Da Deck

Last month, my insurance company called to tell me that they were going to be dropping the coverage on my house. Why, you ask? Because the back deck was 28" inches tall and needed railings on it to be up to code. And I had a month to get it fixed. Dad and I looked at it, made trips to Home Depot and worked out costs to build the railings. We priced it out if we did everything ourselves or if we used pre-built railings and posts. The difference? $250 if we built it from scratch. $350 if we used everything pre-built. We decided that the $100 was worth it in time and went all pre-built.


We bought all the materials that we needed and headed to my house to start throwing it together. As we are discovering with nearly everything in my house, the deck was built wrong. The floorboards were uneven with the end of the deck. There were not enough boards to reach to the side of the deck, and one of the boards was cut too short. So much for the slam the railing on plan. So we unscrewed EVERY LAST floorboard (and discovered that he hadn't used deck screws either).

Then we screwed them all back in so that they were even on the end, finished off the side of the deck, and replaced the missing board. After all that was complete, we added the railings and moved the stairs closer to the house.

Its finally done. Makes the deck look so different, but I'm looking forward to getting a BBQ and patio set out there to enjoy it. Eventually, it will be finished out so that it connects to the back door, but thats a whole other kettle of fish!

Barrel Racing, Baby!

Things have been pretty nuts at the farm lately. Trying to keep up with chores, work schedules, kiddo's schedule, and fit in some time for fun has caught up with me a little. About a month ago, my friend and trainer Missy of M.R. Horseback Riding and Training said to me "The Rodeo Sweethearts Barrel Bang is July 10th. You in?" This is Missy code for "Guess what girl, I let you have a break for a while, you're racing on July 10th." So in addition to working, traveling, and being a mom.... I intensified the training schedule for me and Joker (and Anthony and Abby, but that's a different post!). We've been progressing as a team little by little. I'm starting to see the day when we run at the speed I want to see.

Back to yesterday... We loaded up horses, tack, and people and headed out to Rosenberg, Texas. The registration (books) opened at 10:30 am and we were there at 10:15.  We unloaded the horses and then signed in as soon as we could. Then we warmed up the horses and ran practice runs with the barrels in place and the timer running. Finally, we wandered up into the stands to wait, wait, and wait some more.

Finally, we ran.

And while not a record breaking run, we managed to get a time and we know what we need to work on before the next race!

Hotter Than Hades!

The horses are hot.
The dogs are hot.
The chickens are hot.
The kiddo is hot.
And the farm/cowgirl is hot.

It has been hot, hot, hot at the farm lately. Its only July and I can tell its going to be a long summer. Last weekend, Anthony and I were supposed to go for a joint riding lesson. Sounded simple enough...load horses into trailer, drive down road, unload horses. That, apparently, was too simple of a plan. So in the 100 degree heat with 100% humidity, I fought, whined, implored, tugged, and tried to bully horses into the trailer. And ultimately, when a 1,500 pound animal plants its feet and says no, he's not going anywhere. So since I was drenched in sweat and pissed off at the horses, I called it a day and went to go cool off.

Yesterday, we were headed to the Galveston County Youth Summer Series. This time, I had a more complicated plan in mind. I had noticed that Abby (Anthony's horse) had seemed a little heat stressed when I had previously tried to get her in the trailer. So I went and soaked her down with the hose, washed her, rinsed her, and then when she dried off in 15 minutes, I soaked her down again.  One damp horse went into the trailer with some encouragement. And since poor Joker looked so hot and pathetic, I soaked him down for good measure. He practically danced for joy at the relief and ran off kicking up his heels when I was done. Guess I'm going to start soaking both of them in the afternoons until we get a break from the heat!

The chickens are also getting some heat relief. I threw out some nice, cold watermelon for them as a treat and their chicken huts are being upgraded this weekend to a full out coop, complete with ventilation! Their pen is already tarped so that it is nice and shady, but I think the coop will help them out a great deal too.

