Back a few weeks ago, I bought four more hens from a guy over in Augusta. He had Buff Orpingtons not quite old enough to start laying yet. Now that we’ve had the Australorp and Rhode Island Reds for a couple of months, I realized how cool it is to have chickens around the farm and well, I’m hooked. I wanted more.

Over the last couple of weeks, it’s been interesting to watch these 4 new, much larger hens interact with our existing hens & two roosters. The first couple of days, our hens pecked at and pestered the new gals. Nevermind that the Buffs are twice the size of the others. I guess hens and roosters are territorial just like cats & dogs. They don’t always take kindly to new additions. 

It’s been an entertaining and enlightening development. The roosters don’t seem interested in the new, fluffy girls. No, they prefer their slender, stylish hens. I swear, it’s like watching kids in high school. Our chickens are the jocks & cheerleaders. The Buffs are the square peg girls. Although, truth be told, they don’t seem to mind not getting the attention of the cool kids.

We’ve taken to referring to our hens as The Bitches. They’re hard to catch when it’s time to come in for the night. They’re rather witchy and like to peck. Truly, they’re ungrateful little wenches. I’ve raised them from chicks, for cryin in the mud! Red, the Rhode Island Red rooster is a particular bastard…chasing after me to peck my bare feet. He grabs the hens by their beaks, I swear just to hear them squaulk. And the hens aren’t much better in terms of temperament.

Our chickens would rather hang out in the construction area that has become the garage, rather than wander around outside in the heat. They really are a bunch of stuck up, we’re-too-good-for-that-nonsense birds. Kind of comical to watch, actually.

The Buffs, on the other hand, we’ve taken to calling The Girls. They’re much more docile and easier to catch. They LOVE being out in the yard all day, just wandering around and scratching for yummies. Play your cards right, and they’ll wander back into the henhouse all on their own if you just show them you’re tossing down feed.

I tell ya, if you need a good day’s entertainment, just watch a flock of chickens. I swear, these guys are more like people than most people realize. They have cliques and attitudes just like a bunch of teenagers.

When I do get more hens (hopefully in the next few weeks) I plan to get more Buffs. They’re just more pleasant chickens to have around. I swear, these guys remind me of Miss Prissy and the witchy hens from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Makes me want to find a bunch of little blue bonnets for my Buffs.

Lots of homesteaders also homeschool their kids. We actually started homeschooling long before we ever moved to the farm. Personally, I just prefer having my kids at home, in an environment free of bad behavior from teens that adults have come to see as normal, unruly or violent kids who think it’s “cool” to be in a gang, and similar experiences. I just don’t see where that’s a beneficial environment for a child to learn.

In any regard, for those of you who also homeschool, I’ve posted a reprint of an article I wrote earlier this year regarding graduation requirements for homeschoolers. For those who need the info, it’s not always easy to find. I don’t have every state listed, but there are several, as well as links to resources to learn more about other states. If you have something to add, by all means leave a comment below & help other homeschoolers find the information they need to get their kids ready for college admissions.

State Requirements and Expectations

I talk a lot about the dogs we have here on the farm. They really are a bunch of characters, I tell ya. Each one has their own quirks and oddities, usually of the comical and pathetic variety.

But since I talk about them so much, I thought perhaps introductions were in order. After all, they’re somewhat the main attraction around here. They are, indeed, the ring leaders of this three ring circus we call a farm.

First, of course, is Zeeva – my best fuzzbutt friend and constant shadow. You’ve seen her pop up in posts before, especially since she just became a first time mom. Normally, she lives her pampered puppy life as an indoor dog. Unfortunately, now that her pups are quite mobile and rather vocal, indoors is just not a good idea…in my opinion. Zeeva doesn’t agree. She’s really NOT happy with her current, albeit temporary, accommodations.

In fact, if you come within site of the puppy pen, she’s sure to voice her outrage at being relegated to life as an outside dog. How dare we treat her like…like…well, like a DOG! Nevermind her obsession/addiction to sticks. You can’t even say the word stick, without her barking to go outside and play fetch. It’s really becoming a problem. We’re considering counseling, perhaps some rehab, and a few Sticks Anonymous meetings.

