Two young male alpacas, Benny (2) with the mutton chops and Jett (3) with the awesome hair-do. My Loving Spouse had his play list all ready and hit Elton John’s ‘Bennie and the Jets’ as we left the farm to pick them up. As Elton’s lyrics say, ‘our weird and wonderful’ new animals.
We had just recently discovered all the positives of alpacas.
Comedy
Hypo-allergenic fleece
Non-aggressive
Easy on fences (huge plus)
Eats almost any grass and weed and doesn’t need much
Weighs only about 150 pounds
The herd picks a spot and poops in it. Everyone, seriously!
Our dear old boys (horses) are really getting on in years and cannot be ridden. We are also getting on in years and have decided that our horse riding days are over. A sad decision, but there is so much we’d still like to do, that getting thrown off of a horse would mess up, that it was the right decision for us. As our horses age, we’ll still need someone to help the cows eat the grass. Everyone was interested to meet the new additions.
The cats and the alpacas did not know what to make of each other. Sundance, My Loving Spouse’s horse took one look at them and took off. He wanted nothing to do with them. My Loving Spouse is researching how to build a loom out of old sewing machine parts. Our Sweet Neighbor Sue hits it off with Benny.
Our animals bring us such joy and sorrow. The next morning, my horse Beau was standing in the far corner of the North Four. We’re not sure how long he stood there, but he wouldn’t leave Sundance who was down and had died. The bossy red horse enjoying grass one day to gone the next.
Sundance and Pat
The humans and Beau are sad, as is right. We worry about Beau, a herd animal. Surprisingly, of all things, he finds comfort being near Benny and Jett….
Corrugated gray poly-carbonate sheets cut by My Loving Spouse with a metal cutting blade in his grinder became the roof for our Greenhouse. The gray ‘roofing’ material also became our gable ends.
I’d like to tell you that putting on the roof was a piece of cake, but there was a bit of a learning curve to our keeping it straight. It could possibly be ‘user error’.
The old windows we used open on one side. There are enough gaps in how we built it to let in our friendly bee polinators.
We’ve got our tomatoes in half barrels as raised beds. We’re using strings attached to the roof to help support the vines.
My Loving Spouse built a slated counter height bench for starting plants and right now we are working on tomatillos. We’re behind on everything, but seriously, what else is new. I’m planning on being really ahead on next year’s growing!
What great fun we will have experimenting with our Greenhouse. If we stink at growing stuff, at least it is cute. We make a ‘Dutch door’ with a re-salvaged door and another re-salvaged window. I roll the barrel I’ve been saving/hording out of the field, setting it next to the Greenhouse, for nothing other than its charm.
We didn’t plant a thing this last weekend, as we were working on fences. Re-doing the field fence, that to quote someone around here, “the bloody cows made a mess of”. I am counting the hours until ‘my’ summer begins and our school year is over.
So what are your plans this summer, where odd times reign supreme?
We’ve plans for another animal addition to the farm. Can you guess what it or they are?
Week 9 or so of our COVID Stay-at-home/what happened to our life order, we started building a green house. One of us has a cache of old windows, because old stuff is cool, especially windows.
My Loving Spouse informed me that the windows had to sort of match or otherwise the Green House would look like a Bad British Word. The size of the Green house was dictated by the windows we chose. Luckily, I had plenty to pick from and was still able to make sure the Green house turned out ‘cute’, which is as important as growing stuff.
We set all the posts in concrete, because we want the Green House to stay here at the farm and not get blown across the valley. If you don’t believe me about our wind, you’ve never been here in the spring.
I was going to say something clever, like during times of stress we ‘over build’, while other people may ‘over eat’ or ‘over drink’, but the truth is, we’re doing that too.
I am one of the few from my school who works everyday from school. An elementary school without the children is pretty quiet and sad. I cannot help, but be very concerned about ‘our’ kids.
Building our Green house is a creative way to control something, while so much is out of our control. We build and then make an adjustment or two along the way.
