Chickens?!

Yup.  As soon as Sweetheart can put together a quick, safe place a bunch of layers are ours for the taking.  Still adjusting to the goats!!!

Meet the Girls!

Meet Bella.

 She makes the Barn more charming, don't you think?

This is Eve.

I milk her. Crazy.  From City Girl to Milk Maid in just a few short months. 

Welcome to the Family!

We now own two Nubian does--one in milk and I milked her.  So cool.  I am JUST A LITTLE EXCITED!!!  Pictures tomorrow!

1,000 Gifts

I was given a copy of One Thousand Gifts:  A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp for my birthday.  I've been reading Ann's blog, A Holy Experience, for years.  Her words and pictures time and time again hit me hard, but in the most loving way.  Even yesterday's post had me wondering if she had been in my kitchen that morning.  I was living what she was writing.  And that happens often.

Her lyrical style of writing flows with how my mind rolls.  The beauty and poetry of her words make my heart alternately sing and break.   She is able to put into words, and more beautifully than I could, my own thoughts.  Reading her posts makes me examine my life, sometimes completely redirect a day, and always turn my heart and mind back to Christ.


I'm not even done reading the book and can't wait to read it again.  I know that this book has really taken off, even to the point of being in the top 10 of the NY Times Bestsellers List.  I am not one to read whatever is popular at that moment, or jump into the latest trend, "Christian" or otherwise.  This one is different.  This one makes me want to buy a copy for everyone I know.

I cannot even put into words how much this book means to me.  I am sure I'll be writing more about it in the coming weeks.  Go watch this little video to see what it's all about.

Joanne is Tweeting Already!

• Surgery is done and in the past. Now I can stop worrying. Thank you for praying! 10 minutes ago

Amazing!

Great News!

Joanne is out of surgery.  Her sister Kristen says she looks amazing.  She always does.  :)

barn windows 2

barn windows 1

Update on Joanne--Surgery Tomorrow!

Joanne is scheduled for surgery tomorrow.  Please continue to pray.  Update here.

More Pictures from My Walk Yesterday

On a Walk Today

I went on a walk today.  It was a rather long walk, mostly uphill and interrupted often with the taking of many pictures.  This barn, the small red speck on the top picture, was my goal.  Click on the picture to see it in full.

  It is apparently a bit of a landmark around here known as George's Barn.  I'm thinking George has been gone awhile.
I just wish he hadn't left his horse.
That was gross.


But the latches on the barn are nice aren't they?
There will be no pictures posted of the horse.
You're welcome.

Scenes from Sunrise this Morning

Just a few pictures. Enjoy!

Night of Worship

Joanne's sister has posted a reminder about tonight's Night of Worship.  If you are anywhere near Denver--go for me! ♥Kimberly

Homestead: Aerial View

Click on to Enlarge

So, not owning an airplane I decided to simply draw our "new" Homestead.  I've taken so many different pictures, but it is hard to mentally put in all in place if you've never been here.  We've got just over five acres in a mostly rectangular plot.  There is a kick-out where the garage is that's the "just over" part.

Not only is this not to scale, I just realized I drew it all the wrong direction.  The barn is actually the north side of the property.  I drew it as though you were on the road looking at the place.  So, the sun rises above the hills beyond the pasture and sets on the porch side.   Our land itself is pretty flat up.  But the adjoining properties head up the hill/mountain pretty quick, as shown in the first picture of this link.  At the top is BLM and the Payette National Forest.

We're planning to start small this year with planting just the veggie garden and my herb and flower garden areas.  These two things are actually quite a lot compared to what we've planted before. As we figure things out we will be able to extend our growing to the pasture area.  I am curious to see where exactly the shadows will fall from the Very Big Tree once it has leaves.  We may need to adjust our plans as we go along.

Here's something interesting:  I've been told that it will stay light out here in the summer until 10:30 or 11:00 pm.  I am curious as to what this means for planting.  And for putting kids to bed.  ;)  We're so far west in the time zone--same as you all back in Colorado--and further north so as to have really long days.

