Gardening 102

Just wanted to show progress on how the seeds are coming.  At this point I have planted two variety of cucumbers, yellow squash, and pumpkins along with two types of beans and chives. Of all the tomato seeds that we started I would say half have been killed my my lovely BatCat...aka Batgirl.  I know she can't help her curiousity ~ but she single handedly cut what little crop we may have been able to muster in half.

Being a beginning gardener is hard ... being a beginning gardener with a cat who loves dirt and green plants is darn near impossible!

         Next year I will need to work on finding a    greenhouse or some type of place to keep the seedlings out of harms way! But for now what I have growing is making me feel like a proud mama.

Watering them twice a day...is making me feel impatient!  This better be worth it :)

Goats...trying something new

Onto our next adventure.... Goat Farming? Ok, not really goat farming but John has made it his mission to get a couple goats and was lucky enough to find a girl in Burlington (just a minute down the road) who breeds pygmy's.  Well, not so much breeds them as just has a couple babies born each year because her male goat is just so good looking...and boy is he! (who would've thought that you could tell a good looking goat from a non-good looking goat?)

So last weekend we went out to see the babies and pick out the ones we would like.... (its funny how fast things happen when John wants something)

No Name:  born 3/23/12

After much consideration and going back and forth trying to decide we settled on the two babies who were born within the 24 hours of our visit.  The little black one above is a gentleman... so sweet and silly.  Snuggled in Abi's arms for the duration of our visit.  But when they let him back in his pen he was having the time of his life showing off his "goating" skills by bullying a chicken... who was about twice his size and could seem to careless that the kid existed!  But it was too cute not to watch!

Daisy:  born 3/24/12

The little lady below was born the morning we were there...and already jumping around and hanging with her mom like she'd been on earth a week! She ended up falling asleep right in John's arms while we stood there discussing things and since we had really wanted a girl picking the two newest babies made the most sense.  Unfortunately both babies will not be ready until June (possibly earlier if they wean early...but we wont push it).

Have you met Rover?

Then there is....Rover!  Rover is a one year old male who was too cute to not notice.  They let us know Rover was also available and already one year old.  Now I know pygmy's are small but Rover was particularly small ~ even for a pygmy.  He seemed a little shy and his personality was nothing to write home about...but there was something lost about Rover that I couldn't get past.  After we left we considered Rover as an option over and over. 
When we had originally planned to visit the goats it was to see two male kids and their sister who would be ready in May...but once we were there we discovered that the little girl was already spoken for...so to take Rover and the two boys would leave us with alot of testosterone on our hands.  We weren't sure how well that would work out in our favor~castrated or not!

After sleeping on it...or not sleeping on it rather, i was awake half the night thinking about what the right choice would be...saying that we needed to take the newest baby girl and boy was easy.  So the next day we went back and put a deposit down on the two babies and let them know if Rover was still around in June when we came back we would most likely take that little guy too. 
I'm glad we went back that day... Rover showed his personality that day and was as silly as the babies the day before.  If he's still there I think his true personality will be able to shine here in our smaller, less goaty setting.

Next purchase.... chicks!

View From the Deck

I absolutely love that I have a view of the sunrise as it comes over the trees every morning. 

Gardening 101

We are making our second-ever attempt at gardening this year. So far only the tomato seeds have been planted and this morning I noticed our very first sprout. It seemed a bit flimsy and doesn't hold much promise as far as I'm concerned...but I couldn't resist sharing the photo op here:

While enjoying the beautiful spring weather this afternoon I went ahead planted all of my sunflower seeds. I am hoping to have the best sunflower garden around the pool this year.  I have had great luck with planting sunflowers in years past...however last year I was unsuccessful in growing even a couple decent blooms.  I'm hoping to make up for it this year... and it provides an autumn treat for the birds and squirrels!

I'm soooo excited!  I have four variety of sunflowers planted... colors ranging from white to autumn orange.  I absolutely can't wait to see what they look like when they are in full bloom!  I'm hoping that having started them from seed this early will give them a head start and they might bloom slightly earlier then normal.

Barn Wood Frames...DIY

One of the rooms in the house is a little little sitting room off the main living room.  Legend has it that the old owners, previous to the ones we purchased the home from, had the entire upstairs blocked off from the house.  Living solely on the first floor... bedrooms and all.  It all sounds kind of peculiar to me, but who am I to judge or question another person's choices.  Especially choices that have no effect on me.

