Friday

TGIF!

Been a busy week. Busy busy, my mantra lately. The kids' school had open house this week. The teachers are thrilled to have them back, and Willow's teacher started off with a string of compliments that left me teary-eyed and only able to reply, "I am blessed."

The Firebird's primary objective was to have me go to a meeting with the computer tech to enable him to bring his new mac top home. Finally tonight, permissions signed, meeting attended, and insurance activated, the laptop arrived hoome in his backback,and he and his sister spent hours making videos of silly stuff, using a twist feature.

One of the vids he was playing a bulbous-headed, tiny-chinned alien from some star system. Another one, featured both of them, with Willow howling ,"I am getting squished," whereupon she morphed into Phoenix's face next to her and they finally disappeared into a blur with much hysterical laughter.

File sharing between comps isn't allowed nor emails and you tube and all the good stuff, so I have to figure out how to cop the vids to post a few. They are really funny.

Another cool feature (macs are so good for art stuff) is the garage band, where he selects different instruments and clicks and drags measures full to create his own song.

Speaking of which, his band teacher is raving about how great he is on trumpet ( I keep saying, did you tell him you didn't play all summer or much last year?) Ah, the gifted have it easy. I should make him practice an hour a day and see how good he gets then. His big brother was the same on trombone-natural. The Willow is sulking since she was told by the music teacher she has to wait another year to join band.

She LOVES her art teacher and is producing drawings at a phenomenal rate. Not that she didn't already-it's just tripled. I'm going to need to rent a box trailer to keep it all in.

me-boring slave labor stuff-worked on cementing posts to re-do a gate. Still, I had a late teens boy(man I should say) for help, a different one for each of the last two days, and I find them easy helpers. I had a couple tips for them, such as spiking the posts with 20D nails to help grab the cement, and wetting stones to layer in as filler and for strength and to make the cement go further.

Two of us mixing the cement in a tippy wheelbarrow-and we managed not to dump it. I didn't mind my deoderant quitting, since I could tell my helper today must have forgotten his completely...LOL

I stayed to put in another post, sans cement, and barraged R with instructions for the bucks as he was leaving. R has had the summer off, and the buck population has increased in meantime.

"If you can't catch Cairn, leave him outside the gate til the end, or he will beat on the Lars"

P, who rarely does the bucks, said, "or just tie Lars outside the gate."

I replied with, "well, he'll beat on everybody else then."

And, "Jacolby gets tied with a collar from the hoof bucket."

"All the big guys get 1/4 measure of grain, 1/2 for Lars and Monarch and Jacolby, and here's the little guys' grain who get fed separate." (well, he knew that from the spring anyhow)

and, "don't let them all in at once."

Let me tell you, letting 19 big bucks with horns in rut into a small enclosure to collar and tie them is courting injury. Most of them are trying to mate with the others, who are fighting back, and while they might not come after you, if you get in the middle, you are going to get hurt. Nevermind you have to put your face down low to snap the chain on the hooks near the ground. One of the guys caught a horn in the throat earlier in the week.

The bucks have two large pastures with electric fence, and a smaller enclosure with woven wire and their houses. They still get out for a walk everyday; just to clarify they have fenced pasture and are not relying on walks for browse. They are just spoiled.

I was happy to stay back on fence work and have the filly slobber all over my unattended mug, knock my thermos off the well, and yank my coat off the fence.

****

Interesting ride to work this am- right before the farm,a pick up truck off the road head first into a tree with the airbag deployed-no sign of the driver, but a state cop with flashers and a garbage bag (must have been beer can evidence) next to the truck. Then as I got to the farm, I thought one of the horses (the filly-Maya's way too fat to fit the profile) was in the road.

A car was stopped way beyond, and then I saw it was a MOOSE! a giant one, as it turned and walked off the road along the farm fence into the woods. So I grabbed my camera and jumped out of the car, and the other car pulled up and I had a nice chat with the couple. It was a BULL moose with ONE antler-ummmm, I decided I was NOT chasing after it for a pic, sorry readers...ever seen the video of the moose attacking and annihilating a car? well, I wasn't going to walk up and say, "SMILE". he-he.

Probably the truck hit the tree avoiding the moose and it was the missing antler in the bag.

After work this afternoon, Peko had his...shuuuushhh, lean close, *whispers* -vet appointment- for his vaccinations. He was a big scaredy cat going in, but didn't flinch at the shots and even whined at the cutest black lab /hound puppy in the waiting room. Peko weighed 74 pounds. Half that of Gandalf (my old male bullmastiff) in his prime. But at least Peko had gained 10 pounds since we adopted him.

The kids both had separate field trips this week. Willow was VERY excited she got to touch a dog shark, and saw a 45 pound lobster, and a blue lobster, and an even rarer yellow lobster (they looked cooked when they are alive)

Busy busy.

Yup, I am going to try and sleep in tomorrow!

*edit* crap I just remembered I forgot to tell R about the yellow jacket nest!Right where we usually tie two of the bucks. :O OOPs