fun with friends . . .

I finished the table the other day ready for THIS session of butchering. I added quite a few items to it, and after yesterday's work, have already made some changes in how we will use it.

First off, I stained it the same as the killing cones to create a unified butchering set. I love when things are functional, yet aesthetic as well. The oil from the stain also helps to repel the water when spraying. In addition to the stain, I added aluminum to the work area. I used flashing that is normally used for roofing. I bought a 10 foot roll for $12.00, cut it to fit the feathering and cleaning area of the table, and have heeps of it to use for another farm project. Some plumbing parts, an area to hang the hose, a table, some chairs, a fan, and a screened-in room made this butchering session seem like a HOTEL STAY compared to last year. All in all, I am REALLY pleased with how it turned out, but more importantly how it functioned for us. (I do have to make a few minor adjustments and it will be even smoother for the next thirty we process in five more weeks)

In addition to having a new table to work with, we also had some help this time processing our birds. The Weita family, longtime friends from our California days, came up from Florida to visit us for a few days on their way over to Illinois. They came in Tuesday night and stayed till this morning. It was great to spend time together again extending our friendship, having the children get re-acquainted after five years, and sharing some memorable experiences together. We had great food, stayed up WAY too late talking, and had fun doing all sorts of farm activities.

drawing out the design . . .

Butchering season is upon us now so I had to come up with another plan for dressing out the 100 or so birds that we will have. Hence, the NEW Butchering Station!

For weeks I have been looking for stainless steel sinks, counters, and tables on Craigslist and have decided that I do not want to spend $150 to $300 on a used bakery counter or a restaurant sink. I found a stainless steel sink for $20 though, and thought that was right up my alley. I had been thinking about building a table but was unsure of what I wanted, materials to use, and the sorts. This is the result (the beginning stage) of sitting down after morning milking, drinking coffee, half sleeping, and planning out the table.

The plan for the table started with several ideas in mind.

1. All of us needed to be close together able to hand birds to each other without walking around. It also had to be a condensed square footage to fit into our camping screened-in room. (we learned last year that it was hard to keep the animals away from all the excitement)

2. It needed to include several areas for working . . . sink for evisceration ans cleaning birds, counter space for plucking, area for cutting, containers for feathers and unwanted bird parts, and drainage.

3. And most importantly, aesthetic functionality.

During my sleep/plan/lazy morning routine, I drew out a design several times, and then asked the children to look at it and give me input. Each one came up with a minor change that altered the design a bit, but functioned well with the overall plan of the Butchering Station.

It took me a 1/2 day to build, and the other 1/2 day to stain, seal, and apply the finishing touches.

getting the garden game going . . .

Today is the FIRST day of summer break for me. What a different year this has been. I enjoyed the school year, we bought this farm, and we bought a car. Tons of changes going on all at once. And I love it!


First off, a couple of weeks ago some friends planned a move out of state, and needed to sell their car. Ildi and I decided that it would not only help them out, but help us out on my gas spending commute to school. As a result, we bought this 99 Saturn, pictured above, with a WHOLE BUNCH OF MILES on it. :) Works out great so far in that I have saved $60. in just two weeks.

Gresham has started in the building process of our farm. He is being such a great help in many ways. This past week he helped Nolan building a new movable chicken structure for the upcoming egg production business. 40 new laying hens will be arriving next week some time. It is really sweet to see Nolan working with his younger brother having him help the way he did with me when he was that age.


I have come up with some really creative ways to use the unwanted hay that is littering our fields. The busted beef operation that was going on before we bought this place left TONS of unusably large mounds of hay on much of the open pasture. This past week it dawned on me that I could re-purpose it and use it like much like mulch for areas where I don't want the grass to grow. Like this path I cut through a spot of trees. It so works out that it will cover the ground not letting grass grow, it looks nice, and it gets it out of the fields re-purposing it. This type of stuff makes me happy!



And now we are getting our serious garden game face on. We have planted one of the 6000 square foot of gardening we are doing this season. We plowed out 4 paddocks (each 1500 sq. ft.) and have gotten one of them finished around all the rain we have been getting. Yesterday it didn't rain, and if it stays dry and hot today, I will be able to get the other three areas prepped and ready for the family to "plant out" the rest of our ambitious planting plan. The statement "jump in head first" seems appropriate for this season of life for us.

co-existing with nature . . .

More wild animals visiting the farm. It is a such a treat to see so many different types of wildlife here. Beats driving so long to get to the Zoo and fighting the crowds of people. (and seeing all the animals in cages with a pretend background) Here, they are co-existing with us in a natural setting and we seem to be sharing the place together.

