2006-03-18 - 10:28 a.m.

Quote for the day: "All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." Nike Ad

Hello, hello it’s been awhile since I last updated my Diary blog for the ranch so thought I would do that now while I have a little spare time.

Ranch: The main fence that will go around our place is almost finished thanks to my dad. This will keep the sheep and chickens out incase they come to close and get out of their electric wire. We have been having to water the grass cause of the draught out here.

Garden & Fruit Trees: Our garden is still nothing in it, we haven’t had the time and my back keeps going out on me. Fruit trees are doing great! They are all plumming now. Looks like maybe some apples this year.

We also will get plums, peaches and maybe even apricot and pear. Not a whole lot but it’s a start for the second year. The two avocado plants survived the winter. I get a lot of hits from my website on people looking for them.

Chickens: I traded 11 of my renegades for a goat. They were tearing up my front yard so I was not unhappy to see them go, besides I had gotten them free a year ago from a friend. My chickens have been laying records of eggs this last week. The average had been 48-75 yesterday they did 79 eggs in one day.

Rabbits: No new additions minus Mirandas two floppy ears that she got with the money of selling her 4-H rabbits this year. We haven’t bred them because they are in desperate need of new boxes. Tom and Miranda bought more wood last weekend and cut them out they need small nails then they will be done.

Bees: We still have only the one hive and it still looks really strong. The nearby farmer twins told me they are going to be spraying their cotton later on and will let me know so that I can cover them up. When spraying they say to put a wet sheet over the hive in the morning to protect the hive.

We will lose some but it’s strong enough to survive. The twins don’t want to spray but its government regulated now. The government and their pesticides to make us all safe and healthy…pfst…

Sheep: We now have a total of 13 new baby lambs, no complications. I think one more sheep is going to have a baby yet I am glad to get out of the bad luck number 13. Four of our rams are going to process center including our main ram cause we are going next weekend to Odessa to get two new breeds. One is a cross of a Friesian sheep breed.

A Friesian is one of the best milking sheep breeds out there. We found it was hard to get a pure bred Friesian unless we go out of state so we found one closer in Odessa for that is a cross. The other is a desert cross which I am recently learning about they seem a lot like my barbadoe sheep.

Goat: Barrels was a trade for 11 chickens, 5 lbs of pecans and $75 cash. She is due any day now and it looks like it will be twins. This is going to be interesting cause I was only expecting to handle one. I hope they are both girl babys.

are going to milk her for milk to experiment with our cheeses. I already have buyers lining up and I haven’t even made it yet. If she has a girl I plan to keep her too. She is not registered which is ok, I am not planning to milk her registration.

I practiced at my neighbors house the other day on milking I have to get back in the swing its an art that goes faster as you get more comfortable with milking. Tom has made me a stand which he needs to finish. It just needs the head mount and to buy the bucket and put down a mat. Its important to put down a mat or it will get really dirty.

Pets: All cats and one dog are doing great. As soon as we put the fence in we are thinking of getting better breed of dog. Tom wants a basset hound. I want a cocker spaniel. Which we plan to breed them or at least mine.

Family: Tom is doing ok, he burned himself with oil a few weeks ago but its healing nicely. Miranda out grew her clothes and we had to look for a new wardrobe with her. She is now officially 13. My son is also out growing he’s clothes. They both love home school Co-op. We are only doing two hours plus lunch and Recess. We have three weeks left of coop. I still teach the K class.

We are doing the Dave Ramsey Money make over. Get out of debt and stay out. We listen to him every day on radio. We are down on paying our $27,000 debt not including the house. We have already paid $9000 off in two months. We hope by the end of the year to pay it all off. It’s the norm to have debt, to have credit cards, and car loans we are reared to think this is ok.

My family thinks I am crazy, saying stuff like are you ok? Do you need any money? Why don’t you get a new car? Why are you buying stuff from thrift stores? After we pay off the debt we are working on our emergency fund of 6 months income and paying off the ranch which is about $65,000 or less and start on more of our retirement and kids fund for college. Our retirement fund is still going full force.

Tom said even if we didn’t put any more into it we will live ok if we be careful. We want to travel and do things and retire early so we will work hard on it so we don’t have to be careful.

They say to work on retirement fund more then college fund cause you don’t want the kids to take care of you when your older it’s the best gift you can give to them. I am thinking they are right.

Story: This is someone from the Dave Ramsey that called in to the show that we heard the other day. Young couple just got married. He made $50,000 wife made $30,000. They lived in a small rent free apartment behind a rich old lady house.

They did her lawn in exchange for the apartment they put away the $50,000 and lived off the $30,000 for 4 years. Family thought them nuts, motherinlaw said the soninlaw should be getting counseling for putting her daughter through that.

In four years they had collected $200,000 and were debt free. They bought a house for $150,000 CASH then he gave her $50,000 and told her to go furnish it. Who’s nuts now.

On to a sadder note my Mom was diagnosed with Cancer. I can’t tell you much because we won’t know till after all the test on how far it spread and what they need to do.

As you can imagine it has taken a toll on my family she is the female matriarch of our family of six girls. While doing minor surgery on a lump on her chin they found three small tumors behind it. Pray for my mom is you read this, her name is Aurora.

lambs born - Another day in paradice