The Lumberjack's Wife

Thank you to everyone who is praying for Kendra and who left kind messages for her last week.    Please continue to pray for her, and especially her four children who are without mom and dad right now and are getting anxious. My friend, Angela, who introduced me to Kendra, has posted an update on Kendra’s health.  Angela is in touch with the family and has more information that I do.

Click here to read that post.

Thank you!

Little Dude:  Dad?  Why does mother always insist on photographing things?

David:  Because she is insane, son.

So, I have to drive the truck, which is of course, towing the trailer, and the bulldozer has to tow the truck.  Its like a train.  Yes.  A redneck, hillbilly, camping-fun train.

I spend the entire time praying for my life.  I do not enjoy this Tom Foolery that my husband seems to always get us in.  But the trailer is out of the mud and I am supposed to be packing it.  But here I am, drinking coffee and blogging.

I’m a little concerned as to how we shall camp in the future with our newly-founded farm.  Because, oh!, did I tell you?  David brought home NINE MORE CHICKENS last night.  I think he needs to see a professional.  I’m like Dr. Doolittle over here.  I think we have about 40 rabbits, 33 chickens, 2 dogs, 2 goldfish, 1 kitten, and two turkeys.

Yes.  Tom is still with us.

Unfortunately, we are not getting bombarded with interested Craigslist-callers as I had originally anticipated.

I don’t think I really even like animals.  Yet, here I am.  Running my own zoo.

Let’s talk about the kitten, shall we?  Oh, and FYI:  The “R” in ridiculous was for how ridiculous life is and the “S” is for Sweet as in, oh the kitten is so sweet.

Yes.  My girls oft steal my camera and take no less than 4.2 million photographs.  And, yes.  Sweet Pea is feigning sleep.  But she is such a good actress, I bet you couldn’t tell.  And, no.  Sweet Pea does not believe in using pillowcases.  I wash my hands of it.

Handsome Dude was so excited that cat was a boy.  He promptly named him “Peter.”

Why?  I cannot be certain.

I think Peter fears for his life.  And rightly so.  I’ve decided we need round-the clock babysitters for Peter.  Because I think Little Dude shall kill him.  Little Dude is not gentle, folks.  But we are surviving.  Peter is still alive.  And the girls are learning to do their schoolwork with a kitten on their laps.

Before I go on my FREEZING camping trip, I shall leave you with a little pop quiz.

Please.  Try to contain your excitement.

Which of the following did my boys do?

A)  Stuff the kitten in a toy “pet carrier” and accidentally drop it down the stairs?

B)  Give the kitten a haircut.

C)  Take kitten food and scatter it all over my bed to try and give the kitten a snack.

D)  All of the above.

Yes.  Let us all be concerned for the safety of the kitten.

This is Mrs. Dr. Dolittle signing off, hoping everyone is jealous of her upcoming camping trip.

Later.

One such friend is Kendra.  She and I have been visiting each other’s blogs for over two years now.  She, like me, homeschools four children, although she seems to have things a bit more under control that I do.  She also shares many wonderful recipes and has a warm, kind heart.

Kendra is now fighting for her life.  I have copied this from an update I received from someone else:

“On Sunday, April 15th, Kendra had an adverse reaction to a medication.  She began having a hard time speaking and moving, so she was rushed to the Emergency Room.   Doctors discovered that she had suffered from several mini strokes.”

She is now in a hospital far, far away from her four children, fighting hard to recover.

Will you join me in praying for my friend?  I am going to print this post out and mail it to her.  If any of you would like to leave a comment of encouragement or a verse for her, I am sure she would appreciate it.

Before I go, I wanted to share with you something that Kendra wrote when she was a contributing author for a website called Those with Young.

(this is being posted with permission by the owner of Those with Young)

Not I.

I have nothing to say, but this does not surprise you.  Therefore, I shall take a whole bunch of random pictures from the past couple of weeks and just force you to feign enjoyment at looking at them.

You’re so very welcome.

Here’s a dandy.

Handsome Dude:  Mom!  There’s a TRICKEN in the WINDOW!

 I know what you are thinking.  “Taylor!  Enough with the chicken talk!  We get it!  You have chickens!”

But this is my life now.  Therefore, you will act like you care.  Just like you will pretend to enjoy this gem:

We have eggs coming out our ears.  I think we are getting over a dozen a day.  This did not impress the Mister, however.  He informed me that we should be getting more like two dozen a day.  Because he was in 4-H and has his “hoity-toity farm and ranch” pants on.   I, of course, was never in 4-H, and he likes to gloat over his superior poultry knowledge.  But I have better spelling and grammar skills.  Or skillz, if you are so inclined.

Little Dude.

This is Little Dude and Miley.  He calls her MileyGirl and is always following her around, the poor dear.  She is patient with him, but I think she finds him to be a bit smothering.  Little Dude will oft have dog hair stuck to his nose and always smells like dog now.  FYI.

We celebrated my niece and my dad’s birthday the other day.  Niece was a bit nervous about the whole “restaurant birthday song” sitch, and understandably so.  They toughed it out together.

Plus, they got free desserts and that is always a perk.

Awhile back, David’s side of the family had a photo scavenger hunt.  Why?  Just for kicks and grins, I suppose.  I only have pictures of my team.

Here we are in the produce section of Walmart.  As if we could not be any cooler.

 Have you ever been in Walmart and seen random people running around with a camera posing with various merchandise?

Yes.  We would be those people.

One of the tasks on the hunt was to get a picture with someone you knew, but who was not participating in the hunt.

