With Jay's parents en route to England for their mission in a week, we have now moved out to the farm. Jay grew up here from the time he was in the fourth grade. the farm consists of approximately 20 chickens, three beef cows, two extremely old sheep, a few barn cats and an awesome little Australian cattle dog. I think that's her breed.
I decided to was time to jump back on the blog wagon, with a new blog address for those who used to follow, to record our daily lives and the massive changes that have just happened. I am willing to keep this un-privatised as long as I don't start getting freaky comments again like I did on my last blog.
Let me give you a bit of a background. I AM A CITY GIRL!!!! I grew up a city girl and never thought for a minute I would love the country. Jay wanted to move out here in Larissa's first year of life and we actually persued it for awhile but we both got the prompting that it wasn't the right time. The country has grown on me over the last 7.5 years we've been married and I was actually pretty excited about the prospect of living out here someday when his parents went on their mission. Well they FINALLY bit the bullet and started working on paperwork. Then I found out I was pregnant. hmmmmm. OK. I can make that work I guess. Afterall, mom raised seven kids out here and gave birth to I think if my math is right, three while living out here. My kids love it out here. Jay loves it out here and he loves the fact that we don't hear thumping stereos, screeching tires and neighbor's dogs that bark nonstop all the time they are gone. So they turned in their papers in the beginning of May. Insert Kelli's very slow brain doing math here. I suck at math. Truly suck at math but I did figure out about how far along I'd be if they left at certain times over the summer. At 16 weeks pregnant, May 27, 2011, my sister calls me at home to inform me that my sweet 18 year old nephew, whom had been living in their basement apartment, took his life sometime that morning. Enter mass hysterics then Kelli having to revert to the cops wife training that all of you cops wives reading this, know exactly what I'm talking about. I've always felt that I've been dependant on being the strong one in my family that can handle just about any amount of garbage thrown my way, whether from my family itself or outside sources. My strength was tested beyond its limits with this. A few days later, even before the funeral services, my in laws get their mission call to Birmingham England....
Needless to say, this all happened, thankfully, between dance sessions at the studio so I didn't need to take any time off, I could be with my family, and hit my crazy planning mode desperately needed to keep my pregnant brain on task. Fast forward to the last two weeks. I had Nutcracker camp for our second annual prodcution of Nutcracker in December and then we moved. Now I have two messy houses to deal with instead of one!!! Yay me! You are all so jealous, I know! So we get our big stuff moved out to the farm, Jay and I, alone with the exception of my amazing bestie, Laurie who did more heavy lifthing than 99% of the men I know. I did all the packing prior with still some to do and undo!! But I wasn't allowed to love anything after having two massive bouts of contractions lasting a very long time the week prior. We get out here Friday evening, finally get showers and some horribly make shift dinner down us all, and get to bed. Saturday morning we jump right into farm chores, ok I didn't but Jay and the kids did, then we got kids rooms organized etc.
We started in our new ward today. When we drove up the drive way, Larissa asks from the back seat, "why doesn't the baby calf stay with her mama anymore? Oh I think I know why, she's a teenager now and doesn't like being around her mom right?!?" Jay and I DIED laughing on that one!!! Come to find out later, Jay's dad, I believe, had said something to that effect to her once before.
There was a debacle, as Jay put it to his dad, today that spurred the thought of starting this blog back up. Jay and the kids went out to do the after dinner chores with the animals while I cleaned up dishes. Larissa comes in the house and tries to calmly tell me "mom dad needs a drill right now." Ok Larissa why does daddy need a drill? "I'm not supposed to tell you why daddy needs a drill, he just needs you to get me a drill right now." Larissa, where is daddy that he can't get the drill for himself? "well he's in the barn but he can't get it and he told me NOT to tell you why he needs to drill but just to bring him one now." Larissa, tell me right now why daddy needs a drill. "ok but I'm going to get in trouble if I tell you." You're going to get in trouble if you don't tell me! "Daddy's stuck in the hay loft in the barn. The chicks have been getting up in the hay loft and grandpa covered the ladder and daddy can't get down. I don't think it's probably a good idea to just leave him up there to sleep all night do you?" Ok I tried really hard not to laugh at the last comment she made!!!
So I find the drill, head to the barn to rescue my stuck husband and proceed to tell him what she daid to me. He hadn't actually told her to not tell me. He told her not to freak me out and that it wasn't a life or death emergency but he did need my help. Needless to say, the chicks were getting up in the hay loft. Jay had to toss Tess, the dog, up a few hay bales to herd the chickens down. Tess is an amazing herding dog!! One of the chickens came down right on Larissa's head/ face and scratched her face up pretty good. Winston was chasing everything he could and just about got himself beat to a pulp by Jay when I caught him pinning chickens. Then Jay discovered Larissa's favorite chicken pinned between a hay bale and part of the roof of the hay loft. The chicken is actually a rooster that, most likely, I won't be able to get rid of since she's attached herself to it. White feather, as he's called, was stuck. And bleeding profusely from his foot. Jay is trying to get the rooster from the hole without getting torn apart, I'm trying to follow instructions as to where the animal clotting meds are so we can try to stop it and hoping, since I didn't know it was just his foot at the time, that we weren't going to have to kill the thing because of its injuries. Thankfully, we don't, yet as Jay tells me. I guess chickens like blood? so there's a chance the others will kind of attack him? But most likely, his foot will get infected before anything else. Larissa, of course, had to tell grandpa about what happened because she was actually the one that heard them up there in the first place today. And the girl has the best ears too! We did not tell her it was White Feather that was injured but she knew by the sound he was making, he wasn't crowing, that it was him!
So I think that's enough of a debacle for two days on the farm!! Who knows, may this city girl will become a country girl after all. I did hold my first full grown chicken tonight! Maybe I'll become the next Ree Drummond too! Us city turned country girls have to stick together afterall!
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