I'm Back

I have finally caught up on most all of my rope halter orders. I currently only have two small orders to fill. This spring has been horribly busy for us and I hope things will slow down enough for us to catch our breath.

My fingers are really sore from working on the halters and the pinky on my left hand and the middle, ring and pinky on my right hand are all starting to curl under with arthritis. Keyboarding is getting difficult for me. I can't imagine not being able to blog anymore. Getting old just stinks and I would advise you younger folks out there not to try it.

Out of 18 eggs my hen managed to hatch nine chicks. All of the hatchlings were banties, most of them have feathered feet. When we broke open the unhatched eggs, the three other banty eggs had dead chicks in them but the six standard eggs were still yolks. None of the standards had been fertilized as I had suspected. I am going to have to get a different rooster if I ever hope to raise some standard chickens.

One of the chicks got smashed by its oversized Mother. The other eight are doing well. Mom steps on their little feet sometimes and they cry and pull but can't get away until she takes another step then the poor things go tumbling. They are great fun to watch, my DH says that in her exuberance to scratch up a meal that she inadvertently buries a few of them but they always manage to dig their way out.

I was tempted to take them away from their Mother, put them in a safe place and raise them myself. But after all of the work that she did and with her knowing how to take better care of chicks than I could ever know, I decided to let her do it herself. Even with these chicks being half the size of what her biological children would be, I still think she knows best.

I am going to do my best to get back to work and blog every day. This is the best way that I have found to keep a daily journal that I can refer back to when I fail to write important dates on my calendar.

Gripping

Here we are, August 10th and still no hay in the barn. We were suppose to have around 300 bales ready to bale this afternoon but yesterday proved not to be a good day for curing hay. So it isn't even raked yet. Hopefully it will be ready to rake in a few hours and we can get it in the loft this evening.

All I have to do is drive the truck and trailer around in the field, then get in the loft and use a long hay hook to pull the bales out of the elevator's way. The loft floor is nice and slick, so that part is easy. I used to be able to heft, throw and stack bales but not anymore. The hardest part for me now is getting into the loft, I hate ladders.

I am close to finishing a barrel racing website and will be able to start on a local community website soon. When that is done, I plan on completely redoing our website, it gets totally neglected.

I also have 39 horse rope halters to make and ship out as soon as possible. I can only do so many halters per day or my hands and fingers start cramping up on me.
Tying and tightening around fourteen knots per halter tends to make your hands complain a bit.

Between knot tying and goat milking, I have quite a grip. I never have to ask my DH to open a jar for me anymore. When my back Doctor tests my grip by having me squeeze his hands, I can bring tears to his eyes. He doesn't ask me to do that much anymore.