THE GOOD AND THE BAD

I'll start with the bad. It rained yesterday then turned to snow over night. Hubby and I got up at 6:45am to feed the goats and looked out the window and we had a few inches of snow. We put on the coveralls, winter coat, stocking cap and gloves and head out the door. Oops, door won't open. Try the other door. Nope, it won't open either. So we get a window open, crawl out and scoop the wet, heavy snow from in front of the door. Bang on the door a few times and it opens. Okay, what were gonna do? Oh, yea, feed the goats.

Just think, two days ago I blogged about being outside in the nice weather. Remember the picture of my stacked rocks.

Well, here they are today....

I hope the weatherman is right. It's supposed to be in the 50's Monday thru Friday. Snow won't last long but the next thing we have to worry about is flooding. We've had enough of that!! I guess it's not as bad as what I heard on MSNBC. Red River in N.D. is really having a flooding problem. Thousands and thousands of sand bags to keep the water a bay. I wish them all the luck.

Now on to the good. Daughter brought granddaughter #2 over last night for a sleepover. Granddaughter #1 is staying at the other grandmas house. We have been having a blast with her. She sure keeps us in stitches. We're getting a little brake while she's taking her nap. Since I'm just sitting around waiting for her to wake up and play again, I thought I'd tell ya how my day has been going. Here's our little one napping......

Ain't she just the most precious thing? :0) The quilt that she is laying on is the one I made for her when she was born. You can't see much of it with the pillow there, but I had to brag about that too. :)

Hope all are staying warm. I will be 'someday'!!!

Cindy (tinta)

RANDOM PICS AROUND MY YARD

This is my stone cairn. A cairn is a conical pile of stones used to commemorate a sacred site or place of burial. In a garden, a cairn can mark a turn in the path. I read about cairns in a gardening book one time, and I had to have one. This one sits in the middle of my hosta garden.

My hostas are popping up. I try to leave as many leaves covering them as I can but the wind out here has been awful. Our weatherman is saying that we could get 1-3 inches of snow tomorrow. I am soooo over cold weather.


Here's one of my lilac trees. I hope it will be okay after the snow. One year my lilacs didn't bloom cuz it got too cold for the new blooms. I'm keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't happen again this year.

I think these are iris'. I can't remember. I got them from the neighbor up the road last fall. I just dumped them on the ground and never got around to planting them. Hardy little suckers aren't they!! I guess I'll have to find a spot for'em.

This is the foundation of our barn. I have always been amazed at how a big ol' barn could still be standing when the foundation is built like this. The corners do have solid concrete tho. What craftsmanship!!! Our barn is probably over 100 years old. It was even put together with wooden pegs. There are not nails or screws in it, just pegs.

I just had to show off my peacock. He hopped up on the tractor while we were working on the goat pen. Then he decided that he was ready for bed. He sleeps up on the rafters of the barn. The one he's sitting on is an 8" square beam. He's able to slay his body on it and let his tale hang. I bet it can be hard to get around with a 5 foot long tale dragging behind you.

Well, while I have you in the barn, I might as well show you the goat pen. We finally got it all done last night. (yea) We still have alot to do in the rest of the barn, but our main goal was to get the mammas and babies out of the kidding pen and into their permanent home. We still have the fense to put up outside but in the meantime, they have more room. The kids were having a ball. I sware they were born with springs in their hooves!! We won't be putting the three that we are bottle feeding in here. The moms would have a fit. We'll wait until they are weaned and more able to defend themselves against the bigger ones.

Well, since I mentioned the bottle babies, I just had to take you to see them. From left to right is, Bucky, the boy, Butt-er, cuz she thinks she has to head butt the bottle when she's eating and then there's the sweet one. We haven't named her yet but we tend to call her the 'precious one' or 'sweet one'. I don't know if I will be able to get rid of Bucky. He's my buddy!!

I found this hen chillin in the bush as I was walking around taking pictures. They all like to scratch around under here but I guess she just decided to take a brake.


Hope you enjoyed your little trip around my yard. Yesterday was such a nice day I just had to get out and enjoy it. I didn't get much work done around here but that's okay. Like Scarlet would say, "I'll think about it tomorrow. For tomorrow is another day".

Cindy (tinta)

ANOTHER FABULOUS GIVEAWAY FROM KI

WIN THIS NECKLACE

Click on this link http://junkrevolution.com/community/topic.php?id=272&replies=33 and sign up to win this great necklace. You've got till Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 5pm. Ki will be drawing the winner at 7pm.

I guess I could take this time to show off a couple of my necklaces that I made a couple of weeks ago.