Zeeva’s bestest buddy and fellow house dog is Santa Paws, a loveable, yet hard-headed mutt my oldest daughter convinced me to keep for my youngest granddaughter, Alexis (a.k.a. Princess Fancy Face.) You’ve seen Santa before, in other posts – usually sitting next to my oldest granddaugther, Raydin (a.k.a Sweat Pea.) He’s stubborn as a mule, bearing a striking resemblence in personality to Eeyore. Favorite activities include chasing anything with four legs smaller than him, including the cat…yet, he’s scared to DEATH of Zeeva’s puppies. Go figure.

Outside, in the front yard, we have Santa’s brother, Stripe – so named because he was one of a set of nearly identical twins aptly dubbed Stripe and Gizmo. Stripe had a white streak down is nose, while Gizmo had none. As pups, Stripe was evil while Gizmo was one of the sweetest of the litter.

Now, however, Stripe’s a goofball. He likes to play tough guy and scare the FedEx lady. What she doesn’t know is that he really IS all bark and no bite. If she would just take a step towards him, he’d run like the great big chickenshit that he is. Funny, he used to bully Santa something awful when they were pups. Now Santa taunts and bullies him…taking a big chunk out of Stripe if he dares to come near any of us while Santa is outside. Favorite activities include “singing” along with the truck horn and avoiding his doghouse at ALL costs.

And finally, there’s Ollie – so named for his coloring. As a small pup, he looked like he was wearing a tux. Since we’re just a few miles down the road from Harlem, GA – birthplace of Oliver Hardy - we thought Ollie was an appropriate name. Josh used to own Ollie’s mom, until she disappeared when Ollie’s litter was barely 2 weeks old. Josh bottle fed the pups, desperately trying to help them survive. Ollie is the only survivor, so naturally I had to let Josh keep him.

Don’t let the picture fool you – he might look vicious, but what you can’t see is how he was bouncing, flopping, wagging, and yelping the whole time I tried to take his picture. He’s dumb as a box of rocks, but he loves people – any people - anyone willing to come near him gets him so excited he’s not sure if he should fall down and kiss their feet or jump up and lick them all over, so he tries to do it all…all at one time. He’s also the deadbeat Dad of Zeeva’s pups. We’re contemplating going after him for puppy support, but he’s too dumb to remember his own name, so I doubt he could hold down a job. But he’s cute and sweet tempered.

Most of the country has already heard about the devistating storms and dozens of tornadoes that struck the South this past week. The news is littered with stories of destruction and harrowing tales of survival from Tuscaloosa, Cullman, and other places in Alabama…not to mention north Georgia and other parts of the southeast.

My parents live in Meridianville, AL…a small rural town just on the outskirts of Hunstville. Some of you might have heard on the news about how the National Weather Service had to abandon their office in Hunstville in the wake of the storms and tornadoes Wednesday. Those tornadoes destroyed the main power feeds from Browns Ferry that supply power to Huntsville Utilities and other areas of north Alabama.

My parents lost power around lunchtime Wednesday. It wasn’t too long after that I started getting text messages from my folks, letting us know they were okay. The house was fine. They just didn’t have phones or power, and cell towers had been destroyed, leaving them with spotty, if any service. Throughout the night, my Mom sent periodic updates via text, trying to conserve the battery life of her phone and work around the lack of service most of the time.

Luckily, it seems everyone made it through the storms relatively unharmed. My neice further south was fine. My sister in law and her family in Huntsville were fine. My parents were fine. Old high school friends and former classmates were all fine, barring a little damage here and there.

Thursday morning, attention turned homeward as the same storm front eased its way east, towards Georgia. The boys and I had moved Zeeva and the puppies back inside, anticipating some bad weather. Late Wednesday night, early Thursday morning, as the storms started rolling in, Josh and I made a mad dash through ice cold rain to gather up the rabbits into pet carriers to bring them inside. Outdoor dogs were brought in and sectioned off to various parts of the house.

We battened down the hatches and hunkered down for what we thought would be a rough early morning. Before dawn, the winds were howling, the rain was beating down on everything. It looked like the storm would be a dozie. Around 5am, I contemplated moving my truck way out into the front yard, away from all the big trees around the house. I opened the front door to a down pour and decided, eh…I have full coverage.

All in all, it was nothing more than a good thunderstorm. Nothing major. No power loss. No wind damage.

I walked the property not long after the rain stopped and the danger passed…just to make sure we didn’t have any issues anywhere. This is the total extent of the storm damage here.

