4 Feathers Farm

Garden & cabin work

            Hayes and I filled six of my nine Wall o’ Waters to warm up spots for tomato plants. Our seedlings popped up so far include broccoli and zinnia.

            Alex built two windows in the house and what a difference! Now he framed out a small deck on the front of the house and hopefully will get it done tomorrow.

Hayes' discovery

This morning Hayes found a broken spear point in our front “yard.” That was way cool. We find so many fossils in the rocks around here but that’s the first Native-related artifact found in our almost three years here.

Yucky ticks!

The warm weather is in full swing – we were covered in ticks after a trip to the wet weather spring today. Yuck! Even the baby had three on him.

            Alex tried desperately to dig out the spring and get water up to the cabin but even driving a pipe four feet down didn’t hit water.

            Hayes and I planted some lettuce, carrots and peas in our rocky garden. It is amazing how many rock there are, even after Alex rock raked last week. I wonder if I’ll even get anything in this year’s garden looking at how poor the soil is.

Heading into spring work

            Alex has been up in Illinois and Hayes, Cort and I are holding our own here on the farm. It’s been nice out – thank goodness – and good for hanging clothes on the line. It was a little chilly the past couple of nights and I didn’t have the barrel stove in the bedroom stoked up through the night for my kind of warmth. Actually, I got it blazing before bed and had to open the door to level out the temp!

            I set up my greenhouse my neighbor gave me and now I have to work in the time (and free hands from holding the baby) to get seeds in. I tried raking rows into my garden and was completely frustrated by the rocks and thick dirt.

            Hayes and I had the biggest fight we ever had on Monday over her picking up her toys and cleaning up her mess in my car. We’ve been pretty good together the last two days.

            The solar panels are working great, although I still keep things turned off more than on. I’m about to relent and sell our big fridge for the smaller, less energy intensive one at Home Depot.

            The Girls are just starting to lose their winter coats but they are still so thin and lacking muscle from little exercise that I’m really worried about them.

Sometimes we're slow around here

I’m anticipating really beautiful weather this week. We’re going to be working in the garden while Alex is up in the cold of Peoria.

            Yesterday he rock raked the garden then tilled our manure pile into the plot. I hope we’ll have a good garden. It’s a pretty big site and may be more than one can handle in the first year.

            He got batteries organized outside after we bought two more at Sam’s yesterday. Then he installed the inverter inside so there’s no more going outside in the nice or rain or wind or cold to turn power on or off. Why didn’t we think of that before?!

            What I miss about my life before … having enough light in the bathroom to pluck my eyebrows everyday.

On our own ...

Alex has been in Illinois all week. We survived a huge thunder and wind storm that came through late in the week. Then it's been windy so the baby and I have stayed inside.

Before Alex left, he tilled my garden area. But Tennessee seems to have more rocks than a quarry and I couldn't bear to even start picking them up, so we borrowed a rock rake from our friends at the mule farm. That's what Alex did this morning so we're ready to plant a few things.

The dogs brought up a dead armadillo and Diamond Dog played and rolled in it all week. So I read off a Yahoo group that armadillos carry leprosy so I told Hayes she could poke at the dead critter with a stick all she wanted but to keep hands off.

The frogs are starting to sing and I actually heard turkeys gobbling this morning!

Last week, we found hay rolls and so The Girls have been lurking around eating their fill. Alex built a little fence around our cabin to keep Lisa off the front porch but she's outsmarted us from time to time. Now that she has hay, she's too lazy to come navigate the fence and eat dog and cat food.

Looks like beautiful weather headed our way this week. I'm so ready to get my hands in some dirt!

Birthdays & a taste of spring

Yesterday was Hayes’ 6^th birthday. It was very low key, although I was proud I was able to bake her cake in our woodstove. Then Diamond Dog ate half of it. (That’s a couple of days after Diamond ate the luscious toffee candy our friend Charleen gave Alex!) I banned all animals from the house after that.

            We had a midwife visit. Cort is “off the chart” on weight for his age (now 7 weeks).

            Alex made me a little fenced in front yard, mostly because Lisa kept coming on the porch and eating dog and cat food. When Lisa was at the horse rescue, she’d break fences. I attributed it to her being in a pasture with three bossy ponies. Now she’s just acting like she’s starving instead of foraging for food like the other girls.

            The little yard also has a nice planting bed against the house for my herbs. My neighbor Mike read my blog about seed starting and brought me a brand new greenhouse he had in his garage. I was so excited!

