God's Disneyland

Be careful where you step!!!














It's always fun until someone gets wet and doesn't have any dry shoes.

The Next Adventure

We are heading to Zion National Park in Utah today, which I think is the second most beautiful place in America. (Yosemite wins so far, but I haven't been everywhere!)


This is Angel's Landing in Zion. I've climbed it. Okay, I climbed it until the last 200 ft.



Then you have to hoist yourself up on these ropes at the very end, and there was NO WAY I WAS GOING UP THOSE. Greg was so mad at me, he wouldn't talk to me on the way down. That is the scariest thing I have ever done in my life, except skydiving. I wouldn't jump out of the plane. We took a class for eight hours and Greg jumped out and I just sat in there. He wouldn't talk to me for 2 weeks.

He told me we could have shared that experience, the skydiving experience, together for life and I ruined it for him. Well, you can't have everything, and I was frozen like a deer in headlights when I saw the girl in front of me refuse to let go of the wing, and they actually yanked her hands off.
So Greg has skydived and I haven't. Boo hoo.

The last time I was in Zion, I was 6 weeks pregnant with triplets and didn't know it. But the time before that, I was in my cycle that ultimately led to me getting pregnant with the trio, and I was hiking all day and then shooting myself up with fertility meds in our motor home in the campground.




Greg talked me into hiking to the top of Observation Point, which is 8 miles one way and straight up. My ovaries weighed like 27 pounds each and I was hoofing it up there. I kept wanting to quit, but Greg kept walking way ahead of me and beckoning me on.

So everytime people would come down and pass me, I would say, "How much farther?"

"It's just right around the corner. You're almost there.", they would encourage me.

Little did I know that Greg was telling the people, "If my wife asks you how far it is, tell her she's almost there."

This is what it looks like from the top of Observation Point. It's like being in heaven. I cannot even explain the feeling of being on the top of the world.
We aren't taking the kids up there. Or up Angel's Landing. We'll have to wait until they are SEVEN and we get them parachutes.
Wish me luck. I cannot even imagine how this adventure is going to play out. I do know this place seems to make me pregnant. YIKES.

Out Of The Coop And Into The Frying Pan

We processed some birds yesterday. Do not continue through this post if you do not want to learn how to do it.

Who do you choose? The anticipation leading up to the actual killing almost sent me over the edge yesterday. So Bob and I went in the coop and tried to choose the biggest and we also had one with a lame leg, so we tried to find him.



Bob grew up on a farm, one of eight children, and his mother would process up to 10 birds at a time. She taught him how to be a yanker. While all the bird killing was going on, my kids were swimming with Bob's girlfriend's son and were completely oblivious.



So Bob's way of executing a bird is to put its head under his foot and yank it off. The first bird didn't go so well. He flapped his wings out from under Bob's hands and Bob broke his neck but didn't get the head off. I didn't watch, but held the camera and pointed it towards the scene while freaking out.



I STILL haven't watched it. The next bird went really well. Yanking seems to be a very efficient way to get it done.



Listen to Bob's girlfriend in this video. She is an absolute riot.



Bot had a big pot of boiling water ready. The thing that grossed me out beyond words is the amount of feces on the tail feathers. Those birds are COATED with crap. BLECH.



The feathers are surprisingly easy to get off. If it were up to me though, I would just take the skin right off with the feathers. I am not a skin eater.



Bob taught us how to gut it and I cut up the gizzards. VOMIT.



Then they just looked like whole birds you get at the store. So we brought them inside and cut them all up.



Look at the size of this breast. I didn't weigh them, but I would bet those birds are well over 6 pounds each, fully dressed. They are GIGANTIC. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all that meat. I have enough meat to feed an army.



When the kids got out of the jacuzzi, they were ravenous.



I declare the whole chicken operation a complete success.

Now we just have 20 more birds to do.

OH......MY.......GOSH. How in the heck are we going to do that?

How Much Can You Do In One Day?

Yesterday morning, the kids and I jumped in the van and headed out to the CSA I joined for a shareholder's breakfast. Little did I know when I plugged the farm into Google that it was 67 miles from our house.

If you don't know, CSA stands for community supported agriculture. When you join one, you are buying into a certain percentage of the crops the farmer grows and you get all your vegetables from an actual person. This is relatively easy to do in most areas of the country, and if you click on the link I provided, you can type your zip code in and see how many CSAs are available in your neck of the woods. But out here in the middle of the barren desert, where we have land so inhospitable we decided the best possible usage was to test nuclear bombs, finding a CSA was almost impossible.

