The little house on the ditch.

It's been awhile.  We have a gazillion PHD's  (projects half done) and more that haven't even been started yet.  The kitchen floor is still just partially stripped.  The driveway is still just partially dug up.  The fiber studio is still just studs.  The vegetable garden is half planted.  The potato field is prepped but there are no potatoes planted yet.  The fence line for the new alpaca pasture is cleared and prepped, but the rolls of fencing remain rolled up and waiting.  The grapes still need trellising.  My shrugigan is still in progress.  We have so much to do it has become overwhelming.  Even thinking about blogging was more than I could handle.

We began the driveway project with the full intent of staying on task until it was done - but the rain hit.  When there was finally a break in the weather it was spring and spring things needed to get done.  Now it's important to do things that can only be done in the spring.  The driveway and thus, the garage conversion, landscaping, etc now has to be back-burnered while we tackle vegetables and grapes and hops and more.

Chicklets are a spring thing and mine are thriving.  Of the six chicks I got a few months ago 5 are growing into fine beautiful hens that will be soon laying gorgeous eggs.  One, however is not.  That one is growing into a fine rooster to give the chicken coop that manly touch.  He's still working on getting the crow thing down.  Right now he sounds like a child screaming because they aren't getting candy for breakfast.   I really wanted a rooster - I love the crowing, when it's done right.

Several weeks ago Peter called on his way home from work to ask if we needed anything.  Honestly, I couldn't think of a thing!  But somehow he knew my unspoken thoughts.  An hour later he walked in the door carrying three Toulouse Goslings.  Toulouse geese are the geese that look like "mother goose" from the children's books.  The little things are so cute!





I love learning new things.  And hey, I learned something new!  Not too long ago I learned a very important lesson - One should not tuck rain pants into barn boots during a hurricane  (they just act like downspouts into your boots).

The newest lesson in my book is this:  Disciplining a cat when half naked is a bad idea!  We have two indoor cats and 3 outdoor cats.  One of our cats, K@t, is trying very hard to become an outdoor cat by doing all the things she knows will get her thrown off the island.  Yesterday I came home from work with the lofty goal of doing some gardening.  I changed my shirt, took my pants off and grabbed my overalls, only to find them soaked with urine.  Eww!!  K@t seemed to be hanging around in evil anticipation waiting to see the outcome of her dirty deed.   I swiftly scooped her up and  began rubbing her face with the pee-soaked pants.  She didn't like it at all (go figure!)  claws came out, teeth were barred and and she twisted frantically to be released from her punishment.  Needless to say, I instantly regretted my bare legs and questioned my own choices.  My thighs were a huge (well, maybe not HUGE)  pasty white target for 6" talons looking to exact revenge.  Trying to minimize any damages I might receive I spun her around and pinned her back to my legs, while her claws clawed the air.  I felt like I was in a Hollywood slasher movie!  During our struggle her claws found the palm of my hand.  I am fortunate she didn't connect with any other exposed flesh.  Her time in the house is limited - I really like this cat so she has at least one more chance, if not two or three or ten.  But there will be a limit.  I'm sure!

Empty nest syndrome.

It's moving day at this little house on the ditch.  Not for us (I'm never moving again!) but for the chickies I brought home just 6 short weeks ago.  Remember?  I had enthusiastically said they could stay in the house as long they wanted.  Silly me!  They have completely out-stayed their welcome.  They've been staying outside during the day, but sleeping inside at night.   They make the house stink and the cats told me they feel quite put out that they are not allowed to investigate the intriguing noises.

The snag in getting them moved outside sooner was that they had no place to stay that was warm, dry and safe.  We burned the old chicken coop in an effort to eradicate the chicken virus.  We had to build a new one before we could boot them out the door permanently.

Peter's original idea of a suitable chicken coop was a box with a door and a pitched roof.  Somehow that didn't suit my idea of a proper hen house.  Mind you, he built a fine sturdy box.  Absolutely functional.  While he was building the box I piped up and said - wouldn't it be nice if there was a window?  Peter trotted off to the barn and brought back... a window!

I found some paint in the barn that was a lovely hot pink and got all set to paint the coop.  Once I stirred the old paint it became a boring barn red.  Quite disappointing.  I was faced with a dilemma, the paint was free, but ugly.  Did I use it anyway?  Free won out and I painted the coop barn red.  It looked like a very nice box with a peaked roof painted barn red.  Not at all what my imagination had conjured up.

