LIFE!!!

I LOVE signs that spring is here, such as....

And I'm very excited about this little find!  Purple Coral Bells... the very same ones that the ladies snacked on all last fall.  I was sure they had eaten them down to the roots, but after digging away some of the fall leaves, I still have 4 little plants.  Granted, I had 6 last summer, but still, 4 is better than none!

Projects. Oh, do we have projects....

We are VERY good at starting projects.  Finishing them seems to be harder.  Here are a few that we've started that we need to finish. 

These first two photos are all about the trees.  No, not the song by Rush.  I'm referring to the felled forest in our yard.  Felling trees is one of Dan's favorite things to do.  And who blames him?  It's quite a thrill to watch a giant tree fall exactly where you planned for it to fall.  The ear-numbing sound and power of the chainsaw is exilarating.  The trees in the photos below have been laying right where they are for about a month now.  Why you ask?  Because it has rained EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND for the past month.  I was hoping this weekend would be the weekend to cut them up into usable logs, but it's not looking very promising.  Although it's only Tuesday, the weather eight-ball is calling for rain, yet again.

This next project was all my idea.  The actual work, of course, was mostly done by Dan.  We don't have a proper entrance to the house.  It's really kind of an odd layout.  So we decided it would look nice if we gave the front of the house a proper entrance, with stone steps leading to a walkway that leads to the driveway. 

You can see in the below picture the small dent I made trying to shovel up the dirt by hand.  I didn't get very far.  Then Dan had the idea of using the tractor bucket to scoop up all of the dirt at once and deposit it where ever I choose.  Ingenious!  At that suggestion, I proceeded to put my shovel away.  But, again, rain appears to be in our weekend future, so it will likely have to wait another week to see completion.

Goin' broody...

One of the 'ladies' is going broody on us.  She's been sitting in the same spot in the coop for three days now.  Everything we read online says you just need to leave them alone and they'll get over it.  However, I so badly want to go out there, kick her out of the coop and tell her not to come back until she shapes up!

The lady in the upper nesting box is Coq Au Vin.  She is not broody.  She is in the coop simply to lay an egg.  I image she bawked at Blackie in chicken language that sounded something like this "Hey, LADY... can't I get some privacy around here!?!" 

The lady sitting on the floor is Blackie.  She is broody.  I imagine her response to Coq Au Vin went something like this, "Mind your own business LADY!  This is my coop too and I can lay here if I want to!!!". 

As you can see, both have valid points.

Doin' their thang...

Here are a few of the ladies out foraging for food in the woods.  And boy, do they LOVE foraging!

Tractor is running

After several weeks of working on the tractor, she's finally running.  I say 'she' because I for some reason associate all tractors as feminine.  Considering the masculine work they do, one would think they'd be more closely assoicated with 'he', but such is not the case.

Anyway, the tractor is running.  She ain't pretty, yet, and she needs a new clutch, but it will work for the current purposes we have.  1) lifting pigs for butchering 2) moving around smaller amounts of dirt and 3) moving cut down trees.  For this, she'll be just fine. 

Here's our beauty..... please, please, don't send offers to purchase this beast of a machine... she's all ours!

Egg count

29 eggs this week.  I think the ladies are enjoying the warm, wet weather so much, they're forgetting to head back to the coop to lay their eggs.  Can't really blame them, I guess.

Contract terminated

Unfortunatley, we had to terminate the contract on our farm property.  Long story short... the value of the land was equal to the house, which causes lending nightmares.  So, we're back to square one. 

Happy pigs!

Our pigs have had a nice life since we brought them home last fall.  They've enjoyed romping around their pen, eating to their hearts content and their favorite activity, if I had to guess, basking in the sun. 

However, it's time to face the fact that they're not pets - their fate since the day we got them has been dinner.  We're guessing they weigh somewhere around 300 lbs, so Dan had to devise a plan to be able to pick the pigs up to bleed out after he kills them.  The plan is that we'll lift the pigs up with the bucket on the tractor.  No human effort involved.  My kind of plan!  I'll be sure to post pics of the event... tentatively planned for next weekend as long as the weather stays nice.  For now though, here are our tubby, not-so-little pigs....

Bacon

Sausage... doing her favorite thing!

