Quick question

Is there a food type name for goat poop? You know like cow pie, rabbit raisin, horse apple etc.? I tried to Google it but didn't have any luck.

Chicken update

I haven't talked about the chickens in awhile. The girls have gotten pretty friendly. They still don't like to be picked up, but they run over to us whenever we enter their pen. They follow me around everywhere, even out of their pen and around the yard. They love treats but prefer to eat them out of our hand instead of off the ground. I think they may be a little spoiled! Yarrow is still leary of us but he is doing his job of getting the girls out of the run very well.

This is how they sleep at night, this picture was taken after dark. They have 2 perches, so there is plenty of room, but they like to cuddle. It hasn't even been cold at night the last week, but they still sleep this way. I think it is cute that they are so attached to each other.

Close up of Kudzu begging for treats.

They are pretty much always together.

He is such a pretty boy!

Their run and coop, most of the time the door is open so they can explore and eat yummies.

We'll be starting on our big coop in the next month so we can get more chickens. The current coop is really only big enough for the 3 we have.

A great Christmas!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Our was wonderful. This is the first Christmas that I can remember that I didn't spend at my Grandparent's house in Virginia. We decided to do Christmas at our new house this year, instead of driving 10 hours to Virginia. My sister came here to spend the day with us. We started with breakfast at Waffle House. A new tradition in the making.

We then opened presents and I got the coolest present ever! My very own .22. It is a Ruger 10/22, which is just the type I wanted. Somehow Mark was able to figure that out without my input at the time that he got it.

After opening presents, we went out to the back of the property and did some shooting.

I got the can on the first shot! I'm not sure you can see it but it is exploding in this picture, yeah, we did shoot at full cans. It is more fun that way LOL.

We spent a few hours outside, yesterday was warm and sunny. After a dinner of Southwestern Black Bean pasta we played games and drank wine for a few hours, including 5 rousing rounds of Clue. I have more pictures to share of our day another time. It was a wonderful day and I'm so glad my sister joined us for the day!

Happy Festivus!

Logan had a fun time today learning about Festivus (from Seinfield). We found something to be our aluminum pole and we had Manwich for dinner, figuring that was an appropriate Festivus dinner. We haven't had the airing of grievances or feats of strength yet....

We celebrated Yule 2 nights ago and will do Christmas in 2 days. Logan is enjoying the holiday season!

Living room

Here is our living room. The door in the back, behind Logan goes to the kitchen. You can also see the door to the screened in porch here. It was raining the day I took this picture, oh well.


The living room from the couch. Yeah, we did put a TV in front of the fireplace. I know, I know.... Hubby doesn't like fires, this is one I wasn't going to win.

The front door. This was also taken from the couch, so the house is all open in the living room/dining room/entrance area. There are 4 columns in this area of the house. Logan LOVES the columns, he climbs them, and spins around them and beats them up with swords.

I like this one!

I got this on one of my Yahoo groups this morning and really liked it.

Logan's box fort

Continuing with our house tour, I bring you Logan's box fort. We built this in one of the rooms of the HUGE basement that came with the house. This is the only room that is even partially finished.

Logan and his daddy had a lot of fun building this. Logan has since had fun decorating it inside and out. It is a space ship and he drew a bunch of controls and stuff inside. I haven't been in it yet, but the cats love it!

Master bedroom

Continuing with the tour of the house, I bring you the master bedroom.

Here is the view out of the back window. You can see the side of the screened in porch



Here is the view from the side window, this is our neighbors land.

Part of the bedroom, it is a big room so I can't get it all in one picture.

Here is the incredible ceiling.

And the master bathroom looking into the walk-in closet. The closet is huge! The window in the closet looks out into the front yard.

The cats

Jill asked how the cats handled the move so I thought I'd share how they are doing since it is actually an interesting story.

Starting about the time the packers came, our outdoor cat Everest became very clingy to me. She was always on my lap or following me around the house. This was very unusual behavior for her as she spent most of her time outside and only came in to eat. She generally wanted nothing to do with us. We stopped letting her out a few days before we left the DE house to make sure she was around and she was actually fine with that.

The morning of the our last day in DE, Logan accidentally let Everest outside! It was panic time. I was brushing my teeth when I heard him scream and then he started crying hysterically. I dropped my toothbrush and ran downstairs. Everest was standing on the back deck, basically waiting for me to come get her. It was like she ran out and then realized we were leaving and she didn't want to be out there! I went out and picked her up no problem. Again, very unusual for her.