When we moved in, the small sitting room (which i will refer to as the den from here on out) was a fantastic shade of green... fantastic... if it were a tree.  Following Mason's room it was one of the color choices in the house I needed to change immediately.

me looking snazzy as I go about cleaning a built in shelving unit

So once Mason's room was complete I set about getting this room in order.  It's immediately off the living room and the bathroom is just on the otherside of it...so there is no hiding this room.

I started by cleaning a little built in closet unit (I'm sure its original to the house) by pulling out the poorly laid contact paper and laying new stuff down...minus the wrinkles.  Honestly, whoever laid the contact paper that was in there was either blind or drunk... either way there is no excuse for being that lazy and half-ass.

Now, to decorate the walls I hung my mom and dad's old cuckoo clock and a one cent world map I  purchased off of Amazon.com.    To keep cost down and frame my one penny map I asked John to make me a frame out of..... you guessed it.... more wood that was laying around the house.  Seriously folks, there is wood everywhere around here...free for our taking.

I didn't take a very good photo of this, the sun wasn't working in my favor... but you get the jist of what he did.  It has a really old rustic feel, knots and all.  I love it and hope to find something else he can make a frame for at some point.    So what you have here is the finished product... which covers more than 3 feet of wall space and cost me approximately $4... including shipping.  

This is the room after.  I love the new wall color.  We also purchased a $400 sleeper sofa to house out-of-state guests.   The cuckoo clock can be seen in this photo.  You also get a glimpse of the giant mirror I found out in the barn when we moved in.  It was one of the OH WOW items... I couldn't pull that from the rubble fast enough.
I single-handedly carried this massive giant into the house, cleaned it all up and was so proud of my find!  I believe its original intention was that of a dresser mirror, but with the thick wood frame and grand size i was more than happy to hang it on the wall in there to give the room a little pizazzzzz! Its slightly hidden by an old wardrobe trunk...but both the mirror and trunk make the perfect sleeping spot for my narcissistic kitty Batgirl.   Meeeow Kitty Kitty

Homemade Horse Cookies

So I have been particularly motivated to make more things from scratch since we have moved to our farm.  Experimenting with more recipes and ingredients that I haven't tried before... with much success and enjoyment from the kids.  I even think it might be bringing us together more as a family. The kids always stick around to help cook and then clean up (well most always) after dinner, a task they rarely partook in when we lived in our nonfarmhouse.  I am really enjoying it and them!  So my new fondness for the kitchen got me to thinking...

Each weekend my daughter Abi enjoys spending time at the nearby farm, taking riding lessons, cleaning stalls and all around taking pleasure in spending time with the horses there.  Its amazing how you can get a 14 year old girl to cheerfully scoop horse manure from 30plus stalls if it means she will get to ride a horse, free of charge for an extra hour each week.

Abi with Reno

Typically she leaves early in the morning with an assortment of peppermints and carrots in tow to feed the horses; of course you can always purchase buckets of goodies from the local feed stores or Tractor Supply...naturally I began to wonder... can we just as easily make our own treats here?!?

Abi jumped right on board with this idea and got to mixing things up with some ingredients I got while grocery shopping last weekend.

Reno's Round Ups

1 cup flour

1/2 cup grandma's molasses

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all ingredients...drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet flatten into patties and bake for about 15 minutes.  Let cool before storing in an airtight container.  We managed to squeeze out about 24 horse treats.

Admittedly, both Abi and I had a bite of these cookies...and they weren't half bad, she can't wait to bring Reno a treat this weekend!!!

As an encore to Reno's Round Ups she also whipped a batch of Oat Chews. These were less appetizing to both of us and tasted a little floury to me, but maybe horses like that.  I'll be sure to follow up next week and let you know which was the favorite. 

Oat Chews

2-3 cups unsweetened applesauce

2 cups of oats

1 cup flour

Mix all ingredients together, press into a greased 9x9 baking pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.  She cut them into 1 inch squares which she then stored in the refrigerator after cooling.



Stay tuned as we try our hand at more cost saving ideas... down on the farm.

Spirituality vs. Religion

Spirituality is for those seeking understanding,

Religion is for those seeking reward....