It is 13 days until delivery day and I am wrecked. We have been together as a complete family for over a week and that has been wonderful. C had been gone for about 50 days out of 75 prior to that and it was a lot of work. Anyhow, now I am sitting here with my partner home, my kids pretending to behave most of the day and I have no energy. Granted some of that has to do with an iron issue, so I take iron pills daily. However, this is ridiculous.
We got the kids bunk beds to make room for the baby. They do a pretty good job of sleeping at night, but naptime is a constant battle. So to fix the issue I now put Hay into my room during naptime. Yesterday I let her stay in there by herself and then at night I realized my nice homemade wood bed had crayon drawings of hearts, letters and lines all over it. So I decided I have to be in there with her or chaos will ensue.
Today I laid with her in my room and Hunter in their room. It turned out nicely for us. I fell asleep, as did both the kids, and it was just what I needed. Now to do this every day as I obviously need the rest. What's going to happen when the new baby shows up? I am a little nervous I might pass out due to exhaustion then too... ugh!
All I can do is stay strong and keep positive. Its a little tough to do with contractions 10x a day and one evil one at night during one of the three pee wakeups I do each night. But, I will persevere... I think. God be with me!
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Turkeys and why you shouldnt raise them
In april C and I decided we should raise some turkeys. He convinced me that it would be some of the best turkey meat I have ever had and I of course believed him. They were so stinking cute when we picked them out and they only cost $5 each. How could this possibly be a bad idea? So we bought 4 of them and brought them home.
At first the turkeys lived in a little box. They were in the house as it was too cold outside and they were cute little stinkers at that. They we loved daily by my kids, my husband, my dog, and even by me. We then built them a house that would compare to a dog house in size. We included a little pen so they could graze and enjoy the fresh air. This lasted maybe a month.
Finally we had to build them a big pen. C spent a lot of time digging holes with the help of a friend and his tractor. He put in 8-10 foot tall posts he had found on the property and made a huge pen for the four turkeys. We then nailed some 6 foot tall chicken wire fencing all around this huge pen. It was quite an ordeal.
We put the turkeys in the pen and C made them a little awning to hide/perch under so they could stay out of the sun or rain. It seemed like a great deal. Oh yea, this pen is located at the bottom of our ridiculously long driveway and at the bottom of the hill to the house right near the 2 lane highway.
This all seems great and wonderful, but then my dear husband elected to sign up for a few different training opportunities that would take him out of town for extended amounts of time. I have been pregnant this year and growing at an awesome rate with the baby, but these turkeys were growing quickly and huge. They turned out to be two hens and two toms and the toms were obnoxious. They strutt around every time they hear anything and they started sexually abusing the females on a daily basis. I felt bad for the hens (though they probably didnt care that much).
Anyhow, as we started to look back over the 5 months we had the turkeys, they cost us about $35 per month in feed. That is $175 in food total. Plus the time and effort it took to deal with them, which isnt too bad but enough to be annoying when you are pregnant and the turkeys are like 40 lbs of male testosterone and 30 lbs of female pushiness. We finally butchered all of them (ourselves because we couldnt find any butchers who will do turkeys this year) about 1 week ago. Thank goodness for that.
Oh yea, did I mention that it took C and I and two of our friends over 5 hours to shoot, pluck, and cut up 4 turkeys? Yea that added to my disdain for the turkeys as well. On the upside, I now have a huge Christmas dinner and Thanksgiving dinner bird in the freezer and a fair amount of turkey breasts and legs to cook up and eat over the next few months. So overall it is a win, but definitely not financially responsible or something we will do again.
p.s. I will miss their gobbles every morning and anytime the kids made noise outside, it was pretty sweet. Otherwise I will hold no sad sentiments to what has occurred here and why I will never do it again.
At first the turkeys lived in a little box. They were in the house as it was too cold outside and they were cute little stinkers at that. They we loved daily by my kids, my husband, my dog, and even by me. We then built them a house that would compare to a dog house in size. We included a little pen so they could graze and enjoy the fresh air. This lasted maybe a month.
Finally we had to build them a big pen. C spent a lot of time digging holes with the help of a friend and his tractor. He put in 8-10 foot tall posts he had found on the property and made a huge pen for the four turkeys. We then nailed some 6 foot tall chicken wire fencing all around this huge pen. It was quite an ordeal.
We put the turkeys in the pen and C made them a little awning to hide/perch under so they could stay out of the sun or rain. It seemed like a great deal. Oh yea, this pen is located at the bottom of our ridiculously long driveway and at the bottom of the hill to the house right near the 2 lane highway.
This all seems great and wonderful, but then my dear husband elected to sign up for a few different training opportunities that would take him out of town for extended amounts of time. I have been pregnant this year and growing at an awesome rate with the baby, but these turkeys were growing quickly and huge. They turned out to be two hens and two toms and the toms were obnoxious. They strutt around every time they hear anything and they started sexually abusing the females on a daily basis. I felt bad for the hens (though they probably didnt care that much).
Anyhow, as we started to look back over the 5 months we had the turkeys, they cost us about $35 per month in feed. That is $175 in food total. Plus the time and effort it took to deal with them, which isnt too bad but enough to be annoying when you are pregnant and the turkeys are like 40 lbs of male testosterone and 30 lbs of female pushiness. We finally butchered all of them (ourselves because we couldnt find any butchers who will do turkeys this year) about 1 week ago. Thank goodness for that.
Oh yea, did I mention that it took C and I and two of our friends over 5 hours to shoot, pluck, and cut up 4 turkeys? Yea that added to my disdain for the turkeys as well. On the upside, I now have a huge Christmas dinner and Thanksgiving dinner bird in the freezer and a fair amount of turkey breasts and legs to cook up and eat over the next few months. So overall it is a win, but definitely not financially responsible or something we will do again.
p.s. I will miss their gobbles every morning and anytime the kids made noise outside, it was pretty sweet. Otherwise I will hold no sad sentiments to what has occurred here and why I will never do it again.
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