I didn’t get to say everything I had to say about this, which is ironic considering the MASSIVE length of my last post.  For those of you who only started reading it, the good part was at the end when I talked about boobies and wienie growing pills.  Anyhow, I wish I could write a letter to the people who send you those emails, and so I decided I would like to do so, just in case they ever google “wienie growing pills” someday to see who is their competition.  My goal is to see how long before I am number one on the google list for this search term… As it stands there are just a few sites that are showing people how to be taller, and some boobie enhancement pills.  No I don’t need those either, read the rest of the last post please…

Dear Suppliers of wienie size enhancement pill, device or elixir,

First of all, let me begin by saying that I do feel so special that you have found it within your generous and gracious heart to let me in on this ONE TIME limited offer.   However, I have a few problems, that have kept me from clicking on the button that says “begin growing your wienie now”.

First of all, lets think about how picky people are in general about their wienies, do you think I would just let anyone handle this delicate situation?  I mean it’s my WIENIE!  I would only have one for crying out loud, as far as I know I sure don’t want to be just taking pills, or using devices and elixirs of super wienie powers indiscriminately.  I mean, what if it grew too much and was like dragging along behind like a big ol panty hose filled with rice?  People would shake their heads, and in 30 years, old geezers would say stuff like: (old geezer voice) “Yep, I remember, it was back in Aught 8 that those wienie growing elixirs came out, and grew all those wienies to the size of bowling ball bumpers” (you know, those thingies they put in for little kids so they don’t get gutter balls?).   “Poor men lost their wives and jobs and now they just wander the streets begging for food because they can’t do nothing to support themselves with that big wienie, and ain’t none of ‘em man enough to have it docked off.  Yep could do it with a big rubber band at home, but none of ‘em wanna go back to being a little wiener guy.”  That’s what they would say.  Besides, even though you give a bunch of references from Joe and Rick, how do I know they are honest?  I want  a certifiable study, with research and all that.. I want to know FOR sure, because I don’t want to mess it up if I were to grow a wienie.  Its not like trying a new kind of plant food for heavens sakes, it a WIENIE, and wienie replacement surgery isn’t cheap either!

Not to mention it would get sore from being drug around, and if I am not mistaken, are these things not rather of a delicate nature?  Don’t they require cups, and protection, and cat like reflexes to deflect whiffle balls?  Cause I don’t have any of those things, and if I am going to be growing a wienie I would have to go buy all that stuff too, and really the $19.95 is high enough if you asked me, because I’ve lived without a wienie for years now and suffered no ill effects at all.  I don’t care to be on America’s funniest home video either, so I can’t recoup my losses that way either.  Really I am just NOT interested in owning a wienie, at all under any circumstances, I have enough to worry about and fuss over.

Well,  ok I admit that I have access to a wienie, but I don’t own my very own wienie, it’s sort of a loaner type deal.  I do it that way because I save on insurance, and maintenance of the wienie.  I have very little extra time for all the extra care and cost of maintaining my own wienie, so it seems logical to out-source this so some other person.  The funny thing is, I don’t even have to pay $19.95, I can just use that one when ever I want, no strings attached.  Plus I get a place to live, and food and everything else I want for FREE!!! Yup, my kids too, how good a deal is that?

So at this point, I’m just not seeing how it would be beneficial for me to start growing my own, when I can just use that one, it works just fine.  Funny thing about that one is that it grows all on it’s own, without pills or anything at all!  Kind of morbidly fascinating to be honest.  Anyhow, I don’t see any benefit to growing a new one of my own, because I know for a fact that the owner of my loaner wienie would get seriously weirded out by competition in this area.  Putting aside, his own natural aversion to foreign wienies, I don’t think that he would feel comfortable with competition, I mean what if mine grew bigger than his?  I mean, he gets upset sometimes when I trounce him at slug bug, so I can just imagine how difficult he would be if I had a wiener that grew bigger than his.  He’d probably just sit around and feel bad about himself, and not go to work or anything, then we would all starve.  On the grand scheme of things, I think I would rather not starve, especially when I don’t really need the wienie anyway.

Well, yes I suppose that I could offer to give the elixir to my loaner wienie, but really, it grows ok on it’s own, I think it would be fine with out the miracle grow for wienies if you know what I mean.  I’ve tried the kind for tomatoes anyhow and frankly horse manure works better.  Besides, the wienie is working well in it’s current state, and if it was bigger it would just take up more space and be more of a pain to deal with.  I mean he already hogs at least half of the bed, despite my being 8 months pregnant.  Which brings me to another point, it does seem to work exceptionally well, I mean this is our 5th child, so obviously there is no problem with it’s working ability.  It has a strong work ethic and has never quit on me yet.  I never even had trouble getting it started or anything.  I just really can’t complain about it at all.

