Sorry no pics for the longest time!! I lost my camera (sob) and it feels like I am missing an extension of my body! I didn't realize just how often I took pictures, until I don't have it anymore. I am hoping Murphy's Law will come into affect that now that I have confessed to you all that I lost it, that it will magically appear! I also window shopped for a new one today and thought that might help it show up. No such luck so far! 

So, I may blog short stories or blurps from our life, but hate to do too much without pictures - cause that gets boring I'm sure! Maybe this will be an excuse to work on my writing. 

Anyhow, thanks for your patience and please wish me luck in either finding my old camera, or finding the money laying around somewhere to buy a new one! Ha! :-)

Oh my!

Well, we got home from special mtg in time to do chores, and after we got done with them, Mac (our dog) was so excited to see us after us being gone all day, that I had the kids jump in the pickup to take Mac down the road a bit to run around a section and get some of that energy out. .  . We were doing fine and Mac was enjoying a good run, when I saw something in the ditch ahead. It was a skunk and as soon as I saw what it was, I sped up and started hollering at Mac to keep running!!!! 

Well, he veered off and ran right up to it (never seen one of these pretty creatures before!) and leaned in to sniff it and that skunk just calmly turned around and lifted his tail and sprayed Mac right in the face. He was only about 2 feet from that tail and lost interest in that skunk in a hurry. He caught up to us and kept running till we got home, shaking his head every so often. When we pulled into the yard, he flopped down and immediately started rubbing his head on the grass. I am sure his eyes stung!

The next problem we had was this: he normally sleeps in the back room off our house and there was no way I was letting him in there! We don't have a bathtub to even try giving him a bath. So, I had the kids run in the house when he wasn't looking and I went and got the hose (he loves to chase the spray) and sprayed him off good. I know it does nothing for the smell, (trust me on this one) but was hoping it would help rinse some of it out of his eyes at least! 

Poor pup, he's not only stinky and wet, but now he's not allowed in his sleeping spot, his food and water were moved outside and he doesn't understand enough English to have it explained. Boy are those some sad looks I'm getting thru the window!!

So, there you have it. I'm always full of good ideas! Twilight maybe not the best time to take your dog out running! Ha!

Today was Build a Robot Day at Beau's school!

(Well, looking at it in these pictures, I now realize what we did wrong. Beau and I made the flames too long!) What you are seeing is "Wood-ee" Beau's rocket boy robot. 

Wood-ee has a comb for a mouth, orange juice containers for arms, boxes for body and head and cottage cheese and margarine tubs for legs. The flames are tissue paper. Oh and the eyes are two mint containers topped with two washers. And of course everything is covered in aluminum foil. 

The classroom was PACKED with people and all the robot parts everyone had to bring from home.  I was amazed everyone got accomplished what they did! But even with the tight quarters, the robots turned out great and the kids had a hoot making them. The boy in the top picture with Beau is Jason, a classmate. 

Silly Putty ain't all that fun. . .

when it gets in your hair!!

All three kids got bouncy-silly putty this afternoon and I thought - great quiet toy for in bible study!! Oh no! Wasn't meant to be! Beau's got stuck in the gutter after he bounced it up on the roof, Kaylee lost hers somewhere in the back room, and then there is Hope. 

Hope was in the shower (didn't know she took her putty with her) and was hollering 

for a bit, before I realized she wanted me to come do more than just wash her hair! She needed surgery to remove her putty that was firmly mashed in there. How she did this I have no idea!

We tried all kinds of things, but eventually I just cut the main chunk out and so Hoper has a small mohawk down the center of her head. But, the hair all around it is long enough that as long as I pull it back into a barrette or pony tail, no one is the wiser!! Whew! If she hadn't fallen asleep at bible study and stayed asleep, I would have taken an after picture of her, but she's out pretty cold, so daddy just carried her right up to bed! Will have to post one of her tomorrow. Hopefully you won't be able to tell at all! :-)

This is Coconut.

This is what Coconut looks like next to Raven, one of our older chicks! (Poor Raven is in the awkward teenager stage - not a cute chickie anymore!)

And pictured below are our little cannibals!

Kaylee and I went to the local farm store today to price bottles (for the other new additions pictured in the post below) and ended up leaving the store with Coconut that Kaylee bought with her own money!

Well, things did not work out so well, because our first batch of chicks is 2 weeks older than Coconut and hence began to try and peck her to death everytime we placed her in the box with them. So, we built her an "apartment" that could still hang under our only heat lamp. . . 

We knew that wouldn't last when Latifa (self appointed queen of the roost) flew right up onto the ledge of the box and glared down at poor Coconut. . . So, we went back to the store and bought 5 more to keep Coconut company in her new, new home . . .

We ended up with 2 Australorps (Coconut pictured on top, is one), 2 Barred Plymouth Rocks (bottom chick  in picture above) and 2 California Whites (one pictured below). Kaylee actually bought one of the whites and named it Dot. 

Now we have 21 baby chicks and 3 happy kids!

I think instead of being the Woods Fam, we now qualify as the Woods Farm!!

Meet the latest additions to our family: 2 bottle calves!

You will notice below that the one on the left is the calf and the one on the right, (also trying to get milk) is our dog Mac! He kept kissing the calves after they were done drinking to try and lick the milk! I love the expression on Hope's face!

No names yet - we just picked these little guys up this afternoon right before supper. Will keep you posted! So, in short, today, Tuesday, March 24th, we added 8 new critters to our farm! Whew, think I'm gonna call it a day! :-)

Eggs anyone??

On March 12th, Rod brought home a box full of surprises! 

15 little chicks ranging from 4-7 days old!

The kids of course had to hold them. . .

Right now they are just in a large plastic tub in one corner of our dining room with a heat lamp for keeping them warm. We are designing a chicken tractor (moveable chicken coop) that will allow them to graze outside and they will move to that as soon as we can get it built. Something tells me they will be ready for it before that gets accomplished! Every day they lose more fuzz and get more real feathers in. And I thought our kids grew fast!

 We have 5 Rhode Island Reds, 5 Bantams, 3 Black Sex-link and 2 Buff Orphingtons. We named 2 of the blacks (Roxi & Raven) one of the buffs (Teefa) short for Queen Latifa because she thinks she's the queen of the whole brood, and one of the bantams we wanted to name Betty, but they all look so much alike that we don't know which one she is anymore! We will wait till all their feathers come in to name any more. They are all layers but we are contemplating getting some more and might get some fryers in that batch. We will see!