Habits

Sitting down and thinking about all that needs to be done is completely overwhelming sometimes.  My world is growing in around me. The kids are growing up. The contents of the house grow and spill out.

 

Everything grows at rates that seem to go faster every day.

 I grow too, I hope, by the grace of God.  But the rate of my growth is at a pace that that cannot compare. It’s molasses in winter kind of pace.

So as I face one day at a time I will face my “to-do” list one day at a time, one bullet at a time.  With more and more efforts being put into creating habits to help mark off the list.

 

“A habit is what we wear: A habit is the way we wear our days.

Wear new habits and your life gets a makeover.

Consistently do things at the same time everyday and find yourself a new person.” –Ann Voskamp of A Holy Experience

Ann Voskamp is one of my favorite writers.  She is forever inspiring and challenging me to move forward, never give up. 

So my goal for this day, for this week, for this month is to learn to “wear a habit.” I will, by the grace of God, find a rhythm that works and “consistently do things at the same time every day”.  One thing at a time, one habit at a time, to mold the day into the beautiful handiwork of God.  

Cloudy Vision

Clouds. We are all familiar with clouds. And some would say especially here in the Pacific Northwest, we know clouds. 

But I have had clouds covering my dreams now over this last year and a half you have found a lack of farm activity.  My vision was clouded. 

I have always had a dream of this life we started 8 years ago.  When I was really little the dream was even bigger.  Now I know I’m exactly where I ought to be at the level my heart and soul can handle.  Because lately I haven’t been able to handle much.

There are a couple reasons for my renewed interest in blogging.  The first is that it really is fun to show my friends and family what we are doing in life and to keep a kind of journal of our life.  But the second reason is that I feel a real need to be real.  We often, without realizing it most of the time, tend to show our best to the screen world.  I am guilty as charged.  But sometimes I think we need to help each other out by sharing our struggles and hurdles and downright failures.  We fall flat on our faces over and over and it’s hard.  It’s the reality of it all.

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.  –Hugh Mackay

Here is the imperfect. 

This is my "backyard". Behind the cabin. Overgrown and messy.  Actually the whole property kind of looks like this.  Do you know how hard it is to keep back an invasive, non-native blackberry bramble from taking over the land? 

Most days I feel it to be impossible.  But slowly and surely we will win that fight. It will take time, a lot of time and effort and sweat and tears, but we will win. Just not today. Because for now I’m off to build a dog run for that new Anatolian pup, Bey.  He needs a place within our place to call home.  

TTFN

Autumn Arrives

On September 22^nd we began our journey into autumn.  Almost on cue the weather also turned.  Last weekend we had upper 70’s and sun.  On Monday my rain gauge was empty.

It’s been steadily filling all week. 

 

The pigs loved the digging in dirt.  Now they’ll enjoy the mud.  And we moved their food under cover.

Within the last rain filled four days and 2+ inches sprinkled onto this big beautiful tomato plant, it’s turned black with blight. Typical of this part of the country. Cover tomatoes or deal with blight.

It’s dark in the middle of the day. Dark with clouds. Lights come on and we work inside unless we work with the animals.  Quick and fast feedings and back in the house.

But there is light at the end of this tunnel of a week.

“Don't let Friday get you down about the weekend. Higher pressure will move in tonight giving us partly to mostly sunny skies both Saturday and Sunday. Highs will even climb to the low 70s..” KomoNews Weather

Loss

We’ve had a rash of loss on the farm this past year I’ve been off on my detour.  It’s been challenging at times.  Loss teaches us how temporal life can be. There is always a lesson in loss, even if it is just “farm animals”.

We lost all our ducks to what we think was an owl; they disappeared one by one without a single sign of a predator.  Perhaps they were carried off?

Our flock of chickens dwindled down little by little.  The first few without a trace but then we started seeing the signs loud and clear.  Mangy raccoons!

But the worst of our loss came this past July when our amazing, one-of-a-kind farm dog, Killick, disappeared.  

 

Good-bye Sweet Killick.

It was the saddest weekend ever.  Killick was at least 10 years old but very well could have been older.  He had been having a lot of health problems and the most recent were hip and joint issues with quite a bit of pain.  We are pretty convinced he went off to die in peace.   

We’ve had to move on.  Moving on can be hard, not so much with chickens and ducks as we’ve been through many flocks and they often become food for us.  But with a dog, he’s family.  He’s your friend and for the kids who grew up with him, it was particularly hard.  But a farm can’t go long without a guardian. 

After some research FDJ decided he wanted to find an Anatolian Shepherd. So the search began and he found a youngish male in Moscow, Idaho. 

