Milking. Whoo hoo.

Last week I started my second-ever summer job.  Milking for the neighbor!  Me and two of my sisters started working there, with nameless parent, and his three boys, age (11), age (10), and age (8).  I've been having a fun time, dippin tits and wiping bags and attaching milkers.  Shannah, on the other hand, loves the work, but does not have the same feelings for her co-workers.  Translation:  two out of three of them have a horrible crush on her.  I worked Tuesday, (Shannah worked Monday) and when I got there, age 8 walks into the barn and says, "Hi. *long pause* Soooo.....where's Shannah?"  I said, "She's at home."  He looked disappointed, then brightened.  "Soooo...when's she back?"  "Day after tomorrow."  He relaxed, grinned, and ran off.  So, Shannah gets there the next night, and immediately is not allowed to do anything.  Lifting buckets: "I'll do that."  Attaching milkers, "I'll do that too."  Now, if you know my sister, you'll know that she is a total spitfire, is a leader whether others want her to be or not, and says what she thinks before actually thinking about it.  This does not go well with when age 11 asked her, "So, who do you like better, me or age 8?  Which one of us is bossier?  On a scale of one to ten, which one do you like better?  Who's cuter?" 
My poor ten year old sister stepped back, and said "You're BOYS.  I don't really think you're cute!"
Hmm.  Poor boys.  They are still hitting on her a lot and running around shirtless for her benefit.
(Which, by the way, isn't really effective when you're eight).
Shannah has a history of young boys falling for her.  I have noticed that pretty much wherever she goes, someone falls for her.  It must be the freckles.  And, whenever that happens (which is frequently), she tells them off.  Once, we had some friends over, and they brought a friend with them.  This particular friend is a little girl-crazy.  Shannah finally got fed up with this boy, (we'll call him Bill) following her around and staring her.  She whipped around, cornered him, and said, "WHY are you following me around and staring at me and stalking me?!?! STOP IT NOW!!!"  Bill regained his composure and said, "You know what I do to girls that I like?  I follow them around and stare at them."  "So you like me then," she stated. "Yup." 
Now, I gotta hand it to that boy, he's got guts.  She did her Shannah thing where she twists her mouth up and nodded sarcastically.  "Hmm. Fine, but Mom is SO finding out."
He just hit on her again.  Mom finally came down on him and said, "Knock it off or leave."
My poor sis.

Maternity Hospital

Have I mentioned yet that me and my siblings (Eliza, Shannah, Wendy, Shane, Linnea) played some crazy games when we were little?  Once, my cousins were over, (Ashley, Isaac, Anna) and we decided to play maternity hospital.  Except there was once hitch.  We didn't want to just have a baby and leave.  So, we had a weird clinic where you had to come to the hospital once you found out you were pregnant, and you could leave when the baby turned two.  So, we found a nice little grassy area with trees placed in a line about 15 feet apart each.  We then placed a porch swing at the front of the line between two of the trees, and that was the receptionist's desk.  Now, what to do about rooms?  We took several snow sleds and horse blankets from the barn, and lots of sheets, blankets, and pillowcases from the house.  Then, we placed a sled at the bottom of each tree, and made the "bed" (which was the sled) with a horse blanket or two for a mattress, and blankets and sheets for....blankets and sheets.  The pillowcases were used to make a bunch of scraggly elementary school girls look pregnant.  I was the receptionist, ultrasound lady, doctor, nurse, surgeon, doula, midwife, maintenance man, laundry lady, maid, and counselor. 
Whew.  Each of the 5 girls playing (except me) were taken to their rooms, and I had a nice stack of baby dolls behind an unoccupied tree, just waiting until someone went into labor.  I bustled around, checking on women, then, alas, Ashley had a contraction!  I ran to her room, and said, "Ash, how far apart are your contractions?!"  The eight-year-old looked rather confused, and said, "Well, there's one here *points to elbow*, and one here *points to heel*. "  I heard a scream from the bed next to Ash.  Uh oh.  Shannah.  The  also eight year old looks at me and says, "HELP!  MY CONTRACTIONS ARE 3 INCHES APART!"  Panic swells the room as Anna, Wendy, and Liza all chime in about their various thumb contractions.  Shannah didn't know how to act like she was in labor, so she just sat halfway up and proceeded to have a seizure, screaming the whole time like here arms were being torn from her body.  Ahhh, drama.  They finally finished labor in about 10 minutes, so I went to distribute babies.  I looked behind me.  Uh oh.  The proud mothers all stopped, stared in shock, then started screaming.  You see, in all the laboring confusion, I did not keep an eye on the plastic dolls.  But someone else did.  The horrid sight before our eyes was Shane and Isaac, ages 6 and 4, running away with about 5 dolls tied by the feet to a stick they carried across their shoulders, yelling, "Hey, Isaac, let's go make soup!  HA HA HA!"
*Lots of screaming and yelling and laughing*.