It'll be interesting to see how the extra sunshine will be on growing things and how much sun they'll be on certain areas.  Right now I am just so excited to have discovered little green shoots popping up all over.  The snow melted off in parts this weekend and I was able to discover tulips, iris, daffodils and more.   Yippee!

I felt just like Mary Lennox clearing away the grasses around the bulbs.  It is all coming back alive.  I also found more roses and a big patch of thyme.  I am glad so about the roses as I think some of the bushes along the pasture fence lines may turn out to be thornberry bushes instead.  It will be nice to see everything growing as I look out the windows.

Thanks for joining the tour.

Be sure to visit the Barn Hop and 


 










Verde Farm for Farm Friend Friday for more fun!

Six Months Old

Hard to believe. She's six months old. Amazing gift of love.

♥Barn Charm♥ II

Amazing Progress!

Joanne is progressing by leaps and bounds.  Her sister has some exciting news today!!!  Beautiful.  Also, the picture above is a flier for an event of prayer and praise at Cherry Hills Community Church.  If you are anywhere in the Denver/Colorado Springs area--GO!  I wish I could. :) 

(Hi Kay!  ((Their Mom))Your email made my day!  Will reply soon!)

Anyone Seen This?

Ok, I usually love all the BBC period piece mini-series, but haven't seen too many of the Masterpiece Theatre shows.  It seems like I've discovered most of the movies I love through other blogs.  No one has mentioned Downton Abbey so I was just wondering if any of you had seen it and what you thought of it.  :)

Planning & Canning

We're planning our garden this year while staring at a lot of snow.  We're going to start this year with an area for my flowers and herbs and a separate area for vegetables and fruits.  The herb and flower area will be designed for beauty and function.  Read:  no rows. 

I use fresh herbs as much as possible and dry tons for cooking through the rest of the year.  How glad I am that I dried so much two summers ago!  I am down to the last half pint of dried summer savory which is my favorite herb that I use in everything. 

I am planning in addition to my regular culinary herbs I usually grow to add in a variety of medicinal herbs as well.  In all my reading I've discovered that many of the herbs I've enjoyed for cooking also have medicinal properties as well.  It will be nice to have my own supply of things for the various body products I make.

There is another area close to the house that had been used for the family garden many years ago.  It will be perfect for growing our veggies as it is a perfect rectangle, which will make Sweetheart happy.  He likes straight lines and rows a lot. 

I am planning the food gardens with canning in mind.  I used a jar of home-canned tomatoes the other day for making some soup.  It's truly amazing the difference in taste.  I hope to have a lot of tomato plants this year.  We've still got some jars of jams, fruit butters and pickles.  Lots of pickles!  Can't seem to get through the pickled squash though.  It's beautiful, but it's not our favorite thing.  Knowing this will help with planning how much of some things to grow. 

We've got a small orchard of what we believe are apple trees and hope to put in some strawberry beds and plant other berry bushes.  We may add in some new fruit trees as well, but that may or may not happen this year.  We have lots of dreams and finally the space.  We'll see what happens!

I am also planning on making my own field of wildflowers a ways back near the grove of trees.  I want a place where they'll be free to just thrive and reseed and not have to worry about them being in the way of our farming plans as we expand in the next few years. 

Dreaming and making lists is a nice way to spend a bit of this otherwise dreary day.  We've had a week of grey days with more to come.  Some snow, some rain, and lots of clouds have filled our days.  I am more than ready for sunshine and spring!

What fun it was to come across this giveaway for free Tattler canning lids from Maple Valley Farm!  Are any of you using these lids?  I've seen great reviews.  The lids are the flat discs for canning.  What makes these lids special is that they are made in the USA, BPA-free and totally reusable a bunch of times.  You still use the regular rings that you can reuse each year, but now you don't have to constantly buy more of the discs. I want to try them, but would like even more to try before I buy.  :)  pick me! pick me!

Maple Valley Farm is home to a family of eight that bought a 40+ acres Amish farm and live completely off-grid.  That's quite an accomplishment!  I enjoy reading their various posts and have followed some of their adventures for years.  They are even running a Bed & Breakfast so you can join them in living an off-grid life for a bit if your travels take you to Michigan.  Then you can go back home and have electricity!

