Joe. He's 8 now.

Joe turned eight yesterday. As a birthday present to himself, he pulled the second of his top front teeth the day before. Sadly, our absent-minded tooth fairy neglected his duties, and Joe still hasn't received payment for this monumental tooth.

Not to let this little hiccup in life ruin his birthday, Joe turned his attention to decorating the cake for his party:

 Behold, a three (or six) wheeled monster truck.

I know. It does not look like Joe will grow up to be a modern day Rembrandt. A Pollack, maybe, but really, art isn't his thing at this point in life.

A while back, he came to me asking for newspaper. That spidey-mom-sense-tingle made me ask what he wanted it for. He wanted to start a fire. Further inquiry revealed that he had made a house out of a box, complete with working chimney, and wanted to create a "house fire". He had the whole setup ready in the middle of the gravel driveway (so that the fire wouldn't spread), his big water gun at the ready to put the fire out, and a roll of toy gun caps taped to the "ceiling" for added excitement. After the lecture on never starting a fire without mom or dad around, we postponed the mini, controlled house-fire to a day that wasn't so windy.

Lest you think I am raising some future arsonist, let me assure you there are other things on his mind. Last week, I was working in the house when Joe showed up in his work clothes, determined to help. I was wiring up outlets, so I thought Joe would like to put the wall plates on after I was done. This kept him happy for about a minute, but then he wanted to know how how the outlets worked and how to wire them up. After a quick explanation of the different wires and what they do, I showed him which wire to hook up where, and he (figuratively) shoved me aside and went to work. 

You have to admire his determination. 12 gauge wire isn't the easiest to work with, but he struggled with it until he was done. All that was needed from me was a little tightening of the screws. After a few of these outlets, I showed him to the guest room, where lighter gauge wire and push-in connections would be easier to work on. He wired up all the outlets in that room. (Please don't be afraid to come stay at our place. We checked his work to make sure the house won't burn down.)

All this talk of electricity got Joe to thinking, and he came to me with an idea for an experiment. He wanted to hook a wire up to a battery to see if it would glow red. I explained that a light bulb is exactly what he was talking about, and after failing with a 1.5 volt battery, we got it to work with a 9 volt.

He was thrilled and carried his battery and light bulb around for the next two days to show every one his light.

So, here you have a glimpse of Joe at eight. Let's try not to look too closely at the morning grumpiness and whining [he's gotten good at 'humph'] and critical spirit. Hopefully those negatives will be tamed and reshaped with grace. Let's focus on that curious kid that likes building and inventing things and figuring out the way things work. He is kind to the animals, but wreaks havoc on imaginary zombies. He still loves his mom... still wants to be a race car driver, still doesn't like meat.

And, for some reason, Joe likes bunnies. (Will this fact embarrass him when he's 18? Let's see...)

It Looks Worse Than It Feels

Saturday, I successfully pounded in 100 or so little, u-shaped fencing nails without doing myself bodily harm.

Yesterday, I went out to finish bracing the end posts, and manged to miss that first, big-ol' 16-penny nail entirely and smashing my ring finger.

Thankfully, nothing is broken, and it has become comfortably numb.

Farm Update

It's Monday morning, and I am slowly starting to deal with the aftermath of laundry, dishes, and the million other little things that get neglected over the weekend.

Last week, in spite of my better judgement, I bought some chicks. There are a lot of reasons I can think of why I shouldn't have gotten any. For one, I am a little tired of chickens following me around the yard every time I go outside. I am a little tired of chickens sneaking onto the porch and pooping there. I am a little tired of their poop in general, as it sometimes gets tracked into the house. I am a little tired of Chris yelling at the kids for rolling around on the ground outside because there might be poop. And I have yet to plant any nice flower gardens for fear the chickens will scratch it all apart. I have grand plans to build a coop between two large fenced in areas where I can alternate the garden and chicken run, and a smart woman would probably wait to build that first before she bought more chicks. But apparently, I am not smart enough or irritated enough at my current chickens to withstand the temptation of those fluffy, little birds. So I bought some chicks.

Intending to come home with only a half dozen or so, I ended up with twelve. They spent the better part of the week in a cardboard box in the spare room. The kids were delighted, and manhandled the chicks for hours on end. It soon became imperative to build a brooder in the shop, since it was obvious some of the chicks were anxious to test their winglets and had come close to escaping the box.

Once I had scrapped together the brooder, I folded up the flaps on the box, and carried it to the shop. There, I let Finley and Z move the chicks from the box to their new home. When Chris got home later, and I showed him my handiwork, he thought to count the chicks. Eleven. So I counted them. Eleven. I counted them again. Eleven. There was no way a chick could get out of the new brooder. We went back to the trailer, and searched the rooms for the lost chick. Nothing. Was it possible it had died somewhere out of sight? We guessed we would find out later when it started to stink. We headed back to the shop for one final count. Twelve. Apparently one of them has a cloaking device.

Also on the 'to-do' list for the weekend was a fencing project. The calves have outgrown their little paddock, and we needed to put up a fence to block off the pasture behind our new house. Terry came over with his tractor and auger, and away we went. By the end of the day Saturday, we had all the posts up, the fence stretched, and were working on securing the fence to the posts. I haven't worked that hard in a long time.

We still need to brace some posts and hang the gates, but it shouldn't be too long before the calves have some space to run.

Doggedly

Never mind that 4 of the 5 of us have been fighting a nasty cold, and that one of us has the runs to boot. We are still getting work done on the house. It's called determination. Or something.

Today, Chris painted the kitchen. You might recall the paint color dilemma from a few weeks ago. After getting the 5 gallon bucket of paint re-tinted for a second time last week, I decided I would have to live with the color, no matter what I thought of it. So Chris started painting last weekend, only to find out that the paint was bad. (Globs of gunk. Not our fault, I swear.) He took it back, and we were granted a fresh start. This time, we actually liked the color. Chris left a patch of the old color for me to see the difference. He appropriately calls the old color 'booger green.' The new color has a much cleaner feel.

While he painted the kitchen, I painted a couple walls in Finley's room the Pepto-Pink she had picked. Afterward, I wired up some outlets and fixtures; then we hot-wired  the circuit to see the results.

Finley's room.

Storage area with lights!

It might have taken me all day, but that little bit was a big accomplishment for the swoony state I was in thanks to the cold and lack of sleep.