First Breakfast

Lol, still don't have my propane stove hooked up... so this is how I cooked breakfast this morning.  I will not admit how many matches I went through trying to get this little flame going.. but the food was very yummy.  :) 

I'm using a super random assortment of dishes and utensils because I haven't unpacked yet, so I was just scrounging from the tops of boxes.

Now I'm off to add another ground rod to my goat fence, because it definitely is NOT hot enough yet!!!  :o

Happy Thursday!!

I'm Here!!

So I'm currently sitting on the deck of my dome... listening to the evening sounds, and enjoying the cool air (and swatting the occasional mosquito, lol).  The dogs are here with me, and in a few minutes, I'll go to bed...in the dome!!

That's right... I'm moving in!!  :D 

Mind you, I'm not set up to cook yet, and I don't have my dog fence up yet, so I'll be going to Dad and Mom's for breakfast tomorrow, and dropping the dogs off there while I'm at work... but I'm here!!!

I Blame Thane

I blame Thane for this whole farm thing...I've always loved farms and farm animals, but I didn't start seriously pursuing acreage and dreaming of goats, chickens, sheep, cattle, etc., until I got Thane.  Then I thought...hmm...if I have an old-fashioned farm Collie...wouldn't it be cool for him to have livestock to herd?

And thus it began.  It's been a long journey to get to this point, but I am excited to announce that as of today, Butterscotch Farm is home to five charming, adorable Oberhasli goats!!!  :D :D :D

Hopefully soon it will be home to me too...LOL!!  

I am actually hoping to move in over the next couple of days...things will be pretty rustic for a bit, but I'm excited!  And it'll let me get a bit more sleep and put a few less miles on the truck when I'm over there.

Here are a few photos of the progress that has happened since I last posted:

Pastor Hayman brought me the rest of the firewood that my aunt and uncle gave me!  What a huge blessing!

Timothy installed my solar fan...and had some fun while doing so, lol.

Here's the actual fan:

It runs well, but doesn't do nearly as much as I hoped to mitigate the heat.  The dome came with screen windows that can replace the vinyl windows; I just need to come up with a way to modify them so that they won't let the rain in.

Another huge blessing: one friend from church brought his excavator, and another brought his tractor, and they have been working to do some serious clearing and stump pulling for me!

They carved a path from the water pump down into the goat field; previously, this was an almost impassable tangle of downed trees and brush.  I sure appreciated that today when I made a couple trips down to the field with a five-gallon bucket of water in each hand!  

Also, Joe found me a boulder!  Just a bit was sticking out, and he worked at it and worked at it and finally got it out.  

It now lives in front of my dome, and I LOVE it!!  Lol, Dad, Timothy, and I were pumping water from the well and scrubbing the sand off the rock the other day.  :P

Dad and Timothy hung the shade cloth this past Saturday...not sure that does much either, lol.  Maybe I need a bigger one.

I think this was also on Saturday...Dad finished getting my sink hooked up to the gray water system.  It's just a drain - I can dump any non-sewage waste water in there, and it goes down through a pipe into a special ditch.  I don't have running water in the dome; I'll have to bring all water in.  I still need to get the water from my little well tested.

Oh, and Scott, Joe, and Paul managed to use the excavator to get the woodstove inside!  I'm especially grateful for that - that thing is a BEAST!!

And...here's the goober that started all this, LOL!!  I think he's pretty sure that the chickens are squeaky toys.  Sometime in the next day or two I'll need to introduce him to the goats, too....that'll be interesting!  

Happy Monday!!!

Freedom!! (Well, Kind Of...)

So today I hustled to finish getting the chicken wire up on the sides of the pen (the roof still needs a bit more) because I really needed to clean out the coop, and that's a million times easier if the chicks aren't IN the coop, lol.  So I got that done...and opened the door wide....and waited to see what the chicks would do.

I kind of expected a mad rush, but nope.  They had to think about it for a little while.  :P

Well, all except for Little Miss Floofle, who hopped right out, LOL!  She certainly has no fear, which isn't necessarily an ideal trait for a chicken.  It definitely gives her a lot of personality, though!!  :P

After lots of fluttering back and forth, the chicks eventually decided that they liked being outside, and I was able to clean the coop and put down fresh shavings.  Then I locked them back inside their coop, because their pen is definitely not predator proof!!  So they just got a few minutes of relative freedom, but it was fun to watch them explore.  :)

Dad and I also shuffled a few things around in the dome, trying out a potential kitchen layout.  What do you think?  :)  (Obviously, the stove will need to go up on a box or small cabinet.)

Happy Thursday!  :)

Mystery Plant Identified: St. John's Wort

So I posted my mystery flower from yesterday on a Facebook "ID This" group, and it turns out it's St. John's Wort!  This is a plant long used for medicinal purposes for people, but it's not good for cattle, horses, sheep, and goats.  Thankfully, they won't typically eat it unless there's nothing else to eat, but if they do happen to eat it for 4-5 days in a row, they will get a buildup of toxicity.  This results in extreme photosensitivity, which means that they'll be prone to really bad sunburns - in some cases, so bad that layers of skin can slough off.

So...I'm glad I spent an hour last night pulling this stuff up from the goat pasture!!

In other news, I finally remembered to snag a couple photos of the firewood I've been given...apparently there's another load this size still at my Aunt and Uncle's place that I'll need to go get.  I should be nice and toasty this winter!  ❤

And some randomness from my chicken visit this evening...I'm learning that when it starts to get dark, the chicks would very much like to roost somewhere up high...and I happen to be one of the tallest things in the coop.  So a couple times now, I've had a chick suddenly fly at me.  One sat on my arm for a minute last week, and tonight, Speedy spent a couple minutes perched on my shoulder.  :D 

I enjoyed the visit, though I'm glad I didn't get pooped on.  :P

NOTE - I occasionally add new people to the email list, or maybe you've found my blog on your own.  If you're new here, and you're viewing my blog on a computer, you'll find the blog archive on the right side of the page.  From there, you can scroll through old posts to see pictures of the dome and the land, etc.  And LOTS of pictures of my dogs.  ;P  

Happy Wednesday!!

Tuesday Stuff

I worked at my regular job, so I didn't do a ton on the land today...just pulled up a bunch of potentially poisonous flowers from my future goat pasture while the flowers were in bloom and easy to identify.  

These things are everywhere...I'm guessing it'll take me a few years to find and remove all of them.

Dad and Mom had a long day, though - they drove a couple hours further into Maine to see my aunt and uncle, who are moving soon.  They helped move around a bunch of frozen food, remove a big old freezer, and drove home with a load of firewood that my aunt and uncle are giving me!  From the left, you can see my Dad, my Aunt Judy, my Uncle Howard, and Pastor Hayman, an old family friend, with the trailer of firewood behind them.  Another gift that God has graciously provided for my homestead!  

Happy Tuesday!!

Monday Stuff

Got a little more work done on the chicken enclosure today, as well as throwing together a rough storage thing for firewood, as my aunt is giving me 1.5 cords of wood.  :D  

Here's how the enclosure is looking...just needs another couple rolls of wire, and all the chicks will finally get to fulfill their significant desire to see what's on the other side of their coop door!!

And here's the firewood thingie...lol, every homestead has to make ample use of pallets, right?  :P  We'll be putting a few sheets of metal roofing on top to keep the wood dry.

Many thanks to Dad and Paul for their work today!!