Oops, sorry just reread post and you don't even have to change schools - so no problem with leaving friends and making new ones! The school friends will love to come visit. My Ds has a friend in town (not even in same school, but Scouts) and they're always asking *him* over, we can't wait to have a campout at our house but there's one at their house this w/e if it stops raining (Mem Day/bday party for this boy was rescheduled for this w/e b/c of rain - it's been raining for a solid month now)!. If this thread is still going in August I'll be sure to post pics of the "family reunion" (really just my dad's brothers and their kids who live in the area - I don't think those who have moved out of the area are coming back, my siblings are coming end of July). My cousin, her dad (middle brother) and I all have adjoining land, my uncle mows all his with a riding lawnmower (we have hayfields, my cousin just has the old farmhouse, barn and 5 acres). Just my uncles, cousins and spouses, and their kids in the area add up to about about 100 people (25 from one uncle, his kids/spouses and grandkids alone!) so we set up a few tents, 3 grills and sometimes a spit with a pig, a few kiddie pools, a slip-n-slide, and the kids get filthy in the pond/creek/swamp and the slip-N-slide, we hose them off, some go home but some stay around the bonfire til the wee hours - we try to do this every year so the 2nd cousins who live within 10 miles of each other but all go to different schools in different towns can see each other (besides Little League when they play against each other LOL). Oh, and I did manage to get a pic of the buck and doe together (can just see her hind end - no pun intended! - under the tree at the edge of the woods b/t him and the birch).

You said you received three signs that she was ready to go. Trust in those and know that she is at Rainbows Bridge just waiting with Benji to see you again. We went through the same thing with our Chelsea in Feb. 06. I am sitting here now and looking over at her picture and her little cedar box of ashes. Still haven't been able to put them in the ground. But I also have the pictures of our two 14 month old pups - that I truly believe she had some hand in selecting for us. And they are both asleep on the bed behind me. So I am surrounded by all their love now, including Chelsea's. And that is the same for you. You have your other babies and they will rise to the occasion to help get you through his difficult time. Allow yourself the time to grieve and know that Missy is no longer in pain and that was your last unselfish gift to her.

TG - I think you have found the true cause of our high crime rate - our culture. This discussion is timely, as I happened across an article on Buzzfeed or some such website where it listed what the state departments of other countries advise when coming to the U.S. While we did receive high marks for being friendly, foreign tourists were warned about robbery, high crime, and an armed US citizenry (one country said don't get in a fight with an American because they are likely to be armed with a gun). I thought to myself, oh please, the United States has to be one of the safest places in the world for tourists. But as I read more about the crime problem here as compared to other countries, I'm starting to see why those warnings are issued. Jas - I support gun ownership, with limitations. I support background checks, including mental health screening. I support regulation of the type of gun you are permitted to own. I see no need for an AR-15 in the home, for example. These are the weapons that can take out an entire office/classroom/movie theater in a matter of seconds. But, as is true with most things political in America, politicians won't meet in the middle. The only two acceptable views are anybody can own anything or guns should be plainly outlawed. Any politician who strays too far from those party lines is swiftly reprimanded.

