Glorious

We finally got a horse trailer for many purposes. It was starting to feel like a handicap having large animals and not having a way to transport them. I found a trailer at our local used tack store and went for it. The older gentleman who owned it had given it a new paint job to stop any further rust damage. The funny thing is that we got it home and parked it on the RV pad beside our garage and giggled as we noticed that the paint job matches that on our house, garage, chicken coop, and shed. Everything is white with blue trim so the new trailer fits right in.
This new trailer will allow us to transport either the horses or the alpacas. We will now be able to bring the alpacas to shows, take animals to the vet if we need to...and it allows us to take the horses out on trail rides. Since the two older boys just finished a week long horse riding camp, I decided today would be a good time to try out the new trailer. We had plans to leave as early as possible in order to beat some of the heat. I woke up early and started getting things ready.
The plan was that we would go to a local natural area called Bobcat Ridge and Dylan and I would ride the horses on the horse trail while the other's hiked with Ben on the pedestrian trail. We got everything loaded up in the truck and Ben asked me if I knew how to load the horses in the trailer. "Ummm...some horses just walk in when you ask them to..." (smile) So he ran across the street to our neighbor who has a lot of experience with horses. I felt a little relieved and presumed he would come over and help. I guess he was busy, so Ben came back relaying the message, "Didn't you guys practice trailering first?" We looked at each other and almost in stereo said' "This is our practice!"
Well the first attempts didn't work. Neither of the horses would go into that trailer, so Ben thought to grab some grain to lure them in. That worked like a charm and finally, at 10:00 am, we were off....all 8 of us on this unknown adventure. I will admit now that I was a little scared of the unknown. When it came to getting the horses out, my little gelding Tuff was scared and kind of fell out. I was shaking so much we had to walk a little bit together to calm each other down. Horses are extremely sensitive to their handlers feelings. If we are scared...they are scared, but Tuff and I are connected...so connected that when I asked Ben to hold onto him so that I could go to the restroom before riding he followed me. Ben finally handed me the lead rope and I tied him to the bike rack outside.
At last it was time to head out on our first trail ride alone with our own horses. We tacked them up...which means that we put on their bridal and saddle and we lead them out onto the trail. Ben strapped baby Gavyn into the Ergo baby carrier and headed out on his trail with River and Rohan.  We were alone with our horses and I had to act like I knew what the heck I was doing....while Dylan, fresh with horse camp information lovingly corrected me.
I have to say, once I got on that horse whom I love so much out in that glorious nature area I was in heaven.  I kept asking Dylan, "Isn't this amazing?!" I'm completely hooked on trail riding. It was so much fun getting to know Tuff's personality even deeper than I did before. He is so cute...on every hill he walks slowly down and then trots up the hill. Dylan's horse, Angel would do the opposite. She is a gaited horse so she does her walking gait down the hill and then walks up the hill. It was an absolutely glorious ride! There was nothing but gratitude flowing through my heart. I told Dylan what a blessing it is to be having this experience at any age.
The only glitch was near the end of the ride as we were heading back to where we began, we joined up with a group of teenage volunteers who had been working on another one of the trails with shovels and rakes in their hands and at the same time it started to rain. I think I decided to get Tuff to pick up the pace just enough to pass the people and somehow that backfired. Before I knew it both horses were galloping down the trail and completely ignoring our commands to stop. I saw that Dylan was still holding onto a small water bottle so I yelled to him to forget about it and hold on. When the horses decided they were out of danger they slowed down and stopped. Dylan told me he had dropped the water bottle and I told him to forget about it. I was not going to have him head back to whatever had caused the horses to get scared. He said, "I can't, it's Rohan's water bottle." What a sweet big brother! I turned around and called out to the volunteers that were passing the spot where it dropped and they brought it to us.
We made it back to the trailer in one piece and despite the fact that my legs were shaking after the galloping episode, we did a great job on our first ever trail ride. I was so impressed with how calm and level headed Dylan remained and how amazing he is with his horse at 7 years old.
Ben returned a few minutes after us and had not had as glorious a time as I had....he felt a lot more like he had given a horse ride to the two younger boys and was a little worn out.
I am eternally grateful for the glorious things that we are able to experience in our lives and to those who help make it possible. Thanks!!!

