Hello, People!  I've been thoroughly enjoying the country life this past week!  We've had lots of rain, and I finally got my garden planted.  The baby hoed it over after I planted it, so the seeds are probably all in the wrong places now, but I think I'll just wait for them to germinate and then put them where I want them.  Evenings here are magical this time of year.  The humidity holds scent so wonderfully and since the fences around here are covered in honeysuckle, as you mosey along the dirt roads you inhale the perfume of clover and grass and honeysuckle... think the perfume Bluegrass, only more subtle and less flowery!  We've been contemplating housing for our 25 laying hens, as the above houses 12 comfortably.  My husband got a big mower to maintain the grass around here... it's fun to see the "meadow" growing up in feathery grasses, red clover, and daisies, but pastures need to be mowed to keep the good grasses growing, if no animals are doing it for you!  I've been reconsidering goats, as there are portions of our land that are particularly suited to goats, but will need some good fencing first!

My window box on the back of the house is looking really good, I think!  It's supposed to attract hummingbirds, but no luck yet.  We have spotted lots of other birds, though.  We've seen bluebirds, cardinals, and orioles, for example.  Also, we've got a healthy population of fireflies!  Sometimes it looks like you're in the middle of a stadium and it's full of cameras flashing.  I've never see so many at one time in my life!  I know this land hasn't been farmed in at least 10 years, and before that it was a cattle farm, so I don't think pesticides have been used around here for a good long time!  

There are lots of walnut trees on the property, which promises lots of good eating come fall, if only we can get the shells cracked... ever tried to shell a black walnut?  It's super hard, and dyes your hands dark brown in the process!  I saw a special tool that looks like something that belongs in a machine shop in a catalog once, maybe I should try to get that?  I've got a hemp t-shirt finished to show you soon, it's almost finished, and the chicks should be moved to pasture soon, now that it's warmed up around here, so more pics of chickens, too, hopefully on grass, soon!  

New Arrivals

Well, we are officially starting our food production endeavors as of this morning!  The chicks have arrived!  This year to save time we ordered two specials from Murray Mc Murray Hatchery, the Barbecue Special (Straight run cornish x's or cornish roasters) and the Rainbow Layers Special (various breeds of chickens that lay colored eggs).  So, as of 8:23 this morning 51 little funny little feathery babies are living in our garage.

The Little Engineer wants to sell eggs this year so I got a dozen chicks for our family and a dozen chicks for his entrepreneurial endeavors.  Now, should we house all the hens together or separate them?

These are the meat chicks... they're born to eat and be eaten... these things grow so fast they're ready to butcher in 6-8 weeks... they really are bred to eat... they pretty much sleep, eat, and poop constantly...  This is not normal chicken behavior.  Normal chickens browse on grass, chase bugs, play roosting games, scratch, take dust baths, and can be trained to come when you call.  I don't enjoy raising the cornish x's at all.  They seem like something outside of the natural order, some sort of mutant monster out of a mad scientist's lab or something.  My sister wondered if eating animals bred for eating constantly has any effect on our own appetites?!  Why are we raising them?  I don't know... just because, I guess!

Here's our brooder set up:  not exactly high tech... it's packing boxes taped together in an oval shape and filled with hay!  It was virtually free and recycling cardboard to boot. The chicks seem warm and happy in their new temporary home.

A final shot of the cuties!

Moving Vignettes

This is the house, the day after we moved in... I started unpacking the kitchen right after I made the beds.

I think a cabinet that's white inside is wonderful!  Everything looks so clean and bright.  An old (as in long time) friend came to help organize things... she's good at it.  Plus she likes the kids, bonus!

And of course the Prairie Princess got busy dressing appropriately for her setting... perhaps she was between scenes and taking a break?

Outside

Well, we have a closing date, finally, which gives my life some focus finally!  May 3rd we have a scheduled closing and we move in two weeks... woo hoo!  My FIL mentioned to my husband that he'd like some exterior pics of the house so I got right on it.  We went to the house yesterday and measured rooms so I could plan furniture layouts, and walked the property, and I took some shots of the house and grounds!

Yellow, I love yellow houses!  I'm already seeing the garden!

