Author: Mary (Page 5 of 6)

This is our busiest time of year at work and it has been really hectic the past month or so. Although I feel like I spend every waking moment at work (and Gator works way too much) , we are still managing to get some things done around the farm.

I ordered some laying hens from the local co-op and they came in a couple of weeks ago. They are still too young to lay eggs, but hopefully they will start laying in the next month or two. We are lucky to have a coop with a hen house already built, so at least we didn’t have to deal with that.  We did do some reinforcing around the bottom of the pen to discourage predators.  We know we have a raccoon in the area and we have heard they are very persistent about getting to the chickens.  We also have motion detector lights around the outside of the building – hopefully they will fend off the riff-raff!

The chickens didn’t know to go into the hen house at night, so we’ve been going down there at dusk and putting them to bed for the evening.  Three of the four have figured it out now, so the last two nights I’ve only had to put one in the hen house.  The good thing is that they are getting used to being handled and they no longer run away when we try to pick them up!

I would love to be able to get to the point where I can let them out into the yard during the day. Their coop is plenty big but it would be nice for them to be able to get out, roam around and eat bugs and things in the yard. I’m not so sure that is going to work out, though.  A certain black lab is way too fascinated with them!  I’m don’t know if she would intentionally hurt them, but she loves to chase everything and I really don’t want to take a chance that she would catch one.  Oh well, that’s not a decision that needs to be made now.  Maybe she will lose interest in them over time (hah!).

I am starting to be able to tell them apart.  They look very similar, but one has a few more white tail feathers than the others, one is a little darker and another is a little redder than the rest.  I’ve been trying to come up with names for them.  I was thinking about an Old Hollywood theme – maybe Ginger, Audrey, Doris and Marilyn.  Any suggestions?

Definitely not the kind of spring break I had in mind.  We have had lots of rain this month and we are in the final stages of completing the barn.  Actually, the barn is done – it’s just everything around the outside of the barn that needs work.  That involves dozens of truckloads of different kinds of gravel, rock and sand that need to be brought in and with all this rain, the experts have decided that the ground needs to dry out  and firm up before the heavy trucks start driving all over it.

OK, I get it.  I don’t like it, but I get it.  So we put off bringing the horses home for a few more weeks and we are taking a break from the barn project to work on other things around the place.

I thought I would share with you a little of what’s been going on around the farm over the past month or so.

Gator has been working hard on improving our road so we have been collecting rocks from the fields and filling in low spots on the road.

I got the garden started.

I should have plants ready to go outside in a few weeks.

We’ve also been working in the yard.

It hasn’t been all work though.  We’ve taken some time to enjoy the wildlife…..

and the blooms.

We’ve even taken a little time to enjoy the fruits of all of our hard work.

OK, spring break is over – back to work!

One of the concerns we had about buying this place is that in spite of the fact that there is plenty of acreage, there is no barn (nor pasture) for the horses. After all, that was the whole point of moving to the country. We decided that instead of having to drive somewhere to do everything fun that we liked to do, we should find a place where we could have all that at home. Glenmore meets most of that criteria, but getting a barn built has been the number one priority since moving here.

The first step in the process was to figure out where to put it. Most of our land is leased to a local farmer who had corn planted when we moved in. We wanted to encroach as little as possible on the portion of land he had planted but we needed a relatively flat spot that was high enough to have good drainage, not too many trees around, able to be seen from the house – wow, so many things to take into consideration!  One thing we figured out pretty quickly was that we wouldn’t be able to see the land well enough to find the right spot until the corn came down.  So we waited.  And waited.  Finally, one day in the middle of December, the farmer came and cut down all of the corn.

In the mean time, there was plenty to do.  We had to choose a design, figure out the budget, go back and redesign to fit the budget (multiple times) and find a contractor.  We also visited several of our neighbors barns.  We have boarded our horses for many years, but what works well for a boarding facility doesn’t necessarily work for a private barn.  By the time the land was cleared of crops, we were ready to get it all laid out and start construction.    The only problem was that is was now winter and we were right in the middle of the holidays.  Luckily, our contractor doesn’t let a little cold weather interfere with work and was able to get dirt work done by the middle of January.  Our barn was underway!

Before we knew it, holes were drilled, posts were placed and walls were going up.

Due to a stroke of luck, two crews were able to work and within a week, the roof was on!

Although the pouring of the concrete was held up for about 10 days due to extremely cold weather, work has progressed quickly since then and by the middle of March the barn was mostly completed.