Three feet high trusses are determined too steep. We revamp the design and I become (if I do say so myself), quite the truss builder. My Loving Spouse and I have no truss issues.
Our growing season is short. We are both looking forward to having the Green house to start plants, extend the growing season and enjoy the simple pleasure of gardening. Our little house is not done, but we’re pleased with how much we’ve accomplished.
Honestly, right now, I struggle more with frustrations than I do fear, but I want to focus more on ‘hope’….
Cluckingham Palace was not built in a day. It actually took two weekends and a small bit of work during the week. Why, you ask would we need a new chicken house/yard?
Free Range Chickens are not all they are cracked up to be.
Free Range?
Pooping wherever they want? They also eat flowers and dust in flower beds. The biggest problem however, is that in the summer, they go to bed really, really late, sometimes later than we do and this has caused us to loose a few ‘girls’.
This situation is not new and I’ve been trying to give the chickens more space since last summer. I ordered additional fencing from, (can you believe it) a company called ‘Omlet’, which has every item for chickens they could ever need and a few items they don’t, including clothes. (Folks, I cannot make this stuff up!)
2. The old chicken yard was not only small, but it was…a tad ugly.
The girls needed better, so we begin the ‘demo’.
I had a ‘plan’ and My Loving Spouse goes along with it…although, he did put his foot down when it came to adding dormer patio roof extensions for the girls. Seriously!
We lay out the new yard.
We work on Cluckingham Palace’s yard, while the flock enjoys their last few days of pooping on the porches.
We dig the grass up all around the palace to ensure no skunks or other vermin dig below the fence to accost our hens.
With the grass back in place the palace looks great and threat free.
We add a second door made out of an old screen door I’ve been hording.
The roosting structure is made from two of the old porch railings we’d replaced.
The chickens checkout the new maple tree we’ll plant in their yard. Cluck House has lovely grounds and we’ve hopes for more hens. A dozen eggs are ‘brewing’ in the incubator, due next week…and if they don’t hatch…well, we’ve a backup of chicks coming from ‘The Chicken Outfitter’ . (The stuff you can buy on the internet!)
We are blessed and so are the chickens, except they don’t actually know it.
Whoa Nelly’s return to the road couldn’t have come at a better time.
Whoa Nelly
Our 1952 International L110 caused My Loving Spouse to wring his hands and gnash his teeth over transmission, gas tank, carburetor and wasps, but he won in the end. She runs, stops and even has seats with seat belts. No more bucket seats for us.
True Bucket Seats
Whoa Nelly has brought us some fun when we needed it most. Driving across town in her, people wave, smile and give us a thumbs up. We’ve driven her with jelly jars full of flowers to leave on friend’s porches and our spirits were lifted.
Covid-19 makes it harder to bring simple joy to one another. I miss giving hugs, smiles and a gentle touch, so when we were asked if we wanted to be in a parade for Mother Mary’s 85 birthday, we jumped at the chance. (Just for the record, Mother Mary will be having another 85th birthday next year, since she said with the Corona Virus, this one doesn’t count). The ‘nice’ thing about ‘sheltering in place’, everyone’s available. We decorated Whoa Nelly and joined about 35 other vehicles, that showed up to surprise this very fun gal….and surprised she was. We honked and waved and it filled us up.
(Amy asked for THE Kitchen pictures, so for those of you who are tired of seeing THE Kitchen, skip this post and check in next time. Amy is one of those people. We first met 24 years ago when she became My Girl’s speech therapist. Amy walked along side us for years with therapy, advice and friendship. We’ll never adequately repay her for all the ways she has helped My Girl have a better life, so if she wants pictures…good golly, she gets pictures.)
Dear Amy,
So great to hear from you and as you know, nothing ever goes perfectly. So you get all the pictures…the greats and ‘whoops’ how are you going to deal with that!
