New Life Old Farmers

We love visitors to the farm.  Especially those that are looking for the total farm experience.  We’ve been blessed this weekend to have one of my oldest friends visit and we’ve made sure Diane hasn’t missed a second, experiencing our current farm life.  Needless to say, she’ll go home exhausted!

We could roll out the red carpet, but instead we rolled out the painting tools.  We two worked hard at ‘catching up’, running the paint rollers, running our mouths and painting the living room!  It was great to be together and the living room is looking warm, inviting and more like our home.  I ‘let’ her help me clean up a huge pile of fence posts, fence rails, pig pen wood, and taught her how to roll up barbed wire.  Then I taught her how to drive John D. and best of all take a turn around the yard on Jubal.  I asked her to belt out the theme song to ‘Green Acres’, but she was too busy trying to not drive Jubal into the pond.

We made sure to show her some of the local sights too, the college, the rodeo grounds, main street, the Feed & Seed and of course Fred Myers!  We took her to church and to meet a new friend who has rescued a fawn.  I must say we do provide a one of a kind weekend!

We’ve loved every minute of having Diane and she is captivated by our wonderful old home, the beautiful farm, our gorgeous skies, the surrounding countryside and the opportunity God has given us with this new life. My soul is filled from the connection that only time with a dear friend can give it.

AND with all the work we have to do here, she totally understands why we sleep so well at night!

We only have one movie theater in Ellensburg.  I’m told there were 3, but 2 theaters turned into churches and one church that I know of that turned into a cafe.  Recycling Ellensburg style!  More churches – good, more cafes with great food to go to after church – even better!  I love the Yellow Church cafe.  Its cozy, creative, and wonderfully delicious.  We ate there the very first time we came to check out this town.  I wasn’t sure just how far ‘out’ in the country we were and as I’m not a big ‘biscuits and gravy’ kind of gal, I was a bit anxious until I saw that there was feta cheese on the menu and I remember thinking… “Oh yeah, I’ll be alright.”

We’re gearing up for a summer with a farm full of teens.  My step son is all boy and has no interest in sleeping in a ‘girly’ room.  Little does he know, that we’re planning on keeping him so busy that he’ll just fall asleep almost anywhere.  However, I did want his room to look good, so with 4 baseballs and a little glue, I turned this old canopy bed into a one of a kind all American boy’s room.

We’ve plenty of room for the teens with everything they need (well, except for maybe a bathroom) in our wonderful upstairs where there are 3 large bedrooms and not a one of them is square!  All have slopping ceilings or dormers and tons of personality.  The landing is just right for a TV and kids’ games or as the teen says, “our media center”.  The wooden floor is painted a gray-blue and has been roughed up over the years, the light switches don’t turn off the light you were expecting, the doors squeak, the windows are drafty and

we love it.

I love the differences in life here from my many years in the suburbs.  Not that one is better than the other, but at my age (which my children define as “old!!”) I’m loving it.  Here are a few of our neighbors, a pair of extremely dark Palominos.  Beautiful horses that we call the ‘surfers’, as they remind me of summers at the beach with bleach blonde surfers sporting extremely dark tans.

There is some thing special about a wheelbarrow and as I became a pretty decent gardener prior to moving here, I do have an affinity for them.  Brand new or rusted through, they are a special sort of tool.  I’ve seen them used as planters and used for the occasional hauling of small children, but I’ve never actually seen them used as art.  At least never in such mass.  I really don’t want this in my yard, and it makes me wonder what they were thinking, but it does make me smile.

Some of the stores in the country and the items they sell, make me take a second look.  The fact that they advertise in big bold letters is even better!  Besides “Chew-N-Butts”, another one of my favorites is “Guns, Ammo & Antiques” – really?  What a lovely combination!

But don’t you for a minute think that we don’t have our priorities straight, just because we are out of the hustle and bustle of city (suburb) life!  D&M coffee was started right here in Ellensburg and yes, this is a motto I can live by!  “Life’s too short to drink bad coffee!”

Moles are a pain in our tractor seat.  They are surprisingly only a little bit bigger than a mouse, but uglier (which is saying something as I do not find mice ‘cute’ in anyway).  I saw one on the move yesterday and could tell it was a mole not a mouse as it was burrowing under the cut grass not running over it.  I wasn’t even scared, but that was probably because I was up on Jubal with lots of cutting tools doing their cutting job behind me and the destructive varmint was running for its little rodent life.

