Getting ready for Fall

My Hubby has been home for three days. We have have been super busy getting ready for fall. I'm hoping to have pictures by tomorrow because every battery in the house seems to have disappeard!
I was working in the garden pulling weeds and getting ready to plant for a fall crop. Of course I had to work between the rain showers, which seemed to arrive as soon as I hung out a load of laundry. I just figure the clothes got an extra rinse.
Hubby and the boys cleaned out the goat pens, swept out the barn/garage, and moved the turkeys to another pen. We are getting ready for our second batch of 25 broiler chickens, which come on the 24th of this month.
I'll be happy with 50 chickens in the freezer.
We had bought 9 turkeys in late June and then had another 17 delivered at the end of July. The first nine are doing well and growing nicely, by getting them a few weeks earlier they should be about 35-40lbs come butchering time in late Novemeber. The Monday before Thanksgiving. These turkeys are grown larger because we are making burger from them. Three of them are being sold to another friend because he feels "the bigger the better". He enjoyed showing off his drumsticks last year which looked like clubs!
The second batch of turkeys are also doing well but we had some trouble with them escaping their enclosure. These were a bit more fiesty than the first group! We would go out to the barn and find the little fluff balls in with the goats. We ended up losing two because they tried to cuddle with Neera and ended up under her. I also sold four of those young ones to another homesteader who didn't want to order the minimum from the hatchery. I sold her 4 poults for 5.50 each. I didn't make much money from the sale but I used it to buy a 100lbs of feed. So now I have 11 turkeys left of the younger group and these I will sell for Thanksgiving. In fact come October I will take orders. We sell our turkeys for $1.50 a pound. Again we don't make money off the sale, we just recoup most of what we spent and offer our friends and neighbors the opportunity to try a home grown fresh turkey. I already have a few sold! Last year we had 16 turkeys and I ended up with 2. Of course the 2 I kept were almost 40lbs each.
Well, now I need to get going and Milk the goats and drop my daughter off at work.

***** GIVEAWAY*** Mrs. Meyers

I am trying to grow my readership for this blog so I am doing a GIVEAWAY. I have a book --MRS. MEYERS CLEAN HOME, no nonsense advice that will inspire you to clean like the dickens
I read the book yesterday. I think the terms Wit and Wisdom are appropriate for Mrs. Meyers, the mother of nine children and 20+ grandchildren.

Here's the deal:

You must follow this blog- that's one chance
Leave a comment about your favorite product or gadget- one chance
post this give away on your blog- counts as two chances
post this to facebook or twitter - counts as two chances

Leave a comment for each chance.

The drawing will be held Saturday Aug.13th

If you don't have a blog check back Sunday 14th to see if you have won!

Good luck and I hope to hear from you!

Mopping the floor or a cool new game?

We found the smell... It was not under the floor as I suspected but actually a bag of egg cartons. I thought it was just a store bag with empty cartons never paid much mind to it. People bring us bags and bags of egg cartons. I have two huge boxes of cartons and really nowhere to put them all. I guess I was becoming a hoarder of egg cartons. ANYWAY, (see the distraction) I do believe I caused the bad egg smell. The other week I was getting eggs and noticed someone had turned up the fridge temp which froze several dozen eggs. When eggs freeze they expand and the shell breaks. I started unloading the cartons of frozen eggs, and placed them in store bags for easy removal. Apparently, I left a bag sit behind the door to the summer kitchen. The eggs thawed and spoiled causing the stench. I even pushed that bag aside looking for the smell, ripped my laundry room apart and never found it. This morning Hubby went looking. Now, I love the man dearly but he left the bag sit there and left me a note in the kitchen. He was not moving the stinking mass, I made the mess I guess I was the one cleaning it up. Daughter grabbed the mess and carried the DRIPPING bag out of the summer kitchen through the kitchen and out the door. Now I thank her for reading Dad's note and "helping" but now the rotten death smell was throughout the entire house. We did and emergency mop job. Which turned into a cool game because as Newtons Law goes what ever can go wrong does, and my mop fell apart. So we donned cleaning rags on our feet and mopped the entire kitchen floor sliding and gliding back and forth. So my house is Lestoil fresh and bright and clean. It didn't take near as long because there were three of us mopping. I just had to follow one of them to make up for what they missed. It didn't even feel like work. Bethany thought it was a pretty good exercise!

I picked up a new book today that I'm going to give away. Mrs. Meyers clean home; No nonsense advice that will inspire you to clean like the dickens. More on that tomorrow.

Really? I love my life.