One week and three days and it is all over for this school year. And WOW what a different school year it has been compared to last year! Last year, after teaching for 20 years, I almost threw in the towel. As I mentioned in past posts, it was a horrible year of teaching students. I probably have not had a worse year ever in my profession. Fast forward to now. I had a fun, easy, creative year with the two schools I taught. Actually, I am already looking forward to starting the next year with the same students and building on the training I gave them this year in art. At the beginning of school I will be able to start creating with them right away since I have already taught them for an entire year. The only new students I will get are Kindergarten, and of course the transfer students.

Today we are limited to our work outside. Over the last few weeks it has rained close to 3 inches, if not more, and our garden soil is still soaked. The hope is that next week it will warm up a LOT and dry the ground so we can till it and plant. Our goal was to have the plants in the ground by now, but as long as we can get them in before the second week of June we will be fine.

As a side note. For years I was the yearbook adviser for my schools. Teaching children how to design pages, use technology, and to write captions for pictures was all part of it. Now, for these three years of blogging, I am still using the same format for my post titles. I still really enjoy coming up with "caption" kind-of titles for the posts I write.

never a done deal . . .

It's just about the season of the year where I can wake up in the morning, finish milking chores, and then decide what I want to do for the REST of the day! Did I mention that I like being a school teacher for that reason? It's not like I spend the whole day sleeping, or here on the computer, but it is nice to wake up, spend some time leisurely in the morning, and then work hard all day with my hands. I really enjoy manually working. So much of my work at school is mental, and when I am working here at the farm, I can relax while I work because it is just a mundane, slow, enjoyable type of work. HARD work, physically, but enjoyable.


Animal update . . . The gosling died, and Macy buried it in the woods. One morning it had just keeled over. Apparently for no reason. Since then, the children have had some other wild animal experiences. While we were cutting a Disneylandish path through the woods, the dogs attacked an opossum that was carrying four young ones. Two died on the attack, Asher and Macy rescued two of them from the same fate. They cared for them for a few days but were unable to keep them alive. Also, they attempted to keep a young chipmunk by giving it to the cat that just gave birth to a litter. He ended up scurrying away. Our two female cats both gave birth this past week. Nine kittens in all. One has past since this post. Fly, the flat coated retriever, got to it. And we now have three mallard ducks added to the mix. They are young still, and they are slowly being introduced to the pond. We don't want the two-foot catfish eating them! :) And yesterday was the coming out party for the meat birds. Nolan and I finished repairing the chicken run that was partially destroyed but a huge rain last year, and then added a few changes to the design. It is a movable play yard where the chickens get fresh grass daily and are sheltered from the sun and rain with the tarp. We'll see if it works out. That's one thing we are definitely learning here. Nothing is truly ever a done deal.


And lastly, a housing update as well. I am finished with the master bath minus a couple TEENY details. There is a small vestibule of sorts that has a closet, and the room has a 9 foot ceiling height. I chose to paint it the same Buckwheat color that I used before since it is a neutral, versatile color. I re-finished an old outdated vanity painting it black, and distressing it a bit. And I married a little modern look by adding a metal magazine/book rack to the old country feel of most of the items in the room.


Two weeks left of work until I get to stay home and work on the farm. Lots to do . . . and I like it that way.

filtered water from the sky . . .

Justin and Dave, who happen to have the SAME brown hoody I have, have been somewhat regular visitors to our home in the five short months we have lived here. We are on a fun first name/story basis. :) This last visit they came to replace the sand filter that had a faulty backwash function. It was as cheap to by the whole tank and regulator as it was just to buy the regulator. Now, we are UP-TO-DATE . . . in code . . . and drinking FRESH water from our pond. "POND WATER?" you ask. Yep, we drink the water that falls from the sky!

The well water we have here at the house is horrible to say the least. It smells of rotten eggs due to the large amounts of sulfur content. The sulfur isn't necessarily bad for you, but it does have a rotten smell, and it does damage to items in the house after being exposed to it for a long time. The owner before us had a pond dug and were also using it for their drinking and washing water. However, they, like most people around here, used chemicals to "clean" it. As you are probably thinking, I'm not sure how clean it was though. Anyway, wanting to have a natural water cleaning system, I had the guys install a series of filters to clean the water before it reaches us. It has had some bumps along the way, but today they installed the last piece to keep us up and running for a long while.

Here's the breakdown. The water gets pumped from the pond using the small blue tank. (there is a filter on the hose in the pond to collect some of the debris wanting to get into my children's mouths) It then goes through a sand filter first collecting most of the gunk that ponds grow naturally. It then passes through the charcoal filter that takes virtually ALL the smell out of the water. Then it is drawn upwards to the two filters pictured to collect the remnants of pond life before it is sent to the ultra-violet tank to kill off the micro organisms. At that point, it is ready for our use in the house for all our water needs.