The plumbers and electricians still have their work to finish on the inside, and Gator and I are going to finish out the tack room ourselves, so there is still plenty of work to do.  We also have to get the gravel for the driveway, have the riding arena finished and get fencing in.  There is still SO much work to do!

I will keep you posted over the next several weeks as progress continues!

That does it – I’m taking over Mary’s blog.  I have been waiting for weeks to get my turn and she has managed to push me aside to write about other things, so I’m taking matters into my own hands.

Let me introduce myself.  My name is Carly and I’m a 3 year old black Labrador Retriever.  Mary and Gator decided that Kody was too lonely being an only dog – especially when they went away on vacation. That’s when I came into the picture.

I really love Kody.  He’s a great big brother and he’s taught me so much, but he and I definitely have different ways of thinking about things.  First of all, he is way too concerned about what Mary and Gator think.  He is always so worried that he might get in trouble or somebody might be mad at him.  Who cares??  I don’t worry about that stuff a bit!  In fact, I think everyone ought to pay a little more attention to MY needs and what I think is important.

As long as we’re on the subject, I’ve got a few issues I want to bring up with Mary and Gator.  So if you don’t mind, I’m going to take this opportunity to get these things addressed.  First of all, the service around here – let me just say it’s not up to par.  I can tell time you know.  I know when it’s time to eat.  I also know when it’s the weekend.  Don’t think you are going to sleep in an extra hour and expect me to wait for my breakfast.  I’m hungry!  I’m hungry all the time and as long as you insist that my diet be limited to dog food in portions that keep me at an optimal weight (in your opinion), then get yourself out of bed and get my breakfast at the same time every day.  15 minutes early would be even better.  Also, keep in mind that I am going to eat anything that can even be remotely construed as food.  Like I said, I’m hungry all the time.  If you don’t like it, feed me more (and better).

Next, the entertainment around here just doesn’t cut it.  I like to party, in fact I think everything should be a party!  Why do the two of you need to work so much?  We need to devote way more time every day to partying – water parties are the best.  I like any kind of water, so I am flexible when it comes to that.   Kiddy pools are fine, but they tend to be a bit small.   I like the water fresh so it’s good and cold!

Puddles are great too.  I never met a puddle I didn’t like – the muddier the better!

Icy creeks are really the best.  I will try to get you to go outside with me and throw my toys into the water as much as I can.  I love the cold weather.

I know it sounds like all I do is eat and play, but I contribute quite a bit to this family.  Kody and I make an intimidating pair when strangers come around.  I can tell when someone doesn’t belong here and I would do everything I could to protect you guys.  Also, who provides most of the entertainment around this place?  You have to admit, I’m as cute as they come and I have a great sense of humor!  Nobody creates more fun than I do.

I think you and Gator need to step it up.  It’s not an unreasonable request – just spend less time on your computers and more time playing!  If that’s not an option, can I have a puppy?

Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere – but Old Man Winter is!  It’s not very often that we get two snowstorms in March here in Virginia, but this has been one of those years.  Yesterday was the last straw. It’s not that we even got so much snow, it’s that it rained for 24 hours before it got cold enough to snow, so we ended up with a sheet of ice under it.

So frustrating!  Schools were closed and people couldn’t get to work.  Now, I know I am a whimp when it comes to winter – and I admit it.  But I can tell even my husband, Gator is starting to crack.

You see, Thursday night is date night.  It’s a tradition that we started years ago and it is something that we really look forward to every week.  When I told him I didn’t think we would be able to get out for our date, he took it as a personal challenge.

In under 30 minutes, he had the driveway cleared and had plowed 3/4 of a mile all the way down to the main road.  Well, I look forward to date night just as much as he does, so I couldn’t have been happier to get out of the house and let someone else cook dinner.  We hopped in the truck and off we went into town.  Nothing was open.  NOTHING.  The entire town was deserted – the grocery stores were closed, pharmacies, restaurants, everything.  Old Man Winter may have won the battle but he’s not winning the war!

This morning, everything looks different. The sun is shining, the snow is melting and the weather forecast is a lot more like spring.

Date night has been rescheduled and we are celebrating the end of winter.  Adios, au revoir, arrivederci, good-bye Old Man, I’m not going to miss you a bit!

For the past 13 years, I have been grinding my own wheat and making whole wheat bread for my family.  When a coworker of mine introduced me to her homemade whole wheat bread, she predicted it would be the best bread I had ever tasted. Boy, was she right!  I went right out and bought a grinder and the rest is history.  There have been very few store bought loaves of bread in those years.

