January and February flew past and life went along like a derailed train!
It started off fine & slow. I even had time to arrange a wall of my sewing machine museum to my liking. This is the 'German' wall. I think the German-made machines are my favorite - with their well-made mechanisms and lovely inlaid wood.
Then, we had about 4 or 5 acres near the house logged. It opened up the view and helped us pay off a few bills.
It made the view from the house a lot like it was 20 years ago when we first built the house and the trees were just babies. Fir trees are an amazing crop - those trees were less than 4 ft tall when we moved here and now they've been harvested! Next year we'll replant and it'll start all over!
The goats have kidded and we've got just 4 youngsters to raise this year. I held back last years' kids and will breed them next Fall.
Our three girls kidded without any trouble at all this year! That's Maryanne with Mordecai and Magda just moments after being born. Shiloh had a doe we named Shinar and Ekaterina, not to be outdone, had a doe we named Egglantine!
These two coffee mugs sat on my grandparents' wood stove each morning to warm up while Grampa made coffee for Grama and himself. I smile when I look at them, now on the mantel above my cookstove. Sometimes it doesn't seem quite right that 'things' remain when our beloved people have been gone for so long.
The fixer-upper house deal that my daughter and her husband were waiting on finally went through and the pace of life picked up! My husband is a builder and his skills are needed!
Francis and I (Francis is my travelling bear buddy) packed up the camper van and headed North! We cleaned & hauled and worked on the house. We drove home again! We gathered up our suitcases again...and boxed up their little apartment, did more cleaning & repairing and moved them in! For awhile, when I woke up in the morning I wasn't sure where I was! And this country girl enjoyed some new city experiences...Did you know that you can actually phone in a PIZZA order and they will bring it HOT to your very DOOR? Amazing! considering that we live about 35 or more miles to the nearest pizza place, no one delivers pizza to this farm!
Thirty five years ago my husband and I had our first daughter...and we looked so very young. Now, that sweet daughter is 33 weeks along, carrying our precious grandson! Where did the years go? (I haven't changed a bit, by the way.)
Now I'm home (temporarily) again but fighting the flu bug. As soon as I get over it, I'll be packing up Francis again and heading for the little house once again, this time to put the kitchen and nursery together!
In the meantime, daily farm life goes on day after day, week after week, much the same...
Eggs to gather and wash. Goats to milk and kids to feed. And always primitives to make for my Ebay and Etsy stores.
I made myself a happy green slug out of playdough one day. I don't even like slugs, but this one was kind of cute, don't you think?
Today I've done very little. Made myself the Potato Soup my sweet mama always made when I was sick. Mostly sitting in my recliner and impatiently waiting to feel better, lol.
I'm not very good at being sick! I'd rather be working and the sun was shining today and making me feel like a kid stuck in school on a sunny day!
I started the day with a wicked headache and nasty cough, so my daughter actually did the goat milking chores for me. She just went out again this evening to feed the goat kids their milk - they get milk twice a day until they're about 8-10 weeks old. We bottle or bucket feed them so there's milk for the house, too.
Arthritis in my hands (and me so young, lol) keeps me from milking three goats, so milking machine it is! The disadvantage is that there's a lot more to clean up when milking by machine and we've been plagued with water problems this year. First, one of our two low flow wells quit and it's not accessible in the winter. Then we broke a water line in the freezing weather!
Besides the fact that he's been working on the kids' house more often than he's been at home, my dear husband also sprained his knee and has been on crutches for the last couple of weeks! And no, it didn't slow him down much. Trying to get him to rest is nigh unto impossible!
One day I got hungry and rustled up scalloped potatoes in my crockpot. Of course I put ham in the other crockpot and dinner just wasn't complete until I made a pecan pie and banana bread! Wish I had it today, though I can't taste much of anything so I guess it won't make much difference what I eat until this bug is gone!
Ripley the cat is my faithful sidekick. He's a funny little guy. He doesn't like my daughter (who raised him from a kitten!) but loves me! When he needs to go outside, he walks over and 'tells' her by mewing until she gets up and lets him out the door. He likes to give her ankle a good swat as he walks by!
This is Rip and I in our favorite recliner chair. (Oh, and by the way, I lied earlier. I have definitely changed from 35 years ago, lol.)
We had a few days of ice and snow - while we were travelling back & forth, of course! It's so pretty, but this year I'm glad it's gone so we can get back to easy driving.
The primitives selling business has been ridiculously busy! I've been coming home from the kids' place to sew/craft/paint like a mad woman!
People have been buying not just seasonal items either, but out of season things like pumpkins, squirrels and bats, oh my!
This was a couple of weeks ago and now I've got just about as many orders again! Takes me longer when I'm ill, but I'm still working at it a bit each day anyhow. Now my younger daughter is my partner in crafting, which makes us a lot more productive, working as a team!
Well, that's what's happening here on the hilltop at the moment. Hubby left this morning to help the kids pick out kitchen cabinets and set them. He'll be gone for a couple of days working on that. Then he'll drive back (about 2 3/4 hours) and get caught up at home again!
We're starting to think about the garden - just got a roll of landscape fabric & barnyard bark to work up some raised beds for the strawberries. I ordered vegetable seeds and will start them as soon as they arrive in the mail...and as soon as I get over the flu! Stay well and I'll sign in again when I have a chance!
