Just being thankful in the rain

I really, really dislike the rain.  Especially because my horse's stall floods if it rains a lot . . . and it's been raining a lot here (hey it's Ohio. what did you expect, sunshine?).

This evening when I went out to give Alax (my goat) his third bottle of the day I also went to go check on the chicks and on my horse.  I had no idea it was raining--because even though it was raining alot, it was really quiet.  So, I went outside and saw that the chicks were fine, and then I went to go see Macintosh (my mini horse).  Well, when I saw that the driveway was almost covered with water in some places I knew that the stall had to be flooded.

On Saturday I spent a long time raising the floor of the stall to prevent the flooding (and my dad's digging a drainage ditch sometime this week--yay!) but still it was started to get water in it.  So, I had to get several wheelbarrows full of stuff to raise the floor some more . . . in the pouring rain.  Keep in mind that this wheelbarrow only has one wheel, the wheel is completely flat, it's really muddy outside, and it's REALLY heavy . . . so yeah, not fun!  As much as I love my horse, I was really not happy about doing this (obviously).

I know it sounds like I'm complaining (ok, I'm definitely complaining), but here's the point.  I didn't need to complain.  In fact, I had absolutely no reason to complain.  There were so many things to be thankful for, but I was being stupid and chose to see only the negative things.  God blessed me in so many ways, but I ignored those blessings.  As much as I hated the rain, God really used that experience to remind me to be thankful about things and to not complain so much.

Instead of complaining that the wheelbarrow was ridiculously hard to push and kept getting stuck (darn flat tire) I was thankful that I had a wheelbarrow to use.  It would have been even harder without the wheelbarrow.  And, even though it was irritating to have a slight leak in my boot, I was so thankful that I had boots.  Thankfully it wasn't cold, because I was soaking wet by the end of the evening.  And, lastly, that's not how I would have liked to have spent my time, but I'm so, so, SOOOO thankful that I have a horse.  He can certainly be a stinker at times, but I wouldn't trade him for anything--even the chance to stay inside on nasty days like today.  Although I used to hate the rain (I'm still not a big fan of the rain) it will now remind me to be thankful for things instead of complain about them.

So now, I'm thankful for the rain.

More chicks!

I promised that I'd get pictures of my chicks up this weekend.  So, here they are.  Altogether there are 10 chicks: 1 white leghorn, 1 rhode island red, 2 barred rocks, 1 black australorp, 2 silver laced wyandottes, and 3 ameraucanas.

The two barred rocks are in the back, the white leghorn is in the front to the right, and the rhode island red is in the front to the left.

So the two that are closer to the bottom of the picture are the silver laced wyandottes.  In the back the 3 multicolored chicks are the ameraucanas and the black chick is the black australorp.

The rhode island red is named Clara.  I haven't named the rest of them yet, any ideas?  I tend to like unusual, odd, or rare names (Clara's not really unusual, but I felt like naming the chick Clara lol).

California and Palm Trees

So, I changed the background of my blog probably at least 20 times.  No joke!  I wanted to find a "farmy" one . . . but, although I live on a farm, I really like palm trees. So the background--until I find a better one--will be palm trees.

Speaking of California, which we weren't but now we are (actually the palm trees reminded me of CA :p), I will be in San Jose, CA from May 1 through the 8.  But, I will most likely not take a break from blogging.  In fact, I hope I'll be able to post more often because I should have a lot of spare time there and a lot of pretty pictures.  My dad's going there on a business trip and I get to go with him!!  I've always ALWAYS wanted to go to CA.  So, because it's a business trip there are a few days that he will have conferences so I'll probably have a lot of free time those days--free time to blog I hope!  So make sure you check my blog the first week of May!

Yes, I know

So, I'm just playing around with blog backgrounds right now trying to find one that I like.  As a result this may not even apply when you actually read this.  But, I know that palm trees are not "farmy."  I just like palm trees and I like this background (since I may have a different background up it was a photo of palm trees from shabbyblogs.com).

I've changed the background at least 5 times today . . . I can't find one I like.

