15 April 2022

Doing It Myself, Or Not

Yes, it would be easier to do it myself Heaven knows it would be faster. The waiting is hard. Watching as expensive milk replacer gets sloshed around and spilled or nearly spilled has me gasping and holding my breath. I can’t stand to watch. Teeth clinched my husband and I both stand back and watch. Or better yet don’t watch, as the children prepare the milk to feed their bottle calves.

After helping and instructing on how and how much milk to mix, the preparation and most of the feeding is their responsibility. We watch them go slowly and struggle. If we didn’t it would never be replaced by smoothness and skill. Strength will be built in the difficulties, not in taking care of it for them.

We don’t over face them and are always there to help if really needed. They don’t usually want help. Pride in the ability to do the job and do it well is already setting in. That doesn’t mean they don’t need harried to get to get to work. They’re still children. Nothing wrong with that. They’ll grow up soon enough. I’ll enjoy their childishness while they’re children.

They aren’t strong enough to do everything themselves. They’re building strength though! It wont be long and those hard jobs will be easy for them.

Bottle calves are a perfect opportunity for training children!

Category: 8, Cows, Farming, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
10 April 2022

Bottle Calves

We went through a period of very quickly collecting bottle calves. I was worried about being able to get any. Then one showed up. By the next day, before I had the opportunity to spend much time worrying about him being alone, we ended up with a second. One more by the next weekend and two more before that week was over. Now we are at capacity and no more have turned up.

The kids are doing an amazing job at taking care of the feeding and go out regularly to play with them. 8 got to name the first three calves. All bull calves and soon to be steers. We have Sug, Elon, and Radio Active. The Goblin Child has claimed Sug as her own.

The Goblin Child named the last two, heifers. We have Iris, supposedly a Greek god of flowers and rainbows? And Athena. That god we know.

Category: 8, Cows, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
21 March 2022

Grappling Hook

The weather was beautiful. Warm and not windy yet. We forced the kids away from tablets and computers. Without them the kids are really quite enjoyable.

Working with horses and doing chores around the place, we ended up out by the old school house barn. It is getting closer to falling down all the time and the kids are not allowed to play in or near it. They are very good about that. To the point that when I told 8 he could go in and look around while we were there together The Goblin Child said no, she was not going in there, and left.

Us two foolish people went in and explored. You’d think that after being explored for so many years it would no longer have secrets to give up. But still, we find more. As the children get bigger they can climb farther, see new things. 8 climbed an old stall divider and peered into the hay loft. He wanted my to have a look too. There were some ancient rotted hay bales and a tire. Mostly there is sunlight streaming through where a roof once was.

I was happy to oblige him and I climbed up and peered around too. There in the middle of the loft was a headstall. I could see a bit and some twisted leather remains. Right out in the middle where there was no way I was walking.

Climbing down I let 8 replace me. He spotted it and we spent some time locating it from below to see if there was a way to reach it that way. Quickly realizing the hopelessness of that we stopped to think about things.

A grappling hook! That was what we needed! Something we could throw out there, hook the bridle, and drag it back. But where would we find something like that? We headed back towards the house to search.

There we found The Goblin Child happily swinging. She may not be interested in going into the wreck of a barn just for fun, but the quest was more than she could resist. We all continued on together. Junk piles are a great resource. We scavenged through the trash and the scrap iron pile. Finally finding the perfect hunk of metal. Then to gather the rope that we use to tie cow legs back so calves can nurse. I wasn’t going to use my good rope for this! And back to the barn.
Each child got to take a turn climbing up and tossing the rope. I had visions of heads banged and teeth knocked out, but they each tried without causing injury. Then it was my turn, waiting had been hard 😉 I was able to hook the bridle and almost get it over. After a third or forth try it was there!

And the bit was broken 🙁

Oh well. It was still fascinating. Coming up with a back story for it has been so much fun. The leather is of course shot. But I am sending the buckle to a friend to see if she can remake the very basic headstall reusing the old buckle. We polished the bit up a bit and will put it in the house where we can admire it.  We had a grand adventure and learned about problem solving and resourcefulness.

Category: 8, Goblin Child, Uncategorized | LEAVE A COMMENT
7 March 2022

Happy Birthday 8!

8 always gets a little shorted on his party. It’s hard to find something to do in the middle of February. There’s no way a bunch of kids can fit in our house. This year I was determined that we were actually going to DO something. I thought the pool. We asked him. He wanted to have it at the school. SO we got permission to use the auditorium. But what were we going to DO?

We had decided on musical chairs. That would need music anyway. I cajoled my poor beleaguered husband into setting up a sound system. Just a little one. He decided to add in the screen. It ended up being a dance party!

With plenty of room to run the children used up plenty of energy dancing, chasing balloons, and running up and down the aisles playing hide and seek in the seats.

