Chicken Tractor

Jarrod has finally built his chicken tractor. Last week we bought 6 chickens from his dad; 2 brahmas, 2 buff orpingtons, 1 comet and 1 black sex-link. For about a year now Jarrod has wanted to make a chicken tractor he would look at the online, watch tons of youtube videos and talk about how he would make them better. He liked the idea of having free range chickens to fertilize the yard and eat the grubs while keeping them from wandering all over the place (since we live in a neighborhood). When his dad bought a bunch of chicks it was just the push Jarrod needed.

So of course I expected him to have a plan when we ran to lowes to pick up would but of course he was winging it. We made it A-frame with a couple 1x8 and 1x10's.

Jarrod wanted the hen house to be off the ground so it will be a little warmer and give the chickens more space to run around and scratch. Our little hen house has 4 nesting boxes so that when the chickens are ready this fall we can collect fresh eggs. I ran to the store to get some exterior paint for the sides of the chicken coup because we used wood that was not the most suitible for outside. Its was leftover from our bathroom remodel. The best exterior paint on sale was a salmon pink which obviously was not Jarrod's favorite but I think ended up looking adorable.

When the Chickens first were placed into the tractor int he box we had them living in overnight in our bathroom they had no desire to come out because they were terrified. It was hilarious to watch them after Jarrod went in and pulled them out and placed them in the grass. They started to run to their box which was familiar but obviously loved the way the grass felt under their feet and thought better of it. We have also added a little ramp which isn't in this picture. Jarrod put the chickens up in the coop but they prefer the grass and rarely go up into their little pink hen house.

I love watching them all grow up. The comet is the biggest and she is the bully. She pushes all the other chickens around. The Orpingtons keep trying to fly and the Brahmas started scratching right away. The sex-link is the only one who likes to check out the coop every now and then and seem to be the only one who tried to stand up to the Comet. Its amazing how interesting they can be.

It has been very difficult to train the dogs to leave them alone. Our GSD's obviously look at this as a meal trapped nicely in their own backyard. We have started just correcting them every time they are near the tractor which has greatly improved their interactions with the chickens (Hans is no longer chewing and on it) but they still circle it like sharks when left alone for too long. Hans and Heidi have proved to be good protectors though. Today a stray boxer tried to get at the chickens and Hans almost bit his butt. :)

The joys of motherhood

I don't think there is anything more frustrating than when your baby is crying and you can't figure out how to fix it. Spending your time scoring the house for what he wants while he is screaming even more because your aren't holding him while looking for what he needs. Could be teething could be gas could be he wants his bear. I don't know. And the tylenol is vanished. Thats when you start getting angry, you plead with the baby try to reason with the baby but obviously that wasn't going to work. Add to that a couple nights of him waking up at odd hours of the night (which makes me suspect teething or tummy ache) so that your normally peaceful sleep time is disturbed. To the point that when you wake up in the morning you are yet again begging and pleading a 10 month old, this time to let you sleep in.

I love that little bugger but nights like this are so hard. When I have to stay up an extra 20 minutes to pump when I was ready for bed 2 hours ago. When he made me feel like a bad mommy for being to tired to sit here and hold him for a few hours. When I find myself daydreaming of nights out, and being able to just go for a drive, or just go to bed and get up when I want and on my schedule. I think this is why God makes babies so adorable. So that even at their worst you fall in love with them all over again. So that in the end it all seems worth it. I love that little man but definitely hoping he sleeps like a log tonight

April showers bring may flowers

So here I am once again all alone on a Friday night. It has been a crazy couple of weeks here at the Corl household and I am exhausted. Not only am I exhausted I look exhausted. I just looked in the mirror and I might as well have two black eyes. And yet instead of going to sleep I am trying to fold laundry and stay up until my sons clothes are ready for the dryer. I have turned into a crazy person.

A couple of weeks ago we got to rush into the hospital for George's shunt revision. I knew it would be our next hospital visit and low and behold a few weeks ago George started being fussier, then he started to nap more during the day, then he started it become inconsolable, then he would cry if you moved or made a sound and than he cried unless he had Tylenol until the morning we brought him in due to the final sign his head was bulging. At first I really did think all the fuss was tummy stuff. I had been trying formula he seemed to be gassy and uncomfortable but no it was his head. He must have been in terrible pain because he felt better right after surgery than he did before surgery. The very next day he was playing and smiling which is why the ever so cute resident neurosurgeon popped in to give us our get out of jail free card.

Then of course the weekly doctor and therapy visits. No we shouldn't consult pulminology yet on wether or not George will be able to speak, Yes he can go in the pool with his MicKey button, George is where he should be cognitively so how do we keep him on track with his physical limitations.