The "front four" and the long, long driveway, which I have plans to flank with flowering trees, probably fruit trees and arbor day foundation freebies.  Picture: chicken tractors, fiber animals, a milk cow and her calf, and maybe even pigs!

Daddy and five little people.  OK, one is getting awfully big to be called little.  The woods are beyond the road which is the boundary of our property.   

This property is just ideal.  There are neighbors, which is good, but the property really seems private and secluded in many ways, and oh, so beautiful! There is a creek, which in the photo is swollen due to lots of rain, and a fishing hole just a bit down the road.  I can envision puddle playing and a willow tree and paper boat races.  We even met some neighbors, which was just ideal!  Sometimes it's hard to meet your neighbors in the country, OK, sometimes it's hard to get to know your neighbors anywhere nowadays!

I want to pause here to say that I do not deserve this wonderful blessing!  I am so thankful for grace, so needy of mercy, and so very, very undeserving of this!  I have to get a little overt here!  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!  OK, that says it all I think!  (Have you noticed how many exclamation marks I use?  That's just how I speak... I exclaim!)

Sweet June

Wow! Did you notice I have nine followers!? Yee Haw! Hi, ya'll!

Virginia in June is just a Paradise. Night before last, we drove home from ballet class with the windows open to take in the gorgeous scent of the season. The honeysuckle is growing on fencelines all the way home, plus there are catauba trees, which have these huge fragrant orchid-like flowers. It was one of those fragrant, pre-thunderstorm evenings, heavy with scent and balmy. When the thunderstorm came, it was all out pre-thunderstorm preparations, because chances are the power will go out...

These entail the following:

Get out candles and matches
Make sure all the flashlights have batteries that work
Clean up pathways to the bathrooms
Unplug all the electronics
Go to bed early and snuggle the baby. It's fun!

It's been such a moist, beautiful spring, and it's just about time for tiger lily season, which I am soooo stoked for. It's got to be my favorite flower. My great grandparents used to have this big farm in Upstate New York (Chamberlain's Mill) and they had a giant lily bed that made a big impression on my developing taste, I think, right along the road opposite Mr. Chamberlain's house... he was really old when I used to visit him, but he told me this funny story about the apple orchard and geese... I'll tell ya another time!

The peas are producing prodigiously (snow and sugar snap), the cabbages are actually forming heads, which is a first for me, and the tomatos are fruiting already. The potatoes are blooming, the hydrangea has three beautiful blue balls on it, and the roses have buds forming... and I've probably got 30 volunteer chamomile plants that are starting to flower. Yay!

I finished the ballet bodices except for the hook and eye tape, I'll be sewing at rehearsals for Sleeping Beauty on Saturday and then I'm off... purple satin makes me want to commit sepuku after the 13 costumes I've made for two ballets. I've decreed that if the girls choose purple for their weddings, I'll not do the sewing! I've said my peace and counted to three!

No pics today, sorry... more later on fiber...

A Bit to Mourn

I am Reading: A Book on Calculus... weird, huh!? Romans, Make, Grow, Gather

I am Thinking: About my girls that I lost. We're down to three hens now, and four in the brooder with the broilers. They were such good little hens, such good layers, such funny little barnyard companions. I'm mourning the chickens. I miss their eggs, too.

A lot.

I asked my landlord if he'd sell me some hens, but he said that I'd have to take a rooster, too. I just put professor in the freezer a few weeks ago, and I'm not ready to love/hate another Roo, yet. So, what to do? I suppose I'll just have to wait to see what happens.

I am Working on a couple pairs of socks, the ironing basket, the laundry, and the new schedule for summer.

I am Wearing denim capris, a white cotton cable sweater and my Green stripey Wellies... and wild frizzy hair pulled into a pony tail.

I am Teaching myself new routines for the day, the children to obey, and cheerfulness in adversity.

I am Cooking some roast chicken, with mashed potatos and corn for dinner... maybe some fresh bread, too.

I am Planning some housecleaning, some organizing, some gardening.

Outside my window, but not today:

It was beautiful around here in April... See that house at the end of the road? It's for rent, so perhaps we'll get to meet a new neighbor, soon. The forsythia makes me so happy in spring. It just slays me next to that black board fence. So gorgeous. Isn't the light beautiful?!

