Sometimes I Think I'm Funny, But I'm Snot

I apologize sincerely to the ones who were offended by the list I posted yesterday.  I have since deleted it. There was no malice or mean spirit behind that list at all!  Jeff and I really do love it down here!  What was meant as a light hearted post has caused some contention and hard feelings.  I am so, so sorry.   That was not my intention at all.  Please forgive me.

Quick update

Okay, quick update:
We have 4 cows, 2 bee hives and a ridiculous amount of chickens.

Brauna lost her calf.

We went with Dexter Cattle.  They are a small Irish breed.   We wanted to choose a breed from the Livestock Conservancy list.  These are a recovering breed, coming back from being endangered..  They are about half the size of a regular cow.  We chose a smaller cow so that the heifers can calf on their own without human assistance.  Basically, we didn't want to have to "go in" and put a chain around the calf and pull it out.  When we originally signed the contract for these cows both heifers were pregnant.  One of them delivered her calf before they came to our property.  There was an accident and the calf was killed right before they were brought here.  The poor mama mooed and mooed for her baby for days after they arrived here.  She's doing okay now.  They're all sort of skinny, so we're trying to fatten them up a bit, especially the one who is still pregnant. She will deliver in the fall.

Junie is pregnant.  She loves to be brushed and scratched under her chin. 

Smokey the bull.  He's a Dexter cross.

Norman is our young bull.  He's so sweet.

The chickens are all growing quickly!  I was able to hatch seven of them from eggs.  That was so exciting for this homeschool family!  Well, mostly for me, but I did a unit with the kids about incubating and hatching eggs.  It is so amazing to me that God created the egg to provide everything the chick needs for development completely separate from it's mother.  And, I always thought the yolk was what became the chick, but the yolk is actually what nourishes the chick while it's in the egg.

The bees seem to be doing well.  We're so nervous about them.  I'm nervous because of all the bear sightings and people saying they quit beekeeping because they were tired of fighting the bears.  Jeff is just nervous that he'll do something wrong or miss something and we'll lose the hives.

I'm so excited for Jeff!  He's been wanting to do this for years and here we are doing it!  God is good!


So, that's our update.  We love it down here!  Come visit anytime!!!

Mulberry Road

Here we are!  We're home owners again!  This is our cute little house.   There is work to be done, but for now, we have a handicap ramp at our front porch... shutters that need painting, screen doors that need to go, etc...  I am learning to slow down and let the stuff wait.  We can't do it all at once.  Anyway...

We had 10 inches of snow the week before last.  The people down here are very apologetic.
 "It's never this cold here!"  "We never get snow like this!"

This is our barn. It is to the far right of our house, actually closer to the neighboring house, than ours.  We're going to dismantle it and rebuild it closer to our house and use it as our chicken coop.  It'll have this same shape, but be smaller and have a loft for storage.   

I've gotten out a few times in the morning to capture the sunrise.  It's beautiful and we see the sun rise behind our house.  It shines right into our bedroom in the morning.  I love it! 

 We ordered our bees and our chickens.  They'll be arriving in March!  We have a lot to do to get this place prepared for the spring, but we're so excited!  This is what we've been waiting for!

We're not as isolated as we thought we'd be, either! So that's a plus!  God has been so good!  We are already connected to a church down here.  The kids are enjoying youth activities, we're enjoying our brothers and sisters who have a heart for the Lord and are just overflowing with excitement about what God is doing in this area!  We went to "house church" last night.  Most of us would call it "small group".  It was basically 6ish couples and we prayed and shared and sang together.  It was lovely.  We have met so many people down here who say that they were praying for us.  We're an answer to prayer.  God was orchestrating this entire move while I was crying about stretched out skinny jeans and not being able to have all my stuff.  From the very beginning of this move I said "He is faithful."  "He's never failed us." and there I was crying because I couldn't see what He was preparing for us.  H.Y.P.O.C.R.I.T.E.  Y'all.  He knew what we needed, what these people down here needed and when it would all work out for His glory.  And I cried.  (Shaking my head.)  

He is good.  All the time.  I'll post more again soon, but I'm about to head out the door to meet a new friend for coffee!  A new homeschooling mom friend who has been praying for a homeschooling mom friend of her own.  Y'all!  (tears in my eyes...goodness-His goodness...all the time!)