January 10, 2023 - Day 40

Tuesday!

Another not so exciting day, but very productive :)

Filled the morning with laundry, because that's fun. Then to the feed store to buy more piggo food. This week's trip I decided to buy another Giant Rubber feed pan to use for water for the "free range pigs." The last time I bought one - about a month ago or so I was having a terrible time getting ONE pan out of the nested stack. This time was no different. I'm pretty sure that I was the one who bought the last one. So I took the stack (of four) to the register and said "I only need one!" I didn't want to injure myself trying to get one unstuck, because that would happen. So I let one of the ladies works there try to wrestle one out. It took her a good amount of time, but she did it! I would have applauded her, but felt that would be too much. So then I placed my order of two Champion Hog and two Alfalfa pellets. 

We all know what comes next - having to wrestle those bags out of the car, but I waited until I fed Big momma and the boys to get those out and loaded into the bins. UGHH...

I'm happy to say that I was successful once again! I didn't immediately hurt myself, but that came later after I was finished with chores and hanging out after dinner. So much fun. I have to say that as I write this I am feeling tired and ready for the week to be over! Actually no, but I am feeling a little sore. 

I guess I better stretch more ;)

January 10, 2023 - Days ????

Not gonna lie, I've been struggling a little bit the last few days. 

As much as I want to create a routine that makes sense, I find that it falls apart the moment I have a mental moment and think that something is not right. Seriously I second guess myself all of the time! I guess I want to do so much I forget that there is a lot of days in a year and I don't have to do EVERYTHING in one or two days. 

Also, yesterday (1/9) I went to the Driver's License office located across town :( only to leave with a replacement driver's license and not a Enhanced Driver's License. I don't even want to get into that whole thing, it's just too irritating. I basically drove all the way across town (10+ miles) from our home, just to go home without doing what I set out to do. My trips are basically no more than 3-5 miles from our house and anytime I have to be in traffic in a part of town that I don't drive in on the daily I'm annoyed. Mill Plain Blvd from I-205 to NE 136th Ave has a million traffic signals and about 2 million drivers. Have I mentioned how much I dislike driving? Anyway, that set the theme for the day AND my appointment was late morning which cuts my day short and man I hate wasted time. 

The weekend was alright though. We got all sorts of things done - and by we I mean Tom. 

Here are a couple of the things that were done. First the drakes (Lewy & Uncle Gordon) needed a new roof tarp for their rickety shelter. Those tarps were purchased on Friday from Harbor Freight. Of the three that I bought this is the only one that was installed.

I like that the new roof doesn't stand out like a bright blue tarp. That would definitely make our farm look janky. The other two tarps can wait until this coming weekend. 

Project #2 was to replace the bottom step going down to the basement. Actually the whole staircase could be replaced, but that would be a giant project. So, since the bottom step totally busted and everything around it was crumbling away. Actually, I'm surprised that the steps have held together for the 25 years that we have lived in this house. They really are not great. So here is that repair...

It works, but the distance from step to step is slightly different and that will take some time to get used to. Just a side-note. This step was made from an old piece of lumber that was a homemade waterbed frame many years ago. A bed that we replaced with a regular mattress not long after we were married. 

Today (1/10) I am planning to hang around the house to do inside chores. I think I probably will have to leave and go to the feed store at some point today, maybe around lunch time. By that time I'm pretty sure I'll be over doing laundry. 

However, this is the one project I did this morning, removing the compost ring in the garden and freeing what little compost I have. The hens will enjoy the brussels sprouts that I tossed on the pile a couple of weeks ago. The only reason why I composted them is because I knew the pigs wouldn't eat them and I wasn't sure that the hens would like them either. Well, they do, so I set the compost free and the hens will have something to do today.

This year I'm going to slap together a different compost "bin" with a few of the pallets we have laying around the farm.

So I suppose I should continue with my chores for the morning. 

Enjoy the day wherever you are!!

January 4, 2023 - Day 33

Today was a quiet day. Only had one thing on my agenda - meet a friend at the Food Pantry so she could shop. 

