I asked for it...

Alright, the snow has been falling everyday for over a week. It seems to not accumulate due to the sun poking its head out every few days. Am i complaining? Umm yes, frankly I am. It has been so cold- averaging around 18 F degrees i cant go out to play! So what better way to waste the day then to pour into that stack of seed catalogs. Then reality hit. I may not even be here to have a garden to play in. I have proclaimed to the Captain, That I will be making a trip to Florida Central gulf coast area) to visit my big brother and to take a sanity break. Of course the children will be with me and Hopefully the house will sell before summer is over because I may just not come back. I swore to not spend another winter in this place. It is just not built for our lifestyle and 3 young children. I am only half way through this winter and my misery has hit the boiling point. I will go through the motions of having one. I will start it. I will tend to it. I will look at it as something potentials may want to see instead a dirt bed. And if my brother gets his country plot, I may just bring the chickens down for him to keep (Clyde would have to stay-guess that means I should buy him a new wife-again) and bring Lady Chia for a change of scenery. That & I would just go crazy worrying whether or not the Captain is spoiling her as I do. Did he give her ice with her water or feed her in that special bowl she likes. As I have before mentioned, she is a pampered lazy goat.
All this cold blowing wind has kept the chickens snuggled inside the Goat cabin scratching up the bales of $1 hay- guy could not sell it to the horse people so He sold it to me before going to Texas for a family visit- LUCKY ME!). Clyde has made a habit of flying down to the laundry room door and wait for me to bring out their daily snack between meals. I love that he knows where to go.

So do try to keep warm in this unpredictable weather and I will soon be back to share some more interesting tidbits about life with this unusual farmchick.
Wintery dreams,
Tammie
P.S The "tinman (some #'s here)" bidder withdrew and is no longer a valid id or bidder so The Wargod will be going back up on the auction. I knew when I saw he was from Washington he would be a fraud. I wonder if there is a way to refuse bids from users who have no or very little history? Not all are frauds, but it costs $50 to just list the item and their crap costs me money and others our trust.

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The wargod has been sold...per pickup of course

The Wargod was bought by my husband in high school. It was envied by all who saw it. It was feared by the many who pissed off its driver. The smoke stacks were especially a site in winter when the truck was revved up. It is not my truck to reminisce about, but Many, many, I do mean many, stories have been told & retold at any given night the guys would get together. And a case of beer each would bring the back in the day stories out. I loved hearing them originally. But after hearing them tell stories over and over about the 10th time, it was unbearable to me.


The Wargod was put to sleep for a decade. and after my encouragement...well more like its gotta go. "Dont care where. but not in this driveway anymore" statements, Hubby decided to try Ebay. It sold for around what he wanted and more then I thought he would get for it. No questions were asked about it. No additional pictures were requested. Payment due on day of pickup. Now lets see if this bidder shows up and pays.
I understand his desire to fix it up. I really do. But come on. would you want to tow this thing on a flat bed to your new home a few states away just for it to sit for another amount of years before someone attempts to fix it up? No thanks. Besides, I want this house to have great curb appeal to get this place sold SOON! Having that truck on flat wheels is by far not pleasing to the eye or any buyer.

So we say goodbye to a treasure of his past and hope its new owner will restore the Wargod to its glory. And hopefully The Captain can be content that it will make someone else a wonderful truck full of it's potential cool kid memories as great as it had brought him.
Smoky dreams,
Tammie

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The barnyard winter pen and its Spring time plans

