The Heroic Chicken Named Cow

We've been chicken owners for over a few years now.  We started out with 5 chickens at our old house and when we moved to a house with more acreage, we kept adding more to our flock and I think we topped out near 20.  Every year, we kept adding more baby chicks, one new chick per kid adds up quick.  We usually loose some to hawks every fall, but that wasn't a huge deal, since we owned many.  Fast forward to this spring when we added our yearly new baby chicks. 
We get our new chicks from TSC or Family Farm and Home, it just depends on who has better selection.  This year we went for the Bantams (pretty little yard chickens) and 2 Americana's (they lay pretty blue or green eggs).  The kids get to name them, so this year we added chickens named, Dandelion, Candy, Pecky Leg, Skid steer, and Excavator (the twins named the heavy equipment names. Yes, they are their father's sons).  In the beginning they live in the garage in a box, and then as they grow we transfer them to a smaller coop, away from the bigger chickens, until their big enough to join them.  We've never had a problem in the past doing this, but then again the twins didn't play with them as much as this year either.  About a month ago, the kids came to tell me that one of the new chicks was dead.  Sure enough, she was dead in the coop.  The next day, they came to tell me that all the new chicks were dead.  Sure enough, they were.  A small window door on the top of the coop was left open, so that s how we thought that the chicken killer got in.  We didn't know exactly what critter was getting in there, but something was having some good chicken dinners.

Fast forward to this week, something was now getting our full grown chickens.  One here, one there, everyday there was a new chicken death to report.  Some of them were chickens we've had for a few years. 

The other night, Ross and I were watching TV in our basement family room.  We were just about to head to bed when we heard thunk, thunk, tap,tap, on our slider window.  We didn't know what animal would make this noise.  So Ross and I got up to look, and who was it?!?!  The chicken named Cow!!!!!!  It kept tapping the window and looking at us.  She was probably thinking, "come on you humans!"  As we open the slider we could hear squawking.  If you don't know much about chickens, chickens settle down for the night at dusk and they don't usually make any noise.  They perch in their coop and don't normally wander around the yard like Cow was.  We knew the chicken killer was out there.  Ross quickly got his gun and ran out to the coop.  I stood in the basement and watched through the window.  Sure enough, Ross was firing shots at whatever was in there.  When he got back to the house, he told me it was a big fat raccoon.  The raccoon ate 3 chickens and when Ross shot him, he was so busy eating eggs, he didn't even move when Ross opened the door.  Those poor chickens were squawking for quite a bit after the whole incident, it took them awhile to settle down again.

Chickens are known to not be very smart, but as you can see in this case, I beg to differ.  If it hadn't been for Cow warning us, we could have very well easily lost all of our chickens.  The next morning, to celebrate Cow's acts of  heroism, Leanne brought her up on our deck, and we gave her a strawberry.  Such a good and brave chicken!!!!