This was all proceeded by treats for his birthday as his class sang him happy birthday and a great box of presents from his grandma, grammie, and different papa for him to open. I think this counts as doing something for his birthday this year.

 

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31 January 2022

The Fort

The kids spent their weekend, as much as they could of it, building another fort with their cousins. It occurs to me that they do this fairly often. I can think of two or three other forts they’ve labored over, then abandoned. Apparently building a fort is more fun than playing in a fort. I understand that.

We are not supposed to know about this one. Luckily our kids, especially 8, are really bad at not telling us things. He is catching a bit of heck for it, but we are doing our best to encourage it. It’s good that they aren’t as skilled at keeping secrets from us as their cousins appear to be. We hear C and A told us not to tell, but…   a lot. We are sworn not to tell their mom where the fort is and pretend not to know. Mostly I’m glad they’re having fun.

I went to check it out today after feeding cows. I wont tell them I’ve been there. The swing scares me half to death. Tomorrow when I feed I’ll take along another, better, hook to secure it with. Their ingenuity and the effort they’ve put in here is amazing. It’s a perfect place for a fort. I hope they stick with this one.

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25 January 2022

King Of The Hill

It’s the kids job to go feed horses on weekends or if it’s warm enough, and light enough, after school. They fight it and complain a lot but do a descent job. I go out an help them sometimes. It’s fun to watch how they divide up the work and go about getting it done.

Last time I went a long I had to help The Goblin Child onto the hay bale. Then down again. It was a long ways up there. 8 stopped to pet HIS mare. He claims her now, until his sister decides she wants to ride for once and fights him for Lady.

Then we stopped to play on the rock pile. King of the hill is fun. Until it isn’t. Somehow they are still surprised when it ends in tears.

 

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25 January 2022

Exploring The Sheep Barn

While my poor cow hating husband and I rearranged the sheep barn to better fit cattle the children climbed around and explored. My favorite thing for them to do. They had fun, even if the fun was punctuated by requests to please be allowed back inside.

As we looked for ways to better allow cattle to find shelter, calving is coming up quickly, they studied dead mummified raccoons? Whatever they are, they’re fascinating. They climbed the ladder to the loft, but weren’t quite brave enough to go all the way up. The took my phone and used it for light and to share findings with the one waiting below or outside. Not quite brave enough to go in.

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6 December 2021

Before The Snow

Yesterday morning started out nice. We rushed to get outside before the predicted snow. Loosely bundled we let the horses out. Rusty stood patiently, halter already on, and waited. Giving The Goblin Child her halter I sent her to put it on their horse.
She doesn’t do this regularly. Something we need to work on.
It was so fun to watch her struggle to get the pieces figured out and in the right places. At first she firmly ordered 8 to get away. She was doing it and didn’t need help.
As she fought her battle Rusty smiled frantically at the camera, wind blew, Harvey, left behind, screamed. The chaos was real.
After struggling a bit her tune changed and she was asking for help. Together they were able to get the halter on their very patient little mare.
Proud of themselves and a job very well done we headed off for a brief chilly ride as dark clouds blew in and the snow came much earlier than expected.
Category: 8, Goblin Child, Horses | LEAVE A COMMENT
3 December 2021

Christmas Parade ’21

We had so much fun at a local Christmas lights parade last night. It was even more exciting to see a handful of horses in the parade. And one dog the size of a horse.
It’s always impressive to see horses taking this sort of thing well. The big draft horses walked along as quiet and well behaved as could be. Not at all worried by the lights and noise. We talked to the person with the mini after the parade she said the very well behaved little horse was about worn out by the time they walked all five blocks. That’s one way to get them to behave
The dog on the other hand we saw walking home afterwards quite a ways away. He must not have been as worn out by his load.
Maybe next year we’ll haul horses in to our local parade. Not this one. Too far to go at night down a road constantly crossed by deer and elk. We made it home without hitting any but passed one crumpled car who hadn’t been so lucky and deer grazing happily along the road who were kind enough to stay where they were instead of jumping out in front of us.
Would ours do as well as these did? It seems unlikely but it would be fun to try!
The weather for this one was much warmer than usual. We all wore coats but were perfectly comfortable with them unbuttoned. Lots of people gave out hot chocolate. It was good even in the warm weather. On the way home we drove around looking at Christmas lights while we waited to pick up pizza for the kids book-it tickets.
Category: 8, Family, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
1 December 2021

Christmas Pictures

At first I thought we’d do a manger scene for Christmas pictures. A somewhat horsey one. Rusty would make a wonderful angle in his wings. I could make the children play with me for Mary and Joseph.
Then things went a bit awry and we headed off the opposite direction and ended up with a Christmas snow fairy instead 🤦🏼‍♀️
And Santa on his tractor of course.
Now all we need is some snow. Why is it so hard to get a girl to put on a dress and take pictures with a horse? It seems like it would be a fun thing. At least Santa was enthusiastic. Oh well. We tried.
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