Around the Farm

The Lone Rooster!

Who knew trash can lids could be so handy!

Farm boys.

Clarabelle

We picked up our Jersey dairy heifer this morning, and made good time bringing her home. Here are some long-promised pictures.

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This is Clarabelle

She didn't really want to get up in the trailer, but she was still way easier to load than our Angus cattle!

She was pretty skiddish when we got her home, but the others were very curious about her. She was immediately popular with the bulls!

Feel Free to Express Your Opinion Here

In my last post I said that there is a debate on what to call our pastures. By pastures I mean the two large sections not the four sections in each. Now, we are right now being very creative and calling them "Front Field (or pasture- whichever one slips out)" and "Back Field." These even have some controversy. For example, if Mama and Daddy use the term "Front Field" they mean different pastures. My question: What would you call the field closest to the road, and what would you call the field closest to the house? That is how I have to talk about the pastures now, because we can't say "the one with the pond" any more. So, we can keep speaking in "the-field-closest-to-the-house" phrases, or y'all can come up with something better (PLEASE!).

I don't think I worded this post very well, but I don't really have a lot of time to go back over and fix it all.

Religious Satire and Work

I have a sort of strange liking of this stuff, but through all the satire I am learning more definitely what it is I am a part of and believe in. Recently, Susan posted about another satirical site, and this one is better than The Sacred Sandwich (I think) because his posts are relatively short, nice and simple, and fairly frequent.

Okay, the title says: Religious Satire and Work. I have to write something of the work that got accomplished today. No, I didn't even touch the sewing machine (I did want to though)! This morning I made a batch of bread which we later ate with lunch (I also did a pan of sweet rolls so I could pop them in the oven for breakfast tomorrow morning). Soon after I got the loaves out of the oven Kyle came in and said that Elijah would appreciate my help with the fencing effort. Mama and I went out, and I helped Elijah fence until lunchtime (around 1:30pm). After lunch, Kyle, Elijah, and I went back out to finish fencing around the pond. Once that was done, we decided to go to the pasture closest to the house (there is a debate about what to call that, but I'll post that another time) and get one strand of barbed wire up and drive the t-posts. After that was done we were all tired and getting a little touchy so we decided it was time to quit for the day.

I cannot close this without mentioning that while we were fencing Mr. and Mrs. Brothers were cleaning up the barn and the chicken house/shed! Daddy was so happy with all that had been done while he was away! Another thing I must not (for fear of chastisement) leave out is that Mama cooked lunch and dinner for the whole bunch of us, and Elizabeth and Catherine did a wonderful job watching out for the little ones!

Irony

I was just quickly skimming over some of Mama and Daddy's old blog posts when I came across this one and I noticed that Mama said that Heritage was just too far away for us to worship with regularly. This is no longer the case! Just a few months after the barn raising we started making a church three and a half hours away our church home. We have been regularly going ever since not regretting the long drive in the least! We still are amazed to think "Not a rotten apple in the bunch!" The fellowship just gets sweeter! The family that wasn't able to make it for the barn raising is now living on our land (they got back today, by the way!). It has been really neat getting to know the Heritage folks; it makes me feel now like we're not the only oddly-shaped apples in the basket! Some things never change though. Even though we usually see our church family every week, the end of the day is always the same: we still hate to leave. However, the pain of separation is much abated because the parting is not indefinite!

It would be really neat to have a barn raising reunion now! Maybe we'll just have to have everybody up for a hog killin' and bar-b-cue! I don't know anything about pigs, or at least not much, so maybe you can't eat a pig soon after you kill it. Well, we can at least have beef of some sort. There's always the chili/soup fall-back too, or maybe we'll all just sit around eating pop corn. Heritage church family, I (and I think I can safely say so for the rest of the family too) can't thank y'all enough for allowing us to be apart of it all (I can't really describe it, it's every aspect of your lives I think)!

We miss you, Lingo's!

SPBGMA Awards

Well, I don't think my opinions about who should win what swayed the officials at all. Not very many of "my winners" won. Oh, well, there's always next year so long as you don't go country or pop!

