Chick update

Well, after 5 days the chicks are doing pretty well over all. We had one casualty which we speculate was due to the heat, but the rest of them are growing incredibly fast and seem to be thriving. We fill up their food trough at least three times a day and sometimes more, and the same for their water. We are all totally amazed at how fast they are growing in such a short time. Less than a week ago, they were a tiny ball of fluff and 3 of them would fit in your hand. Now they are looking more like chickens and only one will fit in your hand at a time. Hard to believe in about 7 weeks, they'll be dinner !

I also put some pictures of our garden up here. Clay is displaying his pumpkin vine that he started from seed indoors back in early March. It has grown like crazy and he loves to go look at it.

It's hard to tell much about the garden from this picture, but it's doing pretty well. Actually, when compared to my previous 2 years of gardening it is the best garden ever. I have 5 tomato plants (4 of which were grown from seed indoors), 2 1/2 rows of green beans, 3 1/2 rows of okra, 6 rows of corn, 9 zuchinni plants, 9 cantaloupe plants, 9 watermelon plants and 1 pumpkin vine. The thing that makes this garden so much better than the last two is that you can see dirt between all the rows of plants instead of weeds. It's been more work, but I haven't cared since I feel so much better than I have in several years. David even put a fence around it for me to keep the deer, coons, possums and rabbits out. With any luck, we'll even have enough produce left over to can and eat throughout the year.

Baby Chicks

Thursday morning at 7:30am , we got a call from the Post Office saying our baby chicks were in. We ordered 75 chickens from a local hatchery and they were born on Wednesday, so we got them when they were 1 day old. The boys stayed home from summer school and helped me get them all set up in our brooder (recycled stock tank). They had so much fun playing with the chicks all day. They started naming some of them (although I'm not sure how they tell them apart) and I warned them that naming animals we will later eat is not the best idea. So, they have pretty much limited themselves to naming only the red chicks which will grow up to be laying hens. The yellow chicks will grow up to be broilers and thus shall remain nameless.

New Pet - Short lived

The same day we got Spot, Caleb spotted a green garden snake on the ground in the calf pen. I asked if they wanted me to catch it and they did, so I picked him up and gave him to Caleb and Clay to play with. (Levi missed out on the excitement since he had spent the night at Byron's house.)

The boys wanted to keep him, so we looked around for something to put him in. He was pretty long, so the boxes we tried were too small to hold him in. We also tried a watering can and an ice chest, but he was pretty good at escaping. The boys finally decided to try and put him in the stock tank (see earlier "Who needs a pool" post). It had long since drained all the water from swimming.

Unfortunately for the snake, it was a really warm day and the black stock tank turned out not to be the best home for him. The boys came in the house sad, because the snake had died in the stock tank after about 5 minutes. We had him a total of maybe 30 minutes, but I'm sure for the snake it seemed like a whole lot longer !

Clay's Calf

We got Clay's calf on a Saturday 2 weeks ago from a dairy about 25 miles from our house. Clay had named him "Spot" before we even went to get the calf and it turned out to be a good name for a Holstein calf. Daddy carried it in to the pen and Clay spent lots of time petting him and loving on him. Later that evening, Clay insisted on making the bottle himself and he went out and fed Spot with Daddy. Clay did a great job and he seems to really enjoy taking care of Spot and being around him. It is now 2 1/2 weeks since we got Spot, and Clay has never onced complained about feeding him and taking care of him. Clay will show him at the fair in July in the "PeeWee Bucket Calf show".

Mixing the big calf bottle

Who Needs a Pool ?

The first full day out of regular school, the boys wanted to fill up an old stock tank to swim in, so I told them if they cleaned it out really good I would think about it. An hour later they wanted me to come see the result and I was impressed enough to let them fill it up. It was only in the upper 70's that day, and the water coming out of the hydrant was pretty cold, but they had a great time.

We did give Caleb a hard time about holding his nose to jump in a stock tank !

Baseball

This summer, we spend Monday and Thursday nights at the ballpark as well as Saturday afternoons for Clay. Levi and Caleb play on the same nights - sometimes in different towns at different times so that we can see some of both games, and sometimes they play in different towns at the same time. In 3 of the 11 games they each play, they play in the same town back to back which is perfect !

Levi in the past has always played first base, but this year there are 16 kids on his team, so he's got to take turns playing at first, third and centerfield. Having that many kids on one team is pretty rough because you don't usually get to play the whole game, and baseball is pretty boring when you're not on the field (and sometimes even when you are !) Levi's team is 1-3 after last night.

Caleb's team is coached by David and they are the best team we've seen so far in the league. They are 4-0 and none of the games have even been close. Caleb plays first base and has gotten several outs. He has only struck out once this year in about 15 times at bat and has hit several triples and a homerun. There are only 9 kids on Caleb's team, so they all get to play the whole game which is nice. He is in machine pitch which in my opinion is the most exciting league because there are alot of hits and action. In Levi's league, the kids are pitching and most of them aren't throwing strikes so there is a lot of walks.

And then there's teeball. There are no outs in teeball and each team bats through their line-up every inning. Thankfully, there are only 2 innings ! Clay loves teeball - especially batting. He is one of their best hitters, and generally hits it to the outfield every time. After his first game he asked if we saw when he "hit it to the clouds !" Then he wondered "what would happen if God catched it ?" I told him he would be out. He has a little trouble staying focused when he is playing in the field. He plays first base some and he has also played catcher and 2nd base. He likes to stand on the base when he is in the field, so the runner doesn't know what to do. I'm glad he enjoys it so much and that makes it worth sitting through the game.

First Day of Summer School

Yesterday was the first day of summer school for the boys. Caleb and Clay were very excited and I think Levi was too, although he is way too cool to show it. Caleb couldn't go to sleep the night before and woke us up at 6:20am yesterday morning fully dressed. Normally getting Caleb out of bed in the morning is like pulling teeth and usually involves tears on the part of one or both of us. But not for the first day of summer school !

I took them to the school and Clay saw one of his friends and his mom walking in and he asked "Can I walk in with Xander's mom ?" I said no, that I would be sad if he walked in with someone else's mom - he had to walk in with me. He reluctantly agreed and we headed toward the school with a slight detour at the Elementary sign so I could take his picture. (He was not too excited about that.) We found his friends in the cafeteria and he kissed me goodbye and I found myself alone for a whole day.

At 3:30, the bus pulled up to our driveway and 3 boys got off with happy faces. They had all had a good time at summer school and wanted to go back again. I asked Clay if he missed me any and he said no, but later on the way to the baseball game last night he said "I cried for you just a little bit." I saw one of the teachers at the game and she confirmed that he did cry just a little because he missed Mom. I asked if he took a nap and he said "Yes, I just went to sleep and then they made us wake up and do stuff!" Clay was pretty tired after school, but we didn't have time to rest because we had 2 ballgames to get to last night. At the second game, he fell off some bleachers and scraped his arm pretty bad- he also said he hit his head, but I couldn't find a knot. When we got home he threw up all over the front porch and David and I worried about a concussion. I woke him up a couple of times during the night to make sure he was okay, and he seems to be doing fine now, although he is still pretty tired (and so am I !)

So, the first day of summer school proved to be pretty exciting. I asked Caleb if it was everything he thought it would be and he replied "Well, almost." He didn't get up at 6:20am this morning and I had to go roust him out of bed, but at least there were no tears today !