Life on the Farm

*Note:  I originally wrote this post waaaay back in April of this year.  However, when I tried to publish it online, I received an error message and have been unable to post anything in the last 4 months.  Thankfully, I finally fixed my technical issues today, so I am officially back in the blogging business!  So even though this post is terribly out of date, I decided to go ahead and share it with y’all anyway.*

Hey, y’all.  Remember me?  I know it’s been months since I lasted posted anything on this blog, and I feel just awful about that.  I could spend a lot of time apologizing and giving excuses and filling you in on the last 4 months, but I won’t.  Let’s just talk about the present, shall we?

Thanks to the arrival of my favorite season, spring, our family has been spending a lot of time out of doors lately.  We have all been enjoying the warmer temperatures and longer days.  I just don’t know how people who live “up north” deal with all the cold.  I need heat!

So what have we been busying ourselves doing?  Well, like all good country folk, we’ve been hard at work gardening and farming.  And by “we” I mean mostly the Tool Man and occasionally the monkeys and rarely me.

The last couple of years we have taken a break from gardening.  The Tool Man was just too busy to keep it up.  But with a new job and schedule this year, he was eager to dig in once again and exercise his green thumbs.  In an effort not to overwork ourselves, we decided to keep our garden small and simple.  We planted six short rows of our favorite vegetables – one row of potatoes, one row of tomatoes, one row of squash, one row of peppers (for pepper jelly and salsa!), one row of zucchini, and one row of snap beans.

When it’s time to hoe or weed, the monkeys magically disappear, but when it’s planting time they are super excited to work in the garden.  They love digging their fingers (and toes) into the soft dirt. 

Even little Tacy Mae was eager to get some dirt between her tiny toes.

You might can tell from our wardrobes that these pictures were taken a couple of months ago.  It’s just taken me that long to write this post.  Our garden actually looks nothing like these pictures any more.  It’s now lush and green with huge squash plants and head-high snap bean vines.  We’ve also harvested our potatoes and have planted a couple of watermelons and cantaloupes.

We’ve had several new animal additions to our farm this year.  I’ve been begging the Tool Man for a goat for years now, and he finally gave in.  Back in January we bought this little pygmy goat when he was just 2 weeks old.  My super creative monkeys decided to name him “Goatie.”  How original is that?!  We just love Goatie.  I guess you could say he is a free-range goat.  He can push through his gate, so he comes and goes as he pleases.  Honestly, it’s a bit like having another dog running around the yard.

Of course we have several new feathered faces strutting around our yard this spring.  In addition to a dozen more chicks, our coop now houses 1 turkey, 2 rouen ducks, and 3 geese.  Whew!  That’s a lot of birds, but we sure do love having them around. 

The only negative to having all the birds is that the ducks and geese were wreaking havoc on our garden.  They mowed down an entire row of peppers and zucchinis, so we were forced to build a fence around our garden to keep out our feathered friends.

Thanks for hanging in there during my absence.  Hopefully I will get back into a regular blogging schedule soon.  I do miss sharing memories with y’all.

Lindsey

Fun with Chickens

Hello, y’all.  After a four-day weekend at a flea market and a water park (it’s a weird combination, I know) we are home again and getting back to our routine.  School continues to run smoothly for us this year, and we are right on schedule in our 9th week.  Wow! Has it really been nine weeks already?  I feel like the year is flying by.

But no boring talk about schoolwork today.  Nope, today I have nothing but the cutest pictures of Tacy Mae to share with y’all.  Last week, Tacy turned the big “2,” so I decided to get out my camera and take a few pictures of the birthday girl. 

With the cool, fall temperatures we’ve been having lately (if you can call 85 degrees “cool”) the monkeys have been spending lots of time outdoors, riding scooters, wandering in the woods, and playing with the dogs.  Tacy’s favorite thing to do outside is to follow our chickens around and feed them their favorite treat of dried worms.

This is the first year we’ve had any white chickens – Leghorns, to be exact.  Honestly, they are not my favorite.  They look a little too “commercial” for my taste.  Not to mention they are pretty flighty and they lay boring, white eggs.  But at least they lay, right?

I know this next picture is not the greatest, but I love the way Tacy’s hair is flying about.  It sort of looks like a chicken comb in this picture.  Tacy has the softest, most wispy hair.  I’m trying my hardest to let her bangs grow out, but it’s killing me!  I can’t stand to see her hair down in her eyes, and she refuses to leave a barrette in for any length of time.  I keep threatening to pull out my scissors and start whacking.

When she’s not chasing chickens, Tacy loves to swing.  And for goodness sakes, don’t put her in a baby swing!  Big girl swings only, please!

Recently, Tacy has begun posing for the camera.  Check out her cheesy grin.

Sometimes the best pictures are the ones they aren’t aware you’re taking.

To keep Tacy from dumping out an entire bag of chicken treats (those things are expensive, by the way) I gave Tacy a bucket with just a few worms.