I love my cat . . . but she's really annoying me right now.

I actually have 4 cats . . . and more on the way.  Yes, my cat, Indra, is pregnant . . . again.  I know someone who's going to be taking a trip to the vet after this litter :p  The great thing is that Indie's kittens have always been really pretty and really nice.

 

Here's a picture of Indie when she was a kitten--I can't find any recent ones.  She's a lot bigger now, obviously.

So, since she's pregnant she's acting really bizarre.  Normally she is really skiddish, except around me, and won't go near anyone else, except me--but right now she's oddly friendly (she's never mean, she just usually won't let anyone besides me cuddle her).  So, I went into the kitchen for lunch this afternoon and Indra was leaping on the French doors into the dining room and crawling up them to the top and just hanging at the top of the doors.  She was outside and wanted in so she was yowling at the top of her lungs!  I didn't really think that was annoying . . . apparently my mom did though :p

So, she's really annoying me when I'm trying to take care of the chicks.  All the other cats and even the dogs aren't trying to get into the chicken coop especially when I'm standing right there.  I had throw a few felines (and canines) out of the coop one or two times, but now they just sit and stare at me while I'm checking the temperature, feeding, watering, or whatever.  Indie, on the other hand, just isn't getting the message because every single time I open the coop she's right there waiting and I have to throw her out every few minutes.  Any other time, like when she's not pregnant, she would take off like a rocket and not come near the coop again . . . but, like I said, she's being really weird right now.  Oh well, kittens in the spring are always fun :)  And, it's nice to have an extra cuddly cat!

Anyone want a kitten?

Funny Story :)

So, this actually happened early in March . . . but the whole time I was thinking "If I had a blog I would so post this story on there."  Well, now I have a blog so I'm going to post this story.  And note that I'm not complaining--I think what happened was hilarious!

I know I haven't posted anything on this blog regarding my grandmother, but she's been in and out of ICU since December (I posted more info on my other blog Never Surrender).  Right before Spring break we were told she was doing much better, but that weekend she took a turn for the worse (this part of the story is definitely not funny).  So, in less than 24 hours we got all seven people of my family ready to leave and got someone to take care of my animals.  So we left early Sunday morning.  I was only able to go in the first place because it happened to be the week of Spring break.  But, because it was Spring break, I was only able to stay one week before classes started back up again.  Ok, now's when the story gets funny :)

Since I absolutely had to get home by Monday so I could go to class, we looked into several different methods of traveling home.  At first Dad wasn't going to come with me, so I was going to fly home by myself.  Then Dad decided he would drive home on Sunday, stay a couple of days so he could go to some meetings at work, and then drive back down Thursday evening.  He wanted to spend as little money as possible, so he looked into whether it would be cheaper to rent a car or see if he could borrow one of my Papaw's cars.  The car my dad wanted to borrow was an '84 Sunbird.  And, it hadn't been driven more the 2 hours at a time in 20 years.  We wanted to drive it on a 15-20 hour trip . . . I didn't think that was a good idea.  But, it was cheaper than renting.

About halfway through the week, a friend asked me if I could bottle feed her baby goat while she was out of town (the mother wouldn't nurse it).  So I told her I would pick the baby up Sunday evening on the way home from FL.  I was supposed to be there around 8:00.  So we needed to leave from FL pretty early in the morning.  Dad and I decided to leave around 3:30 AM.  The GPS said we'd arrive at my friend's farm at 6:59PM.  Although we're usually really late, we actually left on time!  (I think we may have actually been in the car at 3:25).

The car ran fine for like 15 minutes, but as soon as we were on the freeway, I knew we were in trouble!  The speed limit was 70, but anytime we went over 65 the car kept hesitating.  So . . . I could not go back to sleep (and I did not want to take a turn driving that car . . .).  Even though it was hesitating a lot, dad kept going (it must be a guy thing . . . I would have turned around and rented a car the moment the car started hesitating.  Which would have been really close to my grandparents home.).  I was really worried until like 6:00 AM.  Then I thought "well, we've made it safe so far.  I guess we'll be ok."  Then I prayed thanking God that we were safe and that the car was still running.  No joke, that exact moment the engine gets really quiet and the car starts to slow down.  I ask dad what he's doing and he said he was pulling the car over because the engine died.  Haha!

