At Home in the Mountains

 Maddy had her Easter program performance on March 20th. The kids did a great job. They preformed a musical play called "Back to the Cross". Maddy had a solo in the song "Back to the Cross". She did a great job! We all enjoyed desserts together after the play was over.

 Whew! 38. That happened fast. Good thing I had such a great birthday celebration to counter-act feeling old as dirt. The day before my birthday we worked on our chicken run project and then my mom made an amazing birthday dinner of grilled chicken, veggie kabobs, salad and bread. My parents and Tam and Jeff got me ski googles for my bday. I hope I get to try them out before ski season ends.  On my birthday we went to Costello Street Coffee House in Florissant. I got a breakfast burrito. Maddy got biscuits and gravy, Kelsay got a bagel and Aaron got a burrito. We also had blueberry pie, a cinnamon roll and a peanut butter cup. No one felt hungry for lunch that day. We then went to the fossil beds and did a short hike and the girls did the Jr. Ranger badges. I bought them a vest to put their badges on. They were very excited about that. we went home and finished the chicken run. Then we had spaghetti for supper. The meal was prepared by Aaron and the girls. Later ...

 Back in the fall we lost several hens and roosters to some predator. We've been good about shutting the chickens in at night but at the end of February we slipped up and left the coop open at night again. We lost 2 hens to something. I was thinking coyotes but they didn't carry the bodies off, just took off the heads. I've heard this is typical of  raccoons. Also, our neighbor said that he gave his chickens away because he couldn't keep the coons out of them. The loss of the two hens was more painful this time because they had started laying eggs on Kelsay's birthday and so that was a loss of a couple of eggs a day. Still, with the 7 hens we have left, we get more eggs than we know what to do with. Another problem was that the hens would fly over the little fence we had around the yard. The girls and I had several good chicken chases and I was getting tired of having to keep an eye on them and go get them back in the yard. So I decided my goal for March was to ge...

 My phone camera has not been working very well, so you will probably have to click on the pictures and zoom in a bit to see the coyotes that came to visit on Friday morning. Kelsay and I had just gotten up and we heard a  very loud yip-yip-yip. At first I thought it was Houdini and something was wrong. I turned to go to the mudroom to grab my shoes and Kelsay ran to the window. Suddenly she yelled, "Mommy, look! What is that?" I ran to the window in time to see a coyote saunter through the yard and toward the chicken house. It was 8 degrees that morning and had been colder before  we got up. I think our low was 2 or 3. So  I hadn't been outside to open the chicken thankfully. The coyote stared at and circled the coop and then a second coyote walked into the picture and joined him. After deciding that they could not get into the coop for a fresh chicken dinner, they marked a perimeter around the coop and chicken yard and left. So I knew that they would be back. ...

 We took the kids for a surprise trip to the North Pole today. It is basically like a Joyland with a Santa twist. We wanted to go before they got too old to enjoy. On some of the littlest rides, the magic was already over for Maddy.  They had some cars that you could "drive" around a track. We got about 20 yards into the ride and Maddy suddenly let go of the wheel and said, "I'm not really driving." Other rides were still so scary they made both kids cry. Both left the tilt-a-whirl bawling and not wanting to get on anymore rides. Maddy did pretty good with  the bigger roller coaster but Kelsay was scared to death. All the people watching her ride said her face looked "totally freaked". There were lots of good in between rides that both girls enjoyed and did more than once.  They got to feed some English Fallow deer.  We also did candle dipping and watched some glass blowing. Sixty and older gets into the park free, so Nanna...

 We have continued to enjoy raising our cows and chickens. A couple of weeks ago, we had a little tragedy when we forgot to shut the chicken coop and went out to find one hen completely missing and 2 other hens and a rooster dead in the chicken yard. We suspect coyotes, but who knows. So that put us down to 16 total chickens. This past Sunday we loaded up 6 roosters and headed to the ranch to have a chicken butchering lesson. We kept one rooster who was the runt of all the chicks we got. The girls named him Cuddles. Hopefully Cuddles lives up to his name or he might find himself on the menu eventually, but he'll be good for egg production later, so he got a reprieve. The other six roosters became future dinner. Matt and Ashley( Aaron's cousin and her husband) helped Aaron and I butcher the chickens so we gave them three and kept three. The chickens were pretty small. These rooster were not intended to be meat chickens. We are considering getting some meat chickens in the spri...

 I did a terrible job taking pictures at Thanksgiving but we had such a fun time seeing everyone in west Texas. The weather was amazingly warm and the kids spent a lot of Thanksgiving day playing outside. We had great food, great conversation, and, of course, scrabble. Maddy enjoyed eating Grandpa's food at the assisted living place at lunch one day. Grandpa opted to wait to have a burger with the rest of us. Maddy said the food was yummy. She also picked up over 30 lbs of pecans for Grandpa so he will get a nice amount back shelled next month from the pecan shelling place. "Maddy the pecan picking queen" was an oft repeated phrase while we were there.  We cut a Christmas tree the Monday after Thanksgiving. We found an entire bobcat skeleton while we were out looking for our tree.  The girls got to get their own tree for their room again. We went big this year! Happy advent!