I do love to bake and I especially enjoy working with yeast.  This winter I decided to give sourdough a try.  I may eat whole wheat bread at home, but if sourdough is available when I’m eating out, that’s my choice!  So I went online, ordered a crock and some starter, and made the choice to give the whole wheat a break for a while.

One thing I should have realized about sourdough starter is that you have to feed it every week or two.  In order to feed it, you need to either use it or throw some of it away.  Throw it away???   I can’t do that!  Now that creates a problem.  There are only two of us in this house and in spite of loving it, we really don’t eat much bread.  Two loaves of sourdough bread lasts us a month – not even close to keeping up with the starter feeding requirements.  I had to get creative.

So besides just plain old sourdough bread, I made pretzels to serve as snacks during the football playoffs,

I made pretzel rolls to use as hamburger buns…

I even tried my hand at making english muffins!

Gator’s breakfast of choice is an english muffin with peanut butter, so they are getting eaten but he’s not even close to keeping up with the supply.  My freezer is filling up with sourdough products.  I’m really having fun with it but I can’t keep this up for long.  Spring is coming and I’ll be moving on to other things.  I’ll probably have to give up on my starter.  The good news is that I’ll have enough sourdough baked goods to last us through the summer!

We’ve been lucky enough to have some wonderful dogs over the years. There have been big and little dogs, all kinds of breeds, both mutts and purebred.

I am a huge supporter of pet adoption. I understand breeding and showing of purebred dogs but our lifestyle doesn’t require a show dog. There are so many dogs (and cats)  in need of homes that when we made the decision to add another dog to the family, we thought a rescue dog would be the way to go.

It seemed easy. We knew we wanted a Lab, so all we had to do was go down to the closest animal shelter and pick out our new dog, pay the fee and bring him home. Not so much. I searched for months. I visited every animal shelter within 50 miles. I combed the internet. I went back and visited animal shelters again.

I will say, until this point I showed great restraint. When we started this process, we had a pretty specific list of what we wanted. Not only did we want a Lab, it had to be a male and he needed to be young but not a puppy.  We had planned the optimal time to get our new dog very carefully – we were now several months past our target date and our lives were getting crazy again. Gator was gone most weeks traveling for work and I was making monthly trips to help care for my parents. We already had a dog, two horses and a kid in college. Life was pretty crazy without adding a new dog to the mix. Still, I couldn’t give up. Once I got it in my head that we were getting a new dog, I just couldn’t let go of it.

Finally one day, a humane society in a nearby town posted a picture of a litter of three puppies that had come in. I had to go check them out.  You know how this goes – I am not afraid to admit I am a sucker for puppies and these were close to what we were looking for.  OK, they were not exactly Labs; they were Lab mixes.  That is a very generic term.  Nobody knew how much Lab and how much mix or what that mix might be.  And they were puppies.  Well, 12 weeks old – that’s practically full grown, right?  At least they were all males.  One for three isn’t too bad!

Need I tell you how adorable they were?  ADORABLE!!  Two were all black and one was black with a white spot on his chest.  I was in love.  Thank goodness Gator was coming home in a couple of days because I couldn’t decide which one I liked best, so I went ahead and got the application filled out and set up an interview.  Now for those of you who haven’t adopted a pet from an animal shelter recently, let me just say that people ought to have to go through a similar process before they are allowed to have children. I won’t expound on that subject any further.

Gator got home and off to the humane society we went.  We even brought our other dog so that she would have a chance to interact with the puppies, hopefully making our decision a bit easier.  One immediately stood out.  He was one of the all black ones and just had that “take me home look” in his eyes.  Gator knew in an instant that was the dog for us.  We passed our interview and paid the fees and a few days later we were able to pick up our puppy.

Our first couple of months were a bit bumpy, but they are a distant memory now.  Kody will be 7 this summer, and what an amazing dog he has turned out to be.  He has his quirks for sure.  He is obsessed with tennis balls.  There is always one in his mouth or by his side.  Heaven help you if you make the mistake of getting started throwing the ball for him.  But I have never met a more grateful dog in my life.  He doesn’t take anything for granted.  Every meal, every treat and every day he lets us know how much he appreciates being a part of our family.  Whether it’s laying on the couch with his head in my lap or hanging out in the back seat of the car while I run errands all day, he doesn’t care.  Other than chasing the ball, there is nothing more important to Kody than being with his people.

What an incredible rescue!

