Holden did super duper good at speech therapy today.  His therapist is so impressed with how well he is progressing.  While he was in therapy I was finally able to touch base with the person who runs the local food bank about the Thanksgiving dinners.  She had called last week but, of course, my Blackberry was Dead when she called.  We meet tomorrow to go over various ideas.  She seems really excited.

Also today Holden read a book! It was a short Bob book style story from readinga-z.com.  All of the kids have had a good homeschooling day, actually.

I am convinced that Roselle is pregnant.  Her behavior is just far too sedate considering that she should have gone into heat this week.

I finally finished reading Reading Lolita in Tehran on my Kindle and am now reading Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social & Sexual History of Michael Jackson.  It's totally tabloid and has the credibility of, say, the defunct Bloomfield Free Press but it's interesting enough to read (if it's interesting to read about a bunch of entertainers calling Michael Jackson a "fag"). 

Ah, well.  I'll read something worthwhile next.

The living room floor is packed, literally, with dogs, shoes, and children.  I feel claustophobic but it's raining so the dogs don't want to go outside.  It isn't a large living room (we have a small house) and it looks especially cluttered this morning.

Rainy Fourth of Julys suck.

I have reached my threshold of whining for a month. 

Nobody knows where any of Seryozha's spoons are.

Alex and Holden agree that the video for "Thriller" is, as Holden puts it, "A little bit scary."  All three boys have spent the week working on Michael Jackson dance moves (well, Sergei mostly just bounces up and down).

Before it started raining I did manage to start a load of diapers, fold a couple of loads of laundry that had been getting progressively more wrinkled in the clean laundry basket, fed the birds in the chicken coop, and put out hay in the goat pasture.  I waved at the cows, way down in their pasture (Roselle condescendingly swished her tail in response) and saw Mama Hen with her chicks.  Anthony fed the pigs.  I gave Sergei a bath after a particularly frightening diaper.

According to the UPS website Holden's Right Start Math is in Nebraska with a scheduled delivery date of Tuesday.  I can't wait until it gets here.

I got my netbook! It is so little bitty, the size of a paperback novel.  It fits right in my purse.  I'm still getting used to the size of the keyboard (the semicolon/colon key and the apostrophe/quotation mark key are the size of fingernails) but I really like it.  Way more portable than even  a standard sized laptop.

Thank goodness! Yesterday I was too sick to even hold my head up.  I slept until noon and didn't milk Roselle (Anthony did, as well as doing all of the chores). 

But I feel better today.  When i cough it sounds nasty but that's ok as long as I feel better. 

This morning I've been reading about milk fever prevention diets.  Everyone has a different opinion and there doesn't seem to be any tried-and-true way, even among huge dairies, of preventing this (not that I put any stock in large dairies for animal health, but I mean that they have bovine care down to scientific formulas because cows are numbers there).  Some say to give no grain for the last eight weeks, some say 5 lbs per day until a week before calving and then bump it to 10 lbs.  Some say give 2/3 grass hay for every 1/3 alfalfa.  Then there are all kinds of opinions in between. 

Lucy is due in August.  While I don't imagine that she'll calf on the coldest day in recent history during the worst snowstorm in 31 years I still don't want to take any chances with her.  So Tuesday, when I get paid, I'm going to order some calcium paste and stock up on molasses.

Anthony wormed all of the goats and Sylvia day before yesterday.  Just putting that down because I'll forget and read back over my blog later to try and remember.

Last night we got home and there was a note on the door.  Being, well, as infamous as we are (seriously, we get recognized all over the county now that we fought the guvment and *won*) I'm always on edge when we crest the little hill before our house comes into view.  I always look for Natasha and then at the goat pen for the goats (the cows are over the ridge, you can't see them from the road).  I wonder how long before I get over that?

Anyway, last night I saw Natasha, saw the llama eating hay, but there was a note.  We get out and read it and it says "Check your fridge".  We have an old fridge that we keep extra milk in so we went around to it and there was another note on it.  It was from a Mennonite family that we met at the benefit for the two burned boys (sadly, the second little boy passed away last week--please keep his family in your thoughts).  They had dropped us off a cake and a Mennonite devotional and their note said that they wanted to get to know us better and to give them a call.

How nice was that? It totally made my evening. 

I need to fill out the stuff for the rebate on London's cell phone.  There, another Sasha blog reminder.  get this done!

I think Anthony is going to butcher a couple of chickens today and then we'll probably go swimming.  London and I finished reading By the Shores of Silver Lake and are now starting Night by Elie Wiesel.  Holden is *rocking* www.readinga-z.com   It's really schoolish but if your kid likes that I recommend it.  Alex has been learning about the Revolutionary War and memorizing "Yankee Doodle" from Wee Sing America (now, I dig a good patriotic song now and then.  i like the Battle Hymn of the Republic and Dixie, but why must it be those gratingly annoying Wee Sing voices?!)

Seryozha is practicing standing on his own while clapping his hands.  Any time you sing or he hears music he begins swaying back and forth in this supremely adorable way.

Holden had another seizure last night.  Even though I trust his pediatrician and his neurologist that seizures (of his kind, anyway) are not harmful it doesn't diminish the ice-cold fear that grips my heart when he has one.  I'm going to call his pediatrician's office today when they open to just have them note it in his chart--with his medication he shouldn't be having seizures at all. 

Despite that I slept like a rock (usually after a seizure I hold an all-night vigil).  I was worn out from helping Anthony with the fence and then going swimming.  We got the goat pasture moved to an entirely different area.  It had been within the cow pasture which ended up presenting a problem I hadn't anticipated.  The cows wanted to go into the goat area.  They couldn't, of course, because of the fence, so they'd stand in front of the gate all.day.long and poop there.  It was not good.  And we're not talking nicely formed cow patties (I pick those up throughout the day and put them lovingly in my compost pile) but this mud/waste muck.  So we moved the goats out of that area.  As soon as Anthony took the cattle panels down Roselle skipped into that area and promptly waddled her behind into the goat house.  In fact, that's where both cows are right now (actually, I haven't checked but I'm assuming that's where they are.  They could have hitchhiked halfway to Vegas for all I know).

I was nervous about moving Romeo Blue, the llama, but he did fine.  Anthony just led him with a bucket of grain.

Now everyone is happy and the problem of the poop swamp is over.

Today Anthony is going to work on running more electric fence.  We're going to more than double the cows' pasture and allow them access to a barn (besides that lovely goat house that they're so excited about).  He also found a patch of raspberries so I'm going to try to get down there and pick some.  I need to get the okra plants in the ground before they Die and, of course, other gardening.  It's been so hot that it's nearly impossible to do anything after 9 am or before 9 pm.