Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Who Needs Video Games?

"When I was  kid, all I needed to entertain myself was a stick and a string!" 

Maybe my kids really will use that line on their grandkids.  Check out their most recent creation, made in the dead of winter:


Steps

Swing

Sticks and strings.  Proud of my kids' creativity.  Made by Akea, checked for safety by Byron.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

New Arrivals

No, I didn't have a baby.  In fact, I don't have a legitimately valid excuse for being such a slacker for the past two months, except to say that we've undergone some major changes as a family.  For instance, my kids are both in public school now and I'm looking into going back to teaching next year.  In the meantime, I'm eating bonbons and not writing blog posts.

Per the title, I do want to share with you our two new arrivals.  Everyone, meet Flower and Rachael.  Flower and Rachael, meet everyone:


Rachael is the baby, and Flower is the mom.  Both are Black Angus.  Both were named by my kids.

Rachael has to be bottle fed for a while longer, so Byron is making friends.  Flower was still nursing another calf when she was born, and the previous owner never separated them.

Flower is still a bit skittish sometimes, but fortunately, the previous owner is very hands-on with his cows, so she doesn't totally hate us.  She also may be pregnant, so that could explain a lot...

Our steers have since gone to the butcher, which was a very interesting learning experience.  They weighed much, much less than we had anticipated and we ended up losing money on the venture.  So our [my] new rule is no more Holsteins.  Though we hear that the meat is great, they don't gain weight efficiently.  To their credit, however, we got an education by raising them.

I'm glad I'm back.  I miss writing as a creative outlet and I miss your insights.  And the spammers have begun their relentless, vulturous descent.  Let's hope as I dust off my blog, they go to the wind as well.