31/21: storm!

I was going to do a better post than this but there is a storm right now and we might have to unplug the internet. So, goodnight!!!

Suriyah

31/21: Buddy Walk

The DSAT Buddy Walk was today and was a big success! Our whole little petting zoo went great, especially for it being our first time to do it. It went so well, I am so thankful it did! Setting up went pretty quick, everyone LOVED the animals, there were no accidents or anything, and packing up was easy. There were a few small things just to keep in mind to change, but they're minor things like the tablecloths were a pain because of the wind, so I don't want to bring them next year, etc.. But no big deal!

We brought 5 goats - Rhia (older Nubian girl w/ almost no teeth so she couldn't bite anybody, LOL), Hug (bottle raised Mini Nubian doe), Cutie Booty (everybody should know who she is by now :)), Blondie (bottle kid, Cutie's friend), and one of our friends' goats named Oreo (Alpine bottle kid). We had 1 bottle raised sheep named Coasty, and she did way better than I expected her to. She loved being petted by everyone. Then we had 5 bunnies - 2 meat bunnies, 1 adult Mini Lop and 2 younger Mini Lops.

And then my other sister also brought her Bullmastiff "pup", Canuck. Everyone really likes him.

This is while we were still setting up. . . you can see all the goats and the sheep in this picture.

Some of us took a "break" from setting everything up and did a dance!

One of the tables,

Letting someone pet Cutie,

Everyone really liked Rhia too. . .

Well, I'm pretty beat and someone else has got to get on this computer! Have a great night!

Suriyah

31/21: Buddy Walk is Tomorrow!!

The Down Syndrome Association of Tulsa Buddy Walk is tomorrow!! It's free to come, so cruise on over to the track at Union High School in Tulsa and hang out for a few hours! It's from 1:15PM to about 4PM.

I think we'll be ready... hopefully :). Two of my brothers have a soccer game tomorrow, so we're going to have to do without their help :(, but I think it'll be fine cause lots of "us" are going! We're planning on bringing pigs, goats, sheep, bunnies and a giant. . . okay, a Bullmastiff.

Have a good day and hopefully we'll see you there!

Suriyah

31/21: busy day, just a couple pics!

Gotta get ready to go in a minute, so here's just a couple of pictures. Cutie, the kid, is getting SO big!

And remember everyone, the Buddy Walk is on Sunday!

Take care y'all!

Suriyah

31/21: Living with food allergies

I thought I'd briefly talk about living with food allergies. When my little brother, Osiyyah, was a couple years old, we realized that he was allergic to cow milk/cow dairy. Until just about a year ago or so (I'm not super good with time-frames, so bare with me :)), we didn't realize that he was *VERY* allergic to cow dairy. He can have a tiny bite of rice with cow butter on it, or cheese, or sour cream, etc. (all made from cow's milk) and he will have bad reflux/choking. Thankfully, God has been very kind, and he has never had pneumonia from it.

After we removed cow dairy from his diet, he would still have the reflux, just not as bad. My sister and Mom researched and we decided to remove gluten from his diet. Gluten is in wheat, rye and barley. It is hidden in SO many things you would not believe. Some very odd things like some Twizzler candies have gluten in them! After removing the gluten from Osiyyah's diet, he has been reflux-free ever since. If he accidentally gets a little "cow" or "wheat" (according to him), he will have an allergic reaction - reflux, and it can be super bad.

So, after finding all that out, we learned that there is a genetic thing most of the time, especially with the gluten allergy. So slowly, a lot of my family went off gluten. The changes have been amazing in some. My 18 year old brother has had stomach issues, tiredness and aching legs for a lot of his life. Once going off of gluten, his symptoms have  gone away. He is really, really sensitive to it. He can eat something with a tiny amount of wheat in it, and within a few hours he's on the couch with his legs hurting saying, "what did you feed me?!?" It's really amazing and he's not the only one.

There are 3 different "stages", I guess, with the gluten thing. You can just have a gluten intolerance, a gluten allergy or you can have Celiac disease where when you eat anything with gluten, it eats away part of your intestine - no good!

Most people will say that is is "hard" to live gluten free. Convenience-food wise, yes, it could be. But, as a family of 13, it has not been hard at all hardly! We are used to making a lot of food from "scratch". Really the only thing that we removed from our diet was breads/pastas, as that was the main thing we would eat that had gluten in it. The goats have been a huge blessing, especially with Osiyyah's high allergy to cow dairy, as we can make goat butter, goat cheese, goat everything!

Anyway, I hope you found that interesting!

Suriyah

31/21: 200th post!

This is my 200th post on this blog... woohoo :)! I'm going to just leave you with a few random photos!

Suriyah

31/21: today. . .

. . . I worked on buddy walk stuff for a lot of the day, just doing odds and ends for it. I finished 1 poster, and made a notebook full of info (that took the longest).

This morning some friends came over to help butcher the hog with my brother, so while they were all cutting and packing meat, I was working on this stuff (I'm not the butcherer anyway. . .).

We had these miniature hay bales, got them from an auction probably. I think they are cute, and am probably going to use them for decoration. So, me and some friends wondered if we could make them. We tried, and decided that they must be made with a machine - they are packed SO tight. So instead, we made our own mini hay-bale type of things - they're still cute (the one in the pic is not a good one!), just not as cute as the others :).