I was really excited to see how this farmer wsa growing stuff in the desert and I was hoping not to break down and perish on the way there.

The kids hit the ground running when we got to the farm and I couldn't even find them.



Are you in there? So I was impressed and pleased with the operation. What a great family that runs this farm!!



When we got there and I introduced myself to the owner, she said, "You have triplets too? There's another lady here with triplets."

I'm sorry, WHAT?

I set out to find her, because I thought I knew all the triplet moms in Las Vegas. I saw the matching kids right away and approached her and said, "Do you have multiples?"

And she gave me the Just Leave Me Alone Lady look.

So she reluctantly told me that she had triplets, and I was all, "SO DO I!!!!!"



GET OUTTA HERE! WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

I told her all about our group and how we meet for dinner on the first Thursday of the month and I got her email and she is going to try and make it now.

She said, "All my friends have always thought I was crazy because of the way I have to do things."

I told her if she hung out with us, she would be NORMAL.



Here are her triplets trying to convince Amanda to share the goat. My triplets are a year and a half older, so there was no way Amanda was giving up the goat.



Amanda got a hold of this baby goat and she carried it around for over an hour.



She absolutely would not let go of the goat and tried to convince the man that owns the farm to let her take it home. The raw goat's milk we drank there was so good, you couldn't believe it. I wonder if I could get Greg to let us have a goat.



While I was chatting with the other triplet mom, this lady says to us, "So what's your divorce rate? Are your husbands like totally CHECKED OUT?"

"I don't even know anyone that is divorced.", I told her. "Helllllloooooo. Can you say child support? Our husbands aren't fools. Even our lesbian triplet mom couple are checked in."

So that shut her up.



I would totally move to Logandale. I found Greg's new house.



I think Greg could be a king in Logandale.



So on the way home, I was driving 85 miles on the interstate, and this truck passed me in the desert. Then more and more passed me and I got my phone and called Auntie Jodie.

"What's going on in the desert?", I asked her.

"It's the Mint 400, Michele. These crazy people drive 400 miles through the desert and try and kill themselves. You should stop and watch it."

The Great American Desert Race? That's something we had to see FOR SURE.



We parked next to Hulk Hogan's twin brother in his leopard skin Jeep and watched it.

The kids were hysterical. Then Hulk came by and said, "You need to get your kids back. We just had somebody airlifted out of here because a rock kicked up and hit him in the head."

GET ON THE CAR. GET ON THE CAR.



This race in insane. I was listening to the CB in Hulk's Jeep and they were saying, "Rescue team to mile 72. We've put the fire out at mile 15."

If Greg would have told me he was taking the kids to a desert race were amateurs drive by going 80 miles an hour and we would be 10 feet from the track, I would have told him he was crazy.

After that, we zoomed home, fed the chickens and my neighbor's dogs, gave the dogs their four pills, then got back in the van and zoomed over to my friend Cathy's triplet's fifth birthday party.



There are five sets of triplets in this picture.



I cannot believe Cathy's kids are FIVE. Gosh, this is going by so fast. It seems just like yesterday that she was hauling the three of them in my house in carseats with all their oxygen tanks. Cathy's babies were 27 weekers. Look at them now. Who would guess that now?



I was so tired last night, I had a hard time deciding if it mattered if I smelled like sand, gasoline, farm animals, B.O., and birthday cake and if I really needed a shower before bed.

Triplets are not an excuse for letting your looks go down the shitter though, so I did. I want to curl up in the fetal position today and not move, but I've got 10 pounds of mashed potatoes to make and a bunch of chickens to kill.

Greg better hurry up and get back before I kill myself.

Don't Mess With The Triplets

The kids had field day yesterday at school and went to morning kindergarten instead of afternoon. So Austin and I volunteered to help out since there were 63 children and one teacher.



She has 36 students in her morning class now.



36 students!!!! Do you even understand that? 19 of those kids speak very limited English.

They are sweet kids and I enjoyed working with them once we were back in the classroom, but I worked with several kids yesterday who do not know their letters yet.



So they certainly aren't reading!!!!!

I don't think a lot of them are getting anything to eat before they come to school either. They qualify for free breakfast, but would rather play on the playground instead of eat. So they come to class without having eaten anything.



The parents speak to their children in such a different way that it is shocking too. This is a completely different world from our world. The Colombian Druglord's kid was playing in the trashcan and when I tried to redirect him, one of the Hispanic mothers came up to him and said, "What are you a baby? Huh, you little baby?"

WOW!



