RUSH is here, RUSH is here!

Well it is that time of year for me.....RUSH.  For those who do not know what that is, it is the two weeks before college starts and the two weeks following school starting.  RUSH, RUSH, RUSH.  That is all that we seem to do is RUSH. As the bookkeeper at a college bookstore, this is the busiest time of the year for me.  Fall and Spring Rush keeps me overwhelmed, understaffed and wore out completely!  Financial aid, rentals, millions of receipts, credit cards, charge accounts, billing....the list goes on and on!   The older I get the more I dread RUSH!   Oh well, can't change it and other than detesting RUSH I love my job!

Onto better subjects! We got two more ducks! I may become the crazy duck lady! I love the ducks! We now have a blue Swedish and two female mallards.   They are so stinking cute.  I loved watching our blue Swedish, Mr. Wiggles show his lady friends around!

We had to separate our duck(Mr. Wiggles) from the three roosters....better known as The Three Amigos because the roosters kept picking on him. He was so sad to not be with them and having to be alone, but we found him a couple of friends and I think he will be fine now!
The Three Amigos didn't take to kindly to not being allowed in their chicken run and chicken coop anymore, but until we get the Waddle Waddle Duck Resort built, the ducks get the run and the coop and the roosters get the barn and free range!
Probably in the Spring we will get some pullets so that we can have some laying hens, but there will be no more roosters, but definitely more ducks!

A Little Bit of Rambling.

It has been almost a month since I blogged.   Life sure does get busy sometimes.  I really don't know where this month has gone.  

The best part of this month is that my hubby and I celebrated 22 years of marriage this month! Yea us! I sure do love my hubby! He is definitely a keeper!

Today was a sad day on the farm...our sweet cat, Mr. Beasley had a run in on Highway 114 and did not survive.  Poor Dennis unfortunately is who found him on  the side of the highway right in front of our house.  Dennis is such an animal lover and it was heartbreaking for him to be the one to find him.

Mr. Beasley will be missed. He was an awesome cat and just the sweetest baby ever.  Rest in peace Mr. Beasley, we love you and will miss you.

I recently had a long talk with my Mom and it really opened my eyes to some things. I hate that my sister and I had talked several times in the last several months and talked about the fact that Mom just always seemed grumpy and just flat out unhappy and so unlike herself anymore.  A few weeks ago my kiddos, who are 19 and almost 21 went and surprised my family for a weekend. My kiddos came home and said they really didn't enjoy being around my Mom that she seemed moody and just overall grumpy.  This floored me. I called my sister who lives by Mom and asked her what was going on.  She told me, "that is Mom for you."  My sister and I talked and we agreed something had to change. She sat my Mom down and told her exactly how she had made my kiddos feel and it broke my poor Mom's heart! She would never do anything to hurt one of her grand kids and we all knew that was true. She decided to go to the doctor and he said she definitely has anxiety and prescribed something to help her during stressful situations, but more importantly he told her she has to learn how to deal with stress.  If there is anything anyone gets out of this blog....please let it be this.....people age, and as we age life isn't always as easy to handle as we think it should be.  Things that may have never upset or bothered us before all of the sudden does.   Please, please, please, if you notice someone you love has started to have a personality change, they seem easily upset or stressed, or moody or depressed or negative a lot....love them enough to lovingly talk to them and ask them what is going on and be honest and let them know that you have noticed a difference in their personality.    Mom told me, "I knew that things got to where they were bothering me more, I just didn't realize that it was effecting me in a way that was evident to other people."   
Take care of your family people! It is the only one you got!!!

We have been so much time outside doing yard work and farm maintenance that I haven't been online a whole lot, but I am still here so God bless everyone hope you  had a great July and remember August is just around the corner!

Busy, Busy Bee, Oh My Oh Me!

