Breaking ground

While I was at the farm monday morning working on the fences the excavator came to start working on the footers. We are so excited, we have waited so long it was getting to the point where it seemed like a dream and it would never get started.

First they needed to cut down the big hickory tree. It was huge and they had a really hard time getting down. I was actually standing there waiting to get video of it falling and my battery died while I waited, so all I have is the before and after pictures. Yes, that huge tree is the one cut down. We hated to do it, but it was too close to the house site.

Here is the tree all piled up at the end of the lower clearing (I am not looking forward to getting that all cut up and stacked).

It is really strange to see that area without the tree now, it looks completely different. We left the stump as a reminder of the tree and as a place to chop wood later for the wood stove (although we will have to level the cut).







Finally, the footers for the house are dug. Today the concrete was poured and if it doesn't rain, the blocks will be laid for the foundation on Friday. It is really weird how sometimes it seems like you will sit and wait forever for something to happen, but once it starts it is like opening a floodgate. At least now things are happening.

The continuing saga...fences

Well....obviously the fencing that I had tried to rig didn't work. Once again the cows were out. Now it isn't all of the cows, just a few extra curious troublemakers. They are named the "skunk brothers" (white stripes down their backs, and they are brothers) and "steak" our bull that shouldn't have been a bull. After walking the fence line again about 3 times and calling my father to ask what I could be missing we finally found the problem, well Dad did. It was a broken insulator 2 posts down from the pasture. At least now we will have electric and the cows will stay in.....

NOT! We stopped by on our way to take the kids to see Star Trek (excellent movie by the way). And once again the cows were out of the pasture and making their way to the driveway. So we got them back in and decided to make a new barbed wire fence over the creek really quick. Did I say quick, yes we were delusional.

So there we are, Eric and I dressed for a date with the kids (who were waiting not so patiently in the van) and we are up to our knees in the creek fighting with barbed wire. Finally we get 3 more strands up, hoping that they are tight enough to keep the ever elusive wanderers in the pasture.

Sunday comes and we check and they are still in the pasture, finally it worked. Or so I thought.

Monday morning comes and I am once again feeling aweful with a cold that was once more passed along from my children. But I have to check on the cows and get the drawings to the excavator so he can dig the footers for the house. And what do I find when I get there bright and early at 7:30am? Cows in the driveway.

Arghhh. All right, that is it, this is war. I decided I am putting up electric across the creek, that had better keep them in. So I spend about 2 hours with my mothers help putting 3 strands of wire across the creek so that it is at the right level to stop them and still not go under the water when it rains and the creek rises. This can be a very difficult feat considering the creek banks are very deep and there is almost nothing to attach the insulators to. Finally we got it done. I was exhausted, but guess what, no more cows in the driveway, now they go the other direction (at least they are still in a pasture).

We found out this week that electric fencing isn't always easy. Actually, when a problem comes up it can be a real pain. Wednesday night I stopped by the farm on my way to take Morgan to church. When I got there I had cows in the driveway.

My first thought: 'great, another spot of barbed wire that needs to be fixed'. My second thought: 'how the heck do I get these cows back in the pasture myself' (and I am already late getting Morgan to church).

So I let Eric know the cows were out and he had to come straight to the farm from work (he wasn't real happy, and neither was I). So long story short, I got back from dropping Morgan off and Eric and Brian(friend down the street) had all the cows back in (thank goodness they slobber over grain). We now proceeded to find the problem in the fence and came to realize that the electric is not even on.


Since we just got finished with about 2 weeks of rain we didn't have a chance to trim fence line. So we thought maybe it is the grass shorting out the fence. So we gasses up that dreaded trimmer and fought to get it started and Eric trimmed the first pasture, and still no juice in the line. Then we walked the fence again to check for problems and still couldn't find any. So I unhooked the wires and checked the solar charger and it is working fine and throwing 4,000 volts. I changed the jumper wire, just in case that was the problem, nope, not that either.

Now it is getting late and is now dark, so we decide to head home and I would have to check it again in the morning (hoping the cows don't get out again).

Fast forward to the next morning. I am at the farm early for a meeting about getting the septic started. I decided to bring another charger over, just in case the solar was depleted by a short or something. I get it all hooked up, fully expecting the fence meter to jump into the green and everything to be fine. No luck, in the red 'check fence'.

So once again I walked the fence, and this time I found that the extra gate we made to let the goats onto the creek bank had slipped and the wire was touching the metal post. Aa ha!! Finally I found something to fix that made sense. I cut the whole thing off(to save time) and went to check the fence again.

Finally we have a charge, not much, only about 1,000 volts, but it was working. So I left it connected to the battery charger so the solar could charge up again (just in case). Hopefully when I go to check it today it will be fine and all the cows will be INSIDE the fences.

Goats and sheep

Today while I was updating the blog, Eric was watching the sheep and the goats out of the window. Snowflake would jump on the doghouse (goathouse) and then the sheep would gather around. Sometimes she would try and headbutt the sheep that came too close. They ran around playing like this together for about 30 minutes.

Sheep and goats

On April 29th we had our first goats delivered. We decided to have them stay with our friends Mary & Kevin for awhile. These goats are Boer/Kiko mix (meat goat). The first picture is Penny (Nanny) and her baby Snowflake.



This next picture is the 2 babies Snowflake and Cream (her mama is Peaches and I couldn't get a good picture of her).





The sheep got here on May 2. We got electric netting for our yard to house them and we put that up the Tuesday before. That saturday morning I went out to check on it and it was all saggy. I called customer service and asked how they get it to stand up and she told me we needed to mow the grass really short and then pull the fencing really tight.

So in the pouring rain and thunder Eric and I and my father were out in the yard mowing a path to put the fence in. We finally got it finished about 15 minutes after the sheep arrived. We were soaked to the skin, but we got it accomplished.


On May 8 we got Erica, our Alpine milk goat. She was born on Eric's birthday (hence the name). She is extremely friendly and loves to be around us. Tanner just loves her.








Here she was meeting the sheep for the first time.

Catching up.....

I has been awhile since I had time to sit down and update. Here is a picture of Tanner eating wild onions from the pasture. There are so many of them and one day while we were there working on fences the kids made a game of pulling them. Tanner decided they were good and ate at least 5 (and only because we stopped him).



This was the sky one afternoon between downpours. If I remember correctly it was also during a tornado watch.






We had about 3 weeks without rain and our friends came over to play baseball in the clearing a few times. The kids had alot of fun. In the beginning the parents were filling in pitching and catching and the kids played outfield and batted. Later we decided to play kids against parents. The kids got 3 outs and the parents got 1.





The girls like to play in the creek just above the waterfall. It is deep enough for them to still on the bottom and just have their heads out of water. They have so much fun there that we decided to have a picnic with my parents and then we all went to play in the creek. I think they could play there all day long (or at least until one of them finds a leech).



One day while sitting at the window there was a butterfly handing around. Madison decided to try to get close to it. A few minutes later the butterfly was on her finger. It would fly away and then come back.