Becky's Random Ramblings

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

A Mystery

I am a planner. I have been since...hmm... well always. I like to have my ducks as much in a row as physically possible, I like to have an idea of what to expect in the future. I think this stems from having an anxiety disorder- order and planning make me just plain feel better. Chaos, flying by the seat of my pants and having no idea what to expect-- scare the crap out of me. Ha!

So imagine the whirl wind when we find out at the ultrasound...nothing! We find out there is a super cute baby in my tummy, we find out our dates are correct for expecting this little lovely but we do not find out if we are expecting a boy or a girl. I felt a little out of place, a little confused leaving the appointment. I really expected this to go as quickly as Dax's first ultrasound - first 10 seconds- Look, it's a ____. Nope! Not to be this go around apparently.

This is so odd to me. I just can't get my head around how to plan for this baby. How to name a baby I can't say "yes, we're having a baby ___ and his/her name is ___." I will get over this, we will find two baby names and life will be just find and dandy but I just am not there yet. I haven't even brought up names up with Dustin except the occasional, "Dax thinks the baby should be Goldilocks" or "Dax and Gigi think Olive is a cute girls name." Which is both not serious and quite funny.

I did get the answer to my prayers though. I did pray that the ultrasound would show a healthy baby and it did. I remind myself of that daily. Our ultrasound this go around was "good" instead of finding an issue like Dax's 1st ultrasound did. There is something HUGE to be said for that! I am eternally grateful for that.

Here's what I've decided: We will know the baby's birthdate (or at least when we schedule it), we will know two names (or more) BUT the one true surprise will be when the doctor announces if we have a boy or a girl. That will be exciting! It will. :) Pray for me...

Friday, September 27, 2013

Oh baby!

Well if we happen to be Facebook friends, you know this news already! Dax will be a big brother sometime around the end of February/beginning of March. Official due date is March 7 but I'll have a scheduled C-section due to how much *fun* we had during Dax's arrival. Ha!

I'm 17 weeks today and in the last two weeks life has gotten a lot more bearable. I was one sick chick all summer long and actually lost a total of 12 pounds. If you didn't see me much this summer, that would be the main reason. Was miserable at home, not far from the toilet. Dax watched WAY too much TV this summer but we survived.

The test that made me stop taking tests- must be accurate if it turns to a + before the control line even shows up.

We're still in a bit of shock that we'll be having our second baby together

but I know soon that will give way to excitement.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Crazy is all gone

Phew! Good news, I have gotten over being a "Crazy Chicken Lady." This might seem kind of hard to believe given my love for them this spring, the huge amount of work that has gone into keeping them healthy and happy AND how gosh darn friendly they are BUT yes, it's true.

I have found that once reality starts to set in about creatures you fall in love with as babies, the joy can sometimes where off. I do still love my chickens... most of them... and we will still continue to raise chickens BUT we will not be 100% free ranging ever again?

WHY might you ask? Umm, have you ever been around a larger flock of chickens that are allowed to wander?? Let's just say HOLY SHIT! ;) Give you a hint?? On hot days, the girls could be found in the shade of our back steps. Sweet except when you remember that they don't care where they defecate. Many a trip into the house was prefaced with "do NOT step in the chicken poop" UGH!

The second reason has to do with the large garden I planted this year. I put a green 'utility' fence around it in the hopes of slowing my chickens down from entering the garden. I knew it wouldn't keep them out but I had hopes it would at least save my plants a little. My beautiful 8 tomato plants grew to great sizes this year and were LOADED with tomatoes. That was, until, my stupid chickens found them. I have not gotten a single tomato out of the garden this year! Luckily they did not find the sugar snap peas before Dax and Dustin ate their fill BUT they did find the corn. Between the deer (one buck in particular) and my chickens, only 1 ear of corn out of 10 rows survived! At this moment, it looks like the only thing we're going to get out of the garden is pumpkins. Good night!

We do have 7 chickens in the freezer ready for eating and this winter, when it's cold and I'm wanting to warm the house up with a slow roasted chicken, we will definitely enjoy them again. Of the 20 we started with this year, we butchered 7, lost 2 two other critters and are keeping 11 at the moment-- although 3 of them are hopefully going to another home as 11 is still a lot to winter.