I know, our new life is a big change for us and may be a bit odd to others.  I couldn't have even imagined a life like theirs a few years ago.  Who knows where we'll end up?  I never thought I'd be living on a farm and making orders for chickens and roosters and geese and turkeys.  I never thought I'd be trying to buy some goats and even a pig.  I am proud of this family following their dreams.  That said, I like power and think we'll go awhile like this before thinking about pulling the plug!   ;)

♥Barn Charm♥

Our Barn

Joining in the fun!

View from the Kitchen Window and a Quick Tour

My kitchen has two windows.  This is the view from the east window over the sink.  The shadow is lace from my curtain.  Couldn't quite edit that out.  Next time, I'll step outside for the picture!  Not a bad view to have while washing the dishes.  This other post shows the south window which looks out to the future flower and herb garden as well as the garage.

We have a lot of fences.  The first fence in the picture is of the immediate yard.  Not shown in the picture to the right is the (ugly) pump house.  Today Sweetheart took down the lovely collection of rusted rake heads with no handles, rusty horseshoes, rusty sprinkler parts, an old Easter basket that had seen a few too many Easters, and a few other random things that just needed to go.

We also worked hard cleaning out the mudroom this afternoon.  Since everyone comes in through the back door, we need a place for all the boots and coats.  It still needs a lot of work, but at least when the lady comes for knitting lessons tomorrow, I'll have a place for her to hang her coat. 



To the left is the homestead house.  My dream is to turn it into a little retreat/studio/guest quarters.  Right now, it is home to only bugs and mice,  and is missing some serious boards and glass in the windows.  We dug out some treasures though.

I salvaged an old framed etching.  It has some water damage, but I cleaned up all up and put it on the mantle in the family room.   There is a boiler I'll probably try out for canning this year, an old wood cook stove, some wooden trunks and crates and pots for plants.  There is also a lot of trash to haul out.  It's basically a one room house with an open shop area for working on tractors and a lean to for storing wood.  It has potential though. 

The next fence separates a large area for a garden.  This will be our main food growing area for this year.  There is another huge area in the backyard to the south of  the house where I'll plant flowers and herbs this year.  (see picture below) I've got an enormous list of herbs I want to plant, both culinary and medicinal.  I would like to grow as much as I can for my herbal medicines and body products.

Future Flower and Herb Garden

Past the second fence shown in the very top picture and out to the third fence is pasture.  It is almost bisected on a diagonal with a grove of trees.  (Can't wait to get the hammock made and hung out there.)  That fence is our eastern property line.  Behind that is just empty land up to the top which becomes BLM and National Forest Land.  Eventually, we'll plant more and more of the pasture land into crops, but for now we'll start with just the first section.  I'm sure it will be enough for now.

To the north of the house is the barn.  It is surrounded by a level fenced pasture area.  It also needs work.  As the snow melts, we're finding more and more farming implements out by the barn.  Apparently, one of the family members was planning on taking them, but changed his mind.  That's ok with us.  We'll use what we can.  There are some really neat pieces.

Just another picture of the barn.

There is more to show, but it's covered in snow.  It is great to see a bit more ground each day.  I am curious and excited to see what will come back on its own this spring.  We've got some apple trees as well, east of the homestead house and the pond northeast of that.  Can't wait to see it all green and alive!  The periwinkle ground cover is all around the sidewalks by the house and under the enormous tree out back.  I enjoyed seeing a glimpse of green amidst the snow.

The birds were out in full force today, singing and hopping around searching for bugs.  They'll eat well here that's for sure.  It was great to hear them chirping away.  I also enjoy the faint calls of the neighboring roosters.  We'll be adding our own to the mix soon.

I think I'll try to draw a picture with an aerial view of the property and just take a picture of that.  I think that will help you to picture the layout better.  It's a bit confusing this way, I know.  This link will show some of the highlights from inside as well, if you are interested.  Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Hop on over to the Barn Hop #3!  There are lots of great places to see.