Other than that I spent the day getting our living room back in order and tried to visualize a set up for my sewing area which will take less than half of the room. It would be the space between the dining area and the seating area in the living room. I have been needing a cutting table that is more counter height rather than regular dinner table height - so I wouldn't have to bend over so much. My back will be much happier. 

I found this online and ordered it. It will be delivered to Home Depot by the 12th or 13th and then that weekend I will put it together and have a space to store other quilting related items. I'm excited! 

Anyway, the day was quiet and I didn't feel the need to do a whole lot other than my living room project. 

As far as the critters go, I really need to switch up the order in which the animals are being fed. The boys and Big Momma just gobble up their food so fast! If I don't get on the ball then they are following me from paddock to paddock and then to the hens area. Not a good plan. My next evening chores day will see me feeding the boys and big momma THEN the hennies/turkeys/duckies. The other three pigs would be fairly easy and the "free-range" pigs won't bother me so much while I haul their food to them. 

We'll see. 

January 3, 2022 - Day 32

Yeah, there isn't a post for Jan 2. It was Tom's holiday, so we didn't do much that is farm related. 

Just as a reminder - I post the day after during this particular period of 100 days. So far it is working out alright.

January 3 - Well, it was a busy one and almost all of it was away from home. 

As per usual the critters had to be taken care of. However, since releasing Big Momma from the breeding pen, the feeding dynamic with the four boys has become a little chaotic. She's a Queen and the boys are the jesters. Still working that out really. 

The rest of the morning consisted of me running to the feed store because someone didn't think to replenish the pig feed...hmmmm... the person who went to the feed store as recently as the day before to get straw and hay. The woman who helped me says "Oh, yeah I remember seeing him here..." 

sigh

Then to the bank and then to the church. It had been well over a month since I last helped restock the food pantry. So off I went. That pretty much took the rest of the morning and saw me returning home around 1pm. 

I took some down time once I returned home, but not too much. I had feed bags to dump into bins and out of date dairy and bread to take care of as well. My goal is to only make a trip to the feed store once a week. I'm not sure that I can actually take care of more than 4 bags (40-50 lbs) AND the discarded food pantry items. This was an anomaly though, trips to the feed store should not happen on a Tuesday - unless someone doesn't say that the pigs need food. So, if needed I'll purchase more than need in a week and store it. However, until I can get the garage organized and a place designated for feed, we'll continue to go once (or twice) a week. 

By the end of the day, my body was tired and I was feeling the weight of the day on my back. Fortunately a good night's rest usually does the trick, but at the time of this writing I am a little sore. I really need to move more!

I did notice that big momma was in the pig shelter - so I figured that the boys wouldn't have a space to crash for the night. So, straw on the other side of the shelter under the tarp roof should do the trick...

Little Zeke got to settle in first. After I was done for the night, I saw all of them making their way over to their new space. They have each other to keep warm and they really do adapt quickly.

December 20, 2022 - Day 23

While I thought I might go run an errand today I decided to spend the day doing chores around the house. Tom's laundry was overflowing in the bathroom hamper and it's something that irritates me. However, he did take a bunch to the basement. That helped out as the hamper drawer was closed. That's just a pet peeve of mine. So, for the majority of the day I was getting laundry done. Not very exciting, but it needs to be done sometime. 

Later in the day I decided to do some more work on the brambles on the big shed...

My goal is to actually clear the way to get inside the shed every now and then. There are so many vines, I'm not sure what it will take to keep these vines under control. I don't want to use chemicals to keep these from growing, the fact is they grow everywhere here! I don't mind that they are along the road at the front of our property. Somehow we have been able to keep them somewhat contained there.

Anyway, not much interesting happening right now. Just waiting to get past the holiday season. I love Christmas, but as I get older I'm not as interested in the holidays. We don't spend time with family because there aren't many family members that we enjoy to be with. So, we do our own thing. Usually cinnamon rolls for breakfast (which this year I plan to make my own) and we just relax all day long, like be truly lazy. The only thing we really have to do is take care of the pigs 'n poultry. This year I want to get some treats for the piggies, some fruit/veggies for fun. They love apples and pears, so if I can find some for cheap I'm gonna bring back a bunch for ALL of the swine. 