Wow life sure has been busy lately! I made a promise to myself that when I started this blog, it was really just a journal for me and for my family and friends to be able to follow along and keep up with our journey here at Itty Bitty Acres.  I promised myself that I would blog daily!!! Hahahaha! Epic fail on my part!.....I had good intentions, but sometimes my brain is so tired by the time evening rolls around that I can't think of a thing to blog about, and yet all day long a million things went thru my head.   Go figure.   I will be exhausted and then lay down to go to sleep and think of a million things that I want to write about, but I know if I get up and start writing it will wake me up and then 5:45am will come way too soon.
So what has been going on at Itty Bitty Acres? 
  Well we have been working our tails off on the chicken run and chicken coop. Had to do some maintenance work on the barn, had to do some major yard work, we are still cleaning up debris from the last wind storm and we both have been super busy at work, you know the place......the one that actually pays you! lol. 
We had company come out and visit with all of the animals one night so that was fun and the weather here has been H-O-T, HOT. I am talking 108, 105, 104, hot. We still had to be out in the heat working around the property and I think we overdid it just a little bit.  This past weekend, we chilled out a little and only worked outside in the early morning hours, and the evening hours.  We even sneaked in an afternoon nap on Saturday!!!!!!Can you believe it???? Me taking a nap is almost unheard of and if I do take a nap I take a 15 minute power nap and that is it and those are very rare, but on Saturday I told my husband that I was taking a nap and that he should too!

His response was "Really?" (I won't lie, I am known as quite the slave driver!)
 I replied, "Really."  
His response was, "For how long?" 
and my answer was, "until we wake up" 
and his response was, "Is this a trick?"

I assured him it was not and I crashed on the love seat and he crashed on the sofa and 3 and 1/2 hours later, I woke up......and felt like I had been hit by a truck! It made me remember why I don't take naps!!!! My hubby on the other hand, said it made him feel great!

THEN.......on Sunday afternoon, he took another nap and I read a really good book!  So that was our week in a nutshell.......oh

And we got to watch one of our chickens peck my poor Nigerian Dwarf goat in the butt!!!! Poor dear felt violated I am sure, then yesterday said chicken pecked me on the foot, and pecked Buzz our miniature horse on the nose and then tonight took off chasing our cat....Poor Mr. Beasley didn't know what to think!!! 

Oh and did I mention that I think that we have three roosters?????? Yep I think that just might be the case.....wonder if that is why the little booger that is pecking everyone?   

Well that is our adventurous week here at Itty Bitty Acres in a nutshell. 
How was your week?
God Bless Everyone!

It Is Monday!

Good evening everyone!!!! I hope everyone had an awesome Monday and enjoyed their weekend! I wish we could have 3 day weekends....1 day for indoor cleaning, 1 day for outdoor cleaning, and 1 day for having nothing but fun.......
(sigh)..wouldn't that be nice?

We had a very good weekend, worked hard on the chicken run, hopefully get more done on the coop this next weekend and mowed the entire 2 and 1/2 acres and weed eated until the weed eater died :( I think we might have spent a little too much time in the heat, both my hubby  and I kind of felt icky last night.

We both had a busy day today at work and I came home and discovered that my son's $1200 laptop had crashed! I am beyond furious!  This is a Dell laptop that is a year and a half old. We paid $150 back in February because it did the infamous blue screen of death. Last time they told us it was an operating system issue, this time they say it is a virus in the boot drive.  Hmmm.....so it is doing the exact same thing, but the cause is not the same? Imagine that?   For another $150 they will fix it again......SMH.   I have bought $300 Acer laptops from Walmart that are better than this! My son had to have this particular laptop with a Terabyte hard drive and some fancy video card in order to do Architecture at Texas Tech.......$1200 in my book is freaking expensive to last a year and a half and go down twice!
I don't know who we will get to fix it, but I know it won't be DELL. I think their computers and their customer service sucks!
Onto better topics, went outside to visit all of our feathered friends and fur buddies and all my cares just went away watching them run and play. While watching them chase bugs and each other I forgot about the fact that I had a $1350 paper weight in the form of  a laptop, that our weed eater died, and now the industrial fan for the dogs and cats out in the shop has died as well.....oh and did I forget to mention that we now have a bad tire on the boat trailer, and the hot tub now has a leak we can't find?
Everything aside.....I love my life here at Itty Bitty Acres.
Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Life Is Too Short To Be Anything But Happy!

