The bear and the ballerina

We woke up this morning to an average day, nothing really seemed out of place until HD noticed our bird feeder was missing.  HD comes over to our large window every morning to see if any hummingbirds are hanging out and this morning when he did he noticed our large squirrel proof feeder was missing.  He went right outside and to our surprise it was in the yard, the feeder was hanging from metal cord but now the cord was ripped in two pieces.  The feeder was about 10 feet away and beat all to heck!  It was no doubt a bear, the bear who has been getting into our neighbors trash.

Minutes after we found our badly beaten bird feeder, I decided to call and freak my very bear phobic Mom.  She immediately said I am surprised it didn't bother the chickens....

I ran to the window and two of our chickens were running around the yard, our chickens are not supposed to be running around the yard!  I didn't want to scare the kids and I didn't know what we would find when we got out there so I yelled to HD "the B-E-A-R (all spelling this) G-O-T the C-H-I-C-K-E-N-S  R-U-N, HD does not like the spelling game and me yelling spelling at the top of my lungs so did not keep the kids from getting scared, HD runs from the bathroom as I am running out the door and he tells me to wait!  He went first and you won't believe what that bear did, it literally ripped two boards off the back of the chicken coop so that it could get to our little chicken, all we found of Henny was blood and feathers.

I called the game warden who very rudely informed me that during a drought lots of bears go into neighborhoods, I  quickly stifled her by saying first of all I do not live in a neighborhood I live in the great big forest, and I have for the last 5 years and bears by nature do not go around killing things so I am not calling to tell you I have had a bear sighting but rather that a bear has ripped down walls to kill a chicken and left the corn meal which was easier to reach than the chicken to kill the CHICKEN!  She then changes her tone, and puts me through to a wild life biologist who I never really got to talk to only voice mail, and she tells me oh we are dealing with an agressive bear that is out of character, so like is it come break down my door to get a cookie out of character or like hmmmm thats odd, she said she can't answer that!

We had to go on with our day but I will say we stayed inside, we kept looking out the windows, we kept our dogs inside too.

On a much better note, Daisy had her first ballet lesson today!  She did fabulous for a first timer, she spun with the best of them!  And I do believe she was the prettiest girl in the whole place, I might be a bit prejudice but she is simply beautiful!

We are leaving some lights on tonight so that we can see the bear if he comes back for another free meal, and  I think we might leave our bedroom window open so we can hear any noise.  HD has one of those digital outdoor camera's he is hanging on a tree as I type this, yes he is out in the dark with a very large bear looming around and he is not one bit afraid, me, me, scared to death!  I told him to take a gun for crying out loud and he keeps telling me black bears are more afraid of us than we are of them, I say well you don't see me in his back yard tamping around do you?

If we get any pictures tonight I will let you know...

Pictures of our weekend

This is my Grandpa.  As you know we celebrated his 79th Birthday on Saturday at my house.  The picture below is of him laughing as we tried to get a good picture of him and my Grandma with their eyes open....

Taking pictures of them with their eyes open just didn't work, so we took a picture of them kissing.  My Grandparents, have been married for 57 years.  They love each other very much and are a wonderful example to their kids what a marriage should be, loving!

This is my sweet Aunt (Twice Blessed Mommy) and her sweet boy Tate.  Tate liked my Pea Pickn' cake very much.

I was trying very hard to get Reese to take a little nap...  She has been in a lot of pain, she just got a shell for her blind eye, this will make both eyes look the same and it hurts.  In this picture she had finally fallen asleep.

This final picture was taken yesterday, the flood gates have opened people, 5 large chickens just weren't enough, we have lost our stinking mind I have No idea what we are thinking we got 3 baby chickens....  Daisy is kissing the chick on the head.  I was holding it for her, they are too small for the kids to hold just yet.  They are only 1 week old.

Happy Tuesday!

Know what?

Its raining, and as you all know I hate rainy days, see here and here.  So guess what, we are wearing our pj's with no intent of dressing, we are watching ET, and we are eating peanut butter crackers and sticks of cheese for lunch.  

We did go outside in the rain just long enough to gather our eggs, (gather our eggs, doesn't that sound country) I could just say get the eggs, or collect the eggs, but gather the eggs sounds so nice...  We got four eggs today, 1 brown, 2 white and 1 green.  Luke love them, he was sitting out in the rain singing to the chickens earlier today.

We are having left over cream of vegetable soup from yesterday for dinner so I have no plans to do anything other than skim the net, watch tv and maybe eat popcorn...

Please pray for Daddy, he has an MRI on his knee today at 5pm, I think I mentioned a few weeks back that he hurt his knee, well it's not better, and even though he still works all day and builds chicken coops he is still in alot of pain, he will need surgery to repair his knee, just pray that the doctors find all that's wrong and it can be repaired quickly!

Chickens and a Coop

Daddy is working late this week, that means he goes to work at 9 and gets home at 6:30, not so bad now that it is staying light longer.

Here is a picture of our chickens.  We have 5 of them.  The white one talks alot!

They are in a temporary house while Daddy finishes the coop.

Some of our chickens have their back feathers plucked out, this is due to the number of chickens that were in our friends pen, he just had too many so us taking a few will help.

I guess that's where we get the saying "the pecking order".

This is our coop.

This kind of siding is called Dutch Lap.  Daddy is busy nailing here.

Daddy busy working before he goes to work...