As we’ve had time to do a little exploring, we have  found a lot of amazing things that were buried (or just left out in a field) and were completely hidden by unchecked growth over the years.  OK, we’ve found a lot of junk too.  Gator has made it his mission to get this place cleaned up and get the junk out of here.  He definitely has his work cut out for him!

Just a little clearing of brush revealed this beautiful rock wall and steps!

We also found this old spring house.

It wasn’t the well for the house but it was probably used to send water to the barns (which are no longer standing).  This project is going to have to be low priority.

Then there are the burn piles – everywhere.  Gator has been taking advantage of the cool weather to get them burned down.

This one had to be moved because it was in the yard and right next to a tree.

Under it, we found a fountain.

We found another fountain under a different pile.

We have found remnants of an old building still standing – it is full of great old barn wood and stacks of flagstone.

This is the concrete foundation to a building that was buried under several feet of dirt.  It is in perfect condition – not a crack in it!

Here’s a pile of old equipment.

There is an old wagon wheel in there.  If we can get it dug out, I’d like to decorate with it.

I’m sure past owners had no idea some of this stuff was here.  It’s a little overwhelming, but the fun part is finding the treasures among the junk!

It is no secret I am not a fan of winter.   I used to love it.  I spent my childhood playing outside in the snow and I skied every weekend of the winter for many years.  The older I get, the less I seem to be able to tolerate cold.  I never understood why retirees would pack up and move south for months during the winter.  Now I get it. I have a very strong hibernation instinct.  Since I don’t have to get out and drive to the office everyday, it would be very easy (and tempting) for me to stay in my jammies wrapped in a blanket all day.

In an effort to combat the hibernation instinct, I go to the gym most mornings.  It makes me get out of bed, put on clothes and leave the house, thus resisting the temptation to go back and hide under the covers.  Working out is an added benefit.  It would be too embarrassing to drive all the way to the gym and not do anything, although I’ve seen plenty of people who are there for social reasons only.

I also try to get out and take the dogs for a daily walk.  My dogs love winter.  Of course they do – they are big and black and furry.  The cold weather invigorates them and frankly, if they don’t get out and get some exercise during the day, then they are full of energy and don’t want to go to bed at night.

I’ve always been of the mind that winter is when everything dies  and just waits for the weather to get warm to come back to life.  However, my daily walks with the dogs have made me start noticing there is a whole winter cycle of birds.  I don’t just mean the occasional blue jay that I used to see living in town.  I’m talking flock after flock of geese and waves of blackbirds that look like clouds in the sky.  This has been a daily occurrence for months.  How did I not know about this?

They usually come through just after sunrise and then late again in the afternoon to feed on the leftover corn in the fields.  The noise can be deafening.

When the blackbirds take off from the fields, it sounds like thunder in the distance.   It’s incredible!

Now that we are moving into February, I have hope that I will survive until spring.  I know we have a few more weeks of cold weather, but walking the dogs and watching the birds give me good reasons to bundle up, go outside and get out of hibernation!

One of the things that attracted us most to Glenmore is the trees. We have lived in many houses over the years – some new, some not so new, and we have developed a real appreciation for how difficult it can be to find a place with beautiful shade trees.

Most developments these days clear the land completely even before utilities go in. It certainly makes construction easier. Then once new owners move in, they do the landscaping and plant trees. In 10-15 years (assuming you live in the right part of the country) you can have amazing shade trees. Unfortunately, we are at that point in our life where we don’t really feel like we have that much time to spare.

We have a wide variety of trees on our property including Magnolia, Peach, Fig and Sycamore, as well as a few we haven’t identified yet, but the majority are Black Walnut and Maple. The driveway is lined by beautiful, stately old Maples and Walnuts. REALLY old. Now that it is winter and leaves are off the trees, we have discovered a lot of interesting things about them.

It is pretty clear that some of these trees aren’t going to last much longer. Whole branches will break off in the wind and many of the trunks are completely hollow. These are things we didn’t really notice when we first looked at Glenmore and were instantly captivated by its charm.

Clearly, we need to develop a plan to replace trees over the next several years. It comes with mixed emotions, though. Of course we want to bring in new trees to take over for the dead and dying ones. But letting the old ones go is going to be difficult. There is so much history behind them – and so many stories they could tell!

Like who shot that arrow?

Was it the kids that lived here in the past few years or could it have been somebody hunting 50 years ago?

And how did that knife get there?

Any way you look at it, that has to be a good story! My bet is that no matter when it happened, alcohol was involved…

Oh, if only these old trees could talk!