Let summer begin!

Thanks to Pinterest I saw this great idea to welcome in summer.  London took her scooter for school to write her last exam.  So I had her call just before she left and I ran and put this together.  The ink on the sign ran so it was kind of ugly but it was still fun.

Can you spot London?  She is wearing her neon orange and yellow shirt which I make her wear much to her dismay and horror!  I want people to see her so I bought this vest at Costco.  She hates it and we fight about it every time she has to wear it....too bad!  I am the mom!

She stopped and didn't know what to do.  I was sitting to the side and didn't see me.  I told her to back up and drive right through.  I had an air horn and blew that as well.  It was so fun.  I wanted to do something the same for Sam but I wasn't here on her last day so she missed out.  Next year!

We had a huge hail storm and so I took a picture of some of the damage!  It was crazy we were at home without Sean when the storm came and we were scared it was a tornado!  EEk  So we hid in the basement.  Some of the hail was the size of a ping pong.  Very scary my garden (after I had weeded it of course) was badly damaged but you sure wouldn't know now.  We have damage on all out vehicles as well.  It smashed London's windshield and dad's side mirror.  We had it easy compared to others who had it the size of baseballs! 

All good things come to an end (Warning graphic)

Yup it is that time of year again.  I am surprised how well butchering went this year.  Sean is such an amazing guy and hard working I am so lucky to have him in my life.  Last year our chickens were way to big, the size of turkeys so they were tough.  This year it was much much better and they will be tender and good!

The birds were very friendly but I make sure I don't get attached to them.  I get attached to my laying hens and just love them.  It is such a good experience for our kids to see where food comes from and to have meat that we know what they have been fed!

The saying running around like a chicken with its head cut off has new meaning.  It is shocking how long they flail around for!  Here is one mid jump.

My amazing Father-in-Law found us this chicken plucker at a garage sale and it works great!  Some plucking had to be done by hand but the majority was taken off by this guy.

Here are all our helpers.  We hired a crew to help as it makes it go so much faster.  I was planing on doing it but the lady we asked to come brought way to many of here friends.  They don't speak English very well so I have a couple help me wash down walls in the house and I missed most of the action.  I was very sad.   

The Puppies had a blast eating all the chicken heads.  They were in a frenzy.  I was shocked they didn't get sick!  Now our chickens (the laying hens) aren't safe though they want to eat them.  That isn't good I hope we can train them off of that!

It is hard to say goodbye

Well we had Reeko our baby skunk in our house for a few days.  He mostly lived outside but we would bring him in for visits.  We introduced him to our other black and white bundle Blossom.  She loves babies and Reeko was no different.  Here she is sniffing and checking him out.

She cuddled up with him and tried to mother him.  Reeko loved it!

Sam got a bit of time with Reeko but London definitely claimed him as her own.

Reeko got lots of love and kisses.  Every time I looked London was packing him around.  She loved him.  We made her wear a glove in case he bit but he never even tried. 

This is my favorite picture.  Look at the love between them!  Reeko's face is so cute, he is even smiling at his new momma!

London doing her two favorite things. 

We were planing on keeping him.  We called all the vets and none of them would remove his scent glands for us.  They couldn't as we found out it was illegal for us to keep him.  I called fish and wildlife and they said the same thing.  So now we were in a bind.  We loved him and he was so loving we weren't worried about that but when the dogs came around he may be startled and then spray us!!  

I called the Gazoo and they said that they would take him and raise him.  So that was the plan.  We were sad that he was going to have to go.  Then Sean and London were out in the yard and two other baby skunks came trotting out right at Sean.  They must have smelled Reeko so just as he went to pick on up our dog Moses came around the corner and that little skunk turned and sprayed!  Sean got it all over his hand and boy did he stink..and everything around.  So long story short we now had 3 baby skunks and felt that they may be OK if we sent them out together.

We went back to the place that momma was let out.  There was water and lots of protection.  It still was so hard saying goodbye.  London and I cried our eyes out (of course!)

If you look close at the above picture London has a big tear going down her cheek.  Man I wish we could have kept him.  He was so happy seeing his brother and sister again and trotted off never looking back!  We miss you Reeko and hope you survived!