Jennifer, You can move the chick to the brooder if you prefer (I like to do it because rat snakes and chicken snakes cannot get into the brooder to eat the chicks), but our hens do not slaughter their babies. So, we aren't moving them into the brooder to protect them from their moms. Sometimes, if there is only one chick hatched, we do move the mother into the brooder with it so the chick won't be lonely. Usually we have more than 1 hatch out at a time though. Sometimes a chick has a congenital issue and just doesn't survive though. It happens with a certain percentage of the chicks that hatch. If you try to think of your chickens as farm animals, not pets, not substitute children.....just farm animals, then it will be a whole lot easier (I hope) to not obsess over them. This is why we don't name our poultry, although Chris did name his two turkey toms although Augustus is the only one whose name I could remember, and the other tom didn't care. He'd come to you even if you yelled 'Hey you". I always keep in mind that our poultry are farm animals, not pets. Otherwise,the inevitable losses of free-range chickens to hawks, coyotes and bobcats would be too much to bear if I started thinking of them as more than farm animals. I think you are normal. Some people just get really attached to their animals. I am that way with furry animals, but not so much with feathered or finned ones. Rebecca, It sounds like your garden is doing really well. Mine is just roasting in the heat and lack of rain, but it is producing, so I cannot ask more of it than it already is managing to do in these circumstances. I do not think I got more fruit set in our slightly cooler conditions but I won't be certain for a few more days. Or, at least I won't stop hoping for a few more days. Of course, the rain has missed us all week and I don't really expect tonight to be any different. In years when the rain starts missing us like this, it tends to do it really consistently. I did some deadheading of zinnias a few days ago, but need to do more. I just try to leave the flowers as long as possible for the bees and butterflies before I deadhead. I probably need to cut some for bouquets just to lighten the load on the plants. They're almost too heavy in their compost-rich bed and are turning into big overgrown monsters. Jacob, Haying is going on hot and heavy here too. Tis the season, I guess. Everyone was trying to get it cut, raked, baled and, in some cases, hauled, before the rain could get here. Well, no problem at all since the rain hasn't made it here yet. There was a ton of haying going on all week, and even more today. Even fields that normally aren't cut are being cut and baled. I think people are starting to worry about drought developing and perhaps them needing more hay than usual put up for winter. We've been there with coon issues before. They are mean. You have to be really carefully carrying the trap because they'll do everything in their power to hurt you. I hate them. We leave the possums alone (of course, they are fenced out of the garden) because, among other things, they eat venomous snakes. I'd like to have 100 possums living on our property. Instead we just see one or two wander through occasionally. I am sorry the critters took so much of your garden. Been there, done that, and have the 8' tall garden fence now to ensure it doesn't happen ever again. Tim moaned and groaned and whined about putting up a tall fence (the expense! the work!) but, you know what, it was worth every bit of time, expense and labor to keep the garden safe. It even was worth listening to him moaning and groaning about it all. For all that he does not like putting up fencing, even he knew it was our best option and that we just needed to do it. He just didn't want to do it even though he eventually gave in. I think mostly that, after fencing our 14.4 acres to keep the neighbors' cows out (and we had to cut through 40 years of overgrown forest in most cases just to be able to put up the property fence), he just hoped he'd never have to put up another fence for the rest of his life. Fat chance of that. We couldn't do any fencing right now, though, because the ground is rock hard like cement and there's no post hole digger that can break through it when it is like this. Nancy, Happy Birthday! Hope you're having fun today. Of course we got the wind (clocked in at 52 mph at our mesonet station) last night and none of the rain. Then, today we got the higher dewpoint and a heat index of 104, again without the benefit of the rain. I wouldn't mind the other stuff that comes with the rain if only we were getting the rain too. The good thing about not getting rain is that we're not getting hail, so at least there's that. Every day this week I tried to harvest all the tomatoes at or beyond the breaker stage, the zucchinis, the yellow squash and the peppers. I'm just trying really hard to not get behind on harvesting. I thought that the first PEPH peas wouldn't be ready until the middle of next week, but now it looks like they will be ready tomorrow or Monday. They are turning from green to purple pretty quickly in this heat. The second planting of southern peas is just now sprouting in the former potato bed, with a row of an heirloom red zinnia mix in between the two rows of peas. Hopefully the new planting will be producing by the time the first planting is finishing up. I've been sowing dill, fennel, zinnia and cosmos seeds in every bare inch of ground within the garden fence, trying to ensure the pollinators and particularly the butterflies will have everything they need for the rest of the season. As the fields dry out, I've noticed there's not much left blooming for them. At least within the irrigated garden I can try to provide them with blooms (and their pollen and nectar) all summer long, unless it gets so dry that I totally stop watering, and I hope it doesn't come to that. Our rainfall for June is worse than pitiful. I don't have a word that adequately describes it, but it is, so far, less than 25% of our average June rainfall has fallen and that's not many June days left to make up that deficit. Our 4" soil moisture level was 0.06 this morning. Well, at least it cannot get much worse because it already is about to the bottom of the scale. I hope that anyone in the path of tonight's storms get nice gentle rain and none of the wind, hail or damage from severe thunderstorms. Dawn