Rafe has discovered Sugar Creek, or “the river” as he calls it. Which terrifies me, because he’s such an independent little guy I’m afraid he’ll venture down there by himself. So far, though, he asks Matt, me, or one of the girls to “take me to the river so I can throw this rock.”
Someday, when he’s older, I hope he’ll spend many lazy summer days there with a fishing pole.
Our old John Deere manure spreader. And I do mean old. It’s got a wooden box, and the paint is so faded it’s almost hard to tell it’s a Deere anymore.
It’s seen quite a bit of action this last week or so, and a few breakdowns as well. Nothing a little welding and a new used PTO knuckle wouldn’t fix, apparently. I don’t know much about it, only what I hear Matt telling people on the phone. People that know.
Being able to spread right here on our neighbor’s field helps speed up the process, as opposed to hauling it several miles down the road to my dad’s fields. Matt would really like a second tractor, so he doesn’t have to be hitching and unhitching all the time. Unfortunately that’s not in the budget.
Meet George, the first calf of 2006! And his mother, Missus Hamilton.
Missus Hamilton is our oldest cow at 10 years old, and a very good mother. George was born around 9:15 this morning. The kids and I were almost late for church because I had to call them back out of the pasture!
The proud papa
The day we were flying home from Hollywood, Sara was busy with a homecoming surprise for us. A new litter of pigs! And a nice litter, it is. 9 live (6 boys, 3 girls) and 2 dead.
This is the best picture I could get of them, in their creep in the little wooden shed on skids that we use for broiler chickens in the summer. Matt said they were out of the shed yesterday, but I haven’t managed to catch them out and about yet.
Notice all of the “red” color in the bottom one. Winston is a purebred Large Black, so it doesn’t come from him. Sara is a white pig, but must have some Duroc crossed in there somewhere. Usually you can’t see the red in the piglets unless the light is hitting them just right.
My brother came over Saturday to castrate and administer tetanus vaccines. One of these days Matt has got to learn how to do all that. Notice I said Matt. I can possibly see myself learning to do it, someday, in the future, but it would take quite a while for me to work up to that!
The Center for Rural Affairs blog is on a roll this week. Especially this and this.
About a year ago it was time for my yearly physical. I wasn’t feeling sick, but I wasn’t feeling exactly well either. So I asked my doctor to run routine bloodwork. The only thing that came back out of the ordinary was my cholesterol.
It was high. Really high. 253 high.
And people that know me in person are really shocked by that, because I’m somewhat of a stick girl. Weight has never been an issue for me, luckily, although I had put on 10 or 15 pounds since I went back to work full-time. But my good cholesterol was really good, so he wasn’t quite ready to prescribe medication. He told me to make some changes in my diet and retest in a year.
And here we are, livestock farmers. I was feeling like a bit of a bad advertisement for our products.
But I just knew it wasn’t the meat causing the problem. I felt it was junk foods, and processed foods in general.
So I eliminated my near-daily bag of microwave popcorn habit. I’ve always been pretty good about cooking from scratch, but I tried to get even further away from pre-processed foods. (I wish they’d come out with organic Velveeta. Would that be an oxymoron?) I did not change my meat consumption at all.
I started buying some organic foods, mainly dairy products. And butter. I switched from margarine to organic butter, which would seem counterintuitive to lowering cholesterol but it felt right to me. I also started eating eggs most mornings, with my daily bowl of oatmeal. Another counterintuitive measure that just seemed right to me.
And I’ve been making exercise more of a priority in my week.
I had my retest a couple of weeks ago and…drum roll, please…191!
62 points.
I feel like some sort of high point shooter. MVP of the cholesterol bowl.
I could go on and on posting pictures from our trip (I took around 80 pictures). But I think it’s time to wrap things up and get back to the farm.
Whatever experiences in my life, big or small, I always try to reflect and take away something from them. A lesson learned, perhaps, or maybe a direction that God is trying to turn me in. A trip like this was wonderful, enough of a take away in and of itself. But still, a few thoughts have occurred to me.
~ONE~
I’ve got to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I don’t even know what that expression really means.
Whenever something good like this happens, there’s a part of me wondering what bad thing is going to happen next to even things up. Think of a funeral where someone says, “It’s such a shame, this freak accident/disease/act-of-God that took Jim’s life. Thank goodness he and Margie took that trip when they did.”