Home again, home again

Home again after two weeks gone. It was cold, cold, cold in the house. So much so that when Alex stoked up the woodstove, it filled the house with smoke because it was so much colder inside than out.

             Alex did quite a bit of work while we were gone: tore down the shack, laid carpet all over the cabin, moved the loft ladder over and insulated the loft, repositioned the solar panels to the porch roof and tore down the guinea pen, built a small fence to keep Lisa off the front porch and made an herb garden next to the house.

            We’re excited that it’ll be warmer this week. Alex will be home to do some stuff and I’ll work him hard. My priority is getting a garden area tilled up because I ordered the first round of plants last week. Normally, I’d start seeds, but I don’t have any place to do that in the cabin. We did pick up some windows that were thrown out of a house being renovated down the street from my grandmother’s. Maybe next year, I’ll have a semi-greenhouse in which to do seeds and not have to spend so much money on plants.

            Yesterday on the way home, we discovered that Hayes’ big teeth are coming in right behind her baby teeth, like a shark!

Alex responds

Now up here in TN, I've been working my butt off.  I tore down the shack
we lived in on our weekend adventures to the farm prior to moving.  That
gave Lisa greater access to the front porch and the dog food.  Therefore,
I built a split rail fence (I already had the fencing.  I'm not that
industrious.) around the front of the cabin and then parked the truck so
that she could not get in.  WRONG!  She the preceded to stomp through a
garden area I had constructed for Shannon's herbs.  Well after moving then
truck back a little more, lowering the tailgate and stacking our water
barrels on the other side of the truck I have been able to keep Lisa away
from the porch for three days.  Of course, now I have to squeeze my big
frame between the truck and the fence.  It needs more work this weekend. I
also tore down or guinea pen and move the solar panels to the porch roof
and put down metal roofing over the bedroom.  After doing all that this
past weekend, I came down with some sort of stomach flu.  It is now
Wednesday and I am still feeling puny.

I almost forgot the weather.  The past weekend and beginnning of this week
was nice.  We got rain yesterday but it was in the 50's.  I woke up this
morning to low 20's, snow flurries and my fire had burned out.  My
chainsaw died this past weekend, so I have been trying not to use much
wood so I have some when the family gets home this weekend.  The temps are
not supposed to let up, so it is going to be cold in the house for the
next couple days.

That is about it.  I can't wait to see Shannon and the kids this weekend
and bring them home.  They will only have to endure a couple days of cold
when they get back, but I should have enough firewood to keep the inside
warm.  Then the temps look like they are shooting up to the 60's this
week.  Yeah!

Surrender, Cola-town

            We woke to a big ka-BOOM this morning, which freaked Hayes out until I realized that it was the surrendering of Columbia … 140 years later. The mayor of Columbia decided it was a good time to reenact and have the city surrender to Sherman.

            Years ago I was interviewing someone with the local historical society and she told me they had a monthly meeting in which they discussed the Civil War (or “the war of Northern aggression”). I asked her if they had any Yankees attend and she responded, dryly, “We have a few.”

Watching the racehorses train

Hayes and I had too much fun yesterday. I've been promising her for more than a year that I would take her to see the young racehorses train where I used to live in South Carolina. Yesterday was nice enough that we could do that so we got up early (for us) and headed to the training track.

Driving through, I wondered if I'd recognize anybody from the old days and sure enough there was my old aquaintance Bob and his horses were just going out. We met up at the rail and talked about what we'd been doing in the 14 years since I'd left that town. I told him Hayes wants to be a jockey and he told her she has a job with him anytime. Well, that just made her day and it was all she talked about for the rest of the day. She even said she needed to get prepared to go back this week and ride horses.

Bob invited us to lunch later in the week and I don't know if it'll be feasible to go with Cort in tow since he likes to squall at inopportune times, like restaurants!

I took Hayes over to the steeplechase track too, but no one was going over jumps so we drove back through the training center then came home.

Sent away

Since it snowed last week and I was consumed with stoking fires to keep warm and to cook, Alex decided it would be best if the children and I escaped to someplace warmer (and with running water) until the cold breaks. So we came to my grandmother's in South Carolina.

Alex went to get water the other night and wanted to see how cold it really was. He sprayed water on the truck and it froze immediately.

