Crafty

Sewing has been something that I have dabbled in for over 25 years. Ever since my first project in high school when I had to sew from a pattern a piece of clothing. Which, by the way, was a skirt. It was just a project for a class and I didn't wear that skirt, because back then I didn't wear dresses or skirts.  I chose a skirt because it would be easy-ish and also included the requirements for the piece. A zipper and a buttonhole, neither of which I have done since then. 

It's been many years since that first real sewing project. Also, it's been a few years between then and my first Singer sewing machine. It was the most basic machine ever, but an upgrade from the sewing machine that my mom had. I sometimes wish that I had grabbed that machine when I left home, but who knew that I would be knee deep in fabric and creating projects here and there. 

It has been a few years since my last quilt project - so many that I don't remember what I made and who it was for. Working full time did not allow the kind of time I wanted to devote to sitting at my sewing machine. There were plenty of other things that seemed more important at the time, so sewing did not happen a whole lot. Every now and then I would get inspiration and found a quick project that involved fabric and minimal sewing so I didn't totally abandon my sewing machine or fabric. 

Last fall I was over at Craft Warehouse during my lunch break from work and I came across some cute 5x5 charm packs. After checking them all out and finding an Atkinson Designs pattern called Mini Brick Road (the full size Yellow Brick Road pattern is a fave). At that time I decided I would make special gifts for my two closest and dearest friends for Christmas. I love to create gifts for friends and I didn't realize how fast time would go and that there would be NO time to even set aside for these two projects. 

Now that I'm retired - have I mentioned that before now? It's pretty awesome... Anyway now that I have all sorts of time for all of the things, I can work on sewing projects now. This pretty table runner went together quickly and when I was ready to sandwich it for quilting I figured out that in my plethora of fabric there wasn't anything that would actually make sense as a backing. Another trip to Craft Warehouse? Dang! A half yard of a fabric from the same fabric line as the charm pack was all I needed, but I got a full yard to have extra for my stash, obviously.

Blah, blah, blah...ta-daaa - the quilt is done. 

Honestly, this quilt is not perfect and I forgot how to do the binding, but I'm not perfect. Perfection is over-rated anyway. Even so, I know that it will be appreciated and cherished because it was handmade and the colors and theme fit my friend perfectly. Happy dance! 

When I make gifts for friends and family it allows me time to focus on that person and to pray for them and be thankful for our relationship. This particular project didn't take a ton of time, but I did think about my friend a lot and that was a good thing. Part of that time she was on vacation and away, so I kept her close to my heart while working on this. I'm looking forward to giving this to her!

I look forward to my next project for another dear friend. The time that I can pray for that person will be time well spent. In farm life there is time for crafting and to spend thinking about and praying for friends. 

Farm life is a blessed life. 

Border Wall

Not exactly a wall, but if you are a pig a three foot tall fence may as well be a wall.

Over time I think we have gotten pretty relaxed about how we are keeping the pigs 'n poultry within the confines of our property. The ducks usually free-range every day and they are good about going into their house at the end of the day. Most of the chickens stay within their area, but there are days when a lot of the flock decide to see what kind of goodies they can find outside of their run.

Then we brought home the pigs. In the beginning nearly three years ago we had kept Rex & Fiona within their paddock and they were happy to just hang out in their area. Every now and then they would get to free range which was a treat for them. 

Then last year - the year of the pandemic - Fiona had her first successful litter of piglets and she was confined to a different area and Rex was still in their original area.  After a few weeks we would let her have a break from the piglets and let her out into the field where she happily grazed away at the fresh grass. Then after a while we let her babies join her. Soon that became the norm. Letting her graze on her own and then letting the piglets out. Eventually we let Rex rejoin the fam in the new area. 

THEN

It became an all day thing. Grazing and wandering our small farm all they wanted. At first when the junior swine were still fairly young, we weren't terribly concerned about where they would graze. They usually stuck close to momma because they weren't 100% weaned yet. 

Fast forward to January 2021. Mr. Victor, from Fiona's 2020 litter, has turned into a repeat offender by knocking down the temporary fence to graze just on the other side of the fence. Normally, this wouldn't be that big of a deal, but now their are some new junior swine who are keen to follow their daddy out and about. This is unacceptable. 

