Summer update

We have not had many new pictures to post recently, so nothing new on the blog. I will try to post some soon, but first I need to take some.
On the sad side, Mohawk Duck is no longer with us. We suspect a predator got him, but don't know for sure. We miss him, but I guess life would be hard as a blind duck.
We also now have five turkeys on our farm, and they are growing like weeds.
In a week we head to NY for two weeks to visit family. The kids are excited, but I am dreading the drive... I need to get my pilots license so the drive is a lot shorter. If there is anyone out there that would like to pay for me to get my license, I would accept your generosity. Anyone else felt lead to give me a plane? I would accept that as well.
One morbid but tasty haiku before I leave today.

Kindergarden ckicks
were egg layers I assumed
for meat instead, yum.

the story is that we got 17 chicks from a class experiment, and the teacher wanted to make sure they were not going to be used for alligator or snake food, because she could not stand the thought of that. I can completely understand. However, when we got them I had no idea they were heavy meat chickens instead of layers. For those that don't know, meat chickens are only good for that. If they don't get butchered, they will die young anyway because they are so big. Anyway, they still will not be used for snake food, but will be used for human food. I don't have the heart to tell her though.

On memorial day Kristen took me to a friends (debbie)house for flying. Her husband (Leighton) is a flight instructor, and they own several planes. The one in the picture is a Cesna 172. Kristen had bought me an "introductory flight" for Christmas, and it finally worked out for us to go. This flight would turn into quite an adventure as the instructor actually let me fly the plane, then went up again and let Kristen fly. Kayla and Jenna also took their first flights. Ian elected to remain on Terra Firma. I cannot say enough about the generosity and kindness of Leighton and Debbie. If any of you are interested in renting a charter flight or taking flying lessons, I would love to recommend them. For reasons of anonimity, I am not going to give the name of the flight school out publicly. 

Roger tower we are ready for takeoff... OK, we didn't really say that. In case you were wondering, the grins not fake! When he told me to get in the pilot's seat just before this pic. was taken I was so excited that had I been any older I may have wet myself. 

Kayla and Jenna went up with me. Kayla was a bit afraid, but Jenna was very eager. In the end they both loved it. Kayla really got interested when I pointed out some horses that looked the size of ants. 

Getting ready for takeoff, or we were landing... not sure which, either way I was on cloud nine... pun intended. 

After we got on the ground and he offered to take Kristen up. Of course, I wasn't about to miss a chance to go up again, so when it was offered... Here's the cool part, Kristen has always been very fearful of flying, and has always hated it when she has had to do it. She got up in this little plane, and absolutely loved it. Now she is talking about me getting my pilot's license! 

Kristen decided to take a few photos when she went up. This is the house we flew from, see the little pink speck on the trampoline? That is Kayla pouting. 

You don't get to take a picture like this from a plane very often.  

A pic of the quarry we flew over 

Here Kayla gets her hair chopped to donate. 

Kayla and Kristen, and Jenna recently went to get their hair done. Kristen and Kayla finally got to donate their hair to "Locks of Love" after a long year of growing and grooming.  

Updates and things

I am trying to update some of the information on the blog, so you may notice some changes. I am trying to take away things that could compromise the safety of my family in an unecessary way. I am getting more cautious with these things as I hear more and more horror stories. I'm not trying to live in fear, I am just trying to be smart. I would hate for my kids to grow up with out a father around because he was in jail for killing someone... you get the drift. I mostly tried to remove anyreference to where we live and what not.

We are doing very well. The family is all healthy, and crazy. No, that is not a religious philosophy. I am not saying the crazier you are the healthier you are, I am just saying being crazy is more fun. OUr farm continues to grow with the addition of ducks, and the new incubator was exciting to have this spring. We need more land, anyone want to give us a bunch so we can raise our children around all these animals we like to keep. Horses would be great to have, but they would have to stay in the livingroom... and since they always steal the remote, I won't allow that.

School is almost done. Enough said.

With summer here, I will try to be better about keeping this thing updated.

Later,
Me

Our usual mess of new chickens for the spring. We hatched some for the first time, and others we got from a kindergarten class hatching project. 

We decided to add a passle of ducks to our happy little farm this year. The ducks have become some of our favorite animals. Two are blue sweeds, one a black sweed, and one a pekin. 

This is "mohawk duck" We found out a few days after we got him home that he is blind. He has seemed to adjust well though, and continues living. He has also become more of a family pet because he is so tame. Of course, he doesnt have a choice, if he can't see us coming to pick him up, he can't run away. 

This is one of the kittens we have left. 

This is one of the two kittens we have left in the menagerie, but hopefully she too will be gone soon. If not, I will threaten to do terrible things to them, and Liz F. will take them. 

The ladies went out the other night to get their hair done. Kristen and Kayla have been cultivating long heads of hair for the past year in order to donate it to "Locks od Love". Jenna just went along for the ride.