I hope everyone had an awesome Friday night and a great Saturday!   I had a long day at work yesterday, but chose to have a quiet night at home just me and the hubby last night, and we enjoyed just chilling on the couch watching videos of animals on YouTube.  Does that mean we are officially old? lol 
Today we hit the floor running.  We went and let our feathered friends out of the coop and opened up the outdoor enclosure for the pheasants. We heard a "cock-a-doodle-grrrr". Yea we thought we had three pullets.....I am thinking not!  I just hope we don't have three Roos!  After that it was off to run errands to all the usual places....Gebos, Feedstore, Grocery store and Gas station.  Then it was back home to work on the chicken run......

We made them a "Dust Bathing Area" with sand.....hopefully they will enjoy it.

We made Mr. Wiggles,(the duck) a pond and set him up with a place of his own!

And we mowed and we tilled

 and we lay down straw

 and we framed out the doorway for the coop and ......we are tired. Very tired. And to finish the day off I dropped my cell phone in the chicken run....

I really hope that is dirt on my phone and not chicken poo!!!

We had a very productive day! Guess I will mow and weed eat tomorrow and we will work on the coop again tomorrow.......

WEEKENDS JUST GO TOO FAST! HAVE I SAID THAT BEFORE?????/
Well I am one tired country gal and I think my big comfy bed is calling my name!
Good night and God Bless.

Rain, Rain And More Rain~ But I Am Not Complaining~

Four nights and counting....that is how many evenings I have not worked on my chicken run because of rain.  Is it frustrating? Yes. But we need the rain so bad that I am willing to be patient and wait.  It has poured down in rain every night since Monday night. We have had a tornado touch down about 11 miles away, we have had baseball size hail 20 miles away, we have had wind in excess of 60 mph less than 10 miles away. But at our place we have had rain. Good old soil seeking, tree loving, grass growing rain.......and tons of weeds! lol. That is ok too though because I will take the weeds if that is what I have to do to get the rain.   Of course, now that it has rained for four nights in a row I am sure I will spend my weekend trying to mow down this 2 1/2 acres and working on the coop and run.

My heart goes out to those losing their homes in Colorado to forest fires.  I can not imagine what they are going through and to the  people in Oklahoma who lost their homes to tornadoes.   Sometimes I think we are guilty of getting so caught up in our "worries" that we don't stop to take time and realize that probably more times than most our " worries" are so small in comparison to others.

I complained to my hubby that we didn't get around to replacing one of the fiberglass "skylights" in the barn before the rain hit on Monday.  What damage is being done? Rain is pouring down on the dirt floor directly below the damaged area.  The rain is doing no harm whatsoever, but just the thought that we didn't get it fixed before the rain annoyed me....oh well, I can get over it.  There are people in Colorado that don't have a barn or a house because of the fires, so my worry is small in comparison.

So tonight I ask all the wonderful people out there to please take a break from your busy life and all your worries, and say a prayer to all of those out there that are going through hard times right now, I am sure they would appreciate an extra prayer or two.  
God Bless from my family, my feathered friends, and my fur buddies.

Oh What A Beautiful Day!

Today is a most wonderful day! Nineteen years ago today I became the Mommy to a wonderful young man~ my son Joshua!  So today was all about him! He got to sleep in, and when I got off work I made him his favorite treat, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and then cooked him his favorite meal, Cheese Enchiladas, Black Beans and Spanish Rice.  He is the best son ever and I am so privileged to have him. He is super intelligent, and super kind. He has such a good heart and has good christian values and morals.   Like I said, I could not be more proud of the man he is becoming.   I love you Joshua!

The storms came in this evening and brought some strong winds, but doesn't look like any damaged was done; however, we did get some heavy rain, which we need desperately!

