A LONG overdue update

It seems that we lost our blogging voice there for a while, huh?  It's been 2 months since our last post - and though we've been silent bloggers - that doesn't mean things have been quiet.  How about an update?

Mark has a new job, we sold our house, and we're moving to the complete other side of the country.

"What!", you say.  But what about the garden, the chickens, the goats?  Good questions.  The bottom line is that we're being called to something new.  It's not anything we expected.  Or looked for.  We strive daily to remain open to God's will for our lives - all aspects of our lives.  This includes Mark's career.  We have been very blessed in this area, for sure.  Though the choices we've made haven't always made sense from the viewpoint of "the world", they've been choices that we made after much prayer and discernment.  And we consistently find that God's plans for us are way better than anything we would have thought up on our own.  This change in position is no different.  We have loved our life, the community,  and Mark's work here in the wild west - and it is terribly difficult to leave - but we are at peace with our decision.  Mark will continue working in the same field: advancing the mission of a Catholic educational institution.

So, where are we headed?  Our nation's capital.  Yep, all the way East.  We have promised the girls that we'll be close to mountains (though not quite the size as the mountains here) and the ocean.  None of us have ever lived close to an ocean, so that is something we look forward to.  We know that moving to a major metropolitan area - after having lived in a remote Western town of less than 10,000 people - will be an adjustment, but we are excited about the opportunities.

Our wonderful home here - lovingly referred to as "Aspen Springs" - was snatched up by a new family the first day it hit the real estate market.  What a relief!  It's a great property, so we had hoped selling it wouldn't be an issue, but we never dreamed it would be the easiest part of this whole process.  So, now we're getting ready to actually make the move: cleaning out closets, organizing, making lists of what stays and what goes, etc.  The animals are on the list of what stays.  The family who is buying the house wants the goats and the chickens.  We are thrilled.  The girls, especially, are pleased to know that the animals get to stay put and will be well cared for after we leave (and we get fresh eggs up until our last morning here!)

So, selling the house was easy.  What's been difficult?  Finding a moving company that will come here.  We started calling the national van lines figuring we'd get quotes and choose the best option.  After the first 3-4 companies told us they couldn't help us, we got a little nervous.  We're still nervous, though a local company has assured us that one way or another they'll take care of it.  Yikes.  Please don't take this opportunity to leave comments about moving nightmares :)

So, there you have it... the reason for our silence lately.  Though this is a big change, normal life goes on, and we'll try to keep the posts coming (somewhat) regularly again.

The goats are here!

The goats have arrived!  You might recall that once we moved to our present home (about 6 months ago) we began making plans for a large garden and some animals.  We got baby chicks immediately and had great success with them right from the start.  Our hens have been healthy, the girls have enjoyed taking care of them, and we now have more eggs than we can eat.  The chicken success made us brave and we decided to tackle a bigger, more complicated animal.  We researched goats and decided on Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats.  And - fortunately - we found a breeder relatively close to us.  We visited the baby goats once when they were a few weeks old.  And then, last Saturday, Mark and daughter #1 made the trek back to the goat farm to pick up our "kids".

Unloading the goats.  The girls could hardly wait to see them!

As you can imagine, choosing names for the goats was a hot topic around here.  In my opinion, I had lots of really cool ideas for names (Mark was in agreement on most of my suggestions) but the girls kept shooting me down... Finally, someone had the brilliant idea of naming them for 2 characters from one of our family-favorite classic television shows.

So, we're pleased to introduce "Lucy" and "Ethel".

Ethel is on the left, Lucy is on the right.

We borrowed a large dog crate from some friends and transported them home in the back of Mark's car.  Apparently, we have goats who are very tolerant of car trips - not a single incident on the way home :)

We may have gotten the names wrong... Ethel is the nutcase - always climbing on the girls and generally more mischievous than Lucy.  Isn't that backward?

Mark called when they were 10 minutes away, so I grabbed the camera and took the little girls down to the goat shed and waited for them to arrive.  Such excitement!

Exploring their new pen - they went straight for the feed!

Everything is going well so far.  Lucy and Ethel love to play and have human guests in their pen.  They really are cute and sweet (in a totally goat way).  I'm not a huge animal lover - we don't even have a dog - but I think that them being small really helps.  Smaller always seems to be cuter.

Though this is a cute picture, I was probably saying, "don't put your face on the goat!"