Of course you can upgrade performance, buy a faster car, get more ram, and increase the size of your loaner wienie, but what if it decreases the performance?  I mean maybe I’m paranoid, but I upgraded my modem from Hughs net, and now my internet that was supposed to be so much faster, stronger, longer and better, stinks on ice.  It doesn’t work half the time, and is slower than molasses going uphill in January the rest of the time.  The only reason I don’t go back to dial up is the 2 YEAR blanking contract they made me take with the Free upgrade that they tried to charge me about $150 or more for.  So call me crazy, but fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

I have learned to be very happy with the old model thank you, and I don’t want a newer, bigger one.  Besides, there are certain traits that seem to go along with these things, and what if those increased in size too?  Ego comes to mind, and the always right frame of mind that seems to float in and out of the loaner weinie man’s mentality.  Of course I am aware that these things effect women too, but really I don’t live with another woman so it doesn’t matter does it?  I am living with a man, and if his wienie grows, maybe he will become a bigger er…Jerk once a month than he is now?  I’ve noticed this trend in him, and I really don’t think I want to increase the frequency or severity of this problem.  You never know how these things connect and interact with each other.  It’s like those men who take testasterone and then go crazy and tear apart a car with their bare hands.  I mean, that’s just the horomone, what if you actually increased the size of the manufcaturing plant?  That’s a little scary if you ask me.

Well, so you might argue the case of aethetics, but really, it’s sort of a weird looking thing anyway, and I don’t think anyone but the owner would think it was more attractive because it grew bigger all of the sudden.  I’m sure he would get tired of it anyway, he’s getting on in years, and as men go isn’t all that focused on his wienie anymore.  I’m sure he might really think it was cool at first, but really with all the picking that I see men doing at that particular area when they think nobody is watching, I think increasing it’s size would only be a distraction and irritant in the long run.  Supposedly, it gets malpositioned and has to be adjusted and relocated regularly.  It stands to reason that a smaller model would actually be lower maintenance… So increasing it would only cause the owner to need to pick at it more often, causing him to peer around to see if anyone is looking first.  What if he got a crick in his neck?  I mean its bound to happen eventually, since he would have to relocate it much more frequently than now.

I really don’t think he is interested either, and he seems pretty happy with this model, like I said, it’s a real work horse, never had a problem with it, in some odd 37 years.  That’s an impressive track record if you ask me.  Besides, I’m pretty sure if he wanted to try your product he would have clicked on his own link, because you send them to him too.   He’s pretty attached to the current one, and I just still don’t think messing around with something that works great and all is a good idea.  It’s sort of like the new WORD that Microsoft released, it’s huge alright, a huge pain.  It doesn’t work as well as the last one, and it takes up a tremendous amount of space and resources.  Plus now you have to look all over for things because they moved it all around and made it look funny.  Who wants a funny looking wienie?  Not me that’s for sure and I think not my loaner wienie man either.  We sure aren’t interested in having to look around for it, or decreased productivity either, we have 5 kids, we don’t have time or resources for possible lowered productivity that often accompanies these upgrades and size increases…

Anyhow, I believe I have addressed all the arguements for growing a weinie for myself, and also for growing my loaner wienie.  I don’t think this would work for me, however I do have a few sudgestions for how you might find more customers who WOULD like your product.

Advertise your product on the sides of cars…You know like Nascar does, only instead of race cars you would put your ad on those Dodge NEONs you see zooming around with racing tires, and spoilers about 3 feet wide on the back.  Because if you ask me, thats something someone would look at, if they were compensating for something..er smaller than they want it to be.  Think of it, here comes the car, with the bouncy up and down things going, and the neon lights underneath, with the spoiler and the rap music booming so loud it makes your butt vibrate 3 blocks away, and on the side could be your web address…. “Like what you see?  Quit compensating and grow your own!  www.growyourweinie.com  You’re slogan could be, save big money on fancy tires and get to the root of the problem…

You could do monster trucks too, you know the ones with the big wheels?  Those would also work, and what about in those body building places that sell suppliments?  They buy stuff there to grow their arms bigger, so why not weiner pills too?  You could also send out free samples to Drs.  I get those all the time for acid reflux while I am pregnant, and they really do work.  With the Drs plugging your product surly you would show a huge increase in sales, becasue after all, you garentee it to work or your money back right?