So I’m wondering, what’s going to happen next that people will say, “Thank goodness they got that trip to Hollywood.”
And that’s crazy. It’s not the way to live life. So I need to be really emphatic about telling myself to shut up with that kind of thinking. (How crazy does that make me, that now I’m telling the voices in my head to shut up?!? That voice that just said, you shouldn’t have even typed that. Now something bad is going to happen for sure!)
~TWO~
As the above item alludes to, I’m a worrier.
And a fretter.
And Worrier + Fretter = Control Freak.
My schedule, my daily routine, my To Do List…all things that help me get done what I need to get done for the family, the farm, and the day job and still have a tiny sliver of time for myself now and again. But sometimes the routine can imprison me.
If we had been planning a trip to Disneyland, I would have spent hours on the internet researching. I would have had our itinerary planned to the minute. I would have known exactly what rides we were going to do at Disney, and in what order.
But this trip was so last-minute that there wasn’t any time for that. Whenever Ken (my boss, who lives in L.A.) would ask me what we had planned I’d reply, “I don’t know. We don’t really have a plan.” I had to roll with the flow. And consequently I was the most relaxed I’ve been in months. Years, perhaps. And it was good.
~THREE~
Sometimes, nay, oftentimes the dream of growing this farm into a living income, of expanding this farm or buying a bigger one, seems so out of reach and so impossible.
But really, if your chicken can take you to Hollywood, what can’t happen?
And that is my favorite take away of all.
Olivia said of her day at Disneyland, “This is the best day of my whole life!”
You can’t help but notice that everyone has a big grin on their face as soon as they walk through the gates into Disneyland. We had a gorgeous day for it – sunny and 60 degrees. The longest wait we had was 40 minutes for the Monsters, Inc. ride at California Adventure. Otherwise everything was under 30 minutes.
We held out for the parade, but couldn’t make the fireworks. The kids were just too wore out, and it was getting pretty cold.
We’ve always said we would take the kids to either Disneyland or Disneyworld, but not until Rafe was older. Now I’m glad we had this opportunity, to go while they’re little and still think the Princesses are wonderful. Next time we go they’ll probably be more into the roller coasters than It’s A Small World (my favorite).
Rafe’s favorite was the Buzz Light Year ride! It was like being inside a big video game. They had targets for you to shoot with your lasergun, and you racked up points as you went.
California Adventure had a Big Chicken Little
The Event ended about 11:30, and we were told that we had the limo until 3:00! So off we went to see the sights. After a quick trip up to Griffith Observatory (which was closed for remodeling, but we still got a fabulous view of the city), I wanted to see Hollywood Boulevard!
Of all the pictures I took on the trip, this one turned out to be my favorite. Matt asked me to take a picture of the building, because it had Masonic symbols across the top. The alien just happened to walk in front of me. So Hollywood.
My favorite autograph
The girls with the star of 2 of their favorites – Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen
Next Matt wanted to see Beverly Hills. We drove through that neighborhood without getting out (couldn’t have afforded to buy anything there anyway!), and then took the scenic route back to the hotel – Mulholland Drive. That was a real treat for Matt – getting to look around and enjoy the scenery while someone else drove!
What a crazy, wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime trip. Everything went so smoothly, and we had so much fun. Stephanie & Stacey from Media Tonic, and Rick from Disney were all so gracious and just as excited to have us as we were to be there. I have so much to tell, but let’s start with the contest.
Monday morning was “The Event”, as everyone seemed to call it. At 9:00 a limo showed up at our hotel (the Sheraton Universal, very nice) to take us to the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank.
When we arrived there were people everywhere working on setting the stage for The Event. A red carpet runway, stunt chickens, and hay set the scene.
Rafe takes in the goings-on
Soon it was time for Miss Silkie to strut her stuff. This is the movie’s producer, Randy Fullmer, chatting with her. 
The contestant from Kentucky was “Elvira”, a modern game bantam. She was a dainty little thing, looking almost like a miniature wild turkey.
Miss Silkie, Elvira, and a couple of Hollywood stunt chickens with producer, Randy Fullmer. Elvira is wearing her crown around her neck, her sash and flowers nearby.
Elivra was declared the winner by several inches. In true Hollywood fashion, Miss Silkie acted the part of the bitter runner-up by pooping on Elivra’s bouquet of flowers.
Rafe struts his stuff on the red carpet
More to come…
