BLUE MOON!

Remember we have a BLUE MOON New Year's Eve!  Check out the post on this blog:

http://joansastrology.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-years-eve-blue-moon.html

This gives a good description of a Blue Moon!  I'll be out watching for it instead of reveling! 

I STILL have a chicken!

I ran out to the farm this afternoon after work to check on my gopher traps and my little chicken. She's still there!  I was afraid that she'd leave or that some varmint would gobble her up, but she's still there.  I decided if she was, then I would go to the feed store and get some scratch. So I did!  When I got out to the farm today, I think she was glad to see me, OR more than likely, she recognized the scratch sack! Regardless, she came a'runnin' right up to me.  I scattered scratch for her and she started gobbling  it up.

Here she is again eating her scratch.  One of you posted yesterday that she needed a name. I know all of you chicken keepers have named your hens, so I decided she should have a name.  I thought and thought and here's what I came up with -

My niece, who's 16, makes fun of me all the time for my Texas country accent and country ways. She was teasing me mightily over the holidays at mom's house and she gets a real kick out of some of the stuff I say - the words, the phrases and the hick way I talk. SOOOO,  guess what I named my chicken?  JACI !  I think that's very appropriate to name my chicken after my niece after all the grief she gives me!  I sent her a message on her facebook & a picture of her namesake and I'm waiting for her to respond and see what she thinks!

I did get another gopher over the last couple of days - now the count is up to 16.  Found a couple of new mounds in the front yard, so I got my traps out again. I didn't think I'd see any more of them until the weather warmed up a little.  I guess this one was stupid. I told 'em all that they could stay out in the pasture, just don't come in the yard. He can't say I didn't warn him. Must've been a crazy teenage gopher.

I have lots of raking to do. The catalpa trees have finally dropped all their foot-long bean pods and there are thousands of them laying all over the yard. It's quite a job to get them all cleaned up especially when we have 7-8 of these giant trees around the yard at the farmhouse. Oh well - raking's good exercise.

Back to work this week. Been playin' catch-up. I'll probably get my tree down this weekend and get all the Christmas stuff put up.  Ya'll take now, ya hear?  And do keep those gowns down!

I'M OFFICIALLY A CHICKEN FARMER!!!

Well, sort of... 

See, we were out at the farm today shootin'.  Got new guns. Me, Dad, Tony, and Adam.  Dad had to sight in some new scopes on his deer rifles. We had a coupla new handguns to practice on so we set up some targets down towards the pond so we wouldn't shoot anybody over the next hill.

SOOO, anyway I was walking up to the house and I heard some "...paawwwk..." sounds in the front flowerbed where my rose bushes are. I thought it sounded like a chicken. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it WAS a chicken - a cute, scraggly little hen - I don't know what kind, some of you will have to tell me. She was a little shy, she'd come out of the bushes and come near, but I couldn't touch her. I don't know where  she came from.  We have distant farms around but not anywhere near that a chicken would want to venture as far as our farm.

I had some dried corn and lettuce and some dried oatmeal that I threw out for her. She seemed to like it, and she was also scratching around for bugs and stuff and pecking little weeds.  I put out a bowl of water for her and she immediately got herself a drink and went back to scratching.  She looked a little thin to me. She's got a good hiding place in the middle of all the rose bushes, but it might get cold. I figured she was probably a free ranging chicken so she was probably used to being out in the weather somewhat. But I had an old bushel basket which I turned on its side and put a bunch of hay in it for her. She wouldn't let me catch her. I'll go check on her after work tomorrow or the next day. I really hope a hawk or owl or dog doesn't get her. She's far away from home, wherever that is. I don't know what else to do for her. She'll probably be ok if she'll stay up close to the house where she is. If she hangs around for a few days, I'll stop by the feed store and get some scratch and see if there's a better shelter to be had for her at the farm.

Do people drop chickens off at country homes like they do dogs and cats? I wonder.... I hope she makes it! If she does, and if she stays at our farm, then I'm officially in the chicken business!  I've been wanting chickens for so long, but haven't been able to have them since we're not there every single day. Maybe she's telling me that it's time to have chickens or it's time to move out the farm permanently?  Only the chicken knows!

O HOLY NIGHT

HERE IS THE REAL REASON WE CELEBRATE ---  Jesus.
Just wanted to wish you all my dear friends the Merriest of Christmases!

Merry CHRIST-mas!!!

You might have seen this making the forwarded email rounds, but it gives me great sadness to know that alot of it's TRUE...

*Twas the month before Christmas*

*When all through our land,*

*Not a Christian was praying*

*Nor taking a stand.*

*See the PC Police had taken away,*

*The reason for Christmas - no one could say.*

*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*

*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*

*It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say*

* December 25th is just a ' Holiday '.*

*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*

*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*

*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*

*Something was changing, something quite odd! *

*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*

*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*

*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*

* At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.*

*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears*

*You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.*

*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*

*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*

*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*

*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !*

*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*

*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*

*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*

* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*

*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*

*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*

*So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'*

*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*

*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*

*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,

not Happy Holidays !*

Please, all Christians join together and

wish everyone you meet

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!

