Life on the Ranch

   One thing we do at our place is hands on projects or activities for some of our home-school lessons. Today was another "letter c" day and so we looked at "castle" as the word of the day.     After reading about castles and looking at pictures of them, we proceeded to "make" a castle - a Cupcake castle. Little Osiyyah was busy, busy making his as were the other kidos. Here are a few pics from the day: Oh, I should mention that the cupcakes are wheat free. One of my daughter's has a blog with a lot of wheat free recipes. You can find that here - Hanunyah's Sweet Creations  .

I thought I would post my article about  Breastfeeding A Baby With Down Syndrome:  One Mother's Experience There is much to be said about nursing a baby with down syndrome. Probably the best way to sum it up is "lots of work". The most important thing is to not give up in trying to get the baby on the breast. Here is our story: In February 2005 I gave birth to twins. Baby A was a boy weighing in at 5lbs 12oz. Baby B was a girl who weighed 5lbs 13oz. It was suspected after he was born that he had Down Syndrome and, it was confirmed by a chromosome test a week later. SInce I had nursed all of my previous children (9 of them), it was a no brainer that I would try to nurse the twins. Little did we realize how much work this was going to be. . . I was unable to nurse our boy with DS the first few days because he was "out of it". I don't think he woke up or opened his eyes barely those first 2 days. When he finally did, he had all sorts of tubes going into or ...

My oldest daughter wrote the following in response to  an article  she read several years ago. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Joy of Raising a Child with Down Syndrome! I read the article “What it Really Takes to Raise a Child with Down Syndrome” and something did not sit well with me about it. It is because I have a sweet little brother with Down syndrome and I have first-hand experience on what it takes to raise a child with Down syndrome. I do not know whether the author of this article does or not, but she did not give a very good picture of an individual with Down syndrome. This article did point out that there are a lot of therapies that are now available for those with Down syndrome, which is good. There are a few things that I wish to point out: ~ “Then they are faced with the decision of whether or not they would be able to care for all of the needs of the baby by themselves. . . . Of course this article is in no way suggesting that you should not raise your own child, but...

The Buddy Walk went real smooth! We arrived with plenty of time to pull in, unload and get all the animals set-up. At this point, I am pretty tired and I am falling asleep here at the computer . . . sooooo, just a few pics for you all. More tomorrow, Lord willing!      Here is a pic of the set-up we managed to pull off for the little animal area we had: Here is a picture of Canuck & Ez: Here are a few pics of some of the kids who were at the Buddy Walk enjoying the farm animals My one daughter was in charge of the Reece's Rainbow table:  We managed to find time to do a few line dances!  Now, what question do you think I asked the gentleman in the kilt?

     Tomorrow is the Tulsa Down Syndrome Buddy Walk  . We are all pretty excited about it. We have been making some final preps today - blowing up balloons, getting papers together, making sure we have all the animal supplies we need, cameras and hay bales. We have had a slight technical difficulty in getting the livestock trailer lights to work with our truck. My son has been out there for several hours trying to get the connection right. Thankfully, we have a back up flatbed that we can make work to haul all the animals and gear on, if we have to.      Since I have a houseful of folks showing up right now, I will make this short and just add a few pics form last years walk.

      For the upcoming Tulsa Buddy Walk, there are groups for the various kids with down syndrome. The name of Osiyyah's group is "O's Ranch Hands".  Here is a link to where you can read about his group, and a little bit more about him - O's Ranch Hands      The past few days at our house have involved getting ready for the Buddy Walk. We are in charge of a few tables at the event. At one area, we will have a variety of our farm animals with us for the participants to check out. Tomorrow, we will be loading the livestock trailer and getting ready for the big day.      Also, a few of my daughter's are going to be in charge of a table for Reece's Rainbow  . If you check out my daughter's blog, Got Down Syndrome , she has various posts over the years she has done about Reece's Rainbow. Here is a link to one of her first posts about this group and what they do - Reece's Rainbow and Adoption  . If you have a heart for kids an...

     Well, I can't believe that this happened . . . I thought I had a blog post scheduled for yesterday and then found out that I didn't. So, here I am trying to make up. This post is called "Cheeser" for 2 reasons:      First reason - I am a Cheeser. The definition of a "cheeser" around this ranch is someone that blows it in some way. Hence, "I am a Cheeser".      Second reason - we like to make cheese from our goat's milk. One of the easiest and most common cheeses around here is Vinegar Cheese. You can click here - Vinegar Cheese - to see pics of the process. It is simple to make, and tastes great. Osiyyah likes it so much that he will often be found sitting at the table with the bowl of cheese and a spoon. He knows that it is a "safe" food for him because it is not made from cow and it does not contain wheat (his 2 no-no's). Yep, it is that good - it can be eaten by the spoonfuls. It is also quite good inside of enchiladas....

      What I am showing you by the previous blog posts that I have done, is that a little boy with down syndrome can do everything that a little boy without down syndrome can do. As you have seen, we do lots at our ranch - and, we include our little guy with down syndrome in all that we do just like we involve all his siblings.      When I was in the hospital after Osiyyah was born, I was told about all of the things that he wouldn't do. "He won't sit at the same time as other children. He won't walk at the same time as other children. He'll be a lot slower."  That is why we set out to write a book and that, is why, we entitled out book, Down Syndrome: What You CAN Do .      The past 5 years have shown us (as a family) that a child with down syndrome can do just about everything that all the other kids have done. Sure, he might be a little slower in some regards and, he might be a little more "trusting" in some areas and thus nee...

