Look Out! Granny is Officially a Teenager!!

Happy Birthday Granny Smith!!

You are the best!

Golden Delicious sent him a great card from the MTC full of "bucket list" type things that he needed to do.  He gave it a very solid effort - only missing going to a movie, since Golden is his movie buddy and she isn't here.  (did I mention that we miss our girl around here??)

Everyone was so stuffed after eating at Texas Roadhouse that we could barely have cake and ice cream.  But we made it, somehow!

Love you!

I hope this is the best year yet!

Baby Goats are the Cutest Babies on the Farm!

The very morning we left for Texas Rita had her babies.  Kyra's were born the day before.  We left them all in Nova's responsible care.

When we got home they were bouncing all around the field.

There is simply nothing cuter than a baby goat. 

They are sleek and precocious, and adorable.

(so much cuter than lambs - sorry- )

Here is Rita with her two little does.  She is an amazing first time momma - very impressive.

And the whole goat clan:  Kyra and her little Rosy and Buckling and Rita and her babies.  We sold the big buck because he was so annoying and kept bugging me when I was feeding them.  Things are better now with just moms and babies.

I love baby goats - I just hate dehorning them.

Shooting on the Hill

So I guess this is PE for Homeschool or something....

The other afternoon the boys went shooting and I went with them.

I love shooting.  We had a great time - and hit a lot of clay pigeons too.

Goin' Through the Big D

Mr. Bechtel had a lawsuit that was supposedly starting in March that he had to be there for, and Buck Brannaman was doing Legacy of Legends in Forth Worth, and we had Spring Break, so Prairie Spy, Granny Smith, Mr. Bechtel and I drove to Texas.  We left Nova home to take care of baby goats and feed critters and keep things under control.

Mr. Bechtel and Prairie went to Legacy for the day and were delighted to run into Sarah and baby Keegan.  The Spy Twins are stoked to go learn from them this summer.  They also saw lots of other friends and colt starting is always exciting.

While we were there we went to Babe's Chicken.  It was hilarious - and we should have tried the catfish, but we didn't.

And we went to Six Flags.  Remember, it was Spring Break.  We waited over 2 hours to ride The New Texas Giant.  Horrors!

I was so scared I wouldn't have ridden if I hadn't waited for sooooo long.  I couldn't back out then.  So, instead, I screamed bloody murder the whole time and the next morning I had no voice at all.  But it kept me from having a heart attack.

Granny Smith had a marvelous time though, and is looking forward to going to Golden Delicious when she gets home.

Sister Golden

Darling Nannie is STILL in the MTC!  I think she is actually loving it, but she is headed to Japan at the end of the month.  The lovely little cocoon is going to burst open.  Will she be a very fluent Japanese butterfly??

She is working very, very hard to learn Japanese and I actually think it's coming for her.

Mr. Bechtel sends her coded messages in Japanese each week.

Fun!

The Baby Chicks are Here!

I was struck by this desire to dive into life this spring.  I don't want to hang around watching spring happen all around us and have our life on pause just because the house is for sale.

This led me to blithely order bantie chicks when I was at the Firth Mill.  Then I figured if I was getting banties I might as well get a few laying hens too, and one thing led to another.... Then I forgot all about it because we went to Texas for a week.

The day after we got back I got this message on my phone:  "Hello Mrs. Wadsworth this is Clyde at the Firth Mill.  I have the  40 baby chicks for you that you ordered.  My incubators are full, so come get them."

40 birds???!  What was I thinking??  40?  I mean carpe diem and all, but this seemed a bit much, even for me.  

I called Clyde back, and true to form he was very grumpy (he is either extremely charming, or very grumpy) "Well, you better come get them soon," he said, "I'm not putting them in my incubators and if you don't hurry up they're going to die."

"They better not die!  I'm coming!"

Granny and I headed to Firth.  Then he very nicely put them all in our makeshift nursery in the garage.

I did all sorts of extra healthy things for them:  drops of probiotics and minerals in the water, Thorvin kelp sprinkled on their food, wheat soaked in clabber, and hard boiled eggs in addition to their regular food.  The kids think feeding them hard boiled eggs is making them into canabals.  (how do you spell cannabal??) Anyway, I don't know if it does or not, but I got the idea from Joel Salatin, and the baby chicks love hard boiled eggs.

They are all super, duper healthy.

 After a week and a half I decided we had waaaay too many baby chicks.  I put an add on Craigs List and got rid of about half of them. (One guy wanted to buy all of them and have me ship them to Tremonton.  uh, no.  Then he wanted me to meet him half way in Pocatello.  What?  We are talking about $4 here.... people are odd.)

We still have too many, but they are thriving and very happy.

Dancer is Being a Big Pill

Dancer has a split personality.  Sometimes she is the biggest sweetheart, and then sometimes she really isn't.  Nova Spy is doing his best and she is challenging him.  He will be riding her around and she'll be going along as good as gold, and then ka-pow, she'll get it in her head to buck.

Frustrating.

But despite all these issues to work out, it is really good for the boys to work with her.  They know they caused all the problems with her by doing stupid stuff when she was little and they didn't know any better.

So, now that they know a little more, they're trying to fix all of it!