George was finally excited about eating something. Unfortunately it was a Dorito. All this time I'm trying to change the way Jarrod and I eat to make sure he is healthy, especially since being overweight may be the difference between eating and not eating. I give him all the Gerber foods and I get faces like why the heck did you put that in my mouth. His father gives him a Dorito and its like he found his new favorite thing. Hes licking it and pretending to chew after,he was licking his fingers and his face, eating his sleeve that got covered in it. I just wish he could be so excited about like apple blueberry. So now after consulting with my therapist I'm going to be buying George chocolate cheerios and this popcorn that will melt in his mouth. O well at this point food is food.

Both gardens have been plowed and tilled. They are ready when we are. And I mowed the lawn for the first time ever and found I loved it. It was like driving a extremely loud and slow go cart. I could completely escape from the stress rollar coster that my life has become and just shut everything out. Even if afterwards my ears were ringing and my arms burned (I wore SPF 70 it did no good) I actually enjoyed it. Next week I plan to weed and get the whole yard looking cleaner.

Also we finally have a finished floor in the bathroom. My goal is to get the drywall ready for paint and hopefully the tub tiled this week. We shall see. If I had to bet it would be that I get nothing done on it this week but it's nice to dream.

From scratch

Jarrod and I have decided to change the way we eat. It is not a diet per say, in fact I could probably end up eating even more fattening things if I don't learn healthier recipes. It is more about getting back to basics, back to from scratch. I find that lately I have been making food decisions by what is easy as opposed to what is healthy. The amount of pasta I eat is atrocious and the main reason for that is that I can just throw that box in a pot of water than wallah! 15 minutes and I have a meal! (sort of). So from now on I will buy things that I can't make at home like flour, spices, fruits, veggies, meats, milk etc but no more boxed pizza, no more sliced breads, no more lipton sides. The things I am allowing myself are goldfish(because without some kind of quick snack I know I will never be able to handle this) and ice cream (but only until we get our ice cream maker from Jarrod's parents. I've already seen the benefit, when I went to the store for this weeks groceries my total was only a third of what I was spending weekly before. And i know this number will go down even more once we have our veggie garden. The main reasoning behind this is after watching tons of movies about the awful things I eat, I wanted to make a change. I wanted to stop being lazy about food. I even love to cook and now I am so lazy that I only really make something when we have guests. I'm a stay at home mom with a nurse to help watch the baby for pete's sake, I have time to make something homemade. It is helping me limit my snacking and my overeating. Because now at lunch I eat what I made. I don't go back to the freezer for another burrito or to the pantry for a box of chicken flavored noodles. Tonight I made sloppy bucks with homemade rolls. The rolls were wonderful (though not as good as Jarrod's). And the other night I made homemade dumplings (which were way better than anything I've had at Covington Chinese). So hopefully this little experiment helps me to become reconnected with my food and make stuff I really love.

I'm not trying to be elitist or obnoxious about this. I will still go out to eat from time to time, and I won't make a fuss if I go to someone else's house for food. It's really just about changing the way Jarrod and I eat before we have kids that are eating at the table with us. We are even going to finish all the boxed pasta and cans of soup because there is no reason to waste it. I just hope that this leads to eating more veggies and meat and less pasta. We shall see.

Would you like a cookie?

Today was a pretty crazy day. Really it started last night at 1030pm saying hey dont come in in the morning your working tomm night and the whole weekend of night shifts. We finally have a weekend to work together on the house and Jarrod has to work night. It is so frustrating. Not to mention that poor Jarrod is now going to end up working at least 12 hour days 8 days in a row! So to celebrate our misfortune we went down to Roanoke, went to hhgregg and spent a ton of money, had some tex-mex and went home. We bought a new 50" tv (so didn't need) and a 5.0 c-ft freezer (which we kinda need). HHgregg was fantastic! The store was clean, the customer service wonderful, everything was so new and shiny, it was easy to get carried away (hence the 50" tv). NOw we are going to need to sell the ol 37" sony we have which is only like a year old and was a great deal itself but just not big enough since we use this tv for a computer screen. I feel a little bit like we went over board and I was thinking as I made my husband a treat to make up for giving him bad new while on his crappy night shift(overdraft on a checking ridiculous!) is there any way I reward myself other than food and stuff? What else can you reward yourself with? How can I find that? I wish I liked running or kayaking or hiking in a way that I could feel like I did great today I deserve a half hour run. There are just so few things that I can give myself that doesn't cost something. Also why do I need a reward in the first place? Is it just our culture that if bad things happen to you, you feel like you deserve something to make up for it? Even though I can't find a job and my son has a disability there are millions of people who have it worse than me. I wish I could get rid of that sense of entitlement. But I am lost on what to replace it with.

