Cuteness

Problems on the Farm

Squash bugs, chicken health, and chicken behaviors are problems that sooner or later all hobby farmers must face.

1. I have been noticing over the past couple of weeks that my garden hasn’t been doing too well. I figured it was because my thumb was turning less green and more brown but I found the cause. I called my Dad the other night and explained to him what was going on and what I saw on my last pass through and he knew right off that I had…..dun dun ddduuuunnnn…….SQUASH BUGS!

Below is more info on these creatures that spread like the plague. I have to get some Seven Dust and douse all my plants and put around my garden or I’m not going to have many crops left. I also noticed recently that all the fun of this little garden adventure has gone out the window. Now that it’s getting hot I dread having to go out and weed. I am always worry about the water supply…am I giving it too much? Is it too dry? What am I going to do with all these damn peppers? I need recipes to put all these good things to use now and to can and use later on. I am really going to have to research this more so I can be more successful. It used to be “Oh look at the cute baby bell pepper….etc” Maybe once I take care of my bug infestation I will be happy about my garden again because it really is living a bit greener.

Click HERE to find out about squash bugs!

2. Like my garden, having chickens is a first for me. As you may recall we started out with 11 chickens, 2 roosters and 9 hens. We cooked one rooster, Lincoln accidently shot the other one and last week a hen died just out of the blue! We are now down to 8 originals but Lincoln plans on getting more hens and for sure one more rooster. I was really surprised the hen died because really I hadn’t noticed any problems that were making her act different. There was one issue and apparently it was the cause of her death.

**Disclaimer this may be graphic/gross to some**

A about a week before her demise I was collecting eggs and one had blood all on the outside. I thought it was strange and mentioned it to Lincoln…he didn’t think much about and to tell you the truth I didn’t think it was anything MAJOR. A few days after that I was out collecting eggs again and one chicken was up on a perch and I saw her rear feathers were all bloody and a mess. (light bulb) The same chicken that gave me a bloody egg. I told Lincoln about it and he just made an off color joke about her and said oh it’s no big deal. UUHH yeah it is, no matter the thing it’s not good for something to bleed from its ASS! Well I was right, of course, the next day I get a text from him saying the chicken is stiff as a board. I said yeah that’s the one I told you yesterday about bleeding!!!! So I immediately got on my phone and was Binging chicken bleeding from butt. WOW! So I found something that sounded pretty good and texted Lincoln to not do anything with it I wanted to inspect the chicken for this injury to see if I was right. Not only did I want to confirm my research but I also wanted to make sure that this wasn’t something I needed to worry about when it came to all my others hens…like a disease. Well come to find out what I found on the internet was right. What it boils down to is my pore little hen had chicken hemorrhoids that made her bleed and she died because of it. There isn’t anything we can do to prevent this from happening, it happens to hens that are overweight, old, or pretty young. I feel like she was a pretty young hen just by her build and comparing her to my others. L So sad her little body just couldn’t take it and the bad part is you can’t stop a chicken from laying eggs so it’s something that happens sometimes.

3. While on my phone with my Dad about my garden I mentioned to him how all my hens except one are missing A LOT of their feathers. I mean the poor little things look like they have the mange. The one who is perfectly fine is a big, fat, ugly thing that I dislike now because I’m convinced she’s a bully. Lincoln had spoken with some co-workers about chickens and they said that it’s normal for them to molt and stuff but I felt like this was more than that because new feathers weren’t coming back they just kept getting balder and balder. When telling my Dad about it he said that I need to put a rooster in with them so he will be like the head honcho and will knock that mean hen off her pedestal. LOL Lincoln had also mentioned that without a rooster one hen will become the dominant one and use these bullying techniques to rule the coop. Well I got news for her NOT IN THIS HOUSE YOU AREN’T, MISSY!!!! Hopefully in a few weeks we will have it sorted out.

So as you can tell…it’s all fun in games until you get bugs and hemorrhoids!

Awe the life of a hobby farmer…such bliss…and to think I want more! J

Happy Farming

What's Your Number?

