Child induced writers block.

Do you know what Child Induced Writers Block is?  It is when you sit down to start on your blog and the very second your hind end meets the chair and fingers touch the keys so that your creativeness can be emitted one of your children scream, cry, holler MOOOOM, or scream I have to go potty - which essentially means Mommy hurry I have waited too long.  So first the scream, it seems inevitable that when I have something  I either want to do or have to do my children start to fight, argue, bicker or just plain will not get along.  Either that or it is when I have first noticed them fighting because now I am concentrating and can no longer just block out the loud noises.  At that point in order to try to stay on task usually I end up yelling some empty threat to them as in if you don't stop I will take a way all the toys.. Yeah, like that is ever going to happen.  But it usually calms down a situation for a few minutes anyway.  Then comes the cry - this is typically because now the kids have managed to keep the screaming down but are now instead engaging in some sort of physical contact either for fun aka wrestling or because someone is mad aka punching and someone is now hurt.  Now I am no longer able to just yell idol threats I have to get up, visually inspect them to make sure there is no blood or broken bones and of course try to console whoever is crying.  I have figured out that if I now divert their attention to a quiet activity to allow me to finish my task at hand I have another approximately three and a half minutes before the "MOOOOOM" is hollered from that said quiet activity.  Back to that location to see what is now going on.  Typically so and so is not sharing the crayons, playdoh, paint, or has changed the channel and it is not agreed upon.  Now comes the you have to share, be kind and treat each other nicely conversation which I think takes place daily!   This is followed with at least one child all of a sudden taking a huge interest in what I am doing, standing directly behind me and asking why are you doing that or what are you doing?  I can usually deflect the questions with ease like wonder woman with her bracelets of submission.  Believe it or not it is very distracting and soon I have found that I am ready to just stop what I am doing and go back to doing mom activities.  It is then confirmed with MOMMY I have to go potty.  And that is when I throw in the towel and call it done "until I get some quiet time".  Maybe when dad comes home... or maybe not.

This my friends is what Child Induced Writers Block looks like and sounds like.

I should note that these things also happen when I am trying to take a shower, put on make up, clean the house, do laundry or do pretty much anything.

Little House on the Prairie??? Nah - Just the place I call HOME!

It's not uncommon for people to start talking to me and have a look of complete amazement, or more like "Is this girl for real?" To me this is life, it is my normal and I love it!  If you read my previous blog you know I am retired from my first career (yes I had 6 whole years in a row doing it!) which is where I met my husband - in jail....  Yes, jail - we both worked there duh!  He had 10 years in and was ready for a change as well.  So, as two youngest children in birth order (more on this another time), we took a leap of faith and quit.  We worked our own business and traveled all over, it was fun and adventurous and in 2005 we decided we should actually tie the knot.  By 2006 our first child was on the way and our adventure filled life had to figure out how to be more settled; so we both got real jobs again and started back at the grind.  That was pretty short lived and thank God for that because we're like a couple of caged animals when it comes to working for someone else especially after having our own business and that freedom that came with that.  Yes there were headaches too but the freedom was great.

Fortunately Jon's dad decided retirement was something he should look into and onto the family farming business we landed. Although it should be stated a farmer never really retires.  It was just what the doctor ordered.  So if you are going to be a farmer you have to have some animals right?  We started small, as in a couple of dogs and cats.  That was fine for a while it took care of the creatures that had once inhabited our 100+ year old home that sat vacant for 15 years before we decided to make it our project.  Then my wise husband suggested we get a few goats ya know just a couple to help eat down the weeds in the woods. NOTE - I am an animal LOVER! This sounded like a PERFECT idea to me, only one catch I wanted them to be babies so we could tame them.  Then came the 3 amigos as we so lovingly referred to them.  They were great! Until they thought climbing into my car was a good idea, and eating all of my recently planted flowers was a good idea. We could not keep them fenced (lesson #1 in goats - if water can get through the fence so can a goat).  So I learned, over taming a goat can be bad! Next came the "world's largest miniature donkey".  This was thanks to my brother who had a co worker who wanted to get rid of it.  Sure! I will take it! So my boy "BLUE" came to live with us.  We later learned after the vet came to geld him that he was a baby donkey not a miniature donkey and a standard nonetheless - hence the world's largest miniature donkey!  Then came the herd of goats; as in 60 bred does from Texas.. they were a learning experience but I quickly learned we bit off more than we could chew when Jon had a accident and I was left trying to manage it with three small children, bye bye goats!  So we were down to two dogs, a butt load of cats one buck goat that we couldn't part with, a donkey and our kids.  That was super manageable! 