Hopefully the rain will seep into the soil slowly during the night.  We have been in Exceptional Drought conditions going on two years now, so this is definitely welcomed!

Tonight I am being kind of random, but I am in a random kind of mood! Went to hang out and pet the horses yesterday afternoon and I discover that Beauty, our miniature black Arabian mare has a swollen eye and it is full of gunk! We had just started the male miniature Arabian horse on allergy medicine because he had been snorting a lot! So I started Beauty on allergy medicine and I am happy to say that they both seem to be doing lots better tonight!

Then I noticed last night that our cat Mittens had a swollen front leg and was limping!!! I am happy to report that he came up on the porch earlier and seems like he is fine. All swelling gone and walking ok.

 Well I guess that is all for me tonight. Done a little crafting and a little blogging, now it is time to do a little laundry and then off to bed.  
I hope everyone has a wonderful restful night sleep.
God Bless.

   

Weekends End Way Too Soon.......

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, and if possible I hope you were able to celebrate a father in your life!  I wasn't able to spend Father's Day with my daddy who I love dearly, but I was able to spend it with my sweet husband who has been a daddy to our kiddos since 1993. I can't even begin to describe what a wonderful daddy my husband is to our kids.  He has always been there for the kids when they needed him, no questions asked.

And......he is just as devoted to his animals! As you can see, there are three things in this world that makes my sweetie very happy.....ME, his kids, and his animals!!!!


This awesome man and I spent most of the weekend working on the chicken run and it has came a long way, but we still are not finished. Early mornings and late evenings made dents in all there is to do, but the midday heat sure slowed us down at times.  The following pictures are some of the activities that went on at Itty Bitty Acres this weekend!

We planted five Butterfly bushes and surrounded them with fencing so the birdies don't eat them, made a center support system to keep the netting up higher, and made a gate to go into the chicken run.  Still not done, but we made a lot of progress. When the run is finished we will start on the coop.  Baby steps, definitely baby steps.  
Well that was my weekend in a nutshell, how was yours?
God Bless

Busy Saturday

Whew!  Boy am I tired tonight! I got up at six o'clock this morning and I hit the floor running.  I managed to sweep, dust, fold laundry, clean both bathrooms and pay a few bills before 9 am!  Then my sweet hubby and I headed outdoors. We fed all of the animals, let the chickens and duck out to free range, and started working on the chicken run some more.  Den started digging post holes to put up two support poles in the middle of the run to keep the netting up and I continued to attach the chicken wire to the pole fencing that is already up.  I think I have twisted and snipped off so much wire that I am going to dream about it in my sleep!   Once we got the two poles in the ground and filled with concrete we started digging holes to put the five butterfly bushes in place.   Den dug(thank goodness) while I put the bushes in place, and then I placed some landscaping brick around each bush.  Tomorrow we will place chicken wire and screen around each bush so that the chickens can peck at them. Hopefully this will provide them with some shelter and shade in the future.   After being outside for about 4 hours and starting to really feel the Texas heat, we decided to go in. After cleaning up we headed to go run errands and buy groceries. By the time we got home it was already after 4 O'clock.  We unloaded groceries, put everything away and once again headed outside.  A little more work on the chicken run, some yard work and pet time and then back indoors we went. 
I made sausage gravy and biscuits for supper~nothing like breakfast for supper and then we ate, cleaned up the kitchen, went and put all of the animals up for the night and here I sit at almost 10 o'clock and I can honestly say that I am ready to call it a night and go to bed!!!
Hopefully I will get pictures posted tomorrow so please stay tuned!
How was your Saturday?
Hope it was awesome. Goodnight and God Bless.

Weekend Here I Come!

Is everyone as excited as I am that the weekend is here? I am so glad to finally have a few days off to just hang around the place and do what I want!!! We plan on making a gate for the Chicken Run, maybe planting some plants, and of course fencing them off so that my feathered friends can't get to them yet, and hopefully get some more yard work done, repair some areas in the barn roof and finish my crafting storage cabinet so that I can start re-organizing my craft stuff!

