An American Homestead

Things are moving right along at the farm. We are so busy that I sometimes forget what day it is. Chris has been working hard every day and finally was able to take a few hours off and relax at Amanda’s on Tuesday. Perrin was out of school and he watched him that day. (IF you call that relaxing lol)

We hauled off a bunch of stuff this past weekend that was at the farm before we even got the place. We hauled almost 600 pounds of junk to the landfill. After that we hauled bags of leaves from Amanda’s to the house and put them around the potatoes in the garden. After weeding everything, we moved some things to the barn from the old shed. We worked VERY hard on Saturday and then went down to Gee Creek for a shower. A friend (*waves to Anna*) was camping down there. We drove around the loop and could not find her anywhere. There was no cell phone service so I could not call her either…..darnit!

Sunday I did laundry and got it hung on the line. Luckily the clothesline on the back porch, that was there when we bought the place, is still usable. We got the poles up for the clothesline, but not the line yet. We again worked all day around the farm. That afternoon Chris walked out to the creek to fish. I eventually made my way back there and scared him to death walking up on him. He had caught about 5-6 perch but we ended up not keeping them. I was not feeling too great and was exhausted. I did not want to have to clean fish that evening so we put them all back in the creek…..to catch this weekend when I am feeling better. lol

This week Chris has made another goat pen, cut and chopped and stacked wood, put up posts and wire for the muscadines and raspberries and worked in the garden (and 100 other things). We are getting the muscadines from Don today and planting them. We also have some gardening things to do. Don and Johnnie picked their cherries this past week and saved me two quarts of them. I plan to make a delicious pie this weekend AND some home made ice cream!!! I will get some good, fresh cream from my Mennonite friend, MillieRuth, and have the kids over to crank the ice cream maker. I LOVE, LOVE home made ice cream! We are tearing down the shed finally and if all goes well, we will start building the new one in the next few days. I will be glad to get the wood used up behind the house and then get the storage bins out of the bedroom and into a shed. I won’t know what to think with an actual BEDROOM!

I have to brag on the grandkids, so if it makes you sick when I do that, skip this paragraph! LOL School is out for Devin and Lakota and will be out for Perrin after today. Devin got an award for being on the honor roll the entire year and the Library Award. This is an amazing thing for him as he struggled so much last year. His medication has really made a HUGE difference and he had a good year at school. Lakota won the Citizenship Award, Most Improved In Math Award and the Music Award. She made the honor roll this 6 weeks as well. We are extremely proud of her because she had a very tough year. There was a few moments this year that we wondered if she was going to make it to the 6th grade. She did though and ended the year on a big high! She has been asked by one of her teachers to babysit her two children for one hour a day, three days a week, at the school all summer. She will get paid for this and since she only lives a few blocks from the school, she can walk up there to do it for an hour. That was great news for her ands he is very excited about it. She will have the opportunity to make some money through the summer to buy her school clothes for next year. That is a huge self esteem boost for her. I was speaking with her music teacher this morning and she informed me Lakota is a good student and very eager to learn in her class. During the conversation, it was arranged for Lakota to start taking voice lessons when school starts in August. She will have the lessons once a week throughout the school year, for 30 minutes after school so she can just stay an extra half hour and then walk home. I told Lakota I arranged that for her this morning and I think she was about to cry. She was very happy about it. Perrin’s last day is today and as he says, after today…he is in Kindergarten. He has an after school program called Kids Connection that he goes to, until Amanda or myself can pick him up. This will be his summer program and he will be going there all day starting in one week. This summer we will be working with him on writing his name and letters, spelling words and things like that….stuff to prepare him for kindergarten. So….I am very proud of all three of them. We are getting them all on Monday or Tuesday next week and they will all stay at the farm for at least a week. Yeah….that would be ALL THREE of them for an entire week! Plus I am taking the week off work so it should be lotsa fun!