Well, thanks for listening, and I hope you find a good way to market your product.  You might try more traditional avenues of marketing and promoting your products, I don’t know, trade shows or the like.  I do fiber festivals and always enjoy those.  Good luck, oh and before I forget, please can you petition the weinie growing spammers club and ask if they would please stop sending them to my address, because I really don’t like to see them in my inbox, and I can’t really change this address as it is a work address.  Maybe you would ask at the next meeting, or weinie support group affair?

Thanks, you’re a gem.

Allena Jackson

Irony, that means something that happens that is unexpected, and often has a bit of humor in it.

Here’s and example: Nothing says hardcore biker dude, like a poodle strapped on the back of the bike.

That’s irony, for those of you who didn’t understand what it means.  It could also be called oxy-moronic.

Ok, so the poodle on the back of the bike at the post office was both, and it reminded me of why I always say, “darn I wish I had the camera with me”  The shot just spoke to me.

Which got me to thinking about why people create art, and why artists do what they do.  I was/am a painter, and I never did get that whole “Statement” mentality about painting.  I didn’t ever have much to SAY exactly.  I painted pictures, that I thought were interesting to look at, and maybe made you smile, or feel good.  That wasn’t ever good enough in art school, and I still don’t really get why.  SO anyhow I don’t do “high art” well because I just like the act of painting, and the result itself is my reward.

So, fiber artists are often looked down by the “high art” people because it is a “craft”.  But that is not exactly true, there is certainly much thought, planning and intellectual challenge.   And yes, you can even make up a bunch of crap that sounds interesting and thought prevoking.  Did you all read my Storm Trooper Tea Party post from Spindle and Wheel?

What I am getting at, is if you find “meaning” in your creations then that’s great, and I don’t mean to make fun of you.  If that is what makes you feel good and motivates you to create then that’s wonderful… Mostly I just want to make purty yarn, so leave me to my little red neck way of being artisitic ok?  You can make up some deeper meaning if it will make you feel better.

By the way, I decided when I am not pregnant, and I don’t have a baby in the house, I’m going to take up painting again, and the first painting I will do is of Barbie dolls.

Red haired ones, dark haired ones, and blonde ones, all lined up, talking and looking like they are waiting at the bank or something.  Then I can title it “Barbie Queue”

See?  That makes me smile.  Nothing else, no deep feminist meaning there.  Just a fun little joke, that you see and think “HA” that’s funny and go on, making your day a bit brighter.

Here’s another ironic response I got.  The other day, a lady called from Jeff city wanting to poll my husband who’s legal name is William Jackson, the same as his son.  I tried to tell this lady not to bother calling back because he would not care to participate, but she hung up on me.  Ok, so fine.  A man calls back, it’s 2 pm.  William Sr is at WORK!  DUH IDIOT!!!

So when he askes to talk to William Jackson, I says, well ok, he’s available, but you realize he’s two? That shut them up, and got us off the call list.  It worked great, I couldn’t believe how wellit worked, and I’m going to just give that to all my William Jackson spam calls.

Another irony, this pregancy has apparently made me fatter than previous ones, or something.  WARNING!  I am about to discuss boobs.

So, usually during pregancy they get bigger, and fuller as the first and second trimester progress.  They get tender and sore and in general make you wish like normal that you didn’t have any at all.

Well, so mine never did that too much this time, and I was too busy barfing about a bagillion times a day to notice much or care.  So then one day I get up and WHAM!  And really, I mean dang.

From 38 B to 40 D?????  What the flipping blip is that all about???  Did the boobie fairy come last night when I wasn’t looking???

So I didn’t know it, and I went and bought 38 C, but those were too small, so i went back and looked and had to upgrade from the $8 bra to the $14 bra.  Well ok, at least there is more material being used.  So I buy a 38 D, thinking that would suffice surely.

Why no, actually it was so tight around my middle that I thought my circulation was cut off and I was going to die, but the cup is right.  Which doesn’t mean Jack, because a 40 D will have a bigger cup.  Heaven forbid that they just make each friggen cup ONE SIZE and the around the chest measurement what you are around the blankety blank chest!!!!!!!!!

NO it has to involve a measuring tape, and some weird old lady with bi focals and a nasal twang at a department store, and I think she throws in a little gratutious calculus to calculate the parabula of my boob there in the middle of the fitting room.

So, is it really weird to carefully look around and check to see if anyone is looking and sneak a cup fit?  Well I did that because I didn’t want to go to the fitting room and deal with it.

So anyway I am a full figured woman now.  Oh and that brings me to the next point.  22W is a size.

For years I thought it meant 22 WIDE.

Yep I thought it did, because well, it’s discriptive and pardon me but somewhat accurate, if rude.  Cristlyn was kind enough, in a very incredulous way to inform me it’s WOMAN.  Not Wide?  Nope!  Ironic really, if you ask me, because that term really seems to fit well to me.

