special eggs

I'm a wee bit annoyed...tonight, when I get home from work, I will have to candle every stinking egg in my refrigerator.

Why? Because of one stupid Hen and one typical male.

Andy's job is to bring in the eggs every evening when he shuts the girls up for the night. We've had two girls go broody and they chose to brood in their nesting box. Not the best place to hatch eggs, but I've been afraid to move them for fear that they would abandon their nests. They should be half way through sitting.

I'm usually out there myself every day or two, just to check on things, but right now, taking care of the girls is Andy's responsibility.

This morning, I went out to let the girls out for the day and discovered that one of the girls had moved. She wasn't sitting in her normal box and that box was empty...

Empty...no eggs, no hen...which means that Andy probably, without thinking, brought them to the house. And he should know better. He's been helping me take care of the chickens for almost 1/2 of his life!

There's nothing worse than cracking an egg for breakfast and finding a bloody mess, or worse...a half developed chick.

To avoid this happening, I'm going to have to candle every stinking egg in the fridge tonight to make sure they are all safe.

And right after I do that, I might strangle a 19 year old boy who should know better.

Humm ... ... maybe I'll set aside a couple of "special" eggs just for him to crack open for breakfast...

Anybody wanna see pictures of that?

tornados and wind

Much like the writer of "The Perfect Country Song", I was told that I had left out some important aspects about Kansas...like tornadoes and rattlesnakes.

So, I've had to revise my "what do you do in Kansas" response to include them. It is as follows...

"Well, this mornin, on the way out to the windmill, I had to kill me an 'ole 8 foot rattler with eleventeen rattles on his tail. I threw him over my shoulder so we could have him for breakfast. After gettin a bucket of water, I glanced over and saw a tornado roarin' down on us. So I hustled back to the house, and got the young'uns into the cellar. Then, just when the tornado had knocked down the windmill and tore up the yard some, I noticed them sneaky Injuns tryin to hijack my chickens. So, I grabbed the shotgun and took care of them there Injuns. After that excitement, it was just another boring day.

Fightin Indians and pickin up buffalo chips

Over the weekend, a young man said to me, "I don't know how you live in Kansas. It's so boring. What do you do for fun?"

Sadly, it's not the first time I've heard that kind of thing. And, quite frankly, I want to smack such people over the head. Seriously. What do they think we do in Kansas? Fight Indians? Battle hoards of grasshoppers? Pick up cow chips for fuel? (And, don't even get me started on the Toto crap...)

Kansas gets a bad rap--an undeserved one. Most people's impression of Kansas comes from driving through the state on I-70. Therefore, they see a 400 miles stretch with 2 miles along either side of the Interstate. Guess what, I-70 was built where it is for ease of construction. The engineers wanted a relatively level area to make construction cheaper and easier. If you are traveling west, Kansas is the first state you come to that takes more than 4 hours to travel across. So, it does seem like a long monotonous trip. Additionally, the Interstate is not urbanized all the way across Kansas like it tends to be in eastern states, so you do see more stretches with fewer fast food restaurants. And, yes, there are fewer trees out here, so it is an abrupt change from the eastern stretches of Interstate.

If you truly want to appreciate all that Kansas has to offer, GET OFF THE INTERSTATE.

In Southeast Kansas, you've got part of the Ozarks and mining communities. In North Eastern Kansas, you've got lots of rivers and trees. Then there are the Flint Hills. In Central Kansas, we've got the Postrock country. And, more hills. In South central/west Kansas, you've got Red Hills. Northwest Kansas has more rolling hills and don't forget the Arikaree Breaks. You don't hit really flat country until you get to the extreme Southwest corner of the state. Even though it's flat there, it's beautiful country.

And nothing is better than a Kansas sunset. Nothing, except a Kansas dawn.

You can see the stars--lots and lots of stars in Kansas.

As to what we do...

Idiot, we do the same things that you "blessed city dwellers" do. Only better.
We have electricity and central heating and cooling. We go to church and visit with our friends. Sorry, but there are no wild Indians left to fight. We have Malls and the same stores you have in your cities.