Our trip to the mall

Yesterday, Leanne had a birthday party to go to out in Jenison, so I decided to stay out that direction, instead of coming back home.  I took the other 4 kids to Rivertown Crossing Mall, since it's been a long time since we were there.  I think maybe over a year?!?!  If I did go, the kids didn't go.  Oh wait, I did stop in once this year with the twins, while the older ones were at school, but still, we don't go there often. 
It was lunch time, so I thought lunch at the food court sounded good.  I was the leader of my small pack, and we were walking through the tables at the food court to get to Subway.  I had just looked behind me, and we were all together, no one lagging.  I get in line with the kids at Subway, and I look to find only 3 kids, not 4 with me.  I started to search frantically with my eyes, because Reed was just with us seconds ago!  I looked toward the seating area, to no avail, just when I was going to go run and look, a lady said to me, "is this little boy yours?"  Breathing a sigh of relief and picking up my sweet Reed to hug him close, I thanked the lady.  Reed had a small tear drop out of one eye, and a little snail trail on his nose, it's the first time he's ever gotten lost and hopefully the last.  Thank you to the kind lady who helped him find his mommy. 
We ate lunch, uneventfully, at the food court tables.  I try to keep every ones sandwiches on a napkin or on the paper wrap from Subway.  Luke and Reed don't quite understand that even if the table looks clean, it just really isn't.  Sandwiches still end up on the table, without a barrier between them.  One can only try........  I found out that Clay can probably put away a foot long sub if I let him, and Allison can eat an entire 6 inches!!!!  I didn't expect that, because she is tiny, but that girl can eat! 
Allison needed to spend the last money to her name on earrings at Claires.  We don't have a Claires in Holland anymore, and when she found out that there was one at this mall, she all of a sudden had the need for new earrings.  She settled on a pair of dangling ice cream cone earrings, they are pretty cute for a little girl.
I wanted to go downstairs after we finished up at Claires.  We decided to use the escalator.  I mentioned earlier, it had been a long time since the older kids went to the mall and opportunities to use an escalator are few and far between.  I got Clay to hop on. The stair started to become a stair, and he was caught off guard with part of his foot on the stair, rising behind him.  He figured it out and stood on one step and held the rail as he went down.  Watching this scared Alli. It was her turn to go and she couldn't do it.  She got scared as she watched the escalator steps and just couldn't make herself jump on.   So there we stood at the top of the escalator holding up the line of people wanting to use it.  People were leaving to use the regular stairs at this point.  Allison asked if I could go down with her, but I couldn't because I had the twins and there wasn't enough room for all of us on one step.  A nice couple behind me asked if they could help.  I didn't know what to do, Clay was waiting at the bottom of the stairs and we were stuck at the top.  So I asked the couple if they could hold Allison's hand and get her down for me.  Alli was hesitant, but she quickly realized this was the only way for her to go down.  Off she went, holding the kind women's hand.  Then I somehow managed to get on with both boys holding my hands.  It's tricky if you can't hold onto the rail going down.  Thankfully, we all made it down in one piece.
We did a bit more shopping on the bottom floor and then it was time to go get Leanne from the birthday party.  We needed to go up to the 2nd floor again, but this time, we used the normal stairs with no complications. 

Camping with Grandpa and Grandma

A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I got a chance to go camping with my parents to Mullet Lake, Aloha State Park.  We had a blast!!!  Ross was unable to come for the week, but he did come over the weekend to get us home.

Our campsite.  My parents just

bought a motor home.  The kids slept in there.

 My little pup ten oasis.  Just me and a lot of foam. It

was bliss.

 Only little trees on these lots.  Sometimes you have to  make due with what you have.

My mom founds some clothes pins and we dried the bathing

suits in this bitty tree.  No clothesline required.

The girls had their hair done the same way, so of course

I needed a picture.

my twinners

 Clay and I

 I do not have front loaders at home, so the boys

found the laundry mat quite amusing.

 So did Alli.

Fun rides at the laundry mat. 

 Sit here in this tree and smile and then you can go swimming.

 Clay and his craft he made.  

 Leanne, a good fisherwoman.  She fed the fish her worms,

but didn't catch any.

 The boys, all ready for a boat ride.

 Alli caught this tiny fish.

 Soon after, I caught and even smaller one.

 Beautiful sunset from the back of the boat.

Where all 3 boys slept. 

 Leanne and Allii

 Clay's turn fishing.

 At a lighthouse, right by the Mackinac Bridge.

We had a great time camping with grandpa and grandma.  We may have tired them out, but it was so fun.  No one wanted to go home.  It was well worth the drive.

Hats for Sale

As I have mentioned before, we live down a dirt lane on the blueberry farm, surrounded by trees, and we have 1 neighbor.  So of course, Allison and Clay think this is the perfect spot to make paper hats (they are tiny and won't stay on) and try to put them up for sale.  They have worked really hard at making paper hats and crowns, airplanes, and bookmarks.  They have a good price list, you can buy almost anything for a penny.  The first day they did it, Alli came inside and said defeated, "no one is coming to buy our hats, we haven't made any money."  At that time, I had no idea that they were even doing this.  I saw what they were trying to do, and I tried to explain to them that no one knows that they were trying to sell anything, because no one can see them.  Alli, still looking defeated, said, "well, maybe when your customers come, they will buy a hat from us."  I had no customers coming that day for cupcakes (it was a Monday), so I told her she would have to wait a long time.  Luke and Reed came in, and I gave them some small change, and they went and bought hats.  That made the salesman/lady very happy.  I called Ross, so he would be ready to buy something from them too.  Ever since then, they make hats, and set up on my porch, in hopes of making money.  

This is their little set up.

The sign says, Hats for sale, take your shoes off, take off 

your socks too, no food, no babies only if there ours, no mean
people.

And this is the hat you can get for 10 cents, but they'll also

let you have it for a Penny if that's all you have.

I love their imaginations and how well they play together and make hats.....If anyone needs a small paper colored hat, you know where to come!