I got most of my stuff done yesterday. I even had time to read. But when I went back to do laundry, I thought I smelled something. I figured. I have four kids, they stink. I pushed it off as dirty laundry. Well the laundry was all done and the smell didn't go away. The longer I stood in the laundry room the more I could smell it. It smelled like some thing died in there. Some people might be suprised by this but I've smelled death before. Like when Hubby's deep freezer went bad and everything inside thawed and we didn't know it. At the time he had a deer cape and some fish waiting to go to the taxidermist. Not a pretty scent and it takes ALOT of candles to get the smell out! And there was the time the cat killed a mouse and was using it's head as a soccer ball and tossed it under the shelving, again not a nice smell. So today will be spent pulling out the washer and dryer, unloading the shelves and pulling the shelving unit out looking for the dead thing I'm sure is in there somewhere.

Here and there

Well, I didn't get everything done I had planned but I did get other things done. That's the problem when one is easily distracted...
I started out well. Dropped everyone off at work and school, came home and loaded the dishwasher and cleaned the back sink. Then I started to flounder. Charlie was distracting me and talking and talking and talking so I took him to the library. I was excited that I won the "BIG" prize for the adult reading program. I got a tote filled with a plush blanket, 2 boxes of teas. 2 cubes of sticky notes, a pen, a keychain flashlight, three books and a $25 Borders gift card. I have to use the gift card soon because they are going out of business. Yeah Me! So Charlie and I played at the library until it was time to pick up his sister at the farm. She was mad that I was there so early, she didn't have time to chat with her friends. She told me I was to wait until she called me before I came to get her. Um, I will be there waiting everyday now. I get a bit frustrated when they think I am at their beck and call.
I had promised Charlie I would take him to McDonald's for lunch. I really need to think things through before agreeing to them! McD's was crazy, playland was packed and the moms there scared me. I don't really think McDonalds playland was designed so that moms could drop their kids off then go outside to smoke.
We came home and I made up my bed, I forgot to earlier. I got distracted again looking at the books I won. Then it was time to pick up the boys. When I had dropped them off I noticed Isaiah's shoes weren't fitting properly and when I dropped off Robert he asked me if I had duct tape in my car. For What? To tape up his shoe. So after I picked up the boys we all headed out to the shoe store and everyone got their school shoes. We got home shortly after Hubby did and while they got all the chores done, I whipped up dinner. Pancakes and sausage.
After dinner, Hubby wanted to sit and watch a movie together. So we had a family movie moment. Then it was baths and bed for everyone but me. I packed lunches and cleaned up after dinner. Then I went to bed and read for a bit. That was my day.
I hope today to get the summer kitchen cleaned up and laundry taken care of and dishes done. I have 5000 things to do but if I get those few done, I will be happy.

Busy doing NOTHING?

I feeling like I'm constantly busy, running around,working, cooking, cleaning... But when I stop and look back I see nothing. No tangible evidence of what I spent all my time on doing.
My goal this week is to keep a written record of all I do so I can read it and say Ohhhhh that's what I did! Todays goals are to clean up the kitchen and summer kitchen and re stake the steer out in the field, take Charlie to the library and pick up some groceries. I'm going to try and keep things simple and focused.

Farm Girl to Car Girl

Yippee! I now know how to put on front brakes. It takes a whole ten minutes and the hardest part is getting the tire off!!! I am so excited no more $45 fees for me!
Once again my wonderful brother came to the rescue. My Hubby can build a house from the ground up but forget the car. I think it's just a personal choice not to touch the car. Anyway. I called my brother. My brakes are grinding I tell him. He says front brakes are no problem. Hmmm... I want to learn how to do this myself. then I won't have to pay someone or beg brotherdear to help. I bought the brakes which was no easy thing. I had to know if my back brakes were drums or disks and if I had ABS and what size my tires were. Once that was figured out the brakes were $26. Brother came over and talked me through the first wheel.
Loosen the lug nuts
Put the jack under the frame and pump it up
remove lug nuts, put them in a pocket or the brake box
take off the tire
Hunk of metal attached to the rotor(big circle disk)is called a brake caliber
remove upper and lower bolts on the back of the caliber
put them in a safe place too
pull caliber off and slide out brake pads
using one of the pads, you have to push the piston back into place. It looks like nesting cups. place the old brake against the piston and using a c- clamp, press the piston back in. Remove the C- clamp and the old brake.
slide the new brake pads into place, put the caliber back in place, replace the bolts, make sure they are tight.
put the tire back on and tighten the lug nuts, lower the jack and tighten the lug nuts more.
Repeat process on other side of the car.
Make sure you start the car and pump the brakes until you feel resistence. That is pushing the brake fliud back into the piston. Check the brake fliud under the hood to make sure you have enough and didn't loose too much during the process.
I think I have the process down.
So I know how to fix a flat, change my oil and replace front brakes. I don't want to learn how to fix anything else right now because I can't afford to have anything else break!

But I am WOMAN