Mother Hen

Well, the chicken house is finished enough for the little darlings to start staying outside. Now, I know this is better for them. They were starting to outgrow their brooder. But I'm still freaking out a little. I know they are going to be safe inside their coop. Doors will be locked to keep out predators and they will cuddle together to stay warm, but I'm still worried.

What if a big storm comes and knocks the coop over. Or maybe lightning strikes and sets the whole thing on fire. Ok, probably not going to happen, but it's their first night outside.

I'll update tomorrow on tonight.

Thanks for reading,
Melissa

Internet and Pictures!

We finally got internet here at the house and I gotta say it has been a relief. Not only can I get the news and the weather updates(which is good considering the devastation that has been going on in TN) but I can also research more about the adorable chickens and make sure I don't kill them.

Aren't they just too cute. In two weeks I would say they have more than doubled in size. We have let them outside a few times to try and harden them up and when the nights get a little warmer we will be able to put them outside permanently! I'm told that after having chickens for several years, that the cuteness will become irrelevant, we'll see.

I mentioned before that I had lots of pictures to share and I do. Some of them are relevant to the farm and some are just for fun.

Isn't this neat?! I had just gotten out of the shower and was trying to make sure I didn't drip on anything that wasn't supposed to get wet when I noticed this. How cool! A heart in my footprint.

We planted a total of maybe 12 rosebushes early this spring. In lots of different colors too. White, pink, red, blue, purple, and yellow. This is the fist bloom!

I've posted pictures of fire here on the blog before. And I'm going to do it again. Maybe I'm a pyromaniac and don't know it. These pictures were a result of us burning off some of the rubber from the wire we had collected. I had seen different colors of flame before but never so many all in the same fire.

                                                    Just another picture of the pretty flames.

And another.

Just one more.

Ok, last one. Promise.

This year is a very important year for Middle Tennessee. 13 years ago the cicadas came. And this year they are coming back. The closest I ever came to a cicada was seeing the shells stuck on the trees. I mean, 13 years ago, not only was I not in middle TN but I was 12 year old. Bugs were gross.

While I'm still not too terribly fond of them. I'm also not 12 years old anymore and I can see them for their usefulness and yes, sometimes for their beauty. 

I cannot take credit for these pictures. The Farmer took them. They are his. I was sitting in the living room, reading when he came rushing inside and then back outside saying over his shoulder, photo op. Well, ok. Then he came back in and showed me this picture. It begins.

 A few hours later. It's kinda cool.

 The next day. Isn't it pretty? The new one, not the shell.

Our garden has started. We've had so much rain though, I think our peas have rotted. We'll have to replant them.

We didn't plant this tomato plant from seed because we are impatient for fresh tomatoes.

And here is our first one!

The lettuce is coming up nicely even with the weeds that we haven't pick because we haven't had a dry day in ages.

This is only a few of the potato plants, but they are coming up great. I'm so excited!

We also have carrots, beets, and three kinds of peppers. We have a whole box of seed packets that we have yet to plant. We just haven't had a chance, but hopefully if it stays dry we can get some more plants planted. It's still kinda hectic around here. We are living here but we are sleeping on an air mattress in our closet. We don't have a washer/dryer, so every week the Farmer has to go to the apartment after work and wash clothes. But it'll get better. 

He did bring most of my baking supplies to the house for me so I can start baking again! I love it and I've missed it. I'll even do tutorials!

For the rest of the day I'm going to paint the master bedroom. Once it's done then we will move on to the guest room. Then we'll carpet! 

Thanks for reading!

Melissa

Revelation

A few days ago I found out that I had become dependent on the internet. Not for work or anything but just addicted to browsing. How did I find this out?

We moved.

That's right. We moved into our house and left a lot of things behind at the apartment. For now. Things like my computer. And of course, for once, I had my camera and was taking pictures of everything. These wonderful pictures will come into the next post.

So, posts might be few and far between for a week or two until we get internet connections set up. Since we are so far out in the country we are going to have to go satellite, which is new for both of us.

For now, I will post when we visit the apartment to pack up boxes. They might be a bit on the short side and I apologize for that but I will try to make as frequent and as jam packed of news as I can.