Fast forward four years to the current day and our little nest of critters and children had maintained the same status.  Then the critter itch started to come back and needed to be scratched. If you know anything about youngest children the phrase "go big or go home" is sorta a motto.  I had always wanted a horse, the kids now 8, 6 and 4 seem like logical ages to get one - so as cliche as it may sound for Christmas we got the kids a horse aka momma got a pony!  Lika entered our family and it was great! So great that spring came and we thought hmm, wouldn't it be fun to have just a couple of goats again because we really DID enjoy them when we weren't overwhelmed by the volume we had once had.  So I called up an old "goat friend" and wouldn't ya know she had some babies for sale! SURE We'll take three!  When we went to pick up the sweet little girls wouldn't you know that she had a true registered miniature donkey that was only about a year old... and wouldn't you know she needed a new home!  For the first time literally EVER I said no to the sweet little donkey but my amazing husband took one look at her and said Heck Yea I want another donkey!  So enter the picture Little Lucy who for the first part of her life at our house despised me since I wrestled her down to put her halter on but she got over that and is now tame and loving almost like another dog! Then as luck would have it I came across a rescue site - how lucky am I? (please note serious sarcasm and I have been told to stay off the rescue site for a while)  I found ANOTHER HORSE!  It was risky but I was pretty excited - enter the picture Midnight our latest horse and thankfully he is very tame and well mannered!  Some where along the line I forgot to add the guinea pigs that snuck into our house of course in pairs as usual!  In the last ten weeks we have had 3 batches of kittens again! Two sets of 5 and one set of 4.   Even the stray cats have found there way here and made this their personal haven to hunker down at.  We have one that we called "Hisser" because she hissed at us when she first came but now she keeps a safe distance and has even let us pet her once in a while.  Not too long ago my husband introduced me to Mangalista pigs (google them) and this week we picked up three little pigs! Not a typo we literally have three little pigs named Sweetie Pie, Curly and Porky.  

And YES we love and care for all of these animals! Everyday twice a day and I wouldn't have it any other way!  This again is my little piece of Heaven on Earth! The place my mother calls "little house on the prairie".  I couldn't make this up if I tried this is truly MY crazy life! 

Darcy

I live in a barn!

Greetings all!
Let me give you all a little background on myself before I get into this I live in a barn context.  I am a 37 year old mom of 3 amazing little monsters who I adore and drive me crazy simultaneously at every given moment of every single day!  I live on a small hobby farm with my incredibly adoring husband and this little piece of heaven grows bigger daily!  I over use the exclamation point because I am really excited about most of the things I say, as in I have a very upbeat personality and through writing that may be the only way to show it!!!  My husband and I farm, and I am a mascara slinging momma in the midst of the craziness and YES it really is that nuts!  I am an entrepreneur at heart and love to be creative and love working for the best boss ever - yeah, that's me.  I have a background in corrections and worked in law enforcement for 6 years before retiring to join the business world with my love; and, from that point on I was hooked.  But enough of that now onto I live in a barn.....

In 2007 we purchased a farm with a magnificent 100+ year old house and barn the kind that was made with wooden nails and put together over a very long period of time.  It was a century farm for my husband's family, his grandmother was the last baby born and raised in the house until we started our family.  Well the do it yourselfers we are, we decided it was a great place to set roots.  We began with some pretty serious renovating and that never stopped - I mean NEVER!  We would finish one project in that house and something else would pop up that needed to be done.  It was draining.  So after 8 years of repairs, fixing, updating and doing it all again we decided enough was enough.

Remember the magnificent barn I told you about it was seriously just amazing, we started raising goats in 2009, and like I said as an entrepreneur we didn't mess around we went into it full steam ahead!  We were going to have green mowing goats, sell some for breeding, and of course sell some to market.  By 2011 our operation was in full swing we had 90 goats, many were having babies and we were seeing the rewards of all of our hard work and learning curve.  On March 1, 2011 devastation hit and our barn caught fire, we lost everything, all but 6 goats and a donkey were killed in our fire.  Because of the age of the building the wood was dry and went up faster than I have ever seen.  It was horrible.  But if it wasn't for the fire that happened I would still be living in our 1890's house and doing repairs, if it wasn't for that fire we wouldn't have rebuild a HUGE pole shed to rebuild our herd of goats (that's a different blog), if it wasn't for that fire I wouldn't live in a barn now.

So here it is, this past year we decided after seeing someone else's amazing shed converted to a house that we could do that!  So again being do it yourselfers my amazing husband who in a past life built houses to pay for college and myself who had a dad who was a carpenter which I felt made me completely qualified to built a house; put up a house inside of our pole barn!  We put up every board and nail, we finished wood work, we leveled, poured concrete in places and worked off our tails!  And now I proudly say I live in a barn.  A beautiful up to date, I won't need to do any repairs on it for years to come, barn.  My beautiful barn house that looks like a shed with incredible windows from the outside but when you walk in is a small piece of heaven to me!  And what else would you have around your barn?  Well horses, donkeys, pigs, goats, cats, dogs and any other animal our hearts would desire!  All of which will make appearances in upcoming blogs!

I hope you enjoyed my first glimpse of my crazy life - yes it is very real!