Life on the farm

A couple of quick vids of daily life on the farm.

Here are the ducks, ripping and tearing in the shore break (well, it's the closest they have to a shore break, anyway)

Here are the chickens lining up for dinner.

And the ducks

Tales of Ripsticks and Halloween

Jada, one of my twelve year old twins, rarely asks for anything, but for the last three or four months, she has been pleading for me to buy her a particular halloween costume.

It was only $20, but when you have eight kids at home, $20 for one person can easily turn into $20 for _each_ person (the well, _she_ got this, so can't I have that?-syndrome), so I've been trying to avoid the issue by using all the common parental tricks. I've tried ignoring it. I've tried diverting with cunning questions like "So, how was school today?" I've tried suggesting tasty alternatives such as "Why don't all we go out to dinner instead of trick or treating this year?"

They all work a bit, but before long the conversation comes back to the costume.

Oddly enough, the other twelve year old, Alexis, has been asking for a rip-stick skateboard for about the same length of time. We have a zip line in the side paddock, and, so far, touch wood, we have only had two physics lessons (things to do with gravity and Newton's First Law) from the zip line, and it was Alexis both times. You can imagine that I'm reluctant to tempt fate with a skateboard with only two wheels, but she's been every bit as determined as Jada.

I have been resisting heroically, but the tipping point was reached a couple of days ago when their mother was in Nashville pitching songs, and I had to accompany them both to a well-child doctor's visit. As fathers do, I was teasing them all the way there, telling them they'd probably be getting a needle, all the while thinking it'd be blood pressure, temperature-taking, and a pat on the head.

You can imagine my horror when I discovered they would have to have not one, but _three_, injections. My beautiful, precious, breakable little ballerinas would have _three_ needles!

Of course, I switched immediately from teasing-father mode to highly-protective-father mode.

"Ok, girls. This might sting a little bit, but it has to be done. And you can hold my hand, if you want to. If it hurts, just squeeze."

And in an attempt to brighten their outlook, as the doctor walked in, I said "And the doctor said that you could each have an ice cream!"

Our excellent pediatrician, who has been looking after them since they were pathetic, sick, tiny, premie babies, picked up on it at once, saying "Yes, you can.", and then ever so helpfully added "Is there anything else you want? Shoes? Clothes?"

Naturally, Jada instantly answered "My costume!!", and Alexis said "My Ripstick!!"

There's no disgrace in admitting defeat, especially when it is by daughters, so I quietly said "Ok."

"Really??", they chorused.

"Yep."

Followed by lots of things like "Yay!", and "I love you daddy!", and even, "I love the doctors!"

All was then well until we went to get the costume yesterday. When we got home, and Jada tried it on, she realized that the wig was extra. "It's just $10, daddy."

Sigh

Like most families, we live on a budget, so if I was to be strictly fair, and spend $30 on each kid, we're now talking $240, but I quickly conceived a cunning plan. The costume plus the wig would be about $30. The Ripstick was $29.50. I could satisfy the twelve year olds, for about equal money, and if anyone else complained, I could call it a compensation for getting three needles each. Brilliant, right?

Off we went to Walmart, grabbed some pizza for dinner, a few odds and ends, and the Ripstick, and stood in line with the Walmartians for what seemed like hours. I went to pay the bill, and discovered that Alexis had picked up a $60 Ripstick, instead of the agreed $30 one. I sighed once more, and quietly paid the bill, and we headed off to Party City to get the $10 wig, which turned out to be $16. Now if I'm going to be fair, I'm up for about $500!

Sigh

Never-the-less, we're home, and the costume looks great, and we're riding the Ripstick without testing Newtonion laws, and everyone has accepted the three-needles explanation.

I'm probably not going to be fair.

Goats have more than one use

With eight kids at home, we perpetually have a "house full", but at the moment, we're uber-full. Ben and Victoria, and their three kids, and their dog, had to move out of their house after a burst water pipe revealed the existence of the dreaded Black Mold, many Brown Recluse spiders, and an infestation of mice in the walls.

For a while there, we were anxiously scanning the skies for the Fourth Horseman, but all has turned out mostly well, and they've moved in with us until they find a new spot.

Last night, we got an extra grand-dog for the night, as one of the grown kids was having a night out, and she needed a dog-sitter. Just to add to the ambiance, this dog is in season, so our three males have been especially entertaining all night.

