BAD Patriot!!!!

Our doggie is so very naughty. For the last few weeks he has been chasing the chickens. We haven't thought much of it because chasing them is all he would do. For goodness sakes, his best buddy is a cat. Well, everything changed about 2 days ago. Our very naughty dog killed one of our chickens. And, he didn't just kill it, he was, ummm.... eating it. It was very disgusting. So I put the dog in his crate (to which for the rest of the day would say "bad dog!" every time I walked by) and went in to call Ryan. About 20 or so minutes later I went outside to get the poor dead animal off my lawn and the poor "dead" animal was still alive. It was terrible. I will not go into details about how impossible that seemed considering the state of the bird, but I was pretty shocked. Normally I would let Ryan handle such a thing, but Ryan was at work. I didn't even have Leah or Logan there. I called Ryan again with the intent of finding our which one of his guns would have the least amount of kick and well Ryan was not real keen on me doing the whole gun thing. Long story short (I know, too late), I had to whack that poor animal with a shovel. I hope I never have to do something like that again. See, these are not the things they tell you when you go into the local Tractor Supply during "chick days" and see all the cute little fuzzy butts.

Patriot is still getting the cold should from me even though I know he is a dog and it is in his nature to do such ridiculous things. We bought a wireless fence today, so hopefully chicken killing is no longer on the agenda.

Well, Leah is home from camp. Boy have we missed her! She had a great time and I always love how spiritually she seems to blossom. She hasn't felt well though all day. We are learning that a lack of sleep really affects Leah adversely. It almost makes her physically ill. I think camp wiped her out and I hope she is feeling better tomorrow.

4H is very much in full swing right now. We are weighing our meat birds regularly and we need to start dipping them in water to keep them clean and get them used to being handled. We have to figure out how much weight they are gaining so we are sure they aren't overweight for the fair. Each kid takes a set of 3 birds and the pen cannot be over 21 lbs. They were about 4 1/2 lbs 2 days ago and their judging day is like 11 days away. We just have a number of little things to do to finish getting their meat bird project ready. Also, Leah needs to get her quick bread stuff ready for the state fair. It feels a little overwhelming right now because we still have a lot to do and Leah was pretty much out of commission today because of the way she felt.

Tomorrow is Gee's 4th birthday!! That is so very hard to believe. He is really turning in to a little man. Today on the way out of church he was walking beside me and I had to stop to fix something I was holding. He stop also. After we started walking again he said "I waited for you because I didn't want you to be alone." So very sweet! Gideon is sweet like that a lot. He can still be very ornery and stubborn, but overall Gideon is such a lover. He has a beautiful and kind heart and he brings all of us immense joy. He requested eggs for breakfast (which I was happy to do) and then tomorrow evening Ryan's family is coming over to help celebrate. Gideon wanted a car cake, so that is what he is getting! In a couple weeks we are going camping with my side of the family and we will celebrate his birthday again there. Oh and I bought his present today. We have this little Amish variety store about 25 minutes away that I love. I bought him this adorable wooden barn with real wood fencing. Then, we went to the Tractor Supply and bought a bunch of farm animals for his barn. He will love it!

Julie