The system has a backwash built in that causes it to flush out the junk each night (around 2:00 am) and send all the stuff collected to the septic. There for a couple of months it smelled a little pondy when we drank the water, and taking a shower was sort-of like having a pond sauna, but all is good now. Water . . . from the sky to our home. It's beautiful.

And for the barn animals . . . they get the well water. (they don't care about the smell)

geese from the sky . . .

Yesterday a fellow teacher and her family came to supper and to visit the farm. The children rode the horse, fished, and since it was fairly warm, played in the pond. Little did we realize that we would also have another guest visiting today.

One of the boys who was visiting found a Canadian Gosling by the wood shop! Now you are probably thinking the same thing we are still thinking . . . why would a gosling be by the wood shop? I know, it baffles us as well. There is not a nest in sight, and there are no other goslings around the area, and we have no idea where it came from. We do have geese that stop by and visit our pond on their way to the own shindigs, but none have stayed around for even an hour.

Macy put it in with the chicks that are a couple of weeks old, and today they have it in the house playing with it. :)

24 inches long . . .

Springtime comes and out come the fish! And OHHHHHH what fun fishing is. (for the children that is)

Along with some makeshift fishing poles, my brother brought out some actual fishing tackle and a couple of fishing poles. All the children have tried their hands at it and it seems to be a hit with all of them.


Tonight when I got home from school the older boys and Macy had just pulled out a 24 inch catfish. They are going to clean it and then eat it tomorrow for supper. I'm not sure if I will be trying it yet. It still gives me the YUKES.

Nolan's new color pencil holder design. I enjoy the natural materials used to make a creative storage place for the pencils they use when they draw. I think it might be an item that he could market on my Etsy site. :)

too many styles . . .

Did I mention that I love WARM weather! I think spending 21 years in California spoiled me a bit concerning the warmth from the sun. When the sun comes out, and it is warm here, it's like a breath of fresh air . . . an unexpected Christmas present . . . the taste of pasta after a nice glass of wine . . . OK, I'll stop with the analogies. It is WONDERFUL outside here when the sun is out though. Blue skies, clear, and the feeling that the warm weather of summer is only a few moments away. . . CAN'T WAIT! And the fact that everything here is now in FULL bloom and the promise of it staying this way is real convincing. And I am glad.

A few weeks ago I commissioned a relatively new artist to create a work of art for my home. Herrick, AKA Jax Hamlin, came up with this whimsical pen/ink and colored pencil drawing that now hangs proudly in my kitchen along side the other eclectic arrangement of French, Turkish, Australian, and American art. As an artist, I like TOO many styles and periods of art to be locked into decorating within one period of art history or style. Since the "Three French Hens" have some other French art pieces to "hang" with, they fit perfectly into my groupings of three on our back kitchen wall. Here's the closeup of the piece he made, and below is the spot where the hens occupy. If you are interested in obtaining a limited edition print of this original, please visit Jax Hamlin's Chicken Art site. If you do, you and me will be "same, same." :)

pushing it up . . .

Macy is all about the blooms that are happening here on the farm. She took this picture of one of the trees that are in bloom now. It sits behind the garage and is filled with beautiful, yellow, fuzzy buds!

Since I have been on break this week, and the weather has been EXCEPTIONALLY nice, the children and I have spent most of the day outside cleaning up the debris from the property getting it ready for planting. Nolan and I hauled some junk wood into a pile so I can burn it tomorrow. (I secretly like burning things) This is the area where we are having our garden this year. I cleared the front part and parked the chicken mobile on it so the chickens can start leveling the ground and fertilizing it for me. Next week I am moving them onto this area so they will spread the ashes around. Who needs to dig when you have 23 chickens who will scratch the earth up for you in a week.


This is our large make-shift, skid composting bin for this year. These pallets where littering the property so we decided to put them to use. I often think of my city days composting and laugh thinking how "loose" I've gotten with having things be "just so."


And then there are the farm skills we are learning along the way. When we got here, on the back side if the grain barn we found one of these 16 foot high, 400-500 pound doors that was off the track and laying on the ground. Since it was winter, we couldn't do anything about it until now, and decided to try our hands at putting it back on the track. :) After repairing the track, we first started by squat lifting it, like we were at the gym, and pushing it up while we inched backwards. The sheer weight of it almost killed us! So, we propped it up for the night using a post, and today got the improvised plan of using the ladder and the gator to push it up against the wall. We hooted when it worked! We muscled it up using a lever system and was able to secure it to the track and close the doors. I love it when things work like that.