5 Things, and something you should watch...

5 items in which I update you on my life (sorta, some stories reserved for later posts).

1) It has been raining here the last two days, and is supposed to rain again tomorrow...blah. Of course, it is supposed to be lovely on Thursday and Friday, when I am scheduled to work. Reasons I dislike rain, even though it is needed:

-> the pasture becomes a muddy mess
-> the yard becomes a muddy mess, and I get stuck when I try to mow and get mud all over the mower, even if it is 4 days after it has last rained.
-> 3 of our dogs go in and out of the house, therefore, they track a ridiculous amount of mud into the house, even when we wipe their paws off. Which is really nice on the white carpet the former owners thought was great in a farm house (I can't wait to one day change it).
-> we live in an area that floods. Luckily, our house is not in the flood plain, but the town around our house is, and the creek is getting high...not sure it is going to be able to make it with yet another full day of rain...

2) This reason for disliking the rain deserves its own number. Rain makes the stairs to the chicken coop extremely slippery. So slippery, I slipped on them twice today. The first time, I'm not sure how I didn't end up on my butt...but I did catch myself and only hit my arm. The second time, I don't know how I didn't end up on my face. I thought for sure I was going to go down and hit my face on the steps. It is going to happen one of these days if we don't fix how slippery the steps are. I just know it...

3) I walked outside yesterday to take care of the animals before leaving for work and found myself looking at a deer head. I was quite surprised. I shouldn't have been, since we have pieces of deer around our property often since we pick up road kill for the wolfdogs, but I was not expecting this deer head outside my door in the morning. I have no idea how it made it from the wolfdog kennel to the front yard. I don't really want to know. All I know is that people that don't know we pick up roadkill for the pups would probably be really freaked out if they visited our house (and might be even if they did know...).

4) I was extremely distressed while subbing yesterday because of what I observed while subbing for a preschool. There were about 13 kids in too tiny of a space, and 4 of these boys went around punching/hitting/kicking/terrorizing the other kids the entire time. When I asked the aide what to do in order to correct these kids, I was told I could just talk to them...and let them know that we didn't allow hitting. WHAT?!? Obviously this works well. I was told it was a regular occurance and didn't just happen because I was a sub. What ever happened to good old-fashioned punishment? I'm not saying I'm for punishing a kid, but time-outs...some sort of consequence! Talking to them. Right. I am honestly scared at what I see in schools nowadays...every time I sub, it becomes more clear to me that the upcoming generation is not raised in the way I was raised...and are just not what I would hope a child would be...

5) The other day, as I was doing things near the wolfdog kennel, I started to hear squawking. I couldn't figure out what was going on, until I looked closely at Kaos, and saw that he had gotten a hold of one of the chicken's tails! I started kicking at the kennel and yelling to get him to let go (which was quicker then running around the other side to actually get in the kennel), and finally he did. Now, Kaos has been quite obsessed with the chickens since they arrived. No doubt, he would love to make them a snack if he could. The chickens are absolutely oblivious to the fact that he is constantly watching them as they walk around, and under the wolfdog kennel (yes, they go under it...it is built on a wood platform, and they love all the bugs they can find under it). They have been torturing Kaos as they have been walking under him, and he constantly tries to pounce on them as he can see them through the cracks between pieces of wood. I guess, this particular day, the chicken's tail poked up just enough between the pieces that he was able to get it. When released, the chicken walked out from under the kennel, shook herself and continued on her way...despite the fact her tail feathers were a little plussed! And wouldn't you know, they were right back under the kennel just a few hours later...

I'll be back tomorrow hopefully with an update on things around here. I needed a little break as I explained in an earlier post. I did have a rough few days last week, but I'm feeling better.

I wanted to put a video in here, but it seems that the emedding from YouTube has been disabled for this particular video. So, click here to watch it. It is an amazing performance...brought tears to my eyes...and Simon's face. I love it.