Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day!

 

 



This morning when going out to warm the truck this is what I was met by. It was so beautiful and so fitting for the day, so I am taking this moment to recognize all those that have made the ultimate sacrifice to allow us all to have the freedom to do what we please. I believe that we tend to forget as a Nation what people have done to keep our Nation free and that saddens me so. Take a moment today to remember those people .

Thank you!

 

Busy week here on the farm!

 

I'm starting to believe that no matter how much I would like to sit on my bum and relaxe that it will just not happen.

 

 

On Thursday I went out to "The Matthews Living Farm Museum" , to help with their old timey day in the garden area. Local schools came out to see what it would be like to have to live in the 1900's. It was fun, but I was so tired by the end of the day, oh yes and sunburned. I had no idea that it was going to be that sunny, note to self put on sunscreen no matter what!

 

 

A friend had called us about a woman who wanted a shed torn down, so we jumped all over it! We haven't had the money to get the lumber needed for the milking shed or the Blacksmith shop for my husband, so with a little hard work, we should have enough to do one or the other. I'm so excited to have this lumber.

 

 

Since it is a Holiday weekend there are so many yard sales happening, so we took advantage of that and bought some glass to do some more feeders. I have a whole lot of glass cutting to do, but I really can't wait to get them together, it has been a fun medium to work in. All about recycle reuse!

 

 

Anyone who has been following this Blog has learned of my love for glass and ceramic chickens, well a friend found me this weekend the pepper shaker and just yesterday I found the matching sugar bowl and creamer! I'm on the hunt for the salt shaker. Plus I found the stack able tins in the background. Just a great color so I felt the need to have it.

 

The never ending addiction to Pyrex and Fire King glassware!

 

Ms. Ayla has started to collect glass and ceramic birds. She found this owl and feel in love, I'm not telling her that it is a Whiskey decanter.

So this weekend we found a lot of little treasures as a family.

 

The Garden!

 

Cranberry Acre is full of life this Spring!

The Orchard is filling out nicely and all the fruit tress but one pear tree, is full of fruit. I'm so excited on how it looks.

Our garden is also growing nicely. The potato patch is very full and very green. My tomatoes did not do well at all so I had to buy some plants from a friend at Wagon Wheel Farm, to replace my patch. They grow such lovely plants there at their farm.

My peas and beans are poking their heads out of the ground also!

Good healthy looking plants!

We have a new tenant in the Orchard area, a Mourning Dove couple. They are the funniest birds to watch. They try to land on the same spot together and end up pushing one off the fence. The bird bath has become their favorite hang out but they never seem to land just right. They are a clumsy little pair of birds, but are very cute.

 

The Farm!

 

The babies are a growing! I can't believe everyone is getting their big girl feathers, it just seems so soon. I forgot how fast they grow up.

Chocolate is just so cute with her big girl feathers and seems to be developing ear tuffs!

Ms. Coal with her picture of the day shot! She was trying to figure out what I was doing without getting to close. She just couldn't handle it and had to investigate me and the camera. She has turned out to be the boss in the relationship of these two. If Coal does not go Copper will not go either.

 

 

Ms. Copper, she has turned out to be a calm and quite little chicken. That is, until you go to pick her up. She then turns into a wild animal, but calms down after being picked up and rocked like a baby. It just so funny how each personality starts to grow from awkward chick to confident chicken!

 

 

Silver did not go for our morning stroll, but Ms. Red did! To my surprise she walked around with me while I was in the pasture. She has started to hang out with the chickens more and not with the Three Stooges, maybe she has figured out that she is a chicken!

 

 

I looked out this morning from my kitchen window and did not see a goat on the goat house, but a chicken. I guess Ms. Silver wanted to know what all the Hub Bub was about being on top of the house. She has watched the goats for the past few weeks fighting over this spot, so I guess she thought it was her turn.

 

Lazy, lazy goats! The goats have a new sleeping area which happens to be the new fence line and the gate. When you try to get into the pasture usually you have to push a goat with the gate . This time it was Luther who got the ride with the gate.

 

Ms. Griffin seems to still love her spot under the dryer vent.

 

To my surprise we have a nest! I do not know if they are fertile, but Larry and Curly are both laying eggs here, instead of leaving them around the pasture. I guess we will see.

 

Larry and Curly

 

Last Fall "The Matthews Living Farm Museum", gave me some of the Sage from the garden and this year it gave me these pretty flowers. I have never seen Sage bloom and was excited to see it. The humming birds have just found it's flowers also and they seem to like it.

 

The Look!

Has anyone ever got that from your cat? Mr. Bayne while I was taking pictures of the flowers was head bumping my leg, I was ignoring him until after I was done, so I got "The Look". Cats are great for this. He has become a master at The Look.

 

I leave the Blog with our matriarch Ms. Silver sunbathing this morning!

I still say life as a Cranberry Acre chicken is the life!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no goats on my stairs!!!!

The day is finally here!

 



 

We have had a pretty productive week, yet again at Cranberry Acre. I didn't think, do to time, that we would get this fence moved until Fall, but here it is in the back of my Suburban!

If you remember I have battling the goats on my back stairs.

 

( Winter )

 

Bringing in wood, putting clothes on the line or just trying to simply get out the door!

 

The idea for the fence was to split the back yard into two fields. A Spring and Summer one, then a Fall to Winter field, but we wanted to be able to have the goats go in the barn if they needed to. The solution was to try and make a swing gate to separate the fields at the door of our barn.

 

My husband, Wayne marked all the areas that the poles were going with spray paint X's and measured out our new perimeter. I was so excited!

 

 

He then started digging out each hole and setting them with concrete.