Christ is The Reason' for the Christ-mas Season!

Re-furbished Window Box

Ok, Here is the little tin garage at the farmhouse that's probably as old as the house (about 70 yrs).  This little garage window faces the back yard of the house and I've thought for a long time of putting in a flower bed along side and maybe a window box.

These lilies in the picture are sitting in their pots still but I planted them later in the flowerbed.  I had picked up a couple of old shutters at a garage sale and painted them blue, and had my son make me a flower box to put on this window.

Then he attached the shutter to the front of the box and I have filled it with pansies and ornamental cabbage for this fall/winter.  I think it turned out pretty cute. Pretty basic easy project but it's something I've been wanting for awhile. I planted some roses and plumbago along with the lilies in the late summer, so hopefully next spring/summer it will be lookin' good! I have just put rocks along the front of the bed and am debating leaving it that way. I sort of like rocks for an old-timey cottage theme. You know, when the flowerbed is all grown up and I put in annuals and make it look real cottage-y, I think I'll like the rocks. If not, I can change it. What do y'all think? 

I'm also wondering if I should paint the window frame white?  The wood on the tin garage probably was painted white at one time, but it has all faded. If I do the window frame, I'll have to paint all the wood up under the eaves and in the overhang, etc.  Should I or shouldn't I?

We also had a cement floor poured in the garage (when we built the tractor barn) to make it useable. It had 2 feet of pure-D East Texas white sand in there. Everything you stored  was full of sand or covered with sand. It's still not air-tight, but it's much more storage friendly. I need to set off a couple of bug-bombs to kill spiders that have lived in there for eons of time but at least we don't have to deal with sand. (and now, no snakes either!)

Not very attractive but functional and a good place to keep overflow or lawn equipment, etc.

Addressing the GOPHER count - Gopher season has officially slowed to a crawl here on Sand Flat Farm. Cold weather has sent most of them way underground to wait for spring.  Or they've all sent out a warning about the mean old lady that carries around half a dozen traps on her belt and whoops one out to shove it into a new mounded burrow.  Plus, they generally do most of their digging after hard rains which fills their holes up and they have to clean house.  We've not had any hard rains lately. I know I can't get rid of every single gopher on 78 acres, but if I can keep them out of the yard, I'll be happy.

We are, however, having some problems with their smaller cousins - moles - which make horizontal runs just under the surface.  It's dangerous to walk across the yard without stepping into one of these soft spots and twisting an ankle. Guess I'm gonna work on those next...

Well, thanks for looking at my little project today. Squeezed it in here right at the holidays. Actually a little before Thanksgiving, but just now getting around to showing you guys. Have a good one and keep your gown down!

Just around the corner

Not much going on today around here.  Thought I'd post a pic from this morning. Just around the corner from my house there's a little stretch of road where the county put a "Deer Crossing" sign because we have a resident HERD (I kid you not) of deer that stroll our parts.  I don't know if you remember but I posted some pics back in the spring of the herd crossing the road and they had traffic stopped in both directions.  This morning early the deer were laying in a pasture along the road probably just waking up from napping. There were a couple standing around, but most of them were lying on the ground, legs folded under them, looking sleepy and flopping their big ole ears around.  Of course I didn't have my camera. I always have it, but I didn't this morning.  So I whipped my car around, flew back to the house, grabbed it and was back down to the pasture in a flash. Alas and Alack, they'd moved on, but I caught the tail end of the group as they wandered out of sight.  Here they are for your amusement and entertainment:

I hope you can see them. If I tried to make them too big, I lost the clarity. So...  Don't know if this interests you, but it always does me.  I'm a big animal lover, and I'm always excited to see our local deer herd.  Talk to ya'll later - Keep your gown down!

No snow

OK, Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel.  You promised us  snow - now where is it?  You promised this morning while I was getting ready for work. You warned us Texans that we were definitely going to have snow.

I looked out my office windows at 5 minute intervals all day. At noon, I see a little flurry of flakes, and then it's gone. Is that ALL we're going to get?  Now the sun is out. There better be some white stuff on the ground when I wake up in the morning or comes the WHOOP.  And I know where you work, Cantore.

SNOW!!!

Howdy, how're ya'll doin' this mornin'?  Well, I'm fine as frog's hair split 4 ways!  That's purty fine! That's what my daddy always sez.

The weather man is saying it's going to SNOW here in Texas today!!!   We're so excited!!!  We hardly ever get to see snow even when there's a little bit around our area.

Here's my professional opinion, if you're interested, since I am well-versed in meteorology (JK) -

Tyler sits between two big lakes and there are more not too far off.  I think there's a thing  I made up called "the lake effect" (not like the one up in the Great Lakes area).  I don't know if these large lake bodies of water keep the temps a bit warmer or if there are air currents swirling around doing something weird to the atmosphere, but we just don't get much snow. It has to be a really good cold snow system moving through this area to get more than a dusting. 