Forgetful

It's the end of the school year, which means I'm barely keeping every thing on my kid's schedule straight.  I'm sorry teachers, we are scraping by.  Special field trips, and as I wrote that I quick hopped up to check the calender because I wasn't sure if Clay's class trip was today (it's not, it's next week, whew).  Anyways, the schedule is just jam packed.  

Last week, or was it the week before? It was the week before last.....  Clay got off the bus and started to talk about Fredrick Meijer Gardens, and I said to him, "you'll see all that stuff when you get to go there for your class trip."  Fast forward to the weekly Monday note the teacher sends home and it says, "we had so much fun at Fredrick Meijer Gardens on Thursday....."  and there I sat, searching my brain to see if I remembered about it.  I didn't.  I ask Clay about it and sure enough they went there.  At least I remembered to send in the permission slip and money a few weeks prior to the class trip.

Last week Friday, the teacher e-mailed a picture of the class.  All the kids, except mine and another boy, were wearing green and yellow.  There was Clay in the picture, standing out like a sore thumb, in navy and orange.  Apparently, they were supposed to wear John Deere colors for a small outing across the road to a farm. I totally forgot about it!  We're not John Deere people anyways, we are Allis Chalmers folk here.

We get the school note on Wednesdays and it has all the school reminders and important info on them.  Ross was reading it Friday morning, and says to me ,"Erin, there are only 20 year books left, did we get one?"  My response, "I've been meaning to send in the money with Leanne, but keep forgetting."  Ross replies, "Do you even read the note?"  I said to him, "I skim read it."  Maybe that's part of my problem this year, all that skim reading that I keep missing stuff.  But I don't really think so, I think I would forget anyways, even if I read it closely.  I sent Leanne to school that morning with money for a year book. 

Thursday, last week, I could sense that I pushed something wrong on my alarm clock and my mind told me to get up and check it out, but my body did NOT listen.  I woke up when the bus was supposed to pick up the kids for school.  I got the kiddos up, full well knowing that I would have to bring them, got them dressed and fed and dropped them off.  Alli and Clay were on time but Leanne was a few minutes late (we outgrew our school, so this year we leased the Beaverdam school and grades K-2 go there).  The whole day was totally off.  I HATE that when that type of morning happens.


There, of course, are the normal forgetful moments too.  Like forgetting to initial minutes Clay has read for reading, doing their catch up homework from sick days (we have yet another virus going through the family!!), and just generally keeping everything straight.  BUT we are in the HOME STRETCH!!!!!!!  I'm doing a little happy dance.  Only 2 weeks and a day left......I got this (I think....) Three more class trips and a field day.  I'd better get those brown paper bags out so I don't forget about sack lunches for class trips.

Vacation

Wow, it's been awhile since I last updated my blog.  I've been busy with starting my own cupcake business among other things that just keep life, well, busy.  I was also busy with Ross' family on spring break at Orange Beach, AL!!!!!  That's right, we went away for spring break!  We have never (Ross and I and our kids) gone away for spring break and I have never gone to the ocean for a vacation.  My family always camped and went fishing and things of that nature.  When I met Ross, I found out he HATES sand and anything to do with water, so that nixed a honeymoon by the ocean.  But that was fine because I love outdoorsy nature stuff and I have a hard time sitting still.  So anyways, ORANGE BEACH!!!!!!!!  We decided to leave a few days earlier and go to the land of the Ozarks, in Missouri, since we don't know if we'll ever do anything like this again.  We are huge fans of Laura Ingalls books, and decided we wanted to visit where she lived and since this one was only a couple hours out of the way, we decided to go here.  We rented a small (more like tiny) cabin for a night (that turned into 2 nights).  Did I forget to mention that Clay caught a nasty stomach bug a few days before vacation?  And that Luke and I had it before we left and Leanne started puking the night we were supposed to leave on vacation?  Oh, and Reed puked that night too?  Whoops, well that's what happened.  We were debating on whether to stay home or not, but decided we were going to go.  As Leanne said, "I'm not sick, I only puked twice."  That poor girl was sick the entire drive and into the next day at the cabin.  We decided to stay there an extra night because of the the sickies.  Oh, and Alli finally caught it right when Leanne started to feel better.  Leanne is the one in our family who loves the Little House Books, so thankfully, she was well enough to go see where Laura lived out her final years of her life and where Laura wrote her books.

Luke and I at Laura

Ingalls Wilder's house.  