So I found out yesterday that they want to split mine up next year and I have to tell you that I'm not going for it. These aren't even the kids coming from North Las Vegas yet. They don't start busing those kids in until 1st grade, and quite frankly, I've got my own gang and I'm not splitting up that gang if I don't have to.

About a month ago, I was riding my bike home after dropping the kids off and these two black girls had a white girl cornered on the playground. The black girls are fully developed and twice as big in fourth and fifth grade, so the white girl looked like a little midget.

They were screaming at her, "I'm gonna beat yo ass!"



Call me crazy, but I'm not splitting my kids up anytime soon.

So I'm going to meet with the principal after spring break. This should be fun.

Of course, I'm probably overreacting because Greg has already taught them how to be streetfighters, and Gregory would gouge your eyeballs out if you hit him. In fact a Mexican kid DID hit him during class and he clocked him back, then tripped him. I saw the whole thing happen!!!

Next year is going to be a barrel of fun.

But I know. I know. Let's get the federal government out of our business so we can see just how many kids we can shove in kindergarten. Nevada is doing such a FINE job on their own without any input from the big bad federal people. If not for the federal government, half those kids wouldn't eat AT ALL during the day.

But, whatever, right? Who cares about those kids?

You know, I do. Even the kids that might kick my kids' ass on the playground someday. I care about those kids.

The world is so much more complicated than I ever thought it was.

I'm Sorry, WHAT?

Sunday is D Day. We are killing some of the chickens on Sunday and then we are having a chicken fry on Sunday afternoon. If you do not want to see it, do NOT come around on Monday. I am just giving ample warning for the squeamish.

Again, Sunday is slaughter day.



I'm sorry, WHAT?

Since the kids could not come up with names for the chickens we are keeping, Jerry named them and I am going to introduce them now.



This is Angelina Jolie. She's rather delicate compared to the other layers. I'm getting her a lip enlargement when she turns six months old.



This is J Lo.



The rooster's name is Carrot Top.



This is Beyonce. You should see her strutting around Carrot Top with the other girls. If you liked it you should put a ring on it.



Then he named the guinea, Flavor Flav.



We're going to get him a big giant clock necklace for his bling bling.

I made Greg's mom look at the chickens yesterday and they totally gross her out. She said she isn't eating at our house anymore.

She came over and took me out to lunch yesterday while the kids were in school. So while we were lunching, Austin was having his Easter party and going on an Easter egg hunt.



Thanks to your excellent ideas, here are the treats he brought. It cost me $5, thank you very much.



I cannot tell you how awesome it is to lunch while your kids are in school. That's what all the Mormon women do at the Community Center. They lunch and shop with their mothers. I actually called my sister last week and told her, "The Mormon women are smarter than us."

When Barb and I were done lunching, we popped over to Nora's Wine Bar to pick up my very first share basket from the farm I joined a couple months ago.



I bet I am the only woman in Las Vegas, driving around with a half bushel of farm vegetables and 100 pounds of chicken feed in my minivan.

I have to tell you that I was really worried about this farm thing. I had no idea what to expect and I told Barb I was going to throw up because I was so nervous. What if it was a total waste of money? Like the chickens!!

I mean, I got all into this because of a MOVIE. I watched Food, Inc., and I totally drank the koolaid.

But I was totally impressed with the basket, and keep in mind, this is very early in the season. The share baskets will change over the next couple months as it warms up.



We got swiss chard. These were really neat and tasty. They taste like a cross between celery and a radish. I really enjoyed them and the flavor was so rich. If you are a gardener and you work with soil and smell it, you can taste the richness of the soil in the vegetables.



There was a really big bag of freshly picked spring salad mix. This picture does not do it justice. It is gigantic.



There was another large bag of mizuna. YUMMY.



Then there was another big bag of cress. This was the only thing we got that was not a big hit. It tastes like wasabi. Little Peanut was over again yesterday and she loves wasabi and gobbled it right up. I may send that bag home with her.

We also got collard greens, carrots, and two types of radishes. Next week we will get asparagus. If I really wanted asparagus though, I could jump my neighbor's wall and steal hers.

On Saturday, the farm is having a big breakfast for shareholders. They had 3 baby goats and 12 baby rabbits born this week. In addition to selling vegetables, they sell chickens, rabbits, raw goat's milk, and honey.



Can anyone believe you can do this in LAS VEGAS??????!!!!!!



Maybe I'll just keep living here after all.

So I'm doing it. I'm opting out of the system. I'm giving The Man the finger!!! Take that Mr. Big Corporation.