After a week of what feels like constantly chasing him back to the safe side of the fence we had enough. With a trip to Home Depot we were ready to start making the fence more of a permanent thing instead of the premier1 fence that we had been using since last summer. It was fine until now. I'm not sure what was going through his brain to help him get into trouble in no time flat. The funny thing is that the last time we had to chase him AND the turkey girls back he saw Tom marching out their and ran back. He knows what side his butter is toasted on. 

For the time being we have Big Momma, Big Daddy, the junior swine and all of the babies confined to an area right outside of their little house. The fortunate thing is that they adapt pretty quickly and they are happy to be in their space toward the back of the property. It is temporary, but they don't know that. 

Looks good from the road

Eighty feet of fence installed

The beginning of the long stretch toward the church next door

Just about a week ago we started the fence project and have finished the first stage of it. The first part is along the road on the garden side of our property - it went fairly quick. The post went in pretty easy because the ground is fairly soft from all of the rain that we have had in the past couple of weeks. For once we are thankful for our Pacific NW winters. The next section might require a little more effort. The fence will be next to the path that goes in front of our house. That path is asphalt and I'm not sure how much of the yard has grown over the path if it has at all. All I know is that the first post that I attempted to start was extremely hard. The post is five feet tall and I can't work up enough force to get the post to even pierce the ground. So, I'll be leaving the next stage of post install for Tom to do. Not gonna lie, it was hard. I'm usually okay with hard work, but this wasn't going to happen for me. 

OH WELL.

Once the fence is set in front of the house we'll just use the step in posts to go toward the back of the property as far as 18 posts will go at least. A couple of hot wires should keep the swine from crossing over to the rest of the field. The ducks will still be able to go underneath the wire, but they aren't the problem right now.

So much to do and all sorts of time! Farm life is the best life!!

Adding to the Flock

When I retired I had received a gift card to Wilco Farm Stores from the chiefs and other staff members. The card was for $150 - a very generous gift. It didn't take long for me to decide what I would use it on - CHICKS! Wilco starts making chicks available toward the end of January and continues through to late spring. Then they have more during the month of September. 

We need to back up here a little...

My M.O. has been to add pullets in September so that by the time Spring rolls around, they will be ready to start laying. Last September I added six Buff Orpingtons and six Sapphire Blue Plymouth Rocks. As of today we only have two of the six Buffs, but all of the Saffies. I'm a little disappointed, but those little Buffs decided to explore and didn't get into their house one night. Farm life right? We usually lose at least one once they are outside full-time, but to lose three at once? That was new.

One Buffy and One Saffy

The young hens are getting close to laying. They have been making the laying hen sound which is kind of a There's-Something-I-Gotta-Push-Out sound. In the next week or so we'll be moving all of the hens to the back of the property where it is nice and clean and not yet poopy or muddy. The young hens will be joining them out there as well. 

Okay, so yesterday Tom and I went out to Wilco in Battle Ground and I picked out a couple of breeds that I have been wanting to add, but either didn't want to spend the amount that they were priced at or they were not available. So, to give myself an idea of what might be available I checked out what they might have in stock starting this month. The breeds that I decided on were the Speckled Sussex, Cuckoo Maran and the Delaware. Of the three I really wanted the Speckled Sussex, but they didn't have that one. However, they did have the Cuckoo Maran (the most expensive of the three). The other breed that I decided on was the Easter Egger, which was listed as an Ameraucana Easter Egger on the receipt. I'm not sure what that means, but I wanted to add another color of egg to the mix. As the name implies, Easter Egger, they lay blue or green eggs. The Maran's eggs should be a dark brown - I've been wanting dark brown eggs!

The BEST part - during this month Wilco has a deal on chicks, buy two get one free. Score! Before I knew about the sale I was thinking that I would pick out three different breeds and get six of each. After I read through the last Wilco email that I got I decided to go ahead and get a dozen - which means that I would only pay for eight chicks. After my purchase I had to study the receipt to figure out how they charged me. This is the weird part, the Ameraucana EE's price was posted at $3.99, but the receipt showed $3.89. The Maran's were $5.99, but were $5.89 on the receipt. There must have been some other crazy deal that I'm not aware of, I'm not complaining. Just confused. Meh...In the end I got four of the Ameraucana's at no charge and paid for the remainder. Now, I have quite a bit left on the gift card, so I might just wait until fall and add more layers. We'll see.

