A Close Call

This morning Cameron and I were awoken at 4:30 AM to the screams of one of goats. We were up in an instant opening windows to look out back. In another instant, we were running for the backdoor and watching a coyote dash out of the goat pen. And in a dark spot on the ground was London's pygmy goat, Murray.

Given I failed to post and write at all in 2017, I never introduced Murray here. We purchased him in June of 2017 and the second we asked London what she wanted to name him, she instantly responded with "Murray Christmas!"

Murray and London had just spent this past Sunday at our 4-H Club's goat group working how to show the goats. And it had been a nice afternoon for the two of them. Away from his normal herd, Murray had looked to London for guidance, just as he should.

As he lay there motionless this morning I froze in my attempts to run to him. I feared of what I was going to find and see. How would I be able to tell my daughter that her pet was brutally murdered in the night.

Luckily, when I got to him he made some noise again. I felt around and he fought at me a little, felt wet, but not sticky. And when Cameron shown a light on him, Murray popped up and ran to the other goats. Upon further inspection we could tell he was unharmed physically. Definitely scared and in shock but otherwise alright.

We walked the perimeter of the pen and discovered where the coyote had gotten in. Cameron has fixed it as best he can but this was too close a call for me. Unlike the other goats, who I admit I love like pets, Murray truly is a pet. So tonight, he's going to be put up in a crate with towels in the backyard with the dogs. And I'm thinking he will be sleeping in the crate most nights. I also hope this will help him and London bond even more in preparation to fair. I have been worried that he hasn't bonded to her well enough (but we also have 6 months until fair.)

When the girls got up we told them what had happened. They were relieved everyone was alright and wished that daddy had killed the mean coyote. This is definitely one part of farm life I don't think I will ever get used to. And we will be taking more precautions on securing the pen and warding off coyotes in the future over this next weekend. We're expecting one of our females to have kids by the end of February.

Happy 2018!

2017 went by so quickly, I wasn’t prepared for the holidays this past season and barely even got around to ordering New Year greeting cards for our friends and family!

While at first I felt not much had changed on the Homestead this year, looking back, we had quite a few new additions. In January, we added a male boer goat, Mr. Billy Goat, which resulted in our females having babies in June. Sunny had twin girls on June 10^th (London’s birthday), both of which we sold off to be family pets. Roxie had a lone male kid (June 2^nd), who we have kept. We also added a wethered pygmy goat for London, who she named Murray Christmas. She will be showing him this summer for 4-H. The last addition to the herd was an unexpected surprise. We had a random Ram show up early one morning but he won’t be around much longer. We estimate him to be between 15-18 months old, which means he’s about ready for processing.

Our garden was almost a complete loss this year. We literally, as a family, played the live version of “Wack-a-mole”. First, we planted late due to all the rain. Keeping up with the weeding proved to be a challenge as well and soon it was over run over by mice & voles. Poor Sophie couldn’t keep up. All the flooding last winter caused all the vermin to move closer to the house. As we begin to think about our 2018 garden plan, one thing we need to resolve is the rodent problem. At least we have another barn cat. We had a young orange tabby show up on our property over the summer. He was so skinny at the time that we didn’t have high hopes, but we started to leave food out for him and Slim is no longer so slim. He now let’s us get within a few feet of him and even Sophie, the anit-cat cat has adjusted to his presence.

The chickens from last year have survived and we again raised a couple of turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner again. The taste of the fresh eggs and turkeys just can’t be beat.

In the Fall, we said goodbye to full time daycare (at least until Summer arrives). Due to Sydney’s October birthday, she qualified for Transitional Kindergarten, better known as TK. Because the girls’ school is so small, the TK class is the Kindergarten class. And we were pleased to hear at our Parent-Teacher conference in October that Sydney was doing well, so well in fact that she is actually doing the full kindergarten curriculum and will continue to be graded as a kindergartner throughout the rest of the year. We’re still not sure if we want her to move on to 1st Grade next year as we still question her maturity level. We’ll make that decision in March.

Sydney was also able to start officially participating in 4-H this past Fall. I continue to lead the Baking project which both of the girls thoroughly enjoy. We meet about once a month. Both girls are also involved in the Arts & Crafts and gardening groups. We’ll get Sydney started in Pygmy Goats in a year or two, though she goes to the meetings now anyhow. London was part of that group last year, but this will be her first year with an actual goat to take to meetings.

