Day 52 Thur Weigh In AND PICTURES!!

Up early to pack Hubby's breakfast and lunch. Very groggy. My son woke me up just after I got to sleep last night to tell me he'd finished reading a film-making book. It took me forever to get back to sleep (ok, just seemed that way). Anyway, back to bed after he left until it was time to get the Kid up. He ate breakfast while I weighed, etc.

236.6 ... yahoo! A loss of .6 pounds since Tuesday.

Milked the goat, strained, refrigerated. Washed some cherries for the both of us, and I ate breakfast.

Breakfast: 1 1/2 cups Mesa Sunrise cereal, 1 cup goat milk, 3 strawberries sliced into the cereal (I just love the taste of strawberries with my home-milked vanilla goat milk!), 1 chunk watermelon, 5 chunks cantaloupe, and 11 cherries

I sure do love fresh fruit. Guess during Fall and Winter I'll have to do canned or dried or apples ... I'll survive. I'm freezing blueberries so I can have fresh fruit smoothies on a cold winter day. Sigh. Hopefully my berry plants won't get eaten by grasshoppers NEXT year!

Started today's blog entry and read a few. Took my vitamins, some acetamenaphen for my lingering headache, and claritin-clone for my latest and newest mosquito bites. Then I took a couple of hours to read "College Without High School" by Blake Boles. I think, for now, the way of "schooling" my son is best. He does projects that, once they are all done, will equal between 28 and 32 credit hours, including math, science, social studies, language arts, art, music, health and electives. He is particularly interested in making movies so within the next month, he'll be writing directors, producers, screenwriters and actors for advice on how to best accomplish his dream: film school and making movies.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)'s formal education ended in the 5th grade. This is of particular interest to my son, because my grandmother's maiden name was Clemens. Yes, Sam was her great, great Uncle. He has become somewhat a fascination and idol of my son, for good reason.

Ok, I got off the subject of my day and food and dieting, didn't I? Needed to do some thinking about how to phrase the next project for my Kid so I got on the exercycle. How do I make a questionnaire to help him define his goals for his life, education, movie-making, fun, family... et al?

Exercycle: Burned 100 calories in 10:02 minutes.

Lunch: 2 corn tortillas, 1 with shredded steak, 1 with leftover taco meat, 3 tablespoons sour cream, 2 tablespoons salsa, 1/3 cup shredded mozz cheese, 1 fiber-one strawberry yogurt

Then went out to help my Kid water the livestock and take pictures ... here they are:

First, me with 3 of our layers and our rooster. The white hen in front is a plymouth rock. The chicken behind the white, looking intently at my hand for a treat, is our first layer (easter egger/araucana). The chicken on the left is our rooster (easter egger/araucana). Then there's a delaware in the top crate, getting ready to lay an egg. You can barely see the other chickens in the pen to the left... I see 2 buff orpingtons, a black australorp (pullet-juvenile girl) and another plymouth rock.

The second pic is me with 2 of our 4 goats. The big black/brown one that I'm petting is a nubian doe, and she's the one I milk twice a day. I'll re-breed her probably in October or November to keep the milk coming (although we won't get milk for about 3-4 months while she's preggers and about 4 weeks after). The little one I'm holding is a nigerian dwarf (miniature). She's about 6 months old (born Feb 25) but won't get much bigger than she already is. She'll be bred in December or January, and will kid (give birth) 5 months later. After another 4 weeks, we'll start milking her and (probably) sell her babies. Our other 2 goats, not pictured, are also miniatures.

Can't resist showing you my boy with the same two goats! Isn't he cute with the buzz-cut red hair, holding my favorite miniature!? And of course, our nubian has to trot over for some loving too. Jealous goat! Our wether (neutered male) is the little girl's twin and is at my feet when I took this picture. The other doe miniature is in the shade to my right.

Back to my day. Took me a while to download and edit and upload the pictures. Not just here, but for another blog I do, and also to send to family and friends. I was WAY behind in doing that! Besides, thought maybe I'd send another set of pictures with Fat Me so when I saw family back in Louisville, KY in November, they'll be (hopefully, pleasantly) surprised to see Not-So-Fat Me. Meanwhile, Hubby called and left work early to come home get the trailer's paperwork (title, etc) so he can register it so we can drive it. Also paid bills. Wish I hadn't taken so much time to do pictures because I really wanted to get back on the exercycle before then.

Here's where it gets fuzzy because I've been so busy. He came home, grabbed the title and checkbook and left just as Alicia's son came to get the goat milk I'd put aside for them. I did some reading, then got all of the chicken feeders full. I had a couple of chickens out free-ranging when he got home. We came up with the bright idea to finally separate the chickens according to our original plan so we let all the chickens out from the second pen and as it started to sprinkle (uh, rain!), we "herded" them into the pens we decided were appropriate. Now all of the adult chickens are together (will make gathering eggs easier). All of the 5 easter egger chicks (pullets) are together in a "new" pen, and all 5 of the black australorp (blackies) chicks (pullets) are together where they've been for a month or so. That was quite a feat, let me tell you! It was time to milk the goat, so we did that (and strained, refrigerated), then Hubby and I got more hay for the goats, then sat outside to watch the chickens get used to their new homes and create pecking orders. In for dinner.

Dinner: 2 scrambled eggs with mozz cheese, Mrs. Dash (garlic, basil, tomato) and garlic powder, low sodium V8

Nothing else sounded good. Went back outside to check on the chickens and so glad we did. Poor eggers weren't getting used to their new digs. They wanted back with the blackies next door so Hubby and I placed a nesting box on the roof of their little chicken house in their pen and guided some of them into the chicken house as it turned dark. Three stayed and the two more adventurous ones (since almost birth) fell asleep on the roof while we petted and cooed to them. FYI: chickens get very docile when it's dark.

In, went through mail, and did this blog. Calculated calories and I was about 300 short. Nothing sounded good until I talked about what I'd eaten today. Hmmmm... cereal with vanilla goat milk and strawberries are my newest favorite snack but we're out of fresh strawberries. Hmmm... I have dried strawberries. We ALWAYS have dried fruit and veggies here so...

Snack: 1 cup Mesa cereal, 1/4 cup dried strawberries, 1 cup vanilla goat milk.

Waiting for the strawberries to rehydrate in the bottom of the bowl. I'm gonna quit now but after I eat my snack, I might be able to convince myself to burn another 200 calories on the exercycle. After all... I did promise somebody!

Have a good one, all.

= = = =

Today's Numbers:

Carbs: 137.9

Fat: 66.6

Calories: 1491.0

Total calories burned (SO FAR) on exercycle: 100