Time for Applesauce

A couple of our ancient heirloom apple trees are already dropping apples like mad. We actually took three wheelbarrow loads of fallen apples yesterday to the chickens. Our new area that we call the Secret Garden with the 20 by 10 foot sandbox was absolutely covered with fallen rotting apples. So we raked and scooped and wheeled them off to the chicken run for the chickens to eat. After we cleaned up the ground, we got the apple picking device that helps us reach up high into the trees and picked a couple boxes of apples. Then it was applesauce making time. The three boys and I got out the food processor and each had jobs in the process.... River took apples from the box and gave them to Rohan who was on the stool at the sink with a strainer and the water sprayer. He washed the apples and handed them to me, then I chopped them and put them into the food processor while Dylan got out jars and labeled them "apple 2012", while Gavyn crawled around on the floor eating apples. The food processor whirred and I sang. We make our applesauce raw in order to preserve all the nutrients. We just wash the apples, slice them with the apple slicer to check for bad spots and then put them into the food processor with a little cinnamon and usually lemon. These apples were actually so tart that I added a little fresh local honey. Then we put them in labeled jars and freeze them. It is such a treat to pull out one of the jars in the winter and know that we made this from our own apples. Hopefully next year we can use our own honey also. We have two beehives that Ben and the neighbor built themselves. Ben and Dylan went to a very holistic beekeeping class in early spring where they learned how to respect the bees and follow their natural rhythms, rather than using some of the conventional methods of smoking the bees out, stealing their honey in the fall and giving them fake sugar water for the winter. Ben even hosted a second beekeeping class at his office and went to help catch a wild swarm. So when the top bar beehives were ready it was time to add the bees. The first hive was filled with a wild swarm. The second was filled with a mail order of bees. The mail ordered bees came with a dead queen, so we had to get another one and keep her trapped for a while so they could smell her and not kill her. The wild swarm happily took up residence and started making combs immediately. Before long there were busy bees and we could see 5 combs in each hive. Then one day our neighbor came to take a look at them in the bee suit and told us that we had no queen in either hive. That simply wouldn't work because I can tell you myself bees, like boys, can not function without a queen. We researched any possible way of getting another queen and finally accepted that it wouldn't be possible this year. So we let our neighbor take the bees and add them to his hives. It was a sad day for us all. The boys had become attached to them. They would check every day and see what the bees were doing. We still have the hives and now we just have to wait until next spring to find some new swarms to add back to the hives. Our neighbor said he would let us share in the harvest when it comes time. For now we get our honey down the road a little ways from someone that sells it out of their house.

Photo Journal

Harvest time

Our cherries were abundant this year in early June

I think I just swallowed a pit!

Mocha: Our wonderful farm dog

New baby Althea at 6 hours old Sun June 3rd

Rohan and his love, Lily

Dylan and his love, Angel

Angel getting her mane braided

Loading Ben's truck with hay

The twins: Duke and Bud

Sweet Baby Gavyn

full moon over the pasture

Me and my new rooster

River and Bud. River loves everyone!

Car Decisions

This is a farm story which simply must be told. I will preface this by saying that my husband is not actually a used car salesman although he has so much trouble making decisions about vehicles that he really could be. It all started with this surprise fourth pregnancy. Everything was fine with vehicles until we realized that we were going to need to squeeze a fourth car seat into my old 1994 Lexus Landcruiser. We studied all of our possible choices, which of course was limited to the fact that it needed to fit all of us plus all of our things for a family car trip. The obvious, practical answer of course was a minivan....but no...we are NOT the minivan type!
When it comes to searching for a new to us vehicle, my husband spends weeks staring at the computer doing as much research as possible. He can tell you when the model year had changes to almost every vehicle out there. I have to say this has increased my knowledge of vehicles. In fact I have even stumped a real used car salesman by knowing when certain changes occurred. Anyhow after weeks of research we realized the only thing that would work would be to give in and get a minivan...besides how cool are we really with four children?
So the research for which minivan began and it was a few more weeks before he settled on the right one for us...a 2009 Honda Oddysey. Then the day came for it to arrive and I was a little sad at the thought of letting go of my old car. Ben also was having second thoughts about his decision so we didn't list the Lexus for a while. I was just kind of playing with both of them deciding which I liked better, but the first payment was coming due on the minivan so the decision had to be made. The thing to know about both myself and Ben is that we are horrible about making decision. We are both so indecisive that it is almost a handicap. We generally ask our children to make the decision for us or wait until life does it for us, so that's what we did with this decision.
I went out one morning to hop in the minivan and be off to whatever appointment I had planned. I unlocked the minivan and stopped. I was completely shocked by what I saw...there was black stuff all over my seat, the floor...everywhere!! It stumped me for a moment, then I looked a little closer and recognized the culprit...chicken poop!! Suddenly a flash picture came into my mind about the sliding side door being left open by one of the boys the day before. I started looking for the culprit and there she was roosting on the third row seats. It was her, the really curious one that always sneaks out of the run and into my flowers and now into my new car. Apparently she hopped in before we closed and locked the car for the night. I came inside and told Ben that the decision had been made for us...we were selling the minivan!
 Since this story is from a year ago I need to update it just so you can all laugh at us some more. We cleaned the minivan, brought it to the dealership on consignment. We sold the Lexus and replaced it with a slightly newer Lexus that had a different seat configuration so that it would work with the four car seats. Then after the baby was born we realized that not one of the boys could be trusted to sit next to him without making him cry...so...we sold that Lexus and got a 2012 Honda Oddysey. Yup, now we have a minivan. We are all happy with it. I never ever let chickens into it....although I did bring two goats home from the Estes Fiber Festival in the back of it. The woman who was selling me the goats did give me some concerned looks when I said I was going to bring them home in the minivan. She said they might scream the whole way home. I smiled and said, "it couldn't be any worse than some of the drives I've had with one or more of my own children screaming the whole way".