I worked until 3pm this afternoon and then came home and used the weed eater and 3 hours, and a lot of screaming later I managed to get about 2/3 of the property done! Hopefully I can finish up this weekend and I might even manage to convince myself to use the riding lawn mower to mow the ditch down the side of the property!(The ditch has a steep incline and makes me super nervous when I mow it).

We still have to move a couple of really large branches that fell during the storm this last week. My hubby will have to use the chainsaw on those before we will be able to move them though. I love living on our Itty Bitty Acres. It is only 2 1/2 acres, but with both me and my hubby working full time, we seem to always be busy trying to keep the place up, add to that taking care of animals, having one kid in college and living at home, crafting, cooking, gardening, antiquing, going to garage sales,and refinishing or re-purposing old things.......we stay soooooooooooo busy! Trust me though I AM NOT COMPLAINING! I love it! Wish I had more time to do more! I love to read, cook, clean(yes I know that is weird), scrapbook, craft, garden, do yard work, raise animals, refinish old furniture, re-purpose old things, recycle, sew, crochet(scarves only, I suck at anything else), canning, cruising on the pontoon at the lake, renovating our house, gutting and redoing our "itty bitty" travel trailer.....and the list goes on! lol We have a lot of family and friends that think we are crazy. I have had more than one person ask me, do you ever relax? I do relax, because when I am doing things that I love, it is relaxing. Do I get tired? Of course! Whether I am scrapbooking, or cooking or even if I sit down and read, if you do anything for a long enough period of time, it can make you tired, but for me it is a good kind of tired!

Well that is my two cents worth for today. Feathered friends have free ranged and we have tucked them into their coop, the goaties are all snug in their beds and the horses are chilling in the barn, while the pheasants are roosting high in the rafters. The dogs are crashed out on the back porch and the the cats are all out and about in the cool night air and I think this lady is going to call it a night so that I can hit the floor running tomorrow.
Goodnight, and God Bless.

Peace

Peace. Isn't that what we all want? Good old peace of mind.  After some potentially scary news(job related) yesterday, I stressed out, freaked out, and blew everything out of proportion I am sure.  Today after spending the day at work worrying and then coming home and as I pulled into my driveway I could see my horses grazing in the side lot, I could see the goats in their pen chilling out and I realized that if I would just let go and let God handle my job situation that all would be fine.  In that moment, I just let go.  Wow why didn't I do that yesterday?  I slept very little last night worrying about my job and what I should have been doing was praying for God's guidance. Not sure why we choose to hold onto worry but we do!  I came on in the house and when I got on my facebook page this is what I found:

Perfect. Wouldn't you say? Thank you Holly Parper for this. I needed it more than you know.

So I can honestly say that I have officially got my "happy" back and peace in my heart because I am confident that the Good Lord will steer me in the right direction.  Everyone have a fantastic evening.

God Bless

Stress Is Such A Mess!

I know that the Good Lord will never give us more than we can handle, but do you ever wish that maybe He didn't think you were quite so strong??????

Found out today that our corporate office is going to start doing a lot and I mean the main part, of my job. It is a company wide change.  What does that mean for me? Well I am a bookkeeper and the main part of my job, the part that I do EVERYDAY, will no longer need to be done by me.   So what will I do in the time it usually takes me to do those things? More importantly, why would they need bookkeepers in their stores if the main office can do the majority of it from there?  That is my question, but I am not getting any answers.   

Suffice it to say, I am stressed.  Although my husband is the official breadwinner in our family, my income is what allows us to have all of our feathered friends and fur buddies, plus pay for my kiddo's cars, and college education for my kiddos.  I was told not to worry because I do a lot more than just accounting, but.......yea I worry.  Seems logical to me that if they are doing away with the bookkeeping duties in their stores then that means they plan to do away with the bookkeepers.