So, the whole point of the goats is milk, but they're not quite ready for that yet.  We've got several months to wait before they are ready for the next step on the road to becoming milk-producers.  For now, they'll be entertainment for the girls - and 2 more mouths to feed.

They love climbing around on these stumps Mark put in the pen.

Getting back outside

The whole country seems to be experiencing an early Spring this year.  It's hit here as well.  We've been able to get some pre-summer work finished outside.  Over the weekend, we brought the trampoline out of storage.  The girls were THRILLED.  It was a smart move on our part:

entertained and occupied children = parents who can till the garden in peace

No action shot of the girls jumping - sorry.  When I went out there with the camera I found #1 reading her literature book. This could be an advertisement for schooling at home!

We moved the trampoline to a far section of the property.  We can still see it from several windows, but it's not quite the eyesore it was when it was closer to the house.  The girls objected at first since it's a longer walk, but now that it's been a couple of days they are quite happy.

The garden: ready and waiting for baby plants.  We do have a few "crops" in here thanks to the previous owner: raspberries, asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries and cherries.

I mentioned tilling the garden.  We did that too.  Our garden is huge (to us).  We are alternately excited and terrified by the potential it has for producing food - and the obvious fact that it will require lots of work.  We have the double challenge of living in zone 4, which means a short growing season - and - living in a very dry climate.  Once the last Spring snow falls, there will be virtually no precipitation until the first snow of the Fall.  In other words: no rain in the summer.  We have the good fortune of an irrigation ditch that runs along one side of the garden, so Mark has the watering situation worked out (at least in his head).  We plan to battle our short growing season by starting all our veggies in our sun room/greenhouse.  I can't show pictures just now because it's an ugly mess, but our house has a wonderful window-walled sun room that is south facing. The original owners built it specifically for plants.

We spent plenty of time poring over seed catalogs and choosing varieties that are "hardy" and "early producers".  We're growing a little bit of everything.  I think that right now, Mark and the kids are most excited about the possibility of our own sweet corn (they were all born in Illinois). I'm personally looking forward to a bumper crop of potatoes, as that's something we've never even tried to grow before.

To people in most of the country, this hardly looks like Spring, but we're getting there - and happy to be seeing ANY small amounts of green.

In addition to tilling the garden, we also tried to clean up the flower beds and around our pond area(s) that tend to get a little overgrown and swampy.  We're hoping to keep the vegetation down around the edges of the ponds so that the water doesn't get "smucky".

photo credit: M.E.R., daughter #1, age 12

And finally, we acted on a whim and cut down a couple of trees.  Well, not trees exactly.  More like shrubs that were allowed to go nuts.  You've seen this sort of thing before:  Someone plants lovely little evergreen shrubs up next to the house and they look wonderful for 5 or so years, but then the shrubs are forgotten and they start growing at an exponential rate and it takes new owners to say, "Those ugly shrubs are taller than the house, cover the windows, and threaten to pull down the gutters!"  The first day we moved in we agreed they'd have to go, but it always seemed like too big a job to tackle.  Well, the warm air must have made us a bit giddy and we just did it.  Mark is good with the chain saw, but I was nervous.  Shrubs that have grown for 30 years are actually quite large.  I'm just glad neither of us ended up under a large limb :)

After the "shrubs" were mostly cut down.

I'm not sure that I have a "before" photo, but I can tell you that the shrubs completely covered those 2 windows and were higher than the roof.  This is our garage - and it's on the back side of the house.  It's not like the general public was seeing the shrubs, but we're happier with them down.  Now, I just need to address those bare windows and the bare dirt....

Oh, deer!

How do you feel about deer in your yard?  Right now, I am enjoying the abundance of deer on our property.  It's neat.  Not that I hadn't seen a deer before, but never so many, so close - and on a daily basis.

Our little town just might possibly have a higher deer population than people population, so they do tend to be everywhere.  But our old house had a tiny yard - and a very big fence around most of what yard there was - so we just didn't see them each and every day.  Now?  Well, the deer are pretty much always here.  Most of the time if I look out the window and start counting I get to double digits before I start really looking.  They blend in to their surroundings very well, so I'm sure that most of the time there are more in the yard than I realize.