All of the animals are doing very well. The goats love getting put in the pen every morning and make their way back to the barn every night. I hope to find two more goats somewhere CHEAP soon. Road Kill is about 3 times the size he was when I found him clutching his dead mother. He eats about a half a can of cat food every night, plus his milk and treats. He still gives me kisses and climbs into my hands for love every day. I am perplexed as to what I will do with him. Cutie sits by his cage and acts like she is mortified I keep her new baby locked up in a cage. I am just not exactly sure yet what I will do with the little thing.

Yesterday I got a call at work, I was working over, and it was my supervisor Kim (the one that lets us fish at her lake). There was a snake in her horse barn and she was about to lose it. I never really knew that people can be that horrified of something like a snake, UNTIL I got to her house and saw her genuine fear. I felt really bad for her. Bob and Michael were gone. I got there and went into the barn. Sure enough there was the cutest scared to death black snake resting on top of the lid on a metal trash can that was full of feed. I said “that mean old woman just scared you to death didn’t she?”. Kim was down near the house and offered a show box to put it in, she also offered me a gun to kill it (which I turned down right away). I looked at the snake and the box and knew that MAYBE I could get 1/3 of the snake into the box. I just picked it up, stuck my head out the door and asked if she wanted me to get it out of the barn or put it in the neighbor’s yard or what. She said she wanted it GONE….as in GONE….lol. At this point the horses realized I was in the barn and come flying up to the door. I put the snake down and gave the horses some feed. After emptying out a feed sack, I picked it back up, apologized for all the confusion and put it in the back. When I came out of the barn, I thought Kim was going to pass out. I always thought the fear she talks about is imagination but NO….no it is not. She was physically ill from her fear of that snake. I put it in the car and left so she could recuperate. I drove way out to a dead end road near some thick woods. The black snake poked its head out of the feed sack, sitting in the passenger’s seat, several times. I put my hand up and slowly motioned for it to get back in the bag, talking respectfully to it. We reached our destination and I had to pour it out of the bag into the woods. It just laid there. I envisioned in my mind that it was probably thinking, OK…this is the end, I won’t look, off with my head! Poor little thing just laid there pathetic, looking at me. I picked it back up and encouraged it to crawl on away. It finally did after I snapped a picture.

I told Perrin about it when I picked him up from school and showed him the pic on my cell phone. He said “Oh how cute!” and I told him Kiki was scared to death of it. He laughed and said “she’s so crazy!” then proceeded to tell me he hopes he finds a snake in our barn! I lectured him on not picking up snakes without me there and he said he would just tell it how pretty it is. ADORABLE child!

I have some pictures I will be posting in the next day or so!

I hate Verizon! I wish I had the money to buy out my contract and do away with them forever. They adjusted my bill to make up for a mistake THEY had made and I made arrangements for the new amount to come out of my checking account last Friday. They took the new amount out of my account as it was scheduled, AND>……took the unadjusted amount out as well!!!!! I am just sick over this! I do not deal well with things like this and once upset, I tend to do away with the affliction as soon as possible (ex: Bi-Lo, Hell-Mart, K-Mart, Memories, etc.) It made for a bad evening until I got home to Chris and then things got a bit better.

I played with Road Kill for a long time. I love this Possum and part of me wants to get rid of it right away because I know I am headed for heartache when it comes time to turn it loose. But another part wants to love it like every other animal we have. And does he love me as well! My goodness. He makes his “Mommy calls” when he sees me nearby, wanting me to get him out and hold him. He don’t want anything in particular when I get him out, just to sit in my hands and get petted and loved. He likes to get on my shoulder and sit behind my hair, licking my earlobe once in awhile. He also likes to relax on Cutie’s back. He is eating very well, baby food, kitten milk, mashed veggies and meat. He ate tuna yesterday. He still sleeps in his shoe and hangs from his tail at night. He is a sweet little thing.

After my quality time with the possum, Chris and I played two rounds of Scrabble. Uh, not bragging or anything but SOME day he MIGHT beat me! We like to play Scrabble though and I am always glad to spend some alone time with him, laughing and teasing and forgetting our woes.