These were made from old spoons and pieces from old broken necklaces. I cut the spoon from the handle. I then bent the handle over to run the cord thru. Added a couple pieces from the broken necklace and added the clasp at the end of the cord. So simple. Give one a try. You don't have to use silverware. You could restring your old favorite necklace that may have broke but you don't want to part with it. You can get a kit at Walmart pretty cheap and use whatever you have lying around. I'm gonna try making some more for a craft show I have coming up in April. I'll let you know how it goes.

Cindy (tinta)

I'M STILL ALIVE

I'm still alive. Been very, very busy. The baby goats have been keeping us busy. We're still trying to catch up on sleep. I have them down to three feedings a day. Oh, sleep is so good. I'm the type that if I don't get my 7 hours of solid sleep, I can't function. I've been getting 6 1/2 hours now and I seem to be surviving!!!

We've been working on building a loft and a large pen inside the barn, to house all the goats we have. We have a total of 2 adult does and 7 kids. We have had to sort thru everything we have been storing in the barn. I didn't realize how much crap we had. We have been selling, giving away and throwing away alot of stuff. BUT, there is still alot left. I will admit that most of it is now my stuff. I really do have plans for most of it, tho. If we ever get the goats situated, I might be able to have some time to put all that stuff to use!!! At this point, it's not looking like it's gonna be in the near future. When we get the pen done, we have to start on the fencing on the outside. A woman's work is never done!!(ha,ha) We haven't been getting any help from our son or daughter. Our son is working on the new house that him and his girlfriend got. They've been ripping up carpet and sanding & staining the hardwood floor. They've been working their tails off. Our daughter has been busy with cleaning up the mess left over from their corn crib being tore apart from the wind.

Now for a few pictures of our loft and pen project.....

I always forget to get the before pictures. As you can see, the loft is up. A friend of ours came over to help us with the stairs. He's a carpenter and it only took him about 2 hours to get them done.

Here's all my stuff, packed into the corner. It won't be able to stay there long cuz we will have to put the kidding pens here.

This a stack of 12" clay tile and wood on top of them. This is some of the stuff that was left here when we bought our house. I hate to admit it but that was nearly 10 years ago. I've wanted to use the clay tiles for something but never could come up with and idea. Then stuff kept getting pile on top of them and in front of them, then I couldn't get to them, even if I would have come up with some idea.

Kitty was exhausted. He had a hard day checking out all the new smells and waiting for us to stir up a mouse or two while we were working. No mice so far!!!

One of the geese thought he had to check out what was going on.

Oh, I forgot. Here's a few angel's that I had made before all the building began. My junking has been put on hold for now.

Hope you enjoyed all the pictures. I'll try to remember to keep taking pictures of the progress.

Cindy (tinta)

PICTURES OF TRIPLETS AND CORN CRIB

Haven't had much sleep since the triplets joined our family. They need to be fed every 4 hours. Do you realize it's been nearly 20 years since we have had to get up for those late evening and early morning feedings!?! I'm not sure if our alarm clock can handle the weird hours either. Enough whining about sleep loss, here's some pictures of the triplets.....

My 3 year old granddaughter and me. I'm playing with the buckling. We're calling him 'Bucky". As you can see, he likes when I push on his head. I am going to regret playing with him like that. When he gets 100+ pounds with horns, I have a feeling I'm gonna be in trouble!!!(lol)

Me and both granddaughters. My daughter is taking the pictures. We just got done feeding them. We wanted to get a picture of the girls feeding them but it turned out to be more of a chore than we thought!!(haha) We weren't able to get all three goats and both girls in the picture at the same time. The one year old kept calling them "key-key" short for kitty-kitty. She calls all animals 'key-keys'.

In another post I mentioned the corn crib at my daughters house. Well, she brought her camera that had pics of the crib on it. So I downloaded them on my computer to show you.

This is where it is supposed to be.

This is where it ended up.

Up and over the boat. The boat didn't move, but the crib must have hit it cuz the side of it has a dent in it.

Aside from the high winds, we've been having rain. So much rain it is starting to seep into our basement now. We don't live far from the Illinois River but far enough that it doesn't effect us but the weather man says it's above the flood stage. This morning they are saying that the smaller rivers and streams are rising to flood level. I'm feeling for the local farmers right about now. Especially the ones that farm next to the Spoon River. That river seems to over flow its banks and into the fields. It's going to take a long time for the ground to dry up before they can get the fields planted. Gotta love Mother Nature!!!