I loaded both the cats into the car and again they acted weird. Rainier, the cuddly one wanted nothing to do with me and sat under Logan's feet the whole trip, while Everest cuddled in my lap. This behavior continued the whole time we were at my dad's house, with both cats acting out of character.

When we got to GA, Everest found a hole in the suspended ceiling in the basement and hid there for 4 days. This was more like her. Rainier became cuddly again as soon as our furniture arrived. Everest is now out of the ceiling and more affectionate than she ever was in DE. The weirdest thing is that she has shown no desire to go outside since we got here. In DE, she spent 90% of her time outside. It is like she doesn't think outside exists here or something. The only door we use goes into the garage, so she hasn't seen us going in and out a door to the outside. I'm not sure if she forgot about outside or what.

So, the cats have adjusted nicely and seem happy to be here with us. I'm happy to now have 2 affectionate cats. They both sleep with us at night and sit on my lap when I'm on the couch.

Coyotes

We have coyotes here. I've heard them numerous times out in the woods a few miles away, but the other night, I heard them in our driveway. I was tucking Logan in and we both heard them, it sounded like they came down our driveway into our backyard. It was a pack of them.

So, I'm freaking out! I know the chickens are safe, but I'm worried about when I get other animals. We plan to have Nigerian Dwarf goats and a smaller sheep breed, either Shetland or Soays. I know coyotes could kill a smaller animal like that. I stayed up half the night worrying about how to keep them safe. Does anyone here have to deal with coyotes? How do you keep the animals safe? Should I lock them in the barn at night? Improve the fencing in one area, like a corral? Get a guard animal? Which is better, dog, donkey, or llama?

I've been doing research on the web but would like to hear first hand from people that have found a way to keep their animals safe.

Kitchen and some thoughts

I haven't forgotten about posting pictures of the house, I just got side-tracked by chickens. It happens easily LOL.

So here is the kitchen taken from the breakfast nook. Through the door is the dining room, which is now a computer room and the hall going back to the 2 kids rooms. One of which is a guest room for us, since we only have 1 kid. I will start posting more pictures of the inside of the house soon.

A few of you have asked me some questions, mostly about how I'm feeling about all this, so I thought I'd share some thoughts here.

At first, it felt like we were on vacation here and that we were going to have to go home soon, especially the week Mark was gone. The first 2 weeks here, Mark was really stressed and in a bad mood. I felt like he was ruining it for me! I was so excited to finally be here and he was grumping around all the time. I can't blame him, he had a bad few weeks with the sale of the house in DE almost falling through, then a week after we got here, he had to go out of town for a week. He is much better now that he is back into his normal routine of going to work and working out at lunch. Turns out he really needs his routine.

Now that we are all unpacked and have all our pictures up, it feels like home. I still can't believe most days that it is mine. I look out the window in the morning expecting to see all our neighbors and just see cows and pasture. It is unreal! I do feel like I need to pinch myself most days.

It is also overwhelming some days, thinking about all the things I want to get done. Logan and I have been working on clearning the garden, the previous owner left all their plants, including lots of corn stalks. Somedays I look at the garden and think it will never get done. Or I think about building the big chicken coop, or building stalls in the run-in and it is overwhelming. I don't know how to do any of these things and it feels like so much to learn.

But overall, it is just amazing! We've met some great people, made some friends already and it does feel like home to me, in a way that Delaware never felt. And having chickens certainly helps!

Meet Yarrow

Taking the advice of my wise blog friends, we got the girls a rooster on Sunday. We named him Yarrow.

Isn't he a beauty?
He is a bantam so he is smaller than the girls. That doesn't seem to bother any of them. It took the girls a couple of days but he is their rooster now. They follow him around the yard. And they let him sleep with them at night now. It only took him 2 days to learn to go to bed with the girls. They are great about putting themselves to bed, but the first 2 nights I had to shoo him into the coop. Tonight he was already in there when I went to shut the door.

And here is another picture of Logan feeding the girls.

Logan's in heaven!

Logan's been spending time with the girls and they are really starting to warm up to him. Especially if he has some corn! They eat it right out of his hand.

As you can see they'll even jump in his lap to get it. They run to him whenever he enters their pen.

Breakfast nook and muck boots

Here are the pictures of our breakfast nook.

Looking at the table from the kitchen. There are 3 sets of windows in this room. It is my favorite room in the house, the view is amazing!
The view from my chair.

The view from Logan's chair.

The view from Mark's chair of the screened in porch.

Lisa wanted us to post pictures of our muck boots. Here are mine. They are already mucky as you can see. That red clay is something! Logan likes when we got out in the morning and the muck is frozen.

Logan's room

As we get rooms totally done in the house I'll start posting pictures of them. We finished Logan's room today, so we'll start there.