We relaxed all evening and got in bed about 9pm. Just a quiet evening and early night. Today he is working around the farm. I get to pick Perrin up from school today and then go get Chris. We spend Tuesday evenings at Amanda’s, have supper together and watch American Idol with her.

I am looking forward to the weekend….really looking forward to it, spending time with Chris, working on the farm, building things, cooking meals and sharing them on the picnic table. That is all the positives. Life is not all positive though, so I don’t want folks to think everything is perfect. LOL We need a truck, desperately, desperately need an old used truck. It is so hard to try to get wood where you need it to be, concrete blocks, loads of dirt, hay, haul off junk and a million other things in a compact car trunk!  We also need a tractor, shortly after needing a truck. lol It seems like such a pipe dream being able to get one, we are still paying off legal bills from the “incident with the house”. But some day maybe we can get a tractor. We need a load of gravel on the driveway. I suppose that one will come before the truck AND the tractor. I think it may end up taking 2 loads of gravel as it needs it badly and needs to go around to the top of the hill and even up to the barn. So there are things that really need to be done that we just simply cannot afford to do right now, especially since I made myself open up my medical bills last night from my surgery and when I saw 4 digit numbers, I almost cried. Even with insurance, my surgery cost us a small fortune. Damn being sick! It make me wish tho that I had waited a bit longer to have the surgery.

Where would we be though without financial issues. We fit right in with every other American right now, heck every other human. Struggle and try to do your best, that is all we can do. It will be easier when the legal fees are paid in full. I am counting down the days.

With that being said…I look forward to getting home, giving Chris a hug, petting the goats and feeding the pigs, loving on Road Kill and sitting on the porch for a few minutes to enjoy the flowers blooming, the branch trickling through the yard, the dogs playing, the birds singing and a cold glass of water from the spring.

We had another busy weekend on the farm, and off the farm as well. We got Lakota on Friday and she spent the weekend with us. Saturday morning I headed out to do laundry at about 630am. I stopped by the store for sausage, thinking about how glad I will be when we have out own sausage from the hog. When I got home, Chris had a fire going in the cook stove. I fixed a good breakfast while they hung out clothes. I even carried the breakfast down to the picnic table by the spring and it was so nice. The birds were singing and the air was nice and cool. Hot buttered biscuits with home made plum jelly, sausage, fresh eggs…it was delicious! After breakfast me and Lakota went to the Mennonite Market down the road. We picked up some fresh squash, cucumbers, onions…and HUGE fresh tomatoes!!! We took Don and Johnnie some squash, Andy and Dody are in from Washington and I thought they might enjoy that. We stopped by a restaurant in town and they gave us about 10 five gallon buckets. You can never have too many buckets you know! Amanda invited us over to play Wii (?), I am still not used to whatever the names of these new game things are. We had lunch and played a driving game with Mario on it. Just so you all know, I SUCK at video games. I just cannot get the thing at all. I can drive a real car, believe it or not, but on that game I am all over the place, off the road, in grass, getting blown up and flipped over and squished flat, turned around backwards. I generally come in 12th place (that would be LAST) and Perrin generally comes in 1st (he is four years old) so what does that tell you? I play it with him to humor him, but my pride gets knocked down more than a notch or two when I play it. Lol

Rains came Saturday night! I was so very thankful that I did not have to carry water to the garden. The animals were all fine, shut up for the evening and then Kim talked me into meeting her and Bob at the auction. We got down there after a storm passed over and had a good time. Chris got two new fishing rods and reels for $4 each. We got some antiseptic wipes and hair ties for Lakota and then headed home. With the rain coming down, I slept very good.

