Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas from Butterscotch Farm!

What a year this has been! Here are some of the blessings from this past year....God was clearly at work, providing funds, safety, and incredible amounts of help from tons of people in many situations - most of all from my Dad, but also tons and tons from other family and church family members. 

2020 Blessings:

-I made it through winter in the dome

-Safety for my animals over the winter

-The birth of a litter of puppies this spring

-The birth of two goat kids this spring

-The supply of building materials for my cottage without further debt

-A reliable job that takes care of its employees even in tough times

-Great neighbors who didn't mind my goats free-ranging over the summer

-The epic amount of help from Dad, my brother, and my church family in assembling the new cottage, including prayers from those who were unable to help physically!

-Protection from illness while working retail

On this Christmas day, I'm grateful for a peaceful day spent with family, exchanging gifts as a reminder of the ultimate gift given to humanity - Jesus Christ, who gave His very life to pay our debt of sin so that each of us who believes in Him can spend eternity in His presence. 

🎄 Merry Christmas!! 🎄

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I'm thankful for:

My salvation

My amazing family

My wonderful church family

Good health

A reliable job

God's provision of people, funds, safety, etc., for building my cottage

My little homestead

The Roof is Up!!

 Saturday was another epic day of God's grace and the generosity of friends...Dad, Timothy, and 3 men from church (one of whom is a contractor) came over and installed my roof!! Thankfully it seemed to be a pretty straightforward job, but it would have taken Dad and me about 10x as long by ourselves. God also gave us spectacular weather.

Here are some pictures. 

1. The "before" picture. Most of the tar paper had blown off in the few days after it was installed, so Dad and Paul from church put a tarp over the whole roof. Last week, when we knew the men were coming Saturday, Dad unfastened one end and let it blow toward the front of the building.

2. The men cut the rest of the tarp off Saturday morning. Here are the first couple of metal panels going up!! I went with gray for the color, since I still haven't decided what color I will paint the cottage - I wanted a neutral color that would go with almost anything.

3. One side mostly done: 

4. A couple panels on the other side! You can also see the start of my board and batten siding.

5. I ended up spending most of my time putting Henry back inside the temporary fence that I installed for the day. He's one determined pup!!! 

6. And... here's the completed roof!! Just missing the trim on the eaves, but I don't think that really counts. :P Isn't it beautiful? :D

Here are a few other recent pieces of progress... I have a woodstove again!! Dad installed it a couple weeks ago, and I used it on some of the colder days and nights recently. Looks like I will need it again this weekend. Now I just need to figure out what to do on the wall behind it.

Dad and I have also been picking away at insulation and drywall, and we're almost done with the walls. Please ignore the clutter... I'm still working out where to put things.

Here's a different view of the same scene...

We've also started on the flooring, now that my roof doesn't leak any more. :P 

And finally, Dad installed more siding the other day. I'm really liking it so far!!

Many thanks to those who have helped with this project...but also to those who have been praying!! ❤️❤️❤️

6 Months Old!!!

 The first Butterscotch Farm Collie litter turned 6 months old today! It feels like a lifetime ago...it was a chilly spring morning, and I kept going back and forth between Nala and the woodstove, trying to get the temperature of the dome up for the new arrivals. 

Well, the pups have really grown up, and are starting to look close to how they will look as adults. 

I asked the puppy owners for current photos to post, and most were able to participate. It's so fun to see the similarities and differences! ❤️ 

Rolo, now Rangeley: 

Rangeley loves to go on walks with his people, but equally loves to snuggle with them on the couch. His people are buying a house, and they joke that they're actually buying it because it has a big back yard for Rangeley. Rangeley knows "paw," "sit," and "stay." He is about 42 pounds. Here are a couple photos:

Bullseye, now McGruff or Gruffy:

The report is that Gruffy is doing excellent and really coming along well with his training. A couple days after she picked him up, his owner said that he was the smartest pup she had ever had. He is a very trainable pup, and she is a great trainer - within a couple weeks, she was able to ask him to "stay," and walk out of sight to the other end of the house, and he would obey! ❤️ 

Here is a picture from when he was about 10 weeks old:

Zagnut, now Ziggy. Ziggy's owner says: 

Hi Sarah! Ziggy is doing great! He gets along with all the animals in our house and is a sweetheart with everyone. He is doing a lot of commands and is so food driven it has been fairly easy! Thanks for Ziggy!

Honey, who kept her name. It sounds like this little girl has tons of personality! She "talks" to her owners to tell them when she needs to go potty. She is an expert beggar when it comes to people food. And when she goes out, she always runs around the truck twice before coming back in. In addition, like her siblings, she is very snuggly and thinks she is a lap dog. 

Here are a couple recent pictures of Honey: 

Astro, now Ty. Here's what his owner says about him: 

Ty is 30 lbs. He still looks a lot like a coyote. Very sweet and affectionate and a complete lap dog. Very submissive and has no idea how to control his hind end - stairs are a mystery to him. 🤣🤣🤣 Really really smart. Learns fast. 

Here are a few pictures of Ty: 

I haven't heard from JuJu's owners for the 6 month update. If they chime in, I will add her photos. I do know that she kept her name, though.

And finally, Henry, formerly Abba Zabba! Henry is almost certainly 50+ pounds now, and is a chunk! He is sweet and cuddly, but doesn't realize how big he is, lol. He firmly believes that he is the center of the universe, and he is very bossy. He still acts very puppyish a lot of the time, but is developing an impressive bark. And his sideways ears crack me up. 😂

Here are a few current photos: 

Thank you to my puppy owners for providing such wonderful homes for the puppies!! ❤️❤️❤️

Happy Birthday, puppies!!