Speaking of swine - here's Fiona...

She's looking pretty good. I'm really hoping that she is bred again. I think she might be, but we'll keep them together a few more days before moving her out and getting Little Momma in with him. She's the sweetest girl! I'm looking forward to seeing her with piglets again!

December 17, 2022 - Day 20

Saturday! My day started off a little on the lazy side, but then I had to get to work. The plan was for Mr. Tom to go and do some Christmas shopping in the morning and then we would head to the feed store to pick up more Alfalfa bales as well as some pellets. 

So, while Tom was out I got to work getting the space where we store the bales. Over the past five months the garage has just gotten more and more disgusting! We have two ducks that live in the garage, like where they want. There's straw and alfalfa all over the floor, because those things are not the easiest to move. Whenever we get a flake of hay for the pigs we are constantly leaving behind bits of the hay on the garage floor. So, mix the hay/straw with water and duck poo and mud that's been tracked in and we got a very gross stinky carpet. Enough space to store the alfalfa was cleared and then I went on to the next project. 

Around our big shed we've got all sorts of brambles. All over the logs that have been in our driveway for the past few years. I am not a fan of brambles. They grow everywhere on our property! We currently are not able to get through the doors to the shed without being caught up on those stickery ropes all over the pavement in front of the shed. So I spent an hour or so cutting vines and raking them away from the building. 

While I was working on cutting the brambles Tom arrived home. I think it was around lunch time so we had lunch and then ran a couple of errands. 

Before the day was over put the short string of colored lights on our old Fake Tree that we have had for so many years. As it turns out, the one string wasn't enough to go around the whole tree, so more lights are coming...

This used to be our second inside tree, but we don't have enough room for both trees in the house so I decided to put this one on the deck. Tom found another string of lights that we'll wrap around the tree when the rain has stopped.

December 13, 2022 - Day 16

Coffee Order delivered!

The dry weather continues, but the fog and clouds hang around for most of the day. When the forecast says no rain, it still can be a little dreary. Oh well, at least we aren't mucking around in the mud. 

It was time to replenish the pig feed so a trip to Pioneer was on my agenda. Also needed to pick up a few items at the grocery store for dinner. I decided to go to WinCo first. Whenever I go to Pioneer all I want to do is go straight home afterwards. We have to go north to go to the feed store and going PAST the exit to home is really hard. So off to get people food first! 

The best time to go to WinCo is the morning, forget the weekends! Since I only got enough food for a couple of meals, I'll need to go out again to pick up a few more items - probably a trip to Grocery Outlet next time.

Then off to Pioneer Feed. It's one of my favorite places. The people are so nice there and I love their store cat. The funny thing about the cat is that it was sitting outside when I drove up and when I was toward the door, it hopped up, meowed and ran in the store as soon as I opened the door! He ran behind the counter and started eating. The other thing about this feed store is that they have a store bird - who can be somewhat loud if he is not being paid attention to.

Other than running errands the day was pretty quiet. I've decided that late fall is really not that great for outdoor activities. I mean I would go out and do something, which I did do a couple of things. I have to be somewhat strategic though. Our White Holland Turkey is LOUD. He gobbles whenever I am outside. I swear he just wants attention, even if it's bad attention. When I get tired of listening to him, especially if I am stand right next to him the hose comes out! He scurries away for about two minutes before coming back and starts screaming again. Doing farm chores can be a challenge. So what is the strategery? I left Carl & Cindy locked in their house for the time I was outside during the morning. It was the most pleasant time outside!

After returning from running errands, I felt a little bad so I finally let them out after I ate lunch. Then all the gobbling started up again....sigh...

Tuesday = Tacos for dinner. Since tacos are easy, I decided that it would become our standard Tuesday night meal. Also, I can do different kinds of tacos each week to make it more interesting. No more thinking about what to do for dinner on Tuesdays!

December 4, 2022 - Day 7

Sunday is worship day for us AND I generally do not do the chores after feeding the critters on Saturday morning. So it was a rest day for me. 