Life

We have witnessed many things since starting this new life... new life, death, growth, and change.  We have added many new animals and even a surprise new family member.  Another beautiful baby boy decided to join our family last September and what an interesting pregnancy it was on the farm. When we found out that I was pregnant we had already added ducks and many more rabbits. I had even been breeding some of the rabbits and selling them to feed stores or on the Internet. In fact just before I found out that I was pregnant I took the three boys on what I called an "adventure" to acquire a new humongous rabbit hutch. I had to rent a pull behind trailer from Uhaul and drive an hour and a half  through Denver. The hutch is about 10 feet long and 6 feet tall. It fits 6 rabbits comfortably and could fit more. I thought it was my dream hutch and I was willing to make the sacrifice to go get it. We did it, the boys were great on the boring drive through the city and I got it back to the house. we pulled into the driveway with my new claim and Dylan, my oldest, said, "Now how do we get it off the trailer?" Ummm...wait until daddy gets home!
Ben came home and saw that thing and just got one of his looks which means, "that woman is crazy...what does she have now?" The trailer had to be returned to Uhaul soon so I was recruited to carry the other end of this beast. I will tell you now...since everything turned out ok...I had a feeling I was pregnant at the time and wondered if carrying this thing was ok. Ben was not privy to my secret wonderings so he just harassed me to lift more...."Are you lifting at all?" he would ask.  Of course I wanted it in the most remote spot on the entire property so we pushed and pulled and probably swore and managed to get it into place. It was lovely and the breeding began.
The first attempts were surprisingly unsuccessful. I planned to have easter bunnies available in the spring so I bred three rabbits exactly as I had read in all my books and waited the 31-34 days gestation. The boys and I would check every day, well actually several times a day and none of them had any babies. Rabbits not getting pregnant? It seemed impossible. Why the expression "multiply like rabbits"? I decided it was the cold weather and waited until the spring to rebreed them. This time we were much more successful and soon had 15 new bunnies. One of our rabbits, Gracie had 11 babies, while the smaller breed each had two babies that lived. Since rabbits only have 8 nipples for nursing I stole three of Gracie's babies and gave them to another mama. She cared for them like a pro even though it was her first litter. The bunnies were growing and being as adorable as baby bunnies could be and then came time to sell them. I listed them on the internet and called the feed stores...everyone just said "maybe." Maybe?  What would I do with 15 extra rabbits? It was so difficult to find homes for these bunnies and my belly was quickly getting ginormous so when a person emailed me asking how many rabbits he could get for $20 I told him to come over and we'll see. I was so tired of the extra work that I sold almost all my females, any males we weren't impressed with and any babies that were left.
The young hippie who came to pick them up didn't seem to know much about rabbits, but we were desperate so we let him have them. He had a couple of cardboard boxes and just put them all in there together. I mentioned the whole concept of housing the males away from the females for obvious reasons and he said he was "cool" with babies....yeah good luck with that!
A few months later Ben had to go out of town for the weekend for reasons which I can't even remember now. All that I do know is that I was pregnant and in charge of the whole farm and three children on my own. I remember the first morning of this weekend rather vivdly. Somehow we all slept and I got the boys breakfast, a task generally done by Ben, and then I showered and got dressed for the day. Then I remembered that I was in charge of the animals and garden. So I slipped on my flip flops and headed out to the chicken coop. I opened the coop door with a huge scoop of food and one of them flew at me and bit my leg at which point I jumped and got chicken poop all over my pants. I decided to let it slide and continued to attempt to feed them when two more pecked at my feet. Oh, I had red toenail polish on and chickens are drawn to the color red so I closed the coop door and ran inside to get on my boots. I came back out and opened the gate to let the chickens out and then headed for the garden where I was attacked by a swarm of mosquitos. I ran from them screaming and decided the garden would survive just fine today. The last stop was the alpacas. I scooped up their supplement and did my best to balance two flakes of hay on my big belly then headed in to feed them. I got halfway through the door when one of the pregnant mamas looked at me and threatened to spit at me for being late with the food. I was teetering on the edge by this point so I think I yelled at her.. something about the fact that I was pregnant too and that she should just leave me alone(although probably not in words as peaceful as that). Anyhow she was not having it! I attempted to put the hay in the feeder and that mama looked straight at me and spit in my face! Alpacas have a chambered stomach like cows and chew a cud. Do you have any idea how bad previously chewed and spit out hay smells?? That was it for me. I stormed out of the barn, slammed the door shut behind me and tromped into the house peeling clothes off as I entered. I told the boys I would be out in a little bit and got back in the shower. A nice warm shower always changes my perspective on life.