A road trip was in order!  The girls accompanied their father all the way to Idaho.  They fell in love with this stray Anatolian who now goes by the name Bey. Bey comes from Beyefendi which means gentleman or sir. 

Bey has a lot to learn about being a livestock guardian as it seems he had been a stray and on his own for quite some time.  But we are hopeful he will learn his role.

For his own good he better.  

 

Keep checking in on Bey to see how he is doing.

Farming again!

I won't pretend that it doesn't look like I've disappeared off the face of the earth.  Life just sometimes takes us down detours now and again.  I've just been detoured for a bit but I found my way back to the main path...the farm. 

For a long while now I haven't really felt like I was much into the way of farming.  Life was so incredibly busy in other areas I didn't have much time to do much of anything else.  

It hasn't gotten less busy but we have just decided to dive in.  My daughter told me the other day as we were driving home from getting these...

"We are a farm again, mom."  We've only had a few chickens lately. And they aren't even laying yet.  But now we are back into farming. 

These little guys start off so cute.  People say, "They are too cute to eat."  Well, we've only had them a couple weeks and they are already growing and I venture to guess they won't be cute for long.  

This week it turned into autumn, by calendar and by weather.  Their run will be a mud pit in no time at all.  I'm sure they will love it.  But it will turn ugly quickly.

When we first brought them home I was so nervous about raising them. This is definitely a new experience for us.  I quickly put up electric wire to help keep them in their pen.  I've done tons of reading.  Talked to the gal I bought them from.  I'm still a little nervous but as much.  We'll see how it goes.  If all goes well we will do it again.  I'm raising these for some friends.  I was going to get one more but I think we'll see how these 2 work out and go forward from there.

They will be butchered in January some time.  In the meantime we'll let you watch them grow and share the experience.

This is one of my favorite pictures.  Pork Chop and Hamhock.

Spring is here, life renewed.

I can't believe it's been 3/4 of a year since I posted.  I can't believe people still come to look. 

Red-flowering Currant. The hummingbirds love these!

As spring has come to our neck of the woods I'm feeling renewed, energized, encouraged and inspired! 

Just as I posted about last summer,  I'm ready to go, full of vim and vigor. I've updated my project list in my planner/calendar book.  Several things are still on there from last year and many new things. 

The goals are the same, learning to be self-sufficient.  The challenges are the same, disorganization and chaos. 

But I am renewed with the spring.

Cleaning up garden beds.

We've had an amazing spring so far, we've even hit 70 degrees once already, March 31st.  I've been working in the garden, readying the beds. I've planted spinach and sweet pea flowers.  The garlic is emerging. 

Garlic

    The first Saturday of March we butchered our old flock of chickens and put 24 hens in the freezer. My mom was here to help and all the children helped. Everyone is getting used to it. Charissa even tried her hand at helping me with eviscerating.

My emerging echinacea.

My mom is going to be living with us for a little while and while she was here in January/February she did a lot of research on raising meat rabbits.  She really would like to try her hand at breeding and raising rabbit for meat.  So that might be something we do this summer with her in charge.  (She's back in MN right now packing up her place. She'll be back in May.)

Having my mom here is going to be an incredible inspiration.  My mom is very project oriented and loves to keep busy. So I'm excited to have her here to keep me going!

Chives. We used some for dinner last night!

   

Project update

I always have the best of intentions, but when you have 4 children, a flock of chickens, new ducks, unpredictable weather, Church, friends and relatives, things don't always go the way you plan them. 
At first I really felt like I was making no progress, but then I went back to look at the pictures I've taken so far and I see that I really have made a little dent.  I've started many of the projects but not completed many.  I have also forgotten to take before pictures on some of them. 
This was the first project I started and finished. 

This is the area just in front of the barn.  The kids up there didn't know it at the time but they were my helpers. 

After an hour or so this was the end result.

It is astonishing to me how the grass grows up so fast and just totally consumes all that is around it.  We had to dig out tree branches that we threw there next to the fence last fall.  They were suppose to be to cut up and burn.  They still can be.  I just can't believe how they got buried under the grass.

Some other things that I have started is the side of the barn, the garden work area, and one not on the list but finished and completed (pictures to come later) was the front garden bed.  I'm particularly proud of that.  I'll post on that in a day or 2, I need to get an after picture.

Here is a picture of Kelsey's new ducks. The littlest ones are Khaki Campbell and the bigger ones are Blue Runners.  They are a month apart in age which and we were worried we wouldn't be able to put them together but they have really taken to each other.  The Khakis follow the Blues around as if they are mothers, it is so cute.  Kelsey filled this little green sled up with water for their little pool and they love it.

I have a lot more to post about so hopefully it won't be that long until I do.

Have a great day!