New Arrivals

Look who we picked up yesterday... our 13 baby chicks! 

So begins our newest adventure. Right now they are happily chirping away in the brooder we built them in our basement. It will be their home for the next 8 weeks, until they are big enough to move to their permanent home in the barn. 

That gives us plenty of time to get the barn ready for them. One of the previous owners had chickens, and so we were left with a lot of chicken keeping equipment - 2 large waterers, 2 large feeders, and the heat lamp we are currently using in the brooder, all of which were properly cleaned and sterilized. Next on our list is a major cleaning of the "chicken room."

The room is huge, so we're going to partition off a section for the coop. We're also re-purposing an old, water damaged shelving unit for nesting boxes. Like the equipment, this room needs a good deep cleaning before the chicks can move in. Fortunately, we have 2 months to do it in. We'll keep you updated!

Unplanned Blog Sabbatical...

Apparently, in my world, having a toddler and blogging don't go hand in hand. Has it really been almost 2 years since my last post???

Aside from our continuing baby adventure, which is a never-ending, always surprising, and forever amazing, not too much has been going on. The gardens we spent so much time working on fell to the wayside, aided by the fact that all the grasses and weeds we so diligently removed came back with a vengeance. I managed to rescue some Hostas from the wilderness, and moved some wild roses to the garden bed next to the garage. Our address post near the road received some daylillies, as did the front of the barn. We also managed to enlarge our fire pit last summer, and have yet to have a single fire in it. Our bonfire pile has been accumulating for the past 2 summers, and we can't wait for a great excuse to light it!

In other news, our household grew with the addition of 2 new feline members. Finnegan came to us during a deep freeze in January. Figuring he lost his way, we gave him lots of food and water, a cardboard box home with plenty of towels to curl up in until the cold snap broke and he could head on home. After a couple of days of relatively "warm" weather, Finn was still hanging around, so we welcomed him in. The vet estimated that he was around 18 months old.

 

 The next addition was found next door to our daycare. A family's cat had had kittens, and they were up for adoption. David couldn't resist this one, and we called him an early birthday gift. He's has quite the personality - he'll follow us around the yard, loves playing fetch with sticks, and jumping out to surprise you if you happen past one of his many hiding spots. We named him Quicksilver, but call him Silver for short.

Although we are still lacking in land (and funds) for our alpaca dream, we have finally started work on our hobby farm. We have begun work on our new vegetable garden, plants have been purchased for converting a currently weed-filled garden into a butterfly garden, and our biggest project for this year: preparing for the arrival of 12 day-old chicks, which includes not only preparing a space for them to grow for the first 6 weeks, but also getting the barn's chicken room ready, and fencing in a chicken run for them as well. 

In other news, we saw one of our wild neighbours yesterday evening. This coyote passed through our yard, stopping briefly when he (or she?) heard us go out onto the deck to take some pictures. He stayed for a minute or two before crossing our border into the woods behind us. What an amazing encounter! Of course, our next step of action is to install a motion sensing security light on the back of our barn, and increase the amount of lighting we have on the property to discourage our canine friend from coming closer to our home, cats, and future chicken home.

Since we've taken an unplanned sabbatical from blogging, let's try this again, shall we?

Endless Yard Work

So, while we had the whipper-snipper, we decided that we may as well deal with some other areas of the yard as well. There is a section next to our barn that we had not dealt with. It was allowed to grow wild last year (I'm not exactly sure how that happened...) and this year we wanted to reclaim the area. It is just behind the vegetable garden, when facing the barn.

One of the previous owners had chickens, and they fenced in a section using chain-link fence...

As you may be able to see, it was not a very professional job... actually, the roll of chain-link is still rolled up in one corner and still attached to the rest of the fence. There isn't even a gate to go into the enclosure... you have to climb over the fence! David dealt with the grass/weeds up to the fence line before dealing with the vegetable garden. While he was doing that, I worked at removing the fencing. I wasn't able to take it all down, but I did manage to remove the front section. Once that was done, David was able deal with the long grass/weeds. 

There is another fenced in section, beginning at the corner of the barn. It's fenced with no-climb livestock fencing, and there is a gate on the other side. We're going to keep that section as is. The next step will be to remove the trees next to the barn (they're growing too close to the barn). We're also planing a composting station on this side, just near the window you see in the second photo.

Painting!

We picked up a gallon on "Sun-dried tomato" a couple of weeks ago, and I've been anxiously waiting for it to get warm enough to paint. I woke up this morning and thought today is the day. It only took 5 hours, but it was sunny and warm... and the end result was well worth it!

Before: Reddish-Brown Doors & Trim:

After: Bold "Sun-Dried Tomato" Red

 I still need to do a second coat and there's two more windows on the other side of the barn that need to be done as well, but they have to wait until the trees next to the barn are removed (I hate to do it, but they're leaning against the roof). Then there will be the garage doors to do... but I think I may need a second gallon of paint for those!

I was hoping to plant the gladiola bulbs along the front, but I was so exhausted after all that painting that it will have to wait for another day. 

Happy Anniversary!

It was one year ago today that we dotted all the I's, crossed all the T's and got the keys to our new life. Since that time, we've spent a lot of time learning about life out here and getting to know our new landscape throughout the seasons. We've had some challenges along the way (remember the moving day surprise?), and lots of good times. 

Now, as year 2 begins, we have plans for new gardens, new decks, and a new shed roof. We're also doing a lot of research on farm layout design, marketing, and planning for our alpaca enterprise. There's still a lot to do before we'll be able to have animals on the property, but we're moving in the right direction!

Anniversary Dawn

Barn Cleanup

All summer our barn has been home to countless spiders (eww!) so yesterday, after the nice cold below zero nights we've been having, I decided it was time to start cleaning up the barn. I started with the work room - organizing, and clearing away some spider webs.

Before & After

It's starting to look better, but there's still a lot to do... cleaning, painting, and eventually a new counter to replace the makeshift one that's there now.

New Home!

On March 31st, 2010, we received the keys to our new home! We had been casually looking at homes for a couple of weeks, with no intention of buying for a couple of years, when we found this home. As soon as we walked in through the door we both knew it would be our new home.

We started our search with the intention of buying in the city, close to work. What we ended up with was a home on almost 3 acres of land in the country, and a 50 minute drive from work. Our inspiration to search in such a rural area were the cute and cuddly alpacas that we were introduced to last fall. It was love at first sight, and we started learning all that we could about these unique animals. Our goal is to one day have a small herd of alpacas grazing in our pasture.