Sometimes we still get a little surprised when one gets really close.  Our basement is a walk-out and the windows down there are right at ground level, if that makes sense.  So if a deer comes close to a basement window when someone is down there, it can be a face-to-face event.  This happened recently when the girls had some friends over.  There was a lot of squealing, let me tell you.  I think that when they come so close to the house, I'm mostly startled by how large they are. Normally they sit 20 or 30 feet from the house and seem the size of a large dog, but when a full-grown buck walks up to the kitchen window while I'm doing dishes, I get to see just how huge he is.

The girls have grown accustomed to the deer.  One of them may take notice when there is a large group right outside her bedroom window, but mostly, the excitement is over.  When we first moved in, however, the two little girls were out daily trying to catch one so they could ride it.  It was a great game for them.  And we were never terribly concerned about them actually catching one.

Mark doesn't find the deer as sweet as I do.  He's probably wise.  Right now, in the dead of Winter, they aren't harming anything.  But I won't be so charmed by them in the Spring and Summer if they show up to eat my flowers and vegetables.  Good thing they generally head back up into the mountains when Spring arrives.

Hurray for the Blaze King!

It's really cold here today.  Come to think of it, it's been unusually cold for probably 3 days now.  This is our 3rd winter here, so we're getting used to what's "normal" - and normal for early December would be something like 29.  Today's high was 8 and last night the temperature dropped to about 5 below.  That's not record-setting - by any means - but it certainly feels cold.  And, of course, we're having issues with our heat.  Isn't that the way it always goes?  But all is well; There's a huge fire in the basement keeping us warm.

We have a Blaze King wood stove.  The thing is a beast.  It really is.  It puts out enough heat that we're hardly noticing the lack of our electric heat.  Take a look at the features:

We have a nice big wood pile, so we'll be cozy until the weather warms up a bit - or the breaker for the electric heaters gets fixed - which, of course, will probably happen at the same time :)

Besides the fact that the Blaze King is keeping us warm, I love the smell.  It's sort of like a campfire without the actual camping.  It's also delightful to sit in the basement on the comfy couch and watch a movie while the fire blazes.  Makes me warm and sleepy just thinking about it!

Composting 101

No, no, no.  Fear not.  I don't intend to teach anything about composting here.  I am the one doing the learning.
Do you compost?  Believe it or not, we never have.  Back in the Midwest, we'd plant a couple herbs and maybe a tomato plant or 2, but never had an actual garden.  We did have a fairly big garden our first full summer out West, but the yard was so small that there just didn't seem to be a place for a compost pile.
Well, we now have space for as many compost piles as we can create.  And, the (deer-proof) fenced garden is already here, so let the composting begin!
Mark built an enclosure from some old pallets that were - somehow - just here.  Have we mentioned that the man we bought the property from NEVER threw anything away and had lots of storage space for all his stuff?  Remember the HUGO, right?  Well, when he moved, he did take most of the "stuff", but was good enough to leave a fair bit of it behind.  Therefore, we have a couple piles of pallets sitting around - among other things :)

Our youngest daughter was excited to help with the new project, so she and I worked together to get started on our pile.  We layered in leaves, hay, newspaper, and the few bits of kitchen scraps we had.  She had lots of questions while we worked.  I tried to simplify things and just told her that we were making food for the garden.

"The garden likes newspaper?  Are you sure, Mom?"

I tried for a more scientific answer, but I'm not sure she followed me.  She loves the idea of composting, however, and was tickled to learn that she gets the permanent job of taking the kitchen waste out to the compost pile.
I'll tell you... between the chickens and the compost pile, there's nothing going to waste around here anymore :)

The Chickens

Our desire to raise chickens began long before we actually moved to Aspen Springs. Backyard poultry raising is a growing trend. We love eggs - fresh eggs, like we recently had in Ireland. Firm yolks, great color, and marvelous flavor:

Fixing ourselves breakfast in Ireland this summer

So we were really excited when we discovered a "chicken palace" of sorts was part of our new home. We decided to buy baby chicks prior to our move so we could get eggs quicker (hens don’t begin laying until they are 20 weeks old.) So in usual fashion, I scoured the internet, read several books, watched a dozen YouTube videos and declared ourselves ready to become chicken farmers. (We also have several friends here who have chickens so we were really prepared...sort of.)

Our baby chicks came from Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa (cool video tour here). The minimum order was 25 chicks and we chose a variety of laying breeds including Barred Rock, Australorp, Rhode Island Red, Red Star, and Araucana. I received a call from the local Postmaster one morning at 6:00am telling me our chicks had arrived and that I needed to come pick them up. Of course, our girls were giddy with excitement when they discovered the chicks really did come in a box and were as fluffy as the photos they had seen.