Photography credit goes

to Clay.  Ross stayed back 

with the sickies.

Laura Ingalls Wilders home

Rose, Laura's daughter, bought this house

for her parents.  It had top of the line

stove and fridge, it was all very modern for

that day in age.  Laura and Almanzo lived here

for awhile, and then moved back to the white

 house because they liked it better there.

We left the land of the Ozarks and headed to Alabama.  Poor Alli still wasn't feeling well.  She got pretty dehydrated, to the point if we were at home, I would have taken her in for IV fluids. After hours of driving (12-13 hours), we made it to Alabama.  We were all pretty tired, and as for Alli, she got some Gatorade in her and we woke her up through the night to force her to drink.  After that she started to perk up and finally made a turn for the better.  

The place where we stayed.  Our family

had the lower level.  The second

level is the main level with the big

kitchen and large area to relax as 

an entire family.  

Lynelle (her hubby was unable to get

 off work to come), Ross' sister

and her to girls stayed on that level.  The

Top level was mainly sleeping

area.  Brandon, Ross' brother, and his

wife, Leah, and their kids stayed up there,

along with Ross' parents, and Chad, Ross'

brother, and his wife, Anna, and their

baby, Thomas.  

Our daily view!!!! Nothing like waking up and looking

out the window and seeing this.  It was AMAZING!!

Sunday was Easter and we listened to an online sermon and had a nice big brunch.  We pretty much stayed low key to remember the Lord's day (and it felt good after so much driving and sickness).

Monday the kids could not wait to get into the pool, so we let them swim and play in the sand and gather shells.  Anna's (Chad's wife, so sister in law) family was staying next door to us and her dad went charter boat fishing that morning.  When they came in, we went down there to see them gut the fish and visit the docks.  After watching them clean the fish, we went for a walk down the docks to see pelicans.  One guy had his fish (5-6 nice sized fish) laying out on the docks and he was taking pics of them.  He turned his back and started to talk to some people by the cleaning table.  Those pesky pelicans walked right up to the fish and grabbed one.  He almost had it in his neck area (or whatever you call that thing).  We were yelling several times,  "hey, they've got your fish!!" before he finally noticed what was going on. Good thing it slipped out of the pelican's mouth.  They did have it quit a bit a ways from the group of the other fish.  I almost felt bad for the pelican, almost.  We also went on a bit of a nature walk.

Watching a fish getting gutted.

Family picture on the docks (this

is right before the pelicans tried to get the

fish.  Leanne was in stitches laughing

so hard!)

Pelicans waiting and watching

The recovered fish from the pelican

The kids had fun digging this big hole.

Looking for gators on our nature

walk, no gators seen.

Tuesday we went to the National Naval Aviation Museum.  That was really neat.  They had a lot of different airplanes from different wars in the museum.  We also got to see the Blue Angels practice.  That was the highlight of the day.

Majority of the kids.  Look

at Clay being a goof at the

top of the chain

Inside the museum

We didn't get a good picture of the Blue Angels practicing because they were so fast, but it was AMAZING!!!!!

Wednesday we planned on playing it low key, but last minute we decided to go to Alligator Alley.  It's a place that takes alligators who are considered pests.  Like alligators that come too close to houses, or eats people pets......   

 

 Kids at the alley.  It was hot and they were tired.

Clay and Alli

Luke and Reed (not sure who is who here).  

Lee and one of the twins

Ross and I

Thursday we went to the U.S.S. Drum and the U.S.S. Alabama.  My kids love going through ships, so we couldn't pass this opportunity up.

Alli, Brooklyn (cousin), Reed,

Clay, Luke, and Leanne

Time for a nap!

Maybe if we all try together it will budge.

And Grandpa came too!!

Thursday night sleepover.  Haley (asleep), Alli, Leanne,

and Brooklyn.  Lots of giggles coming from that room!

Friday we just laid low key.  We spent time down by the ocean, swimming in the pool, relaxing and packing.  We were all enjoying our last day of vacation.

Enjoying the last time stepping in the

ocean.

My little guys

We woke up at 1:30 AM and got on the road 2ish.  We drove it straight through to home with minor backups (which is why we left so early).  My kids are really good riders, the twins cried for maybe 5 minutes during the trip and the older ones fought very little.  I am proud of their riding skills.

So sad to leave.  Goodbye Orange

Beach!

We had a wonderful vacation with Ross' family.  So thankful for the time spent together with nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters, and mom and dad.