Sunday morning I was up….again….at 630. We got morning chores done and decided to go fishing at Kim and Bob’s lake. My morning was not so grand as my OCD took over and a series of unfortunate events ruined about 2 hours of my morning. We forgot the net at home, we needed floats for the poles, a mouse had chewed up my Stren 12 lb line, I could not find my debit card, we had a flat tire, we could not find a single store in Athens that sells fishing supplies (remember we boycotted Wal-Mart about 6 months ago when they stopped selling lamp oil). So we go across town to K-Mart to discover that they no longer carry fishing supplies. WHAT? How does a store like that just STOP carrying a major item? I was not pleased. So now….you got it…..we are boycotting K-Mart. That knocks two huge department stores off our list of places we can shop from. Add those to Bi-Lo, I boycotted about 10 or so years ago, have not been in the store since. We decided to make do, grabbed drinks from a convenience store, which are not as convenient as people think, and headed to the lake. The first hour I was bored and trying to get over being so disappointed in K-Mart….

Lakota almost caught a fish and got snagged and lost it. Chris caught a bass and bluegill….about 4 inches long. Hey at least it is a fish and not a stick. I moved to the other side of the lake and caught a bass, about 3 pounds. Then I caught another bass, about 3 pounds. Then I caught a small perch and while I was reeling it in, a bass grabbed it, I got them both to the edge and jerked the line out of the water. The bass went flying over my head and the perch still on the hook. Chris helped me get the bass, he stepped on it and I grabbed it up, about 4 pounds. I was laughing so hard at that point. Next time I threw out the line, I got another little fish and reeled it in. I thought to myself….I wonder….and so I threw it back out and reeled it in slowly. Sure enough, a huge bass grabbed the small fish and I jerked it out of the water just like the one before. That was my limit….4 bass, all 3-4 pounds each. I was very pleased with myself. A storm was coming in from the west so we headed back to the car. I gutted the fish and threw the guts into the lake, got them in a bucket and on ice for the trip back home.

We decided to drop 2 of the bass off to Don and Johnnie and I helped Don filet his. Then we went home and I filleted mine. I put them on ice and took a nice cool bath on the porch. After that I was more than ready for a nap. It was nice and cool, it had started storming, a good breeze was blowing and it took no time at all for me to fall asleep. In a few hours Chris got the stove going again and I got up and fried the squash and onions, the fish and cut up some cucumbers. We had supper on the front porch and enjoyed the rain as we ate. Fresh fish is just so delicious and a nice change from deer or beef. I had thought about making slaw and hushpuppies but to be honest, I was being very lazy! When all was done, it was almost 7pm and I needed to run Lakota home and pick up some thing from the store. I hate to take her home and wished she could just stay a week or two or maybe forever…lol. But I took her home and then we suffered through shopping at the store. Actually I suffered through it, Chris actually enjoys it. We did not get home until about 830pm and after getting the animals situated for the night, cleaning Road Kill’s cage and giving him fresh milk and food….and fresh socks to sleep in, cleaned up, washed off and before you know it, I was sound asleep again. Chris was building a fire this morning when I left and I wanted to stay home, enjoy breakfast with him, sit on the porch and watch the birds at the feeder. He got the woodshed done and is planning to build a kindling box on the side of it today. We will start getting the wood in it today as well. We got a cap for the toilet pipe and it is out of the house, we are cutting the pipe and capping it off this week. We are going to hook gutter and rain barrels up at the barn some time this week as well. We put screen on the doors and windows and have plenty left to do on the list to keep us busy for a few years.

Things are well, the farm is coming along, the animals are doing great….we are happy.

Ah farm life, you gotta love it…..at least we do, the good and the bad!

Not sure where I left off honestly on the last post but will attempt an update today.