After doing things like that all day. . . except I did have a "break" and loaded 28 hay bales. . . we decided to learn a new line dance which I got down fairly well (my sister "Q" being the teacher), and then we danced the ones we already knew and got our workout ;). Very fun!

So, there's my post for today. Have a great evening!

Suriyah

31/21: Buddy Walk Prep

We only have 6 days... almost 5 days... till our Buddy Walk. My sister Qadoshyah is running a booth for Reece's Rainbow adoption ministry, and we are having the small animal petting zoo. SO, we have not prepped for it that much and I keep telling my whole family -"the buddy walk is in 2 weeks". . ."the buddy walk is in a week!". . ."the buddy walk is in 6 days, we have to get ready!!" :). So today, I started to make posters and things for our booth. I think everything should come together pretty well, but we do have to do some things otherwise we will end up running out of time. Tomorrow, Mom said, we are going to work on the Buddy Walk things.

Tonight I finished a sign, and am working on information sheets on the animals. I have to work on getting all the pens together and everything organized.

Tomorrow it's going to be a bit busy in here I think - my brother, Norayah, slaughtered a hog he's been raising to put in our freezer (for us to... cook) and in the morning some friends are coming over to help with the processing. And then we'll be doing the Buddy Walk stuff. . . hopefully.

Well, I hope I wasn't too boring with this post for you today! I just went through the iPhoto library and picked a few pictures out that were taken today.

None of the goats in the picture below are pregnant :). . . healthy goats!

these piglets are SO cute!! They are wild and run all over.

adorable!

Have a good night!

Suriyah

31/21: At the Fair

Well, obviously I did not have the time (or brain power, I guess) yesterday to schedule a blog post for today. . . it's late, but it's still today :)!

I got up at 5:45am to milk the goats, they weren't all too happy about that but got over it quickly. We got to the fair a little bit after 8am. The reason we were going was because my sister entered rabbits in the show on Friday, someone showed for her Saturday since she couldn't be there, and then we went today (Sunday). And I guess I didn't have to go, but wanted to for the fun of it.

SO, I've never really been to the Tulsa State Fair before... yikes, it's HUGE!! There were a crazy amount of rabbits, and they were also showing beef cattle, Boer goats, llamas and whatever else I am forgetting. It was fun, but I'm tired! Here are a few pictures from our day with captions, enjoy ;).

These were Percheron draft horses, their owners were getting them ready to pull the cart. These things were giant! One of the guys grooming them was 6'2" and the horses withers were still a few inches taller than him. . . very neat animals!

This little alpaca was in the petting zoo. He/she wasn't super friendly but not too wild.

Osiyyah watching some of the petting zoo goats. They were friendly for feed and a few were just friendly, but then one of the workers went in there to catch a kid for a photo and obviously didn't know what he was doing. . . or was just making a show. . . and was jumping/jerking/chasing these goats all around the pen, just to catch this little kid. The goats were all freaked out by the time he was done and all the spectators were laughing. . . poor things (the goats, that is).

 "O" petting a turtle. . . he liked them a lot ;).

This 4-horned Jacob ram was in the petting zoo. . . he was tired!!

Some of us next to the camel. . . it's feet were pretty big.

These things were in the petting zoo and weren't very "pet-able" :). I forget what they were called though. . .

That's all the photos for now. . . and of course we didn't get ANY of the rabbit area.

I hope you had a good weekend, I did! Have a good night!

Suriyah

31/21: Piglets!!!

Well, I had a crazy morning. . . . and I guess we all did! The whole house was awoken to Mom running in saying "Wake Up! The pig is having babies!!". So everyone ran down to the pig pen. It is my brother's pig. He's raised her since she was pretty small and then bred her. She has had 6 piglets, and I think she is probably done. They are big healthy piglets and are so cute! She had 4 girls and 2 boys. One of the boys was having a bit of a problem figuring out how to nurse, but I think they should all be fine. There are 3 black and white ones, 1 solid red, one brownish one and one red and white one... I think ;).

big mama pig!

So after all that, I was already over an hour late for milking. I was coming back up and my other brother said "Hey, can you come help me? It'll only take 5 minutes." Alright, so I went and helped him and it did only take about 5 minutes :). He wanted me to give the new pigs their shots while he held them. When that was done, I was half-way deaf from all the screaming, those pigs are LOUD! The picture below is my brother with the 11 new pigs that we were vaccinating (that he got from the livestock auction last night). . . not sure what he is doing in this picture. . . sneaking up on them I guess :).

I finally was able to get the goats milked and fed, and also finally fed myself breakfast. When we got home last night, there was a box of laying hens in our bathroom - yuck! One of our friends had gotten them for us... thanks ;).

I just got done loading 20 bales of hay for a guy and am finally able to sit down and write this. Tomorrow is suppose to be another crazy day. . . going to the fair because my sister is showing rabbits, and I think I'll just go for the fun of it :)! So, I might actually schedule a blog post for tomorrow since I probably won't have the time.

Have a good day ya'll!

Suriyah