The same is true in the tornado season. Tyler, Jacksonville, Bullard, Chapel Hill and Whitehouse sit between these two lakes.  If there's a tornado in East Texas, it's gonna come right thru here, you can bet your kids on it.  I've lived in this area all my life. We've not had the big killer tornados (thank the Lord) like in Wichita Falls or Oklahoma, but they do alot of damage nevertheless.  We've had our property/house damaged 3 different times. We had one come across our property about 5 years ago and did $40,000 worth of damage to our house.  Dadgum huge pine tree fell perpendicularly across the top of my house & crashed the roof in - flooded the entire front of the house. Hey, I got a totally new kitchen, new appliances, flooring, dining room, breakfast area, roof, gutters, septic system, trees taken out, more stuff out of it. Just wish a tornado would do some home improvements on the rest of my house! snicker-snicker! I stand outside during a storm and say, "cooooooome over here, tornado, thisaway!"

Anyway, this is tornado alley between the two lakes.  Every time we have a tornado alert, you can look on the radar map, and track just about exactly where it's gonna go - between the two lakes!

They are promising us snow today!  We'll see.... it sure would be nice to go Christmas shopping this evening with my husband in the snow and maybe take in "Blindside". I HAVE to go see that movie!

That's my professional meteorological opinion and I'm stickin' to it.

THE "RAT"

For the next coupla weeks, I'm Rat-sitting.  No, no, no - it has nothing to do with my gopher count, which by the way is up to 15 - did you notice?  Five more and I get a black belt in gopher kwan do.  No, my dears, I mean THIS RAT -

This little Rat belongs to my daughter, Princess.  Princess is taking finals this week and next week, and I was  finnagled into rat-sitting for the duration.  Princess called me yesterday when she went back to college and said she really slept well, and it was quiet.  The RAT likes to bark, and loves to play with her "mommy" there at college. "Mommy" is usually busy, so Rat gets into stuff and does really mischievious things to get attention.  Here's the RAT in her fairy princess outfit for Halloween. OOOOO!  Isn't she scarey???

The Rat is a merle Pomeranian and her real name is Bella, but she's such a pill and she reminds me of a little grey rat, hence, I call her Rat.  It's actually kind of stuck. (don't think Princess likes that name tho...)

Here's a saucy grin. You can tell she's just plotting some kind of sneaky activity "Oh what can I do next!!!"

It's like having a little bitty powerful cyclone in the house. And you can bet there's a trail of destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Rat!

She generally wears this cheeky expression most of the time.  She has a game called Gladiator Dog & has a couple of stuffed animals that she slings around in the air and growls like a big dog! I'm sure she's thinking she's ripping their bellies open and their guts are spilling out all over the floor. She loves the applause and the standing ovation.  She likes to use them as pillows.  She likes her chewy bones, and she LOVES to torment our chihuahua, Bug. 

Bug likes to lay on the couch and Rat comes up to the edge and just looks at her and wags her tail.  Bug's lips curl back, the ears go back, and the growling and barking start.  Rat takes off through the house with Bug in high pursuit.  Then she'll turn and face Bug, and they start mock-fighting and biting and growling and Bug's hair is standing up on her back. Tony and I yell for peace and quiet.  We usually have to separate these two because the Rat won't leave Bug alone for one minute.

Here're some shots of Rat in the pasture on the farm this past weekend.  She's very cute isn't she?  Kinda reminds me of one of those big fat spotted ticks.  She DID look like a fat hairy tick when she was a puppy.

Monday night when I was giving Tony a haircut, Rat found and destroyed into a million zillion pieces Tony's headphones for his computer.  Just like a child, if we hear (rather don't hear) her get quiet, you can pretty much bet she's into something. Worse than a two-year-old.  She loves to get into people's dirty laundry - socks, underwear, t-shirts, kleenexes, toilet paper, Q-tips, trash, you name it.  She eats everything she can get in her mouth - paper, pens, pencils, combs, coins, paper plates, Coke boxes, etc. If we were to do an X-ray of her stomach, no tellin' what we'd find.

Rat has some power struggle issues as to who is in charge.  Oh she minds me - she knows I'm an alpha female. I've had enough dogs to know how to get my bluff in early. The Rat thinks Princess is her litter mate, therefore, the Rat thinks SHE's in charge of their relationship.  Maybe it'll do her some good to stay with me for a while?  Princess is going to have to take charge.

Here she is in her Christmas finery.  Amazingly, she's left her elf collar on and hasn't bothered it.  I'm actually quite pleased with how she's avoided ruining the new Christmas tree up to now. But it's only been 3 days.  I think she just hasn't noticed it yet OR that there are some balls hanging within her reach. Hope I haven't spoken too soon!  Bite my tongue!

Princess informed me this weekend that when she gets into nursing school next fall, guess where Rat needs to stay so she can devote 24-7 to her studies?