I am still learning about driving the tractor.  As I did NOT drive it into the irrigation canal, Pat and I both thought the day was extremely productive!  I did come ‘close’ however, but we all know when ‘close’ counts and we were not playing horseshoes.  Horseshoes is about the only game we could have played yesterday the way the wind was blowing.  Yesterday’s wind was actually getting me a little down, until I jumped on Jubal.  Tractor driving is the best medicine around.  I think I should open a special B&B for folks who need a pick me up.  Come to Glory Farm, drive the tractor, play with the kittens, and count the chickens (which we do everyday and they already ‘hatched’ so we’re just making sure they are all still with us).  We’ve still got 10 and they change daily, but we’ve still no idea how many are roosters.  The teen announced that if we ended up eating any of the roosters, just don’t tell her.  I’d have to say, that I’d not only second that, but go a step further and just plain lie to me.  Tell me that you gave all the roosters away and we are eating Fred Myer chicken.  This little one is our runt and so it is of course named Little, yep, as in Chicken Little.  The rest of the chicks are growing so fast that they are no longer referred to as Pat’s babies, but are now the motley crew!

Before I lived here, all I knew about a woodshed was that, if you were a kid in trouble, you didn’t want to go behind one with my mother!  This dear old crooked woodshed is here to stay.  We’ve fallen in love with the funny, quirky old building and once we found out it is the oldest structure on the property, well there was no way we’d take it down.  Pat is pretty happy about this, because it means he doesn’t have to build a new woodshed.  Yes, it does get cold here and yes, we do a lot of heating with our wood stove.  The Southern Cal teen is still not use to this, so there is always a ready supply of s’more ingredients on hand, as the smell of burning wood to her means campfire, which means marshmallows & chocolate.

The hen-house has been made skunk proof and hawk proof with chain link buried underground, chicken wire & tin sheeting protecting over the yard.  It is so satisfying building with items available here at the farm.  Chain and netting left behind in a shed, the door from the old pig sty and wood from old cattle covers we’ve taken down.  The little kittens could now play safely out here until they are bigger and the chickens move in…. sort of.  The little kittens are so little, that they walked right out of the yard through the chain netting.  Keeping these two safe has almost become a full-time job and no, they are not coming into the house.  I’ve seen what kittens do… they turn into cats!

It is bittersweet taking the old structures down.  The previous owner, who is much beloved around here raised Angus cattle.  At this point, we’ve no plans to add any cattle to our current livestock situation.  This shed is coming down and the wood being reused.  I call this a ‘cattle port’, which is basically like a ‘car port’ except for cattle.  I’m sure there is a ‘farm appropriate’ term for it, but clearly I don’t know what it is.  We do not really have a need for a ‘cattle port’ and as cattle have been pooping in it for years, it is pretty stinky!  This will clean up the property and then give us pasture space for more horses.  The writing is on the wall for more horses, as most mornings I am greeted by my darling Pat with a hot cup of coffee for me in one hand and the iPad in the other with a picture of the latest horse he’s found that we ‘need’.

Off to the big ‘city’ today, (Spokane) to help the kids with Wedding plans, a 3 hour drive there.  We got plenty done in a whirl wind day and ended up with extremes in shopping.  Our first stop was at Big R, one of these stores that continue to fascinate me, where you can buy, pickles, cattle tags, boots, wedding bands and bridles, just to name a few.  Pat got a new Stetson for Father’s day, so at least one of us is ready for the rodeo!

Lunch was de-lish and approved for the rehearsal dinner.  So we ran off to Spokane’s Trader Joe’s.  If you’ve never lived near a Trader Joe’s you really don’t understand what we’ve given up to move to the country.  There’s no wonderful grocery store with terrible parking, the work crew in Hawaiian shirts, good cheap wine, wonderful brie and all type of edible goodies.  A quick stock up of the necessities… and we were off again.

This mother of the groom did not like the 2nd dress that was delivered via the internet.  It was time to get serious and try the darn things on!  Parking a big truck in the ‘big’ city is not all that fun.  So we grabbed the first spot we could and then walked a few blocks to the mall, a bit further than planned.  However,  we struck gold within minutes.  Not only did all 4 of us love the dress, but would you believe it was on sale!!  Woo-hoo, we’re cooking with gas now, (no actually at Glory Farm, we’re still stuck with electric, but you know what I mean).

Now it is time!!!  We’ve got the frock, we need…. the hat!  “Do you have wedding hats?”.  “No, but they have them at ‘Finders Keepers’.  Just a few blocks…”.  So, of course we walk and walk and walk a little more, until we make it.  We go in, to see jewelry everywhere.  “Can I help you?”  “Do you have hats?”  “Oh, no.  That’s at ‘Finders Keepers’ II” (Insert bad British word here).  By this time, we old people were feeling old, so we dispatched the groom-to-be to collect the truck and come back for his parental units.

Now let me tell you, Finders Keepers II has hats!!!  Big hats, little hats, fancy hats and in every  color.  The one thing I could not do when looking for the right hat to wear to my first born’s wedding was look at the price tag, because….  there are only a few hats that are going to go with my dress and there are even fewer hats that are going to actually fit my big head!  All said and done, it is a very good thing my darling dress was on sale!  The Bride approves, the groom approves (I think) and my British husband is delighted!

Don’t you love it?  Seriously????  You’ve got to wait for the wedding….

Word of mouth in a small town is how you find things out, that a bit of horse trading and good old Craig’s list.

