Time is fleeting...

So we had our first actual guest come stay!! It was a girl I knew back in High School and who I lived with for a time afterward, in the basement of another friends parents house. Neither of us went to college so since this was during 'that time', it was the closest thing we both had to seeing an old college buddy. It was wonderful! She still lives down somewhat near where we grew up and lives with another guy I knew from High School. She still sees many of those people so hearing all the names of people I used to know was very interesting. ((We also had similar experiences in that our fathers were both violent and used to beat us. She had 5 sisters and found the courage to stand up to him and ended up working out a relationship with him before he passed. Mine is still alive but I haven't spoken to him in many years because of the continued emotional and verbal abuse. I think that's why I moved so far away in the first place.))
She brought with her, her two dogs and she actually came up to get a third one! She wanted to be sure that they all got along before bringing the new one home. I'm happy to say that they all got along great and he is home with her now and enjoying a terrific new life.
As far as the farm goes... we are expecting 50 new chicks next week and 15 Indian Runner Ducks! Our current eight hens are doing very well and seem to be quite happy wandering the property finding all kinds of tasty morsels. With the heat they have discovered a cool spot under our porch ~ so I imagine there are no predator types under there or else we would likely be short a hen or two... Our dog Buffy understood quickly that they were not her 'toys' and mostly leaves them alone. Though she seems to enjoy occasionally trying to chase one, it's like she just does it and then 'laughs' at having made one of the squawk and flap around.
So we decided to invite my 26 year old son out for a visit. His uncle offered to use his huge supply of frequent flier miles if Jon would come help them put in a ceiling fan. As Jon was considering how long to come, he apparently decided he'd drive himself and move out here for a while. So in a week or so we'll have another family member here and his dog too. Corbin is a mix of chocolate lab and pit bull. He is very mellow which is a good thing since he is also very large. They will be taking over the family room downstairs.
Stephanie only has two weeks of school left now. This last week she spent on a field trip up to a place called Wolf Ridge. It's actually an accredited wilderness school. She loved it. They had ropes courses (that's her one of the courses in the photo) and rock walls and many nature related things. This is an example of some nature artwork. They had to go into the forest and just using what they found there, make art. This a wolf made out of lichen.
I was so proud to here how she tackled so many different obstacles and how she pushed herself to do more than she's ever done before. Now I hope she's ready to tackle taking care of her ducks!

This was the first egg we got. Then of course we cooked it and we all shared it! Notice the very dark yolk color... these chickens have been (and continue to be) raised organically. Their diet makes their eggs high in omega 3's and lower in cholesterol. And extremely tasty too... :D

These are our lovely chickens! The light tan one in the upper left area is a Rhode Island Red. The dark two are Javas ~ the five reds... not sure yet. But they do seem to be very happy here and we're very happy to have them and their delicious eggs!

So yesterday was Mothers Day. It was epic (one of my daughters favorite words... and I like it too)
I got to sleep in, got cards, presents and chocolates ~ Tom made me breakfast and a delicious German Sour Cream Coffee Cake. Yes, I am spoiled!
Then he helped me put together the bagger for the lawn tractor and I spent several hours mowing our yard! It was pretty fun actually. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the chickens wander the newly mowed areas. I don't know if it's possible to tell or not, but they seem pretty happy to me and that makes me feel good. Tom got the chain saw working and cut up the large tree limb we had sitting in the front yard for the past couple weeks. It had to be cut down for Steph's tree swing. After having lived in a community with a home owners association for the past 9 years we both kept getting the feeling that we should be getting a call or complaint about it being out there longer than a day or two.... HA! We're freeeeee!!!!
Tom also assembled our new grill! It's a combo grill that has two sides~ one for propane gas and one for charcoal. LOVE IT! Tom grilled up a pork roast and sweet potatoes and Steph made steamed veggies and saffron rice.
The house is really stating to feel like ours. I can finally picture us spending many wonderful hours grilling out back and doing all the things we've always dreamed of doing. Gardening and pottery ~ of course we still have tons of work to do to get that going! The Yard Dragons are out and about now too! Two are currently around the barn and one is on the south side of the house. Can't wait to make more!