I admit it isn’t nice, polite or a terribly good marketing term, but really I just didn’t know any better.  And it’s not like I don’t wear these sizes at times.  Like now.

40 D is a WOMAN size lol.  Oh so it matches my 22 wide skirts.  I admit that I am rather wide right now, and that’s ok.  Cristlyn still gets indignant when I say my size is 16 W or whatever lol.  Now, it’s just funny to me.

Ok, so wide would be an indelicate term to use, but it’s better than lard butt, or fatty fatty fat fat.  Ahem, Beau   someone called me THAT last pregnancy.  OH and he they stepped on the scale in the DR office until I weighed 324 pounds.  I had to wait around because my blood pressure had sky rocketed to the point that they were concerned.  Apparently it was fine, just that I got excited when I thought I had weighed 320 pounds!  I’m not naming names here, but I think we all know who did it.  There has been a mutual agreement that this will not occur again.

Now, in the defense of the person, I am usually very difficult to ruffle, and this sort of thing would make me smile.  I’m pregnant though, usually it’s me that annoys him when I tease to much or to meanly.  For instance I would never threated to tie a barrel onto the top of the car for him to drive to Colorado with again.  I didn’t think it would upset him THAT much.  I’m glad I didn’t do that, and only collaborated on it.  So don’t feel too sorry for me, I do probably deserve it.

So, I’m living mighty large here on the ranch if you know what I mean, and I am seriously trying to not eat so much, as I am getting awful big.  I don’t mean big like some people say, and wear like a size 12 regular clothes size to accomadate their bellies.  I mean HUGE big belly, plus a big fat rear to go along with it.  And apparently this time, like 10 or even 15 pounds of boobs…  Which is good, because now I can honestly say “Really Dr, remember the 10 pounds I gained last checkup?  It was just boobies, and you know that isn’t from eating too much, that’s just the body getting ready.”  I mean yes, it is possible that it COULD be the half pound chocolate bars, but really it all went into the bra.

If only I had known how to do that in highschool.  I would have been stuffing half pound Symphony bars in my face right and left.   So now all I need to do is start sending out the spam messages about increasing the size of your boobies overnight with a new miracle cure.  I wonder if it would work for men too?  NO!!!!  I don’t mean to make THEM grow boobies, no man wants boobies, er, well maybe some men want boobies, but that takes hormones.  Get your head on straight here and work with me,  here!  I am not talking about that, I mean that I get spam messages all the time about how to make my twizzler grow.  I can’t use my spam call method for my spam email though, drat it.

I really wish you could reply so I could tell them they are wasting their time, because I don’t have a twizzler to grow bigger, and if I did have a twizzler, I would want to shrink it not grow it, becuase I would be having some serious issues…  Well so maybe some women would use these emails to grow their husbands twizzler, but to me this makes no sense, because it grows all on it’s own anyway doesn’t it?  Pretty natural thing, amazing and fascinating, but natural, most men don’t need a pill to do it.  Some men need viagra I suppose, and I get spam for that too.

Maybe I should switch my email to Idonthaveaweinie at thethreeringranch.com

think it would work?

How about Idon’tneedtogrowmyweinie at thethreeringranch dot com, or myweinieisbigenoughthankyou at thethreeringranch dot com?

Do you think people would think it was weird?

Yeah I thought so too, and it probably wouldn’t work anyway.  How Ironic.

My blog is actually worth MORE than Beau’s. Probably it’s the originality that does it. Plenty of blogs that talk about tech stuff and this and that. Mine has poop and vomit.

My blog is worth $2,822.70.
How much is your blog worth?

Apparently I put in the wrong address. See usually I type www.allena.thethreeringranch.com to go to my blog. Apparently for some clouded and mysterious reason this give me a $0.00 rating. Beau says that I must enter www.thethreeringranch.com/allena to get the amount to be correct. He mentioned that he could explain this, but that the answer was 12, so I thought I would just share what that means.

Now, before any big fans of 12 get all over me for not appreciating it as a number I want to point out that it is in fact one of my favorite numbers. It’s a MAGIC number. If you make socks, sweaters, or hats 12 is the number you want to be thinking on hard. Especially when working in the round. You see, 12 divids equally by lots of numbers. 2, 3, 4, and 6. So what?  Well all the knitters who don’t understand the magic of 12 (which I doubt there are any actually being a very clever bunch) are saying OH WOW! That’s amazing!

You non knitters, be patient and I’ll explain because you really aren’t getting it at this point, and that’s a shame. Tell ya what go get some needles and make something from yarn and suddenly that statement aughter make you real excited. No? Well ok I’ll just tell you.

