Fourth Of July Celebration

I guess my posts are just going to be erratic...here and there for the summer. My older self does not move as fast as I used to. As much as I enjoy my chickens and other animals, and being a stay at home mom and wife, work does come with it, and I seem to be moving at a snails pace now that the heat and humidity have settled in here in NW Georgia. So please excuse me if I am not here for several days on end...if you look through the monitor and out the window I bet you will see me doing something outside in the morning time before it becomes a blistering inferno out there, or if it is afternoon I may be folding clothes or maybe you may even catch me taking a nap.

I remember when I was a kid. Naps?? Oh no, I didnt need NAPS! I think Mama needed them more than I did, as in, a break from me. I would lay there for a full hour, eyes wide open, determined not to fall asleep. You could almost guarantee a nap out of me if you drew the blinds and turned on the cool humming a/c window unit.  I sure did fight it though. Now, at any given time of the day, if you told me I had time for a nap, I would gladly take you up on it. Sometimes I may even nap even if I don't really have time. I love naps now.

So, the Fourth of July was a smashing success here at my household. First to arrive were Mama and Daddy..well I take that back. Technically Karen and Tiffany were, but they came a day early to try and help out where they could. I really had most everything done, but Karen is a blessing I tell ya what. She always has those dishes in and out of the dishwasher...she keeps things in the kitchen picked up and wiped down. She can be seen gathering plastic cups and napkins and forks for trash. By Saturday I was SO glad to have her here and let her know it.

Mama and Daddy got here, Mama brought a really pretty yummy fruit tray. This was great for everyone to snack on til the meat was ready. I wanted to get the grilling done that morning, but as it turns out I was late with that. It all turned out though as most everyone else didnt get there til the afternoon. Our friends, Adrian, Teddy, their sons, Ben, and Matthew, and Teddys daughter Jeanna came. Breanna, Adrians neice came also. My younger sister and her boyfriend were supposed to come,but couldnt make it because her boyfriends oldest daughter is a handful, and thats putting it mildly. A whole other story entirely. Jay, Ians friend came. John, another friend of Ians, and his girlfriend and her teenage son came for a little while. The pool was in constant use needless to say.

I cooked hot dogs, bratwurst, hamburgers, BBQ chicken, potato salad, baked beans. Teddy brought a cake, some spinach dip and pumpernickel bread. Oh she also brought some of those little smokies in a bbq sauce. We had chips, cokes, ('coke' is southern for any softdrink by the way! ) sweet tea and pink lemonade. Icecream. No one went without.

As the evening was winding down and it was getting dark we shot off the parachute fireworks and let the kids run after them through the dry brown crunchy ouchy grass...lol. I bought two of something called sky spiders...they were pretty cool. Crepe paper ribboned out to blow out and look like a floating spider leggy thing...two in each tube.

As it got dark I rolled my trolly buggy thing around and we loaded it up. There was a chance of rain and I wanted to have the fireworks on something to quickly roll it into the garage if need be.  It did sprinkle once, but other than that we had a fantastic fireworks display. One we bought last year...caught fire and burned for a good ten minutes. Guess we wont buy that one again. A shame, the first one two years ago was great. All the others were just fantastic. No, I am a slacker and I didnt take any video or pictures. I know, shame on me. I was just too pooped to care by Friday night and just sat there with a Smirnoff cooler in hand and let Ian do the work while I enjoyed the show. It was time for me to reep my rewards of the day and relax for a change.

After the fireworks were over everyone started packing up and hitting the road. Mama and Daddy spent the night and so did Karen and Tiffany, I am just so glad that we have the space to have overnight company and have get togethers like this now.

Saturday morning I got up and we had a nice breakfast of bacon, cinnamon and brown sugar toast with honey, eggs (yes MY girls eggs) and grits with real butter.

Karen was kind enough to clean up after breakfast. I used to fight her on it and tell her she didnt have to do that, but now I just let her do it because I really was still tired from the day before.

By the afternoon everyone had gone home and I was left with a quiet afternoon to sit back and relax. I did just that. I watched some tv and fell out asleep on the couch for about and hour. I woke up long enough to find the current book I am reading and retired to the couch in the bedroom to read for a while. We had some leftovers for supper, and we are still having leftovers tonight! Thats okay, saves me from having to cook.

Sunday was very quiet and peaceful. We didnt do much of anything at all. Just more relaxing and resting. I find as you get older it takes longer to get back on track after a big event.

Monday was back to the work week. Ian working, me catching up on laundry and housework.

I got a call from Ricardo. He is the mexican teenager that comes over with his Dad and his Mom cooked those wonderful tamales for us. They only got 13 chicks out of a full incubator of eggs I gave them. I am not sure they did things correctly as they had three strong enough to hatch out of the shell, but died soon after. I have never had that happen. They had many that died in the shell before term. Some I think were not fertile, but that is a chance you take. Apparently Hank was a busy guy because he asked why a lot of their chicks have fluffy faces...lol. I told them Hank was the main man out there and he probably has passed on his Americauna cheeks to some of the chicks, even though they are mixed, they are half Hank.

