Poppies in the fog and baby chicks

Heading up to TN. early last tuesday with the rain and fog these poppies just jumped right out and in bright sunlight i never can take decent pictures of poppies but the morning was perfect and I love the red color of the poppies with grey of the fog. Came home thru the smokies but was to early for the sunset, not enough rain for the small waterfalls don the mountain to be flowing. Wasd a long day up and back to Knoxville. Came home and my goats had gotten out and the neighbor was kind enough to put them in the back yard and close the driveway gate, but didn't know to close my garden gate so the goats just plwoed thru almost everything, got the blueberries and took just about every leaf off the huge climbing rose that had blown over in a high wind we had . ate some of the grass, trambled the daylillies but didn't eat the ones jyst getting ready to bloom or the gardenias which they usually try to devour when they are in the back yard and wzant to reach over the fence to get them, I double fenced so they can no longer reach.

It is rainy today, took 3 goats to the auction 2 bucks, faiths and hatties and snowflakes dow from last year, know I won't get much but not worth hanging on when the doe kids can use the milk and snowflakes kid didn't get bred and has a double teat so I wouldn't get much for her anyway. It has been another buck year for me and with hattie finally giving me a doe but she has a double teat, I seem to get one evry year. I hope I don't have to sell all my goats if the company I work for closes.

Anyway on the way home from dropping the kids ( goat ones that is) at the auction I stopped to cut some wild flowers indigo, daisies, some tiny purple flowers and some oak leaves I also cut something interesting and viney looking which irratated and made my skin itch on my thumb and finger on my left hand and It still is itchy so it wasn't the 7 minute itch plant which usually has bigger leaves. It about drove me nuts for trhe past hour itching finally cleaned it with bleach and warm water and then sprayed with benadryl and it has calmed down some. I should stick to cutting what i know! But here is the picture of the flowers and they are in a vase I made. Had to put a ziploc bag because it leaks

meant to trim it but forgot. Since it was still rainy when I got home the game hen was trying to cover her chicks which have gotten quite big, she has 5 left and you can see the feet of one on the left and the head of another just peeking out from under her on the right besiade the other 2 that you can see clearly, any day they will be on their own but till then she really takes care of them and attacks anything that comes close. I feed them up by the goat feed bins and now the wait down there for me in the morning. Hope she didn't have any roosters for I will be giving them away.

Goats on a hill and new babies

As I type this the goats are calling to be milked, that is one problem if I want peace and quiet in the morning I can't seperate mom and kids and get quiet. So this will be short. My Wyndottes that I got in september and really colorful and this one has already hatched out 5 baby chicks, it must have been 3 weeks ago when I got rid of the last rooster the dominique who kept attacking me well I don't think I have any roosters left and as one can see 5 babies! I also have 5 kittens that need homes . I took Little Bit my jack and my daughters boxer Roxy who is bouncier than tiger from pooh,out in the pasture. The goats looked really good on the hill so I snapped this picture looks like I have a lot of goats with all those kids in the picture. too bad i had sooooooooo.... many bucks again this year. My pasture is looking good and hopefully keeping the goats happy so they don't want to go thru the fence which is barbed wire and rip up their udders. Well just got done with the milking 5 goats and took about 2 hours just remembered I still need to clean up the bucket I feed the bottle kids on. Later I want to go out and pick some daisies I picked a bunch yesterday and Kenny at the feed store saw them and siad they were his moms favorite and asked if he could have them, so i gave them to him. well time to go clean the bucket.

pitcher plant bloom finally starts to open and wham the goats break in and eat half of it....

OK here it is I have been watching this grow from a pea sized bud to a marble size bud for about 6 weeks and then it starts to open ever so slowly and then my goats decide they want it and while I was working in another garden they broke in by climbing on the fence and crushing it and then jumping over the now lowered fence.

I picked up the new bees for Cindys hive and she put them in last night, that was interesting, it was difficult getting them out of the bee box into their new home, we also got a good look at the queen so hopefully we will be able to recognize her when we need too.

Now we don't check them for 2 days, hopefully they will like this queen, not sure what happened to the old one if the killed her or she died. Cindy called later to say when she went to check the bees still left in the ahipping box she picked it up to empty the rest in and she was stung on the hand. We need to get an eppy pen just in case.

It is now strawberry season here and I got my first container of fresh strawberries made 10 8oz jars of freezer jam and sliced a quart for use as a topping on vanilla ice cream, the jam is fantastic, i have had it on toast for dessert last night and beakfast this morning.

what was I Thinking and emotional blackmail

Did I really believe that once Bill and I reached a settlement that he would go away, you know I did, it is done, over but not with him. Well I learned about emotional blackmail, were have I been all these years and no one ever mentioned that what he was doing was emotion blackmail. This has reallt been tough and depressing dealing with him always in the back of mind what will he do next. I am tired of his control over me. Worried over what he will do next. Well enough, it costs me but I have a lawyer now and I can only let him hurt me if I let him.