When you see all the beautiful lace or stitch patterns that make things beautiful, it is because you do certain things in a certain order. This small or sometimes huge sequence of knitting actions is what we call a stitch pattern. There are whole books dedicated to them, and we call them stitch dictionaries. Think of it as sort of a programming library like you would use for software development, only on paper, and knitting instead of all the handy little tricks and ways to make something work in a programming language. If you are a programmer, then suddenly a lightbulb went off, but you knitters, just ignore this explanation, it’s basically just the way they make things work when they don’t know quite how to do something.

ANYWAY, so stitch patterns have a repeat, so you have one pattern, that repeats a certain number of times. So how the heck does 12 factor into this? (Such a bad pun I know, I can’t help myself, I don’t get out much)

Lets say you have a stitch pattern that is a repeat of 6 stitches. If you are making it up as you go, then you need to have a multiple of 6 as your total stitches for this section of the pattern. Let’s just say it’s a sock, because socks are especially important to cast on in a multiple of 12 if you can. Huh? you knitters may not be following me here, but give me a few to explain.

If you knit a sock with a stitch pattern that has a repeat of 6, then you can cast on any multiple of 6. So 12, 18, 24, 30, 36 and so on. BUT if you are knitting them on double point needles, I use a set of four. So I have the work divided equally on three needles because my tiny little mind has trouble. Obviously 6 will always divide equally by three, but your math gets really easy if your total stitches are a multiple of 12 because you can also use other multiples of 12. So for socks, you measure around the leg, multiply this by your gauge and take that number and round it off to the nearest multiple of 12. It should work fine. 36 for larger gauge yarns, and 48, or 60 for finer yarns.  Convienently 24, 36 and 48, 60 and 72 will fit every size in most gauges from infant to giant lumber jack man, unless you have a really fat yarn or a very tiny one.  They also usually work for hats and baby sweaters.  Now a disclaimer here, I’m not a sock knititng expert/fool, so if you want real tricks or tips then go talk to Donyale.

So you can have a stitch repeat on these stitches of 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, 24 and sometimes 18. so some stitch patterns don’t fall into these, but you can tack a few border stitches on, and voila almost any stitch pattern, and it divided evenly on three needles AND the patterns aren’t broken over a gap, in most cases. Brilliant I say, bravo 12!  BUT what if you use a set of5 needles you say?  Well then you need them to divide equally over 4 needles and 12 still works so THERE!

So by now you either think I’m clever or an idiot. Which ever is fine, doesn’t matter, because now we will talk about Beau and the number 12.

About 7 years ago I worked with Beau at Cornerstone, we made software for the travel industry. I was a project manager and Beau was a developer, so we worked quite closely, and for the most part this worked out well. Occasionally the boss would question whether we were staying on target, and one such time he asked me what took so long in Beau’s office.

Mike : You were in there a long time, what took so long? Nothing’s wrong?”

Me: “No, just nailing down a few details”

Mike: “Sounds like more than a few…”

Me: “Well, you know how sometimes you ask Beau a question, and he takes about a half an hour to explain, and then finally you find out that that the answer is 12?”

Mike: (roaring his big mighty HA! laugh!) “Yes, I understand now, never mind.”

Well, anyhow, Beau has a tendency, that many times I find quite endearing to over explain things. Particularly when it comes to something especially mundane or boring like numbers. Numbers such as 12. Or exponents, or maybe counting in hexadecimal or binary. He will get a goofy grin and happily start counting on his fingers while looking up at the sky for all the world like a 5 year old who just learned to count to 10.   Dominic does this too, and I am flawed enough that it often elicits eye rolling and deep sighs from me. I do try to hide it though.

So anyway if you ask Beau what number to cast on for a multiple of 6, with such and such a gauge and such and such measurement. You will get the aforementioned discussion on the merits and glories of the number 12. So I can’t take credit for it ok? But really, the answer is 12. SO if you want to know why the one address doesn’t work, and the other one does, feel free to go ask him on his blog -

www.beau.thethreeringranch.com

or

www.thethreeringranch.com/beau

whichever you like is fine, but in the end, the answer is 12.  Which is now our little catch phrase for “I can tell you, but you probably don’t care to know the details, just trust me and go on.”

I’m good with 12.

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

Well, is that right?  Everybody else’s is worth thousands.  hmmmm I need to think on this some before I decide what this means.

I mean, I think I provide valuable and important information to the public that is difficult and hard to come by, even on the internet.  I mean really, this is the stuff that is hard to learn…

Obviously a shepard, genetics expert or SAHM didn’t do this test.  (You know, and look at the range here people, there’s something for everyone!)

