Some days there are no words for how I feel....the more I look at this world and what it is becoming, it saddens me.  While watching TV with my children briefly, every commercial was one wasteful, cheap, bizarre, toy or trinket that they should want and need.  You can tell that the materialistic Christmas in on it's way....I mean it is November, why celebrate Thanksgiving.  Christmas music is on the seasonal music channel, trees and decorations are in the stores (which I had seen some of those in stores the end of September this year), and the generic gift packs are out and ready to buy.  What happened to enjoying life one day at a time? Why can we not as a society slow down and enjoy the moments a little?  What happened to homemade and handmade Christmas's?  Where did the idea come about that you have to buy and have 20+ presents under the tree or spend X amount of money per person?  How do you go about teaching your children what Christmas is really about when there is all of this commercialism, and things that don't matter being hurled at them on a daily basis?  I am done with the questions that I can not answer... I have decided I am going to try to teach them how to be thankful for family and friends, to show love in ways as little as baking and decorating a cake together to show that you care.  I think we are going to try to have a homemade Christmas this year.  Time spent with the one's you love means so much more then some store bought dust collector, some of the best gifts I have ever received were the 1/2 hog for my freezer, a quilt my children helped make, and the gifts that you use on a routine basis, love my slippers, hats, scarves and camera, but in the end the best present that can be given is oneself. The best Holidays for me, are when the family gets together, we spend the day eating, talking, laughing, and playing games together!!! I hope that everyone can slow down enough to enjoy this holiday season and realize that all that "stuff" really is not important at all.

Random Rambles

Well officially cold here already today, looking through some of my pictures from the end of summer and thought I would share :) Missing the warmth already...

My amazing chicken hearder and ball fanatic

We had a praying Mantis breeding bush or something this year... this one liked to watch me while I was on the computer.  I am fairly certain that this was the year was a good year for these little ones, I had seen numerous on my house at one time.

My curious little americana, (my girls named her soda??)

happy little ducks swimming and bathing in the pool ;)

the girls just hanging out

thinking the funky egg in the middle may have been a duck egg (new layer)

my little old man, still catches presents for me occasionally

my daughters cat

 This little cat was a stray who came to our house and adopted us...she had 2 brothers with her that we found a home for, but they ended up being happy farm cats.  This little lady has bonded with my girls and the chickens.  She has brought me voles, mice, baby birds, assortment of wild birds including a humming bird, chipmunks and recently a squirrel.  She is a tiny little cat, and we wanted her to be an inside cat and hat her fixed and de-clawed in the front only.  She had other plans and loves to hunt.  Such a good girl and a great help with the critters that like to come and eat the chicken food.

obsessing about a ball :)

love my cone flowers and the critters that come to check them out.

Happy November 1st

Well we had a few fun happenings this last month, we had the hurricane Sandy blow through, thankfully we didn't have too hard of a time here and surprisingly did not even loose power which is unusual. Thankful that this area was not too badly effected, and praying for those that are still working on cleaning up in the parts of the country that were.  On the plus side this did force me to get the yard cleaned up earlier then normal.  

During Hurricane Sandy

The ducks were loving playing outside today in the puddles that Sandy made :)  

The chickens and dog did enjoy being out today as they all seemed to be having some Cabin fever issues.

We still have some girls molting also, which means that egg production is still not where I would like, we did get 6 eggs today, one of which was a duck egg. I am selling a dozen a week and have more people begging for eggs.  Once all the new girls start at it regularly we should be good, but it seems like it is taking forever for everyone to get it on board with the plan.  I do go out and have discussions with the girls about this and they just happily cluck back at me...I have even threatened that if they don't step up I will be forced to rename some of them potpie :)

No tail feathers, so my new name is fluff.

 One of the drawback of having the chickens is some of the little friends the food attracts.  We were putting the pool cover on and found this little mamma.  The cat thought they were very interesting also.

The other issues my girls seem to have is any time the back door opens and they are free-ranging they expect some kind of treat to appear for them.  This little girl thought she would just come in and see what I could give her in the house :)