One day old chicks...in a box

The temporary coop

With every 25 chicks, McMurray throws in a freebie, of unknown breed or gender. Our Mystery Chick is a white something, whom we have named Pat to be on the safe side. We lost one little gal who never quite survived the journey from Iowa in a small box (go figure). We decided 25 chickens might be a bit much to start with, so we sold 10 to some good friends.

Our brood grew quickly in their temporary garage quarters until we moved to Aspen Springs. I spent several long days prepping the coop.

The messy coop BEFORE

It had not been used for several years, but it is a great set up. I painted the walls and floor, added an adjustable air vent, and a light on a timer. The hens have a night room with roosting bars and nest boxes (eventually).

AFTER remodel

Their day run is fully enclosed but has lots of light and a dirt floor for scratching and dust baths. I will build an outdoor run next Spring. My favorite addition to the coop is a custom waterer I made from a 5 gallon bucket and chicken nipples (see below, hanging in the background). Chickens are insanely messy and this contraption provides clean water for them without the mess.

Breakfast time

 Grace, Pat, Laya, Rainbow, Martha, and the rest of our hens have quickly become part of our family and are a surprising amount of fun.

The girls love to hand-feed the hens feed, grasshoppers, worms or fresh grass.  The hens are curious about everything, especially if offered from a human. We are slowly learning their personalities and sounds. Our oldest daughter has really taken great leadership in their care.

#1 Daughter with Pat

We can’t wait for that first egg (which will indeed be the most expensive egg I’ve ever eaten). And it will be fun when we can let the hens out into the yard this Spring. But for now, we’re having great fun with the latest addition to Aspen Springs.

Big John

About 3 minutes after we seriously began considering the purchase of our 5-acre tract known as Aspen Springs, I was dreaming of a tractor. Not a giant combine. But something that had a hydraulic system, good power and big tires. After much research, I settled on a John Deere Ultimate Tractor X740. This is the largest “garden tractor” Deere makes. 

Arrival day...off a semi-truck from Iowa

My X740 – which I have named, Big John – is a 27 HP diesel. I have a 42” mowing deck (larger decks are possible but I have a few areas with tight tree spacing). I also ordered a 52” snow blade and it seems I'll be using it very soon. Since buying it, I have also added a 17 cubic yardtow-cart that I use to haul various things around the homestead: cut limbs, firewood, our daughters, etc. I’ve found this to be an indispensable accessory as I work on various projects. Most recently, I got an 18 cubic foot lawn sweeper for the yard: it tows behind Big John and sweeps up grass and leaves into the hopper. Very handy given all our trees. We started our first compost bin with the leaves last weekend. 

Me and Big John, trying to imitate The Grinch's Sleigh

Precious cargo

Oh how I love using this tractor! It is mighty powerful and really fun to operate.  The girls are having a ball also, begging for a ride in the tow-cart constantly. So far, Big John and I are bonding quite well. He’s the big brother I never had.

The H.U.G.O.

We have a shed. A really big shed. In fact, a 2400 square foot shed of which we are currently using about 30 square feet. We have named this shed the Huge Underutilized Garage Outbuilding (my co-workers know how fond I am of acronyms). We have quickly, however, received multiple requests along these lines: “Um, I heard you have a big shed … we have a __[fill in item]__ and could we maybe store it in your shed for a while?”

The HUGO in all her glory

Traveling throughout Wyoming, you quickly notice that very few people here really get rid of anything. Stuff you don’t need/want/require goes into your side yard, your garage, your front yard, etc. We are determined not to let Aspen Springs become subject matter for the Hoarders tv show.

But the HUGO does present some interesting opportunities. More than once in our few weeks at Aspen Springs, when discussing what do to with something that does not have an obvious place, I’ve said, “Let’s just put it in the HUGO in case we need it later.” Methinks this is the slippery slope to having a yard full of stuff (see above).

But as of today we’ve still got about 2000 square feet available in case you have a boat or camper…or anything I might want to play with. 

Getting to Play Outside

We're happy about our new home for many reasons, but high on the list is the outdoor space for the kids.  We live in one of the least populated states in the country, but at our first house here, the girls had no room to run and play outside.  Not so anymore!  It's been so good to see them out exploring and enjoying.  Honestly, we've been a little surprised at how joyfully they've embraced the entire property.