Tacy is getting to be quite the little boss.  You can see below how she’s got that finger pointed, trying to tell the chickens what to do.  I’ve heard that Tacy rules the roost in the church nursery too (pun intended).

Happy birthday, you little mischievous monkey!  Mama loves you.

Lindsey

Randomness from the Creek

 

Hi, y’all!  It just occurred to me that it has been about two weeks since I last posted, so I figured I better get typing.

Our family stayed busy last week with a dance recital (Lucy), a birthday (the Tool Man), and braces (Ty.)  I hope to share some pictures of these events soon. 

This week has been full of activity too.  Business meetings, hair appointments, school, birthday parties…  I’m also planning to take the monkeys to the Biedenharn Museum for their annual photo shoot, weather permitting.  It’ll be Tacy Mae’s first time over there, so it ought to be an exhausting interesting day.  Not to mention I’ll have an extra kiddo too – Cousin Caroline – who is only 4 months older than Tacy.  Thankfully, my mom will be helping me corral kids.  Still, I expect plenty of shenanigans.

I’ve been working on my baking skills too.  There’s nothing quite like the smell of fresh bread in the oven, don’t ya think?  Last night we enjoyed hot Buttery Sourdough Buns, and this morning I prepared a batch of fluffy Sourdough Waffles.  Yummo!

Perhaps the best thing happening around here is the change of seasons.  Spring is finally here!  Woo hoo!  It’s definitely my favorite time of year with the longer days and the warmer temps.  (Not to mention the fact that I can kick the monkeys outside for the better part of the day.)  Yesterday I actually noticed the first buds on my rose bushes!  I’m hoping that the freezing temperatures are all behind us now.  This is the South, doggone it!  Enough of the cold!

The Tool Man took advantage of the beautiful weather last week by doing some dirt work in our yard, chopping down “trash” trees, and planting some beautiful Leland Cypress trees.  Now we have our sights set on breaking ground in the garden.  I can’t wait to pick those first veggies!

Our hens are enjoying the changing seasons too, roaming around the yard foraging for bugs and grubs.  Thanks to some artificial light, they have faithfully supplied us with an abundance of eggs all winter.  At one point I had over 75 eggs in my refrigerator!  We usually collect about a dozen eggs every day from our 15 hens. 

Recently we started letting the ladies free range in our yard.  Hey, as long as they stay out of my garage, I don’t care where the chickens spend their time.  The only problem with their free ranging is that they don’t always lay in the coop.  In fact, I pulled 10 eggs out of the dog’s house yesterday.  I wonder in what other secret places they’ve been laying.  Hmm…

I always feel so “farmer-ish” when I go out to collect the eggs - like I should be wearing an apron and humming “Old McDonald.”  Here my little helper assists me in gathering the precious treasures.

For the most part, we have a good relationship with our chickens.  We love them and vice versa.

For the most part…

There’s an exception to every rule, right?

Meet Rusty the rooster.

I snapped this picture of him while he was in mid crow.  When he crows it sounds just like he’s yelling, “Who just laid an egg?”  Lol.  (FYI: If you think dawn is the only time of day roosters crow, you’re wrong.  Rusty is vocal all day long.)

Rusty has gotten rather feisty lately.  Quite the little guard rooster is he.

That’s good if you’re a hen.

Not so good if you’re a chicken farmer.

Rusty will go out of his way to run you down.  I won’t collect eggs unless he’s at a safe distance.  The Tool Man is bit braver than me, and he’s got the scratches to prove it.  If Rusty doesn’t watch his step, he could be the focal point of our Easter BBQ.

Next week promises to be full of excitement too.

I’m headed to Canton for a weekend of flea market fun!  Yippee!!  Can you tell I’m a little excited?  I’m hoping I’ll score some great finds – particularly for Lucy Lee’s room.  Poor thing!  She’s nearly five years old, and her sorry mama still hasn’t completed her room.  One day, baby, one day.

Well, that’s all for now.  Talk to y’all later.

Lindsey

The Girls Are Back in Town

I know. I know.  It’s been, like, forever since I last updated this blog.  I could use this time making apologies and excuses, but instead I’m just going to jump back into things by showing you our new chicken coop.

That’s right! After a year without chickens we just couldn’t take it any longer and ordered a new flock this spring.  But before the chicks could join our family, they had to have a home.  Yes, we still had our old coop, but the Tool Man and I really wanted something a little nicer and bigger this go around.

We spent some time browsing Pinterest for coop ideas and finally settled on a simple little walk-in coop with nesting boxes on one end and roosting poles on the other. We already had a nice stash of old cypress boards and some leftover metal roofing from some of the Tool Man’s previous projects.  All we had to purchase were a few 2x4’s and sheet of plywood.  The Tool Man was able to complete the project in just a couple of days.

He’s good like that.

Of course, he did have a good little helper!

This little monkey was more interested in fishing than building chicken coops.

