Eggs, Eggs, Eggs! Our chickens have been busy laying eggs so we had plenty to color! My great niece and nephew came over and they did a great job.

4 of the 5 goats

Looks like it is time to muck out the goat pen. We have had a very wet spring which makes the pen one big mud pit. It was pouring down rain when this photo was taken.

Bad goat!

Just playing around with the new camera. Bo, my pygmy goat tried to eat the shutter release cord. He did not succeed, but he did manage to break it.

Time to start gardening!

Shopping!

Today we decided to see if we could sell some of my old camera equipment. One camera is a very nice Horseman 4x5 LS and the other is a medium format Contax. These are both film cameras. And big film cameras. Since all my surgeries it is very hard to handle these cameras, and they have been sitting in the closet for years. Of course film cameras are now basically obsolete, with a few diehards out there. I though I would be a diehard, but I much rather shoot with digital. I found a very compact digital camera that I really like, and I don't get tired carrying it around! So, a very nice camera shop said they would trade my big bulky cameras for this new camera plus 2 nice lenses! We did it! I love my new camera and am glad that someone will get to appreciate my film cameras, as they were once top of the line and are amazing cameras. I think it was a fair deal, the camera store probably made out a bit better than us, but truthfully, why have something you don't use sitting in your closet? Yeah, we only got a portion of the money we spent on the cameras, but we also got a camera that I am going to have much more fun using. I am so excited to start taking pictures of the chickens! Ok, and the other animals and all the beatiful scenery we have around here. This is one of the first pictures with my new camera. We were hungry! The lense is a 20 mm F1.7.

Lazy day

The weather was terrible today. I barely went outside. Not much to write about. I did get a call from a camera store saying they will buy my old camera equipment. The caller was from New York and sounded like he belonged on The Godfather! I loved his accent! I am looking to buy a smaller digital camera. We have a really nice Canon 5D, but it is a bit heavy for me. I am thinking of either a Panasonic point and shoot that has a Leica lens or a Panasonic compact mirrorless camera, which you can change the lenses on. Of course thde econd one is more expensive and comes with a rather cheap lens, so I would need to purchase a better lens right away. Well, anyways, if I can sell my old camera stuff, I could buy the camera that I want. I would like to get back into photography.

Last day of radiation!

Today was the last day of radiation! Yipeee! I was diagnosed with breast cancer a little less than a year ago, so this time last year I was still innocent, feeling like cancer was a distant memory. I had been diagnosed once before, in 2002. I thought I had put all of it behind me, but I wound up with a new primary cancer in my other breast. It was more serious this time. I had to do 7 months of chemo, a bilateral masectomy, and radiation. My doctors will be following me closer this time. I am a carrier of the BRCA 1 cancer gene. This means I need my ovaries out, as I also have a very high risk of ovarian cancer. I will have a full hysterectomy about 6 months from now. For now, I need a break from surgeries, doctors, hospitals! I need to regain my strength and focus on something more fun!

Chickens. We have 16 of them. We have Americaunas, the ones that lay green and blue eggs, a frizzle cochin, she lays small beige eggs, and an assortment of other types that lay a variety of eggs. It all started when we were grocery shopping. We could not find free range, cage free organic eggs, so we decided to raise our own. Of course we are not certified organic, that would be a long expensive process,but we do feed our girls organic feed and avoid all chemicals in our yard. Our chickens do run around while we are watching them, but we now lock them up in their large run when we can not keep an eye on them. We lost one to a coyote in the middle of the day and another to the neighbor's dog, so now we keep a close eye on them. They each have a personality of their own, quite the talkative bunch!