I can't believe it's already May! At the end of March I started many of the seeds for our garden. About three weeks ago we started working the garden soil and I put in my first section of potatoes. I also dug up Steph's strawberry patch. After that I realized I had to rent a tiller! We debated over whether we should get a regular riding lawn mower or a garden tractor. With the GT you can get add ons to till soil or blow snow around. We decided that the extra thousands of dollars it would cost would be better spent renting a tiller (only $33 for a couple of hours, which is all we need) and we already have a snow blower and a great neighbor with a giant tractor blower that comes and does our drive for us and a great price. The mower was delivered today. It's a John Deere with a 48" cutter. I'll probably mow tomorrow...wait... it's Mother's Day...well, I just might anyway, lol.
Tom built a Top Bar Bee Hive and about two and a half weeks ago we got our bees. They settled in quite nicely to the hive... now if we can only get some good weather for them to go gather pollen. It's been cool, very windy and damp to rainy. Top bar hives are not the typical way people have kept bees, but it's an older way and according to Toms' research, it could be better for the bees. He's not using smoke either. Apparently that stresses them out ~ and it makes sense ~ it makes them think the hive is in danger of burning so they don't care what else is going on they are preparing to flee. Instead, Tom has a sugar water mix in a spray bottle ~ set to a fine mist. He spritzes them and they can't fly, plus they love the sugar water and they kind of chill out. We've pretty much left them alone. I planted several bushes around the area. Most are to the west to help create a wind and snow block, but one is to the south just in front ~ mostly to keep anyone from approaching it from the front, which is a bad thing as it's right in their flight path. There is cardboard on the ground there to help create a path to it. I've planted a few American Plum trees just to the west of the hive too. We won't be mowing about a 15 - 20 ft section from the tree line on the north there toward the south and also on the east side of the property to create a prairie border between the us and the farmed land.
We've got most stuff unpacked now. We've actually decided on some changes now that we've been here a couple of months. The barn, we've decided will not be the studio for now. Instead we'll have it in the old garage. The back half of the bottom floor of the barn we are going to turn back into a barn for the goats and whatever other animals we decide to get. That's all for sure just now, we'll have to make those decisions later.
Also, instead of building a chicken coop, Tom fixed the collapsing door way to the big old shed in back and we're going to make the back third of that into the coop. Tom also made a Chicken Tractor! It's a portable chicken coop that you move around the yard. The chickens can stay in it or wander around during the day. Then they can be locked up all safe from predators at night. We bought eight hens from our friends that have an organic chicken farm. We'll be raising some from chicks soon, but just haven't had the time yet! So now we have plenty of fresh eggs! They are so delicious! We've had the chickens for a week now and today we let them out for the first time. (So they would get used to being here and come back to the roosting boxes) I was rather surprise how happy and satisfying it felt to have them wandering around freely. It makes me wonder if I really will be able to eat them later! I wanted to post another picture of the tractor, but I'll have to figure that out as it won't let me have more than one in a post.

Living the Dream

Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to have animals - horses mostly, but I've always envisioned myself in a rural setting. Now that I'm 51 yrs old I finally get to have that life! My wonderful husband, Tom and our terrific 13 yr old daughter Stephanie have just moved into a 'hobby farm'. It's only 3 acres but is set in the midst of farm land so it looks like we live on a big farm. There is a huge barn too. Actually, the barn isn't at all set up for animals... it housed two businesses from the previous owner and it has two stories that are roughly finished and is heated and air conditioned. This is perfect for our Pottery Studio! There is another older building that was a garage and had been converted to a work shop which we will be using as our kiln building - it's made of brick. :)
We just moved in a month ago and it is the middle of winter here in Minnesota. We've been unpacking boxes and figuring out where to put everything. The studio barn doesn't have running water yet so that and new flooring are first on our list for that. The house is huge... bigger than we had been looking for, but it does make it easier to spread things out. This past week Stephanie and I farm sat for some of our new friends here. We've only lived here for 5 months and these wonderful people trusted us with the care of their home and animals. One dog, two cats, several fish, two horses, four goats (plus one extra visiting goat) and numerous chickens. As they have been living a life similar to the one we want to make, they have generously volunteered to become our mentors. So I decided to start this blog to help me keep track of this incredible journey.
We moved here in Aug. of 2009 from Voorhees, New Jersey where we'd lived for 9 years. We had no family out there and last Easter after a visit here to see Toms two brothers, realized that we really missed having family around (not mine so much...) and so Tom looked into job opportunities within his company, found one and the next thing we knew, we were here in Minnesota. We chose the Northfield area because of its strong commitment to the arts, the fact that it's rural yet has two colleges right in town and after visiting here on a house hunting trip, found that there are some of the nicest people on the planet that live here. Our daughter is thrilled with her new school, which is a charter school and project based. It's smaller and has a strong social 'curriculum'. No teasing or clicks, everyone actually gets along. I'm the volunteer coordinator there so I have been able to get to meet and talk with many of the families as well as be at the school to help with lunch time and get to know the students. It's like heaven on earth.