Worst Chore and My FAVORITE chore!

Most people hate chores that they have to do daily. I guess there are a few that I don’t particularly love like doing dishes and I hate ironing. My favorite chore to do each and every day though is bottle fed my animals.

I was discussing with my husband how we went from one dog to 6 dogs, a cow, a calf, lambs, cats and 5 horses. Then I remembered who I was…an animal lover. It’s a big joke in my community that my name is Farmer Rae. It’s not because I farm that’s for sure. It’s rather for the fact that I have a bunch of animals….a Farm of them.

Our horses we saved them all except one was given to us. Princess, our black angus, we got at 5 weeks and had to bottle feed her for the next 6 months. Minnie, our calf, was a C-section baby that was early and we have bottle fed for months and will continue till she is about 8 months old. I love her! Then we have Stevie, Wooly and Lamb chops our bummer lambs that we bottle fed. And yes….6 dogs….of which over half were rescued and the other ones we just couldn’t live without.

You would think that is the end right but whenever my husband has some time (this is his busy season) we are going to go and pick up some pigs, and two more calves. So I guess I am Farmer Rae. I will hold that title proud. I love my animals! It’s hard not too especially when so many start out bottle fed and I am their momma!

How can you not love this….When they run to you each morning!

 

Or this….when Ryan is actually home late enough to feed with me. That’s always a treat!

 

Or seeing this…My cow Princess who used to be bottle fed. She still comes straight up to me even though she doesn’t even think about the bottle anymore.

 

They graze a lot too of course as you can see.

 

This is one Chore I definitely love. Sure beats dishes or ironing!!

 

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Ranching Easter

Easter was a ranching Easter with lots of friends coming together. Love love going to the Albaughs for Easter. It's becoming a tradition. Lots of food and fun. I thought I would just show it in some of my favorite pictures since I am late getting this blog out and already onto my newest adventure which you will hear about soon enough :)

Yes this is real and where we did our egg hunting at our friends ranch

Guys putting the eggs in barn in the snow...Lamb Following

Ryan coming back after loading up barn with eggs

Cooper posing in the snow with his Easter Basket

Yes its snowing in California on Easter

Looking for eggs and of course all parents are taking pics

So Darn Cute

The Amazing Hostess and Host of Easter

Eggs with $ in it

Cassie, Austin and Ms. Lewis

Trying to stay warm but got a lot of eggs (Jason)

Having fun with my hubby

The lamb so adds to this event

All the Easter Egg Hiders and the Easter Egg getters lol

Jason and Cassie pretty happy

Austin loving his stash of candy and money

Look Grandma!

Chillin and having fun!

Josh and Seth chillin and talking up a storn

Long Amazing Day and even the teens are out cold

Thank you to the Albaugh family for the fun at the Ranch. Its become a tradition that we love. The teens always feel like they are too old to hunt for eggs and yet.....they run around like chicken every year with smiles on their faces. I have many more pictures but these were just SOME of my favorites. I hope everyone had an amazing Easter. One filled with friends or family and lots of smiles. Remember your kids are never too old for an Easter basket, dying eggs or Easter fun. 

Subscribe to my blog by Google+, Bloglovin or email. Have a Blessed Day and watch out for my next post. My daughter and I drove 11 hours today.....stay tuned for when, where, why and how!

Rae-Rae's Brain Dump

Brain Dump can be crazy, weird, funny, interesting. Its when you write out what you are thinking for a certain amount of time. I thought I would do it and see what this ol brain has to say. So Ready...Get Set....GO! (5 minutes worth)

Okay seriously I don't know what to write but I want to make sure I have fun blogs and more subscribers everyday. Its important to me since this is my passion and at the same time it becomes a journal for me or even or my kids in the future. Who knows maybe I can be the next Blogging Crazed person. Wait...I think I am already. I think about Blogging all the time. Besides thinking about that I am thinking about how I should of changed my pants before I sat down to blog because I have lamb and cow drool on me. I really love feeding my animals. Its always super fun. The only time I don't like it is when we have to go somewhere or do something and I have to make sure its within 4 hours so I can get the next feeding done. I am worried about tomorrow. Oh ya tomorrow is my anniversary and after my Dr appointment I am hoping to have a Sushi lunch with my husband. I want to do something super cool for him but done know what yet. He deserves it.  I hate putting people out but I am going to have to have someone pick up the kids to take them to school because we have to leave at 6 am. I have to make sure my feeding is done before we go and then Becky will be feeding them at 12 and the kids can feed at 4. I hate putting people out. That is the one thing I miss is having family close by to help or we can help them. We are lucky because we will be gone for a week and my mother in law will be feeding everything. I worry about her hands though and the lambs and calf bombarding her. I am going to have to separate them. Its hard for one person to feed sometimes. Easier to have two with all the bottle feeding. Hence why I have milk on my pants and drool. Yep I even say Hence in my head. So weird.