Ironically, dad didn't have his AAA card with him.  But, thankfully I had mine!  So, we waited for a couple of hours for the tow-truck to get there.  We only had 5 miles of free towing with AAA, but my Uncle's family was right behind us and they have like 100 free miles so we got towed to Savannah.  So the truck driver was really nice and even pulled over for a few minutes so that dad could make a few more calls (to try to find the cheapest place to rent a car).  On the way to Savannah the truck driver went 90 the entire time!  And there were cops everywhere.  I'm guessing that they didn't pull him over because he was going so fast that they couldn't even see him.  lol :p It was really hard to find a place to get the car fixed that a car rental place really close by (there were lots of car rental places but they either weren't open, or they didn't have any cars).  So there was a expensive place near the airport and we left the car there to be fixed.  So even though we didn't rent because it was cheaper to borrow the car, we ended up renting anyways . . . and spending way more money.

The awesome thing was that because I'm under 21 I wasn't allowed to drive the rental unless dad paid a ton of extra money, so I didn't have to drive the rest of the way.  The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful until we got to Ohio.  At this point we're like 4 or so hours behind schedule.  As we're getting close to my friend's farm (we still had to pick up the goat) it's around eleven and it randomly starts raining . . . really hard.  I didn't have any shoes besides flip-flops (hey I was in FL!) so I tied plastic bags around my feet lol.  So, I went into the barn and got the goat (and the bottle and milk) and then we went home.  It's funny because the rental car agreement said we weren't allowed to have any pets in the car at all.  But, the goat's a "farm" animal, not a pet (by the end of the week though, the goat was pretty much a pet :p).

When I got home, it was after midnight, I still had to bring everything inside and get everything ready for the goat (I couldn't get anything ready beforehand because I didn't know until I was already in FL) and I had to get everything ready for school the next day!  So, by the time everything was done it was probably close to 3 AM.  In the car I didn't sleep at all, so I had been awake for like 42 hours.  I had to leave for school by 11:45 the next day so I could have slept in a little bit but I had to get up at 6:30 to feed the goat.  Thankfully I didn't fall asleep in the car (or in class :p) and I caught up on my sleep the next few days.

My dad drove back on Thursday and picked up the Sunbird in Savannah :)  So, I just thought that was really funny and you might enjoy reading it :)  What are some of your interesting vacation stories?

Chicks!

So, I finally got my chicks!  I have two Barred Rocks, one Rhode Island Red, one White Leghorn, and couple Ameraucanas and some Silver Laced Wyandottes.  I'll post some pictures next weekend--right on time for Easter :p

No, I haven't named them yet.  But, I'll post as soon as I have.  These are going to be for my 4-H project "Raising Fancy Poultry" and they're going to be layers not meat birds.  I'm pretty much done with the project book except for a few records that won't need to be done until the around fair time.

In other news, we just had another 4-H meeting and we added a new member.  My cousin joined as a cloverbud and he said he's going to do a project on bugs :)  So I think we have around 10 members in our club this year.  Oh, and the club is called The 4-H Explorers.

Something fun for once!

Blogging is really fun.  At least, when the subject is fun.  I started another blog earlier about theology and philosophy, and while I really love studying theology and philosophy, it's really hard to post often because it requires a lot more thought than just a fun post (don't read that wrong because theology and philosophy are really fun for me . . . it's just not the same kind of fun).  So,  I decided that I needed a fun blog for . . . well . . . just fun!  I will still be posting on Never Surrender, it just won't be as frequent.  This blog, on the other hand, will probably have a lot more posts . . . and pictures too!

I hope to have some fun stories on here.  There will probably be a lot of posts on 4H :)  Eventually I'll have some posts on animal care as well.