Fall at the Farm

Just a few pictures of the farm this fall! I meant to get out and get some a couple weeks ago when the leaves were all shades of orange, red, yellow... Now they're mostly muted variances of brown. Ah well. It's still lovely seeing the trees dressing for winter. Or is that undressing? Oh my!

I hope you enjoy the view of a different season here at Moose Spitt Farm!

Here are our big boys, Sky and Sarge, just relaxing in the field! I'm glad I took these pictures when I did, as a mere five minutes later found Sarge fallen over on his side and nearly invisible! Silly boys!

A view of our neighbor's silo and our windmill. We're planning on cleaning up the windmill and seeing if any of the equipment attached to it can be made to work again! If not, just having a windmill turning will be lovely to see!

Poor little Liberty is so cold! It's too chilly for her short fur coat! So out come the doggy sweaters and sweatshirts!

And now the Twins! Here is lil Pip! She has become my little sidekick whenever I'm outside doing chores or, like today, taking pictures or just relaxing! Such a sweetie!

And her sister, Cookie. This is how she usually looks! Lol She is a very vocal little kitten! Just like her mama!

The view across the street. Rather large cornfield cut down for winter. And my swing. A wonderful place to sit with a glass of ice tea in the summer or a mug of warm cocoa in the cooler months!

Two of our eight chickens. Started out with twelve eggs, only ten of which hatched. Somehow something managed to get hold of two and they disappeared. Without a trace! No feathers, no bodies. Nothing. Maybe they eloped and ran away together? Who knows. It's butcherin' time though! Yum!

One of our roosters. They are huuuuuge!!! I kid you not when I say that this guy's legs (the orange part, mind you!) are almost 1 1/2 inches in diameter!!! But they're all very friendly. Not cuddly. Just... polite.

If you look very closely, you can see four of our chickens waaaaaay out in our neighbor's field. They have quite the grazing range here! Thankfully, our neighbor enjoys their wanderings and does not run any livestock in his fields and so is fine with them making their way out that far!

And that, friends, is our farm right now! We have recently begun the process of clearing a space next to the barn for a chicken house lean-to. We also have plans in the works for a run-in shelter for the horses. We hope to have that up before the first snowfall. And we finally have a definite "yes" on the hay we're going to need this winter! That is a huge relief!

Are you ready for the upcoming holidays? We are very anxious to spend our first Christmas in our new home! Next blog post will be about our holiday plans. What are you planning?

Our Pets

Just thought I'd dedicate a post to introducing some of our pets and livestock here on Moose Spitt Farm!  We have only a few animals now.  We hope to expand in the future but with the drought this year, we're really glad this is all we have to worry about this winter!  So, without further ado, here are the other inhabitants of MSF! (Warning!  Picture heavy!)
I suppose we can go in the order in which they've become part of our farm!

 Here is my Sky-boy.  He's a Tennessee Walking horse.  He's nine years old and full of personality!  He's a real jokester!

Sky-boy in the winter.

Here's Sky's new pasture buddy, Sarge!  He turned one year old this July.  He's a real sweetheart!  He'll begin riding training sometime next year.  Very exciting!

Sarge laying down, just chillin' on a hot day.

My daughter's early bday present, Octavius!  He's a Lionhead rabbit and just the sweetest little bunny ever!

Our new kittens we received from my sister's kitty's first litter!  This one is Pip.  She's very inquisitive and very bold!  I think she'll be a great mouser as she gets older!  She loves hunting the bugs and mock-hunting her sister and the chickens!

And this sleepy baby is Cookie!  She's a little more reserved but enjoys cuddling and falling asleep in one's lap.  Aw!

 And our chickens.  They were a hatching project through the local extension office.  Some kind of meat bird.  I think they are called "Rich's Meat Bird" or something like that.  Anyway, they are a strange looking set of chicks.  And they have grown very quickly!  Here they are at two weeks old.

                                          

Smile, chicky!

All of the animals seem to be getting along quite well!

I said at the first that I would list them in order of arrival but I couldn't resist holding this picture til last.  Here are our puppy dogs.  Zorro is a large mix breed.  Liberty is a Miniature Pinscher.  They are really great dogs!  We had an issue at first as our neighbor feeds his cats on his back porch and Zorro found their food!  But after some boundary training, he seems to be doing better at recognizing where he may and may not go.  Good boy!!!

And there you have it!  Our little farm, thus far.  We have plans to expand next year.  A milk cow, some laying hens, perhaps a pig...  We'll see what the next year brings!  Thanks for visiting!

A little horsey silliness in the rain!