Wonder how Ryan is doing with working on piping for Irrigation today? When Christines grandbabies come here we should make him lunch and bring it to him. I think I will bring canvas and we can paint outside with the kids because its such a perfect day. I really need to tan before the cruise. I look like baby powder. I wonder if this is going to be boring to others? You know how you start to read something but it doesn't catch your attention so you move on. Life is so like that now a days. I wish that we would put down our cell phones and shut off our computers more. I am bad about that too. I look at facebook a lot and am always trying to get my blog out there. Wonder what people think of it? Its so new. Cant wait to see how it does in years to come. Its going to be so cool to look back at the kids and see what they were doing all the time.

Hoping Jack, Cas and Josh don't get home too late tonight from their leadership conference. Even with phone calls I hope they had a good time and learned some stuff. I feel closer to Jason just after this weekend. Its nice to have one kid to spoil just for a weekend when you have four. Definitely going to have to take turns. I let him drive the car from ranch to ranch by himself and was worried the whole time even though we practiced a lot. He was so happy to do it and even turned up the music. Then when he drove me he slowed way down I felt like we would never get to the house. Has 5 minutes been up? I wish I thought more about cool stuff or intellectual stuff like a professor or something. Where is Christine anyways? Worried the Grandbabies aren't here yet for me to watch today. Man my mind is boring. Guess I will have time for another cup of coffee and to change my slobbered on pants. Its such a nice day outside. Don't think I will do a brain dump post again.
I feel like I am getting bored myself! Hope people subscribe anyways on the blog or google or bloglovin.

4 Teens Typical Day and a New Baby

The teens have a half day of school today so with the sun shining chores seem to be easier and they are wanting to be outside. This is a good thing for a mom to hear. I want the kids to always be active. Although sometimes I have to beg them for a picture but that's what I do. Bug my kids! ITS MY JOB! I swear it says in the job description of mothers that we have to bug our children. I do that by one...taking way too many pictures and two...I hug them for 20 seconds too long till they are like, "Mom OMG Mom". Yep! My job is done hehe.

3 of the kids coming home. Jason stayed after school.

The first thing they were excited about was all their scuba gear came in! I made them try it on and thankfully they didn't ask to take a bath or something with them. If anyone would ask that it would probably be Josh! He is always doing strange things. This is how he is on the couch right now ha!

Jack

 

Josh

Cassie

Our lambs we bottle fed four times a day. Today I had Cassie drive to the barn which is a couple miles. Although she is 16 she got into a cart accident months ago so she is a little skittish. We are starting all over on the driving. As she is used to driving the CART and now a CAR. She did good. I know when I was 16 I was chomping at the bit to drive. My kids aren't that way which is fine. They have all their lives to drive. Plus all of them drive on the Ranches anyways. Feeding went well as usual.

Driving on the Ranch

Cassie with Stevie the Lamb

Jackson was out looking for squirrels to get. They aren't real squirrels but rather ground animals. These things ruin the land by digging holes everywhere. Our horses, cows or lambs could get hurt by breaking their legs because of this. So Jacks passion is to get them out of that area.

Ryan had to travel to work today so he surprised the kids with Taco Bell. For anyone in the world this is probably not a surprise but when you live 1.5 hours from a Taco Bell it IS a surprise. I personally am not a Taco Bell fan but the kids love it. Even if the taco is a little soggy by the time its back home. YUCK lol! After giving the kids their precious taco bell he went to replace our headlights. Always something to do on the Ranch trucks.