Need a mechanic?  Well, we bought a boat.  Actually, we really only wanted the trailer that came with the boat, so Pat sold the boat.  The guy selling the boat…. mechanic.

Need a pharmacist?  We bought a tractor.  Jubal got driven home from the Pharmacist, (for hours actually, as Pat got lost and had the opportunity to see a lot of the countryside).

Need an attorney? Well, actually we needed a chair.  We went to the beautiful local furniture store, where we were greeted with chocolate chip cookies (warm) offered coffee and invited to sit down and chat.  (Two of our favorites, well the cookies for me and the chatting for Pat).  We learned that the delightful owner and his family has owned the store for forever and knows what is going on in Ellensburg.  We’re going to go back to the furniture store to find a good attorney.

Need some riding instruction for the teen? The insurance gal told us about Grace, who is true to her name.  Grace is assisting Laura in getting comfortable with our horse and what a delight for them both.

Need some old cattle sheds brought down? We bought the chicks from a guy that salvages old barn wood.  He is taking down two of our old sheds, carefully.  We will split the wood with him and are happy that the old wood will be reused.  (Oh, yes, and he brought two jars of pickled asparagus.)

Need a good hair cutter?  plain dumb luck!

Spending most of my life in an area known for droughts, I was unprepared for living where the water table is high.  Our pasture is full of green grass and doesn’t need irrigating! Unheard of.  We even had a spring come up behind the barn.  It was getting boggy out there with water running into the shed earmarked for Pat’s workshop.  If we didn’t do something soon, we were destined to turn into a swamp.

Have you ever wondered what it is with little boys, big boys, men and machinery.  Backhoes especially bring a gleam to their eye.  Yep, we needed one.  If I wasn’t worried about going underwater, I could  have waited and called this digging opportunity my son Corey’s birthday present and it would have been a hit!  Renting a backhoe is a bit like renting a taxi cab, they charge you by how long you run the meter.  We were set for 8 hours.  “We’ll never use that much time”, Pat assured me.  All we needed to do was dig a ditch through the ‘bog’ to run the water back to the irrigation channel, pull a few fence posts and maybe dig out a few stumps.  How could that possibly take 8 hours?

The first thing I learned is that I am extremely patient.  I waited 4 hours for my turn!  Now that is love honey!  I also learned that ripping out fence posts is much more fun than digging a ditch, you can get whiplash from a backhoe and Corey & Pat only let me drive it because it was so darn cold they had to go inside to thaw out.  Our favorite local, Jacob, young enough to appreciate a free meal had no interest in coming over for pizza, but changed his mind in a nano-second when he learned there was a backhoe to drive, dig, work, play, whatever.  Since it stays light out until past 9pm, there was more ‘working’ after dinner with son Corey out ripping down dead tree branches until the hydraulic line broke.  As he said, “I know I was ‘working’, but I was having so much fun it felt like I should be in trouble.”

To all my other sons, brothers, and men friends who have not yet visited the farm, I’m sorry to say that the ditch is working great and the bog is gone.  No need to rent another backhoe any time soon.  Oh, and the rental company called, we owe them for another 2 hours!

Yes, of course we got the five-day old chicks!  These little fluff balls currently live in the pantry in a box with a heat lamp and a locked door to keep the Damn Cat from snacking on chicken nuggets.  Pat calls them his babies and they are growing feathers by the day.  Watching 10 little chicks all try to eat out of the feed bowl at the same time is very funny.  They remind me of an unruly mob of very hungry toddlers at snack time.  If there is no room at the bowl, just jump on someone else’s head and make room.  They drink a lot of water and of course they poop everywhere.  This is not the first time I’ve dealt with chicken shit in my life, but it is the first time I’ve done it voluntarily.

There are 10 of them and their names are Lucile, Lionel and the back-ups.  Too young to know their sex and we only want one rooster, so there are some difficult poultry days ahead for me and some of them.  Three of them look similar, so with my long history of chicken raising (5 days now) I think we have 3 roosters, if I’m wrong….ut, oh!

Billie Elliot doesn’t read very well, but knew this bag meant something was up!   Truthfully this is day two, day one they were fed the horse’s grain.  Grinding up the horses grain was a little tough, until Pat figured out that our coffee grinder made a robust chicken meal.

Cuckoo Maran chickens are black with little white speckles and lay dark brown eggs, hopefully.  Currently the kittens are in the hen-house, which is still in transition from milk parlor to hen-house.  We are a little behind in the learning curve here as we forgot about the wind in the hen-house design.  (Blows like a son a of gun)  The chicken yard needs to be wind free, so the freshly planted posts are coming out to be reset, can you say, “Oh, well”.  Actually it is a little bit more amusing than that, as there was a cover for cattle that we took down attached to the milk parlor on the wind-free side.  We’re using most of that wood to build the chicken yard, so yes, we are rebuilding what we took down… but, it wasn’t really as nice (I say in my defense).  Thankfully we have only two neighbors, who are probably scratching their heads and wondering what in the world we are up to today!