London is doing great in 2^nd Grade. As her teacher started our Parent-Teacher conference, she is one smart cookie. She is testing near the top of her class and above average for the state. She’s reading at almost a 4^th grade reading level and loves to read too. Sometimes the house will get real quiet and I will find her with curled up with a pile of books beside her. And now she has several series of chapter books to work through. Over the summer London traveled by herself for the first time, flying to Tucson to spend a week with my parents. She spent several days at a Hotel/Casino with them swimming almost the entire time – I think she only went inside the hotel to sleep!

We, as a family, joined the world of organized sports last spring. Cameron and I coached the girls’ T-Ball team. We had a tiny team, literally. Several of the girls on the team turned 4 the month before we started the season and even the size Small shirts looked like dresses on almost all the kids, minus London and two other girls who will all move on to a coach-pitch team this spring. 

In April, Cameron and I snuck away for a week-long vacation to Dominican Republic with several of our friends and friends of friends – who have since become dear friends too. It was a trip two years in the making and was designed to replace our annual wine trip to celebrate all our birthdays. That is because Cameron and several others turned 40 in 2017! We had a blast on the trip, which started by flying first class, for the first time. We took a red-eye so we mainly slept our way there. We stayed at Excellence El Carmen, an all-inclusive that had only opened in September 2016. Our suite had its own private pool which I enjoyed relaxing next too. We ventured off property a couple of time. We toured a cigar factory one day, went horseback riding on the beach another and zip lining through the jungle on a third day. It’s a beautiful country but the poverty levels are unbelievable. It was nice to see that our resort provided quality housing for its employees on the actual property.  

This seemed to be the year of travel for me. On New Year’s Eve, as I reflected back with friends, I realized I had traveled every month of the year except for January, July, August & November. And only two of those trips were for pleasure. I attended conferences in Omaha (June), Charlotte (September) & Houston (October), attended an offsite meeting in Napa (March) and three weeks of leadership training took me to Seattle (February), Phoenix (May) & San Diego (June). My leadership training was an amazing experience and I met some great people from other Cat Dealerships throughout Arizona, California & Nevada. But gosh did all the travel make for one crazy quick year. Because of the traveling I never got into a good running routine, and only ran in one race this year, my 5^th Run to Feed the Hungry 10K on Thanksgiving. This year I am resolving to run much more, working to establish a training schedule at home and scheduled to run a 10K on Superbowl Sunday.  

With my trip to Phoenix, I was able to head out a few days early. I took Sydney with me and we spent the weekend with my parents in Tucson. Sydney stayed for the week with them, getting to meet my Aunt Maryanne, cousin-in-law Amber and her daughter, Stella, who is just a few months younger than Sydney. The two had a blast and Sydney can’t wait to see Stella over Spring break in April.

The first week of December, Cameron’s mom, my parents, the girls, Cameron and I headed to Hawaii to celebrate an early tropical Christmas. This time we went to the island of Maui, staying at the Wailea Beach Villas, in an amazing 3 bedroom penthouse with great views of the ocean, Molokini and the sunsets each night. We even saw whales jumping and spraying from our lanai. With a fully stocked kitchen, we ended up eating in most of the trip. We spent most mornings down on the beach and afternoons by the pool. The place was pretty quiet so most days we had the pool and spa to ourselves. One day we did venture out to the Maui Ocean Center, an amazing aquarium. It turned out to be the perfect day since it was very windy. After lunch we headed up a winding road to Maui Winery, where we tasted a wine made out of fermented pineapple juice. While it definitely was sweet, it was still very enjoyable.

Cameron celebrated his 5^th year with Armstrong Medical. Hunting remains his number one interest with Tulley almost always by his side. She won’t even look at him for a day or two if he heads out without her, and boy does she know when he does that! When it’s not hunting season, Cameron is busy with projects around the property.

He has spent much of his free time this year moving dirt around our property. He is trying to build up a new pasture for the goats that won’t flood when it rains while also slowly digging out a pond in another part.  Little did he realize, instead of digging a pond, he ended up leveling an area for the girls to ride bikes and scooters. London received a new bike from Santa this year and it doesn’t have training wheels. Our driveway isn’t level or a great place to learn but after a walk out back on Christmas, we all realized that this area was perfect. In two short lessons, London was riding on her own. Of course, now as I write this letter, the rain has arrived, so it may be a while before she can get back out again.

