Happy Birthday!

It’s Neco’s birthday! He’s 1 today, and cute as can be. Not QUITE as cute as when we brought him home, but close. He sure barks a lot more now! He got a dish of spaghetti for his birthday meal, and we sang to him. I’m sure that’s more than adequate for his doggy feelings to be appeased.

This week has been a very unfruitful one so far. I got up Monday feeling really rotten, with allergies really dragging me down. We are also doing a liver cleanse, so that will definitely make you feel bad, bringing out all those stored toxins. Thankfully, I feel MUCH better today. I literally spent ALL day on the couch Monday on the computer, while the kids watched movies. I had some picture editing to do, so it was actually a good opportunity, and the boys didn’t complain about having a day off school! Funny, they never do.

Craig and I got to have a date night last Friday, which was sure nice. I think it’s the first time we’ve ever done it on a Friday, and we remembered why… there are teenagers SWARMING the movies and restaurants! It wasn’t too bad, though. It didn’t really matter how many kids were around, as long as they weren’t with us! Then we spent Saturday cleaning house and cutting up deer meat before the kids all came home. That’s a chore we only have to do a couple times a year, but I always dread it. I’m talking about the butchering, not the house cleaning. I do that at least 4 times a year. Home butchering sure pays off, though, when you put a whopping 65 pounds of grass-fed venison in the freezer for free! Okay, maybe not free, but really cheap. It’s cheaper than beef or chicken, healthier, and oh, so tasty. Hopefully, we’ll get to make some jerky, too. We have that huge smoker out back and have never used it! Shameful!

Jake is in the kitchen making baking dough for a school project. We’ve been studying ancient Greece, and he had to come up with a product and create an advertisement with which to sell it. He chose custom-made chamber pots that are molded to fit your seat. You can get one for every member of the family, so everyone has their own fitted pot! Now he has to make the prototype, but he hasn’t decided whose derriere he’ll be using to mold the seat… not mine… he didn’t make enough dough. We are having a Greek dinner on Saturday for our family and the friends with which we study History and Science, so he will present his ‘commercial’ to us then. It ought to be interesting… everything is around here.

We have a new semi-pet here at home. Lunchmeat is a tagged deer that has been wandering around our neighborhood for a few weeks. He must have been raised by someone, as he comes running when we pull into the driveway, and has been hanging out in the yard for several days. He’s a young buck, with his horn buds just beginning to push through his skin. He loves to be scratched and petted, as long as you don’t mess with his head too much, and he seems to get along fine with the cat. Neco is finally calming down, but he did chase the deer down a couple times. I’m convinced that if he’d caught him, he would have torn into the poor deer’s ankle, but he never did. Now, if Lunchmeat had turned and run toward Neco, that brave little poochy would have turned and run right back to me with his tail between his legs, but he would have yelled doggie threats the whole way. He has a VERY big bark, but his bravery doesn’t often match up to it! Lunchmeat is a queer name, yes, but we like it. Jake suggested we call him “munch-me” or something, and I misunderstood him and said, “Lunchmeat is a great name.” And it stuck! We’ve given him one of the goat collars to wear with his tagged ear, in hopes of protecting him from hunters. Now that the season is, or is about to be over, he’s pretty safe, but he will be fair game by next season when his horns are grown out. Craig expects he’ll be gone by the first rut, anyway, answering nature’s call, and not return to be tame. He’s a pretty awesome pet, though. You don’t have to feed, water, or cage him – for what more could a mother ask!?!