I think the person who did this, is wrong and they are an idiot.  Sorry fella,  jmho….  Butterscotch coconut cookies recipe fool!  THAT is valuable.  Take one pregnant woman, and severe sweet tooth and 12 am at night, having to drive 30 miles (one way,  people this is the sticks) to a store open at that hour and tell me that recipe isn’t worth a little something….

Not to mention proper procedure for when the boy poops so much that it fills up both feet and LEGS of the footie-jammies.  Where else are you going to learn how to deal with that?  I mean let’s be realistic, it sure ain’t in any book I have ever read, and I’ve read a bunch of them.  Mostly overly sanitized and not very informative.  They tell you stuff like “you’ll be tired” and “Your sex life with change” Well, no fiddlie-dee duh stupid, ya think?  You have three PHD’s in what???  Here is what it should say - ‘You’ll be so flipping tired you won’t care if you have a sex life for at least 8 weeks or so, then you will have one out of desperation just to stop the dreams, because they disturb your sleep”  THAT is the real deal people.

So when reality hits and you have poop all over a three year old, or a whole room, who ya gonna ask?  Nobody’s going to just come out at the playground and say “Oh by the way, I was wondering what you do when your kid covers themselves completely in crap and it’s so bad you don’t even know where to start to get it cleaned off.  How do you manage that without running away down the street like a mad woman screaming with trash can lids strapped to your feet?”  Yeah, sure you will ask that.  Not something to bring up at the local playgroup either.  Hence I provide this important and valuable information, despite opening myself up wide to criticism and ridicule by the masses, not to mention some man rating my blog as worthless because he obviously has no kids yet, or possibly never changes poops.  Heh heh, you just wait fella, someday, someday your going to have a poopie Van Gogh to deal with, THEN we’ll see who’s blog is valuable…

As an aside, latex gloves are a must to have on hand at all times.  Playtex type dish gloves too!  Use the playtex ones and paper towels to wipe, scrape and smear most of the poop off the kid who will squirm and try to touch everything, especially your hair and face.  A face shield is optional, but well worth the 9.99 at Harbor Freight…  Dispose of all of these in a doubled walmart bag.  Put the jammies in too, trust me it ain;t worth the 4.99 to wash them.  Once you have the kid standing on a paper towel and at least 75 % of skin is showing, put them in the shower and hose it off as best you can.  THEN use paper towels, wet wipes or a rag you can just throw away to wash it off.  Take kid out, and one parent should then take the time to completely BLEACH the shower and all of the offended area. (if your smart, this is the chore you do, let the other spouse do the kid in case they blow unexpectedly)  Also turn a radio up really loud while the water runs so you won’t hear them screaming for help in a panicked and frenzied tone.  Trust me, this is key.

The second parent should take the kid to the second bathroom, and bathe the kid again, use lots of soap and water.  Scrub ‘em down good, because it gets in nooks and crannies…. Don’t forget behind and in the ears, and under toe and fingernails…. Then dress the kid, better use more footie jammies, as if it happens again it will contain the massive explo-so poop.   Bleach the second tub and bath area.  Take a bath yourself, remembering the behind the ears advice.  After bleaching again, you are done.  Bear in mind though that the boy/girl has probably reloaded by now, so just wash, rinse and repeat.  Make sure if you had to wash the kid that you make the other person take a turn, because there ain’t no hazard pay here people!   God help you, you poor, poor soul.

I offer this valuable and free advice openly and honestly with no reservations, because enquirering minds want to know.  I have a real tabloid type of appeal to some of my stuff, a real morbid curiosity thing.  Look how much tabloids are worth.  It’s like a car wreck, you can’t just stop reading when your talking about poop shooting out of an infant in a 3 foot fountain all over the Grandma who is desperately trying to deflect the flow and keep it from squirting all over her, the couch, the wall and floor.  Where else are you going to get this stuff?  This is the REAL story of parenthood.

I mean here I am, selflessly sharing all the gory details, disregarding my own embarrassment for the benefit of my small but important following by providing important and hard to find information, and yet it’s worthless.

We’ll just SEE about that!  I’m going to email them to review my blog, cause they are wrong I just know it!

Ok, well so I use my blog sometimes for record keeping. Do you know that I wouldn’t have known the due dates if it hadn’t been posted on the blog? I can’t loose it when a kid acquires the notebook and colors Veggie Tales pictures all in it or something of that sort…

Anyhow, I have more lambs that have come and here’s the new pictures.

Lucy came up to eat grain on Friday night, nothing seemed odd. Beau had just gave the horses their grain when he heard bleating. After investigating, he found this little feller..