Another big change that occurred this year is that the girls decided to share a bedroom and turn London’s room into a playroom. Now they only have to keep one room clean all the time and the playroom only has to be cleaned once a week. This also means that both girls get both dogs each night. Tulley still tends to sleep with Sydney and Gibson with London.

We did have to change the handle on the girls’ bedroom door to a knob. Jake, one of the indoor cats, kept breaking into the girls’ room to go snuggle with London at night. This would result in one or both dogs coming to sleep with us and even Sydney sometimes. Two labs on our bed, along with a possible child and Kelsey, our other indoor cat resulted in no sleep for both Cameron & me. Jake must now settle for weekend morning snuggles with the girls. Kelsey remains pretty much the same, preferring the safe refuge of our bedroom and bed 23 hours a day.

I do hope to get our blog back up and running this year. As much as I had adventures and pictures to share, I just didn’t have the time or energy in 2017 with all the travel and commitments. Stay tuned to see if I can keep up with 2018! 

Love,

Cameron, Sarah, London (7) and Sydney (5) Cenedella

An Open Letter to London for her 7th Birthday

June 16, 2017

Dear London,

You have truly blossomed this year. Your thirst for knowledge continues and a love of reading has emerged. You’re taking part in the online summer reading program through school where if you get 10,000 points you get an ice cream treat when school begins and if you reach 15,000 you get an ice  cream sundae. You’re over half way to the 10,000 point goal and you’ve only been on summer break for a week and a half! This is definitely a passion I hope you hold on to. I only discovered the joys of reading later in life and still wish I spent more time getting lost in the pages.

Over the last year you have declared that you want to be an artist, a teacher and a scientist. It will be interesting to see which direction(s) you head later in life.

You don’t seem like a little kid anymore. You still love to play and watch Disney Junior shows with your sister, but you’re showing more maturity and understanding than before. You’ve always been a caring older sister, but it shows more now. Just the other day you put your feelings aside and allowed Sydney to wear a dress of yours when initially, you didn’t want to share.

The two of you are getting along very well. So well in fact that you two share a bedroom now. Your old room is the official playroom. This came about after Oroville Dam evacuations displaced Grammi from her home for a few day in February. You gave up your bed and room to Grammi during this time, enjoying the “Sleep overs” with Sydney. By the time Grammi went home, both of you were used to being in the same room. And you get the best of both dogs in this arrangement as now both Tulley & Gibson sleep with the two of you in one room. Gibson tends to sleep on your bed.

And lately Jake has been sneaking in at night to snuggle with you. He’s really warmed up to you over the last year. I think weekend mornings are his favorite when he can snuggle up on your lap during morning cartoons. But he’s been known to take naps throughout the day on your bed too. You love that he has chosen you.

Speaking of animals, our goats Sunny  Roxie recently gave birth to kids. Roxie has a baby boy, who we named Pierce, on June 2 – your last day of school and your birthday party day. Sunny had to one-up Roxie, apparently, as she went and had twin girls on your actual birthday! They’ve gone unnamed as we’re not sure whether they will be staying with us or be sold off.

On the last day of school you were more than happy to participate in the annual Frog Jump contest. Your dad and you stayed out late trying to catch a frog near the neighbor’s pond. You had no luck there, but you did manage to catch two toads on our property that evening. And while you didn’t win, you took very good care of your toad, ensuring he came home (and holding him in the car!) where you released him into the garden. You’re turning into quite the Farm girl. When we were planting the garden you loved collecting the worms I dug up and feeding them to the chickens.

You had a blast at your birthday party this year, even when you went back and forth on where you wanted to have it (even after I had booked it). It was at Chuck E Cheese on a Friday night. More of your friends from school were able to come since it was still technically during the school year. You all had a blast running around and having the freedom to do what you wanted. And you were all good at coming to the table to eat pizza and cake. Since it was your party, you got to go into the Ticket Blaster to catch as many tickets as you could. You pulled up your dress like one might to hold apples and just let the tickets fall right in! Thankfully, you had shorts on.