I know I need to just have faith and turn it over to God, but you know as a mere human being, I am pointing more to the freaked out/stressed out side of things instead of the Let Go And Let God side of things.   So I am asking that everyone please pray for me. Pray that I will give my worries over to GOD and that no matter what is in store for me, it will be for the best.
God Bless.

Not Enough Hours In My Day!

There are not enough hours in my day!  Do you ever think that? I seem to think it daily!  I actually think it might be the one thing my hubby hears me say the most!!!!  
I had grand plans for last week and this past weekend and boy did it not go exactly according to plan!  I found out I was being gifted 3 chickens and a duck and I was SOOOO excited(still am!LOL)  So my "To DO" list was to get the chicken run up by the end of this last week so that on this past Saturday we could go collect our new feathered  friends and spend Saturday afternoon and Sunday enjoying the new additions........yea....it didn't quite work out that way~~~~~

Here is a pic of the new additions, plus Spanky and Buckwheat had to sneak into the pic too! lol

We are 90% done with the chicken run and although they technically have a chicken coop, we have a lot of work to do on it.

I don't know why, but I always feel like I just don't have enough time to do all of the things that I want to do! I know that probably sounds so cliche, but I seriously have came to the conclusion that sleep is just overrated!  Highly Overrated!!! If I didn't have to sleep those 6 hours every night in order to be able to function, I would so skip sleep for the fun stuff that I never seem to find enough time to do!

I am beginning to think that I am seriously delusional when it comes to time management.   I am seriously NOT superwoman, and I know this and yet I give myself such high expectations that I always end up sadly disappointing myself.

I had so many things planned for this weekend and of course there was no way possible that I could accomplish all of the things that I had planned, but I thought I should at least give it a shot!  Well I missed the "shot" by a long shot!!! lol

Planned to write on my blog on Sunday and Monday both, and here it is Tuesday night, after 10pm, even though I promised myself this morning that I would be in bed by 10pm tonight and I am just now writing the blog I had intended to write for two days. 

I love my life and all of the hectic that goes with it. I guess I just enjoy so much that I run out of time before I get to do it all. My sweetie told me tonight that sometimes you just have to slow down, enjoy the joy of living and let some things slide.  He is so right. I hit the door running this morning and didn't get back home until after 5pm today. I went and checked on all of the animals, watered all of the plants, finally got the plants I bought a week ago potted in their new pots,swept off the front porch,  swept the house, dusted, cleaned out the fridge, cooked supper and cleaned up the kitchen and by then it was already 8pm. We went outside, let our feathered friends free range for an hour. Brushed the horses, petted the goats, played with the dogs and then we were back in by 9:30pm. Now it is nearing 10:30 pm and I am wondering if I should get up and go ahead and pack my lunch for tomorrow and give myself 10 minutes extra snooze time in the morning!

Tomorrow, work all day, mop entire house, clean both bathrooms, do laundry and hopefully work a little more on the chicken run!!!!

How busy is your life?
God Bless :)

3 Chickens and a Duck!

I am so tired right now, but I had such a wonderful day today that it was worth it!
First off, my hubby found August's Pineapple Pie and got it for me!  I LOVE pineapple pies from August and you can never find the pineapple, but my sweet hubby did!

Then, we went and did a little bit of shopping and ate lunch, and then....the best part of my day was that we went to get our chickens and duck.  We were gifted with three Rhode Island Reds and a duck that I am not sure what breed it is! They are all adorable. Very grateful that a sweet lady I went to high school with 25 years ago was who gave us the birds, and it was fun getting to catch up on life with her.

We have not decided on names. I think the 3 chickens are girls, no spurs but I have no idea on the duck. I think it is a he because he is pretty quiet when he quacks and I have always heard that females are the loud ones. I am going to have to do some research.   It was such a wonderful day. We have a lot more work on the the chicken run and the coop, but we will get it done in time.

My son wanted to know why we were putting a net on top of the run and chicken wired all of the way around the run and I told him to keep predators out.  He asked if a fox will go after chickens. I said yes, why? He said he saw one on our property yesterday!!!! GRRRR. Then while setting things up for the chickens, we see what we think are three hawks up on the telephone wires above the run!!! OMG. The hawks, if that is what they are, are not very big and this is the third year they have came back and roosted in our backyard tree.