  

There were still raspberries and strawberries to be picked in the garden the first couple weeks we were here, so they took that job on willingly.  When they were told that grasshoppers are a gourmet treat for chickens, they perfected their grasshopper catching technique - something that would have seemed entirely "gross" to me as a little girl :)  They have almost countless trees to climb - yeah!  We love our adopted state, but it's a hard existence for trees here, so we've learned to value them more than ever before.  

The girls have explored nearly every corner of our 5 acres, and though it makes me a bit nervous when I can't see or hear them, I do love catching glimpses of them out the windows.  Of course, they've also found the muddy, marshy parts of the property where the natural springs flow - and have explored the irrigation ditch that runs through the front pasture.  It's just impossible to keep kids away from water, isn't it?  Being girls, at least they haven't gotten IN the water, just played around it enough to end up with wet tights and shoes.  We have had to enforce a "boots only" rule when they go out to play beyond the lawn.

 One of the funniest things they've started doing is sledding.  No, we aren't covered in snow just yet.  They are sledding on grass.  We have a small dirt hill that was left-over from some project of the previous owner. The dirt has been sitting long enough that it's covered in grass and is the perfect size for all sorts of games.  They discovered that the metal sled will go down the hill quite nicely, so they've been rushing out to "sled" the last couple days.

Really, it is SO GOOD for them to have time and space to explore outdoors and make up games.  It's not like they haven't once complained of being bored since we moved, but they are definitely willing to head outside and "find something to do."  I don't know about the rest of you parents out there, but "find something to do" had been a VERY common phrase from us to them.  Hopefully we'll be using that phrase less frequently in the future.

Welcome to Aspen Springs

The first "ranch"

This homesteading adventure really began two years ago when we relocated our family to the Rocky Mountain West. We fell in love with the countryside, the weather, and the values of the culture here. Our first home was a nice, newer ranch style house, but sat on only a quarter-acre lot. With three young children, we quickly realized we needed more room. We also began to have dreams of a larger garden and room to raise small livestock.

The housing market here is very tough, but we happened upon a property one day that seemed to be just what we’d been looking for. We listed our house for sale, and after a tedious three months of showings and prayers to St. Joseph, we sold it and made our move.

Aspens around the pond

We’ve named our little hobby ranch, Aspen Springs for simple reasons: the property has several groves of Aspens on it (our favorite Western tree) and abundant water: two wells, a natural spring that feeds two ponds, and two irrigation ditches to which we have access. We have five acres just on the outskirts of town. We have neighbors, but they are not too close. The previous owner is a sweet older man who built the house 30 years ago and raised his family here. He was quite handy and kept things immaculate.

The house itself is around 5,000 sf (more space than we need actually, but we’re managing to fill it!) We have a huge garden, chicken coop, small barn, and an enormous steel shed. Best of all, we have many trees in addition to the Aspens (ash, poplar, cottonwood, willow, etc), almost all of which were planted by the prior owner. Right now we are surrounded in Fall colors and the birds are plentiful.

A few of the young ladies

We are trying not to jump into too many new projects, because we have lots of redecorating to do and some “taming” of the yard. But we did invest in 15 hens to fill the coop and are looking forward to fresh eggs in a few more months. We have also reserved two dairy goats that will be born this coming Spring. In addition to the fresh milk, we want to make cheese and soap. Meat rabbits are also coming soon - we hope - thanks to friends who are breeding some now.

In our few short weeks at Aspen Springs, we have settled in nicely and are really enjoying our adventure. The girls love exploring new parts of the pastures, visiting the hens, and bouncing on their new jumpoline (trampoline). Mark loves playing farmer on his new tractor, and Colleen is busy choosing paint colors and laying out the garden for next spring. We probably don’t know all we’re in for, but we’re keeping faith in our family motto, “The Lord will provide.” Thanks for vising our new blog - come visit again soon!

Presenting our new blog - on a special feast day

We are excited to publish our new blog, Aspen Springs. We chose today - October 22 - in honor of Blessed John Paul II, whose first "official" feast day is today.

We had the honor of seeing JPII in person on our first trip to Rome in the Jubilee Year of 2000. Every Catholic has "their pope" and JPII certainly is ours. His famous quotes, "Be not afraid" and "As the family goes, so goes the nation and whole world in which we live," have special meaning for us as we begin this new chapter in our family life.