I needed cheap, colorful paint!  I started to haunt the paint departments in big box stores looking for cheap mis-mixed paint.  Really - the paint masters at these places need to make more mistakes in livelier colors.  I finally found an adequate green.  It wasn't hot pink but at least it wasn't beige, gray or barn red.  Peter found some cream colored mis-mixed paint on one of his excursions.  So there we had it - Green exterior with cream and barn red trim.  I'm too practical frugal to waste paint..

I had a vision that needed following so I got to work on painting, cutting shingles, making an entry cover and window boxes.  Peter provided me with a chicken stencil and had the great idea of adding a belly band.  It seemed my husband with the plain box idea was embracing the task at hand.  He devised clever double-hinged access doors, a pulley system for the chicken door and cut decorative trim.  I sure like him, he plays well with others!  Our original idea (yes, even mine) was to make a hen house that was portable so we tried to keep the weight of it down.  Around the time the chicken-stenciled belly band went up, Peter pointed out that weight just didn't matter anymore, it wasn't going anywhere!  I think we're considering adding a proper foundation under it.  Maybe a basement wine cellar...

Needless to say, all this decorating turned a simple one or two day construction job into a project that lasted a week or more.  But finally, today, the chicklets got to move in.  We still have some work to do on their yard, and a little more trim work to finish up, but the house is almost perfect:

The inside of the chicken coop is painted all white for easy cleaning.  Just to make sure that my girls start their day out right, I put this over their door:

I think I'm funny!

Say Cheese!

The lovely people that hooked us up with Cadbury and Chupa have goats.  And their goats had kids.  Two beautiful little twin girls.

For lack of anything better they have been dubbed One and Two.  Two has the black stripe down her back. We went to visit them on Saturday and of course, I fell in love.  They bounce and they play and oh my they are cute little things.  Angela said that as cute as they are, they really don't want to keep the goats.  Mostly they wanted to get their goats milking.  They certainly succeeded at that because they sent me home with a quart of fresh goat milk.

I made cheese.  yummm..

The worst/best part of all this is that it has fueled my little goat shop dreams all over again.  I really like alpacas, but I still think I would love goats - now I think that more than ever.  The worst/best part of THAT is that Angela wanted me to rename One and Two because she knows, in her heart, that I'll take them when they are ready to leave their mom and she thinks they should get their final names now.  I'm struggling with whether or not I should take these two darlings.  I want them.  Really bad.  But my reality is that I don't have a great set-up for alpacas and adding goats to the mix has the potential to just be a nightmare.

Despite the fact that I can't decide - I've named the kids Een and Twee.  (that is pronounced Ane and Tway)  That's Dutch for One and Two.

I have such problems.

Construction. Day 8?

Yeah - let's call it day 8.  It's really hard to tell because we've done a little bit here and a little bit there.

We've had a few problems.  The rain has been persistent and ugly.  I've had to work two days, Thursday Peter took an alpaca head to the face, resulting in a broken nose and I woke with a migraine this morning.  Needless to say, construction progress has slowed wwwwaaaayyyy down.

I have a photo though:

As you can see, the sun finally came out today and Peter was able to resume digging.  "We" want to dig all the top soil out and save it for raising the the future lawn.  We'll put junky old fill under the future parking pad.

Yesterday the weather was so crazy we had sun breaks, rain, hail storms and snow flurries.  Great fun for delivering mail.  It was a "take my rain coat and jacket off, put the jacket on, take the jacket off, put on the rain coat, put them both back on, take them off" kind of day.  The temperature was very fickle.

Today the weather was much better.  Sunny and warm - as long as you weren't hanging out in the shade.  I wish I had felt better and was able to help Peter more.  Instead I made muffins, cleaned the kitchen, napped,  sat staring into space, and I did manage to take the chicklets that have been living in our kitchen on their first outing into the big, wide world.  Sparky had to help me supervise.

The weather should be good like this for nearly a week.  Unfortunately I have to work 4 days out of five.  I'd rather be here than delivering mail but we have to do what we have to do.  I'm not really so much help with just digging anyway.  I'm sure he'll be fine without me.