Another flashy little lamb for us, and another ram sigh. Oh well someday we will get ewes instead of rams. The really funny thing is that Beau left the scoops laying on the ground when he found the lamb

The next morning, Moron I mean Mist found the scoops and managed to get one stuck on her face. She backed up all over the yard like a cat with a sock on her head before she finally managed to get it wedged on something and pull it off. I got such funny pictures that I submitted it to LOL cats. So far, it hasn’t done anything but here it is.

moar funny pictures

Personally I think it’s funnier than most of them on there, but apparently the general audience at lol cats doesn’t agree.  So go over and vote for me and help me become famous for something.
Then yesterday we got home from Church, after checking on Mist (The last one to lamb, or so we thought) Elizabeth runs in and tells us Maria is lambing. Maria is a yearling and shouldn’t be preggers. She had gotten loose with the breeding group, but we were pretty sure nothing happened because she apparently pretended to recycle. They moon about, making eyes at the rams and in general act uh friendly. Well, it was apparently an act. Another teen pregnancy being hidden from the parents.

Another big single, she would have done ok if it had been twins I think, but this little girl was so big that we had to help. I had to help two this year, which is more than normal, both of them big singles. I don’t know what is up with that. Generally the ewe is the one that supplies the information for lamb size, but I wonder if Jerome throws big lambs…. I have also wondered if the high temperatures during breeding season could have made for more singles than normal, either by effecting the ram, or the ewes. Over all a weird year for lambing.

So, we don’t know who Daddy is, it’s Liam or Jerome. Liam unfortunately is Maria’s sire. Oops. Speaking of oops, we named this lamb Oopsie for now. We can have her tested for paternity if she turns out nice. We will probably wait some time to see how well she grows out. So far she looks outstanding, better than her Mama or Daddy in conformation, regardless of which Daddy.

So Mist is all that is left (I checked the last ewe lamb, no babies!) and I am starting to suspect she recycled and will not lamb until about the 13th of April. But, I’m still watching and waiting.

Finally a short record of how lambing went so far.

Cecilia 151 days

Agnes 150 days

Monkey 151 days

Mandy 151 days

DuClair 146

Ashlin 149 days

Brietta 148 days

Lucy ???

Mist ???

So next year I will be basing my lambing due dates on a 150 day cycle. Easier to have lambs come earlier than expected than late!

Ashlin lambed yesterday morning to a single ram lamb. He was a big fella! I had to help out a bit, although I shouldn’t have needed to, but somehow her labor just stopped. Anyhow long story short, everybody is fine. She’s so skittish that we speculate when Beau walked outside to feed she shut off her contractions from fear. So she’ll be staying in the jug for as long as it takes for her to calm down.

He’s a cute fella, and we are glad we got him born ok, dispite his mothers skittishness. We were lucky to catch her when she tried to bolt through a fence and got stuck. I hope we can calm her down some. I would have like a few Shetland ewes, but it looks like I will get very few…

So after Ashlin, I had Brietta and Mist to lamb. I also have one cross bred ewe Lucy to lamb. I want more Shetland EWES! sigh

This afternoon, I noticed Brietta was hiding behind some empty gas cans. I kept an eye on her, and after she started pushing I went out and observed from a respectable distance. She was straining very hard and started grunting and hollering enough I went up closer because I was afraid something was seriously wrong.

It didn’t click with me right away what I was seeing, everything looked strange….AH the nose and feet were WHITE!!! I got so excited I thought I would pee my pants (preg alls actually). Hey lets give me a break here ok? I can easily pee my pants right now from an energetic sneeze…. it’s part of it ok? Anyhow lamb number one’s head was born and I saw that I got the exact markings I was wanting!

I TOTALLY was NOT expecting this. I didn’t think I would get this for another year or even two of breeding for it! I don’t know why she made so much noise, they usually don’t and the lamb was on the smaller size. Maybe she is just built a bit small. Anyhow, she wasn’t happy at first. I went in and cleaned out the nose, suctioned the mouth and each nostril while she obsessively licked the ground nearby. I had to take him over to her, she was a little afraid of him at first. Luckily they get over that!

So I got her in the jug, and went inside, sent a picture to Beau, and did something else I forget what…. Oh yeah use the bathroom, so that I wouldn’t pee my pants later. When I came back out, I heard her hollering again, and went in and saw ANOTHER ONE! I thought she had another one in there, but not another spotted one!

TWO moorit (brown) yuglet fleckets! That means white with a spot around each eye and a 50% or more white body with dark colored spots. They are both rams, which is the only downer. I would have liked ewes, but still I have two nice little rams to use if I like, or sell. I will let them grow out I think to see how they turn out.