In the meantime I will leave you will the most exciting news of the month: we got chickens!!

Nine of them to be exact. Three Plymouth Rocks and six Rhode Island Reds.

So cute! We bought them as pullets so we can get eggs faster. We should be able to put them outside in a few weeks.


Well, back to the house!

Thanks for reading,
Melissa

Pictures!

Most of the blogs I read on a daily basis have one thing in common. They all use lots of pictures. I'm so jealous sometimes and then I feel guilty and then determined. So, here are a backlog of pictures I have been meaning to show you.

We finally painted the master closet! Yay!! Now we have to finish dry-walling the master bedroom and guest room, then we can paint those and put carpet down.

We also began tiling the bathroom. It is fairly simple except for the fancy tile. But it's purty.

Just a closeup of the fancy tile. I thought it looked like a four-leaf clover. Maybe it'll bring us luck.

We are also putting in sub floor heating! That's going to be fantastic come this winter. Now to the outside.

 My white crocus!

And my purple crocus. We also had some yellow ones come up but I forgot to take pictures of them.

 This is my tulip and daffodil garden. We planted them late and so I wasn't sure any would come up this year. But they did!

Just a close up. My tulips have all disappeared now but the daffodils are still going strong.

 My first strawberry!

Same strawberry but a little more ripe. I was going to post another picture of the fully ripe strawberry and me eating it but the bugs got to it before I could :(

I will end today with a very cute woolly caterpillar. Isn't it adorable? I thought so.

Old and New

I've always admired people who can stick with things. Not just going to work day in and day out (I'm a stay at home wife) but with their hobbies as well.

For instance: bloggers.  I thought it would be easy to start a blog. I read several of them daily and they update almost everyday. Surely I could do it to. What I didn't see is the time it takes to take the pictures, work with them, write the blog, try to make it readable and fun, edit it, edit again and then I add an extra step and check my stats like a madman and fret because nobody is reading this yet. I am writing for future readers. It takes a lot of work. Lesson learned.

The Farmer told me that nobody would ever read it if I didn't write it. And he's right. Same goes for my novel. Procrastination is, I think, one of the hardest habits to break. But I'm going to try.

Blogs are supposed to be about our lives and our interests. An online diary. Keeping a diary never worked for me, I usually lost interest. I'm going to work hard to see that the same doesn't happen here.

So, this blog will be a little bit of history, maybe a little boring but hopefully not too bad.

When the Farmer and I met I was working at Books-A-Million as a barista. I worked with his sister Jessica and told her one day after he came in that her brother was hot. I'm not going to tell you about our initial meeting yet, maybe one day. It's one of his favorite stories though so if he hijacks my blog again you may get to hear it.

Anyways, Jessica loved the idea of her brother and I together. Long story short, he came to my apartment to put a new lock on my door ( didn't trust one of my roommates) and he brought the movie Titus to watch. Have you seen Titus? Not everyone's idea of a first movie for a couple to watch. I loved it though. He asked me out, I said yes and a few years later we decide to get married.

Neither of us wanted to waste money on a big wedding. So, we went to the courthouse, paid $95 for the license and said our vows with my friend Vanessa taking pictures.

It was so nice not to have to deal with all the chaos and stress in dealing with a "real" wedding.

So, we got married, then he got a promotion and we moved to an apartment in the Nashville,TN area. And now we've bought a house and I started a blog about my life out in the country and the work on our house, which will continue next blog.

Now, a month or two ago my little brother sent me a text message informing me that I was to become an aunt. Not really a big deal. Everyone loves his girlfriend. Sam is fantastic and very good for him. They might be a little young but at least they aren't still in high school.

The family began making noises about how they weren't married. The Farmer and I talked about it and concluded that Nick and Sam didn't have enough money to have a big wedding. So, we told them that if they would do what we did, elope to the courthouse, we would pay for it.

They thought about it for a few days and then accepted our offer.

It wasn't really eloping since they invited the family and it was a little more stressful but it was beautiful. And now my brother is married. What a weird thought. I will definitely be posting pictures when the baby comes in early August.

So, that's a little bit of my history and now I can talk more about my family without you getting confused. New pictures of the house are coming Wednesday along with a much overdue update.