I was listening to the radio this morning on my way to an appointment and the topic was what’s your number? Pretty much there was a poll that asked people what they felt was a yearly salary amount to feel accomplished and like you’re doing good in life. I can’t remember the exact percentage but the majority of the people said between 55K-70K a year. WOW! 70K a year that would be AWESOME especially if I was making that and my significant other had their own yearly salary….can you say BANK! But even as a family joined yearly income at 70K would still be really great. I could do so much with that like build a dream home and have a lot of toys that would enable Lincoln and I do what we love to do to the fullest like camping and spending time with friends and family at the lake. Not to mention I could finally get a new car that I’ve been lusting over for about 2 years now. LOL As they were asking the radio show cast what their number would be I started thinking what would be my ideal number at the point in my life. Currently I am making approximately 20K a year and in doing so you don’t have much left over after you pay your mortgage, all utilities, and the odds and in that life throws our way. Right now I would love to increase my annual salary to approximately 36K. This would take a huge weight off my shoulders and just make life more comfortable but as I enter my career field and finish school I think that in the end a good 55K a year would be amazing and I could live a very comfortable life and raise a family without having to worry all the time or pinch pennies. It’s always nice to just go and do something because you want to and have the money to do it without taking away from something else. I’m not high maintenance by any means but sometimes I like to splurge here and there. ANYWAYS, I got on a roll….I thought that was a neat topic. So what would be your number?

At the Fair

via Bing

Fun in the Sun

Saturday I spent the entire day in the sun at the lake with Amber at Aunt Jill's.  Saturday was much needed and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  We both said multiple times throughout the day that this is the life.  By the end of the day we were both toasty and tired. 

While Lincoln was here working....

I was here....:)

Yep we were right...this is the life!

Hope ya'll had a great, relaxing weekend too!

Friday Night Movie Review

Kaylynn and I haven't hung out in what feels like 4-EV-R so we planned a little us time for Friday night.  Kaylynn had been talking about Snow White and the Huntsman since she first saw the preview months ago so I thought that would be a great movie for us to go see.  Before we hit up the movie we stopped by Verizon because I was sick and tired of the phone I had and went to get my Blackberry reactivated....I am much happier with it.  After that we went and had a good dinner at El Chico's complete with green sauce then headed to the movie. 

My Mom has seen the movie earlier in the week and said that I would really like it and she wasn't wrong.  We both loved the movie.  I am all about action movies and this one was full of surprises.  I don't know what I really expected but it was way better than I could have thought or even thought that it was about.  Mom thinks there's room for a sequel but I'm not so sure. 

Friday night at the movies with one of my best friends and my crackberry blackberry was a PURRRfect start to a good weekend.

Summer Lovin'

First let me say that one of my favorite shows premiered for summer on June 5th and I'm so glad it's back.  It may be high school or whatever but I don't care its a great show.

Now for the BEST show EVER!!!! Season 5 premiers tonight and I'm sssooo excited! Come on 8 o'clock....

here's a sneak peak to hold us all over for the next few hours

Ep. 49 Preview

All the Boats

Capri, Italy via Bing

Summer Bucket List

By the time you read this I will be boozing it up at the lake hopefully accomplishing #3 & 4 at Lincoln's, Aunt Jill's Peppy Weekend!

My Summer Bucket list

1. Go kayaking in Beavers Bend with Lincoln and friends

2. Go camping a few more times

*3. Spend lots of time at the lake
*4. Get perfectly brown
5. Spend more time cooking out with friends
6. Visit Girls Gone Wine
7. Go to Los Pinos Winery in Pittsburg
8. Take a mini road trip
9. Visit a new town
10. Jump off a cliff
11. Visit Lubbock to see Piper and Mia
12. Float the river
13. Watch every episode of True Blood that won't be hard :)
14. Read 3 or more books that aren’t school related
15. Make A’s in both of my summer semesters
16. Go back to my natural blonde hair
17. Explore and make new and scrumptious summer recipes
18. Visit the Dallas Arboretum to view the Dale Chihuly exhibit
19. Zipline in Canton
20. Have a water balloon fight

Why, It’s About the Journey?