My MIL, Linda M. and her husband came to visit a few weeks ago and painted Logan's room. Logan picked out a really nice shade of green and the border. We put the border up today and hung his pictures.

The view out of Logan's window. This is why he picked the pink room. The blue room is in the front of the house and has one small window overlooking the driveway. This room is much better, even if I did have to put 3 coats of primer on it.

Breakfast nook tomorrow.

Today is "J"

Today is J for John Deere so I thought I'd post this picture of Mark enjoying his new Deere.

Isn't he cute? He'd just been over to the neighbor's dirt pile to get me some dirt for my garlic bed. He got to drive the trash down to the dumpster, we are sharing with the neighbors, the other night. I think he just looks for excuses to drive it around!

For a cute picture of Logan on the Deere back in Delaware when we first got it go here.

What kind of soup are you?

You Are Chicken Noodle Soup

You are a traditional and conservative person. You value the past, and change frightens you. You are very loyal, especially to your family. You prefer a low-key life, with lots of time spent at home. You like soup because it's easy, quick, and cheap. You tend to have a favorite soup you stick to. Why change a good thing?

What Kind of Soup Are You?

I love soup!! It is one of my favorite things to make and eat. And the description is fairly accurate of me.

Logan's horse adventure

Since the letter of the day is H for horse, I thought I'd post pictures of Logan's first time riding a horse.

It happened during our 2 weeks of homelessness. My step-mom owns a horse named Abby. Logan has been helping feed Abby for a few months and seems to really like her, so my dad asked Logan if he wanted to ride her. As some of you may remember, horses freak me out, but I didn't say anything and encouraged him to try if he wanted.

He did, so he did. Here he is his first time on Abby, he is clearly a bit nervous.


My dad took her out front and let her just eat the grass while Logan sat on her. That made him feel a lot more confortable.

Look at that show off!

Here is my dad with Logan and Abby in front of his house.

After sitting on her for a bit, he was much more comfortable being on her when she was moving.

He rode her again another day, my dad led them on a pretty long walk the second time. Logan really liked it! He wants to learn to ride a horse, we are talking about joining the 4-H horse club or trying to find a place that offers lessons.

Awards

I've gotten some great awards lately and want to acknowledge those who gave them to me. I so appreciate all the support and love I've gotten from my blogging buddies over the last year.


Lisa gave me this beautiful award. This one means so much to me!

Melody gave me this new one.

Here is the text that came with this one.

"This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!"

Adventure Girl gave me this wonderful award. I think it is really cute.

Here is my connumdrum with awards. I LOVE getting them! I love the acknowledgement. I have a problem with not feeling good enough in life and the awards give me a little boost. However, I find it very hard to then give them out after I receive them. I hate choosing people to give them to, I hate picking favorites. If I read your blog it is because I love it. I've stopped reading many blogs over the years because they weren't a favorite. So I've already narrowed my list down to my favorites. I feel like when I do give awards out they always go to the same people. But I feel like a blanket this award is for all of you is lame. So what to do....

Short chicken update

Sorry to bore you with more chicken stuff, we're just so excited about them! I opened their run today and they were doing the typical staying in the run thing, so after a few hours I went down there with them. As soon as I sat down they ran out of the run and started exploring the surrounding area. I sat with them for a bit then went in.

A few hours later, Logan and I went down to check on them and they did the same thing. They were in the run and came out when we came down. Then Buttercup ate corn out of Logan's hand! He was so excited. They still don't like us to touch them, but they seem to be viewing us as protectors. They are much braver when we are around.

Views

I've had some requests for more pictures of our views.

The chicken coop is being kept in a fenced in pen that the previous owner made for working the cattle. We have 2 of these pens. Each pen is bigger than our previous back yard. We then still have the pasture. So, the chickens have a pretty big area to run around in, if they would ever leave their run. I have to force them out each morning and shut the door so they can't get back in. As soon as I open the door again, they run back in there. I'm trying to be patient and give them time, but it seems to me like they should want to run around on all that great grass and be in the sun.

Anyway, the other day while sitting in the pen with the chickens I decided to take pictures from where I was sitting in each direction.

This is looking toward my neighbor Boyd's property. He was working on the fence so that is why his tractor is there.


This is looking back toward our pasture.

This is looking toward our run-in and the beginning of our pasture. The run-in didn't quite make it into the picture but you can see it's shadow.

This is looking back toward the house.

These were all taken from a sitting position in the middle of the pen so they aren't the best pictures. Call them a chicken eye's view of our place.

Soon I will post pictures taken out of the windows of our house.