 

This is the swing gate that will separate each field and still allow the animals back in the barn when they need to be. We had to purchase a gate, but we reused most everything else from the old fence line.

My fence is away from my stairs and we have reclaimed some yard back on the side of the house. My husband decided to go ahead and buy an extra gate, so we would have doors for each field. I'm so happy, no more goat Poo on the stairs! The goats.....Well not so happy, it was their sun bathing stairs, so they were not so happy the first morning and we did hear about it.

 

After my first day at the Market I needed new supplies, so I went and had a me day on Monday. I went junking! It was so much fun and I found so much.

I love Junking!

Now I'm having to find time to turn all of this into Bird feeders, but I have gotten almost all of it drilled and ready to go.

 

The babies. these are Wyatt's little babies, Spot and Tiger. They were so cute, but just couldn't stay still. They were jumping and fluttering around in his lap. He told me, "It's Frustrating they just don't listen!" I could only laugh, he knows how I feel as a Mom!

 

Now Ayls's babies, Fudge and Chocolate, they are a different story. They sit in her lap and just fall asleep. Chocolate has started to sleep on her side. I have never seen a chick do that every single time she goes to sleep. We will have to get her a blanket and a bed if she keeps this up.

 

On Sunday Coal and Copper, got to play in the pasture with the big girls. They were good, but the Stooges were not impressed with the strangers and would run up to them with the feathers fluffed out. Coal would just sit there while Copper would look for the cage. I eventually let the girls into the chicken yard so they could play, but keep a safe distance from the Stooges.

 

My husband and I moved the old Guinea house out into the pasture. For awhile the goats could not get up on top until my husband put a stump behind it so they could jump on it. They fight all day to see who will get the honor of standing up there.This time it was their victory!

 

The other stumps, Wayne decided to make a new picnic table with chairs. He used the top off of an old picnic table and attached it to the the larger stump. I am now on the hunt for foam so I can make comfy stools out of the other four. Can't wait to get this done.

 

My Gala trees survived and we have fruit, lots of fruit. It was so nice to see after all those low temps we were getting.

Our Peach tree also looks like it will be giving us fruit this year also. Hopefully this year that crazy rot will not happen, that seemed to hit everyone in this area, because I want Peach Butter this year. I'm down to my last jar. The rest of the garden is doing okay. We had some surprising low temps these past few days and I think we may have gotten some frost. My tomatoes look yucky, but I will see if the bounce back, but everything else looks good.

 

 

Of course I was in the sewing room. Have gotten a lot done and will be posting some new stuff on my Etsy store.

If you live around the area swing by the Farmer's Market in Independence, would love to sit and chit, chat with you, plus all the local goods are amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Babies in the house!!!!

A House Full of Chirps!

 

It has been a fun full week. I was pretty busy getting ready for the opening dat at the Farmer's Market in Independence. One day sewing and the next re purposing objects!

Our new bird feeders!!! These have been so much fun to make and they were a hit at the Market! I will have some of these up for sale on my Etsy store very soon.

 



Also last week we were waiting for our new babies to arrive. Seemed like Thursday would never come, but it did and now we have 10 new babies. In this group we have 4 new pets, the kids and I have agreed on naming the other chicks, Dinner 1 thru 6!

Ms. Ayla watching TV with here new chick "Chocolate", yes I said Chocolate and her other chick is Fudge!

When getting ready for Market, I started the Dryer so clothes would be ready to fold when I got home. Ms. Griffin LOVES the dryer, because she gets her morning facial that way. She will stand under the vent until it stops making sure she gets every side of her face. One very silly goat!

At the Market on Friday I came home with the much anticipated Silky chicks from a friend at the market. Wyatt has been missing his Silky chick since she passed last Fall and just could not wait to receive one again. It was an emotional thing for him. He now is the proud owner of Copper the Silky chick!

Ayla kept changing Charcoal's name every chance she could get, but it has stayed Charcoal( Coal for short ), for at least a day, so we are good!

My laundry room has become a nursery again, filled with little chirps and squeaks, I love it!

I do not know who it is, but one of the Stooges ( Curly or Larry ), is laying eggs. Only problem is she is laying it where ever she wants, so I do not think they are fertile, so I am air drying them due to their neat shape, I kinda like them.

 

Couldn't help myself and on Saturday I ran out to the Goodwill and found some new glass to play with!!!! These are going to be so pretty!

 

On Mother's Day my children presented me with this pretty sculpture from Willow Tree. I love these sculptures a lot. Wayne said the kids picked it and paid for it themselves, it is called "Grateful". I will say, yes I did tear up!

The new babies yesterday got to meet some of the flock. Ms. Red was very interested in them and would cluck at them and lay near them. I think she wants to be a mother. Later on this day lets just say the goats wanted a better look and let them out of the cage! I had to clothes pins on the door. JoJo and Griffin pinched them open and let the babies out. Copper and Coal were fine and the flock loved them. We were able by the end of the night to get them back in he cage, to go back to the nursery.

Ms. Ayla on Mother's Day, decided to get up with me in the morning to help me plant tomatoes and pull weeds from the garden. It was a long morning but we have the plants in and the garden weeded before we get this rain this week. I am so trying to be ahead of the weeds this year. We will see!

Our radishes are up, okra is also coming up and the kale has started to poke it's head out of the ground. I even saw some corn trying to get out, everything seems to be quit happy in the garden. We will be planting cucumbers and squash in the next week or two. Everything seems to be good.

 

Life as a chicken!

Ms. Silver laid out all day, like a lady at the Beach. she had a buddy,

 

Red would join if the Stooges wouldn't come over to step on her. These two just laid around all day, to be a pet chicken on Cranberry Acre is a wonderful life!

As I said it was a busy week here on Cranberry Acre and will be again this week.