New Year's Eve and new baby lambs

I had alot to do on this New Year's Eve. We had planned to have all of our friends over for a housewarming/New Year's party. I had alot of cooking to do and a bit of cleaning. Instead I spent most of the morning with Eric making a birthing pen.

On his way out to work Eric heard a new sound in the pasture. He called me to ask that I go check the animals, one sounded different. Sure enough, we had baby lambs, two weeks early.

The young boy was very confused. He thought that Tank was his mother and was trying to nurse from him.

Madison was having a blast, she just loves the animals. Sammy was doing a great job of protecting without getting in the way. Tank however, thought it was his job to protect them from their mother and that caused a bit of a problem.

This is Molly and one of her babies. She is Madison's favorite sheep, she comes running to get pet and she goes crazy for treats.

These are her babies, Rodney (male) and Angel. Rodney you ask, what a name for a lamb. Well he looks alot like Rodney Dangerfield, so his name is Rodney.

Eventually we got a pen built for Mother and babies and I was able to get back in the kitchen and get the food made. We had a great time ringing in the new year with our friends.

Doors, and gravel

We have inside doors! We had been living with a shower curtain for the bathroom door and none on the rest. It is so nice to have a door on the bathroom.

We also had gravel delivered today. Everything has been so muddy and we only had one small lane of gravel to park in. So we had them deliver a load of gravel to widen the drive.

It ended up being enough gravel to go all the way to the shed and make a nice wide area at the house. We were even able to put a little in the muddy area over by the pastures.

Since we have no grass and only mud we decided to use pieces of the leftover flooring to make a "boardwalk" so we don't have to wear boots to walk to the car and then change into our shoes.

Now we have lots of parking.

Christmas

We still don't have everything moved in, still just the essentials.

So Christmas just didn't feel like Christmas since we are so busy trying to get stuff done.

We were able to travel to Knoxville 2 days ago to get the interior doors. The are 6 panel solid wood doors and we got a really good deal on them. Unfortunately they ended up being a piece of furniture for a week.

Tanner is just thrilled to be in his new home. He tells me all the time, "Mommy, I just love this house we built."

We decided that this year we would have a real tree. We have always had artificial trees, but after spending so much time at Lowes and always walking by the Christmas trees I just couldn't pass it up.

During the packing and partial move we ended up losing the box of Christmas decorations. So we went to Dollar General and bought some of what they had left.

First early morning chores

This morning was the first morning for chores.

As you can see the ground is very frosty. Madison was so excited to be doing the chores "at the farm"

We usually fed the cows in the afternoon when we were at the other house. Now they get to eat in the morning too. They were "really" happy.

The sheep get so excited when the buckets come out. They just mob Madison.

They especially love it when Madison brings them treats. That is Molly and she loves to eat out of Madison's hand. She also knows that Madison keeps the food in her pocket and she tries to stick her head in there.

Moving Day!!!

Yesterday was moving day!

I was so busy and excited about finally getting in the house that I forgot to take the time to get some pictures. I packed up the essentials that we would need for the next few weeks and some members of our church came to help. We moved the beds, sofa, table and the boxes of some of the clothing and the kitchen essentials.

We got everything in the house is just a few hours, luckily, since we still had important things to install.

After we got the stuff moved we needed to get in the toilet and the woodstove, two very important items. We spent a few hours working on the toilet. It was alot more difficult to get in than we thought. After alot of twisting of backs to maneuver the beast into the small cramped space we got it all done. Now on to the stove.

Last weekend our friend Brian brought his tractor over and used it to move the woodstove from the shed to the porch. So Eric and I only had to get it from the front door into place. It is really heavy and cumbersome, but we got it done. We did have some trouble getting the stovepipe in so instead we decided to just put in some of the electric heaters just for a few days until we had more time to work on it.

So for the first time we were going to sleep in the house that we built.

Today we needed to get the sheep and bring them over to the farm. We once again borrowed our friends trailer and went to the house to get the sheep. Here is Madison leading the sheep away so we could set up the trailer.