Cassie did dance workouts and we walked some which was nice. She decided to also come with us to Jason's Beef meeting for 4H. Its amazing the stuff you can learn at those meetings. All about cows, how to fed, what parts they have and how to show them at fairs. I love that he is in 4H. Today we got to see an emergency C section to save the Calf. The Mom was not going to make it so it was better to save one.

One minute old

They were very curious

We named her Mini because she is a few weeks early and small. It was such an educational thing for the kids to see. Jason and Cassie had an educational experience with their friends!

The Beef 4H kids and Cassie

What could be better than that. Ryan and I got to help also. It was pretty neat. This little gals gonna make it and we were excited to see her come out alive. I seriously am amazed at all that Ranchers have to do and know. The ones we know do everything so kindly and so animals don't suffer. Here are a couple pics of the new baby! If she isn't able to be grafted onto another animal...we will be bottle feeding her. She had her first colostrum today.

I love her!!!!

Feeding Colostrum

It was a pretty normal day after homework and chores were done. I love the sun and the fact that things are blooming! My Rosemary and Oregano is back up and I think that calls for some Rosemary Chicken tomorrow! Yum! Planting my Garden will be just around the corner!

Hope you enjoy our family antics. Thank you for subscribing to this blog. If you like any of them please share! Today is the last day of our drawing. On March 31st I will draw 7 times out of all the names of those who have commented in that last 7 posts. You get a 7 chances if you comment on all of them. So go back 6 posts and comment. You still have time! Have a Blessed Day!

Rescue Lambs....everywhere

So they really aren't "rescue" lambs per say. If there was a huge operation of lambing in a ranch and the mother didn't take the baby....it might die because there isn't time to bottle fed. The ranching operation that we have friends with though they would feed every last one. Why though....when you have a Rae-Rae!

I love lambs...The first time I ever held or even saw a baby lamb was 2.5 year ago. I did a lot of oohing and aahing. I think I said how cute they were 400 times in one sentence. Ever since then during lambing season I was hooked!

Jackson holding a one day old

I love the bummer lambs. Bummer lambs are the ones that the mom refuses to feed. Bummer lambs also can be "special" lambs like this one that have a small deformity that makes it so the mom doesn't want it. The saddest ones are the ones that are born and the momma dies:( These don't happen that often but they do happen.

Our Rancher friends know how much I love to have the lambs and feed them so when something happens they call me up and I come and get them. I get so excited each time. So much so my kids even grown and say "another one mom?" ha! Our friends would bottle feed them themselves but they know how much I love them so they give them to me.

One of the twins who mom didn't make it

This week has been lambing week so a lot has happened. I ended up with two lambs that mom died during birth. These two I wont be keeping because its another friend of ours who is out of town and we are just helping out.

Our friends lamb

Then we got "Lammie" who is special because she has a cleft palate and one eye doesn't open all the way. She will never be bred but rather become food later in the season.

Our special lamb we named "Lammie"

Today we got twins #16 (just so happens its my favorite #) because the mom passed away couple days after birthing. It sounds like there are a lot of bummers but really their isn't.

Sheep usually have twins but sometimes can have up to quadruplets. We got another bummer lamb who was so precious only half the size of the smallest ones. It was sad because she only made it 2 days:( Its hard because I cry each time.

This lil lady didn't make it:(

These lambs are just so cute and I love them so. When they are new like this they are fed every 3-4 hours around the clock. Most people wouldn't want to do that but I really do enjoy it.

Since now we have more than just a couple lambs....we had to make their own room in the barn. Their first day or two of life though I keep them in a playpen to take care of them. Crazy I know. Once they are a little stronger or eating off the bottle easy then we move them into the lamb barn. You should see how funny I look driving down the dirt road in my pjs in the middle of the night to go feed them. Again though....I love it.

Love Cudding

I don't wish that something happens to the moms or that the moms don't take the babies....but let me just say if I get more lambs it definitely wont hurt my heart. They are just little now. I cant wait till they are playing and jumping. It is soooo cute.

Trust me...you would want one after you saw them in person too! I guess that's why my true ranching friends call me Farmer Rae. I am willing to take anything that is bottle fed. Who knows...calving season will be coming up soon.

Who knows we might end up with a couple more. Our own little flock. Its going to be a lot of work but it is sooooo worth every second of it. Really gives me happiness to see these bummers grow and flourish!

Ryan helping me  do late night feeding

yummmy

They love their space.

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