Pictures

Well, here is a picture of our four pigs piled into the doghouse. They have already rooted up the "ICU" so much that Daddy says that we'll have to rake it and re-seed it once they're out! The white spots in the picture are snowflakes; we've gotten quite a bit today!

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The pigs are out and rooting!

We Arrived Safely Home

With several new bags of feed, tons of fabric, and four good-sized pigs. It is dark now so I can't get any pictures, but I will try hard to get some tomorrow. The pigs are going in the "ICU" for now, but they will probably move out to the barn soon.

Mama, Claire, and I had quite a time in Fayetteville today. After a couple of hours of shopping we had an overflowing cart (the fabric is not all for us though...), and we decided to go across the square to O'Houllihans (I doubt that's spelled right, oh well) for lunch. We split a couple of sandwiches and had a white chocolate chip macadamia Cristy Cookie! After that we went back to Sir's for a while. Daddy came and picked us and our bags up after about another hour.

We stopped at the Wiggin's to drop off their two pigs, and we ate dinner with them. Unfortunately, we couldn't fellowship with them for very long (seeing as how we had four other pigs in a trailer).

Tomorrow!

Tomorrow we are getting pigs from the Sanders' farm, and (what is even better) we ladies are going to be dropped off at Sir's! They are having a $1.00 a yard sale! Think of all that money we are saving... :)

I might have pictures of the pigs tomorrow.

CARNAGE!!!

No public details.

Who would you be?

Do you ever wonder who you would be, or who you would like to be, from the books that you've read? I do. I have imagined myself all the Jane Austin heroines and Edith (from The Inheritance, by Louisa May Alcott) and Polly (from An Old-Fashioned Girl, again by Alcott). I have caught myself being like Caroline Bingly in the scene where Mr. Bingly keeps trying to give his opinion and she keeps interrupting him. I have sometimes (thankfully not often) felt like Marianne from Sense and Sensibility, and I have often wanted to be like Fanny in Mansfield Park, all long-suffering and patient. One thing I recently noticed was that I don't think I have ever thought of myself as a Brontë novel heroine! I may have imagined myself as Shirley, while I read it, other than that I don't think I have. That is very odd for me not to even try to think of myself in the heroine's position, however, I find their books rather dark and depressing. I have recently been reading some Greek and Roman literature, but they are so different from what I normally read I can't even begin to place myself in the book or play!

We got a couple of pictures of Clarabelle, our future Jersey; I may be able to post them later.

A Few Little Things

Not a whole lot going on around here, although we are preparing for some BIG changes! Well, they seem big to me anyway. We are getting a two-year-old bred Jersey, four pigs from Top of the World Farm, we're looking at more chickens (eggs and meat), and possibly some geese. There's the changes for around the farm.

I just finished the Sense and Sensibility 1910's Tea Gown. At least, I finished the instruction booklet, but I may have to add an insert thing at the neck. My "experience" was thoroughly put to use on this dress, but other than the fitting the pattern (had I been able to follow it word for word) wasn't all that difficult. The back of the dress went WAY too low for my taste so I had to put an insert in there, but I think that was the only "major" alteration I made.

Claire and I continue to take lessons from Mr. Brantley, and we are enjoying them immensely even though I (Claire doesn't really) have to work hard to be ready each week. He has started teaching us together, we do the same songs sometimes we do harmonies too. This past week we worked on "Mississippi Sawyer" and harmony and melody on "Harvest Home Hornpipe". This week we are to work on "O'Keefe's Slide" and "Drowsy Maggie". Both are Irish fiddle tunes, and both are very different from bluegrass (which makes them a little more difficult for me). "Drowsy Maggie" is especially difficult.

It Snowed!!!

There was snow on the ground when I woke up this morning! However, by lunch there was nothing left. That leaves us cold, wet, and miserable! Okay, not miserable, but I can easily think of other situations I would rather be in! I will not let this weather get me down though!Just think spring will be here before too long! With it will come all the garden work, but I love that.