Skating

We have never really been the skating type of family, but a couple of years ago, my sisters and I found a small frozen body of water by our house.  Huh, we thought, I've never seen this before...Oh, well, let's skate! 
Well, it wasn't long before we were sliding down that body of water that was flowing down a hill, (or so it seemed) before it froze.  We didn't really think to wonder about that, but we did wonder why the color was so bad, and why there were rock-like brown lumps frozen into it.  No matter.  We would just lick the ice until we melted all the way to a brown lump.  We did, and that was no rock.  It didn't taste like one.  We shrugged, and continued to do belly slides, getting soaked all the way, with our tongues out on the ice, licking all the way.  I was elected to go get Mom and see if she wanted to join the fun.  And we just couldn't figure out why she was angry.  You see, before the ground and "water" froze, our sewer pipe split and leaked down a hill, then froze. 
Mom had our poor 7 year old souls wash every inch of our bodies, and the garments arraying them. 
I wonder what those funny tasting brown rocks were?

Weird Things I Should Not Have Had To Say While Babysitting

1. Don't swing that croquet mallet at your brother's head!
2. Stop eating the grass!  You aren't really a horse!
3. Don't forget to get your doll out of the tree.
4. Put shoes on before you walk in the manure!
5. Hey!  Stop injecting air through a bike pump into the VCR!
6. No, we can NOT eat marshmallows for dinner.
7. I told you once, I told you a million times, do not hit your sister with a metal meter stick!
8. Hello, Mom, we have to take Wendy to the E.R. because Shane hit her with an air compressor hose. 
9. No, 6 year old boy, you may not drive the riding lawn mower around the puppy- and sister-filled yard.
10. Get your clothes back on, mister!  I have a video camera rolling!
11. No, darling 10 year old, you may NOT streak in the middle of January!
12. Alright, four and six year olds, strip down on the porch, run to the bathroom, and I will be in to turn the shower on cold in a moment.  You will also be scrubbing the floor later.  This will teach you not to swim in mud puddles. 
13. Never ever throw snowballs at 1800 pound bulls again, young lady!
14. Chickens are livestock, not toys.

More Haying Pictures

HOPE Picnic

Here I have posted all of the pictures I could find that would load of our HOPE (Helping Other Parents Educate) homeschooler picnic.  It was a great time, lots of playing Nukum and eating hot dogs.  These particular pictures, though, are of the Fire Tower in St. Croix Park.

Me and my buddy Lynae

My buddy Lynae again

Lynae's brother, Toby, at the very top of the tower

Mr. Armstrong almost to the top

Me at the top of the tower

Mr. Buzo and Lynae at the very top

Posting these was rather difficult, and a lot of the pictures that I attempted to load did not.  So, here are the few I was able to come up with. 

Haying, I Mean, Mowing the Lawn

The picture quality's not great, but at least you have some idea...

