Four red headed woodpeckers eating elderberries

 

I moved the tent into the next acre

 

Charlie and Rex

Because I was focusing on a smaller location, I spent a little time looking at chicken breeds. I don’t know when I first wanted a jubilee Orpington, but it was by the time I was married and living in the patchwork house for the first time. Probably around the time I started the blog. By the time we moved here, I had found true English jubilee Orpington eggs. I ordered them with some other breeds I’d decided on. Bielefelders being my key aim. I hatched a lot of roosters. One bielefelder hen, Delta, and four or five roosters. We are the others and kept my favorite two, Blue and Charlie. We had three jubilee Orpington roosters as well. We kept one, Rex. So named because the first time I heard him crow in the early morning mist, he sounded like a dinosaur. His crow was deep and hoarse and not loud. I loved him. As he got older his breast was so broad and his feathers got more spotted and intricate. We found him dead about six months ago. His coop is in the front and while sturdy is less protected from raccoon and fox. A month later an owl killed Charlie but couldn’t get to him after. The run has wire on top but the chickens had started roosting out of the coop with only wire overhead. Odin can only reach one side of the run at night. I just bought 660’ of fence to start giving him more access to more edges. It’s all entangled. The point is, I am still sad about the two boys, and the genetics in my flocks is suffering for it. I am focusing on meat production throughout the entire farm for a short time (we are finally set up to make any money and need to, and selling live animals as babies is not where we are looking to go) so I’ll wait to find quality roosters for now. I have what I need. Being back here with them. Outside in everything with them all and seeing so much of their lives makes some parts more sad than I have to let them be. 

Nothing here makes sense out of context

 

For instance

 This is a good example that can be applied to so much of what had been created so far here. Excuse me, right then there was a choking coughing sound. I always run to those. Usually it’s nothing. This time it was nothing. That’s another excellent example of what it’s like here. So, the example. We just added creep feeders to each pen for the goats. We thought the openings were small enough but some of the little adult goats got in. We adjusted, the tiny ones with sticks on their collars had a hard time getting in. We added feeders for them in a separate area. The tiniest boy in Reba’s litter, we call him Sundance, continues to escape the big boys run. They have to have solid panels because the big useless wether, Joe of many names, constantly climbs and destroys anything else. He was jumping the fence that works for every other goat since, the day we got him home. He was weathered that day, Burdizzo, and 10 weeks old. His mom died having him so he was super spoiled. He’s a boer. Anyway, the pen has bigger holes and the Nigerian boys can still escape at six weeks old. They’re bottle babies though so luckily, easy to catch. The point is, we build something and adjust or scrap it and rebuild several times sometimes to find what works and what is sustainable. Also, we try to find something someone can recreate with no or little money. If I’d waited until I could afford fence posts, I’d never have started. We are working smart to preserve the canopy for many reasons, eventually replacing it with edibles where it works well. But that’s a different post I think. 

Wow.

 I have a farm now. So much in that one little statement. Three years of planning and work and learning and ideas and mostly overcoming. It started with an idea to provide the family with lean protein and more vegetables because food and rent were so expensive and my pay wasn’t doing it. Tiny backyard, walking distance to Busch Gardens, some chickens and rabbits and plants. Eventually,

I thought a water feature and fish. But the owner wanted to sell the house and move to California. So, I was, as I have been many times (by circumstance and choice), in a camper in my parents yard. There are two homes on the property already but my kids and sister use one and parents, the other. I do love it out here though. So, long story short, the pandemic started about a year into my transition to still trying to grow the food except now on the untamed back woods on the five acres. About three acres in the back hadn’t been used or touched much in twenty years. I had just started talking to a friend about buying her dairy goat that she was retiring. When the pandemic started I decided to rush the goat process a bit and we got two of them. Once we had goats, we started buying fence. The goats cleared the vines and underbrush and we moved and expanded fencing. A mentor of mine died around thanksgiving that year and her daughter asked me to take two goats. Things really started rolling. I’m skipping a lot of learning, breeding chickens and rabbits, and this is a very goat centric version of events actually. 

Here we are, three years later with our first litter of kunekune piglets on the ground and twelve goat kids growing out. It’s been an adventure to terribly describe it. I could write for weeks just about the wild birds here. The crows just started coming onto the farm area after all this time. The woodpeckers are my favorite to watch probably and they are quite comfortable with us. I’m purposely leaving the dead trees up because they nest in some and rely on others. 

