EGGNOG EGGNOG EGGNOG EGGNOG EGGNOG!

Everything is about EGGNOG these days. Quinlyn absolutely loves EGGNOG. She sees her Dad come home from work and the first thing she asks "does he have EGGNOG?" First thing in the morning she wants EGGNOG for breakfast. It is so cute and entertaining. When we run out she doesn't want to believe its all gone.

Today Wednesday December 19, 2007 Addisson had her preschool Christmas party. Quinlyn also got to participate, which she loves. It was very cute. The kids sang 3 songs and had a book exchange.

The girls and I had a busy day. Addisson went to preschool but before we went we looked in the barn to see if there were any baby goats. No there wasnt. While she was gone Quinlyn and I vacuumed and made goat meat chili. Soon it was time to go pick up Addisson. Once we were home we made ornaments out of salt dough. We rolled the dough and used cookie cutters to make the shapes. Then we placed them in the oven to cook. Once they were cool the girls painted them and used lots of glitter. Tonight we are going back to the preschool for a neighborhood/church winter time blues potluck. Grandma stayed in bed most of the day. She was either depressed, not feeling well or freezing. Maybe all three. Asa got home early and did the chores in the barn. Still no babies.

December 13, 2007

Happy Birthday Aunt Kate and Aunt Midge.

The girls both have an advent calender, one from Starbucks. It is in the shape of a tree and each box has a chocolate piece inside. All but the 24th. It has a chocolate shaped star. This has been torturing Quinlyn for a week now. She keeps wanting to jump ahead and eat the star. Yesterday the phone rang and I wasn't paying too much attention while the calenders were out. Next thing I know she has eaten the star. She was so proud of herself for finally eating. She loved every minute of it. Not only did she eat the star she also ate another day. Today they were playing with the calenders again. This time they took all the chocolates out and were counting the days left until Christmas. A few of Quinlyns fell on the floor and before she could get a chance to pick them up Woody, the dog, scooped in and ate them. She was soooo disappointed. Although I wasn't sure if it was because Woody got them or because she didn't get the chocolate. She quickly got over it.

Today I went to Syracuse. While I was there it started to snow, it took me 4 hours to get home the roads were so bad. It usually only takes about an hour and a half. I saw at least 20 cars off the road total. Not all in the same spot. When I got home I went to the barn to feed the animals and one of the pregnant goats caught her head in the hay feeder. I tried to get her out but she was to heavy and strong to manipulate through the wire. At one point she was gagging for air. I must have pushed her in the wrong direction when I was trying to get her out. I ended up having to put a hay bale under her so she could stand on it until Asa got home. She was getting pretty exhausted trying to climb on the fence in order to not be in a strangle hold. Asa was able to get her out with only a little bit of difficulty. One of the ladies is about to drop kid anytime now. Her milk bag is getting big and she is bulging in the vaginal area. I haven't checked her manually but I probably should. I haven't ventured in that direction yet. I didn't see any discharge either. I told Addisson we will go check the barn for babies in the morning. She is enormous and will probably have twins she looks so big.

I was so late getting back from SYR the girls missed ice skating. I wasn't sure if they were having it anyway. The roads were so bad i wasn't sure I wanted to risk driving again with both girls. I figured I had made it home safely why take a chance. If there was skating they missed their rehearsal for their Christmas show. Although the skating instructor didn't decide to have their group perform until last week. This would have only been their 2nd time trying to learn the routine, which wasn't much but for a two year old to remember where they were suppose to go when the show is next week.

December 11, 2007
Asa and I spent the entire day in the barn shoveling goat poop. We were able to get the poop gutter moving. This allowed us to back the truck into the poop hole while we ran the gutter. I would back the truck up and he would direct me, then he would stand in the back of the truck shoveling the poop while I shoveled it into the gutter.
It took over 3 loads. Asa would stand in the back of the truck and shovel it out of the truck into the fields while I drove slowly. We don't have a manure spreader so we have to do it ourselves. But we were just glad we didn't have to wheel barrel it, like we did last year. On our last load I was filling the gutters with poop and Asa was waiting for me so he decided to back the truck up by himself. I said do you want to wait a minute so I can help you. He said no, "I am a man remember". He was just kidding but ironically when he was backing the truck up into the poop hole he went too far and hit the scooper and dented the back of the truck. OOOPS. But the goats are cleaner now. If only they would stop pooping. But if that happens they are dead and we don't want that.

December 12, 2007
Today we had a lady here from Cornell Univ. Extension. She stopped by to see if we needed any help with making a plan for the farm. While she was here we had a lady stop in to give us a quote on the floor of our new room. Asa works with her at Lowes and said she was good. She also had a number for a man who refinishes floors.

