2010-Feb.15 Joseph's Routine with the Chickens

checking the feed . . . . . . . this one has the broken leg

This one lets me pet him . . . . . .& this one too / . . . . this one is getting BIG

When Joseph gets home from school his routine is: Feed chickens, Feed pony, Eat, do homework, read. Well, I am sure it goes more like this - eat, feed chickens/pony, eat, homework, eat, read.

Today, I picked him up from school, since I was home - Holiday - President's Day. So I took more pics of him. Pa has told him "Don't pet or play with the chickens. They are not pets." Hmmm, I don't think Joseph "heard" him. I caught him petting the chickens. "This one has a broken leg - so he tried to help him get to the feed / and this one is the mean one / and this one will let me pet him." Then we went inside and he made me some popcorn. "Yum, Yum. Thanks Joseph, that was just right."

2010-Jan.11 We're Ready for the Chickens

Our New Neighbors - for a while anyway!

Bryan, Krystyn, Jackson & Parker will be moving into

their own place soon-this week or next week. Oh, my.. it's gonna

be so quiet here, none of us will know what to do.

But we won't be lonely for very long. We are getting

"new boarders". They will have their very own house though.

Bryan and Krystyn- hope y'all aren't too jealous about this.

These "boarders" will be. . . . . . . . . . .

On MY Driveway!! OMG!

Chickens! "50" of them.... ARE WE CRAZY?!

Don't answer that please!

This is Joseph's 4-H project -raising chickens!
For the LiveStock Show - March 2010

Above-Chickens new home with the heat lamps on!

Johnny will be picking them up - all 50 of them -

on Wednesday, Jan. 13th. I guess we're ready for them.

Oh Yea! I will be having surgery on Friday,15th on my Left shoulder-I have a small tear on my Rotator cuff. Not looking forward to this at all-I tried to prevent this by going to Physical Therapy, then I tried steriod shots-several of them - they wouldn't give me anymore. So now!-surgery! YUK! Johnny will be a busy man on Friday.

He is going to take me to have the surgery, then will "drop me off" and then go help Bryan move, IF, that is, it's not raining like the weather channel is predicting. Maybe by Saturday it will blow through. OR, maybe it won't get here until Saturday. Only time will tell.

Hope you stay dry where ever you may be. I know I will be stuck in the house - recuperating.

Sunday Neighbors Visiting July 26th

Our neighbors stopped by this morning, but we almost missed them!

Since we had such a late night after driving home from the Houston concert - WYNONNA!!

We slept late, really late, we woke up about 11. We got up slowly, I sat down in my glider rocker, put my feet on the glider ottoman, then Johnny slowly walked in the living room, looked out the front window and said, "Look at the deer!" There were 9 deer in the front yard. A momma and her baby were...umm... standing in the pool of water that we put out for them. It was neat, they were cooling off, I guess. I snapped a few pictures, before they were spooked by something and fled into our "shady dell" that they stay in. Their safe haven.

The whole herd ran down our driveway and turned left into the shady dell for their afternoon resting spots. Keep cool little ones. I will put clean, cool water in the pools for your next visit.

Come back soon, we can't wait, we always enjoy seeing you!!!

"Shadow" the bunny rabbit

I have some sad news, Joseph found "Shadow" (the rabbit) in his cage. . . dead. Another animal gone, we are not having good luck with keeping animals. But I think this one was because it has been just toooo hot. Poor little guy. And poor Joseph is the one to always find them. It gets so emotional about our pets. Well, we will try again, but not right away. We will need to give this some time. Well, on a happier note. . . . We had 9 deer - 3 babies & 6 doe: 2 of the babies are twins. They were there in the evening and then again the next morning. We have seen them even at mid-day coming to drink out of what is left of our lake. We have even bought a small pool for water, which they drink out of in the evening, when they come to feed.

Miscellaneous Pictures on a Saturday

Saturday was pictures taking day at our house.

"Cream & Sugar" . . . . . . . . . & "Flower"

Joseph took my camera today an took a few pictures of the pets. I am glad that someone else likes to take pictures besides me.

Meet...."Mr. Cool Cat".....

Joseph also likes to "clown" around.

He put sun glasses on his bobcat laying on his bed.

He is so silly, isn't he!?!

We saw this HUGE grasshopper on the front porch on the back of a chair on the front porch. I don't think I have ever seen such a big grasshopper before. Boy! that one could catch 1 big fish, if we had water in our lake to have fish, that is.

Driving over to Cuero to see Dad today, we stopped when we saw a couple of dogs barking at something by a fence. We saw this doe standing there like she was just posing for this picture.

New Pet at our House

Well, we have acquired a new pet. This one is a bunny. Cute little bunny.

For this pet, I asked grandchildren and a nephews and nieces to send in a name for the bunny.

I got some very cute names from everyone. I know I took a long time to pick a name, but we finally had the drawing today to name bunny.

And the winning name is SHADOW. Damian submitted that name and Joseph wanted to enter that name too. So the name was entered twice.

Thanks to everyone that played the name game.

So now bunny will be called SHADOW.

