May 17, 2018

Man.  Life is moving fast.  My youngest daughter got through graduation and within a week accepted her first after college position!  Woo hoo!  Next thing you know we are driving down to her place to pack her and her husband up.  Horse trailers sure do come in handy!  And we don't even have a horse. . .




This week we have had a little visitor.  My son went on vacation and asked us to do some dog sitting.  Venus is an Alaskan Klee Kai.  Small, but smart and full of energy!  She has been a constant reminder of stopping to smell the roses, and the honeysuckles, and the clover.  Wait!  What's that brown pile?. . .While she is in, she is wishing she is out.  She is just fascinated by the cows, the chicks, the dogs, the chickens, and did I mention the chickens?  So we have been taking lots of walks on the leash, as she is so small that she can fit through all of the fences.  The best thing I did was put a large carabiner clip on her leash so when I am in the workshop, the clip is fastened tightly in the vice grip.  When I am picking asparagus and strawberries, she is clipped to my jeans belt loop, and when I am weeding the raspberries, she is clipped to the fence.  Enough room to roam, not enough to get under the cows.

On a homestead you want everything to do at least two things.  A case in point is my front flower bed that is no longer a flower bed, but a kitchen garden to be conveniently located to the front door.  it is in a constant state of flux as the seasons change.  Here is a video tour:

I have redone the solar fountain in the middle of our drive turn around.  The plastic barrel look pots cracked over the winter.  This time, I am trying galvanized tubs.  I braced in the solar panel with brackets left over from old blinds.  Here is some fountain action:

Another thing we have been working on is a corn hole game for a large event we are having soon.  As it is large and it uses resources, we wanted it to do dual duty, and we needed a way to store it.  We figured out that if we put it together and painted it, it could serve as the chicken coop sign when we are not using it, bringing color to that part of the farm.  I painted it to honor our cantakerous rooster "Sheriff Roy" who served our hens well and protected them for five years.  RIP Roy.  Again, the green and purple.  The purple doesn't show well in the picture, but the black Australorp rooster looked purple when the sun was streaming in.  The holes in the corn hole boards were made removable by screwing a paint stick to the hole cover and screwing the paint stick to the back of the board.