Finally! Rain!

Although it wasn't much, the farm finally got some of the wet stuff. I came home to a wet horse, wet yard, and puddles in the drive way. I couldn't have been happier if you had told me that I won the lottery. Its been so dry here in Houston that everything has dried up. I was hoping to let the ducks out into the pond once they were big enough, but since the pond totally dried up, they have been confined to Poultry Paradise and their dishpans of water. We found the catfish that was in the pond in a tree where the birds had gotten to him. The horses loved their pond to play in, but now its the only place growing fresh grass, so they are in it constantly. The pond is not deep enough to get recharged by groundwater and when the new septic system went in, the installer insisted (and I'm glad that he did) that the washing machine water which was being drained into the pond go into the septic so its not being refilled there. I really do miss my pond. I'm crossing my fingers that we get a lot of rain (and no hurricanes! I'm not ready to test my roof yet) this hurricane season so that Houston can come out of its -10 inches of rain and I can have my pond back.

What’s In a Name?

We have finally settled on a name for the mini-farm. I'm sure you're all relieved. We were looking for something that exemplified our lofty goals, characterized the place where the farm was, what we were trying to do, and of course, that we liked. You can imagine that we’ve been thinking about it for a while. We live in the Brazos River Plain, in the state of Texas, we do horses, chickens, the garden when it is up and running in the fall, and there has been talk of pygmy goats appearing in the pasture. I swear…they just appear!

So not just any name would do and as you know from past posts, I suck at naming things.

We kicked around names like:

River Bend Mini-Farm
Small Wonder Farm (which I loved, but was outvoted on)
Lone Star Mini-Farm
And all sorts of things based on everything under the sun.

And we still kept coming back to the one that seems to have stuck….

Lazy M Farm


Its a play on our last name, as well as the character of the farm.
The gardens will still be called Jessamine Gardens since the garden concept has only moved, not changed. Now I just have to get them rebuilt!

Sadness at the Farm

This is a hard post to write.

We lost Buddy earlier this week. He ran out into the street and was severely injured by a neighbor who was driving too fast. We took him to the vet hoping that it wasn’t as serious as it looked. But in the end, we decided that it was far kinder to let him go than to force him to live with the kind of pain that the vet said he would be in and an uncertain at best prognosis. He is now over the Rainbow Bridge with some of his brothers and sisters that passed early in their lives. Anthony knows that Buddy is in a new and better home now. He seems to be pretty okay with it. Four year olds bounce back quick. Not so sure about the adults in the house.

We'll miss you, Buddy.

Last, but certianly not least

Tha poultry!

The day they came home

They were given to us by our Realtor as a housewarming gift. The reddish ones are Rhode Island Reds. The yellow ones are Leghorns. And then there are the ducks.... I had mentioned wanting to have chickens when we were buying the house and so a few days after we closed, he suprised us with them. Suprised, was in fact the word. We hadn't moved in yet, but were planning to do so the next day. So since we didn't have any where for them to live and it was still kind of cold, we put them in the shed and then ran to the store two days later for chicken keeping supplies.

As they got bigger and the weather got warmer, we decided that they needed to move out from the shed into a more permanent setup. A friend of my dad's had an old 8'x 8' dog kennel that he was no longer using. It became Poultry Paradise. Tarps were added later on for sun protection and to keep the Leghorns INSIDE so that they were protected from predators.

These days, they are growing, growing, growing. They get excited when they see me coming in the evening. I usually have a cup full of treats for them. Usually bits of veggies that didn't go into the supper pot or sometimes leaves from a tree that I've cut down. I'm looking forward to the eggs that I'll be getting in return for my treats to them come September.

By the way....The ducks are named Soup and Quackers (I have a morbid sense of humor). The chickens don't have names...There are 3 Leghorns and Three Rhode Island Red hens. So if you have a name suggestion for them, please put it in the comments!