New Look for the Dining Room!

Ever since first walking through this house, I've been thinking/planning/dreaming of what I would do with the dining room.  It's dark walls, dark ceiling, heavy light fixture, and unfinished trim were all quite depressing to look at!  With our large and somewhat (ok, insanely) heavy dining table, we really needed to lighten the room up aesthetically!
Here is a before photo:

So I went online to search for "dining room makeover" ideas.  I found many images of rooms I liked but was having trouble finding "just the right one".  There were many with great ideas in them but I didn't like the whole of the room or didn't think it would work in the room we had.  I finally settled on choosing a light blue wall color with white ceiling and trim.  Most of the woodwork in the house is natural wood or sealed with a clear varnish so the natural colors come through.  The kitchen, however, is all white trim with white doors.  The dining room trim is horrible.  I mean, like this is the bottom-of-the-barrel type trim.  Very rough, very unfinished.  And this girl had absolutely no plans on taking the trim back down, sanding it completely, and then staining/varnishing.  That was way too much work!  At least two of the pieces I don't think would have sanded well, anyway.  I would have sanded and sanded and had nothing left!  So white trim, it would be.  We also have a lovely teal buffet table that I received from my mother years ago that I planned to place in the dining room.  So there would definitely be teal accents.  And I love, adore, greatly admire the color orange, so there would be touches and splashes of that color, as well!
A picture of the room during painting:

The floor is an interesting case.  All of the floors in our house have either been rough-sanded (to remove loose paint and debris) or refinished or, in the case of one unsalvageable floor, replaced entirely.  Except for the dining room, for some reason.  It was painted brown at some point in its history, as well as perhaps pale blue or white.  I'm not entirely certain.  And there is a strange cut-out place in the middle.  And a weird rectangular spot that was never painted at all!  Very strange floor, to be sure!
So we sanded the repair patches on the ceiling and taped and plastered a huge space above one section of baseboard.  We removed (most of) the switch plates and socket covers.  We removed the boxes and all furniture except our table, which we covered with plastic.  And the painting commenced!
It took us nearly a week to get to where we are now, and that is not finished!  Between work, doctor visits, and life, we've only been able to work sporadically on the room.  But it is now usable and down to finishing touches!  Huzzah!!!
Here is where we are thus far:

The Husband suggested we dedicate the room to our Eow's memory.  And so, in one corner sits his favorite chair.  Once his favorite, fuzzy blanket is unpacked (I still have to find it!) that will be draped over the back of the chair.  And his collar and my favorite photo of him will be beautifully framed in a shadow box and hung on the wall next to it all.  It will be a sad reminder of what we have lost but also a beautiful tribute to the best little buddy I've ever known!
Eow's Corner, the shadow box is not complete yet:

So, that is where we are now with our dining room's mini-reno!  It's been real.  It's been fun.  And, at times, it's even been real fun!  The floor will eventually be painted brown, the ceiling will get a beautiful crystal chandelier, and the windows will be graced with lovely white sheers!  But for now, it is painted and very serviceable!  And that'll do for now.

Eow.... God, I Miss Him

 I also took advantage of his weakened state to give him a much needed bath. Poor guy. He just kept looking at me and meowing real low and pitiful as if to say, "Unfair, woman. So not cool." :P But it needed done. He smells stinky and can't clean himself, so someone's gotta do it! My poor baby. I broke down really bad in church yesterday. I know some would say "good thing it's just a pet." But, really, he's so much more to my heart. And my poor heart is just breaking seeing my sweet, cuddly baby like this. He's on meds for toxoplasmosis, as that's the only thing....