These nesting boxes were inspired by something that we saw on Pinterest – just some plastic buckets from Home Depot.  They can easily be lifted out, dumped, and cleaned as needed.  We really tried to make this coop as easy to keep clean as possible.  We ended up lining the floor of the coop with construction sand which we sift every other day or so with our handy dandy homemade chicken pooper scooper.  It’s really just a giant dustpan that the Tool Man drilled a bunch of holes in.  It literally only takes a couple of minutes to clean the entire coop.

Here are the monkeys introducing the girls to their new home.

It was still pretty cool out when the chicks arrived, so they spent the first few weeks in a trough in the coop with a heat lamp to keep them warm and toasty.

The monkeys were more than excited to welcome their new pets.

We now have a total of 15 hens and one rooster…we think.  Lol.  It’s hard to tell at first.  Since these photos were taken, we have added a small window to the front of the coop and a run off the back of the coop.  Our girls love to be outside.  Once we felt that they wouldn’t run away, we started letting the chickens out into the yard every morning.  They spend the entire day foraging around in the garden and trees, and in the evening they return to the coop on their own.  I can’t wait ‘til October when we start getting some of those fresh eggs.  Yum!

Lindsey

At the Farm

Sunday we had family-get-together at the Tool Man’s aunt’s house.  The children always have the best time visiting Aunt Pam and Uncle Rusty.  Their place is a regular menagerie.  Ducks, rabbits, peacocks, horses, goats… You can see why the children have so much fun over there.

All the kiddos took a turn on the horses.  The Tool Man was in charge of leading the children around the pen.  You may not know this, but before I came along the Tool Man was part cowboy, and it looks like Lucy shares his love of horses.  She was not afraid of them at all and insisted her daddy take her for a ride.

After everyone got a turn on the horse, Uncle Rusty brought the goats around for a snack.  Each kid got his own bucket of corn to share with the goats.  The little ones had a hard time keeping the goats’ noses out of their buckets.

Lucy wasn’t satisfied with just feeding the goats, though.  She just had to take a ride on one.  Ha ha.  This was too funny.  She used the goats horns as handlebars.

Lucy thoroughly enjoyed riding Mother Mary (and for all of those born north of the Mason-Dixon Line, that’s pronounced “May-ree.”)

Finally, Santa popped in for a short visit with all the kids.  Everyone knew it was really Uncle Rusty, but for the most part they played along.  Lucy was the only one who would not sit in Santa’s lap.  She had big alligator tears rolling down her cheeks, poor baby, but she warmed up a little when he pulled a teddy bear and lollipop out of his bag for her.

You might be wondering about Ty.  Well, he had his fair share of fun too.  Most the time he was out prowling around the countryside with his older cousins.  Or he was, as I like to call it, playing “Price Is Right” with the pool.  You know, getting as close as he possibly could to the water’s edge without going over.  Thankfully, he managed to stay dry.

Lindsey

Lazy Weekend

This weekend was just the thing we (at least the Tool Man and I) needed around here … a few days to relax.

Nothing to do.

Nowhere to go.

No one to see.

A lazy weekend.

I spent my time neglecting my housework and working instead on this.

I added a sweet, little applique flower on one side and festive pumpkin on the other.

I realize the dress is looking a little wrinkly here, but I took these pictures after Lucy had worn it.  Unfortunately, the pictures that I took of the dress while it was on Lucy somehow disappeared in the time it took to get the card from my camera to my computer. :/

I got so excited when I found this scrap of rick rack left over from a previous project.  It was the perfect detail for the hem of this dress.

I made it reversible and only added Lucy’s monogram to one side.  That way, the dress could still be handed down to someone who probably won’t share her initials.

While I was busy sewing, the Tool Man kept an eye on the monkeys.  Come to think of it, maybe the Tool Man’s weekend wasn’t so relaxing after all.

Let me just say here that my children, especially Ty, have always had an affinity for prancing around in nothing but their skivvies, but it seems that, as of late, they just refuse to stay dressed.  I’m telling you, on Friday both of them went the entire day in nothing but their undies!  And they spent most of that day outside!

Something else we did this weekend…

Give away our chickens.

Yep.  It’s not that we didn’t love our ladies, because we did.  They were so docile and friendly.  And we loved getting fresh eggs.  But these girls would not stay in their enclosure.  And they had recently taken up roost under our garage, and you know what that means.

Poop!

Then there was this little matter of a chicken hawk who managed to snag at least half of our younger hens.  So thankfully, our friends, and fellow chicken farmers agreed to take in our girls.

But we are gonna miss our girls.

If this last picture doesn’t solidify our place in the Redneck roll call, I don’t know what will.  A dirty little girl, naked from the waist down, shorts and underwear strewn on the grass beside here.  (And, yes, that’s a deer target on the ground behind her.)  I had to crop out the “cutest” part, but you can imagine what’s going on here.  She’s seen big brother doing it, so she figured she could too. 

Oh, the joys of life in the country!