Anthony's Bird House Build

Anthony has a very creative mind. He loves to use his imagination, especially when building something. Sometimes this works out for him, other times it doesn't. Sometimes, when it doesn't, he gets angry. He's annoyed that the plan in his head didn't exactly work out like he wanted. It happens to all of us.

Because he loves to build, and because he can't always produce a usable product based off an idea in his mind, I thought him choosing to build bluebird bird houses for his FFA project this year was a stellar idea. Doing this project would teach him that sometimes there is a lot of planning that goes into building a product. You can't always fly by the seat of your pants. You can use your imagination, but a lot of the time it also takes a lot of researching, planning, pricing, and a whole lot of measuring twice, and cutting once! 

This was just the project Anthony needed to teach him this lesson. 

I helped him on the bluebird research. Together we learned all about Mountain Bluebirds. Where they live, what they eat, what their habitat is like, their specific house needs, etc. 

Then it was up to Anthony and Papa to find a suitable bluebird house plan. Once they had their birdhouse plans, it was time to create a materials list, figure out what materials we had here at home for Anthony to borrow, what materials Anthony needed to buy, and then head to The Home Depot to price the items on his materials list and purchase them! 

After all that planning was complete, Anthony could finally get to building! I really enjoyed watching Anthony and Papa work together. Anthony was very excited to build the bird houses. It was so good for him to follow a plan, going step-by-step, so he didn't get too ahead of himself. I could see the little wheels in his head turning, as he thought about what he needed to do before moving on to the next step. A grand time was had by all!  

At the end of the build, Anthony had 3 completed birdhouses he could be proud of! He still has one more to build, as he stated he was going to build 4 for his project. After they are all built, he is going to look at the money he spent on his materials, think of his time invested, and come up with a price for the birdhouses that will cover his money and time invested in building them, while also giving him a profit in his pocket! 

We are very proud of him and his work on this project! Hopefully he feels proud of himself too, and has gained some planning and building skills.  I would love to see him go forward in life with not only his creativity, but the skills needed to see a creative project to fruition. 

With love,

Mama Hauck

Must Be Doing Something Right

No one ever told me that parenting would sometimes bring you to your knees and leave you feeling like a complete failure at times. So often I feel as if I am getting it all wrong. I don't know why I ever thought being a Mama got easier the older your children got. Haha, what a silly Mama I was to think that. 

I will be the first to admit my life isn't perfect. I am not a perfect parent. My children are also not perfect. I never pretend it is. I never pretend to be. And I never pretend they are. Nothing is perfect...though other people and social media will have you believing otherwise. Don't believe it. Everyone is just afraid of what everyone else will think if they were to find out they don't have all their shit together. That's one of the biggest problems now a days. The huge lie people put out there about their perfect lives, their perfect spouses, and their perfect children who never do wrong. Everyone always posts the good stuff, but never the bad stuff. I get it though. Why would we? So we could feel judged on top of secretly feeling like a failure? No thanks. 

I know I typically only post when there is something I am excited about and want to share. Like the kids being on the honor roll, or a fun camping trip we took. Do you really want to read about the fact that I just layed on the couch for 3 days straight due to headaches and literally got nothing done? I was not a productive parent.  Do you really want to me to post on Facebook about how Molly and Timothy were fighting over who got to use the computer to do their homework and both lost their temper and started wailing on each other? I wish there was a healthy mix of boasting and humility on social media platforms. I wish it was just a whole bunch of honest people talking about their less than perfect lives. At least that way we could commiserate with each other, support each other, give advice, and know that we were not alone....instead of all the one upping. I would be tickled pink to read that your child accidentally said a cuss word in front of another parent. Or that you had to take away all electronics because your son keeps sneaking the computer at night. Not because I'm glad you had to go through a less than fun life moment, but because it would be nice to not feel like I am the only one, ever, going through those less than fun life moments. 

Social media has really created this false image of what parenting (and what your life in general) should look like and you are forever trying to match or exceed those standards even though YOU KNOW they are false standards and everybody's household and lives are going to shit behind closed doors every now and again. 

My kids fight like cats and dogs literally all the time. We all argue, yell, make poor choices at times, and in true teenager (and pre-teen) fashion, they can be defiant and quiet literally little monsters that I want to run away from. And while sometimes I feel alone, because no one ever talks about their kids fighting, being defiant, or their less than perfect choices, I know everyone's kids' are like this at times, whether they admit it or not.

It doesn't matter that your life is less than prefect. It doesn't matter that you are not a perfect parent. It doesn't matter that your children are less than perfect. There is no such thing as perfect. It matters that you keep going. It matters that you love them regardless and do your best to parent through all the less than ideal that happens along the way.

Molly and I have a notebook we use to write each other notes. The other day, after a particularly rough evening of pre-teen anger over I don't even remember what, I found this gem waiting for me on my nightstand. 

Despite everything, I know I must be doing something right. Not perfect, just right. And I'm good with that. 

With love,                                                                                                                Mama Hauck 

Meet Mazikeen, aka Maizy!

Many years ago when we rehomed our horse Nik, we knew that one day we would like to own a horse again. Nik was just too much of a horse for us. Too big, too firey, too everything. I didn't feel safe having the kids around him. If you don't feel safe and comfortable with your own horse, it takes all the  joy out of owning one. It was absolutely the right decision to rehome him, but it left a horse size hole in our hearts. 

Even though owning Nik wasn't the ideal experience, it did teach me a lot. I learned what I didn't want in a horse and exactly what I did want. I developed a strict list of criteria for our future horse, whenever that might be.

