New Obsession

Good thing I am religiously riding my exercise bike. And by the way I have the brain age of a 20 something thanks to my nintendo DS. Back to my original thought......I have a new food obsession. If I wasn't consistent on exercising I would probably gain back the weight I lost because I can't get enough GOAT CHEESE! I know most of you have probably already had a love affair with it and are maybe over it by now, but I have just discovered it. I tried what I thought was goat cheese a long time ago and I thought it was awful. I think it may not have been goat cheese, or it was bad goat cheese. I gave it another shot the other day and I was hooked. I even dreamt about it the other night. I know Robbie likes it, she was talking about getting a goat and making her own cheese. Joe actually wanted to get a goat to add to our farm. Mostly to eat the grass, but after seeing the photo Julie took of a goat at the 4H fair in Michigan, I think I will stick to buying my goat cheese at the grocery. I wouldn't want that goat around, it looks like it would try to steal my husband.

Sorry Steve, your right I have been neglecting my many fans by not posting recently. I have been busy creating the Ottinger farm and petting zoo. I built a bunny hutch, bunny pasture cage and chicken nesting boxes in the last few weeks. The chicken coop is ready for the arrival of its residents on August 6th or 7th. That is actually about 10 days earlier than expected. I pretty much have everything I need like the bedding and the food and such, I am just putting the special Patti touches on everything. Like....painting a chicken scene on the trash can that I have the chicken feed in, and I had to add the name tags to the bunny hutches. I still need to put some shingles or something on the plywood on top of the bunny hutch but I am waiting till I can find some used or free. Everything I have made so far has been from scrap lumber that I had from other projects or recovered from things that were going to be thrown away. I'm looking forward to going to another auction this Saturday that I hope will prove fruitful. It's an estate auction from an old working farm. Should be some good stuff. I am worried though about the chickens. Like Steve said in his comment there are all kinds of varmints lurking around just waiting to attack the chickens. I have the solution though. Cow bells and a baby monitor. I have about 200 cow bells that where used as decorations at a work party that Bryan attended. He was going to throw them away and naturally I rescued them figuring I would find some use for them. Well that was about 3 years ago but now I know what I am going to use them for. I strung them on fishing line about 6 inches apart and attached them to the upper area of the barn stall where the chickens will stay. If anything tries to climb over the wall, the bells will ring and alert me to an intruder. That's where the baby monitor comes in. I will have it near the coop and the receiver next to my bed. Sooooo when the bells ring in the middle of the night I can jump out of bed, grab Joe's 22 rifle, put on my leopard print rubber boots, run to the barn and probably shoot a chicken in an attempt to shoot the coyote that is eating it. You probably think that I am kidding, but I am totally serious. I will get some pictures posted soon so you can see that I mean business.

Bunny Sex

No, the bunnies are not having sex. Joe and I are trying to determine the sex of the bunnies. We researched online how to determine the sex, then I gathered up the bunnies and the process began. I had to put then under my magnifier light. My eye sight is not what it used to be. So here is Joe and I head to head with an upside down bunny magnified 10x. You got that picture in your head????? You would think that between a doctor and a nurse this would be an easy process but it's harder than it seems. So.....with some certainty we believe that Toby is a girl, Daisy is a girl and Happy is a boy. He probably is happy since he's the boy with 2 girls. I ordered seperate cages for them so Happy doesn't get any happier.
By the way, Happy 4th of July!

NEW ADDITIONS TO THE FAMILY

It's official. I have truly lost my mind. I have become farmer Jane from Podunk. Next thing you know I'll be chawing tobacky. Bryan and I went to the local feed store to get chicken feed and bedding and came back with chicken feed, bedding and 3 baby bunnies. We were leaving the feed store and I saw a sign for the bunnies so I had Bryan make a quick left and we went in search of them. 2 miles up the road and no bunnies 2 miles back down the road. We were about to give up when I saw a piece of wood along side the road. It was the same type of sign we first saw so I got out of the car and picked it up. Sure enough it was the bunny sign. I took that as a sign. No really, a sign. I was supposed to have these bunnies. We pulled into the driveway to this pristine, idyllic farm. There were goats, chickens, sheep and a little German Shepard puppy tied to a tree. I thought I had died and went to Old McDonald's Farm or is it MacDonald's? Anyway, this farm was so spotless you could eat off of the gravel driveway. Out of the house comes a tiny barefooted Amish woman. Soon after 2 little tow head kids. I was surrounded by cuteness times 3. I ask about the bunnies. We walk to a little shed where the little boy brings out 3 bunnies in a bucket. There is no way I could just get 1 and if I got 2 that would leave the other one all alone. So I had to get them all. I was a little concerned though. One of the bunnies had a yellow spot on top of its head. Was there something wrong with it??? No, turns out that the little boy wanted to keep one for himself so he put a yellow marker spot on it so he could tell it apart. How cute is that! In the end he decided to give them all to me. Probably because I had such a sweet and motherly face or possibly it was the fact that I was waving a $20 bill in his face. (no, that didn't really happen). So off we go with 3 bunnies in a brown paper bag and back to the feed store for rabbit pellets. Bryan is flipping out about my impulse purchase when all of the sudden it hit me. What are the odds that they are all girls or all boys? Probably not likely, which means I will probably have to separate them or I will have more than 3 bunnies in the near future. They are from the same litter though. Are bunnies incestuous??? I kind of think they are. By the way Joe doesn't know he is about to be a father of triplet bunnies. I have to think of a way to break it to him. Bryan came up with all kinds of good stories to tell him. But I told Bryan that I couldn't lie to Joe and I would have to tell him the truth. "A little blind boy with no arms and legs was selling them so that he could go to band camp for the summer. I couldn't resist." Honesty is always the best policy.

