I'm A Bird Watcher, I'm A Bird Watcher, Everyday....

Can you tell I've caught a few episodes of Wheel of Fortune lately?

My mom has always had more bird feeders then anyone can count. She loves nature and being able to watch it right outside her window. The number of birds, squirrels, and chipmunks that visit her house is amazing. They're such fun to watch when I visit. I'm not sure why I've never had a bird feeder. Maybe because so many beings are depending on me for nourishment and care that I didn't feel like adding any more to the list. Now that I don't have any "babies" anymore, the thought of feeding birds sounds pretty fun.
My mom and Mark got me a large bird feeder, a big bag of seed, a hanger, and a suet feeder for my birthday. I was so excited to hang it all up, plus a smaller feeder I already had, and see what would happen. It took the birds a day or two to find the feeder but once they did....

it was as if I had just opened the most popular restaurant in town! The birds would wait on the ropes above the feeders just waiting for a "seat" to open up.

The kids love to watch for the birds to come eat and yell out "BIRDS!" so we'll know they're eating and run to come watch.

Last weekend we bought two other smaller feeders to put closer to the windows in the living room and kitchen. The cats think it's the best thing to happen around here in a LONG time. Luckily for the birds, the cats watch from the inside of the house.

In just the last two weeks I've learned little things about the birds. I learned that they don't come to the feeder all day. They tend to all want to eat around mid-late morning. Then there will hardly be a bird around for hours. Right before dark they all come for a snack before bed.

I've also learned the funny little flight of a Tufted Titmouse. He kinda bounces when he flies.

So, once again, thanks Mom for inspiring me to take up another hobby! Those little birds are such fun to watch!

Our Visit to Katie's House

The kids and I traveled to Maryland during the first week of August to stay with my sister and her family. Jon was going to be working 12+ hours a day since it was the first week of marching band camp so he stayed home.

My sister, Katie, also blogged about our visit.


I helped Katie bring some of her homemade crafts to her local fair grounds to enter them.

I loved her picture of her turkey. Unfortunately she didn't place with this picture but she did really well otherwise.

Doesn't everyone have turkey's on their roof??

Evan liked playing in Elmer's crate. See... you can give kids all kinds of fancy toys and what do they play with?.... animal crates!

Charlotte had a great time playing with her cousins, Kylee and Devin.




On Saturday, Katie, Evan and I went to their local farmer's market. There were some beautiful booths set up by the vendors. Our local farmers don't worry so much about aesthetics. I enjoyed seeing their displays.

I love the bell tower in the background.

This bakery stand had the most beautiful breads. I bought a loaf of sourdough. It was beautiful.

Evan enjoyed checking out the canon.

Katie has a few guineas and boy do they make a crazy amount of noise! They have such beautiful feathers though. I love the soft gray of this guinea.

Evan made Katie beautiful. Devin is playing cards with David in the back and if you look carefully, you can see Charlotte in the doorway wearing her tutu.

Broiler chickens, laying chickens, turkeys, and guineas.... who ALL run at you if they think it's time to eat. It was a sight to behold!

I helped Katie can some venison steaks. She got a new pressure canner for Christmas and this was it's maiden canning voyage.

My job was to stuff the jars full of the meat and broth and get the air bubbles out. (I love the way that Elmer sits with his bottom tucked under)

We had a great week. It made me really sad that we don't live closer.... maybe one day.

Down On The Farm

On our trip to Katie's last week, we got to spend some great time with Katie's animals. It's amazing what she has space for on their acre of land.
I know I just uploaded a crazy amount of pictures but I couldn't get rid of any of them.


We got to help feed the bottle kids many times while we were there. Princess Farmer Charlotte loved it and got good at holding the bottle even with the kids pulling and bumping it. Evan needed some help and then still would rather run around with the kids instead of feeding them.

"Ummm... little goat... you've got something on your chin"

"Give the goat a hug, Evan"

Those little goat babies were so cute, bouncy, busy, and adorable. Quite good escape artists too!

June, the nanny goat, knows where to go when it's time to milk. More on that in a minute...

Katie feeding Purl the momma sheep and her two babies and Darla the pregnant ewe.... and a few chickens.

Princess Farmer Charlotte loves chickens too.





Time to milk the goat....

June stood very patiently while Evan tried to milk her. I'm pretty sure he thought we were crazy when we told him to squeeze and milk would come out.

Princess Farmer Charlotte kept trying until she got it right and was pretty good at milking. She thought it was really cool that the milk in Aunt Katie's fridge came from June. The kids(the human ones) loved the goats milk. We really need to get some land and a goat. Maybe I could hide one behind our shed. I wonder if the neighbors would mind. Maybe I could put a chicken coop...... Okay, okay, I'll wait until we're out of a neighborhood.

I helped with the milkings.

June is a lovely goat and stood perfectly still while we milked her. I had a dairy goat for a few months when I was a teenager. I remembered how to milk her but I wasn't as fast as I used to be.

Sweet June munching on grain.

Katie is a milking pro! She was so fast.

Princess Farmer Charlotte saying hi to Darla.

Run lambies, run!

Darla is the sweetest sheep. Charlotte was so comfortable with animals.

You'll notice that Evan wasn't in the sheep pictures. Purl (the momma ewe) has a very loud, deep voice and it terrified Evan. He steered clear of the sheep pasture for the rest of the visit.

Cute kids in the chicken coop.

Look, I found an egg!

Princess Farmer Charlotte poses with her found eggs.

Katie caught a chicken for the kids to pet.

Katie also caught this little ram lamb for the kids to pet. I think this is the only sheep that Evan got this close to the entire visit.

My brother, Chris, came for a quick visit between jobs and we roped him into helping with the farm chores too. He even looks cool while he feeds a baby goat.

He was a very good sport about trying out milking too.

We had such a great time. Hopefully Katie can help me build my farm animal collection(is that what you call it?) when we get more space. I'll try to be patient for a couple more years....

Thanksgiving Part 3 - This and That

I've run out of words to rhyme with feast that make sense. So, here are the random pictures from our Thanksgiving holiday.


My brother, Chris... my little brother by 7 years. He's the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. I love his new hair style. I'd love to have his auburn hair. Handsome guy, isn't he?

Here's a view of Katie's house from the beginning of the driveway. The garden is to the right in the picture but the morning sun is too bright to be able to see it clearly. (clicking on the picture will enlarge it for you)

This twig bird's nest was in the Crepe Myrtle near Katie's deck.

Here are the panoramic pictures of Katie's pasture and chicken coop. Notice anything weird about the bottom picture? Click on it to enlarge it. Give up? She only has one goat... not two like the picture shows. I guess June moved between the second and third picture in that series.

Oscar is helping to feed the chickens from the comfort of Katie's coat.

I LOVE this rooster. He's so impressive and colorful.

Hello hen.

Hello June.

Hello Darla and Purl.

Hello baby chicks.

Katie used her new incubator to hatch some chicks over Thanksgiving. They were so cute! I loved that my kids got to see baby chicks hatch. Evan LOVED the "baby birds". He spent every moment he could with them.

He even snuck in while no one was looking and grabbed a chick and walked out to the living room with it in his hand. The poor chick was peeping so loud. I ran to him and gently took the chick out of his hand. Luckily the chick was fine.

He kept busy after that with a game of Connect Four. He loved filling the slots up with checkers then letting them come crashing out. Thank goodness for Connect Four.

The big kids worked on making paper chains.

Hard to believe it was a week ago. We had such a good time. I can't wait for my next trip to Katie's Farm! :)