It now starts to get a little tricky, however, as tonight, we're expecting a couple from Australia, Ron and Adriana, to arrive and stay for the week. That'll give us a mere seventeen in the house.

You might think we're crowded, but our house is a bit like the Tardis, and is bigger on the inside than the outside, plus ... we have a barn, and our seventeen year old boys graciously vacated their rooms to our guests, in favor of barn-camping. (Lest you feel too sorry for them, the barn is air-conditioned, and has a bathroom and a mini kitchen, and I always buy them some extra goodies, like chips and cookies and tea, so they're making out like bandits)

My boys are awesome teenagers, and only have one real failing, which is they are really hard to get out of bed in the morning. It's the old "I just can't go to sleep at night because I'm not tired" and "I can't get up in the morning because I'm just too tired" thing. They sleep through their alarms. They sleep through their phones ringing. One morning we forgot to disarm the security system, and opened the back door, thereby setting off said alarm, and they slept through that, which is easy 120 decibels.

The only downside, therefore, to them sleeping in the barn is the difficulty of getting them up. I usually have to make three or four trips, spread over an hour to finally shake them loose, or I have to concede, and just let them sleep.

This morning, however, I had a cunning idea.

I walked in the barn and said "Gentlemen, it is time to get up. I am only going to say this once, but if I have to come back this morning, I'm going to let the goats into the barn."

Devin said "Oh crap!"

Dustin just said "Uh", but within a few minutes, both were upstairs, quietly eating breakfast. I said "Boys, I think I might be onto something here."

Dustin looked at me and said "Dad, it just shows that we trust you."

Goats are really useful animals.

More Mildred Mallard

This is nothing special, but is just to provide a small update on our Mildred, here is a photo of her on her nest. Now that fall is arriving, she's a little easier to see...


She stays there most of the day, and when she gets up to feed, she covers the eggs so they're a bit harder to see...


Poor Mildred still tries to be friends with the pekings, but as you can see here, they couldn't care less.

But they are not above sharing a snack with her at night.

Just another day at the farm. :-)

The school of hard knocks is the best teacher

A couple of weeks ago, my very beautiful nine year old walked past me while I was hosing chicken poop off the front verandah. It was a warm, fall day, and she was in shorts, and some of life's temptations are simply too much for a mere human to resist. She learned to be wary of fathers with hoses.

This evening, I was cleaning out the Tiger Shark (pool cleaning device), again with a hose, when one of my seventeen year old young men walked down the back stairs, just a few feet from me.

I looked at him, and he looked at me. Evil thoughts flashed through my mind, but he said "Waaaait a minute!", and accelerated out of range before I could redirect the hose.

This just proves that experience is the best teacher after all.

Ballet and milk shakes

Monday nights at our place are run-around nights. We have multiple kids, in multiple classes at the ballet and drama school. As a consequence, the youngest ballerinas get dropped there at 4:15pm and picked up at 6:45PM, while the older dancers have a 6:30PM to 9:00PM class. At least, that's how it was in my mind.

This would mean that the driver (me), would need to drop kids at 6:30, and then find something to do for fifteen minutes.

It would not be enough time to run home, and there is no nearby place that sells adult beverages, so the obvious solution was a dud.

There is, however, a Chic-Fil-A in the same strip mall, so clearly, a vanilla shake and small fries was a candidate solution. In a flash I was at the checkout window, and picking up the goodies, when my phone rang.

It was Alicia, my thirteen year old, saying "Dad! You left the little girls behind!"

Me: "Uh... I thought they were 6:45?"

Alicia: "No. 6:00."

Me: (silently) "Crap" (out loud) "Ok, I'll be there in a minute."

As I pulled up at the dance studio, the three ballerinas rushed the car, and instantly spotted the milkshake and fries. (I learned my lesson about trying to hide them previously)

This time I preempted it all by saying "Look what I got for you to share."

This was followed by lots of slurping and chewing, and similar happy sounds as we drove home, all sharing the milkshake and fries.

About half way home, Jada, who was in the front seat said quietly, and with a small smile, "This was just going to be yours, wasn't it daddy?"

I put my finger to my lips, and nodded slightly.

She rewarded me with a huge, conspiratorial grin.

A milk shake costs just a buck, but moments like this are priceless.

2nd verse of the Ballad Of Mildred The Mallard

If you read the original Ballad, you'll remember that we were left wondering what would become of sad little Mildred. Well, it turns out that there may be a happy ending after all, because yesterday, we found this ...