EXCEPT - we needed to go to the feed store and pick up a bale of straw and one of alfalfa. The newly covered and cleaned pig house needed some straw for extra warmth. Not that the boys would care so much, but at least they wouldn't be sleeping outside in the rain/snow. It did snow yesterday and it was a little more cold than it has been in a few days. 

The remainder of the day was spent indoors as it had started snowing while we were at church and pretty much continued throughout the rest of the day. Fortunately snow around here doesn't last long and the snow on the driveway has melted and the snow on the ground will turn more icy, but at least there isn't much.

The other thing that we worked on is our brand fresh new fake-o Christmas tree. Straight out of the box and fluffing the branches. That took the both of us, each of working on it an hour at a time I would guesstimate. 

It looks pretty good I think. Once it's in place and decorated It will look much better! While this is a environmentally friendly choice I think I'll miss a live tree for the one month out of the year that we have the decorated for Christmas. I won't miss tromping around a tree farm looking for the "perfect" tree or continuing to look after we found the "perfect" tree. No water involved here or trying to get the tree straight in the tree stand. 

So my Monday project will be getting the living room rearranged for this tree!

November 29, 2022 - Day 2

It's still early, but I thought it would be best to start my daily post early in the day rather than later. If I don't then I won't sit down later in the day to start it and then the day is over...it's all about being organized and intentional. 

So far today will include a trip to the feed store to replenish the piggo food. Other than that I don't have much else in mind, but I do think that my other outside project will be to haul some wood chips to the garden as well to some very muddy areas around the new garden. We'll see how the morning goes.

Well, it's Day 3 and as I suspected I was busy throughout the day and didn't get a chance to sit and update the day. The good thing is that at least this post was started...

So, Plan B - the day after will be update day. After I am done with feeding the critters I spend a little time hanging out and thinking about my day.

This starts today. 

Yesterday was a fairly rainy day and I did make it to the feed store AND I did haul some wood chips into the garden. The rest of the day was spent indoors. Catching up on chores that needed to be done and seasoning up some ground pork for breakfast sausage. Also, I attempted to make English Muffins. The attempt was a fail. I had baked up English Muffins before, but the flour that I had was not whole wheat. The flour that I have on hand may have been labeled white bread flour, but it looks more like whole wheat. I'm not good at incorporating wheat flour into my bread bakes - so my English Muffin dough was terrible! Going to the store today to stock up on good flour and use the pretend bread flour to start a batch sourdough starter. 

So yeah, yesterday wasn't anything exciting. It was full, but not terribly exciting. 

Here's a pic of the boys:

The brothers, Zeke & Oliver

When the boys are head down and chowing down it's easier for me to get the rest of the critters fed and then ultimately released for the day. Most of the time these four don't realize what is going on around them. Usually, the sound of the garage door being opened is a big trigger and they come running. Food keeps them happily occupied - this makes for a happy Farm Manager!

Herding Piglets?

Today the piglets decided to explore beyond their fence. The tricksy little stinkers figured out how to get out by going under the fence. We either need to keep the fence energized all of the time or just let them do what they do. 

After dinner tonight I decided to go ahead and let Fiona out and leave the fence open so that the babies could join her and 4 of them did! The other two were napping within their area and missed the opportunity.

It's hard to stay upset with the situation as it were. They are too cute and how can anyone be upset with these little faces?

I do believe that this life is everything that I want to live out for the rest of my days. Just need to drop the work thing....

Farm Life is the Best Life!




Fun Video...

Easter Weekend

Happy Easter!

For the first time in forever we are not celebrating Easter with our church family. Thank you COVID-19. Instead we'll be meeting remotely and separately as we tune into Felida's YouTube live session later this morning. It's a good thing really, we can only hope that unchurched people might land on the video during or after. It's not ideal, but it's what we've got right now and at least we'll be able to attend worship, but only separately. Sunday evening is our Small Group night and we have been meeting via Zoom. A handy tool to allow us to meet for a short period of time.