It's the little things

Yesterday we had our team meeting with our therapists. While working with the physical therapist George did tummy time for 3 whole minutes!! I know this may seem like nothing but just in the end of February he couldn't tolerate more than five seconds. I remember when I read about his conditions and talked to the parents everything said that the smallest things are going to seem like the most incredible accomplishment and I truly have seen that in the past few weeks. I have been terrified with his earaches (the first meds didn't work so he just got worse and worse!) but other than that I have so much hope for him. I can't wait until he gets that giant noggin lifted while on his tummy. Really every day with George is a miracle. I am so lucky to have such a special little man. :)

Yay Nurse!

My new nurse is fantastic. I know last I wrote that I was considering getting rid of the service but she makes it all seem much more worth while. She is on time and she is reliable, she makes sure George does all his streches and tummy time, she alerts me when something has changed or if she notices something off. Because she is so good about making him do his tummy time he is finally starting to enjoy it and lift up his head. Also if it wasn't for her I never would have realized he had an ear infection. I really think that our new nurse can be an integral part in George's development. And she makes me feel comfortable trying to go back to work part-time.

Shouldn't this be something that isn't a hassel?

For the past few months I have been lucky enough to have a nursing service that sends a nurse to my house to help with George. This all started after George's Nissen surgery because the hospital staff was appalled at the fact that I, a nonmedical person, was home alone with no help taking care of my own son. I was extremely hesitant to start because I was so nervous about bringing someone in to my "turf" to take care of my son. I felt like it would make me a bad mother because I was a stay at home mother so what in the world would I need with a nurse. But eventually the hospital staff and my home health nurse convinced me to try it and I had a wonderful nurse come and take care of George. I was lucky enough to have a nurse with the opinion that as the mother I would know what George needed and who seemed competent enough that I was okay leaving him alone with her. I was starting to think that maybe, just maybe I could start going back to work.

Than it started to become unreliable. My nurse got sick, her son got sick, it snowed and she couldn't get out of her driveway, she was running late for this reason or that, she had a doctor's appt etc etc etc. They all seemed like good excuses but there were a lot of them and all I could think is what the hell would I do if I had to go to work today? I would be screwed. Because you can't take a special needs 7 month old into work with you. It doesn't work. Luckily I had my nurse during the hardest months when George was recovering from surgery but as George recovers back to his usual self I'm starting to realize that really there is very little that makes me different than a mommy with a normal baby. In fact there are things that make it easier for me. George can sleep when he eats. Due to his paralyzed vocal chords his cry is like a tiny mew that is more cute and heart breaking than irritating. Taking George out on errands is difficult, but it would be if he didn't have the condition he does because HES A BABY.

So today when my nurse didn't show up. And I called the nursing office to find out "Sorry it was a miscommunication, it was my fault". I started to think is this a hassel really worth it. Not only am I expected to constantly babysit my coordinator than whether I'm home or not, whether I have company or not there is a person in my house Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 and I do not live in a large house. 1200 square feet and the nurse hangs out in the two rooms that I use the most. And they are here on days Jarrod works so if we need to do something together George has to come with us. What I really need is someone to come sit with him when I have a drs appt or I want to go to the store. I don't need someone to spend the day with him when I can do it myself. Also the nursing service shouldn't be the issue here it should be insurance. But its not so I think I have decided that unless things drastically change, I'm done when my authorization is up. I am tired of having one more medical thing that I have to call over and over again. Especially when I can't rely on them enough to make the nursing service worth my time because there is no way I could have a job and miss as many days as I would have to. I'll just have to find a very good babysitter.

Sigh

I've been having just one of those I feel stuck in my life days. I love my husband, I love my son, I even love my crazy dogs. But what if I could go back and change my major decisions. What if I went to school in Canada? What if i stayed an Econ major? What if I studied abroad? What if I never left the cadets? Would things be easier or just different? Down here in middle of nowhere VA I feel like Im missing out on so much. The world is flying by and Im stuck in pause. I keep looking for my play button but I feel as if Im afraid to push it. I hope I push it soon or I may be stuck forever.

Murderers!

My dogs killed another deer (they killed one last year around this time when they were only six months old). Lucky me this time I got to watch the entire thing because it was in the backyard. As usual I opened the door to let Hans and Heidi out. I noticed Hans sprint out the back door and Heidi follow close behind leaping of the steps. So I looked out to see what could have gotten them in such a tizzy and there's two does in the backyard. I continued to watch because I was worried that one would lure Hans out of the yard and that I would have to go chase him down. Instead as the deer were fleeing, Hans close behind, I see one take a huge leap and the other run smack dab into our little fenced in area. It didn't have a chance. Hans kinda nipped at it but Heidi went straight for the throat. I was in shock, it was like watching the cheetahs take down a gazelle on Big Cat Diary. Except it was my backyard and my dogs.

I weakly called Jarrod. He threw his boots on and ran out to get them off their fresh kill. Luckily as older and wiser dogs Jarrod was able to get them off the thing quickly, but not in time to save it. So then we had to call the Sheriff's office to report our little murderers and then hang the thing in a tree since Jarrod had to get to work.