It's her nest!

And the eggs are fertilized! (We won't go into details about how we know, but let's just say it involved cracking one open, and ... um...)

Annnnnyway, now that we know where her nest is, we have found that she spends quite a bit of the day snuggled down on the nest, keeping the eggs warm. She is brown, and the grass is long, and she is really hard to see, and when she leaves to eat, she covers the eggs with leaves and loose feathers to hide them, and keep them warm. Gestation period for ducks' eggs seems to be about 28 days, so it seems that some time in the next month, we're going to have ducklings!

True, she _has_ been disowned by the pekings, and even when she finds them, they just quack at her a bit, and then turn away, leaving her calling pitifully after them, but it's not anywhere near as sad as it was, because she's going to be a mom. It's the Ballad of Mildred the Mother!

Stay tuned!

It served me right

Let me preface this by stating in my own defense that I'm not entirely proud of this story, and I don't do this sort of thing often. Not that I remember, or will admit too, anyhow.

Today, I was on my way to pick up my ballerinas from class, and had occasion to stop at Publix to pick up some bits for dinner. I was on my way to the checkout when my side-scanning snack-detecting radar spotted an end-cap full of Lays chips, of new and varying flavors.

Again, in my own defense, I feel obligated to point out that I had not had lunch, and my hunger was great, but my will-power was in indirect proportion, and my attention was drawn to a new (to me, anyway) flavor, the deliciously-named Sharp Cheddar Kettle chips.

Accordingly, I snatched up a large packet, and was eating them before I even got back to the car. They were every bit as yummy as I expected, and I determined to eat as many as I could before I got to the ballet school.

This is the part of the story that I'm not entirely proud of.

These chippies were so good that I planned to obfuscate their existence, and retrieve them after everyone had gone to bed, and then to enjoy all by myself, over a cup of tea. Or some other beverage.

The ballet school is perilously close to Publix, and kettle chips are hard to scoff, so I'd only managed to consume a small quantity before I pulled up to the school, and had to stuff them under the front seat, as my three ballerinas rushed the car.

They piled through the door with cries of "I'm hungry", and I'm _starving_!"

"We'll be home soon, and you can have a sandwich." said I, slyly.

"I smell CHIPS!", said Alexis, who apparently has a very good nose.

I caught my breath.

"I SEE CHIPS!!!", said Alexis, whose nose was indeed _very_ good, and had led her to my hiding place.

"I WANT SOME!!!!!", shrieked the two ballerinas in the back seat in unison.

I must say they were most un-ladylike, and their behavior was completely unbecoming of their appearance as delicate ballerinas.

The rest of the ride home was in silence, except for loud chewing and crunching noises.

Needless to say, my plan for a tasty late night snack vanished along with the chips.

The moral of the story is "Don't mess with hungry ballerinas. They may look like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, but they are fierce."

The ballad of Mildred The Mallard

This last spring, we bought another dozen chickens, and eight ducks. The ducklings all looked the same, but it turned out that four of them were peking ducks, and four were mallards. Actually, although all the chicks looked the same, it transpired that three of them were roosters, but that's a story for another day.

Nevertheless, in time, four of the ducklings turned into medium sized brown mallards, who gave us beautiful little green eggs, and the other four turned into quite large black and white pekings, who gave us large porcelain-like white eggs. We ended up with three female mallards, and one drake, and two female pekings, and two drakes. Here's a slightly grainy picture that gives a bit of an idea of the difference between mallard and regular eggs...

One of the upsides for children growing up on a farm is that you never have to explain any aspect of the cycle of life, as it's regularly laid out in all its glory, and so it was with the ducks. The much larger peking drakes repeatedly, and frequently, mated one of the mallards in particular, who seemed to be a little slower, or perhaps a little less aware, than her sister. In a sort of an animal kingdom version of the Stockholm Syndrome, this particular mallard, whom we named Mildred, came to consider herself a peking, and when the other mallards eventually learned to fly, and would fly away to neighborhood ponds, she stayed with the pekings.

Every evening, the mallards would return to our place to spend the night, but every morning, off they'd go in search of adventure, while Mildred and the flightless pekings would waddle about our paddock looking for duck-y food. I don't know if you've ever seen ducks waddling, but they are seriously cute, and I would often joke that they quacked me up.