So the mud room… you ride horses, you understand about boots and jackets and stuff. This picture is the real deal…not cleaned up at all for you.
The cabinet on the bottom is a re-use from the old kitchen and the cabinet on the top is the one I measured wrong. The sink is so that My Loving Spouse can wash the weird stuff he brings inside (along with his greasy hands) here instead of our nice new farm house sink. The ‘stuff’ on the counter is usually stuff that needs to go back to the workshop…this is a never ending process.
Yes, all these coats belong to us and as it is spring, we still use them…boot trays and baskets for hats and gloves. Real life in action.
The laundry and the broom closet did not go as planned. The ‘plan’ was for a large broom closet..(no room)…and for plenty of baskets for folded laundry. I don’t mind doing laundry, but once I fold it, I need a place for it to ‘go’. We adapted to the situation and the shelf over the washer/dryer holds our baskets of clean laundry. As you can see, someone’s Laundry Blessings are overflowing.
Gunner, our beloved yellow lab, will someday have this as his dog den. A lovely long closet complete with dog door to the yard. We’ve yet to cross this off of the list. I think we’ll know when the remodel is really done, it will be the day we no longer have a shop vac in the house.
The broom closet conundrum has been solved! After all, who needs a shower in a powder room? The shower curtain is still coming in handy.
When people walk in the house now, they say, “Oh, I love your nice kitchen…wow, I lovethat butcher block”.
The butcher block is very old and has its origins from an old ship. This thing is heavy and how we got it in the house and upright is another story. My Loving Spouse, the chef, built a knife rack for it and if you’re wondering if we need all these knives, well the answer is obviously, ‘yes’.
We’re not the kind of people who manage to hang up kitchen towels nicely, so we wanted to get hooks. We found this wrought iron fireplace tool hanger in a hardware store in England and knew it would be perfect, plus it was only 10 pounds…(in money).
From the kitchen sink, a quick look to the right and this is what I see….oh, be still my heart.
My favorite pantry items are these hooks for the frying pans. Don’t you just hate storing and putting frying pans away? Not any longer…I think I should patent this idea….
My Loving Spouse’s favorite pantry item is the light switch he installed. When the door is open the switch turns the light on, door shut = light off…pretty sweet.
Because of the space confines, we ended up with two pull out spice drawers. One for The Chef….
The other was next to the sink and has ended up being an unusual space for kitchen wash clothes and towels. They need to be folded just right, but as we know who THE Folder is, this is not a problem. We love having our clean towels at hand, because, well…we’re messy people.
Okay, dear friend…hope you are well, imagine stepping in off of the porch and coming in for a long over due visit….this is what you’d see.
Come and see us soon, because with friends like you…
Technically speaking, we still have some items to finish in regards to our big remodel/new kitchen/where did the last year go. I am pretty sure we won’t get signed off on our Permit, while we don’t have any steps or handrail off of the back deck. However, we are calling the ‘kitchen’ done and want to look back and celebrate where we were one year ago today. We’re pleased as punch at where we are and what we (too old folks) have managed to do….
THE PLAN for the new kitchen was to have a big ole table. One that would easily hold family and friends for spontaneous or long planned meals together. My Loving Spouse went to fetch it.
Rough sawn lumber from across town…$129.00
He disappears into his workshop to begin the build.
If you think he doesn’t have the tools….think again.
My Loving Spouse can build anything, (although he says he is not taking orders for anymore tables). He builds the table base top.
…then sands it for a few days, and makes some legs.
It will be too big and heavy to move around, so we need to assemble it in the kitchen.
We haul all the pieces over, protect the floor and get busy.
Don’t you love the mallet My Loving Spouse also made? I know, Handy as Pockets!
A few whacks and taps…
…and then…tada…
‘Some people’ are so dramatic.
Perfect….except, don’t you find it a bit, how shall I say….brown? It is just not quite right. So I paint the pew… with 3 coats of paint.