So I have Mist and Lucy left. I hope that Mist will give me a ewe at least….I only have ONE shetland ewe lamb. I only got one last year too, doesn’t seem fair. Anyhow hopefully Mist will give me some ewes so the flock can grow…. I may buy one or two lambs elsewhere so that I can grow my flock

So I need three names…. I’m behind on names.

Too pooped to pop, going to bed…

Well, first DuClair lambed on Sat morning at 11:20 - ish. Twin lambs, one girl and one boy. Following the new theme they are named Peter and Piper after this:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled Peppers,

How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper Pick?

This theme has been a really fun one I admit it! Here is a picture of the wee ones, all slimey and getting up the first time. They were all of about 10 and 15 minutes old or so at this point.

Peter has some nice white splashes on his cute little face. He is quite saucy and rambunctious. I may have him sold already as a fiber pet.

I am loving the heads on Jerome’s lambs, they are very nice with a wide space between the eyes which is very desirable for conformation. They are so cute, of course, but also look like nicely put together little things.

Piper doesn’t have any white to speak of, a hair here or there. She does carry spots obviously, so that is ok. Crossed back on Liam or Griffin, she should give me a nice marked lamb.

Saturday night Mandy “lost” her ligaments. There are two ligaments that extend from the backbone down to the hip bone. It feels like a pencil normally, but literally looseness up until it is gone right before birth. Mandy lost hers Sat night, so I was up till 11, then up at 12, 3, 5 and finally 7. ugh, wore out and tuckered. (Then to top it all off, SOMEONE sucks down a whole pot of coffee before I can even get a second cup poured.)  But, to prove I am not paranoid however, she kidded at about 9:15 am, I believe with kid number one. Since we needed to pull these off of Mom, we needed to be there when they were born.

Pulling the kids, is something many people don’t agree on, and I admit that it is unpleasant to do. Mom moons about for a few hours afterwards, and you feel like the biggest jerk in the world. Monkey got her kids pulled off at two days, because her udder was getting ruined.  Mandy got hers taken right away so she didn’t seem to mind so much.  Some people just drown the kids at birth, which seems wrong to me, but I guess to each his own.  These kids will be bottle fed by my kids, so they will be well loved, as you will see in a few.

There is a difference in the udders, Mandy has the easiest and nicest teats to milk. Monkey is harder to milk, and part of this is because of her problems she had last year with freshening and raising her kids. Anyhow, Mandy and Monkey are back to themselves again, and seem to have forgiven us. I now am very glad we did this, because it is working much better for us. The girls LOVE bottle feeding the kids, and really even Beau and I enjoy the nighttime feeding at 10pm that we do.  We can moniter how much they are eating, and also how much milk Moms are producing.

So there were three kids born, two girls and one boy. One girl goes back to the breeder we bought Mandy from, as part of the original sale, and the other two are ours. The boy kid will be given away in a few days when he is strong and ready to go off to a new home. Since the babies were born on Divine Mercy Sunday, the one kid we are keeping will be named Mercy in honor of the Mercy of Christ. Well, everyone ELSE can be named by the theme ok?

There is nothing cuter than human kids “bouncing” with goat kids. The girls bring the kids out into the big yard and they all play, and it’s really incredible to see. Trying to get a picture is about as easy as catching a fly in mid air with a two by four, but I did get this one.

It isn’t a great photo, but you do get a good feel for the general air and way things go. The girls run and jump, and the kids run and jump along behind them. The kids can race along and pass the girls now. Here is a better shot :

Note the boot in the lower left hand corner. The sheep were also very curious, and played some with the kids. They seemed to accept them happily enough.  THe general consensus was “What the heck is THAT?” and “What happened to that poor lambs ears?”

Of course we had to show them to Candy, who is very interested in all new babies. She is very motherly, and I think would adopt a baby of any sort. Moon and Popcorn of course we NOT allowed anywhere near the babies.

Of course her expression says it all, “Dang, no wonder it’s Mother didn’t want it, that’s the ugliest foal I ever saw.”

Finally, I have been dubbed “Farmer Preggo” by the children. This is because I have had to do birthing and milking and all sorts of chores where skirts don’t suit me so well. I don’t own any pants that fit me right now, so I have been wearing Beau’s overalls he wears on workdays. What he uses up for height, I use for my extra width. Overalls ROCK for farm work, I guess that’s why so many of the feed store set wear them. Anyhow, I was putting down some bedding in one of the camper shell jugs, and Beau took this photo of me.

Actually I was thinking, I could just stay in here and take a nap, no kids squalling and making racket to keep me awake. I didn’t think about a few things though. First of all, I needed to pee and secondly, I wasn’t sure how to get back out. It is comfortable, and would be a prime play house for children… Farmer Preggo, signing out!