Pigs: They are doing great. They are really growing too, I am shocked at how fast those things grow. This weekend I was fixing something in the pen. Now mind you I have been in that pen every day, giving ear scratches, back rubs, belly rubs and such. They come up to me and I THOUGHT we were friends. I was squatted down to do something and they were outside in the run. Next thing I know BibiQ was latched on to my butt. That darn pig just snuck up behind me and bit me right on the butt. Maybe he was thinking “now that looks like a nice tasty piece of ham” or something, but regardless, I was shocked. I could not believe I got bit. Now it was not like a violent pig attack or something but it did hurt! I smacked him good on the nose and he backed away. Lesson learned, never turn your back on a pig, no matter how much he pretends he loves you! They are eating really well, imagine that lol, and growing well. So I hope we are not failing as pig owners. Houdini is a confusing pig though. I saw in a book you could use a rope and harness a pig to lead it anywhere and use that method to move them from pen to pen and such. So Saturday I decided to try my hand at it. We got him captured, harnessed him with the rope just like the book said, he could not get away so I decided I would take him to a fertile area and let him eat, drink and be merry. WRONG! He screamed bloody murder like we were killing him that very instant. I swear I think people a few miles away could have heard that pig screaming. Well that upset BibiQ and he started freaking out, running around in a panic, making “I’m going to bite you harder next time” noises. I thought if I got Houdini to the area and he saw the grand garden of Eden I was going to let him spend time in, he would calm down and enjoy being out. Oh but no, he had no desire to savor the pleasures of endless fresh greens and dirt. He would have bouts of screaming and frantic thrashing around. I finally gave up and he ended up back in the pen with BibiQ, pride destroyed and milking the incident for all it was worth. I am quite sure he went back in and told horror stories to BibiQ for sympathy! So I learned two valuable pig lessons this weekend yay!

Goats: I am so glad I got another goat. Mr. Goatsie A. Tumnus is so much happier with a friend to get into trouble with. Narcie Bell is doing great! Goatsie would have a serious problem if Chris stopped too quickly, because it would be a 50-50 situation on whose head goes up his you know what first, Goatsie or Azrael! Narcie Bell has taken a liken to me however and she is a sweet little thing. I adore them both and wish we had two more! We tether them in different areas and plan to make a movable pen in the next few days so we can put them in areas we need trimmed! Lakota and Perrin were over this weekend and I was hanging clothes on the back porch and herd Lakota say “Perrin! The goats!” I knew there was a not so good situation going on up at the barn. I hollered at Chris, who was working on the clothesline poles and told him I think the goats were out. He headed that way but Lakota was fast acting and prevented major problems. She grabbed Narcie by the collar and led her back into the pen and Goatsie just followed right behind her. There is no way Narcie would have followed Goatsie! She is much too independent for that. They are doing great and have been good company for each other.

Chickens: Chris put up a new water container for the chickens and we have been supplementing their grains with freshly pulled grass. We will likely extend their run again as soon as we have time to work on it. TIME….when do we suffer enough to get more hours added to our day? Is there somewhere you can apply for that? Perrin caught me working in the garden and asked if I had gotten the eggs yet. I told him no and was curious. We have never let him go get the eggs from the coop by himself or even allowed him to go into the coop by himself, not for his safety, but because I worried he would let the hens out. I decided to suck it up and be brave this time. I told him he could go get the eggs all by himself if he would be careful and watch the door. I resisted every urge to go follow him in or spy on him. He was in there for a long time. Eventually he came running from the coop, proudly holding the eggs in his hands. He was so excited and could not wait to show me his find. The farm has been so good for the grandkids. Perrin understands the pigs are for food and wants to help when it gets time for that. He knows we do not plan to eat the goats but also knows if we get rabbits, we will keep some for breeding and will be eating others. He don’t protest or worry about it, he just knows that is the way life is and how it will be.

Dogs: The dogs are fine but I need to get some frontline plus for them this week. Ticks are just unbelievable this year and I think about half of them find their way to SadieMae! Tucker is a pup and can be frustrating more than oh…a million times a day. I try to have patience with her but patience has never really been a virtue of mine. Chris is so much better than I am with that. In situations where I am pushing her away and informing her that if she knew how many times I have actually regretted getting her and what a moron she is, well Chris would be talking to her calmly, petting her and telling her how she don’t need to be doing (insert any of the million annoying things she does here). He is so good with her, with all the animals. Then after my frustrations, he discovers me in the barn with the fat as a cow pup in my lap rocking her and singing “Emma Tucker is a fine old dog, got in a fight with a big fat hog…..” songs. They still sleep in the house once in awhile and have been good for us.

