At the petting zoo today

Went to the petting farm today. Maggie had a blast and ran from pen to pen. She got to pet sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, goose, llama, emu, cow (her favorite), horse, turkey, and piggies. Mom got to milk a cow. And Dad got to hold a piglet. We had a blast, we'll totally go back next year. :) We took the good camera, but it was on the wrong setting and we never check the photos till we got back. All the photos were unusable Whomp. Whomp. Thankfully mom and dad always have a phone on them. Maggie got to take home a pumpkin too, Took her a while to pick one out.

Maggie goes to the Fort Worth Stock Show

Before the Stock Show. I'm 23 weeks preggo. Maggie is 13.5 months old

 Oh look Dad... sheep... OMG!!! it made a noise

Cow nostril

CORN DOG TIME

BEWARE: THIS IS ABOUT TO ESCALATE QUICKLY!

YES, we are on the ground at the stock show eating a $6 corn dog.

PETTING ZOO

Look mom a chicken

Note: when going to the petting zoo. Always spend the $1 on the pet feed.

Its eating me.

Look mom, he's eating me again. 

It ate me too.

AND... we are done

week 23

Oh Maggie,
Me and your daddy love this week's idea. I'm sure I'll get some horrible comments on how I shouldn't be putting temp tattoos on a 23-week old but oh well! THAT just happened.

This week has been a whirlwind. You are now rolling over with a purpose and eating with motivation. You have also started splashing in the bathtub (sink). 

You also had your first drive-in movie theater experience. We went to see The Avengers. I thought you would sleep through the whole thing. NO SUCH LUCK! You were awake for about have the movie and very squirmy, probably cause of the thunderstorm (that we didn't plan for) and the movie's action moments were kinda loud (we kept having to turn it up and down). All in all it was just that an experience. Oh and we also met an over-sharing schizophrenic.

We also went to a birthday party last Saturday, for your friend Marshall. It was at a gym, you could jump on the trampolines but you did get to play on the mats.

You also got to play with the chickens cause they escaped their cage last Friday, you also grab everything and put in your mouth, like Mom's coffee/beer, and you went back to the nanny's this week cause mom had to work a few days. Grammy loves that you are getting a hang of Skyping, which is the happiest moment of her day (or so I've been told) :)
Lots of love, Mom

My GIANT FIG TREE

Ok so here's a little background. I have a fig tree, a 15 - 20 ft giant fig tree, that grows giant figs. It came with the house, and i learned very quickly when i went to pick some that my fig tree was supporting the entire ecosystem of the neighborhood. Of the hundred of figs that came off of the tree, only about 20 were edible because apparently my fig tree had become the mecca of squirrels and birds far and wide. 

So this year i am fighting back. I have several prototype fig-protecting contraptions. Netting won't work very well because the tree is 20ft tall and i don't have any netting. But my last line of defense is a Squirrel chasing terrier mix named Twink. 

1st off this is what a fig looks like.

They are bright pink inside (last years figs, they weren't quite ready to pick).

Prototype A1: Holds onions at the supermarket

Prototype B1: Holds potatoes at the supermarket

Prototype C1: Chicken fencing that i bent into a fig cage and tied on with string

Prototype D1: different chicken fencing i just wrapped around 1 fig

Prototype E1: Sandwich baggie

Prototype F1: bottomless milk jug

and last but not least Prototype G1: a little bit of new panty hose

and here's a wide shot

Does anybody else have any more ideas. Preferably with house-hold items. :)

i want ... a chicken foot stool

i saw these in Austin last weekend and now i want one. Its a footstool in the shape of a chicken. What! I don't know how much they cost but i did find them online here. The city girl farm or her blog. I more specifically would like the barred rock (b&w) chicken that holds her head up, and my feet. :)

Chicken coop II

So, me and ross had to redo the coop because the last one was not nearly as dog-proof as we were hoping. Here's the new and improved one. i might have gotten carried away with the stenciling & painting. Don't look to closely at the construction, we are still learning. :)

 Twinkie, Scrambled, Benedict and Crepe are all getting along. As long as Twinkie is on the outside of the chicken tractor.

My new chickens & my garden

Our chicken coop.

Its still not done but its at least got chickens in it.

my 2011 garden ... well we'll see

I tried last year and i got 2 tomatoes and 8 green beans before the plants died a slow premature disease-ridden death, and the 2 teeny weeny tomatoes were openly laughed at by my electrician. The year before when i was in the apartment i started breeding mosquitoes and gnats in an overwatered flower pot in my kitchen. Outside on the balcony I somehow fried the little herbs in the sun regardless that everything was in complete shade. Oh and 5 months ago we killed every living thing when we set off bug bombs and forgot to remove the houseplants. This year will be different, this year i will make myself proud to have a garden that i can eat out of and survive on if zombies attach (this is a metaphor mom). I already have chickens, who's shit is excellent fertilizer, and i can have eggs in a few months for omelets. Operation agrarian farmer is under way. I'm so happy.  So far in my yard i have 2 young plum trees, a young peach tree, a mulberry tree (what do i do with mulberries?), and a 15ft very mature fig tree that is currently supporting the entire Cedar Hill ecosystem (which i didn't know when we bought the house). So i have the soil for fruit trees, but everything else is kinda questionable.

This year i am jumping into the deep end of gardening, so far i have bought a small strawberry plant & some small plantable golden potatoes. This weekend i got the seeds started in a 72ct self-watering Burtpee's Seed Starting kit, which is firmly stabilized on my kitchen counter with 15cups of water and a fluorescent light. I can only hope that in 8-10 weeks i'll have something that resembles the picture on the front of the box. The seeds i planted this weekend were 2 kinds of tomatoes, 2 kinds of BellPeppers, Carrots, Sweet Red Corn, a lettuce mix, Baby Leaf Spinach, Arugula, Cilantro, Parsley, Spearmint, Lavendar and Rosemary. Here's a picture of the starting point. Wish me luck. :)