Quails, Hawks and slingshots.

We moved here to realize a dream and with that, give the boys a place to grow up with fresh air and gunshots that are for ducks and raccoons, not people.  Its been a long road.  The move, the back injury, winter, turning down work, have all been trying to keep me down. TRYING!






I am determined not to let the dark take my mind and spiral me down any further.  So I put on my big boy pants and started working on the fence again.  Granted this time very carefully and gingerly...and with a tractor.  What I could have done in a day I spread out over 4, to make sure I didn't get laid up again.  It was super cool to pull all the old fenceposts from when my mom was a kid to reuse and reset in the old pasture.

The last time I even remember having a fence up out there was when my mom had her horse Peppy here, thats gotta be close to 30 years ago.  So I guess the old posts have some history.  They fenced in dairy cows, the infamous sheep Ewe and Me(it didn't really keep them in tho), hogs, chickens, and now Llamas and chickens and to keep deer out.  We will need it against the deer because of the cut flower garden we are planning, which is almost an acre!

We are looking forward to Spring still...But the chores must get done!  So far we have fence posts up, but no fence yet.  The kitchen garden has been tilled and some additional top soil dropped on.  The greenhouse and the groundsmen's cottage are being cleaned out.  All the outbuildings had become storage for some kind of equipment parts or stuff that somebody wanted to keep, but then became forgotten as the ages of dust covered and eventually erased them from memory.

The hard part is figuring out which breakers work or don't and if there was a reason that electric was turned off in one building or another...when I threw the 50 year old breaker on in the greenhouse the other day, my butt puckered up in fear, but then the power came right on.  It reminded me of one of those old movies where they dust the switch off and then all the lights powered up after a flicker or two. 

The new chicken yard is also in progress, but again more junk to move, more fence to put up, a new chicken house to be built, thats becoming a higher priority now that Sharon went out and added an additional 20 chicks to the flock.  That was after she had already ordered 30 from the hatchery...so theres a whole lot of peepin going on around here!  Hopefully it will all be done before I get on another job or the chicks are mature enough to leave the brooder...

Figuring out the hawk and eagle situation has proven tricky.  Sterling is learning how to use a slingshot, shooting dog food mind you, so we don't actually kill anything that we aren't supposed to.  He hasn't actually seen any close yet, but we hear them and see them circling.  Our hope is to keep them alive long enough for us to get the new yard done with netting, and maybe a dog soon as well...apparently the predatory birds don't like 4 legged predators. Another thing to put on the list...

BABY QUAILS!  SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Need I say more? That was a really cool experience to watch them hatch and I made a little video of it.

Here is a link to the Vimeo video:
https://vimeo.com/85491361

Enjoy your day friend's!  Don't let the dark of winter make you too blue.  Longer days, blooming flower's, warm sun and spring and summer fun is just around the corner!

Be well.  Enjoy your life.  Give a smile to another soul.  And most importantly love yourself and your friends and family!

Love,
The Rowland's

Inching toward Spring

It's been a few weeks, and now the Rowland's are on the upswing.  I can walk again(woohoo!) which was a long time coming, to say the least.  I have been walking more and doing light duty chores.  Still trying to keep away from the lifting too much.  It was really shocking how tired I was after just some short walks a few days ago.  Now I am starting to get my wind back though!  I am learning how to use the little Skid Steer, its a little baby loader type machine.  It is perfect for the tasks I have and its like having ten extra strong backs to help!

I have started clearing an old garden of the top layer of "stuff" that open spaces seem to collect, ya know tires, bottles, weird pipes and random old farm stuff.  It's been neat, with the weather mild, I can really see what certain parts of the farm used to be for, before it became a full time gravel mine. It's strange...echo's of the past.  Happy echo's, I get to see my grandfather that I never knew, everyday.  I see him in the structures, the fields, the forest and in the mine.  I see his dream of raising his family in the country.  I think he would be happy that the old farm was a farm again.  

The farm is like a baby farm right now.  I mean that figuratively and literally.  We are new farmers, but also the quails are poppin out eggs like crazy. Soon it will be baby animals everywhere, prepare for a ridiculous cuteness post when the baby quails hatch.  Cross your fingers, we had one explode and we couldn't figure out why it started smelling like the old OMSI chick hatching exhibit.  EEEWWW!

It feels so good to do chores again.  Sometimes when you're lazy you're just lazy, but when you really can NOT DO ANYTHING it seems like pure hell to not get anything done. So now I am thrilled to do chores again.  First you have to feed and clean the animal areas up.  I go out to the chickens, then to the quails and ole Phyllis Diller(she got picked on by the other hens), then out to the llamas, I watch them look arrogant for awhile and see what things I can say to try and insult them, then I head back to the woodshed fill up a light wheelbarrow load and then I head in. It has been GREAT!

Spring is coming!  We are excited here.  I turned down a long road trip of a job and it was really hard.  But just the money part was hard.  The turning point in my mind was when I was napping with my youngest and thought, "I won't get to do this until June if I take this job"so that part was a no brainer.  I also thought "Isn't this what you wanted?  TO choose family over work?"  Oh right!  That is why I did this. Everyone should  raise their own children, raise their own food, choose their own way.

Sometimes, the choice isn't the easier path, it's the one that feeds your soul.

With that I leave you with the link to my time-lapse a day December edited piece.  It shows that you can still shoot even when you can only hobble 40 feet from the house.  Enjoy!

Really good link:
https://vimeo.com/84454148

and here is the youtube...although I think Youtube quality is really poor