A little vid from their ride home from Battle Ground...

These littles were quite lively yesterday afternoon I swear they grew!

So, why are we adding to the flock? Well, many of the girls are from our original 2017 flock and the average egg laying cycle of a hen is around two and half to three years. Rather than continuing to feed hens that are no longer producing eggs, we would rather add to the flock and process the older hens and use them as stewing hens. Yep, a purpose for everything. We are a little behind as far as culling the flock goes, but that should happen sometime this spring. Well, that's what I'm hoping.

Just how many laying hens do we have? The simple answer is that I don' know. I think a year ago we had around 30-ish hens. This number included the 10 hens that we received from one of the captains at the fire station. Currently I think we have maybe 25 hens, but 7 of them are not producing anything so the new buffs and saffs are their replacements. Once the new pullets are ready to join the flock we may be up to 30+ hens. 

In a way I'm ready to have eggs coming out of our ears and running out of space to store all of them! Since our last sale of one dozen eggs last month we have had enough eggs to meet our own needs. 

My goal is to have plenty of eggs available for those friends/neighbors who have been coming to us to buy eggs. Once all of the hens are laying we'll be able to use the egg money to offset the feed costs. Winter is not our favorite time as the hens are not laying much, if at all. There have been a few days when there were NO eggs. Fortunately, we haven't been totally out of eggs because the ducks are still laying. It would kill me to actually buy eggs at the store. Especially since we haven't bought eggs since the summer of 2017!

Farm Life, Best Life!

Full-Time

Farmer! Now that I am officially one month into retirement, I thought it was time for a post here.

January was a month of rest and relaxation as well as trying to figure out life without a work schedule. Not gonna lie, it's been little rough. It never occurred to me how hard it would be to quit work cold turkey. It's hard, like really hard. It took a little while for me to NOT think about the stuff that I started and hoped that it would be done. Not just done, but done well. In the first week I woke up thinking about whether or not the apparel for the new hires would be done in time for their first day (which is today).

ANYWAY

SLEEP

Sleep is something that I don't do well. My goal for January was to make sure that naps happened. So almost everyday I took a nap. A nap that was as short as twenty minutes or as long as an hour or even just a little longer. Amazingly, I was still able to get to sleep at night. Even now, on this first day of February, I might still need to take a nap. In the last week I don't feel nearly as tired as I did in the first week of retirement. 

PROJECTS

There were some things that I wanted to do and made the time to do them. While a lot of the things that I wanted to do was indoors, I did help Tom with a couple of outside projects. Tom wanted to replace the pet carrier nesting boxes that we have used since 2017. After a couple of days we ended up with - 

New and Improved

Same Cart different set up

Once we put the finishing touches on the cart I wheeled it out to the chicken run and most of the older girls immediately had to check it out. The ironic thing is that the older girls are from our original bunch of girls from 2017. They may have slowed down their laying or completely stopped. I think we'll find out for sure in a few weeks. 

FENCE

In the last week and a half Mr. Victor has been breaking out of the safety of our yard/property. A couple of neighbors sent texts to me to let me know that someone was out. One day Victor and Little Momma found their way down the path a bit and close to the private road between us and the church next door.  STINKERS! Last week we had at least two neighbors text or knocking on the door and another time our friend Robin sent me a text saying that her neighbor asked to let us know that there was a pig out. The only problem then was that WE were out...blah blah blah...

Now we have fence materials and started working on getting the fence installed.

Thirty Feet done

This fence is 36" high and will go across along the road on the garden side of the house as well as on the other side in front of the house. This should help keep the swine where they are supposed to be.

BAKING

January was also the month for baking. French bread, sandwich rolls, pizza all the good stuff. My goal was to make bread of some sort for sandwiches and I succeeded! 

So many fun things in my first month of retirement and I am feeling pretty good about being retired. As I look ahead I can see that a lot of work that will be done from now until forever. Just writing this makes me pretty excited about the possibilities that are on the horizon. Things that I could only dream about. Things that I would have to cram into a weekend or a week of vacation. These days I can make goals for the month and not just the weekend. If I don't get something done one day, I don't have to feel bad - there is always the next day. 

I'm going to go ahead and end this post and go do something fun or take a nap or play a game or read a book...

Farm Life, Best Life