Trees and SC Trip

We had a great trip to SC last weekend. We planted approx. 550 Christmas trees back in Jan. 2007, then found out a few weeks later that we were moving. It was awesome to see our old friends. We really miss them and it was great to catch up.
We left Friday after coop and got to SC around 8 or 9 Friday night. It was rainy Saturday so rather than go to see our trees we had planted, we decided to go to the Riverbanks Zoo. More for nostalgia sake, since we used to go to that zoo 3-4 times a year when we lived there. Thankfully, we missed most of the rain while we were there and had a good time.

After Church Sunday afternoon, we all rode out to the land and checked out the trees. Before the trip, Aaron was discouraged, figuring that the trees were unsalvagable, since they hadn't been trimmed since we planted them. However, upon inspection, Aaron was very pleasantly surprised and excited. Some of the trees were over 6 ft tall already. They weren't quite ready to trim and we are planning on going back towards the end of May to trim them. They need to be at a certain point of spring growth to trim correctly. Hopefully in 2-3 years they will be ready to sell.

Pet Cemetary

Continuing on the theme of animals that live here that aren't pets... A few weeks back, this black dog started hanging around on our property. It would kind of slink around and wouldn't get close enough for us to pet. The girls immediately named him Blackie. We tried to encourage him (by throwing rocks) to leave, we didn't need 3 dogs, but he still hung out. The same day the girls left for TN with the grandparents, Aaron and I were walking around outside and I stepped up on the back porch and see a black nose and paws sticking out from under our cat house. It was barely able to fit through the hole to get in and out. Long story short, it tried to bite Aaron when he was trying to lift the cat house and let it out and that was Blackie's downfall.
Blackie met a swift end ( I will spare you the details), but was able to run about 20ft into the woods before falling over. I felt guilty at first, but then I could picture that dog hiding in the cat house, the kids sticking their arm in with a cupfull of cat food and having it torn off by crazy dog and decided that I didn't feel so bad after all.
It was time to leave for church so we put off burying the thing (mistake #1). The next night Aaron went to look at it, it was already covered with flies and the buzzards were literally circling and it wasn't stinking yet. By the time the girls got home Thursday, if the wind was right, you got a wiff of it, still not too bad. Friday, Natalie comes inside and says "I think Blackie is dead" I asked why and she says "because there is a black furry leg in the front yard." Sure enough, our dogs decided they needed to spread Blackie around.
Aaron got home from work that day, and due to the stench now being bad, took a couple of wheelbarrow loads of dirt and covered the thing. Ahhh, no more stench and problem solved.
WRONG!
Next morning, a beautiful day, I was opening all the blinds in the living room like I do every morning and I look out our window and about 5 foot from the house was a nasty pile of Blackie. No hiding it now. Aaron happened to call to ask a question and got a good laugh out of the fact that our beautiful view now included a dead pile of dog. All day we found teeth, jawbone, nails, etc on our porch, by the swing, everywhere.
Aaron finally just put on some gloves and stuffed the thing in a thick trash bag and put it out with the trash. Hopefully Blackie won't be back.

Not much to tell

Why does it seem like stuff always comes up that you need when trying for a financial goal? Still paying down the debt, but not as fast as I want to. I worked 36 hours last week while the kids were in TN with Aaron's parents. I am not working at all this week, but start back up again next Tuesday. We are planning on going to SC this weekend to check on some Christmas trees we planted 3 years ago to see if they are salvagable or not. We have done nothing to them since planting them. Our friends offered to let us use an acre to practice on and 2-3 weeks after planting 500+ trees, we got transferred here to AL. Not looking forward at all to the 6 hour drive. yuck!
I wish I had on a video camera yesterday when Madelyn found a 3ft Black Racer snake. It was lying beside the house and not long after we went out to look at it the dogs sniffed it out and went nuts. They had it backed into a corner and it was taking turns striking at each one. Looked like they both got bit on the nose at least once. I was about 5 feet away watching, the girls about 10 feet away the opposite direction. When all of a sudden our lab mix grabbed the snake by the head and took off running straight toward the girls, slinging the snake around and finally let go and the thing was tossed in the air. I was screaming "Run girls!", but they didn't need to be told, they had split by the time I looked up. I think the snake was injured or lost it's will to fight because after that I was able to pick it up with a long metal thing and take it to a place where it could slither away into a hole. Fun times.

Debt be gone

Aaron was called to a fire in East AL last weekend. They called on Sunday and told him he had an hour to get to the office which is 30min. away if he wanted to go. So we started throwing stuff in his bag and packing his fire clothes and he was off. He came back Thursday evening. We have been praying for money or a way to make more money for the adoption for a long, long time, so we figure if God gives us a chance for overtime, we need to take it. He went to Arkansas for 16 days in Feb, and again 16 days in March. When we lost so much money on the last failed adoption, Aaron decided we wouldn't spend any more money on another adoption until we had all our debt paid off (except our house). We have put our adopton plans on hold the last almost 2 years so we can do that. We will hopefully be out of debt at the end of next month. Yes!. As hard as it has been to wait for the adoption, it feels so good to start out again without the debt hanging over our heads.
Thankfully, Aaron got back in time and we didn't have to change the date of Natalie's 8th birthday party. We are getting ready to get the final preparations at Walmart. Like normal, I havent heard from any of the parents of the kids we invited, so I have not idea how many hot dogs to buy. At least they freeze. We are going to have a hayride, cook hot dogs over the fire and hike in the forest behind the house. It will be fun, even if not many kids come.