The sentence, which was written by my husband, was poorly worded and lacking in proper comma placement.  (I told you I was better at grammar than he) Therefore, my mother-in-law read it as getting pictures with people you don’t know at all.

It was quite humorous looking through all of her pictures with poor, helpless strangers.  I’m sure they didn’t think she was insane at all.

My sister-in-law has got to be the most photogenic person on the face of this earth.  Here she is pointing at cows.  Because this is what my inlaws do.  We stop on the side of the road and pose with cows, didn’t you know?

I mean, really.  She looks like she belongs in a Pantene commercial.  Let us all silently envy her gorgeous, red hair, shall we?

Alright.  That’s all I got.  If anyone wanted to throw out a few suggestions for the letter “P”, I would not read said suggestions with disdain.  I would be most thankful.

Otherwise, we’ll probably talk about POULTRY.

You’ve been warned.

1)  We moved to the country.

2)  We decided we needed a garden and a chicken coop.

3)  Our land is very “roll-y” and covered in weeds and brush.

4)  David bought a bulldozer to clear the land.

5)  Clearing the land takes longer than one might expect.

6)  We spent all our monies on supplies to fence a garden and chicken coop.

7)  We could not put up the aforementioned fence because our land was not yet clear.

8)  On Saturday, David saw a listing on Craigslist for free chickens.  Getting good deals is what makes my husband’s world go round.  He went and got 24 chickens, 1 rooster, 1 Tom turkey, and 2 hen turkeys.

9)  We did not have a fence.

10)  My husband is insane.

***

So, we put all these birds into the chicken coop that my husband just finished this week and boarded up all the doors so they could not get out into the wild and be eaten by a great beast of some sort.

On Sunday, we got up early to start working on this fence . . . that we were not ready to build.  David started at 7:45am with putting in posts and pouring concrete.  I came out around 9am because the laundry pile was going to eat us if I did not conquer it.

Now.  David is an extremely hard worker.  He does not complain.  He does not get mad.  He does not quit.  He does not even break for lunch.

I am a good worker . . . in theory.  But I cannot do what he does.  I lack the muscles and general knowledge needed to properly fence a yard.  But I am willing, and he is patient, and therefore, we get it done.

And when I say “we,” please understand that he basically did all the work and I can only deduce that my purpose is to serve as eye-candy.

Ha.

I have no idea how he does what he does everyday.  But have you ever used wire cutters?  Apparently I do not have the hand muscles required to properly cut wire.  My hands are sore and they are covered in cuts and scrapes from trying to pull the chicken wire tight enough against the fence posts.

David’s hands are completely covered in callouses.  I think he must no longer feel pain in his hands.

We had to be in town at 1pm, so we had to quit early.  We only got about half the fence up before we had to go.  Because, remember?  We weren’t supposed to get chickens this weekend.

We got home at 7:30pm and decided to try and finish the fence.  The boys had fallen asleep, so David, the girls, and I got right to work.  We finished in a little over an hour with the help of some headlights and a flashlight.

The girls had fun and were excited to find a few more eggs before bed.

Sweet Pea (blue jacket) is holding a turkey egg.  What does one do with a turkey egg?  Don’t ask me.  I didn’t know I was raising turkeys.

I suppose it was probably supposed to stay under its mother’s feathered hiney.  Oops.

Since the girls were such hard workers, we let them stay up and watch a little TV.  We made popcorn and ice cream and watched The Waltons.  And, yes, I will admit.  I enjoy me some Waltons.  Apparently this is what happens when one moves to the country and homeschools.

The girls went to bed, but Daisy Mae came up crying, saying she heard a noise.  David checked things out and found nothing.  Then she came up again.  This time I went down and told her I heard nothing, but it was a LIE, because there was TOTALLY something making noise and I knew not what it was.  So I went and got David and we did some investigating and it turns out there is something living in the wall!

The wall!?!  Why do these things happen to me?

So, she came and slept on the couch because she was too freaked out, but now I have to worry about what sort of colony is living in my walls.

***

The chickens came out and enjoyed their new backyard this morning.

And because this is the luck I have, there is a dead chicken in the driveway, eaten by some sort of animal.

This is a problem.

I have to go past this dead chicken in order to get Handsome Dude to and from preschool today.  And there is NO WAY I am moving a dead chicken body, I can tell you that right now.

I think my husband needs to quit his job so he can take care of all this nonsense.  I wash my hands of it.

So, now, dear readers.

1)  What should I do with the turkey eggs?

2)  Did you know that none of the eggs are white?  They are like blue and green.

3)  Can I make a craft out of the pretty eggs?

4)  Does anyone want to come and move a chicken body for me?  I have a flannel shirt you can wear, if that sweetens the deal for you.

5)  These eggs are fertilized and I am scared to crack them open.

6)  There appears to be poo-poo on the eggs.  The eggs at the grocery store don’t have poo-poo on them.

7)  Have you ever had a creature living in your walls?  What can one do in a situation like this?

Country life is fun.

I’ll be back in a bit with my “N” post for the day, but I just wanted to share with you a link to another blog hosting “Muddy Mama” today.   My Easter post is being featured over there today, along with a couple of other stories from other bloggers.

Jessie Gunderson, host of Muddy Mama, says: “Encourage someone! I’m hoping we can be real about our trials and, through the relationships made here, find a reason to smile and laugh together at our misfortunes. So if you share, try to encourage another person who participates.”

I shared the moment my three year old walked outside, got completely naked, and jumped joyously on the trampoline without a care in the world.

It takes a lot of coffee to raise boys.

Here is the link to Jessie’s blog. 

See you in a bit!