     I have been going out to the garden for just temporary checks. It seems as if there is not enough time in the day to do all that I want to do. So, today some of us wandered around the jungle . . . I mean, the garden, for a little bit longer. We found pumpkins, a few cantalope, tomatoes, banana peppers, bell peppers and jalapenos. There are also a few habenero peppers on one plant, some cabbage and broccoli growing and sweet potato vines all over the place (we plan on digging these out around November 1st).       Osiyyah and Yo were "helping" pick:     My next garden goal? To read through a book that my friend, Teresa picked up. It's called The Winter Harvest Handbook  by Eliot Coleman. It is suppose to be one of the better books on how to have a 4-season garden. This is a goal of mine - to be able to grow produce all year long for my family.

      Well, well . . . today was the day! I went down this morning at about 7am to check on Mama Pig. She was lying in her pig palace, like usual. I went in and started to rub her belly (like usual). She grunted and moaned some and continued to lie there. Most of the time, she will perk up her head and look at me but this time she did not. I asked her if she was alright and then realized that she was straining rather hard. I looked down and saw a red nose . . . oh no, what to do? Here I was about to experience my first piglet birth by myself . . . I hesitated and then decided to go back to the house and wake up my son and the other sleeping kidos. It is about 800 feet or more, uphill, back to the house. I ran full speed dodging the goats and dogs as I headed for the gate.      In the front door and up the stairs I bounded saying, "She's having her piglets!" The house came alive and various kids bolted out of their beds and into their boots. I grabbed ...

Well, with so many jalapenos coming out of the garden, it was just a matter of time until we  made some kind of candy with them. Here are a few pics of the Jalapeno Peanut Brittle that we made:      You can also go to my Ebay auction to get some of this yummy candy - Jalapeno Peanut Brittle Auction

      Another thing that we get to do around here on this ranch is pick up hickory nuts. Our 40 acres has quite a few of these trees growing on our 40 acres. The best time to get them is when they fall off of the tree at the beginning of October. So, we went on a walk with my daughter and her bullmastiff and loaded the dump cart about halfway full.      Here are a few pics of us collecting the nuts: O and Yo were tired out so they caught a ride back on top of the nuts! Once we got back, we took the outer hull off of the nuts. In case you have never had a hickory nut, they are HARD, HARD to crack. I use a hammer and bang them pretty much as hard as I can. About 75% of the nuts were good and the rest were rotten.  I have some boxed up and for sale on Ebay. You can see that here - Hickory Nuts      One of my daughter's has a blog post she did about the hickory nuts growing around and on our property. You can see that here - Hickor...

     One of Osiyyah's favorite things to do is to help me and some of his sisters milk the goats. This is an everyday chore that we do twice a day - in the morning around 7:30am and again in the evening around 5:00pm. At the moment, we have about 20 does in milk!! Lots of yummy milk coming into the kitchen. We drink lots of milk, we make pudding and rice pudding with it and we also make cheese. There is also a cream separator in the kitchen so we can get the cream out of the goat's milk and male butter with it.          In the picture above, Osiyyah is holding my whip, or as he calls it, "whi". We usually just swing the whip around in the air to chase the goats out of or into the milk room. We also use it to chase the sheep and meat goats into a different pen at feeding time. It is Osiyyah's favorite ranch tool, I think!

Sooo, what have we done with all of those sweet potatoes. Some have been cooked in the microwave then mixed with a little brown sugar and some marshmallows and eaten.      But, by far, one of the best recipes is Sweet Potato Fries. You simply cut the potatoes into fries. Heat a pot of oil until it is really hot. Add some crushed garlic cloves to the oil. Drop in a handful of fries and cook them about 4 minutes in the oil. Take them out and add a little salt. When cool enough, eat them.

On Sunday morning, we went down to check on a few of the pigs we have here at the ranch. One of my son's has a big sow that is pregnant and due anyday. He was gone at a soccer practice so we went down to see if she had birthed her piglets yet, No little piggies yet . . .       Here is Osiyyah and his twin sister, Yophiyyah watching the mama pig. In the background you can see the shelter that one of my sons is making for her to have her piglets in. In the picture below, O & Yo are looking at another pig we have. This one is being fattened up to put into the freezer. Mmmm . . . homemade sausage and bacon!

I have a lot going on today so just a few quick pics of my sweet boy with the sweet potatoes that were picked from the patch down below. I'll try to do some longer and more exciting posts over the next days. Sooooo, just how big are those sweet potatoes? How about a body measurement to give you an idea:

Well, just about anything that a boy without DS would do. On our ranch there is alot going on so to name a few: milk the goats, chase the sheep, rake the pens, change the bunny trays, feed the animals, wash the dog, make food, help plant a garden and pick from it, collect chicken eggs and . . . collect bugs . . . and sit in the garden . . . and watch the llama get sheared . . . and go swimmin' at the local swimmin' hole . . . and play games at a party for his big brother . . .

Our family entered a whole new world on February 5, 2005. It was a world mixed with tears and challenges, a world of new things to learn, a world of new laughs and adventures, a world that none of us would ever change now - we entered the world of Down syndrome when our 10th child (of 11) was born.        He has Trisomy 21, otherwise known as Down syndrome. My thoughts, when I found out at his birth that he had this unique chromosome make-up, were all over the place - I was transported in my brain back to my school-yard days and how I used to (shamefully speaking now) make fun of a few kids with Down syndrome. I also remembered a young man that had Down syndrome that I went to high school with - he really was an okay kid, just a little different and I would eat my lunch with him sometimes. Now, just hours shy of my 40th birthday, I was the mother of one of these unique children.       What has gone on the past 5 years and how this little man has...

Grab This Button Well, it's official, I've joined a group of other folks online that are trying to raise awareness about Down Syndrome. At Unringing the Bell , you can find out more about this cool idea. So, sit back and enjoy the posts for the next month. Maybe you (and me) will learn a little more about these special people that God has placed in the world.