Congratulations it's a Boy!

and a Girl and a Boy and a Girl and a Girl and a Girl...

Just 4 weeks ago one of the farm cats had six babies. A week and a half ago on Wednesday night she took off at dusk to go hunting, she never returned.I am now the proud nursemaid of these guys and girls.

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Clockwise from the upper right corner; Buffy (male), Dirty Girl (female), Bling Bling (female), Cuddles (female), Socks (male), and Zig (female)

They are quite a handful. With the exception of a 7 or 8 hour stretch most nights where they sleep through the night, it's like having a newborn again. Except I'm buying expensive canisters of formula rather than being able to breastfeed. But there is still "diaper" duty, because they are just learning to go potty without assistance. And they soil their bed, so they make a ton of extra. laundry. All my old towels have been pressed into service.

Pretty soon they will be introduced to the litter box and the green grass outside and solid food!

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Lilacs

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Last year our lilacs did not bloom, a late frost killed all the blossoms.

I missed them.

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School Chicks

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A few weeks ago I took these two chickens to school to visit the Kindergarten class.

They both got a bath before we went, and dried with the hair drier. One didn't mind and the other seemed to enjoy. I put them in an old rabbit cage together and loaded up an egg carton with a variety of the eggs we get.

I took a couple of the biggest eggs we get, a couple of the smallest, a few pink eggs and peach eggs and some greenies.

I let the kids pass the eggs around and everyone got to pet the chickens, both of whom behaved very well.


I put Thalia the little brown hen in the cage what I fielded questions from the kids and while I was holding Greta, the black and white hen, Thalia laid an egg in the cage. A green egg. She is my green layer.

The kids all got to hold and pass around a fresh laid warm egg. Not a single one of them said it was gross. Not one. It was pretty cool.

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fuzzballs

Meet Dolly, our barn, or one of, she is one of our favorites. Who am I kidding? They are all my favorites.

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But she has graced us with the two cutest kittens ever. Meet Rigsby and Jack.

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what do you say...

Have you ever read the poem "The Dash"? It is about distilling the contents of ones life into that dash in between their birth date and death date on their headstone. It is about how that dash really is insufficient.

And it really is woefully insufficient.

 Tuesday, the 10th of March, my Grandmother died. My Mom's Mom, my Grandfather's beloved wife. That dash does not tell you anything about the woman that was my Grandmother.The woman who fed us Apples and peanut butter as lunch, and let us choose any flavor of soda from the selection in the basement, even if it was the very last one. The Dash does not tell you about the card games we played as a family, or the countless games of Yahtzee, she played with us individually. It does not tell you the countless times she and my Grandfather dropped what they were doing to come  to the rescue of their grandkids even just picking us up from school. It does not tell you that their house their arms and their hearts where always open to us.

And it does not tell you what the second date on that stone has done to my Grandfather. I have never seen him cry before this past couple weeks. I miss my Grandmother, but my life moves forward, my kids have to be taken care of, and the dishes must be done and the laundry must be run. I cant imagine having the void in my daily life that my Grandfather now has. This October would have been 70 years of marriage.

Even now, anything I write seems woefull insufficient, but not as insufficient as the dash.

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Goodbye Rod, and good riddance.

I can't tell you how satisfied I am with the impeachment, removal from office and decision to never let Rod Blagojevich hold office in Illinois again. I was irritated when he was elected the first time, I was downright angry when it happened again, and he has been nothing but bad news for Illinois during his entire reign of terror.

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Soooo....

I have not spent much ti me on here.. I started a blogger blog to share photos with family. (my vox is the place that if I need to vent about family I can, I started it because the people whom I needed to vent about all knew my Live journal address and I could not write about them pushing my buttons where they could read it)

So.. anyway If you want to check out the other blogs shoot me a pm.. but I'm going to try to start keeping the photos here up to date with what I am up to. I thought I would get alot more up but I think I hit my monthy upload limit! I did not even know I had one!

So all the new photos are what I have been up to for the second half of 2008.

This is how I spent my summer. Stalking the flowers.

And I spent a lot of time this fall admiring the ongoing riot of color dripping from the trees.

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Plus all my time admiring assorted dry plants, and dead flowers

And the odd obsession I have with field corn, donkeys and squirrels. That pudgy squirrel was so hungry, she let me stand 20 feet from her and shoot for about 20 minutes. So I did, and it was cold!

Then all those same plants get all glazed and confused in Ice storm season. and I am crazy enough to be out in teh cold to take pictures.

I love this one look at the light baubles behind it!

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This is a photo from Halloween, the boys wanted to be Indy. We went to Boo at the zoo, and I took a ton of shots there. (but the pesky upload quota wont let me post them)

I have a whole bunch more photos not posted, but I'll try to keep up a little better from now on.

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