Busy, Busy Bee

Whoo! How busy I've been! I don't want to recount all the rigmarole we've been through this past week, but I thought I'd post a to do list for today:

1. Wash sheets and dry them on the line. The weather is begging for this and the sheets need a good washing desperately.

2. Wash woodwork. I've been taking down the plastic film we covered the windows with and opening windows to let in the beautiful weather.

3. Get out and sort summer togs and put away winter gear. Of course this is a multiple day job with all the people in our house, but I could get started.

4. Reboot house for dinner guests.

5. Gather night crawlers for fishing tomorrow.

6. Pack sandwiches and goodies for fishing trip

7. Have some old friends over for a fajita dinner, a bonfire, s'mores, and some card playing, hopefully!


Numbers 2 and 3 may have to be put off if we do indeed have guests, but it should be a fun, productive day!

Spring has Sprung

Wow! It's been a month, I tell ya! So many things have happened here. Not as many as I'd like due to illness... mine, the kids, the hubby's. A plague of gastrointestinal illness in a family of 8 can take a really long time to recover from! My blogging was postponed due to a total crash of my hard drive two weeks ago and having house guests. So, some interruptions were really bad, but some were really good, too.

I finished this:

These are blooming:

The daffodils, crocus, and maples have been in full swing, and now the forsythia is blooming and some pretty white flowered tree which I have not yet identified. My tulips were coming along nicely, but the neighbor's goat ate all the leaves of all the tulips he could find on the farm, including my 18.

I have planted the cold weather crops in our new third SFG bed... it's 4 x 16 so it can fit a lot of spinach, to say the least. I planted cabbage, peas (snap and snow), broccoli, spinach, green onions, and lettuce. I've also planted a strawberry bed and potato barrel and onion sets. Still, nothing is sprouting yet. But we've had some really lovely rain followed by a couple of warmish days that I know is working its magic on the seeds. They're under their nice, sweet covering of soil softening and sending tentative little pale yellow sprouts upward toward the warmth of the sun.

On the needles: blue socks, orange socks, and a baby set for a friend's new baby... I'm making a February baby set in grey and raspberry. I just love that sweater for baby girls... it's simple, beautiful, easy to knit, and easy to resize. I've decided that the reason I love Elizabeth Zimmerman so is that her patterns are often like that: simple, neat, and warm. She knitted for the same reason I do I think... to relax and to make things people will actually wear. I wish I'd begun a blanket long ago, because the baby would look soooo fetching in her little knitted outfit nestled in a raspberry blanket on Mama's knee. Will post pics of knitted projects another time.

Spring is Springing

Have you noticed? It's a big thing for me, you know... We have a follower to the blog! Yay! If you want to follow and be alerted whenever I post anew or whatever, just scroll all the way to the bottom and click "Follow This Blog". School is just humming along right now... of course, I have totally dropped Latin. But otherwise, we're running on all cylinders right now. We should be done with the 3 R's sometime in May, and then, boy howdy, we're gonna farm like we've never farmed before! I'm soooo excited for the garden this year. Not just the food, either, I'm excited for the daffodils and tulips I planted, and the herbs, and lilies, and roses, and lavender I bought for the children. We were planning on some feeder calves, but haven't yet obtained any, and we're putting out feelers for a family cow, but that's not falling into place, either, so we're just focusing on what we CAN do... We can garden. We can tend our little flock of chickens. We can make things at home...

Speaking of that: I've been sewing. I bought some patterns for simple, classic clothes (Common Sense Patterns) for the Prairie Princess. She is such a Luddite. I've finished (except for buttons and holes) a very pretty ruffled collar, long sleeved blouse for her in white cotton with printed golden orangey and metallic silver polka dots. She tried it on after the sleeves were attached to talk about buttons with me:

"Oh, Mommy! I just love it! Especially since it's handmade!" the Prairie Princess gushes, and when I say gush, I mean it.

She's very gratifying to make things for. Really. She talks like she's Anne of Green Gables most of the time. I mean she speaks with all the emotion and emphasis and vocabulary. But she's not really a talkative person. She can't be when she's got two little sisters with "tongues hung in the middle."

Speaking of orange, again... I bought the fabric for my living room curtains. I know, I said I'd let you all give your input, but I couldn't wait. Orange, again. Shocking.