Life on the Ranch

     I sent up a post yesterday, late at night but, it went up as a post for today. Oh well, just so you know, my post entitled " Thankful For . . . " was done for yesterday.      Today is the last day of the 31 for 21 Blog Challenge. Just in case some of you have forgotten, this was a challenge made by a 30-year-old mother that has a little daughter with Down syndrome (Trisomy 21). She has attempted to raise awareness about DS, one blog at a time. As a first-time participants in the blogging, I think it has gone quite well. There were 201 of us bloggers involved in this challenge. That means 201 folks writing something everyday for the past month - that's 6,231 BLOG POSTS!!!!      If you just spend a little time clicking around on the list of people that undertook this challenge, I think you will see that all of us feel as if the person in our life with DS is a BIG blessing. Whether it is a child, a sibling or a friend, all of the folks wi...

I am thankful for my little boy with down syndrome. He is such a blessing to me. I hope that over the past few weeks, you have seen that even though he is "special", he is just another one of my children. As I love them, I love him. As I teach them, I teach him. More tomorrow, Lord willing.

     Several days ago we found a small caterpillar making it's way along the ground out by the bunny barns. It was brightly colored and even struck a pose for us. It was if the green little thing was standing tall just for us to check him out. He stayed frozen in that position for quite some time - 2x, he did it. One time was long enough for us to go get the camera and snap a few pics.  After our little picture taking adventure, we carried the caterpillar over to a tree and watched as it crawled up the tree trunk.      This is just one event that reminds me of the joys of living out here where we do. It is such a blessing to be able to enjoy the beauty of nature around us. What a blessed place the Lord is letting us live in.

     Most of the things that we do with Osiyyah are just the normal types of things that we do with all of our children. The only area that O lacks in is his speech development due to poor muscle coordination. Because of this, we do some extra therapies at home with him. We also take him once a month to a speech therapist at the Tulsa Sunshine Center . O's main therapist, Lauren , has been a big blessing to us in regards to the things we do with O.     A few days back my oldest daughter did a post on therapy at home. It was an excellent post and overview. Here is the link to that article - Therapy at Home .

     As I said yesterday, here are some pics of the finished fryer rabbits we processed yesterday:  Here are some close-ups. This first is the referred to as the skirt - this is what you would use to make Carne Asada, mmmm!  Here are the legs and thighs which can be used in place of chicken in any recipe:  The back strap meat, great for soup or maybe even the bbq:  Ah, yes, the livers . . . um, anyone have a great liver recipe . . . Here is a pic to show one thing that we do around here 2x a day -

     Well, after school today we had a real life lesson on how to properly process a meat rabbit. It was very interesting to watch and learn how to do it. I'll try to post some pics tomorrow as I am not on my own computer right now and that's where the pics are.

     We had a busy day loading some sheds up that we were getting from a couple that is moving out of state. So, I am ready to get to bed soon. I thought I would post a few pics of the fryer rabbits that we have been raising. I am hoping to learn how to process them tomorrow from another breeder that can do the job in 1 minute flat (per bunny)!      About 2 weeks ago when these fryers were 7 weeks old, they weighed in at about 4.2 pounds. I plan on weighing them tomorrow and am hoping that they will be about 5.5 pounds. So, here are a few pics of the bunnies eating some fresh grass the other morning: