A Cow In My Coop

We have two chicken coops, the "BIG" and the "LITTLE". Jack walked by the litle one yesterday and noticed that there was a cow inside the coop. "Marty", short for Martin, was completely inside the coop munching happily on laying mash. He has developed quite the appetite lately, running at a full gallop to the hay bunker when Jack puts fresh hay in in the morning and evening. He had to jump two fences to get to the coop. I'm sorry I missed that. :-)
Hope your coops are secure and that you had a great day.
Nancy

Beautiful Day

We had several more inches of rain but I'm happy to report that it quit and today was a beautiful day!
We looked at the horse that we want to buy again last weekend and took him for a test drive. :-) He does so well. We're getting very excited to bring him here! I'm still working on pictures :-{, but you can see pictures of him on Ashley's blog, farmgirlathome.blogspot.com.
Hope things are going well for you today!
Nancy

Then There Was Otis

When my husband was a teenager he would go to the park and watch the "cool" guys play frisbee with their dogs. The dogs would run and glide througth the air to catch the frisbees without missing a beat. He would watch and dream of having a dog like that. One day, it looked like his dream had come true, in the form of a German Shepherd/Golden Retriever mix puppy. He began to train him and when he got big enough he took Otis to the park for his test run. He took him off the leash and run he did; not to execute a perfect catch of the frisbee, but ran around the park, harassing the other dogs and creating an uproar. Time after time he took Otis to the park only to have him do the same thing. After two years and not one frisbee caught, they parted ways.

Milking Parlor

An incredible amount of work was done on the milking parlor last weekend! It was truly like a miracle. My granddaughter will post some pictures soon. Everyone did a wonderful job and worked so hard. The weather couldn't have been more beautiful. It has a roof on it so Jack can now get out of the rain! I so enjoyed having everyone here, and having them here for dinner two nights in a row!
My grandsons made a wonderful wooden stand to attach the corn sheller to. It works so well. It is very sturdy and you can put a bucket underneath to catch the kernels. We grew an old variety this year called Hickory King for cornmeal. It is a white corn that is open-pollinated and the kernels are huge!
Hope things are going well for you!

Apologies

Sorry I haven't been posting much! Things have been busy. We are changing our garden area this year and I am very excited about it. We haven't been able to work the garden in Spring the last two years because of all the rain, which meant that we couldn't plant everything we wanted to or things went in late, so I am making raised beds using the layering method called Lasagna Gardening. I hope to have all of the beds ready this Fall so all I will have to do is stick the seeds and plants in the ground come Spring when there is an opening in the weather.
The lettuce and spinach in the cold frames is coming along well. I encourage everyone to try this! It is wonderful to eat fresh greens in the winter, and just as soon as the weather starts to change in the early Spring, it will take off like you wouldn't believe. You will have tons before you normally would have even planted them. It is weed and bug-free gardening!
We are considering buying a horse to help with the plowing and such. We have one in mind but are trying to dig out the barn that flooded two years ago first. We haven't been able to use the barn since. We kept thinking it would stop raining and dry out so we could work on it but that hasn't been the case. We think we are going to have to take part of the outside off and somehow dig out the mud and then raise it up. So, I'll let you know how that goes. The work on the milking parlor came to a screeching halt because of (you guessed it!) several more inches of rain last week, but the rain has stopped now and it is supposed to be nice this weekend. I'll keep you posted on that too!
Hope all of your endeavors are going well and that you are taking the time to enjoy each moment.
Nancy

Rainy Days

We have had an incredible amount of rain lately. We broke all records for October for rainfall before the month was over and then added several inches more to that. It did quit raining a week ago for one day and that was the day we had a party planned here at the farm. Such a wonderful group of people and a lot of fun.
Saw a sign out front of a pizza restaurant in a town close to here that says HAVE ARK.. WILL DELIVER. I guess that sums it up pretty well.
Hope things are going well for you, no matter what the weather!