First off...

HAPPY FRIDAY

Second off how did you come up with your blog name?

While I was in Iraq I discovered that one of my friends, NaShae, had a blog and I decided to document my travels on a blog of my own. I remember when I was setting it up and I was so excited to start documenting all about my life but an anxiety that I had was coming up with a creative name. I wanted something that would last for a long time but I also didn’t want to be cliche like live, laugh, and love or something like that. I was searching for inspiration and I found it….It was on a Rail Europe Brochure that I had received with my train tickets for my trip to Germany. One of the slogan’s on the brochure was It’s about the journey, meaning traveling by the rail. I loved it and felt that would be a great title to represent my life on the world wide web! So it came to be. I still love my blog name and I couldn’t imagine it being anything else. There are lots of blog titles out there that are super cute but I’m not that creative and I know that my blog name will carry me through ALL my years of blogging no matter what goes on in this life I like to call my JOURNEY! I’ll leave you with this quote:

That one time an old lady was in my room

Yes, and I’m not talking someone who I knew.

 I got to thinking about this the other day for some reason and thought it was a great story to tell. I was probably a Junior in high school when this happened…

I was sleeping,

it was the middle of the night

and I started to wake up as I felt someone was in my room.

As I slowly started to wake up more I realized there really was someone in my room and they were hunched over holding a bag.

 I thought it was my boyfriend or a family member so I clicked the light on to see what was up…

UM NO it was some random old lady in her house coat standing in my room.

My door was shut,

she was bleeding in some spots,

and was all wet.

I freaked out to say the least. I went to get my Mom up to handle this weird situation.

My Mom was totally confused and I just told her to come on and she would understand….

We brought the lady into the kitchen and my Mom and Mike started talking to her to get some information.

She was telling this story about how their truck broke down up the road and they had a horse trailer on and all this stuff.

In the meantime the neighbors called the house looking for their mother who was visiting and has some dementia.

Yeah she’s here we found her IN MY BEDROOM!

It was so crazy.

The story she was telling was actually a true story but it had happened YEARS before.

She had gotten out of bed and wondered out of the house in the middle of the night while everyone slept and found her way through the pasture to our house.

The reason she was all wet was from all the dew on the grass and she had cuts on her from the barbed wire fence.

 It was sad because she was really confused and you could see that she really had no idea what was going on. Also it was pretty crazy!

I will never forget that crazy night.

Monday...Poo

It's currently 8:00

I have to leave the house in 15 minutes

I am still in my Pjs, drinking coffee, watching Fox News

Trying to do anything and everything to roll back the clock so I can continue to do homework and check blogs

It's not working

POO!

Not really but thought it was cute :)

Jefferson

Today Amber and I took a mini road trip to Jefferson.  Jefferson is a neat little town to spend the afternoon wondering antique shops and having a tasty lunch and we did just that.  We caught up, which afterwards I told her there was way to much to tell which is a pretty good sign that we should do this more often.  :)

Amber & I

This is probably the only thing I found that I REALLY wanted.  It's like a big metal globe...LOVE IT!

Lunch at Auntie Skinner's

To end our day we got a couple root beer floats at the General Store. MMMMM

 

I had a great weekend catching up with my family and enjoying two separate little girl trip get-a-ways.

Happy Sunday...I hope this week flies by.  School starts tomorrow so I'm sure I'll be a busy bee with homework.

Canton

My Mom and I went to Canton on Saturday and it was packed and by the time we left it was HOT!  We had a really good time browsing and catching up.  I only got two things but they were two things that I wanted to get and the total of my two things was a whopping $6.50.

My Mom and a terrible shot of me starting the day

Part of the food vendors

Check out my super cute bracelet my mom got me, herself, and Lara.  It's friendship style even though you can't really see that part.

check out those mannequin legs....I was itching to get them and make a Christmas Story style lamp for Lincoln...but they wanted 40 bucks for some legs..uummm don't think so

This is the junk site that I found my 50 cent candle stick holder

I don't think we will be going back again until it cools off.

