Foster parents to be!

We had the official interview and home visit last night with our foster care contact from the Missouri Children's Division representative. She said that as soon as she gets the fingerprints and completes the paperwork we will be ready to host some kids. We are attending training classes, so we will probably wait until the classes are done before we take any foster kids. Brenda and I have hosted foster kids for about 8 years now, so we pretty much know what to expect. We built the house with the idea of hosting several children, so we are prepared.

Here's the photo of the three little pigs we got last week. Pig 1, Pig 2 and Pig 3. I have been bottle feeding them three times every day. I can tell you it is starting to wear on me, so I have been giving them what milk replacer they can drink, and then I put the rest in with their pig pellet food. Eventually, that is, sometime during the coming week, they will be off the bottle entirely. I am hoping to get the fence put up this Saturday and then I will move the chickens and the pigs inside the fenced area over by the shop. Brenda is getting tired of having chicken manure left on the porch, the sidewalk, the driveway, the garage floor and the deck. I will have to clip their wings so that they won't fly over the fence. I have been feeding the fish every day since we got them, the fish guy said that it is important to feed them the first year so that they get a good start. It was so dry the last few weeks that I was just about to start running water from the well into the pond, but it started raining again two days ago and then it rained again this afternoon, so I think they will be okay. I bought two rain barrel kits from Amazon. They are made by Fiskars, the scissors company. I really like these. I have them set up so that the downspouts from the back half of the house go into two 55 gallon barrels in the back yard, next to the retaining walls. I will get a photo of the setup later. That first rain we had two days ago filled one barrel completely. The other one didn't work, so I have been playing with it to try to figure out what happened. I plan to use the rain water for the teapots on the stove, as rain water doesn't have any lime (minerals) in it, so when the water boils down, it doesn't leave any lime deposits in the bottom of the pot. I keep three teapots on the wood cookstove all the time. That gives me plenty of hot water for cooking (soups and stews) and it helps to absorb some of the heat coming off of the stove top. Rain water can also be used for washing hair as it is very soft water, and when we use the Jacuzzi, hot water off the stove can help to fill the tub!