I Feel Terrible...

So, yesterday I come home, and go about my business. Did some computer work, some laundry, then headed out to check on the chickens. When I lifted up the feed bags that were covering the holes, I was amazed to see empty nests, and the regular chickens on top of the boxes. Apparently the bags had worked, and kept out the chickens. It just kept out too many chickens. I assume the sitters went out to get a drink or to eat something, then could not get back into the nests. I felt so guilty.

Then I went out to the tack room, where I was keeping the babies.

I had a meeting that morning with my crew leader, and I did not pay a lot of attention to the animals because I was running late. I had glanced into the tack room, and raised the heat lamp a few inches above the night level, because they don't generally need as much heat during the day. The ambient temperature rises, and they stay warm with that. What I failed to notice was that they were almost out of water. The chick waterer is a small round tray that screws onto a mason jar. When the jar is inverted, the water comes out into the tray. When I looked, I saw the tray was wet, but not how much water was in the jar.

Without water, chicks overheat.

I killed 10 little babies.

I thought more were going to die, but I removed the heat lamp completely, sat my guilty butt on the floor and started feeding the sickest ones drops of cool water with a small syringe. 5 were really, really close to dying when I found them. When I was done, 4 had recovered. It took the better part of 2 hours to make sure everybody was rehydrated, but I now have 17 live chicks. I better take care of these ones, because I don't know that anymore will hatch out after being cool without the hens.

Damn...Bad day...

Mmmm, Mushrooms...

For those of you that don't know, these are Morel mushrooms. They have a very short life and can actually grow several inches in a day. They grow in warm, moist areas, usually on northward facing hills. And they taste PHENOMENAL! Coated in flour and sauteed in butter is the best way. Yummy!!!

Unfortunately, these ones are dry. The exterior actually feels like wood. I knew I was a little late in the season to find them, but I thought we would try anyway. My kids actually found them, with their sharp little eyes. Magdalena Scott and I were talking about Morels at the conference this past weekend, and my dad had said that a buddy of his was finding oodles of them up north, so I thought I would check. I keep forgetting though that Ky runs about 2 weeks ahead of Ohio, so where they are in the height of the season up there, it's past down here.

I have heard though, that if you soak the mushrooms in water and pour the water into the ground in a mushroom-friendly environment, they may come up there the next year. Something about the spores dispersing in the water. So, I'll try that later on today.

Chick count is 23 now. I think. They're pretty hard to count. How many heads can you count in this bucket?

Also, just a warning, ticks are out already. Be sure your kids and pets are protected.

Chickie count...

As of right now, it looks like I'm up to 20 on the chick count. The hens are still sitting, but there has been a lull in the action. I don't think we're done though.
I should be heading out to work right now, but I'm dragging my feet, bad. Kids are gone, hubby just left, and the house is quiet. Perfect time to write.
But I'm almost done with this job.
Once I get it done, I'll feel better about sitting down to write. Guilt free. Isn't that sad I feel guilty about not going to a voluntary job?
Anyway, get out and enjoy the sun today.

So, I returned from Dogwood yesterday, head full and heart warm. I met some fantastic people, re-met others and learned some interesting things. Our guest speaker was Tara Taylor Quinn, a well known and prolific author. I don't generally write suspense, but there were many items in her presentation that could be applied to straight romance. She was very articulate and gave wonderful examples of what she was presenting.

In this picture, Maddie James is on the left, Tara Taylor Quinn in the middle and Jennifer Johnson on the right. They were critiquing pages being read to them.

Unfortunately, I think I accidently deleted my notes from her presentation.

I was juggling 2 or 3 word programs, trying to e-mail another atendee's 2 page critique piece to the front desk, and somehow when I closed my Word program, I lost the three pages of notes.

That sucks. Big time.

She laid everything out perfectly too. My notes were neat and made sense, and I would have gone back to study them.

Grrr...

My dad and step-mom stopped by today on their way home. They ride a huge white Goldwing, and have put about 20,000 miles on the bike since they got it last year. The thing has every bell and whistle you can imagine, plus 'air conditioning'. This weekend they made a loop down into southern Ky , Va area, then came back up through. It's always good to see them.

Anyway, I think I'm going to write for a while. Hubby and I took a nap today after Pop and Nee left, and I'm feeling guilty. Must have been the tryptophan in the hamburgers we grilled out.

Oh, up to 20 chicks now too. I gave six away to the sitter, and we have twenty now of our own. And still hatching.

Damn Chickens!!!

