Slaters' Funny Farm

As I sit here taking a break from the mad cleaning that I have done today, I am reminded by the crackle of the woodstove that cooler weather has finally arrived in our home state. Normally, we have had measurable snow by this time of the year and we have had temps that have been in the teens, but this year the weather has completely taken us by surprise. Our temperatures on Christmas Day were in the 50's and that has  been the normal for the month of Dec. However, just as Mother Nature does, she has reminded us that she is in control and that we must realize that we are not in a tropical environment. Today is not too bad, but temps are supposed to drop into the 20's during the evening and highs over the upcoming weekend are going to be in the 30's and a great shock to our systems. The upcoming week does not look bad with temps around 40 and those are not bad as long as the wind is not blowing or it is not raining. Farm work can be hard if the temps are not near 40. Lower ...

Peyton Manning, Denver Bronco's quarterback and former Indianapolis Colts quarterback, has suddenly come under some heat due to a report coming from  Al Jazeera stating that Peyton has taken human growth hormones during his time with the Colts while he struggled with a neck injury. According to the report, which came out late last week names Manning along with several other athletes with having taken the drug in 2011 and receiving them from the Guyer Institute, an anti-aging company in Indiana. Supposedly,  Charlie Sly, an Austin, Texas-based pharmacist that once worked for the Guyer Institute was secretly recorded during an interview with Liam Collins. Charlie Sly has since recanted his story, but not before many news sources and athletes learned of the claims. Manning states that the accusations are completely false and utterly ridiculous! Making Manning even madder is the fact that the story says that Ashley Manning, Peyton's wife, was the one that got the prescriptions...

Just as I was going to write about things that have happened in 2015 that will be memories for us on the farm, we have an epic fail to speak of that many will remember for years to come and I am sure will be talked about daily until the new year- that is Steve Harvey announcing the wrong winner at the Miss Universe pageant.  Since Mr. Harvey has not made a statement on the goof yet, we are left to wonder just what truly happened. Did he just look at the card wrong? Did he think one should have won over the other? Did he just read the wrong name? Did he mean to say first runner up and said Miss Universe? A million things could have caused this goof, but I am sure that no one will ever truly care as much as Harvey will. My next question is how do you fix such a goof? He apologized and he owned responsibility for it, but the mistake was made and not corrected until a young woman had been crowned and taken a wave and walk. Somehow it does not seem possible to just take that aw...

As I was thinking about the past year, I was thinking of how many times we count our days away. We count down the days till Christmas, we count the shopping days before Christmas, we count the number of days we must work before a vacation, we count how many days till the weekend, and we count how many days till we marry, see our new child, etc. It seems that we can't be happy in the day that we are currently in. Today is December 20,2015 and that is what I want to concentrate on. Today is nothing special to me other than a Sunday that I have been able to spend with my beautiful granddaughter. It is a day that the Lord made and she has certainly taken advantage of the day in catching up on some much needed rest. Rarely ever does she sleep most of the day away, but she has today. I have had the opportunity to do some reading, exercising and just enjoy the twinkling lights of the tree. My husband and I still have some shopping to do, but I will say that I have enjoyed being home m...

Hello! Good Morning! I awoke early to enjoy about an hour sitting by the Christmas tree with the lights twinkling as I enjoyed a cup of tea and finished my book. I highly recommend that if you have not read the book "Christmas Jars" by Jason Wright that you take a moment out of your hectic schedule to read it. The message that evolves from this book is one that we all need to be reminded of especially at this time of the year. The little things that we do matter the most and giving is much more rewarding than receiving! I try hard to incorporate this into our lives many times throughout the year. Over the next two weeks, I would like to honor some of the memories we have of the year. I will include both personal memories and those that have touched all of us throughout the year in the news and other media sources. I also plan to include work that shares some of the talent that I know of around the world that you all might not know.   I hope that you will all take ...

After enjoying a delicious and very enjoyable meal on Monday afternoon with some dear friends, I came home to enjoy a nice quiet evening at home. As I was playing with the grandbaby on my bed around 7 p.m., I suddenly felt very sick to my stomach when I would lie down. I moved to the living room and decided to watch a little television, but suddenly found myself very ill. The next 24-30 hours were horrible. Suddenly, chills and fever set in followed by vomiting and diarrhea- classic signs of a stomach bug. My daughter had said it was going around at work and I believe that she may have carried it in and I was the lucky one to suffer with it. I spent all day yesterday in bed and truly don't have the desire to do much today. However, my home and family seem to say that it is time to be moving again. I awoke to find dishes that we not done yesterday, a floor in dire need of a broom, and plenty of laundry to be completed. Discovered the no one fed the outside dog or cats yesterday ...

Lately it seems like my posts are getting away from the farm and I really want to focus on it so for now, I am going to share some photos of some of the animals we have here. Our goose, which I am not sure I have a photo of passed a few weeks ago. I miss her but I do not miss the noise she made as often as she could. A couple of our cows in the holding pen before they go in the pasture. Some of our ducks Prince, one of my two black and white cats. The other is named Oreo. This is Jigsaw, my daughter's horse This is Shot To The Heart, my daughter's other horse.