The above was written just a few days ago.  At the time, I was thinking maybe I shouldn't bother with a bath right now.  Maybe I should just leave him be so he can rest.  And now I am so glad that I spent that time with him.  That I took the time to bathe his body and snuggle with him after.  That I took that extra time out of my day to sit and love on my mow-mow.  Because he is gone now.  He just never got better.  The vet said he should've responded to the medicine days ago.  That he should already be back to his normal self.  Oh God! how I miss his normal self!  We took him yesterday to the vet to make the final determination as to whether more medical intervention was right or if it was time to say good-bye.  The evening before, Eow's breathing became labored.  His adorable little tongue was barely visible in between his lips.  But his eyes... Oh my God, his eyes.  They stare at me.  They bore into my soul.  It is my Eow, still alive and well inside this now worthless shell of a body.  I can see him asking me.  But asking what?  Normally his body language would assist.  He would meow in some way to let me know what he's thinking.  But, no.  This body refuses to cooperate.  Refuses to get well again.  And why?  Why???  I now believe, wholeheartedly, that it is better to know why.  And I do not.  And it torments me.  Was it something I unwittingly did?  Was it something we could have prevented?  Were there earlier warning signs that I didn't notice as we were hustling to move off-base and into our dream house?  Did I neglect my poor kitty cat?  Am I partially to blame???  This is what causes the tears to flow.  That and the horrid knowledge that I will never see my kitty again.  That I will never hold him or pet him or love on him again.  He will never ride on my shoulder, his weight making it difficult to complete my tasks but his happy purring making it worthwhile.  His beautiful, bright, green eyes will never again look into mine with that all-knowing spark that cats seem to have.  I didn't have to open my daughter's door this morning to let him out.  He had to sleep in her room as she sleeps like a rock.  And I don't.  So I will never hear him calling out from behind that door to let him out.  He'll never rub his adorable lion face into my hair or try to play with it when it is down.  I won't be tripping over him in the kitchen as he tries to race me to his food bowl.  I'll never see him hunkered down over that same bowl again, scarfing down his food.  Or come home and have him try to jump onto my shoulder, purring loudly, greeting me as though I'd been gone forever.  He is gone.  And my heart... is shattered.  My Eow is gone.

So it's been a while (think three months or so) since I've actually ridden my horse, Sky.  I know, I know.  That's not good, is it?  But circumstances and weather were not being exactly ride-friendly to this girl.  We had been boarding at a friend's house since I bought Sky last September.  I bought a new saddle and some other tack but hadn't found a saddle pad/blanket that I liked.  My friend was kind enough to loan one of hers when she wasn't using it.  It was great, as it was the perfect size and already broken in.  But when we moved Sky out to the new farm, the blanket couldn't come with us.  So I've been searching, staring, dreaming, wishing for a good saddle pad so we could resume riding.  Well, yesterday, I finally bought one.  It's a Weaver basic pad.  Nice and well-made but without any specialty or extra stuff.  Today, we tried it out.

And I must say, today's ride was a complete success!  

I was a little worried, as he doesn't do all that well after not working for a while. But he was a perfect gentleman. Well, right up to when I was ready to dismount! Then he started jigging a bit. But I walked him a bit more and he calmed down enough for me to call an end to our session. I also lunged him a bit before saddling him up. He did really well at that, also! What a smart boy! :) 
Another concern is his gaits.  You see, Sky is a Tennessee Walking horse.  He's supposed to be gaited.  He's supposed to have a nice, smooth running walk.  However, my boy?  Well, he likes to pace, instead.  And let me tell you, there is no other gait in the whole world that is worse to attempt to ride than a pacing one.  Ugh.  So I started researching ways to work with him to improve his running walk.  While searching for info, I stumbled across a neat little site that talked about things you can do to work with your walking horse to help smooth out their gait!  Little exercises, if you will.  One mentioned an old tried and true method of utilizing a hill.  And since our yard has a great hill, we were able to work on his gait a bit too. So we walked down the hill, nice and slow. At the bottom, we turned and then worked into a running walk back up. Lemme tell ya. If you've ever ridden a trotting horse or a horse that paces (shoot me now!!!), try out a gaited horse! Wowee!!!! I never realized how smooth Sky's walk really could be! *huuuuge grin* Looking forward to getting him sacked out a bit more so I can actually go places with him!  He's still a little twitchy.  But that's a story for another time!

Here's a picture of my boy after our ride!  You can see the sweat marks there.  He seemed very happy to be doing something.  But then he was also very happy to go back into his field and resume scarfing down everything in sight! ;)

Home Again, Home Again!

After an exhausting but exhilarating weekend at Locust Grove in Louisville, KY, for the Jane Austen Festival, it's good to finally be home!  The husband and I drove out to LG for the 5th annual JA fest.  We met with many friends we haven't seen in nearly a year and met some new people as well, all making for a wonderful, fun-filled weekend!  The husband hadn't met many of these people in person yet, as this was his first year at this event.  Before the weekend was over, however, he was already making plans for next year!  We were able to chat with some friends who attend War of 1812 type events and they encouraged the Husband to come out and "play" soon!  He is really looking forward to perhaps getting more involved in that era!  I think it's mainly because he has been promised a little play with the big cannons!
I had been working on our clothing for the event for the previous few weeks, and, let me tell you, I am more than glad that's all over!  Well, kind of over.  We have a few events left this year that I still need to get things together for so I guess I'm not done yet!  And I've vowed not to wait til the month of an event to begin working on items for said event again!  It's just so hard for me to work on something so far in advance.  It feels like I have so much time ahead of me, that working on something now will just waste time I could be doing something else.  But, I will not procrastinate this time!  No, I will begin work on things now so that I may take more time and end with even better results!
Here is a picture of the Husband and I at the ball!