We were able to get them in just 2 trips. Here the sheep and goats are meeting each other for the first time. They were all curious for awhile.

Here I am cooking the first meal in my new kitchen. It feels so awesome!

Goats going home

Goats. Anyone that has had goats knows that they can be ...difficult.

Our goats had been living with our friends for the past 3 months. They have permanent field fencing and we didn't want to have them here while we aren't living here. Unfortunately one of our goats continually got her horns stuck in the fence and would stand there and cry. They would go out and release her and she would just do it again. It was really a problem when she did it late at night and cried all night.

So yesterday I borrowed their trailer and brought the goats home. It took 2 trips and we were just finishing when it was getting dark. They handled the trip well, except when I wanted them to walk over the water in the ditch in the dark. They seemed really happy and danced around.

We got the appliances in today. I am so excited, I can't wait to cook in my new kitchen.

It rained again yesterday. We have been watching the creek since the last storm. We all got a bit anxious, looking every few minutes. This picture shows the creek at its height after the rain stopped.

After the flood

This is what the fenceline looked like after the flood. The creek had come out of its banks and as the water rushed across the top of our pastures. It sort of formed another creek in that low spot.

The waters rushed through carrying large logs and branches. These things got caught in some of our fence line and pulled the lines down. At some places it even pulled out fenceposts and destroyed gates.

The creekside portion of each of our pastured was totally destroyed.

The piggies, however, fared much better. Since their entire area was washed out and the fence was down the piggies had gone on an expedition. We found them behind the neighbors house up the street. Madison and her friend took a bucket of corn up to bring them back.

I heard them coming long before I saw them. The squeeling was so shrill I am surprised all the neighbors didnt hear it. Then I saw Madison running down the street with the pigs running after her.

We were able to get them in a new area with lots of grass...they were very happy.

This weekend Eric spent his time making a pig shelter. He used some of the free pallets that we have. We have found that pallets are a great thing to have around, they can be used for a number of things. The pigs were so happy about their new "house" they immedieately started pulling up grass to make a bed.

Linoleum

On Thursday Mom and I worked on the linoleum in the kitchen. It sounded like it would be really easy, just peal off the backing and stick it down. If only it was that easy.

We measured the distance between the wall and the island to find the middle and made sure that the edge pieces wouldn't be too short.

The actual job of putting them down wasn't difficult, I just had to make sure they were really straight and tight together. Just a little bit off makes it alot worse down the line.

Finally got the last few pieces of laminate in and also worked on the baseboards.

Storage room floor almost finished.

We had a low spot on the kitchen floor and I had to build it up a bit. That is easier said than done, the stuff dries so fast. It also helps to have the right tools, which I didn't. The next day I had borrowed a large trowel from Dad and that made it alot easier to finish.

Storage room finished and storing stuff...finally.

We have floors!!!

The rest of the weekend was spent putting finishing touches on plumbing under the house and moving a few things. We were able to get the large bookcase in on Saturday so I can start loading it with books.

We also got the kitchen sink and faucet in. I am so thankful for my Dad and all of his skills. He does such a great job. Doesn't it just look great?

500 Year flood?

Yesterday we had planned on working on the fences. Instead I woke to a call that everything is flooded. I later found out that we got 8 inches of rain in a 5 hour period after all of the rain we already had all year.

This is right behind the house. The edge of this cut is about 5 feet to the ground on the bottom. The water is almost to the top.

The stream in the woods also backed up.


This is the edge of the orchard.

This is the view from out in the pasture. Here is where the water had been rushing through.

We had a bunch of friends show up to help get things back in order.

It took all of us to get the pig fence moved.

A few hours later it still hadn't crested and was still coming in more

This is our drainage ditch that usually only has a small flow when it rains. It is about 3 to 3 1/2 feet deep at this point.

The cows didn't know what to do. Luckily we were able to get up emergency fencing before they decided to take a walk.

I started working on this at 8am and the water was still rising at 2pm. We finally saw it decreasing around 3pm.