Changes all around us....

Good morning friends. It has been a tough week and last few weeks to be honest. My husband has begun the journey of deploying. He is currently away from home doing training. Yesterday was my birthday so he did sneak back home for the night. I just love him for that. He literally drove 2+ hours home, got home at 8:00 and had to leave at 5:00 this morning. I was so sad for him to leave. I know you do what you have to do but I just want to go on record saying that I hate this and I just want to cry. The loss for me and my children for this next year is overwhelming me right now. I am trying ever so hard to be strong and to just cry out to Jesus for strength. He is the only one who can provide it right now.
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On to other topics. We had a great time on our cruise. It was just what we needed. I have so many pictures but I thought I would limit it to these. Here is the beautiful sunrise over the ocean one morning at sea.

We spent a good portion of our time out here on the balcony just watching the vastness of the ocean. God's handy work is amazing. I love this picture.

This is when we ported in Cozumel. We had a great time going through the streets and shopping. Then my honey and kids went off to zip line, rappel, and snorkel. They had a great time and I had a great time just relaxing. We also ported in Calica and went into Playa Del Carmen. It was fun.

Now for the not so great part, we had left our Shih Tzu, Beaux, with my mom. I will preface by saying that Beaux was extremely attached to our family and since we were going to be away for 6 days, we hated to leave him at the vet. We knew he would be depressed and didn't want it to go on for that long, bad decision. My mother said he did not eat or go to the bathroom for days. She said he crawled in a corner and snapped at her when she came close. On the fatal day she let him out in her fenced in back yard. He seemed to do better outside. Well, while she was at work he either dug out of the fence or climbed over. I am not sure which. He got in the road and was killed. I can not even begin to tell you how devastating this has been for our family. I think, as women, we have a natural need to baby something. I would love more real babies but do not have any so this was my families baby. He was my oldest daughter's 16th birthday present and we all loved him dearly. He slept with my daughter every night and went straight out to the barn with her every morning for chores. I made him an egg almost everyday of his life. He was rotten and I don't plan on doing that again, hence his separation anxiety. Anyway, this was Beaux and we love and miss him dearly.

The flip side to the horrifying accident is that my mother also cried for days. She knew how upset we would be and thought we would be mad at her. We were mad at ourselves for putting my mother in such a terrible predicament. I never thought that Beaux would act so terribly. I just wish in hindsight that we had taken him to the vet and boarded him. Although, I do think that God had a bigger lesson for us. I think we had put Beaux on such a pedestal that we also needed to learn a huge lesson.

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Anyway, my mother thought the best thing to do was to find my daughter another Shih Tzu. So she drove to Memphis and got this little guy. If you have been in this situation, you know this just made it worse. Mother was just trying to make things better but we needed time to grieve. Not to mention, I probably would not have gotten this same breed again. They just get so attached. However, we took him so that she would not feel like we didn't appreciate the gesture or that we were mad. Oh, it has been hard. On several occasions I have accidentally called him Beaux, bringing us all to tears. His name is Murphy and he is now an 8 week old chocolate and white Shih Tzu. He is a cutey.

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Before we left on vacation, we had decided to get this little guy. A friend of ours dog had puppies and my children had been around them since they were born. They had never really asked for one, as they knew I would say NO. However, my husband is leaving for a year and this is a good time to ask him for anything. So they did!! He explained to me that we need a good farm dog/watch dog. I have yet to see any real good farm dog qualities but I am on the look out for them.LOL However, on the watch dog front, I think he may be good for that, if not we have guns, and praise the Lord, he does not chase my chickens so far.

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His name is Diesel and he is 1/4 blue heeler, 1/4 rottweiler, and 1/2 German Sheppard. I do have to admit he is kind of cute.

And here are the two of them together. They are about the same age and about 30 lbs. different.

We have also added 7 new baby chicks to the farm life. I really didn't need any, as I have eggs running out of my ears. I dropped off 2 dozen to a friend yesterday. However, I had lost all of my Americana chickens and I wanted some more blue and green eggs. So right now I have 7 baby chicks under a light in my laundry room. In about a week I will move them to a brooder box in the barn. I like to keep my eye on them for about a week first.

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I guess that is about all that is going on around here. I have done some landscaping in the front and when I finish it I will post some pics. I have a long way to go to catch up to Mrs. Pickets beautiful yard. If you need inspiration go check out here beautiful pics.

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I hope you all have a great day!!!
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Busy days down on the farm.....

Good Morning Friends,

It has been a while since I have had a chance to sit down and really update. As usual, things have been busy, busy around here. I got back from my procedure and everything has gone smoothly. I hope to do a whole post on that soon. However, we got back on Monday and my oldest daughter came down with the Flu on Wednesday. Which meant by Friday we all had the Flu, except Hubby, who is required by the military to take a Flu shot. It was rough, as we have never had the flu. We are just now, 2 1/2 wks. later, really getting over it.

But on a more happy note, this is what we are up to..... We have disked up our garden plot. It measures 50 X 95, which will be about 4750 sq. ft. of beautiful garden. We plan on planting:

• LOTS of Peas (several different kinds)


• Tomatoes (several different kinds)


• Cucumbers (mainly for pickling)


• Squash


• Eggplant


• Zucchini


• Peppers


• Okra


• Corn


• Sunflowers


• Marigolds


• Watermelon


• Muskmelon

If you look closely you will see a little stray chicken running through.LOL
Now this is what hubby, middle DD, and Ds are doing bright and early this morning. They are taking these once little cuties to market. They looked like this back in July.

Now they look like this.

They are loaded on the trailer and are headed to the processor. It was sad to see them go but they were getting quite stinky. It has been a fun project and I think we will probably do it again if the meat is as good as we keep hearing.

And last but not least, I thought I would throw in a daily around here. Here are the horses waiting on their morning rations. As Hubby and the kids were leaving with the pigs, the horses were letting us know they are ready to eat.

Now for other news, the day for my honey to leave is getting closer and closer. He leaves our home in May for a month of training before going over to Iraq. However, he will be gone for 4 wks. sporadically between now and then. So we are leaving next week to go on a cruise. We are so excited. We will be gone from Monday to Saturday. We wanted to do something extravagant before he left and this is it!!! So today and tomorrow I will be getting things packed and then it's Bon Voyage Baby!!!

I hope you all have a beautiful weekend. It is a glorious 70+ degrees here in Mississippi, so I foresee some yard work going on here.