To finish my day off I snapped this shot of one of our rotten cats playing with a baseball. He rolled that ball all over the place!

That was my Saturday! Hope yours was just as wonderful!
God Bless!

Loving Life One Day At A Time

So glad today is Friday!  I don't know about the rest of you, but WOW what a long week! There has been so much going on in our work life this week!! My husband works for a GM dealership as an automotive technician and new owners took over this week, so a lot of changes! Then I had a lot, and I mean a lot, of chaos this week at work that kept me on my toes, mentally exhausted, and so far behind that I stressed last night wondering if I would see daylight anytime soon. Staying a few hours after work today really made a difference and I can gratefully say that I am about 80% caught up now. Hopefully with financial aid closed next week(I am a bookkeeper at a college bookstore) I will finally have the chance to not only get caught up, but hopefully get ahead!!!!  Living life at work, just one day at a time.:)  I love my job and hate to leave work at the end of the day if I am not caught up according to my definition of caught up, but I have a very busy home life and I have a hard time balancing work and home sometimes. I am getting better!!! Baby steps....baby steps.

To get a jump start on having an awesome weekend, I got up a little earlier than usual this morning in order to take stock of what I needed from the grocery store and to make a menu for the next couple of weeks. Due to our stressful week we have had to eat out way too much!   So I took my lunch break to run and get groceries, stayed after work for a few extra hours to make headway there. Came home and started supper, put away groceries, did a little housework, my sweetie came home, we all sat down and had supper, we all cleaned up the supper mess then my sweetie and I headed outdoors.  HELLO PEACE!
We picked up a little more of the debris that is still in abundance around the place. (2 1/2 acres seems like a lot when you are picking up what feels like a million sticks, twigs and miscellaneous trash that has blown in), then we went and spent some time petting the animals.  Little tug of war and fetch with the dogs and treats for the goats and some hugs and petting for the horses!  Then we headed to the site of our future chicken run.

We now have a 7 foot tall, 40 foot long and 15 foot wide chicken run. Here is a pic with the first row of chicken wire up.  We will install the netting over the top and haul in the railroad ties tomorrow.   So excited!!!!  We will steadily work on the coop as the weekend progresses.

While working on the chicken run we noticed our golden pheasant is officially sitting on her nest!!! While we were out there (about 3 hours) she never moved off of her nest!!!  That makes me so happy!!!

Then the best part of my day happened!!!! Our neighbors were out riding their horses and watching our miniature horses react to the full grown horses was amazing.   Our minis are Miniature Arabians.  They are beautiful and graceful little horses.  As soon as they spotted the neighbors on their horses they became so excited! They took off racing across the arena to hurry up and meet up with their friends.  After visiting a little bit, the other horses started walking down the road and our minis started to strut their stuff!!!! OMG IT WAS BEAUTIFUL!!!  They had their heads up high, tails raised and backs arched as they pranced back and forth up and down the fence line. (Of course the battery was dead on my camera! )  Then they realized their friends were leaving and they started running full speed across the arena bucking and jumping and I can not begin to explain just how regal and just beautiful they were!!!

So I guess when it all comes down to the nitty gritty, all the stress from work, all the things on my "to do" list that did not get done this week......none of it mattered once I saw my minis prance across the arena.   I thank the Lord for blessing me with getting to love my life one day at a time.

Texas Weather

Well if you have ever been in Texas you know that the weather changes all of the time! Hot one minute, cold the next.  

Last night the south plains faced some very strong winds and some heavy rain. We got moderate rain, THANK YOU LORD, and a lot of high winds. We had winds averaging 75 miles an hour and gust up to 85 mph.  Add to that, the fact that it was straight line winds, and suffice it to say this storm left a lot of damage behind.  Although we suffered some damage, we are very grateful that all of our animals are safe and sound,and there was not any damage to the house or the vehicles.  Here are some pictures I took today at our place.