Just because you drive across our state doesn't mean that you "know" what it's like here. Believe me, you've missed the best parts of Kansas by driving through on I-70. And, you know what, with an attitude like that...you can just keep on driving.

But, next time, when asked "What do you do in Kansas?" I think I'll say, "Well, just yesterday, I had to draw water from the windmill to do laundry. Then, I had to go out and pick up buffalo chips to build the fire with so I could cook lunch for the chillins and then I had to shoot a couple of Indians who were trying to steal my chickens."

Wonder what kind of reaction I'll get from that???

Pictures from our walk

I am a dork. Karin left a comment on my last post about there not being any pictures...and while we didn't take the camera...we did take Kev's cell phone. I did take 4 pictures, which are below. Now, lat night, as I remembered those pictures, I thought that it would be pretty easy to upload the pictures straight to the computer because a USB cord came with the stupid phone, so it should be easy-peasy, right?

WRONG.

After messing with the phone for 30 minutes, I did what every person does...I asked my kids to help.

And, after Andy and I messing for several minutes, we decided to bluetooth the pictures to his smart phone and then he could email them to me. But, guess what...bluetoothing didn't work for some obscure reason that we no longer cared to solve. So, I resorted to texting Andy the pictures and then he emailed them back to me. Something that should have been so simple turned out to be a major production.

And with that, all of you had just better appreciate these pictures!

One last vent about cell phones, except this one is really more about digital cameras. Point and click digital cameras are nice and all, but they aren't really designed for many outdoor shots in the bright sunshine. You simply can't see the screen. I'm amazed these turned out at all! New on my Christmas list is a SLR digital camera...I so prefer the viewfinder and not the LCD screen.

Vent over...Here's the pictures. Everyone, get ready to ooh and awww.


Flat Kansas.
The trees are growing at the bottom of the spring. You can't see these trees if you are up on top of the canyons--well, you can't see them from the trail and you can't see them from where we were picking up rocks.

One of our "waterfalls". This is the type of rock we picked up--just not pieces this big.

This was the coolest drop off. It was probably 3 feet to the bottom of the draw. You can see where years of water have smoothed out the rock. One rock. It was so cool.

And...at this point, I gave up using the cellphone to take pictures. But, at least you get a small idea of some of the beauty we enjoyed.

Saturday fun

What did you do this weekend?

Pick up rocks.

Yep, that's us. Exciting lives! We ran out to the ranch on Saturday to get some rocks for Mom's landscaping that Kev is going to do. I love going out to the ranch. I'd love it even more if all that beautiful land belonged to us! But, it doesn't.

Kev and I went out to the canyons on the east side of the ranch and picked up probably 2000 lbs of rocks. Sandstone. Four of the rocks took both of us to lift. We drove the 4 wheeler down to the bottom and loaded it up, then hauled the rocks back up to the trailer, unloaded them, and back down for another load.

After we finished, we decided to walk through the canyon--just for fun. We found some beautiful springs surrounded by cottonwoods. We found some areas where rain had washed and exposed "waterfalls". (But they "fall" only when it rains.) We found some wild grapes, 2 lizards, and a horny toad. Kev saw a coyote that we spooked, and we both saw some antelope. The wildflowers are starting to bloom, so we enjoyed the early flowers and I even found some cowboy roses, my personal favorite.

After our walk, Kev touched base with Dad, who was heading over to the "500", a pond, to fish. Since Kev had thrown in his pole and fishing stuff, we decided to head over. I do not fish. Fishing is boring and icky. So, while the guys were fishing...I read a book, killed a tick, and took a nap in the sunshine.

After a couple of hours, Kev quit fishing, because we had to unload the rocks down at Mom's. Dad conveniently stayed fishing...he's really good at getting out of hard work like that...on the other hand, he had built fence that morning, so maybe he's due a little "R & R".

Kev and I got to Mom's and she helped us unload the rocks--but not the heavy rocks. Kev and I did those. We just didn't carry them very far. They were heavy!

As we left, Kev told me it had been a great birthday for him, he got a great gift, and he got to spend the day outside.

It was a good day. And we finished our day with grilled steak for supper. A great end to a pretty good day.