Eureka! I found it

I, like many people have a hard time getting motivated to exercise. It's not that I don't have the time, it's that I don't make the time. I know that exercising makes me feel better so why is it so hard to do????? I still don't know the answer to that but at long last I have found the key to working out without being bored. So far it only works on my stationary exercise bike though. I could probably do it on the treadmill too but it might be a little trickier. What is it you ask......Nintendo DS lite. For those of you who don't know, the DS is a hand held gaming device. I got one recently and I LOVE it. I don't play the action type games though. I play the puzzle type games. Sudoku, crossword, anagram etc... My favorite is the brain age game. There are random exercises that you have to do for training, then you take a test. After the test you are scored as to the age of your brain function. 20 years old is the best you can do. I achieved that today for the first time. I have 2 brain age game cards and on one I am 20 and the other I am 51. Oops! So I play them while I ride my exercise bike. I wear a heart rate monitor so I know if I am exercising hard enough and I play the games. I rode the bike for an hour and I didn't even realize it. I was so engrossed in the game that time just flew by. I have never ridden that bike for an hour before. So I got to work out my brain and my body at the same time and I am actually looking forward to it tomorrow. Watching TV while riding the bike is not the same effect. TV doesn't engage your brain enough. I did try to crochet on the bike and that worked out pretty good until I got the yarn wrapped around the pedal. Tomorrow I'll tell you about my other little exercise gadget I got on ebay.

Happy Birthday Kim!

What are the birthday plans for you today. Does Brad have a big surprise planned???? Fireworks off the top of Pike's Peak perhaps? I miss seeing you so much! I wish I could be part of your birthday plans today. I hope you have a wonderful day and just know I am thinking about you. Love and kisses to you! Fort Wayne says Hi and Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday Dina!

Darn it! I missed it by a day. Sorry! At least I got it on the calendar in time. I hope you had a great birthday. Did you get any shoes? I got a new pair of red stiletto peek a boo toe pumps today. Are you jealous? Give your hubby a kiss from me. Hope to see you soon.

Salvage for dollars!

I have never before felt the need or desire to visit a salvage yard. Only by a random course of events did this opportunity even present itself to me. At the farm property we own, there is a lot of left over farm equipment from the previous owner that is scattered, old and rusty. Joe has owned the property for going on 30 years, so that is how long all of that stuff has sat there. Trying to make a long story short, someone stole a large piece of equipment that was chained to a tree. I would have never known it was gone, but Joe knows that property very well and he noticed it was missing that last time we went up. We figured out it had to be someone familiar with the property because you wouldn't know it was there unless you had been there. So after checking with our neighbors we found out that the grandson of Joe's neighbor is the one that took it. He is supposed to be calling us to fess up, but as of yet hasn't. Knowing what I know now about how scrap metal is sold, he probably made about $800.00 off of the piece of equipment. When we first found out it was him, Joe and I thought that instead of making him pay us back, we would have him come over and pick up some of the other scrap to clean it off of the property and maybe make him do some other odd jobs. That was until I found out how much money he got for it. Screw that! That little bastard is going to be paying us back. The fact that he hasn't called yet is making me even madder! Joe is going to have to let me talk to him though because I know he will go all soft and let him off the hook. So all of that got me thinking about some of the stuff that I had out in our barn that was just junk and taking up space. Bryan and I loaded it all in to our trailer and we took it to the scrap yard. There may be something wrong with me or my hillbilly gene is becoming dominant because I had fun! We watched the cranes moving stuff around during our 45 minute wait in line. I couldn't believe how many people were there. They even had cops directing people in and out. A big magnet came down and picked stuff right out of the trailer. We made $128.00 on our little trailer full of stuff. So Bryan and I are going to get the stuff at the farm and turn it in ourselves. I will never look at a old rusty piece of metal the same way again. As for that kid, he won't be invited to our labor day party anymore.