Finally

So, I have been wanting to start a blog about my life as a farming/ranching mother of four boys for a long time. The irony of course is that with this life I have very little time to do extra things. Since it has taken so long to get this going, I am going to have to write some of the posts in retrospect because there are so many neat things that have happened and they need to be shared. We bought this property two years ago to the day...June 18,2010. My youngest son at the time had just turned one year old 2 days before my husband signed the papers for our new life. We had been wanting this for so long. We were living in suburbia Fort Collins and not completely happy. Every spare minute we had, which in retrospect was a lot more often than now, we were at the farm and ranch store or looking at our books on how to live a self sufficient lifestyle. Almost every children's book we read was a farm book. That's just what the boys asked for. So when it came time to start looking for the perfect place we came across this one and said, "no". It was on the wrong side of town, in the wrong town, and on a major road! Then I would look at the pictures of it and think, "but it has everything I want...." I wanted an old house that felt like my grandmother's house and looked like the ones in old town. This one was built in 1900. We wanted chickens...this one already had a chicken coop and fully enclosed run. It had an adorable old barn with two fenced pastures. Oh yes, and a garden that was fully fenced 100 ft by 50ft and the soil had been gardened for at least 50 years. So we finally went to look and it felt like home right away. We spent the first year renovating the inside in order to bring it back into this decade. All white walls were painted and all the baby blue carpet was immediately ripped out. The carpet is now being used as weed block in the garden. We put down bamboo floors, tile and beetle kill pine flooring. A lot of the work we did ourselves. Some of it was done by professionals. We have finally reached the point in which the inside is almost perfect and the outside is beaming with life. We moved our young chickens in a week after we signed the papers. We had been secretely brooding them in the garage in suburbia. Our two rabbits were moved in at the same time and then we picked up our golden retriever puppy as well. Life was flowing and we were adjusting to the new life and the new commute to what we used to know. I fought it all for a while, the change I mean. I kept taking the boys to parks in our old town and slowly I realized that they have really great parks here....that we can even ride our bikes to. We have a pool down the street with a huge slide and it is a 5 minute walk to the recently updated library and recreation center. As for the property, we were overwhelmed with an abundance of fruit from our own fruit trees that first summer. We were so busy with the inside that we barely had time to plant in the garden but the fruit trees produced. We would sit in the grass beside the pasture and eat our own apples and peaches. It was heavenly, but we kept looking at the barn and pasture and wishing there was someone in there. It took a while before we convinced Ben to consider animals. We, of course, wanted horses but Ben settled on alpacas and went to work adding tighter fencing and cleaning out the barn for them. We also needed water out by the barn so we had a company come drill and lay down pipes to bring a faucet out to the barn, garden, and chicken coop. When we were ready the alpacas came. We started with three mamas, three nursing crias and one male. We have added a lot since then and it has been a wonderful journey that we continue to experience every day. I am so grateful that I had the courage to take the plunge and consider something outside of my comfort zone. I have grown so much since living here and my boys have witnessed so many amazing things. There are so many fabulous stories to share in this blog.