Last night the girls and I went out and made a huge snowman. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. It was taller than me. The girls had so much fun. But between the wind and it being above freezing last night it was tipped over this morning.

It was a long day today. We spent over 5 hours at Lowes. We had to pick out cabinets, toilet, counter tops and so many other things. One would think remodeling is fun but in actuality it has way too many decisions which go along with it. Asa had to work at 7am. He took lunch to shop with us and when he was done with work we were still there so we all went to dinner. It is almost 8pm and he is still at lowes loading the truck. Only to get up at 4:30am to go back to work. When I got home I fed the goats and then got the girls ready for bed. We are expecting more babies this month but none yet.

Above is a deer we saw out our kitchen window at the bird feeder. We had a small feeder but it needed to be filled everyday and it got too cold for Grandma so Grandpap bought her a feeder that holds 200lbs of food.

Today we had the breakfast with Santa. The girls loved it. They loved Santa. From there we went to the Thousand Island Winery. They were having a craft show. When we walked in the same santa that was at the schools fundraiser was at the winery too. We told the girls "See Santa is everywhere watching"

It was some what of a fun day. The girls definately liked it. They went to the barn when we got home and played in the snow.

December 7, 2007

I picked Addisson up from preschool and she stayed with two of her teachers and she helped made a chimney for the schools fundraiser, Breakfast with Santa. We spent the afternoon decorating the local Fire hall and part of the evening. I was very tired from staying up way too late the last 5 nights and was up until 3 am so I went to bed early. Asa woke me up around 8pm to catch Guinea Hens.

How do you catch a Guinea Hen?



You wait until it gets dark and sneak up on them.

So we captured 14 guinea hens and switch them into the big milk barn. It was rather comical.

This is the latest picture of the construction on the house. It was taken Dec. 3, 2007

A picture of my fabulous hairdo, Created by Addisson

Picture of Uncle Roger helping Kevin who is putting up one of the walls of our new room.

December 6, 2007

Addisson back in October, before Halloween, found a fuzzy catapillar outside and wanted to keep it. We told her it was ok but it would probally die soon. She stuck it in a plastic water bottle with grass and a stick with air holes. To everyones amazement it is still alive today. The catapillar is going on two months living in a plastic bottle. Now the ground is covered with snow so there is no grass for it to eat. We may have to try spinach or lettuce.

Last night was very cold. It was 7 degrees F. I helped unload a truck load of little ceasars pizzas. We sold them as a fundraiser for the preschool Addisson attends. When I went to bed last night it was 2 degrees F. It doesnt look like the snow will melt or get warm until spring.

December 3, 2007

Preschool was cancelled today due to weather. It snowed most of the day. The girls were suppose to go to a friends for a play date but they were so busy playing and didnt want to pick up their toys, which were all over the living room floor, that they missed their chance. It didnt seem to bother them too much until right before we would have had to leave the play date to go to dance.

The girls played so well today it was great. The made a house by the heater, colored and played doctor almost all day.

It is still snowing and we have about 3-4 inches on the ground and it is suppose to snow on and off for the next few days.

Addisson loves snow. She cant wait to get home from dance so she can go with us out to the barn and play in the snow. Our water to the barn is still frozen. I forgot to remind Asa to bring heat tape home with him. Hopefully he will remember.

December 2, 2007

Asa was off today and he made homemade pizza's. They were very good. Asa went up into the hay loft with Addisson. She loves going up there. She can climb up and down by herself. She also is able to throw the hay bales down by herself too. She loves that part. We went to run the manure gutters and there was too much stuff in them and it got stuck. We parked the truck underneath to catch all of the poop but it didn't work too good. Not too much poop but lots of hay. It was our first time running the gutter and we now know we need to run it much sooner. The water in the barn has also froze so we are back to carrying 5 gallon buckets to the barn. Not fun when it is below zero outside.

I did forget to mention that we now have City Water. Yeah. It has been about a month now and we love it. It is so nice taking a shower in clean water. Especially brushing your teeth. We even use the water to cook with and make coffee. Yippie.

It has been a trying week. Grandma isn't very happy here at the farm. She has said several times "she hates it here and we should have never moved". It is very frustrating to her because many things are done differently. I do like it but the winters make for a poor attitude. Especially since our new windows are giving us problems and the house is freezing. It seems as though every time we make one step forward we make two back.

Our goats are doing fine, it looks like a few are pregnant and one looks as though she will deliver at the end of the month. As of October we had our goats for one year. There has been a huge learning curve. Each season has brought new challenges. We thought we would breeze through summer but it turned out to have the hardest lessons. We hope to grow on what we have learned.