Back to the incubator. Ricardos dad wants me to use their incubator and hatch a full incubator of eggs for them. He said he would pay me. I agreed to do this. He thinks there may be something wrong with the incubator. I am thinking more along the lines of it had something to do with the operator. But, that is neither here nor there. I will hatch for them and keep the babies a week to make sure they get on their feet again.

On another note. Once again I find myself wanting to vent about people and the way they regard animal life. The first time it happened, I let it slide, sort of. The second time...I tried to make my feelings known by being a bit firmer. THIS time, I just came out and had to go all out on them. What am I talking about you ask. Ricardo, and his dad. They had never seen or heard of Emus before. My animals are all brought up from babies for a reason. I want them to trust humans and be gentle. A full grown emu can rip your leg wide open with those nails on their toes. They can break a leg with their kick. Ganged up on, full grown emus could very well kill a person. Remember, the kitten? All three emus were ganged up. If I hadnt been there, that kitten would have been dead. Right now, the emus are still small compared to what they will be later. Anyway, Ricardos dad started raising up his arms and legs stork like, advancing on one of the emus. They dont like this posture. Boo flared up at him and stood tall. Ricardos dad was surprised and tried to grab him by the neck in defense. I think after seeing what I saw today, he thinks he needs to discipline animals...well, NOT MY ANIMALS. If he had not been screwing around like that they wouldnt have gone on the defensive. You cant blame an animal for thinking it needs to defend itself from offensive posture! Normally my emus are very gently and docile, but he provoked Boo.

So that is the first time. Ricardo SEEMED a bit embarrassed and said "Oh my dad, he likes to mess with animals". I told him that he should tell his dad that when these emus get big and he tries that he may get hurt pretty bad and he should not provoke them.

The second time his dad had stopped by to see if I had any eggs for him to take home to add to their incubator from his hen that is in with my Black Sumatra Rooster, Johnny. There was one in the pen so we went around to get it out to add to what I had been saving for him.

I have a little net for grabbing eggs. I also have a catch net, a bigger net for catching chickens if need be. The larger one was laying on top of one of the pens. As I was getting the egg out with the little net I stood up and turned to see him with the bigger net OVER one of my emus head and all the way down the neck. Of course the emu just stood there because they are tame and it didnt seem to disturb him. Remember Ricardos dad doesnt speak any English. I know he has to know what NO mean. So I said No, and shook my head and said DONT DO THAT PLEASE.

This morning Ricardo and his dad came by. They had a friend of his dads with them and asked if they could show him all of my animals. I said sure and we went on back after I put the incubator in the porch. We made the rounds. As we came by the pigs pen Ricardo decided to lunge at the pigs with his arms and hands over the pigs pen. This scared the pigs. They arent used to this behavior. We are quiet people and respect the animals. I told him PLEASE DONT DO THAT. I said these are not your animals to do with as you please. PLEASE respect my animals. RESPECT ME, by respecting my animals and dont tease and taunt them.

Okay okay, sorry sorry, he says.

We get around to the other side and of course the goats are following us around everywhere, because goats are really not that different from dogs. They want to know if you have something to eat, and they want attention. As they have gotten older they dont like you to touch their horns, much less pull on them. I respect that and I dont touch them.  With that said, we are all standing there and Eddie decides he needs to pee. Sometimes they will stick their dingy out of the hole, extend it and pee and sniff their pee at the same time. Yes, I know that is gross, but its a goat thing. As he was doing this, the pee accidently shot out over Ricardos sandled foot. OOPS. I apologized and asked if he wanted to go rinse his foot, he said no, he would just wipe it off. Then his dad inquired as to what just happened. Thats when things got ugly.

When Ricardo explained...I guess his dad took it as the poor animal did this on purpose and was going to teach Eddie a lesson right there. HEY HEY HEY! I said as he grabbed Eddie by the horns and tried to drag him by the body and horns to him. I dont know WHAT he planned on doing, but it wasnt going to happen in my yard. If you dont like my goat peeing on your son, then dont come back here!!!! I was going to have to step in, I told Ricardo to make his dad STOP that RIGHT NOW and to explain to him that the goat didnt MEAN to do that.

I was just glad to see them leave. I was hindered in my chores outside by all this anyway and it was getting hotter and hotter by the minute. I had to finish cleaning and filling the waterers. That was going to be important because today is supposed to be brutally hot.

So I guess that is about it. I know this was rather long and I hope it wasnt too boring. I will try to keep up better, but I won't make any promises as the summertime does keep me busy.

Do you know out of the pictures I did manage to take...I somehow didnt get one shot of Karen in any of them? I will have to make sure I spread out more when taking pictures.