Goats and kittens

I love our little farm. We recently added three new members to our family, all within the past week actually, and while I was nervous at first it has actually been a lot of fun.

Our new additions include two squirrelly kittens and a sweet tempered goat. The kittens are sisters and have been a huge comfort to my three year old son, Lincoln, who broke his collar bone a week before. He has suffered a lot of hurt from the fracture, but he won’t take medicine so it’s been a painful healing process.

Thankfully he is feeling much better now, but at the time he was acting out with lots of tantrums and a constant attitude. We really had to reign in our parenting, and stayed home a lot so that we could at least give him the comforts of a steady home environment. The doctors said it would take a couple of months for him to be somewhat healed up, and six months for him to be back to a hundred percent. Right now we are about at the two month mark and thank God he is finally back to his spunky self.

Our other new member of the family is a very kind goat that we have named Blue, courtesy of Lincoln. Blue was given to us by my uncle and aunt who own a larger farm where they raise goats on a regular basis. My father-in-law gave us our original goat, Dandy, when we first moved to our farmhouse so the kids would have an animal to play with, but he has always been lonely. I have been on a mission to find him a friend, and finally my aunt was able to get us a friendly wether, who has been a great match-up with our billy. Both of our kids love to help feed the goats and watch them run and play. Having animals is a lot of work, but it definitely helps teach children (and adults for that matter) responsibility and how to care for God's creation.

The persimmons are falling! And 10 other things I love about fall!

From the crispness of autumn to the crystals of winter, the birth of spring to the embrace of summer - each interval of time delivers a climate that stays just long enough in Indiana to make us ready for the next season ahead. As for fall, here is what I am looking forward to:

1. Planting my new perennials and cleaning up existing flower beds, tucking my seedling babies in for a long winters nap. This includes a load of mulch to fill in any gaps that have weathered away in my beds, cutting back plants that are preparing to hibernate, and buying a bale of straw to throw loosely over tender plants that need an extra cushion against winter's bite. 

2. Stocking up. Its not that I hate winter, but I relish spending those cold days snuggled up here in my home with my children and our pets (and my husband when he is able to be home from work), and the fewer trips I can make into town the better! Some of the things we stock up on are straw for the barns, particularly for our pet goat Dandy to make his bed, firewood for our wood stove, freezer bags full of processed vegetables from our garden, and a few shelves of canned pickles, pasta sauce, jelly, and salsa. 

3. The first wisps of wood smoke in the air. I have heard it said that your sense of smell is more closely linked to memories than any other sense and I would have to agree. One of my own earliest memories as a child is taking in breaths of smoke tinged air while I stood out in a snow covered yard.

4. The smell of dried leaves, and the crunching sound  they make.

5. Perfect weather and perfect skies. What is it about fall that makes the sky so blue, the clouds so puffy, and the air so fresh? The newly cool weather is always such a relief from sultry summer days.

6. Camping and Camp fires. We love to take the time and visit local state parks and camp if we are able. We also have a permanent fire pit in our back yard that we use when family come to visit or for ourselves to enjoy,

7. Harvest. Here at our small farm we are surrounded by fields owned by other families. I love watching the soy beans and corn stalks turn yellow and then dry out. My son, Lincoln, looks forward to all the tractors that travel the road in front of our house, and then finally getting to see the equipment up close when the fields next to us are cut and gathered.

8. Festivals. One of my favorites is the Feast of the Hunter’s Moon in Lafayette, IN. The food there is amazing. I also enjoy a renaissance festival close to Cincinnati, OH, and lots of local events in my town that pop up seasonally.

9. Getting the kids back into their activities. It’s this time of year where our schedule starts revving up again after a summer spent swimming, playing at the park, and keeping up with play dates. Right now we do MOP’s and gymnastics, while also trying to drop in for time at the library or open gym to keep the kids busy.

10. Decorating. This year we grew our own decorative gourds which was great! I’d put on TV Charlie Brown and The Great Pumpkin or Garfield's Halloween, and then I’d sit and carve/paint my gourds. It’s such a fun project; I’ll have to do a post about the details soon. The rest of my decor I store in large totes that get pulled out every September, and it’s always a lot of fun re-discovering what I have.

Happy Fall!

Raising Kids and Persimmons

Two years ago, my husband Adam, our son Lincoln, and myself moved from a small house in town to a large farmhouse in the country closer to where we grew up and to our parents who both still lived in the area.  It had a beautiful old persimmon tree in the front yard, just like the one I used to climb growing up.  The house needed a lot of work being not quite a hundred years old, but we knew we were just the people to do it.  I had visions of jumping right into the renovations, of converting the outbuildings into amazing workshops, of starting a greenhouse and raising small farm animals - but then life happened.  I got pregnant with baby two, the mortgage bill started showing up right on time the middle of every month, and Adam's business picked up keeping him away from home six days a week, twelve hours a day.  Needless to say, we do not have very much done at this point.  And unfortunately, we do not even have the persimmon tree anymore.  It blew over in a storm six months after we moved.

Sometimes, all of this craziness is overwhelming.  Two rooms, complete with bathrooms, are completely gutted and unusable.  My husband's business is a source of constant clutter sneakily creeping into our garage and house.  And the kids who are almost three and one are by nature human tornadoes.  Now throw all of that at an organized, obsessive control freak {me} and you could have an immediate cardiac arrest on your hands without the power of prayer being used on a daily basis.  

I have had to adjust, and when I get frustrated at living in home that is always "Construction in Progress" I have to remind myself this is the life we wanted!  The most important aspect of our lives is that we have a beautiful budding family which is such a blessing and is definitely more than just "enough" - it is everything. 

Anyways, I decided to start this blog to share with you our stories of living in constant state of disarray.  I hope you enjoy it, and I so appreciate you taking some of your precious time to spend it with me.