My grandmother was concerned about turning the furnace down to 68 degrees, but I told her it would feel like a heat wave to us. And it did. I woke sweating!

So here we are and catching up on our homeschool field trips. Alex wants us to stay two weeks while he gets some things done around the cabin. So far, he redid the carpet inside from carpet he found at the dump. He plans to insulate the loft and move the ladder, move the tv, move the solar panels to the cabin porch roof and tear down what's left of the shack. He also hopes to build a cover for the solar inverter and batteries and make it so we don't have to go outside to turn on the power, which is a real drag when it's cold or rainy.

Bye-bye, guinea bird

 Last summer when we moved here, we bought 12 guinea chicks. Over the course of a few weeks, 11 were killed by the dogs wanting to play with them. The lone survivor has made it by himself all this time.

            Until today.

            That stupid guinea just couldn’t leave well enough alone. It made a habit of coming up on the front porch, eating cat food and pecking at the screen door. Nothing like hearing “bump, bump, bump” early in the morning. Besides that, it pooped all over the porch, firewood and now my wicker rocker Alex’s mother repainted for me. Everytime I went outside and saw that guinea on the porch, I’d holler, “Get on, guinea bird, before I put you in a frying pan!”

            Alex came home this afternoon and I said, “Can you shoot that guinea?”

            He took his .22 and all I could hear was that guinea scrambling along the roof of the shack. Alex said that guinea knew what was up. He shot it once and clipped it, but was able to grab it by the feet and put it quickly out of its misery.

            It’s now hanging up outside – the freezer! – and will get plucked tomorrow.

            Guinea bird, meet the frying pan!

Chilly!

            It’s 26 degrees out and Alex has just gone out to change brake pads on his car. He said there were flurries this morning. If it’s going to be this cold, we need snow! What’s the fun of cold if you don’t have snow?

            Alex’s parents came up yesterday and his mom has held Cort quite a bit. Cort wakes up like me, all slow and grumpy. Hayes went from dead asleep to wide awake in a second when she was a babe.

            A Walmart superstore opened in town last week. I hate, detest and despise Walmart, but now it’s the only place to shop for organic produce and such. It’s going to put the small grocery that sits right in front of it out of business in a matter of months, I just know.

            Last week, Alex stocked up firewood all along our porch and we went through almost all of it. He had to cut more from the area that we’re clearing for a small pasture (in hopes we can pasture board for some income).

            My friend Lynn in Georgia sent us some Schwan’s last week. I called her and said I didn’t know if we were more excited about the food (lasagna!) or the dry ice. Everything in our freezer is finally frozen.

Lisa the Troublemaker

            Lisa has been causing trouble! She’s been getting into the dismantled shack and causing a ruckus and coming up on the cabin porch looking for dog and cat food. It drives Sophie Too Much crazy! We tried putting up a barrier to keep Lisa out but she busted through it and stepped on my wicker chair, putting a big hole in the middle. Of course, the guinea bird has been pecking at the wicker furniture anyway so there are a million pieces of white plastic all over the place.

            We’re almost completely out of hay so The Girls have been foraging in different parts of the property, which is good. They’re stomping down sticker bushes and finding acorns and a bit of grass.

Out and about

            Last night I got to go to Nashville to see the Dancing with the Stars Tour. I had to go by myself and Alex stayed home with the kids. The ticket was a holiday present from Alex and when I got home (at 12:30 a.m.!) I told him how much I appreciated going. I really enjoyed it! I’m not much on ballroom dancing, but the show is great entertainment. Alex and I took a ballroom dance class a couple of years ago. All we did is mostly fight though.

            Alex and Leigh Ann ran fence Saturday through the back right corner of the property. He ran the tractor back upso there were fewer briar bushes to walk through. He did drop my turtle bag my friend Charleen gave me and mutilated it with the bush hog. I’m still pouting. He cleared where we want to do a run in shed for The Girls and if we can borrow a box blade from the nearby mule farm, we can get it leveled and built soon. I reminded Alex that we’ll be getting chickens soon and he needs to make preparations for that.

            Cort is three weeks old today! My friend Bernadette sent meals through Schwan’s last week and I was totally appreciative! It’s difficult stoking up the woodstove and cooking with a babe in arms.

            Hayes and I have been homeschooling in earnest and her reading is really coming along. I’m so proud of her! She’s collected some of the ladybugs congregating in the house for “research.”

I ain't no Br'er Rabbit!