Thanks for reading,
Melissa

Kinda Lame

So, I didn't update Wednesday... or Thursday. Why? Because there isn't much going on. I wanted to post pretty pictures of completely finished rooms and flowers all around the yard but there is a problem or two.

1. We don't have any finished rooms. We have three rooms that are drywalled and partially mudded, but those pictures are actually really boring. But we are hard at work on the bathroom now. The floor has been taken up and now all we have to do is put it back down and connect all the plumbing. We are looking to move in around mid April.

2.Only a few of my flowers have bloomed. And I keep forgetting to take pictures of them. I am working on having my camera with me at all times but it is a harder habit to develop that I'd anticipated. But when they do bloom, I promise you that you will get tired of all the pictures of flowers.

Back at the apartment I haven't been doing a whole lot. I like being lazy occasionally. Playing Final Fantasy and eating bad food. My lifestyle is about to change drastically in a few months and so I'm enjoying my last chance to be the irresponsible and lazy young adult.

I did put in an order at Brambleberry though. It is my favorite place to buy soap-making materials. I am going to try my hand at making liquid soap very soon and I want to do lots of research first. I am also going to make some soaps for a baby shower I'm going to in June. My brother's fiancee is having a little girl and Brambleberry has onesie molds that are going to be so cute decked out in pick with lots of glitter.

Truthfully, not much else has been going on. Short post I know, but hopefully I'll have more later. We are going back out to the house tonight when the Farmer gets off work so hopefully I'll remember to cart around my camera and have some pictures when I get back.

Thanks,
Melissa

Updates

My morning tea, well at least this morning: chamomile and mint in my favorite tea mug. I usually save the chamomile for my night tea but I since I have been sick, I drink it when I feel the need to.

When I say sick, I don't mean anything serious. Just a little cold that the Farmer brought home from work. He got sick and thought up some ridiculous ideas like not kissing me so that I wouldn't pick it up.

It didn't work. Not because it wasn't a good idea but because I can't not (great english i know) kiss him. I considered it worth the risk. And then I got sick too.

Like I said, it wasn't bad. The sniffles, coughing, and a headache. I'm just a big baby when I come down with something so I didn't feel like posting a blog. But I'm on the mend now and I will try to catch you up.

The store delivered my tub!

Wonderful, big, fantastic tub that it is! Right now it is sitting in the living room because the bathroom is not yet ready. Not yet but soon. They also delivered some drywall and with it we finished the spare room.

So, now the master closet, master bedroom and spare bedroom are all drywalled!

We also splurged again.

You see, the Farmer wants a garden. I want a garden. I want to make homemade spaghetti sauce, and marinara sauce, salsa, pickles, and soups with the best ingredients. So, we needed a garden.

But our land had never been tilled. And we live in Tennessee. There's a reason the favorite song is Rocky Top. The Farmer attempted to dig the garden with a shovel but there were so many rocks...and big big roots. So, he decided we needed a tiller.

We looked around and realized that this was going to be a big expense. So, if we were going to spend the money anyways we might as well get a good one. So, we did. And it hurt.

But seeing the ground almost ready for the seeds to be planted just two hours later didn't hurt. It felt wonderful. So, it was a good splurge.

We also planted lots of flowers. I can't wait til they all bloom!

Back at the apartment the Farmer informed me that we were running low on laundry detergent. So, we made some more. Yes, we made some.

When I realized a few years ago that I was going to be living in the country one day I started reading blogs, just to get a feel for what I was getting into. One of my favorites made her own laundry soap which was cool and all, but I didn't need to learn to do that. The stuff in the store worked just fine.

Then, quite recently, I just got on this kick of seeing what all I could do. I think it happened when we moved and I wasn't in school and wasn't working. I was bored, so I learned how to make laundry soap.

It has saved us so much money. All we need is a soap(we use Fels Naptha), borax, washing soda, and water. It's that easy. I doubt we will ever buy laundry detergent from the store again.

We also need to make another batch of soap to wash our bodies with soon. When we do, I will post pictures.

We are off to the house tonight so hopefully I will have some cool stuff to talk about Wednesday!

Thanks for reading
Melissa