Neighbors metal siding in our arena.

Our Itty Bitty Trailer got moved a few feet. Notice the jack at the back of the trailer? The trailer used to sit on it!

Obviously tore up the cover for the pontoon.  Notice the tree branch in the background by the motor? It landed on the fence instead of on the boat. Doesn't look big in picture, but was big enough it would have damaged the pontoon.  

This is several large branches that fell out of our enormous elm tree in our backyard.  The blue awning on the shop porch was ripped to shreds as well.

The adirondack chair was lifted and carried all the way across our backyard and thrown into the front yard. I had just sat it back over the fence.

Tree branches everywhere.

No more awning on shop porch. Complete loss.

We lost some fiberglass panels on the barn roof, a watering tub in the goat yard, and a couple of bird feeders, but beyond that we survived the high winds a lot better off than some of our neighbors. One of our neighbors had a shed that the wind literally rolled the tin roof into a ball and another neighbor lost all of the metal off the top of their shop as well. People had entire trees uprooted and thrown around.  If you have never been caught in high speed straight line winds please, please be aware of the danger. This was not a tornado, but was still very dangerous. Some people even had windows blown out and windshields shattered.   

So tonight please say a prayer for all those who are suffering the aftermath of bad weather.

God bless.

Getting Soooo Very Excited!

This past weekend I found out that I will soon be gifted with 3 Rhode Island Red chickens and a Black American Duck! I am so excited and just can't wait! Hopefully I will get them this weekend.  
We were hoping to start working on the coop and on the chicken run last night and tonight, but thanks to hard days at work and heat, it just didn't happen.  So our plan is to do some  major work tomorrow night and Friday night and hopefully have something ready for when the birds get to come to their new place. I know because of time constraints our little coop and run will be "rough" in the beginning, but I am truly looking forward to the time when I can actually decorate my little coop.  :)
This week has been a stressful week at work for my hubby and for myself and tonight we decided that family time and some stretching out and relaxing was what we really needed.  We marked it on our day planner that tomorrow is the IT day to make progress on the coop and on the run.  I hope the netting I ordered to go over the top hurry up and gets here soon!.
I guess that is about all I have going on this week. Probably should have spent my evening doing some housework, but the way I see it, housework doesn't go anywhere....it will be waiting for me when I get ready to do it! lol
Calling for some bad weather in my part of the country, so if you live in the South Plains of Texas, please keep an eye on the weather!!!
Take care and God Bless.

Home Is Always Where The Peace Is.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes life seems so stressful when you are at work, a social  event, or even maybe a family gathering, but get HOME, and all of a sudden life is calm again?

Yesterday and today I had more than my fair share of "yuck" at work. I came home tonight and I told my hubby that I felt like the song from "The Band Perry", ~All I Want To Be Is Done~ lol. I felt that wiped out!  
I got home and watered all of the plants, filled the bird feeders, straightened up a few things, went back to work for a little while, and then came home and checked emails then I went outside.

That was the moment life instantly got better.  I walked out and petted the goats for a little while, then went to spend some time with the horses, and they let me love all over them. Then I sat on the swing and watched the dogs playing tug of war, the cats chasing each other, the goats playing with each other and the birds chirping and the wind was not  blowing and I thought to myself......this is my PEACE. This is my CALM. 
 Being able to go sit outside and hear the birds chirp and watch all of my fur buddies running around playing is what makes getting up and going to work so worth it.   The calm and the peace that just washed over me was almost overwhelming.  Sometime I think we get so caught up in the "busy" times in life that we forget to stop and enjoy the "nothing" times in life.  For me, sitting outside and watching the animals play was a PEACE I have needed all day long. I can't even begin to explain how much more relaxed I am now. Maybe I need to start coming home for lunch and instead of eating, just sit outside and watch the animals play and enjoy the PEACE!

I hope everyone has a peaceful and calm evening. God Bless.