New boys and girls

Our new chicks aren't so little anymore.  They just turned 8 weeks old this week.  We're finally sure how to distinguish the Cockerels from the Pullets, so here is what we have:

11 Cockerels (boys)
20 Pullets (girls)

When the boys get to 18 weeks old, they'll be butchered and lovingly placed in our freezer.  Dan & I gave up eating factory raised chicken about a year ago.  It's been ONE LONG YEAR without chicken.  We are as giddy as school kids about having fresh, naturally raised chicken very soon!

We haven't decided if we're going to keep 1 to become a Rooster or not.  We'll have to wait and see...............

The "ladies"

Here are our "ladies" - 6 hens that are 1 year old.

2 Rhode Island Reds
2 New Hampshire Reds
2 Black Sex Links

Egg count

Eggs this week are down a little... 29.

What the heck?!?

1 stinkin' egg today.  We have 6 hens and a gorgeous spring-like day and 1 egg is all we get?  Hmm.

HOLY COW!

They ACCEPTED our offer!!!!  Holy cow!  No matter how badly a person wants a certain response, when they get it, they still get butterflies in their stomach.

BUT, along with the signed counter offer email, I got a voicemail from the realtor.  The owner just told her something about the house that neither she (nor we) knew.  This could throw a wrench in things.  Why oh why do things have to be difficult?  One more thing to work around.  I'm going to wait until we have this worked through before I start to get excited.

Counter offer #2

Bright and early this mornning, we sent our counter offer to the counter offer.  We think this is a solid offer - we up'd our price, but asked for some farm equipment to stay.  That will really help us in the long run!  We'll wait and see.......................

Counter offer #1

We expected a counter offer.  We started with a really low offer.  But the seller only came down $3000 from the list price.  We weren't expecting that.  We'll have to think about what we want to counter with.  Did I mention this is the part I hate about buying a house? 

Decision is made

After lots of thought and prayer, we decided to put in an offer on the farm.  As nerve-wracking as it is, we think it's the right decision.  The realtor filled out the paperwork, we've signed and emailed it back.  The ball is in their court.  Now the waiting game.

Property #2

Today after church we made the trek back down to the house.  The land was just as pretty as we remembered.  This time I could envision our wall colors and our furniture in the house.  I think it would be pretty nice.  Granted, it's not as nice as our current house, but again, it's about the land.  We can change the house over time.  The owner was really friendly and told us a lot about the property.  We spent almost 2 hours wandering around the house and property.  We told the realtor we'd think about it more and get back to her in a couple of days.

Sigh.  So many decisions to make.  This is making it easier.... here is a picture I snapped today from the front porch...

Egg count

This week: 31 eggs.

Looking at farm #2 again

We've decided that we want to see farm #2 from last week again.  I've made arragements with the realtor to head back down this coming Sunday to look around again and even speak with the owner this time.  Hoping he can give us an inside scoop on the property and land.

Although the house isn't quite what we want, we both can't stop thinking about the land.  It is so pretty.  It's almost 50 acres.  It's already fenced and cross fenced.  It has 3 ponds.  It has well pumps throughout the yard.  It has an auto-waterer attached to one of the pastures.  The whole perimeter of the property is lined with big, mature trees.  A house you can change.... land you cannot. 

Pig heart attacks?

Can pigs die of a heart attack due to being overweight?  If so, I think ours might be close.  They're so heavy it takes all their energy just to move from the hut to their food bowl (to eat and get fatter).  I think we really need to butcher them soon, but it's rained just about every weekend for the past few weeks.  I'm not even entirely sure how we will butcher these two.  They have to weigh every bit of 300 lbs.  It will probably take 3-4 of us to hoist them up.  Dunno.  I'll just cross my fingers that they don't have a heart attack in the meantime.

1 potential farm

We had fun going farm hunting on Friday.  It was about a 1 1/2 hour drive south from our house.  Beautiful trees in the small town we're looking in.  Very small town, friendly feel. 

The first property was too close to the road and the house way too small.

The second property was nice!  Gorgeous land with rolling pastures.  The house was nice - nothing special.  Just your standard ranch and kind of small.  But it could work.

The third property was just scary!  Ratty looking mobile home and a funky land layout.

We'll have to think more about the pros and cons of the second house......................

Egg count

This weeks total is 35.  Good girls!

Finding a farm

Dan and I took off work today so we can go farm hunting.  We found three farms online that could potentially work.  We scheduled a meeting time with a local realtor to go look at them all today.  How exciting!  We're even more inclined to find a farm soon since the baby is getting closer and closer.  At least now, I'd be somewhat helpful during a move.  I'll post an update tomorrow as to how it went.