Have a good day

Cindy (tinta)

Quick Update

Just wanted to take a few minutes to update ya'll. Thursday and friday the weather got up to the 60's, so I was outside enjoying the sun and warmth. Got a little bit done outside but I still got a lot to do to get ready for spring. Friday afternoon our other doe had her babies. We got twins again. She had a girl and a boy. I walked out to the barn to check on them at about 2:15 and she was is full labor so I stuck around to see if she might need my help. Mother Nature is so amazing!!! I will post pictures of them later. Saturday we called to check on a fellow goat friend. He has been having bad luck with his does and babies. He has lost a few babies and on mom doesn't want to have anything to do with her babies. She had triplets. Our friend asked us if we wanted then triplets cuz he has no time to bottle feed them. So guess what....we have three, 4-day old babies. Two girls and 1 boy. Bottle feeding every four hours for about two weeks is going to be very time consuming but if we can save these babies it will be worth it. After about two weeks we'll be able to cut back to every six hours. So far babies are doing good and they've taken to the bottle like pros. I'll post pictures of them later, too.
It's about time to get the bottles ready. Darn, it started raining again. We are so swamp with water here. Hope the dehumidifier keeps up!!
If I can get over to my daughters between feedings I'll try to get pictures of her place. She thinks a tornado may have gone thru last night. When they got up this morning, their wooden corn crib wasn't were it was supposed to be. There wasn't much left of the crib to begin with, just the shell and the tin roof but it got picked up and sat back down next to the barn that is about 75 feet away. The granddaughters plastic toys are still in the same place as they were the night before. Go figure!!! Hey, didn't I just say "Mother Nature is amazing"?

Pictures coming soon.
Cindy (tinta)

I JUST GOT AN AWARD FROM KUDZU

KudzuKween was so sweet to send me an award. Now I am to list my top 5 things I am addicted to and send this on to 5 people. My list could be longer than 5 addictions but I will narrow it down. Here goes.....

1) My current addiction is my goats. The twins especially. They are so adorable and fun to watch.

2) JUNK. Oh, the things I have learned from fellow bloggers and junk sites.

3) My granddaughters. At 3 1/2 and 1, they sure are adorable. So much fun to have around.

4) Garage sales, thrift stores, auctions. They are so addicting.

5) Blogging. I've only been blogging since December 2008 and I've been having a blast. I have met sooooo many wonderful people.

Okay, so here are the 5 people. These are some really creative blogs.

1) Snowman Hill. A mother daughter team.

2) Refunction Junction. JunkerMidge

3) Random Vintage Finds. Jennifer

4) Red Neck Chic. Robelyn

5) Fluffy Flowers. Felicia

Thanx Kudzu

Cindy (tinta)

TWO NEW KIDS YESTERDAY

Let me just start out by saying, I was hard on myself this weekend. Friday night we ended up having several people show up at our house. Rick and Tracy showed up around 8:00p.m. They were on their way back home from a visitation (which we had been to earlier). We talked about the good ole days, the grandkids, etc, etc. Then Gerald and Helen stopped by about 9:00p.m. All of us have been friends from grade school. Well, out came the "drinks". The music was blaring and we were all having a good time. Rick and Tracy left around midnight. Then before we knew it, it was about 3:00a.m. and Helens daughter came out to party with the old people. The dancing started and we danced and talked till 6:00a.m. Yep, you read that right, 6 o'clock in the morning. I can't even remember the last time I stayed up for 24 hours!!!! Actually, I'm not sure when the last time I had a 'drink'. Well, and I can say it will be a long time before I have another one. In a month I will be 45 years old. To me, 45, is not really that old. Until you start acting like your 25!!! (haha) Now, I know how far I can push this aging body. I did absolutely nothing all day saturday except sleep. I told my husband it was his fault, cuz about 4:30a.m. he decided to fix us all breakfast. I should have never ate.

Okay, now on to the "kids". Sunday morning, I was feeling a little more like myself. My hubby went out to take care of the animals that morning. All is well on the farm. So he decided to go to Menards to buy some lumber. I chose to stay home this time. I'm feeling better but not ambitious!! After he got home and lumber unloaded a friend called so out the door he went. He said he would check on the goats before leaving. We knew that they could be kidding at any time this week. So at about 1:00 he checked on the goats and left. He returns just before 4:00 and goes to the barn with another load of lumber. Don't you just love friends and unload their extras on ya??? He came walking up to the house at a steady pace. I didn't think much about it. Then he walked in the door announcing we have twin kids. Within the 3 hours that he was gone, one of our does had given birth to 2 bouncing babies. Well, let me tell you, I got my cover-alls, boots, hat, gloves and coat on in record time. Oh, I couldn't forget the camera. Here are our 3 hour old kids. I tried to get the best shots that I could get. But I'm sure most of you know that giving birth is a pretty messy situation.

WARNING: IF THE SIGHT OF BLOOD BOTHERS YOU, DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER. I TRIED TO CROP OUT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE AND TRIED TO PICK THE PICTURES WITH THE LEAST AMOUNT. I JUST COULDN'T GET THE GOATS TO POSE FOR THESE PICTURES. (lol)

We are awaiting our other doe to kid at this time. I will be checking on her throughout the day and will post when we have more news.

Cindy (tinta)