Weekend Plans

1 Year

Today marks one year of Lincoln and I “officially” dating. It went like this….queue the time machine music…..We first met at Rachael’s wedding festivities (2010). I went back to Iraq and all that and then late March of 2011 rolled around and I’m home from Iraq for good and enjoying life. Hendrik and I went out for a quick bite at Daisy’s (the taco shack) before we headed to cut a rug at The Mule in Commerce. While there I ran into Lincoln and we just started texting that night. We continued to text and even hung out a few times until we got a feel for each other. Pretty soon we were hanging out 3-4 nights a week and I really liked him. It wasn’t complicated or forced; we just fell into a relationship that was great for the both of us. Memorial Day weekend of 2011 we hung out with our best friends Casey and Kaylynn at the lake. All weekend all our friends were asking us if we were together or what the deal was. I just threw all those questions in his direction. LOL June 1^st Lincoln asked me “so are we together or what? I’m sick of everyone asking us” LOL I said well that is fine with me if that’s what you want. So it was done! 

Now a year later we are cohabiting nicely and enjoying each other’s company immensely. We are so different and being with Lincoln has helped me learn to be better at relationships and I have also learned to be patient. I love Lincoln and how our lives have become one that we share together. We get along great and in my eyes he brings out the best in me and even though he will NEVER admit it I know that our relationship has taught him a lot and I KNOW that I bring out the best of him. LOL I know that we have many more happy years of dating and maybe of even more than that ahead of us and I can’t wait to see what’s in store.



Yesterday afternoon I got a text from Lincoln and he wanted to know if I wanted to just eat out last night.  I thought it sounded like a great idea because I really didn't feel like cooking.  Nothing around Winnsboro sounded good so we headed to old faithful...the TACO SHACK.  We were enjoying our yummy food and my brother happened to show up too.  It was total coincidence and instead of getting his planned to-go meal Colby joined us and even snapped some pics of me and Linc afterwards.

the taco shack

where it all began

 I had a great weekend in Dallas planned with some fun stuff to do that we both enjoy but Lincoln got slotted for overtime work so instead we will just be doing our celebrating at home which is just fine and we can do a trip later on down the road. I didn’t go all out on big gifts like I usually do, mainly because I don’t have the funds, but I did get Lincoln a really cute gag gift. He is always surfing Craigslist for his wish list items like boats, campers, tractors, and all sorts of other man things so since I can’t get him a real boat I got him a toy boat that he can even put together. LOL I thought it was cute so I went with it. 

Lincoln is the best at guessing gifts and when he picked up the little wrapped box and shook it he was like oooh this sounds like a Lego boat!!! He had no clue that's what was really inside but what 24 year old would just say that...WEIRD

I love giving cards. I usually give Lincoln a really sweet one that has all my loving words inside and then a funny/cute one that is themed with his gift. Yesterday when I got his stuff I couldn’t decide just on a cute and then a sweet one so I ended up with 3.

I was totally surprised when I got home today because I had these beauties waiting for me and even had a handwritten note. 

I shed a few tears because I really didn't expect anything and Lincoln's gestures like this are always unexpected and because of this he is always keeping me on my toes. 

Happy 1 year together Babe! I love you!

Late Night Pinning

Lately Lincoln has been busting his butt at work and I’m not just talking working his regular shift and coming home. He has been working weekends that he’s off for overtime and really working hard while he’s there so I have had a lot of alone time. When we both get home from work, eat dinner ,and visit a bit and by like 8:30 his eyes are getting very very heavy and by 9 he’s in bed. Since I don’t do jack but sit on my rear all day I am not tired at 9 so I’ve been staying up and doing a bit of pinning. I’m usually not the biggest Pintrest user but as of late I have found some pretty good things. Here’s a few of the cool things I've found....

Awesome dream home

Cute quote for family home

Italy...swoon

Use old pallets for a headboard...love this idea

Love outdoor wedding

Yumm

I want one of these of one of my future babies... so cute

Paradise

reading nook