Progress... and Sadness

 Dad and Paul made excellent progress on the cottage today - Paul installed the back door, and Dad got Tyvek on the western gable end, and sealed up a bunch of cracks with caulk and expanding foam insulation. I ran errands, including picking up some exciting supplies - the first round of drywall and insulation!! Things are really starting to come together! ❤️ Here is my back door: 

In other news, I learned a tough lesson... if you are pretty sure the fence separating your ducks from your dogs is too short... don't wait to fix it!! 😟 When I got home last night, Breeze and Henry were in the duck pen, and had clearly been running rampant for a while. I have four dead ducks, one dead chick, and two chicks unaccounted for. The final two ducks are in tough shape and may or may not make it. I was absolutely crushed... I love my ducks. I can only blame myself, though - the dogs have not been trained not to chase the birds, and the fence was too short. 

It could have been worse...last night 4 chicks were missing. But this morning I found 2 wandering around in the woods. I caught one by myself, and chased the other for an hour before Paul came along and helped corner it. Here's the little dude lurking just out of my reach this morning: 

I'm grateful that God allowed those two to survive the dogs and a night alone in the woods. ❤️

Since this was a bit of a sad post, here are some cute dog pictures taken with my new phone to cheer us up. 

Bit by Bit!!

 The cottage is coming along bit by bit, thanks to Dad, our friend Paul, and occasionally me, lol. Dad and I got more windows installed on Monday, and some more framing done.  Then he and Paul continued to work Tuesday, Wednesday and today, installing windows, building soffits, and doing lots of site cleanup. Here's what it looked like this morning... isn't this spectacular?? ♥️♥️♥️

One of my favorite features is this big bank of windows. Eventually they will hopefully be looking out over pastures.

I forgot to take a picture before it got dark, but today Dad and Paul installed the front door. They also draped a huge tarp over the roof, as the tarpaper is falling off and we're expecting rain tonight.

Thanks, Dad and Paul! It's very humbling to think that I will be warm and cozy in my little cottage this winter because of the time and hard labor donated by you two and others. ♥️

In other news, I'm now getting more eggs from the four ducks than from my eight mature hens. I think the chickens are moulting. 

Also, Kat is in heat, so poor Thane is having a sad time because I have to keep them separated. Kat has come to work with me the last couple of days and has done very well - she's a sweetie.

Going back to the chickens, I have a slightly funny farm story. So... sometimes chickens will eat their own eggs. This, of course, is an annoyance because then you don't get to eat the eggs. I was sure that was what my chickens were doing, because I would have a hen sitting on a couple eggs one day, and the next day there would be none. Well, as it turns out, they haven't been eating them ALL... when I was in the coop this evening, I spotted something white down in a crevice by the nesting box. I shone my flashlight down there, and saw some eggs. I pulled them out, and found a total of four eggs that had rolled away and been lost. I'm just glad I found them before they turned into rotten eggs and exploded!! 😬

Anyway, I hope everyone is having an awesome week. Happy Thursday!! 😊

From Dome to Cottage!

So Saturday was a huge day... I went from living in a 20-foot geodesic dome to living in a 20x28 cottage!

Dad and I, along with an occasional helper or two, have been putting up the walls for quite some time now, but getting the rafters up required a huge workday. 

Counting my Dad and brother, I believe we had a total of 16 people there at various times of the day, most of them from the church. 

Here are a bunch of pictures:

1. Lowering the dome. The dome is 12 feet tall, and the cottage walls are 8 feet tall... so we had to take out a bunch of struts so that we could get the trusses up there.

2. Figuring out how to get the trusses up. The original plan was to slide them up this ramp. That's my brother walking up the ramp, by the way. 

3. A wide angle view. My Dad doesn't mess around when he builds stuff, so each truss probably weighs at least 200 pounds.

4. Plan A was ditched when Jason arrived with his forklift. This was much better, but still took some fine-tuning. It was quickly decided that ratchet straps were a better idea for holding the truss in place than having Nathan do it. :P 

5. It was a lot of work to slide the truss to the front of the building. Here people are probably resting and contemplating how to stand it up. 

6. First truss up!!

7. We broke for lunch after the second truss was up. A couple of the church ladies provided lunch, and it was delicious!

8. Getting the third truss in position. Several men spent most of the day climbing around in the rafters! Those of us who stayed on the ground fetched tools, held ladders, ran errands, did site cleanup, and removed the rest of the dome.

9. Paul...he keeps telling me he's smarter than he looks. Guess it must be true since he spent all day up there and didn't fall once! :P 

10. I had to leave for work at 3:30, but the men kept working another four hours!! They got ALL the trusses up, and half the plywood sheathing. I couldn't see much when I got home that night, but this is what the cottage looked like Sunday morning. Isn't that incredible? ♥️

11. A few of the men came back Sunday afternoon between church services to finish the sheathing. They even got the tarpaper on! 

12. Nathan getting a lift down from the rooftop. 

13. So that was the incredible workday. God really provides help when we need it! ♥️ 

Dad and I puttered today. We were both pretty low energy, but we got a bit of framing done, finished sheathing one wall, and stuck one window in. I'm very excited to have real windows!! :P 

I have to decide soon about roofing. I wouldn't mind metal, except that I'm concerned about a heavy snowfall sliding off and burying a dog. Anyone have thoughts on the pros and cons of metal vs. shingles? Cost is definitely a factor.

Anyway, many thanks to those who came to the workday, and to those who have been praying for this project... it's so cool to see it coming together! ♥️