Cats: We still have no sign of Kerosene Lamp Cat and have not found a carcass. I am not sure if he just took off Tom catting and decided not to return home to us or what. It has been a long time now, months, so I don’t expect him to show back up. Everyone else is doing great. Cutie has been going outside to spend time on the porch sunning herself or sitting by the fish ponds. Azrael continues to be glued to Chris’ side. Lol They are all doing very well and are enjoying the Spring!

Family: I am trying to get Amanda to put a used trailer on the farm near the road. She can get utilities hooked up pretty cheap because the line is right there, a septic won’t be much for her and she can get a phone and everything. It will be very convenient with Perrin. She will have the trailer paid off in no time and then can pick out a place for a house and start building in a few years when she gets ready to do that. After that she can sell the trailer or Lakota can move into it when she gets older. She is considering it and I do hope she does decide to go ahead and do it. Perrin will have the best of both worlds then….well he already does but it will be easier for him to enjoy both! Speaking of, Perrin graduates Pre-school tomorrow and I cannot believe he will be 5 next month. It just shocks me at how fast he is growing. He has officially entered the inquisitive stage, 40 questions an hour starting with who, what, why, how, when and where. He was amazed helping me filter water from the spring yesterday and make koolaid on the porch. Everything is an adventure to him and he is just a good kid. Lakota is doing well. She has a program at the school on Thursday and has a few solo singing parts in the program. I am looking forward to going to see that. She is entering pre teen life and that is such a hard time for any kid. She is so helpful though and so mature in many ways. I am always thankful when she gets to come down and spend time at the farm. Devin is doing better in school that last year and has actually had a very good year at school. He does not seem to enjoy the farm as much as the other two kids, but did seem to like the new goat Narcie. I hope when he is out of school he spends more time there and will get to see there is much more to our life than carrying wood and water. Lol Shannon and Tim are doing much better, Tim was able to finally find a good job in a nearby county and started a few weeks ago. It was tough on them to go from him having overtime at Wapauca to nothing. Chris and I are doing really good. We tend to over do it on the farm, trying to fit too much into one day. We are doing great though and continue to enjoy the farm and the lifestyle.

Other news: A week or so ago I was taking Lakota home and discovered the mama possum and her 6 kids had a fatal car accident. Two of the kids were still alive and were on top of the mama, still sucking her stiff body. It broke my heart and I took them home. One was just too far gone and passed away a few days later. The other seemed to be doing OK and I continued to bottle feed it. After a few days I named it “Road Kill” after its mother. It has been doing REALLY well, is now eating canned cat food and drinking kitten milk. It made the great escape into the house one day, from the shoe box it was in. I was really worried we would NEVER find it but strangely, Cutie took me right to the little thing in the bedroom. I found it in a black garbage bag and we made a good cage for it that day. It has a nice warm sock it crawls into to sleep, a shoe it likes to sleep in, logs and limbs from trees it climbs on, litter in the bottom to do its business and stuffed animals for company. It is doing very well and I only intend to keep it until I can release it to a rehabilitation place or get my cousin from TWRA to come pick it up. I have no intentions or desires to raise Road Kill or keep it as a pet, that is the last thing I need. I just want to make sure it is stable and OK, after such a traumatic experience. I have been certified in the past to take care of injured small wild animals and songbirds. I think the possum has a good chance of making it, I hope so.

This weekend between laundry, animals, cleaning, fixing and such, we got the yard mowed and I pulled weeds from the flower beds. The raspberries and elderberries we planted are doing great! The Angel Trumpets are all doing great as well. I had to replant some beans in the garden that did not come up and also replanted some cucumbers, beets, butternut squash and zucchini that got washed out from the heavy rains last weekend. We hauled a LOT of water and watered the garden good on Saturday. I also tilled the entire garden, hoed everything, got any signs of weeds out, did the replanting and everything got watered. Chris cut posts for the clothesline and got them in the ground. He also took the window off the east side of the living room, where we sleep, and put a screen up for us. Of course after he did that, the weather turned cold and it got into the low 40’s at night, lol. I was thrilled to have the screen on the window though and will not be complaining. Today he has put another pen up in an area we need trimmed and got the goats in there. He is building the new woodshed as well. We have plenty to do to keep us busy and have been doing just that with the first sign of Spring.