…painted pew, oh be still my heart. I never did like that color brown. We get a few things up on the walls, make a few pillows and argue discuss, how much better black ladder back chairs would be.
For now, we’re home (thank you COVID-19), grateful and very blessed.
My Loving Spouse offered me a lovely list of outings for my birthday. Had I known then that outings would soon be curtailed due to the Corona virus, I might have answered differently. However, I didn’t and proceeded to ask for what I really wanted.
‘Can we just stay home and tile the back splash in the kitchen?’
Not just tile it, but invite some friends over who wanted to learn how to tile.
I felt a tad like Tom Sawyer, getting someone else to white wash the fence. My Loving Spouse explains about laying out your pattern and how to use the tile saw.
Then it is mastic and go! Fantastic progress made on day one. Our friends are eager students, always fun to be with and excited to see that tiling is not ‘rocket science’.
We finished one wall promising them any of our left over tile and the use of our tile saw anytime.
As I write this we are in quarantine as is our county. My Loving Spouse and I have so much to be grateful for. We have beautiful spring weather to enjoy, lots of space to enjoy it, plenty of work to do and we like being together.
We got back to work on our tiling project.
Leaning and stretching and muttering Bad British words when the tile spacers fall out.
Two days of straight tiling is a bit hard on your hands, your back and your shoulders…but, rewarding!
We were not sure that one bag of grout would be enough, but it was all we had. Whenever My Loving Spouse slopped some on the floor, I scooped it up with my fingers and crammed it into any holes I could find. We end up having just enough.
After a grout drying break, we gleefully begin polishing the tile, by rubbing the grout dust off. Happily cleaning up the mess we’ve made and watching the back splash come to life, just as we dreamed it would.
We are grinning from ear to ear.
We might be a tad in tile recovery mode today, but we know we are a formidable team.
a. when you have to sit next to your brother in church
b. when you end up accidentally sitting in ‘someone else’s‘ spot at church
c. when you buy a pew, so you can turn it into banquet seating
…and the answer is!!!!!
Pews for sale only $100, that came out of a Baptist church in Yakima. We had a plan..sort of. I mean, how hard could it be? Someone at My Loving Spouse’s work said, “It could not be done.” (Which only makes me want to prove him wrong!) Wrong, wrong, wrong! I now call him, “Jim Of Little Faith”.
Jim Of Little Faith was right about one thing, it was not easy.
‘We’ (which really means My Loving Spouse’) gets it cut where we want it. Now he must move one of the legs, so both lengths have two legs to sit on.
The biggest problem is that the wood was warped. We imagined some big old Baptist sitting in the same spot week after week, leaning back in that old pew really hard, and once the wood was cut everything relaxed!
Between the angle cut and keeping our ‘new’ banquet square, the whole project was quite a challenge.
We attach some padded pieces to the legs to prevent scratching the floor.
Then we wrestle the two pew pieces and screw in place the two seats. With the seats secure, we try once again to align the seat backs.
“Let’s just take a tad more off”, I say…
Then we pull and push and wrestle it again and hold it just right as we quickly get a few screws into the seat backs.
Ta da!
The corner is great! However, not all the legs are actually on the floor. I told you the wood was a bit warped. We put the pew in place and then screw the legs to the floor!
This ensures that all four legs stay where they are meant to be AND that in the next Hide n’ Seek game with THE Grands, the new very best hiding place actually stays in place.
A little sanding, a little wood puddy, a little varnish and the new seating is in place and ready for the table to be built.
We keep one set of the communion cup holders attached in the back, because….
…we are very, very blessed.
(Perhaps we will invite Jim of Little Faith over for some wine…)
After living for most of my 50++ years in the suburbs of Southern California with pools and sidewalks, I am now living on a farm in the Pacific Northwest with animals and dirt…and having the time of my life! Change is good….and I am blessed.
Retirement brought the end of our time at Glory Farm and a move to Scotland, where we live in a historical small fishing village along the North Sea...To God Be The Glory