Recently, our lawn mower broke.  Huh.  This means, that, on June 11, we mowed the lawn for the first time all year.  So, naturally, the lawn was up to just below my hip.  We finally did get our lawn mower fixed, and then it couldn't handle the lawn.  So my dad brought in the hay rake.

Linnea (age 4)

So, my dad spent all day yesterday raking hay, and heaping it up into piles with pitchforks, and hauling it out to dry it.  This is sad!

Our yard.....

About a third of our lawn clippings.

Me, Wendy, and Linnea playing in the hay.

The Haybine did not get the grass short enough, so we are going to have to mow over it all again with the regular mower. 

City Girls + Fish Guts = Colossal Fun!

Two years ago, some city girl friends of ours came to our house.  They were so excited, they thought it was so wonderful that we have an actual farm with more animals than a house cat.  They are SO much fun to laugh at after they leave.  Well, on this particular time, they (Ally and Tori) decided that the cow manure and "urine" was too icky, so we should go for a walk.  OK, fine.  So we went down to the crick by our house, only intending to walk.  We got down there, however, and found a nice little treat: the crick was chock-full of 30ish dead fish, some cleaned, some not.  We grabbed our sticks, and set to re-fishing.  Hey, recycling!

The girls working on the fish.

Wendy, Tori

Gills!

We spent almost two hours pulling mangled walleyes out of the crick, then brought them up to our house.  Oh, the mothers we're SO happy!  Especially the city mom!    We dissected them, pulled their eyeballs out and squished the juice out of them, etc.  Don't tell me farm girls don't know how to have fun!

Robin Hood vs Nazis!

When I was about 4 years old, I saw the animated movie, Robin Hood.  That was when I decided that I was going to be Robin Hood when I grew up.  I also decided, that in the mean time, I might as well practice.  So, I donned my loincloth, and set about making a bow and arrow set.  Where I got the idea that Robin Hood wears loincloths I don't know.
I determined that my bow would be a plastic hanger, and my arrows would be colored pencils.  I held onto the hook, and drew back the plastic as far as it could go without breaking it, (OK, I broke some) loaded my pencils, and fired heavily at various domestic animals, parents, small sisters, etc.  I would then run around the house and whoop and holler like an Indian, and bribe people to play with me and be Maid Marian.  We would play this with the Sherveims.  That would lead to about 6 shirtless kids in loincloths whooping and hollering like the dickens.  

The Doorway--the ferns are the camo for the door.  See it?

Years later, when I was probably 12, the Sherveims came over.  We hadn't seen them in a long time, so we decided we were going to reminisce in the way of adding on to games we played years ago.  So, we went out to the woods, where we found a large patch of ferns.  We went back to the haybarn, and built a nice fort, then split into two teams.  Older kids would pick ferns 100 mph, and younger kids would continue on the fort.  We then used the ferns as camouflage, because, you see, we were hiding from the Nazis.  There were 11 kids playing.  We hid there for awhile, and then we decided that the Nazis were gonna  
                                                                                       show up.  So they did, and we performed this beautiful shooting scene, where we all died.  Then they "left" and we decided that that was too short and not romantic enough.  So, we redid it and this time, the Nazis came, and we ran for the woods with the small children.  On the way to our other hiding place, two people got shot, and we had to carry them.  When we finally escaped them, we all bedded down on potato sacks (it was about sunset by then) and proceeded to have an epidemic of Scarlet Fever.  Everyone had their own ideas as to what the symptoms were, so that was interesting.  One by one, they slowly and painfully died, and we had to "bury" them under bushes.  Me and Sadie were elected to be the faithful nurses and to selflessly care for and "bury" the "dead".  Then, in one final episode, we both got sick from a combination of exhaustion and Scarlet Fever exposure and died under the stars.  It was beautiful.                                                                                 

The actual inside, looking over the wall. The carpet is moss and ferns.

The tunnel entrance, with door pulled back.  Carpet is moss.

This is the large area that used to be waist-high in ferns. We cleared it out.