Today seemed like a normal day on the homestead. Alex was cutting wood and I messed with the horses just a bit. Leigh Ann, our farm help, ran horse wire just more than half way around our property so we took a walk down one side to see the ferns Hayes wanted to show me. We found a coyote skull on the way down! Plus, two years ago I dropped one of our Motorola hand-held radios in the woods. Lo and behold, Alex found it on our way back. He’ll put batteries in it later to see if it still works. I never thought we’d find it again.

            And it’s safe to say there’s nothing like walking through a briar patch with an infant. Alex stepped them down best he could so we could pass.

            The farrier came yesterday. Lisa’s frog is separating from the cut she got on her back ankle. He’ll probably cut it out next visit. Spellbound’s crack, caused from shoeing, has practically grown fully out. Hooray for barefoot horses! Dee Dee is still working her way through her founder. On occasion, we Davis boot her for some extra comfort. We realize that founder isn’t something that’ll fix overnight and we’ve had Dee Dee two years now.

Meanwhile, a week later ...

Farm life continues, despite the needs of a newborn. Cort had a bout with jaundice and he had to go to the doctor four days in a row and get his feet pricked to check the bilirubin. I overdid it Monday taking him to the doctor and returning the bili blanket we were able to use over the weekend to try and get the bilirubin level down.

Hayes has hung in there. Last Friday was a bad day for her - reality set in about a newborn's needs and she was a little jealous. Now she carries the baby around and puts him in his bouncy seat or just sits with him in her lap.

Diamond Dog has claimed Cort for her own, always "kissing" his head or hands.

This morning was the first time we've really been out. I had Cort in the sling while we unblanketed the horses and Hayes jumped on her trampoline for awhile. Since the horses have been out of the pasture, there's grass growing in there! But they've made a mess of the hay rolls we had on the trailer, which we'd hoped to last us through mid-February. I think we'll be lucky to get through the end of this month with the hay.

Welcome, Baby New Year!

Here is our latest addition to our family, who arrived on his due date at 7:53 a.m. Cort weighed 9 lbs., 1 oz., and is 21 inches long. He was born at home, as planned!

Alex's Christmas Eve day adventures

            Alex has had quite the adventure in the last 12 hours or so. We’re burning woodpiles in the pasture while we let The Girls wander the property. Our acreage was partially timbered some years ago and there are enormous logs and piles of wood everywhere.

            Last night one of the woodpiles was starting to blaze just as Alex was ready for bed so he decided to stay out and watch it a bit. He heard a helicopter flying low and thought, “Oh man, am I in trouble.” So he ran to get the rake. As he told me, “You know in the movies when someone steps on a rake and it hits them in the face? I did that. I stepped on the rake and it hit me in the face.” He covered the blaze with some dirt to get it down a bit and the helicopter just passed by.

            This morning he was checking on The Girls. We’re letting them eat hay off the trailer in hopes it’ll last longer without them peeing and pooping all in it. Alex was scooping up hay they’d knocked off and he said Spellbound asked what he was doing that for. He said so y’all won’t waste it. He said Spellbound started to chuckle and turned her back to him. After he’d stuffed all the fallen hay back into the hay roll, Lisa came along and, in one felled swoop, knocked it all back off onto the ground with her nose. Alex said Spellbound couldn’t stand it and had to walk around the back of the trailer, she was laughing so hard.

            He also fed the cats and our lone guinea flew down and scratched him on the hand then proceeded to dine with the cats. I said if that guinea comes near me, it’s a goner. I’ll go into labor just chasing that thing around to knock it’s head clean off.

            Today I guess we will warm up the turkey my friend Charleen sent us at Thanksgiving. I’ve been looking through my “Down to the Roots” magazines for a turkey soup recipe and, of course, found several other articles that I want to read again. I love that magazine. It comes out four times a year for $38 and is worth every penny. I especially love the yearly pantry stocking concept and will start all over again come January. It makes such sense and has helped around here when I’m trying to figure out dinner. www.downtotherootsmagazine.com.

             Yesterday we stopped by Jim and Nancy’s mule farm to show Alex ‘Er’s Prince,” a paint Clydesdale stallion, and Nancy ended up putting Hayes on two ponies to see how they did with children. I was proud of Hayes’ seat – nice and tall and heels down. One pony started to take off with her but she remained composed and really had a good time. Didn’t want to leave, of course. Check out the mule farm at www.calicojunctionmuleranch.com.