We’ve been using trash basically, free mulch, free pallets, and tires to build things. Repurposing wood, Feed bags, basically anything we can get free to serve in necessary purposes. It’s still cost everything I can get to keep going but the progress is worth it. When this is done, the place will be awesome and productive without a lot of physical intensity needed or monetary upkeep and it will be sustainable from an environmental standpoint. It is the plan for that tiny backyard on steroids. Oh yeah, I moved into a tent, a big tent, in the back almost three years ago now, I think. It’s been pretty helpful for the farm. So yeah, wow, I guess I have something to blog about again and maybe the time to bother. 

yeah....

So, I haven't been blogging. Big surprise. I'm an apprentice lineman now, have been for just over a year. It's amazingly time consuming. As in, it consumes my life. I sleep, eat, and breathe it. I've had to give up many aspects of my previous life that, if this blog is all you know of me, would seem to be all of me. The time with my kids has been the hardest thing to live without. I miss them all day every day. This post is actually sparked by some time I was able to squeeze in with them this past weekend. I found myself abruptly off work for the weekend.  Things in this industry are often abruptly changed.  Schedules, crews, job sites, and companies can be changed suddenly and without warning. This weekend, a terrible tragedy, the death of three coworkers in a horrible accident on a nearby job site led to a company wide shutdown. It is very sad. I came home and got my arms around my kids, thankful that it wasn't their Easters that were wrecked by death. I decided to take them all to see the movie Home. On the way, we stopped at Chili's for a quick meal. We didn't have that much time, and it showed. The waitress set a pile of silverware bundles on the table and I made an Oprah joke as I passed them out.  "You get some silverware! You get some silverware!"  I'm not sure trev got the joke, but he took my silverware saying, "Everyone but you gets silverware!"  Taylor said, "He's the opposite of Oprah, a little white boy who takes things away!" Then, a few minutes later, helping trev get the lid on his cup, he spilled milk all over the seat, table, and me. Trevor said my wet spot looked like Africa on my butt. The movie was awesome with the "missing mom" theme and family love lessons. The kids immediately wanted the soundtrack, so we listened to that together on the way home. We planned on playing a card game while we watched Into the Woods, but they were too enthralled. It was an awesome weekend and they all got along so well. As I type this I wonder how many moments like this I've failed to capture here and whether that matters. I wonder how many great times I will recall that I haven't written about.  A few are already coming to mind.  Good, I might be alright. Lol more to come. (Maybe)

A start..ing over

I'm back, damn it, and I intend to stay for a while. It has been a very long time coming. A separation, a divorce, a transition where up was down and tiny trailers were pirate ships, a starting over with a new career and all that comes with it, a year of learning the ropes, and finally a new "normal" with some of the same old goals but with a different twist.  Things are so completely different than I ever imagined they'd be at this point in the blog.  I am not ashamed to admit that I'm not as confident as I once was with my posts because: one, my courage was eaten away by the insults that came with my divorce and two, because I posted with anonimity before and I feel a bit like a target these days, at least for a few individuals. I am looking forward to getting back to this however, because I still love my life and my kids and I like this method of keeping a record of everything. This is brief, but I fell on my first 5k in over a year tonight and my hand hurts, also it's a start and one goal is to stop beating myself up.  Now, let me break it down...

Hmmm, I may need to reformat the look eventually too.

some people never appreciate what they have.  some thoroughly appreciate things only to have them continuously snatched from them.  i'm going to continue striving for my happy place even if it's always too brief.  but, it is difficult at times to face the potential pain again and again.

sacrifices will be made...

but it will be worth it.  I am sure.  At least, that is what I keep telling myself.  I am getting closer and once it begins I'm sure I'll see the value growing.  But for now, reassurances and planning are getting harder and old.  I am terrified of the sacrifices coming, but as the reassurance comes from my own actions up to now, and so, I am confident that I have not only acted in ways that will protect me but also that I will be able to handle all that is required of me in the future.  I will make this work, as I have always done, only this time the success of my endeavor will not be at the mercy of anyone else.  I love my kids, I know my priorities are right, I know my goals are worthy and possible, I trust that I can get where I am going and that in the end, my kids and I will be better for it.  I love my kids.