I'm thinking one day we may try to add ducks to our flock BUT trying to talk myself out of it for a bit and make my reasons something more than "they are so cute!" ;-)

Saturday, April 27, 2013

CHICKEN COOP

Can I just tell you that Dustin gave me the BEST birthday present this year???

Inside my birthday card were the plans for a brand new, big chicken coop!

Dustin has been working his tail off, while also doing 100 other projects,

to get the coop done so all 20 chickens can live together.

It's ALMOST done!

I am so excited!

The Chicken Palace

Taking painting VERY seriously

SEE my paint brush

(this was also the point that I panicked about my new phone)

Best little painter out there!

Can't wait to paint the door red, add some white trim

and MAYBE a flower box under the window :)

green grass, dandelions, red barn, cowboy boots, tractor and a camo hat

My handsome farm boy

There is nothing like growing up on or near a farm.

Monday, April 8, 2013

My name is Becky...

... and I fear I may be a crazy chicken lady.

You see, in May of last year Dustin and I discussed getting chickens and found the feed store was already sold out of them. So a friend and I ordered 15 birds together via mail- I got 6 and she got 9. Our Buff Orpingtons are wonderful, sweet birds. They are SO easy to care for and Dax is madly in love with them. "The Girls" got names shortly after...although we don't know which is which... originally I believe their names were Rosie, Sunny, Popcorn, Peaches, Dottie, and Penny. I love their names but they have now, all six, become known as "the girls" or Peaches and Popcorn--the two names Dax came up with of course.

Since these girls have always been so easy, I thought this spring, I am SO getting more chickens. Which then began my investigation of different breeds. I decided on dual purpose birds- they'll lay eggs and we can butcher the excess since I really only want to winter 10 birds. My very good friend, Lynnette and I watching Big R like hawks waiting for baby birds to arrive! We had the date down and everything! She made it first and reported back the breeds available. I then set to deciding on numbers from the research I did online. 10 birds in all- 5 Silver Laced Wyandottes, 1 White Leghorn, 2 Rhode Island Reds and 2 Black Polish- just for fun, they're pretty much ornamental. (You should have heard me rattle off those numbers, I had rehearsed!) And... of course... they got names. The RIR are Rhodie and Butterscotch, the Black Polish are Coco and Puddin (Dax named) and the Leghorni s Uncle Bill's honorary chicken because he named it Foghorn. Actually the conversation went like this:

Me: this one is a leghorn
Bill: You CANNOT have a Leghorn and not name it Foghorn, in fact if it dies I will buy you another one.
Me: sounds like this is your chicken- want to take it home??

Not sure what he said next but ended up being a "no go"

JUMP ahead 3 weeks and Dustin and Dax make a trip to Big R and report that there are NEW breeds at Big R. Which I pass on to Lynnette. Of course they can't remember WHAT the breeds ARE but I decided to check it out. Ha! At this point we have 16, yes 16 chickens! SO you'd THINK that I had enough, right? HELL NO! We came home with 4 more. 2 Barred Rocks, 1 Black Sex Link and 1 Gold Sex Link. Sex Link means they can tell gender by the color they are at hatching---guaranteed hens.

Once I got home and got everything set up-- the number of chickens we had began to sink in. 20 chickens... we went from 6 to 20 chickens. That's like...INSANE! We had 6 chickens outside in a coop, 14 in a dog kennel in the laundry room and 4 in a box in the kitchen. Big, Medium and Little Chickens. It's nuts. Dax thinks it's the best thing ever!

We are now another 3 weeks into having 20 chickens and we now have only 4 chickens in the house- they are in a bird cage now and in the laundry room. The medium chickens are in the dog kennel surrounded by the baby fence. It works.

I am also getting a BIG COOP! As a birthday present Dustin got me the plans for a chicken coop-- this also spurred the being "okay" with getting more chicks. :)

I am a little scared this might turn into a chicken blog... and it could because...well... they're cute and I think it's pretty neat we're raising our own food!

Any roosters will probably be butchered and we really, truly only plan to winter 10 chickens-- anything over 12 will not happen-- they will be butchered.

Next year I think we'll do just meat birds.

Here they are....