We have Adopted a Little One

Look what we have!!
The cutest little baby goat ever.
Joseph named her "Flower" - from the book "Bambi" - and the skunks name is "Flower".
He likes the book. so he picked 1 of the characters name that fit our little one.
I think it fits-she is so sweet and has become attached to "Cream and Sugar". She follows him everywhere. I think he has picked him as a surrogate father. And thats okay too. They will take care of each other then.

A Tragic Story

Our Sweet little goats - Thank You to Ken L. & his wonderful family
- - - we got some great little pets to love and take care of, but there
is a sad end to this wonderful story of our pets that we got to love for
only a very short time.


Nora (left) & Dora (right) Jackson with Nora & Dora

This is "Cream & Sugar" our Shetland Pony

We have some very sad, very awful news. Some awful, bloodthirsty dogs came on to OUR property and killed our pet Goats - Nora & Dora. These goats were bottled fed since birth and given to us by some great people who entrusted them to our care. We even were expecting some babies - yes these goats were gonna be momma goats and didn't get the chance. We got home after work on Tuesday, luckily Joseph stayed over at some friends house to eat dinner, and Johnny found these poor little, defenseless pets slaughtered in their own shelter- their "safe haven". Even worse, 1 of the vicious animals stayed cowered in the shelter with our babies. And then even worse, there was another 1 lingering around. We called the Sheriff's Dept. and they in turn called the animal control and an ACO came out to pick up the 2 that lingered around their kill. There is a pack of about 5-6 animals that roam our area. They do not stay on their own property. And even worse yet, the owners have until Monday to pick these killing creatures up. That is terrible, that animals can kill other animals and then be set free to kill again. We had some roaming chickens in our area, but ever since these killing creatures have moved in, all those little defenseless creatures are gone too. When will this stop? How can we stop this? We were told by the sheriff's officer that these "goody, goody animal lovers" have interfered enough that we can not shoot animals killing our animals, only if they are harming people. So these idiots don't have sense enough to realize once these creatures kill they will just do it again since they have a taste for it now.

We also have a shetland pony, his name is Cream & Sugar. He got some scratches on his legs from these horrible animals. And he is missing his little buddies. He walks over to their shelter and looks in from time to time. It is just tragic that this has happened. And especially since we can't do a darn thing about it. It's so sad.

So Much To Do - So Little Time To Do It

John Thomas with his new car- Black Nissan Sentra -
he is really enjoying a car this time

Damian, Jacquelyn & Joseph feeding
"Boo" the donkey

We're staying warm by the fire

Grandkids roasting marshmallows

Saturday, November 29, 2008 -

Alot happening here, John Thomas got a new car. A Nissan Sentra - Black - automatic - very nice. He is very proud of it and was ready for a car.

Then Kendra, Joe, Jacquelyn and Damian came to spend the weekend with us.

The kids got to feed a donkey named "Boo" and a horse named "Big Jone". They fed them carrots and celery leftover from Thanksgiving- THANK YOU, AUNT KK- for the vegetables. And also, they fed them deer feed.

In the evening, Jacquelyn wanted to sit out by the fire and roast marshmallows. So, that's what we did. The kids had a blast eating those burnt marshmallows. But Jacquelyn only wanted hers "lightly browned".

We woke up to Kendra and Joe making us breakfast. Yum! When can you come back to do this again, it was so good.

Then I got the kids to make me an ornament for this year. This year Joseph & I had picked up a reindeer kit at Hobby Lobby. The kids (& Kendra too!) got to make 1 to leave for me (signed & dated) and 1 to take home. I have 1 for Jackson too! - he will make his next weekend when he comes to stay overnight while his Dad & Mom go to San Antonio for a Discount Tire Christmas party and will be back Sunday.

Lunch Time - Oh my-Who could be hungry? Us of course. Kendra & Joe made the best grilled ham/honey/cheese sandwiches for lunch. Thanks for watching Food Network. Yum,Yum!!

and the cappuccinos too! Wow, I won't be able to eat until Christmas.

I am stuffed. Man, Joe really likes to cook! I need to hire him for every meal.

Wildlife at the Feeders & Our Big Bow Hunter

Johnny had put out corn on the left side of the house (by John's window) hanging off 1 of the trees. Around noon today we noticed a squirrel at the corn. So I camped out for a little while watching through the window. Mr. Squirrel was really going after that ear of corn. Until another squirrel came along and started a "fight" over who was gonna get the corn 1st.

Then this evening, I walked out on the front porch and "froze" when I saw this buck by the deer feeder.

Despite, Joseph down at the lake "practicing with his bow and arrow"

and Johnny on the right side of the house "sweeping" out the back of his truck.

The buck walked off the same way he came up to the feeder. But not before I snapped a couple of pictures. Then, to our surprise, he came back out about 10 minutes later. He really wanted that "rotten pumpkin" that we had to throw out already. He sniffed around for a while, then walked around our lake to our neighbor's feeder. Johnny called him to alert him, and he was already sitting on his front porch. He had seen 2 bucks this morning.

I just love living out here!