I saw that one small, obviously rotting branch and thought to myself “That’s IT? That’s all you got? One downed limb…seriously? After all that wind…all that damage just 24 hours before?” Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the severity of the storm front and the havoc it wrecked on the folks back home. It’s because of all that damage that we really anticipated a more threatening storm. Luckily for us, it seemed to have petered out before it got to us. Thank Heavens.

Before breakfast, we had sunny skies again. I was able to move everyone back outside, out from under my feet. Thanks to the storm, I didn’t have to water the garden Thursday morning. Thanks to the storm, I didn’t have to hose off all the mud on my truck. We were lucky. We’re not in Huntsville, where officials say it could be 4 to 5 days before power gets restored.

Makes me wonder if we should move installing a whole house generator a little further up the list of remodeling to-do’s…just in case. If we had to go 5 days with no power, we’d be toast. Here, no power means no water, since the well pump is electric. We can make do with a lot, but no water for 5 days? We’d be in trouble.

Keep good thoughts for the folks who weren’t as lucky as us. Say a prayer for the folks who lost loved ones. Count your blessings if you, like us, are the lucky ones after such a terrible storm. I know we will.

I still have a few more days in New York with my oldest daugther and granddaughter, Princess Fancy Face (who, at 2 years old, probably fits the title Princess Sticky Face more aptly.) The weather has been fickle and the pace of my vacation wonderfully slow, but I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the North Country.

Yesterday, in fact, was wonderful! I accompanied Roxie and little Miss Alexis for Alexis’ two year check up. (She’s doing wonderfully, by the way.) I also got to tag along for mystery grandbaby’s first ultrasound! While Roxie’s not far enough along for them to determine boy or girl, it was thrilling to see Wee One on the screen.

So…as befitting a proud Grandma, I naturally have to share photos. What self-respecting Grandma wouldn’t brag to all who will listen and brandish baby pictures to everyone with eyes? It’s my job! With that said…here they are…Wee One’s very first baby pictures.

Wee One's face...albeit a little skeletal-looking

If the tech had waited just a half second, Wee One wouldn't been sucking on a thumb

Wee One's just chillin'

One of the reasons why we all work so hard on things around the farm is the kiddos. Not my kids…but my grandkids. There’s Raydin, who turned 3 back in October, and Alexis, who turned 2 just this past weekend. This coming October, we’re expecting mystery grandbaby #3.

I daydream about my granddaughters playing on the front lawn of the farm, in cute little summer dresses, amid wildflowers and wooden fence posts. I daydream of them pouring fresh milk from an old tin milk jug into a saucer for the barn cats and snuggling with little baby kitties and chicks and piglets…watching calves and fouls take their first steps.

I’m hoping grandbaby #3 is a boy, ’cause I would kind of like to envision a little freckle-faced ruffian with a slingshot stuffed in the back pocket of his cut off shorts, strolling down the dirt road to our pond to sneak a midsummer swim. While the girls crowd around little fluffy kittens, he could roll in the mud with his favorite mutt with big clumsy paws. But I’ll take another granddaughter too. One can never have too many reasons for buying cute shoes, pretty dresses, and dainty little tea services.

My fantasy grandbaby visions may not be truly practical, but I enjoy them nonetheless. Visits to Grandma’s farm that include collecting eggs and riding horses, baking biscuits for homemade jellies – those are things I can honestly look forward to in the future. But what really keeps me out there working is a little more grounded in reality.

As young kids, Frank and I always talked about having enough land to have horses. We always talked about a rocking chairs under a weeping willow, watching grandkids play around our feet. What we talked about most is a family homestead – a common place that all our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and other future generations would know, share, and hopefully love.

When I dream of kiddos and kitties and baby calves…it’s not just my grandchildren I daydream about. I also daydream about some tousel-haired boy far into the future, long after I’m gone, listening to his father say “Your great great grandmother started this place. Back then…”

I’ll never know if those dreams come true, or if someday our homestead is bulldozed and turned into a parking lot for a shopping mall. But the possibility for that kind of future…the hope that just maybe it could happen…that keeps me working, even when I wonder if we bit off a little more than we can chew.

I’ve posted before about my information overload in regard to learning everything chicken, gardening, and the like. However, I thought for today’s “I” themed post for the A-Z Challenge, I’d give the subject a little more attention. Namely – how to fight information overload.

