I've always thought that I would never be able to raise chickens for meat because I would never be able to butcher them. I thought I preferred to leave that messy business up to someone a little less squeamish. I was wrong. After tonight, I'm pretty sure I could totally kill a certain rooster. Pop off it head with a broomstick, chop it off with a butcher knife, twist it off with my bare hands, or any other method of chicken slaughtering, I think I can handle it now.
Ever since Colter got a tent for his birthday, he has been asking and asking to camp in our backyard in it. Well, the tent is pretty small for a 5' 7" woman, and the ground is pretty hard for someone who is accustomed to sleeping on pillow top mattresses, so I came up with the brilliant idea of taking Colter camping in his tent on my parents' trampoline. It was a brilliant idea! Trampolines are pretty comfy and the night was perfect for camping.
However, I didn't think about HIM. This future chicken pot pie and his infernal crowing!
I thought roosters were supposed to crow at sunrise, but I was wrong. This rooster anyway, starts crowing about 2 a.m. and keeps it up until sunrise! He's demented! Here Colter and I are in a tent on a trampoline in my parent's backyard, and this stupid rooster kept crowing and crowing and CROWING! AAAAAHHHHHH! I wanted to kill him.
Between my dad getting home in his noisy truck really late (fall harvest time), the rooster crowing, the cats crawling underneath the trampoline trying to figure out what the crazy people were doing, the hound treeing some animal, my dad getting up really early to head back to the fields, and my sister pulling away at 6 a.m. to go to work, I DIDN'T GET MUCH SLEEP. Needless to say, although Colter slept through everything, we will not be camping on the trampoline again any time soon.
Noisy Rocket the Hound Dog
Have you ever heard of anyone dressing up as a zebra for Halloween? Not me! This was Colter's idea, and thanks to the wonderful world of Ebay, I was able to pull this off without having to learn how to sew. Whew! 
Before it gets cold, we were able to squeeze in one last camping trip. Originally, we had a big camping party planned; my mom, brother, sister and her boyfriend, aunt, cousins, my niece and nephews were all supposed to go with us. First, my mom got sick and backed out so that ruled out her, my brother, niece, and nephews. Then, my aunt who must not be able to function without my mother backed out, so there went my aunt and cousins. Fortunately, we could count on my sister and her boyfriend to still go, so since we have a camping-obsessed boy on our hands, we decided to go ahead with our plans. We told Colter we were going, we cleaned up the camper, we packed, and THEN at the last minute my sister backed out too!!!! GRRRRR. That's okay. Who needs a camping party anyway? We had a nice, quiet three-person camping trip and spent some time enjoying the beautiful fall colors WITHOUT my flaky family. So there. :)
Pretty fall leaves!
Handsome Men By a Funky Tree
So many beautiful colors!
This is icky, mom!