But because we had your birthday party a week before your actual birthday, you kind of forgot you still had your actual birthday coming up. When I picked you up last Friday and asked if you knew what “tomorrow” was, you had no clue. And then when I mentioned it was your birthday, you were fairly nonchalant about it. That changes when you discovered your Christmas Elf, Snowie, had come down from the North Pole for a visit. And Grandma was able to be here so you had a few more gifts to open. And your dad and I couldn’t resist getting you your favorite cake – Carrot Cake.

You continue with 4H this year, participating in the Baking project again and new this year, was the Pygmy Goats project. I got to be your baking leader which was fun. I think we will continue this group next year and you now have a keen interest in showing a Pygmy Goat next year at fair – if only we could find one for you! One of these days. You’ve taken your responsibilities around the house more seriously with less and less prompting from your dad or myself. At the same time, you are only 7 and your attention can get diverted easily.

This year you expressed interest in playing T-ball. This became a family affair with your dad and I coaching the team your sister and you were on. You loved Dad coach pitching to you at the end-of-season games and you made contact almost every time, even sending the ball into the outfield a few times. I look forward to getting to be just a spectator next year when you move up to Coach Pitch.

I’m sorry to say we don’t have much fun planned for the summer or any travel this year. We are looking at sending you to Tucson to see your grandparents for a week and I know Grammi plans to take you somewhere this summer as well – I believe you chose the ocean as a destination. But we are already planning a trip to Disneyland later next year! You’re officially a Disney fan, to say the least, and can’t wait to go there again and even more so, you can’t wait to go to Disney World. We’ll plan that trip as soon as Sydney is tall enough to go on all the rides! Last year when we went, you went on California Screamin’ 6 times. It is definitely your favorite ride. You were brave though and went on Tower of Terror with Sydney, since she was tall enough for the ride. Sydney loved it, but you decided it wasn’t for you. We’ll see if your mind changes now that it is Guardians of Galaxy themed.

I can’t wait to see the person you become over the next year!

Love,

Mommy

A Ride on the Polar Express

The first Saturday of December our Elves surprised the girls with new Christmas pajamas. Why? So they could wear them on the Polar Express ride that the girls were also surprised with that day!

These Polar Express rides in Old Sacramento sell out every year. We purposely get a membership to the California Railroad Museum the years we have purchased tickets for this holiday activity just so we can get early access to ticket sales and get our date and time preference.

This year we opted for a "matinee" ride which departed the train depot at 3:30 - and that it did, exactly on time. I have to say it wasn't as magical as the fist time we rode the Polar Express, back in 2014, mainly because it wasn't dark outside. Being able to see I-5 traffic rushing by the side of the tracks takes a bit of the magic out of it.

On the other, we did get to see a Pirate ship floating up the Sacramento River on the other side of the tracks. It even sounded its cannon as it headed to a flotilla light parade on the river that apparently happens each Saturday night of the holiday season. Unfortunately. I can't find any info about this kind of event. This would definitely be something I think the girls and myself would enjoy.

It was just the four of us. The magic was not lost on the girls either. They had a great time and seemed to not notice the lost magic with it being daylight. They loved their bells, the cookies and hot cocoa.

We brought our own Polar Express books to follow along during the ride. The books have been in my car ever since, which has worked to my advantage. London keeps asking to listen to the CD that came with the books, reading along as she hears it over the speakers. And Sydney can't stop talking about how Santa gave us the bells. I'm glad this year's experience brought them so much joy days later.

A Ride on the Spookamotive & Trick-or-Treating

One last post about Halloween. As a treat, the weekend of Halloween, Lynde and I took the girls on the California Railroad Museum's "Spookamotive" Witches & Wizards train ride. We even sprung for First Class tickets to ride in the Mad Scientist's car. 

McKenzie wasn't too sure about it all, but with the rode only an hour long, she survived. Cookies and Apple Juice helped put her at ease too. 

London & Sydney had a blast and loved all that was going on and getting to wear their costumes an extra time. A lot of the entertainment was probably over their heads (imagine a lot of bad, pun-fueled jokes), but that didn't stop them from laughing with every one else. 

And they couldn't wait to get their picture with the Mad Scientist himself!

The girls really got into Trick-or-treating this year, and for the most part, followed the rules. Sydney had to sit one house out due to walking on people's lawns and London missed two houses because she kept trying to step into them to get to the candy first. We were out for about an hour before we'd hit pretty much every house we could in Matt & Lynde's neighborhood. By this point it was bed time any how and that was when the rain started to come down.