We also added two new kittens to our farm yesterday, thanks to my sister!  Her kitty had kittens several weeks ago, and she doesn't want to keep all of them.  So we brought home two sisters from the litter!  Now our farm has two farm kitties to, hopefully, keep them vermin down to a minimum!  Well, when they get a little older!

Here's Pip!  She's the incredibly inquisitive one!  She greets the dogs with a hearty hiss, leaps off of the patio with glee, purrs like a little broken motor, and is generally an all-around fun kitty!

And a picture of Cookie!!  She is much more reserved than her sister.  She's a bit fearful of things still and would rather run and hide than try to take on anything!  But she loves her belly rubbed and will sidle up to you with a tiny click-noise (rather than a meow) and roll over as soon as you begin petting her!  Very sweet little thing!

As for the rest of the farm, everything seems to be going smoothly!  We hatched out ten of twelve eggs that we received through the local extension office's hatching program.  They're now outside in their new pen, scratching away in the grass!  They are some kind of hybrid meat bird.  I cannot now recall what breed the extension office told me they were.  They are very cute, though, as all baby chicks are!  We still have plans to order some Araucanas and some Rhode Island Red roosters, as well!  

This fall, we will begin work on our garden plot for next year.  We'll start out smaller and hopefully build on it each year, as we become more and more used to this farm life we've chosen!  Much work is planned on the outbuildings as well.  The children are all eager to get the summer kitchen fixed up and turned into a schoolhouse!  There are great plans in the works for that building, for sure!  And the Husband is really hoping to get our smokehouse back in shape and usable!  I'm just hoping to get the cellar beneath ready before next tornado season arrives!!!

With big plans and too much heat and humidity, we're not sure which plans will be achieved this year and which will be put on hold.  Please, Lord, let us receive some cooler weather!  And rain!  And soon!  But careful what we ask for, no?  All in good time, I suppose.  All in good time....

Closed and Moving In

We closed on our farm nearly 3 1/2 weeks ago!  The day after closing, I was on a weeklong trip to Florida with my mum.  In which time, my dear husband had to do the majority of the moving!  I figured he'd be full done by the time I returned home but no.  The dear, sweet man left plenty for me to "help" with!  We managed to spend the next week moving the last of the boxes and random items left in The Cave.  Then it was on to cleaning The Cave for our final inspection so we could clear out.  We managed to complete both tasks on time and pass inspection!  We followed the inspector back to the base housing office to turn in keys and sign off.  Huzzah!!!  And let me tell you, freedom from that cave of a house feels so good!!!
As to the new farm, we're still "moving in" as there are still many boxes left to be unpacked.  Unfortunately, I have to clean as we go as I wasn't here to deep clean the place before our items were moved in.  It's mostly fuzzballs and dust, dirty windows-type cleaning.  And then there are the fleas that keep popping up.  I wouldn't say it's an "infestation" at this point.  But we are definitely going to have to bomb the house.  Again.  The husband bombed it before moving our stuff in but I think they were just waiting in the yard.  So, we'll bomb the house and spray the yard.  Ah well.
The house is beginning to look like Home already, though!  As I sit on our sofa in the living room and look around, it seems as though our belongings have always been here.  The sunlight shining in through the large bay windows is a welcome sight after living for over a year in The Cave!  So much sunlight!!!  And sitting on the swing in the yard last evening, nestled comfortably against my husband's side, listening to the cicadas roar their evening song....  Perfection, if there is such a thing.
Our dogs are both outside puppies now.  And I think they'll love it... Once the weather cools down!  It's been over 100` every day for the last week!  Both of our horses are home now and enjoying an entire pasture all to themselves!  We'll hopefully be adding some chicks to our numbers sometime in the next month.  We have an incubator through the local extension office and will be picking up some fertilized eggs this week.  Hopefully all 12 will hatch and grow to a good fryer size!  They are, after all, a hybrid meat breed.  Yum!  We'll still need to order some laying breed chicks, as well as a rooster or two.  Very exciting!
That's the abbreviated version of what's going on out at Moose Spitt right now!  There is so much we want to accomplish but we really have to pace ourselves!  It would be way too easy to get in over our heads the first year when excitement and dreams are running high!
What are you doing with your property this year, be it country or in-town?