As I mentioned before, the pen yard has been drastically reduced not just in the animals, but in the pen size. For 5 chickens, 1 muscovy and a goat, this is just fine for the winter. Why give them a huge area where they cannot scratch away through frozen ground and why wonder far from the bales of yummy hay waiting inside a much warmer & comfortable goat cabin? The area is enough for my lazy girl anyway. She does not like to wonder the hill unless she can see me out there with her.
The snow has kept her inside the goat cabin and this is what i see everyday when i walk outdoors and look her way.
She does not like her feet in the snow and has never liked the feeling of water on her precious hoofs. She will chew away at her cud and maaaing at me to come visit- inside the cabin of course. I bring along an old lawn chair and her brush to clean up some of that long hair of hers. She loves to be brushed. Especially now that a jealous certain someone is not chewing on her ears when I do brushings.
Obviously, the goat cabin still needs painting. The window wood has been screwed on and a peek door was put in as a temp fix for the winter. I will put in a true window with chicken wire on the inside along with screen as an additional barrier from glass if it were to ever break. I need to re-measure my smaller extra 8 pane window to see if it will fit in that spot. In the spring it will get a good sanding, a thick layer of barn red paint and white trimming. The door which is an old vinyl cover wood piece from the rabbit hutch was a perfect fit for a sliding door that made a great winter temporary fix. A new dutch door will be put on in the Spring too. I plan to move all my hosta's from behind the house to the road side of the goat cabin as a way to help in its curb side look. the apple tree had a limb removed so the cabin could be placed where it is so hopefully once the tree awakens, it is not a total eyesore of a job. i will be putting the old animal house from atop the hill on freecycle this week. hopefully, it will be taken and The Captain does not get a bonfire from it. We have enough limbs from the tree cutting that should get him through till the house is bought.
On another note, i have discouraged my husband from the job in Hagerstown MD. I do not see us faring well in the realty with prices starting at$100,000 more then what our house cost to get the same size house with at least 1/2 acre. That would be a 1/3 of what we have now! Besides, I would rather move more south like Tennessee. I had him put in for a position down there in Knoxville. I just cannot take these northern winters anymore. My bones are aching and at my age that is just wrong! I want to be somewhere much warmer then ohio. Growing up with Summers avg. about 98 F degrees has spoiled me.
I am hoping for more snow to fall & stick for a weekend playing with snowshoes, sleds and some adult play with X-country skis on the FAB trails our favorite metro park has for all to enjoy. Its been awhile since The Captain & I have had time as just US.
Sweet Snowy dreams,
Tammie

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hidden in these old walls....

I am feeling much better today. I can actually walk and clean the house without feeling any pain. So in my hours of bed lounging, I noticed how filthy the trimming and window corners were next to the bed. As I begun to wipe it down a board seemed to be loose. Of course I thought "great! another thing we will have to pay to replace!". So I tried to wiggle it out to assess the whole damage. And what did I discover?

A hole! but not just any hole under a window. Oh no. No ordinary at all. I found this in the hole:

A drawer! All these years I have slept with my head just inches from this very spot. None to the wiser that these walls had yet another secret waiting to be discovered. amazing. I do not know what else to say other then purely amazing.
Sweet dreams,
Tammie

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Ouch! my freaking foot!

Yesterday Chia had a new fence put up with new galvanized posts.Her pen is small -maybe 11x8- but after all she is a lounging goat. Not one to stray far from the goat cabin as long as it is filled with hay for her to lay in and munch on. On days that are nice or at least decent, we take her for a walk through the neighborhood. The chickens and Clyde got a smaller pen setup but are wondering all over the place since I was not able to close them up last night. As I was folding and bending the old livestock fence for disposal, One stray thick gauge wire stabbed through my boot and into my foot. I yanked my foot off and limped into the house. I thought for sure my boot would be splashed in blood. But no. No blood at first. I washed it off with peroxide and slapped a band aid on before heading back out to finish the job at hand. My foot throbbed and started to hurt real bad. I happened to have some vicodin left over from my last kidney stone bout and swallowed one down. 1/2 hour later it still hurt like crazy. O.k its been a few hours since the incident and my foot is throbbing. What to do?The Captain knows how i am about getting myself medical attention so he kept nicely asking when was the last time I had a tetanus shot. Hmmm. I don't know honey. We have been together a decade now and i do believe its been longer then that. So he offered to drive me to the walk in clinic to get one. Again- he knew if he insisted I seek medical attention I would have blown him off. After a few hours from the incident the pain was still unbearable so I asked him to drive me to the clinic. Turns out its all fine. No holes through the bone could be seen but the area around my big toe throbbed intensely. I got a tetanus, a script for an antibiotic and for darvocets. I hate darvocets! I have had to take 1 1/2 every 4 hours just to make myself get an hour and half of sleep before waking to the the throbbing pain again. I am not a woozy when it comes to pain. I gave birth Natural and have gone through many bouts of non passable kidney stones. I know pain and this darvocet crap sucks! I will be calling the clinic to see if they can call in something better.
So I am going to get back to my bed and prop my foot up until they open. It may be awhile before I get back on so I would like to direct you over to garden girls website.
Stella mentioned her over at her blog which encouraged me to direct all of you to check this woman out. She is living a classier urban homestead then me but proves it is doable even in the middle of Boston, Mass. It has given me encouragement for myself. Many new ideas and my urban lil place will be seeing some updates similar to hers.
So another lesson learned through trial and error. Never try to smash down fencing to make nice neat piles for the garbage man- freecyclers never show up for the stuff so landfill it goes. Instead just roll them into tidy rolls and be done with it.
Until next time...
Sweet dreams,
Tammie

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Trees. Lovely trees...