The Internet is a wonderful advancement for homesteaders and those interested in self-sufficient, sustainable lifestyles. Unfortunately, it can also be a HUGE downfall in the way of information overload. There’s so much info out there on websites and blogs that it can really be more than you need. Internet research is something of a double edged sword in that regard.

One way I combat information overload is by reading things offline. Magazines, books, print newsletters, etc. Don’t ask me why, but I seem to be able to absorb information better when I hold paper in my hands. Perhaps its the link between tactile and cerebral. I remember sitting on the bed, fiddling with the page while I read about how to care for day old chicks.

For some reason, much of what I read online gets lost between reading and remembering. It’s like my brain is a sieve – letting all the little tidbits slip through and only holding large chunks. When there’s so much information out there, you have to have some kind of filter…otherwise your brain would burst. (Mine would, anyway…there’s just not that much more room left in it.)

Another thing I do to help with information overload is to forget. Yeah, I said forget. I forget everything I’ve ever read and just experiment. Like with the garden. I gave up, in some instances, trying to learn everything I needed to know about everything I wanted to plant. I took my partner in crime’s advice and just threw some seeds in the ground to see what happens. They’ll either sprout or they won’t. Not much to figure out there.

If I really, really, really want to try that particular seed again next year, perhaps I’ll know enough about the stuff I HAVE read about to make some room for new info. Maybe not. Either way…my head doesn’t hurt from packing in a boatload of information just to glean one good kernel of information I can actually use.

Finally, the last information overload remedy in my arsenal is a journal. I write down everything. Points to remember. Questions to research. What I planted and what I added to it, around it, read about it, etc. My written journal is something of an external harddrive for my memory. When my brain’s too damn full to hold anymore possibly useless information, I dump the overflow into a journal so I can forget it now, but find it again later if I need it.

So that’s it. My 3 step strategy for combating information overload. Read instead of surf. Say the hell with it, forget everything, and just do stuff to see what happens. And finally, keep an information dumping journal.

What about you? How do you deal with information overload?

In this family, we never plan. We have ideas, but we never plan. Just as sure as you’re sitting here reading this blog, if we plan something…nothing will fall into place as it should. Ideas, on the other hand, don’t have the solidity and permanency of plans. They’re more fluid and open to adjustments.

This past weekend is a perfect example of why we don’t plan.

I had planned to take the train from Georgia to New York. We won’t get into all the factors that made the Amtrak plan null and void. Storms, scheduled track maintenance, the Masters golf tournament, and in unavailability of rental cars in Syracuse, NY (the last train station before my daughter’s house on Ft. Drum, NY) all conspired to make a train ride a no-go.

The next idea? Just rent a car in Augusta and drive it up to New York. Easy enough fix, right? Wrong. I get to the rental company to pick up the car, only to find out the mid-sized sedan I pre-payed to rent was no longer a mid-size.

My new awaiting chariot? A sub-compact Ford. Considering the nearest rental return office was 20 minutes from my daughter’s home and she doesn’t drive? We needed to be able to fit myself, my daughter, my granddaughter, and a borrowed driver and her daughter in the rental to return it. There’s no way that little sub-compact would fit 2 car seats and an adult in the back seat.

I was given the option of a car in Columbia, but I couldn’t make it in time for an 8pm pick up before the office closed. As such, I opted to just drive my truck the 1004 miles from home to home. It just seemed so much more simple. (It was also my Plan A, until I realized a train ride was so much cheaper than gas for my GMC Sierra 2500 gas-guzzler.)

But the whole situation resulted in my driving all night Friday and most of the day Saturday to get to New York in time for Princess Fancy Face’s birthday on Sunday. Including a stop off at my sister’s in North Carolina for coffee and 3 hours worth of roadside naps, the trip took less than 24 hours total from start to finish. Driving the Highway to Hell (Interstate 81N) from Virginia all the way into the north country of New York sure felt like more though.

All in all, I made it to NY in one piece, on a pretty uneventful drive. But this weekend was just the most recent reminder of why we don’t plan…we just have ideas. P-L-A-N is a dangerous four letter word around here.

Nothing ever goes as planned. EVER. I guess I pissed off the Plan Fairies at some point in my life and they’ve just never gotten over it.