BIG NEWS: Chris and I have cell phone and well, I want to make sure he has one being at home by himself working on ladders and with chainsaws and stuff all day. I have one for work because they have to be able to get in touch with me. I am not that super fond of having a cell phone but it is just something we obviously need. There is a problem in that however. Although Verizon swears there are rare dead areas, that is NOT the case. Our farm and the road leading to it just happens to have little to no service. To talk to someone, we have to go find a place in the yard somewhere so we can have a half a bar and get every other word the person is saying. There has been more than too many situations that Amanda has tried to call at 630am to tell Chris she needs him to come to her house and keep Perrin that day because he is sick, and not be able to get through to us. I don’t particularly like standing in the rain outside to call work on Saturday night at 10pm and it take 5 lost calls and 30 minutes to finish a conversation. Not to mention the fact we had to turn the phones off at night because they would constantly search for service in the house and the batteries would die every night and in turning them off, we actually missed a few very important phone calls. So, we broke down and got ourselves home phone service. My intention is to nix the cell phones when the contract is up next year. In getting home phone service, I managed to get the cheapest service they had for unlimited local calls. It is like $13.50 a month. None of the fancy stuff is on our plan, no answering machine, voice mail, call waiting, call return, long distance, nothing. Just a phone to make local calls and receive calls from people. I hated the thought of having a phone in the house, but was not too overly disappointed when I discovered Don and Johnnie had provided our new phone for us, a nice old 1970 red rotary telephone! ROTARY! Like, click click click click is the four you dialed! It takes some getting used to and when it rang on Sunday it freaked me out a bit. Now I have had a home phone before, but the thing is something new at the house and will take a bit of getting used to. I found myself staring at it yesterday, wondering if it was going to ring. But I HAVE seen phones before lol. Poor Perrin though, he was amazed at this telephone. He had to call everyone on Friday and tell them how that phone worked BECAUSE….he had never even seen a home telephone in his life. Amanda has a cell, we had cells, Shannon had a cell, even the school had cordless phones so he had never seen a phone you plug into the wall and the rotary thing really threw him for a loop! I heard him tell Lakota how amazing it was, you put your finger in a hole with a number on it and pull that hole to a stopped thing and “wala” someone answers their phone and you talk on a thing with a curly cord that hooks to the holey number thing! How exciting that must be for him! I am thankful we don’t have to stand in the rain trying to talk to someone anymore and glad we decided to break down and get one…..BUT…..I am NOT giving up my outhouse…..ever!

Will post pics in the next few days!

Just a quick note: The pigs are doing great. I can tell they are already growing and eating very well. The goat is doing great also. He eats well and is spoiled rotten already. Lakota got to spend some time with them this weekend and loved it.

We cut down 3 trees in the front yard to allow extra sun for the muscadines and berries we intend to plant there. All of it is cut up and in a pile ready to go to the woodshed. We planted 3 elderberries and 4 red raspberry pants this weekend. We are going to plant a row of muscadines as well. After that we planted 5 Angle Trumpets in several places. Saturday we went to the market to pick up some plants and were invited to join the Amish/Mennonite Community and live there. I found it amusing and somewhat tempting, however I could not follow their religious views and therefore could not even consider the offer. It was nice to be asked though. We stopped and talked to the man who sold the goat. It is 3 months old. After taking Lakota home we planted a BUNCH of things in the garden. We got some tomatoes planted, peppers, basil, parsley. Lakota came Sunday and helped plant okra, beans, sunflowers and more squash. She helped plant the berries as well. I am not sure what we would do without her sometimes. Chris went fishing and caught two fish, a Crappie and a blue gill. After everything was planted, we had a fresh salad picnic by the spring and waited on the rain. It finally got here and we will not have to carry water to the garden for a few days! Oh Friday evening we had dinner with Anna and her husband and daughter! We had a great time and looks forward to getting together again! Pics of the farm coming soon!