It was initially kind of pathetic to see poor little brown Mildred obediently following her larger, earth-bound captors around, while her brother and sisters flew free every day, but it actually turned out that it was to save her life. One evening about five weeks ago, the mallards chose to walk home from the pond over the road, instead of flying as they usually did, and in the gloom and gathering darkness, a passing motorist failed to see the trio, and that was the end of them.

None of the remaining ducks seemed to miss the squished mallards, and all seemed well. Mildred continued to give us gem-like green eggs, hidden in new nests every day. Our chickens would mostly obediently lay their eggs in their designated laying boxes, but the ducks find new and inventive places every day, and every day becomes a treasure hunt. If you look very closely at this picture, you can get the idea...



We were in a sort of avian nirvana, but as Solomon once opined, "This too shall pass", and pass this did.

Mildred eventually learned that she, too, could fly, and she began to obey her mallard instincts, taking to the sky, albeit only twenty or so feet high, every morning, and coming back each evening to see her friends. It was actually heart warming to see. She would arrive with a great quacking and beating of wings, and the pekings would rush towards her as fast as they could waddle, with similar great quackings, and they would sort of snuggle up in a duck-y sort of way, but the next day, she'd be off again, and gradually one day's absence became two, and then three.

She found a new place to lay her pretty eggs, and over time, the pekings seem to have forgotten her. For instance, out of routine, she arrived in the morning today instead of the normal evening, and went pathetically looking for her friends, but in the wrong paddock. She waddled all round, looking this way and that, and quacking loudly, but it was the wrong time of day, and the pekings were in a different paddock, and couldn't hear her. Eventually, she left, bereft and bewildered.

She returned tonight, and was immediately pursued by one of the roosters of immoral intent, but she could fly faster than he could run, and she got away, but had to leave the yard, again without finding her old friends.

Poor Mildred. Who knows what the future holds for her? Will she ever find her old mates again? Will she find happiness, or will she have a dusk encounter with a fast moving horseless carriage? Only time will tell.

It's so sad. In the words of Ronnie Milsap, it is almost like a song.

It's the Ballad of Mildred the Mallard.

Channeling my inner Tom Sawyer

Not that long ago, I went to Walmart (does that make me a Walmartian?), and for a joke, bought a pair of these ... I just thought they were hilarious, and intended to say to the crew, "Ok, anyone who misbehaves has to wear these!", but when I produced them, all four younger children said, almost in unison "Oh, can I have them?" Now, I may be a bad father, but I prefer to think I'm simply channeling my inner Tom Sawyer, and in an instant, I could see an easy way to reduce our housework. We now have four pairs of these fine slippers, and provided they retain their entertainment value, I may never have to vacuum again. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

This is a conversation I had with four of my girls yesterday morning. To set the stage, a typical morning involves feeding and milking the four-legged kids (goats), and feeding the chickens and ducks, and getting breakfast for eleven, and lunches for nine. It generally coincides with my needing to scan the overnight email and rss feeds for important information. You can imagine it gets pretty busy. They have to be at school between 8:15 and 8:30, but it's only about five minutes away. This particular morning, I was digesting information about a possible Internet Explorer 0-day exploit, and simultaneously Skyping with a fellow researcher overseas, when Megghann arrived at my door crying hysterically. "Daddy, can we leave? We'll be late for school." It was exactly 8:00. I speak fluent nine year old, and I knew she was just being dramatic, so I said very sympathetically, "Shoo." At 8:01, the thirteen year old arrived at the door, saying "Dad, can we leave? We'll be late." I said "Shoo." At 8:02, one of the twelve year olds arrived saying "Daddy, can we please leave? We'll be late." I said "Shoo." At 8:03, the fourteen year old arrived saying "Dad, can we please leave? We'll be late." I said "Go away!" (I've learned you have to be firmer with the fourteen year old.) At 8:05, the 0-day and I arrived at an understanding, and I went to the kitchen saying "Ok, hit 'em up, and move 'em out!" (I'm an old Rawhide fan), only to find that at least three of the other kids didn't have their lunch, or hadn't had breakfast, or had "discovered" a bit more homework they had to do. Never the less, a bit of judicious whip-cracking and general prompting, and all was completed, and we were in the car by 8:15-ish, and at school in plenty of time. Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. :-)

This is the whole crew, minus one grand-child. At home, we currently have two seventeen year old twins, Dustin and Devin, one sixteen-er Isaiah, a fourteen-er Brianna, thirteen-er Alicia, twelve year old twins, Alexis and Jada, and nine year old twins, Zachary and Megghann.