One week down, one more to go...

It's vacation time here. I survived the first week (I think). The kids are still alive as in they haven't killed or injured themselves. It's been rough. Does anyone have a cure for sibling rivalry? Man, I just don't get it! Besides the constant arguning and picking on each other, the kids managed to catch the white bunny and the dog got a hold of it. They had to bury it as punishment for not leaving it alone. Then when we came back from the lake one of our dogs "mysteriously" escaped from the kennel we had him in and killed 6 chickens and 4 of the older chicks. One of my favorite chickens, Telula, the one who had taken care of all twelve chicks up until that day is dead. She would let me hold her and eat out of my hand, very good with the kids and stuff. Everytime I get a chicken to that point something happens to it. Everytime we go somewhere something happens like this. Someone had to have let the dog out. He didn't dig out, can't unlatch the gate and latch it back or move the top off of it. Guess it's time for security cameras especially when they play baseball with your mailbox as well. But we have a new baseball bat now and I'm sure it didn't feel good to have it knocked out of their hands when it hit the box. I can think of a million other things I would rather do than go around hitting mailboxes and screwing with people's animals. This really bums me out as it isn't the first time. The last time we went for an overnight trip, I lost 17 chickens. Another time all the dogs got loose when the gate that has a pole IN THE GROUND was opened and one our dogs was hit by a car. Am I ever going to be able to leave the house for a little get away and not have to come home to death and chaos? Anyone have any better suggestions?


Here's some pics of a heron that was fishing in our pond this morning. He caught a pretty good size fish. You can see it in the middle of his neck in one pic. The kids thought that was really neat. We had an open house today. Our realtor said we had six people come look so I'm hoping SOMEONE will buy it and we can move. Preferrably where no one can see us packing our car for an overnight trip.....