A rant and a rambling

Let's get my rant out of the way first.  This morning, I was very disgusted and angry when I learned, from some of my online Trisomy parent friends, that someone had created a seemingly informational website on Trisomy, and posted pictures of my Lilly and many other Trisomy children I know.  That was annoying but not the bad part.  The bad part was that if you clicked on the pictures for any of the children, to "get more information," you would be re-directed to a porn site.  YUCK!  I can not stand the thought of Lilly, or any of these innocent children, being linked to porn.  That makes me sick.

The internet has so many good uses but porn is NOT one of them.  The number of porn addicts is staggering and so sad.  People that repeatedly view porn are literally re-wiring their brains.  And countless lives being destroyed.  Whoever cooked up the idea to link these special needs kids to porn - well I haven't decided what punishment they deserve yet. 

We're working to get the photos off that site asap by writing letters of copyright claims.

OK. 

Yesterday Lilly's garden finally had a lily bloom - the first in over a year.  :)

Calla Lily

 

I mentioned recently that I had thought about trying to run some and had taken a few little runs to the mailbox and back.  My Dad (who is in his late 60s and is still running marathons and triathlons) encouraged me by saying to just try running "a little farther" each time.  I thought, "well I guess I could do that." 

I can't really explain it - I just have been feeling I need to do something hard.  Really hard for me.  I need a personal challenge to prove some things to myself.  I've never been a runner.  I used to play soccer when I was younger, and that of course required some running.  But not for distance. 

So I started running from the top of our driveway, to the road, and back up the driveway.  Two times the first night.  Since then I've added one or two laps each time.  Last night I made it 11 and a half laps.  And that equaled 1.09 miles.  I think that is the first time in my life I've ever run a mile!  And Tabby informed me that yesterday was Global Running Day.  Ha.

the slope coming up the driveway looks deceitfully easy

For the past month or so, the boys have been sleeping in a tent set up in their room.  A few days ago, Hunter finally was ready to sleep in his bed again.  And just a few minutes ago, Solomon told me he ready to go back to his own bed too.  Pretty nice camping though - inside the house means air conditioning and a lack of bugs!

Hunter likes to read before going to sleep now.  Here is his current book:

He raved that the chapter on induction motors was incredibly interesting.  I couldn't help but snicker.  On the inside. ;) I am impressed though, that he is reading books like this and understanding much of it as the reading level is way higher than a 7 year old level.  Motors are Hunter's current obsession and he has been collecting as many as he can.  He does all kinds of experiments with the ones that work.  I called him "Motorhead" but he didn't appreciate it.  I told him I once saw an old heavy metal band called Motorhead in concert.  He didn't understand what I meant at all.  ;)

The baby goats are doing well.  They nap a lot during the day and then are very playful in the late afternoon and evening.  They love to jump and bounce around.

In the second picture down, you can see new mama Sundrop in the back.  (The light golden brown goat behind the tree stump.)  I had intended to start milking her earlier this week.  However, she would have none of it.  We've never had a goat that wasn't willing to jump up on the milking stand and eat their breakfast while we milked.  Oh my. Sundrop would not jump all the way up on the milking stand and wouldn't stay up if we got her up there.  She finally got so upset she started butting with her head.  Ouch.

So I watched a few YouTube videos on how to milk goats that aren't interested in being milked.  Of course all those videos ended in success.  I have yet to have success yet.  I made some progress today though in that Sundrop allowed me to pet her back while she ate the first part of her breakfast.  But then she started headbutting.  Honestly I don't know how much patience I have for this.  On the one hand, I like the challenge.  But on the other, I've got enough other stuff to do like training, teaching, and helping my human kids. 

This "teenaged" chick cracked Tabby and I up the other day.  She was sitting on Lucia's bed, just chillin', like she owned it.

A number of our hens prefer to lay their eggs in a crate of hay in our woodshed.  The couple that owned the house before us warned us to be careful in their in the summer, because the snakes liked it.  Such as copperheads.  So once the weather is hot, I proceed very very carefully into the woodshed.  And I often pray "God please don't let there be any snakes in here but if there are, let me see where they are!"  Yesterday I took a cautious step inside, was surprised to see that there were not any eggs in the crate, and then saw the reason why. Very close to the crate was a long rat snake.  Yikes!  I just know that snake must have eaten the days worth of eggs that were laid there.  I halfheartedly though I needed to be the one to kill the snake but then saw that even if I were feeling gung-ho about it, it would be very difficult to do because of how the snake was weaved in and out of the logs.  Thankfully I didn't see it today, and the pile of eggs were back.  Ick ick ick.