The man in tree is starting to darken. I stopped today for his winter picture and had to take it at a few different angles because his face was not showing. I wish the owners would clean him up and preserve him better. What a waste it would be to have him disappear because of simple neglect.
Speaking of trees, I thought I would share a winter shot of the magic tree. I hope and wish wherever this big move is taking my family, we will find a tree to love and cherish as much as we do this one. This tree is the life force for almost all of the yard playing for our children. What child would not love a tree they can climb on and imagine it is a pirate ship or a castle. A wonderful swing from its branches that when facing the right way you can swing out over the down slope of the hill and feel like you are flying! That is the magic of this tree. Much crying will be done when we must leave it behind. I guess that is what will make those moments stick out of their childhood memories. In the Spring a new swing will grace its branch. The original swing was placed there by my dearest friend & I during our first week here 5 years ago in April. The rope lasted until this last summer before breaking in the middle. I tied it to the lower end so lil' man could swing without help and moved the baby swing over in its place. I would spider swing ( that is when 2 people on 1 swing- where the second person sits on the lap of the first facing them and their legs hang off the back of the swing) with the children all the time up to the breaking point. Stronger rop will be bought this time. But now that I think of it, 5 years is a long time for rope to be rubbing back and forth over a tree limb- and wow that tree must be a hardwood. I have no idea what variety of tree it is either.
And since I could not sleep last night, I put together a slideshow showing various moments surrounding our Magic tree. Nothing major or big, but it brought a smile to my face looking them over. Take a look if ya' like. just click on the link "slide show set".Edit- slideshow removed*
Snowy dreams,
Tammie

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Drastic changes ahead- watch out- a storms abrewing...

Drastic changes are needed here. Without getting too personal and divulging all details, I will say the choice was made by me. I am thinking of myself with this choice and of the girls in its making. It is hard to even think about but I have realized my sacrifice is only for a short while. It is not in stone but in the Spring my girls will be going up for sale. I will wait for their placement at 6-8 week weaning point but once they are born, mothers and kids will be put up for sale. I have been thinking about just selling the babies, then just keeping Cleo and a wether. But at every angle I see a dead end blocking the final destination. If we are to move with this possible promotion, We will not be able to afford larger land with a newer home. Everything costs 2 &1/2 times what it does here for realty. Everyone commutes to Washington D.C, hagerstown, and the other major cities within a 1-2 hour drive. There has been a "land rush" of sorts which has driven up prices. Developers have seen their opportunity, bought up the larger acreage and are turning them into a gated community or subdivisions with stupid rules like horses allowed but no goats or poultry. Again, I will not bore you with the extra details. I have refused to accept less then 3 acres of land with a newer home and keep the goats. That at the least starts around $350,000 according to realtor.com. We require space and more then 3 bedrooms for our family. I will not take on another older home. That means taking on the problems which come with them. No thanks. Not again and especially with my young children.On another change to animals-

I will be making contact to Jacks old owner too. It was said from the beginning if things do not work out with him that they would like him back. He has yet, after almost a year, stopped peeing on my walls! Every time dawg growls or just is grouchy, Jack lifts his leg and pees on what ever is near. Dawg has been with us for over 5 years now. I have tried to curb it. I have even left him on a line all day outside. Nothing works. I WILL NOT take him with us and have him peeing in my new house. Even a fenced in area does not deter the behavior. There are some other behavioral issues which I will discuss (one being his thing about eating socks and stuff then suddenly pooping them out wherever he is when the urge hits). Too much for me to handle on my own. I know my limits and they have been exceeded. i will have my goats again someday. But for now, I need to think of making changes which will benefit the family. I am compromising. I must have the bigger house and room for my gardens. The 5 chickens will go with us. I can manage with a 2 acre spot for them. Maybe after we are settled and I see how things go there, I can get goats again. For now I will settle for gardens and my chickens.This is a greenhouse made from recycled windows I spotted on another older forum discussion. I aspire my gardens to be like this but more garden beds. Maybe even larger in size then add 4 more. I had hoped to already have a similar greenhouse and garden area in place by now but I feel having the goats took alot of my attention from the project. It is tidy and manageable. I need that right now. This is something I could enjoy with the children. I really like the idea of the privacy fence enclosing the area and a wooden arbor trellis too. I could grow grapes or hops to enclose it more. as I mentioned before, I need re centering. Inner focus. I need to go back to the beginning and start over the right way. Taking with me my new gained knowledge.

Sweetest dreams,
Tammie

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