So... I have chickens sitting on eggs right now. Like 500 hens sitting on three nests. No, just 10 of them. On three nests. But it's still a lot.

Can you see the 4 hens on this nest?

The stupid things are crushing the babies. Because they don't have the sense to go to another nest and give the eggs room to hatch.

I have bruises all over my hands from these nasty wenches pecking at me as I'm trying to rescue the babies. So far I have 12 live babies and 4 dead. With a couple pecking their way out now. I'll go out in the morning and rescue the live ones. I put feed bags over the openings to the nest boxes, and removed 2 hens from each nest. Hopefully they'll have enough space now to spread out a bit. The nests were only designed to hold one hen at a time.

Grrr...

Then, my lovely neighbor down the hill bought a horse. To be his lawn mower. Because he has 4 mowers and not one of them works, he says. And of course, the horse is a MARE. Female. My quarter-horse stud is going to love her as he tears through the barbwire fence to introduce himself when she comes in heat.

Grrr.......

And you know what's great about these two problems? I don't have to deal with them this weekend. My wonderful hubby does. I'm going to The Dogwood Workshop in Ashland Ky.

Have a good weekend everybody. I'll be back Monday.

Just ...sublime.....

So, to catch everybody up, the weekend was wonderful. Mom came down Friday afternoon, and we took the kids to the sitter. Hubby promised to pick them up by seven, and he said he actually got there at 5 minutes till. Yay. Can't make the sitter mad, especially when she's watching them past her normal hours.


After we dropped the kids off, we headed into the Man O' War area for dinner. I told Mom she could pick our dinner spot, because I was probably not going to see her for Mother's day. She chose Logan's Roadhouse, and we had a very nice dinner. Sirloin over a grilled bed of onions. Yummy!!!!


Rupp arena was not as packed as I expected, and the show was absolutely sublime. We were about halfway up the rows, and we really had a great view of all the horses. Actually, we could even see the horses in the holding area before the show started. They were absolutely beautiful! Actually, 'beautiful' is too tame of a word.



I learned that this group was not acually from the Viennese Spanish Riding School, though they were affiliated. They had purchased several of their horses from the school, and communicated on training issues regularly. It also made me happy to know that several of the horses in the show were actually adopted out of abuse situations.



This is a demonstration by an Andalusian, which was one of the base breeds of the Lippizan. I apologize for the brightness. These bright white horses just got brighter the closer they got. This one is gray, and even he got brighter with the spotlights on him. If you'll notice, about 48 seconds into the clip, the horse starts across the ring diagonally. If you watch closely, you will see him change leads every second beat. For those that don't know, this takes serious talent. The ringleader advised that the horses are only trained 45 minutes a day...........for 9 or 10 years. Not one of the stallions in the show was under 10 years old.

This is another demonstration, this time by a Lippizan stallion.

I don't know about the Spanish Riding School, but this demonstration had mostly women riding, which I thought was very progressive.

Mom and I enjoyed the show soooo much. There were many people there who were obviously not horse people, but everybody was talking about how much they enjoyed the show. Next time I'll be sure to take my daughter with me.

Saturday was devoted to building fence around my garden and relaxing. Mom left early sunday morning in the rain, and the family finally got one whole day to just veg out.

Hope you enjoy the clips.

The New York Times...

So, I don't normally read the NYT, but one article was mentioned in the RWA magazine, and I had to look it up. Basically, it said that romance purchases were up, again, 32% in the fourth quarter of last year as compared to the year before. A lot of people expected romance sales to flag, as the economy did last year, but it didn't. Conservative estimates claim that romance sales increased 2.4 % in the first three months of this year, as well, where regular fiction decreased a bit.

Personally, I think it's more than that. I think its escapism.

The figures they were using did not plot popular chain stores, like Wal-mart or K-mart. The average woman does not normally cringe at spending five bucks on herself, as many impulse romance buyers do. Big ticket items are suffering overall, but smaller, more manageable product sales are on the rise. I saw the other day where even chocolate sales are on the rise. Rather than buying themselves large, big money things, women are compromising with smaller treat items. They actually feel justified in purchasing the smaller items.

I do anyway.

The books themselves offer a way to get out of their normal, hectic, often times worrisome lives. It gives them a chance to relish in somebody else's trials, rather than their own. And it gives them hope that there is light at the end of the dreary tunnel.

Congratulations to Lora Leigh. Her book cover made it into the NYT article. Congrats also to J.R Ward, who had a mention in the article itself.

If you want to read the whole article, go here.