The Iowa Senate just passed a statewide smoking ban!!!  The Governor has already said he will sign it.  The ban goes into effect THIS July 1.  I will be counting the days.  There are a few restaurants in town that I have wanted to try, but can’t because of the haze of cigarette smoke.

Recently, we walked into a local bar and grill and immediately walked right back out when we saw the air quality.

So, thank you, Iowa State Government!  We will be able to spend even more of our hard earned bucks on local businesses!

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After a long winter, we are finally getting some real progress made here at the farm.

Buxton Concrete came out to excavate around the existing Corn Crib foundation.

Rich checks to see how deep the foundation goes underground.

Since we couldn’t find our tape measure, we thought Mason (at 4′ tall) would make a good “guesstimate” for the depth of the foundation.

Here they are setting up the forms for the foundation pour.

Here they are putting sand over the old slab drive though floor. When they pour the new slab, it will be even with the floors in the side bins.

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I haven’t even finished my americano this morning either!  Scary

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Our gal Tieta has always had a fondness for all things plastic. She loves to chomp down on Lego bricks and tires, crayons, and bouncy balls. She was banned from Mason’s room a long time ago. However, we can still usually tell Tieta’s poo in the yard by it’s color. Not the usual poo color, it usually has flecks of red, blue, yellow, etc in it.

We have been doing really well lately at keeping toys out of her digestive system, especially the bouncy balls. I won’t even let the dogs have Greenies (a least in the old formula) because of their tendency to “gum up” a dog.

Well, when she showed signs of distress this morning, we didn’t even think about the HALF a bouncy ball that Rich got away from her last weekend.

Long story short, she got very very sick this morning. Eight hours at the Vet School in Ames and $1500 later, we now have two giants hunks of bouncy ball that used to be stuck in her stomach and colon.

Poor baby, she is in ICU tonight, but she gave me kisses (which she hadn’t done all day) before we left the hospital for the night. I’m so glad it was something fixable, but that was one expensive bouncy ball!

Please send healing thoughts her way.

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We finally decided that it was more work to keep Mason in school and doing well than it was to just go back to homeschooling. Mason is a very smart kid, but one that requires constant monitoring on subjects that he doesn’t devour. Plus, with homeschool, Rich and I are the only ones “put out” when his behavior is less than stellar.

Several factors helped us come to this decision. First, Mason’s 2nd grade teacher, was amazing!! She knew Mason’s potential and was one of the few people that was really able to allow him to shine. His teachers in Omaha and Colorado were push overs. The only thing he learned there was how to get exactly what he wanted.

So, we are starting off with our K-12 curriculum like we had in Colorado. Only we actually had to PAY for it this time. In Colorado we were able to go through a charter school which meant more oversight than we would have liked, but we got the entire curriculum for free!

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