My weekend started on Friday and I feel like I've done enough that I don't feel like the day was wasted. Also, I'm trying not to beat myself up when I don't feel like doing the things that I say that I might want to tackle. Staying home is enough to keep me feeling down, so I don't need to set my expectations high.

Yesterday and Friday I did spend some time in the Hoop House getting things cleaned up and organized. Also decided to transplant some seedlings - even though they were on the small side. The only problem that I ran into was the fact that my seedling trays were mostly trashed and I had to get more. My choices: Amazon or drive to Wilco in Battle Ground. Because I don't like to go to Battle Ground I looked on Amazon first. After searching for a few minutes and kind of being interested in a couple of different offerings, I decided to drive to Battle Ground. This trip will probably be the last trip out there for a while. At least it is an option.

A mix of saved seeds and new seeds from Seed Savers

Both Friday and Yesterday were beautiful sunny days so I was happy to be in the hoop house and not out in the wind. Friday the temp reached 82 degrees out in there! Anyway, transplanted more than is pictured above. Looking forward to more days getting seeds and seedlings planted or transplanted!

The one thing that I wanted to do, which probably will happen today, is to get the tarp out and cover the garden for the next few weeks. The chickens have been moved out and it's time to start the prep with a period of baking for the next month or so.

This was taken March 10th.

My hope is to start planting in about a month. That gives me a few weeks to plan where to put my crops and how close I want to make the beds. The vining crops take too much room, so those will be planted somewhere else. Maybe in the space where I tried to do Three Sisters last year.

Lots to plan!

Late yesterday we went for a walk and as we were getting started we saw this:

These are the neighbors who live across the street from us. They were practicing Social Distancing and playing BINGO. I didn't notice them at first since I getting my Pokemon Go working. Then I heard someone yelling out B-11 or whatever. We are only acquainted with three of the families and it was fun to see them outside. This sheltering in place has caused people to think about relationships and this is awesome! On our way back I heard one of the men yell "The winner of the next round wins eggs from the neighbors!" Hahaha...I would have brought over a goose egg if I were feeling saucy enough. Next time.

And now it is after small group time and I've got a little time to finish this post.

This afternoon we DID get the tarp on the garden, but when I was out a little bit ago, the wind had blew some of the tarp around. We'll need to find some heavier weights for the corners I guess.

The only problem is that the garlic is in the big garden this year. I decided to try planting into the ground instead of into a raised box to see what kind of difference that would make. While I knew that I would be putting a tarp over the garden this year, that didn't stop me from planting the garlic. Note to self - plant garlic elsewhere this fall.

Also moved the fence around Fiona and piglet's area. It's only been two weeks with the piglets, but Fiona has been in the space a week more. Fortunately Fiona is the only one with full size pig poo. The littles still have itty-bitty everything! So, they will be okay for another couple of weeks.

Now my weekend is coming to an end and I'll need to get back into work-mode tomorrow. I'm certainly not looking forward to it as the project that I'm working on is very tedious. I am grateful that I still have work coming my way and that I don't have to worry about being furloughed or laid-off.

The only thing getting into the way of farm life is work :( Oh well, it's not forever and really farm life is still pretty sweet and I can't wait until this is my forever!

The Weekend Agenda

Saturday

1.  Move the Chickens - we do this once a month to keep things fresh for the girls and dudes. I try to keep the set up mostly the same so their isn't too much interruption with the egg layers, but sometimes they just get excited about a new space. Also, since I don't really get to hang out with Lenny & Shelly during the week I'll get to take care of them during the day and let them out to forage and get into their pool now and then throughout the weekend. Yay!!

Their current location

2.  Replenish the layer feed. There is a great warehouse that is around 4 miles from our house and they have reasonable prices and almost everything that we need to grow healthy chickens and other feathered creatures. Once we get the meat chickens and the guinea hogs we'll be stocking up feed from their warehouse. 

3.  Bake Bread. I have finally found a easy bread recipe that I have made a couple of times. It is Easy Egg Bread from the Red Star Yeast website. It's a reason to get my Kitchenaid out and make a little bit of a mess in the kitchen! I think this time I'll make regular loave instead of braiding the dough. I would like bread that is more sandwich bread shaped. This is seriously good...if you ever wanted to make bread try it! We haven't tried french toast yet, but I think it would be fantastic! 

