I felt like a tourist!

This last week we were given the opportunity to go out boating on Flathead Lake with Bill (my dad's friends and boss from work), Tammy, and Stephen their son. It was probably the warmest day we have had this last year, and it was fantastic to be zooming around the lake. Luke, Stephen, and I sat in the front of the boat and it was really fantastic to just watch the mountains and water go by. One thing that I found interesting was how on different parts of the lake the temperature would go up and down in seconds tremendously. Like I would be really warm one minute, and then putting my jacket on the next. Dad and Mom sat on the bench seat in the back. Bill drove and Tammy sat shotgun (is it called that in a boat?). Haha, my hair was so funny. As long as I looked forward, I was good, but if I looked back, I was like Medusa head:) When I got home I had to work for quite some time to get all the tangles outWe boated all the way out to what I think was Wild Horse Island. We saw, oh, probably around 3-4 mule deer with huge racks. They even had these little forts set up on the shore. I took pictures with my phone, but I'm too lazy right now to get them off:)Luke and I.

We stayed out for over three hours and went all around the lake. We looked at the houses around Yellow Bay, ogled over the castle on it's private island owned by I think the CEO of Pepsi, and over all just had a great evening. It really felt like a mini vacation and reminded me of how much I've always wanted to live on a boat. Maybe someday...... Anyhow, I was so thankful we were able to do this and really hope we can do it again.

I burned

Yesterday was the first day of summer, and you know what?.... it actually felt like it! We have had non-stop bad weather for weeks now and since it was great out Tina, Christian, Mom, Luke, Rachel, and I all went down to Echo lake. The water honestly is still really really cold, but we canoed and kayaked around for a few hours and then braved the water. (Christian, Tina, Mom)My hansome lil bro:)Rachel!!!!!I love this picture! I thought it epitomized the little creature always behind me:)MomLuke and I,

and then Rachel and I.

Overall it was a great day. I really hope summer starts to kick in better now but the expectation of rain is high..... *yuck*. I guess we have to be thankful for all the: mosquitoes, flooding, and pale skin......? No, in all seriousness, there are some benefits of the bad, weather, can't really think of any good ones, maybe no fires? I'm sure there are lots......

Dumb Birds

Yes that is a chicken, and yes it is roosting on the computer monitor. But how in the world did it get there? This story goes back about about two months, when mom had a moment of weakness and decided to bring home two chicks from Murdock's. With chicks, we always set them up in the house with a heat lamp so they can feather in before we bring them to the coop.

A few weeks later, when they were still small, but feathered in enough, we graduated them to the big chicken home. I don't remember what mom and I were doing, but for some reason we weren't home and Luke was going to watch them. The most pitiful sight awaited us when we walked in the door, there was my brother Luke, sitting on the couch, tearing up, with a bloody head featherless chick shivering on his lap. Apparently the rooster had attacked it and Luke rescued it to the house again. A few days later the rooster attacked one of out hens and she had a huge gushing crater of blood on her back. Unfortunately for us, that meant turning our den into a place for chickens to re-cooperate (pun intended).

Right now you might be going "oh, poor chickens!", or "how wonderful that your mom saved them". Well, haha, not! I'm not trying to be a horrid human being with no pity for the harmed beasts, but these birds have made the last few weeks a living nightmare at times. At first it was ok having them in the house. The birds slowly started to recover and I could deal with my room smelling dimly like a chicken coop when I woke up in the morning, but that's when mom started having a emotional attachment. Every day Mom would take the three reject birds out to the garden and then if it rained or when it got late, brought them back in. It got to the point where once mom even said "Hi Meg, I just got back from taking the babies on a walk. Before that we played in the garden together, now I'm bringing them in the house because it was getting chilly out".

Do you see what I mean! They had infiltrated my mothers heart and once she even called them her loves! The straw that broke this camels back was when she started using the same names for the chicks as she did for me! She would be talking and I'd be like "yes mom?", and I'd walk into her talking to the dumb birds. This was about the time that the word "chicken" changed to "dumb bird" for me. It stuck too.

There is so much more to this story that I'm not even going to delve into like: what was happening in the chicken coop, the rooster escaping and then coming back, trying to free range the chickens, buying a pecking block, finally getting rid of the rooster, dad and I going crazy, loosing chickens in the house, stepping in unpleasant stuff, the den always smelling horrid, Cleo chasing the dumb birds, never being able to watch anything with mom in the den without her codling the creatures, them flying around the room, making chick food in the food processor (the worst sound you will ever hear), having them try to attack me, and so much more.

So that brings us to the first picture. I walked into the den to use the computer and I was so startled by that sight my heart was pounding for minutes afterwords. I had no clue what it was at first, and no one really truly expects to see a chicken on the computer.

Last Saturday morning was a great day for various reasons, but one of them was because it was the day we brought the birds out. We finally put the hen with the other chickens, and the two chicks in the garage. But you know what? I don't care that they are still not in the coop, because they are out of the house! No longer does this side of the house smell, no longer do I find a bird under the piano, no longer do I have to share mom with three dumb birds. Life is great, and I can sit here, in the den blogging without hearing the birds scratch, peck and fly at the sides of their boxes. Like I just said life is great:)