Years had gone by with our barn standing empty. Life is busy. It never seemed like the right time. And that was alright. 

I don't know what it was about 2020, but I just got this itch to start looking for a horse. Molly and I started saving money and searching. Little by little I would hide my dollars away and scour Dreamhorse.com (along with other sites) for hours, plugging in our list of criteria in the search engines and seeing what was available. 

Not much in our price range that fit our criteria, that's for sure. I definitely learned a lot about the current horse market through this process. The horses I did see that fit our criteria I wrote to, but wouldn't you know it, people weren't very keen to write back. I'm not sure if the horses had already sold and they were too lazy to write back and say that and take the post down, or if they just didn't like what I had to say and didn't want to take the time of day to tell me no. Whatever the case, I wrote to no less than 20 people over the course of a few months and only heard back from four. Three were people telling me the horses had sold (and they didn't take the post down....dumb!), and 1 that actually was still available. That correspondence didn't go well though. I made the mistake of asking to barter on the price and then the lady ghosted me. Oh well. Not the type of person I wanted to do business with anyway. 

Since I wasn't having much luck writing to people based off their horse posts, I decided to take a different approach and make my own ISO ad on Dreamhorse.com. This gave me the chance to lay it all out and say exactly what I was looking for and what my price range was right off the bat. Then I waited.

About a month ago a lady named Kim text me about a horse she thought would be a perfect fit for us. She was an 8yo 13.2 hand paint named Daizy in Benton City, WA. She was said to be a chill, non-spooky, horse perfect for family life and trail riding. Exactly what we were looking for. She was only being sold because Kim's daughter was in need of a horse with a longer stride to do barrels. We were so excited!! After talking with Kim and getting all the details on Daizy, we decided we liked what we heard and wanted to take the next step and go see her. So that's what Sam, Molly, and I did! 

Daizy was the cutest little horse there ever was! She met a lot of our criteria, size and age being two important factors, but also her temperament. She stood so quietly while Molly brushed her. And she listened incredibly well when she was lunged, ridden by the owner's daughter, and then when Molly got on to do a test ride. She certainly was shaping up to be exactly what we were looking for. 

We decided we loved Daizy and wanted to pursue her. The next step was to schedule a vet check for her, to make sure she was cleared health wise. We let Kim get that scheduled and squared away while Molly and I worked on cleaning the barn, stall, back pasture, and found someone that had hay for sale in the middle of winter. 

Daizy passed her vet check with flying colors, as we knew she would. Since I couldn't be there for the exam, I talked with the vet via phone and payed him promptly after the exam. With the vet check completed, payment details worked out, and Christmas behind us, it was time to seal the deal and welcome Daizy to her new home! We decided, since we had a Daisy for a dog, that we would rename Daizy to Mazikeen, making it Maizy for short. We welcomed Maizy home on December 27th. Everyone was so excited!! For an extra $100 to cover their gas and time, Kim and her family made the trip to deliver her to us. It was so sweet, Kim's daughter made Molly a plaque with Maizy's photo and name on it to hang in the barn. She also braided Maizy's mane and tail and put ribbons in, lol. She was just the cutest little horse! 

Deliver went very smooth. I expected Maizy to be anxious and antsy, but she was actually the opposite. she was calm and relaxed and went right to eating once we got her in the round pin like she didn't have a care in the world. After saying our goodbyes and thank yous to the original owners, Molly and I spent some time with Maizy brushing her and just being present. I was thankful that Grandma and Grandpa Whitten could be there with us while Maizy was delivered, Grandpa got a lot of great photos for us! 

It's been a week now and Maizy has settled in nicely. There were a few days after day one where she was a bit antsy, running the pasture, I'm sure because she finally realized she is here for good, but other than that she has continued to be mostly chill. There is always going to be a settling in period anyway. I'm sure it's been a bit tough on her, going from being in a pasture with many horses to being the only horse. And it's going to take a while for her to get to know us and trust us. But Molly and I, along with the boys, spend quite a bit of time with her throughout the day. Sometimes we go down to brush her, other times to lead her around and lunge her, and still other times just to say hi and sit with her. I do think she is settling in just fine and has already taken a shine to us, especially Molly and myself. 

We are taking things nice and slow. We haven't saddled her yet, but we have gotten in a lot of practice with catching, haltering, and general ground work. We also like to sit on her back and led each other around too. We are mostly focusing on ground work right now, and she is a superb listener. Whatever training she got in the past must have been excellent.  Of course, she will test you to see what she can get away with, if you aren't acting confident in your requests, but all horses do that as they try to figure out who's the boss around here and if they can trust you. So far things are going exceptionally well and Maizy is a pleasure to do ground work with. Next step will be to practice bridling and saddling her. Molly has a saddle gifted to us by our neighbor that will fit her, but I am still on the hunt for a saddle that will fit me. In the mean time I did purchase a bareback pad that will be amazing to use. We are excited to continue our work with her! We've been having so much fun and it's been so nice to have a horse in our family again! 

 

I am incredibly thankful to those that have helped make this dream of ours come true. We have gotten a lot of support from family and friends. I honestly wouldn't have been able to make this happen without them. From financial support, to loads of horse advice, I am grateful to those that have been helpful and excited for us through this process and to those that continue to offer support and advice as we get to know and bond with Maizy! 

We look forward to building a wonderful relationship with Maizy and many, many years filled with horsey fun! Molly and I are just over the moon to have a horse back in our lives!! 

With love,

Mama Hauck