our yard (not ours) had a nice float around the yard! The water eventually was about halfway up the beds. I'm so glad we made them so tall!!

five foot fence was completely covered not long after this was taken.

it rose a few feet closer to the house than it is in this picture before the spillway kicked in.

Pics of the Hi-5 Ranch

Here are some pics of the stuff I was talking about yesterday. Please forgive the fact that they are all over the place. It's taking forever to figure out this new picture uploading thing on Blogger and I DO have another job I need to be doing... :-)

The Girls, Juanita and Miss Cluck

The Nursery 

The Nursery

Corn, Bell Peppers and Romaine Lettuce

Brussels Sprouts!! Mmmmm!!!

Easter Sunday

April 24, 2011

Easter! After a wonderful morning hunting eggs and finding “giant bunny tracks” in the yard, we went to church and then lunch with my parents and sister. Big Boy was the first to discover some “tracks” by the fence, and to be truthful, they look a lot like the Easter Bunny dug in right as he hopped over the fence. Good eye for tracking that boy has, a very good eye.

All three of the children went to the Easter service with us in the Nave. They were very good and quiet the whole time. I wonder if our days at the church nursery are over…maybe it will depend upon the day. Anyway, I was very proud of their behavior and focus at church today.  

Today we moved the chicks out of the guest bathroom. They have grown tremendously in the last three weeks and have learned to get out of the tub. Bird poop in the tub that I can easily bleach is one thing - knowing that the longer they stayed in that room the longer I’d be scrubbing it to sanitize it inspired me to get kinda bossy about getting them outta there.

My Sweet Husband is heading into his last law school exams ever so spending time to build a super nice coop just isn’t in the cards for a few more weeks. The chicks are also still just a little small I think to be outside all alone at night. (I’m a mother…hen…get it?) Anyway, we’ve come up with a solution – using a lot of repurposed parts we’ve built a temporary chicken run to keep on a tarp in the garage. Sweet Husband did pretty much everything, God bless him. It’s a big rectangular cube, wrapped in chicken wire. There’s a little bit of a roof on one end in case we want to take it outside and use it as a chicken tractor.  We made it out of our old compost pile cube from our old house, some wood we had from other projects and another roll of chicken wire we got by returning some light bulbs. I love making new things without spending a dime!!!

It’s not beautiful by any means, but I feel good about Juanita and Miss Cluck living in it for a while. Tomorrow I’ll disinfect the guest bathroom and feel civilized again.

Also in the yard today we watered the two raised beds both morning and night. The corn, lettuce and pepper seedlings (planted yesterday) wilted by late afternoon, but perked up again once they were watered. We’re just going to have to be really good about watering them a lot until they are established.

The two eldest children planted purple petunias in a border around the front flower bed. It’s a sweet story that began with tears. I was beginning to mow the front yard with my super awesome manual lawn mower (more on that later) when Precious Daughter burst into tears crying “you’re mowing my flower land!” Oh no! Her “flower land” was made up of all of the wild flowers that grow in our “native” lawn….aka “weeds.” But in the eyes of a three year old with a beautiful imagination, I can see how it was indeed a Flower Land. What to do?

Luckily, I had two flats of purple petunias that I had been meaning to plant for the last two week -- I love it when procrastination pays off. I took her sweet, tiny hand and we walked together to the flowers in their trays and I told her she could plant herself a new Flower Land wherever she wanted in the flower bed. I’m so happy to report that not only did this help her with the loss of her wild flowers, but she did a great job with the help of her big brother! He dug the holes for her, and she put the flowers in and patted down the dirt around them. I looked up from my mowing to find that they’d made a lovely border around the main flower bed.  Not bad for a 5 and 3 year old, huh? I’m so proud! After they were planted, Precious Girl was going to each one and watering it with a water bottle she was refilling and talking to them. SO SWEET.

Tiny Baby was determined to be held most of the time he was awake today, so I didn’t get to help just a ton. What mowing I did was while he was asleep. But I know too well how fast this time will pass and I’m cherishing it. He’s so precious and small and making all his baby sounds. Oh my little Boogie Bear. I’m going to go join him in bed right this second, co sleeping is the BOMB. I’m so glad we’ve slept with all three of our babies. There’s nothing that compares to it. Snuggles rule.