 

4.  Game night at our friend's house. A little fellowship with our core group and hoping for a win...

Sunday

Worship in the morning and then lounging around in the afternoon and then small group in the evening. I love our church family...and I really appreciate our small group people. I couldn't do life with any other people. We are Blessed.

Monday - It's Martin Luther King Jr. day!! Woo hoo!!!

It's Cascade Meadows Farm visit day!! It looks like it will be a wet day, but maybe we'll get lucky and we'll get to tour their farm without getting too wet. We will be ready with a list of questions about American Guinea Hogs! 

I. Cannot. Wait.

Day Before Thanksgiving

I've been away from this space for a little while and bam! It's the day before Thanksgiving! I'm tired, but thankful for a variety of things. So here we go...

Let's start with having Tom home from the hospital! Way back on October 25 he was feeling not so great and visited Urgent Care who in turn said - You've got appedicitis, you need to go the hospital. Oh okay - simple appendectomy. Not so much. After two and half weeks and a second surgery he was discharged and came home on the 12th. Yay!

Having Tom was in the hospital meant it was up to me to keep the outdoor feathered creatures and the indoor furry creature alive...okay that worked out. Yay!

A week after Tom was admitted I came home from work to this sight:

The coop lost it's lid during a wind storm. 

After I took this photo I pretty much lost it. It felt overwhelmed and didn't need to see this upon my arrival at home. The good thing was that we didn't lose any chickens due to this minor catastrophe. My dinner plan for that evening was to spend it with friends at their house, but after seeing this - that wasn't going to happen. So I sent a short text and the photo to my friend Dani and said that I needed help getting this put back together. It wasn't that the top was heavy, it's just too big for me to handle. Good Friend Dani came right over and then her husband Dan shortly after and we were able to get the roof back on the coop and then I weighted it down (as it should have been) and called it good. Tom will need to do the repair - again.  Yay!

We had planned to get the chickens moved to a new spot the weekend after Tom happened to be admitted to the hospital. So I had to go to plan B which was to wait and see when he would be coming home. Once I realized that he would not be anytime soon, I then asked for our small group peeps to help with some chores that needed to get done and were put on hold. A couple of hours during the morning of November 10 and the chicken fence was relocated and the front yard garden was cleaned up. Yay!

This was taken after I rolled the coop to the new space.

Later the same day after visiting Tom and then running some errands I arrived home to find that the chickens were not in their temporary area. Dopey me didn't secure the fence before heading out for the afternoon. Perfect. Actually it WAS perfect - the coop is pretty heavy when all of the birds are in it! Jersey Giants are BIG and a little hefty! So wheeling around an empty coop is AMAZING! Yay!

Of course, now I have to get the girls and Thor into the new space. After trying to herd them in - which is like herding cats...I had to think about it for a minute. I then realized that if I wheeled out their food bin they would probably follow. So I did and they followed! Yay!

The new space where the chickies promptly started working on Mary's garden boxes.

The only other thing that REALLY needed to be done I need to transplant some plants into the Fall Garden space. I could have had someone stay and help with that task, but I felt that they did enough and I didn't want to ask for more. I suppose all is not lost...I'll have a chance to do that this coming weekend. It will be late, but it can't be  helped. It will be an experiment - like most things are in our gardens.

After all of the fun things that happened at our house, Tom finally got to come home!! Yeah, it was an appendectomy, but it wasn't so routine. I am thankful that it wasn't even MORE serious than it was, and as it turns out, it was pretty serious. In this I got a taste of what life would be like if he were not around. I'm not so sure that I could do this working full time and trying to maintain a mini-farm.

I'm incredibly thankful for our friends who said they would help and they did - providing meals for me, helping on our property and visiting Tom in the hospital as well as being awesome prayer warriors! Once again I am reminded that we are not meant to live life alone. We were created for relationships whether the times are good or otherwise, we need other people in our lives.

Here's to the 2017 Holiday season which seemed to come so fast this year!