Heifer

This is our 3 year old shorthorn heifer.  She had a calf September 2020 and will have another calf in 2022.  We should have plenty of raw

 milk.  The farmer we got her from suggests that we dry her up in January, a few months before she gives birth.

We've seen quite a few Monarch butterflies and just today we saw the first caterpillar on a clump of milkweed .  We have a lot of milkweed, so brought this one indoors with the branch.

Sunrise one morning.  Using the outhouse has forced me to go out first thing, the stars are many. 

We can see this lake from our home. We walked over one day and plan to go kayaking there soon.

Wildflowers.  The purple one is called brown knapweed.  And a sunset one evening.

Two major tasks were accomplished this week. Rob installed the wood stove and we have water!  It is being pumped up to the house instead of Rob having to haul up buckets from the well, next we will put in hot water heater.

I put knobs and handles on our cabinets.  It was much harder than I thought it would be, getting the holes for the handles spaced correctly especially.  We have a butcher-block countertop to put in and will install the sink once we get the plumbing through to the kitchen. For now, a gallon of water and a 5 gallon bucket underneath the sink works.

Chicks

We got chicks last week!  These are Rhode Island reds.  

There are also older chicks, we keep them separate so that they don't pick on the younger ones, but will put them together when they are all bigger.  Buff Orpington and Araucana, which will lay blue-green eggs, similar in color to my Amazonite stone bracelet.  

$2 for a dozen eggs!  $6 for a gallon of raw milk!

After church Sunday, a monk named Father Theodore, who is from Scotland, gave us this prosphora, bread that is used in the altar.

The Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown.  We had a nice visit.  Sheep are quite loud!  The boys enjoyed using the old hand crank machine to get the dried corn off the husk.  They require people to wear face masks indoors, so we were outside most of the time.  I had asthma pretty badly as a child and am scared of not being able to breathe well.  

Mom has been here since Saturday.  We had friends over and ate apple crisp with vanilla ice cream to celebrate Paul's 6th birthday.  Yesterday, 20 tons of gravel was delivered.  It was fun for the boys to watch.  Then, we went to visit Dad's grave and planted chrysanthemums.  We ate lunch at the monastery down the hill afterwards.  I bought a few jars of their honey.  The monk who cares for the bees is Father Paisios.  He kindly offered to help us get set up with a hive on our land.  We have a bit more than we originally thought, as an Amish neighbor rode his bicycle over and gave Rob the land survey.  The neighbor, named Jonathan, had hoped to buy this place, but there were problems with the previous owner having more debts, so Jonathan found a place not too far.  We went there and met his 8 puppies.  They are Austrailian shepherds, born Sept. 9th.  I think of Hannah's pup, Remy, who she gave to a horse farm.  If I'd known a year ago that we would be living here, and have room for him to run around I would have liked to keep him, but it's all in God's hands. 

We hope to get our fence up soon and move the shorthorn cross heifer that we bought here.  She is on a farm just a few miles away. She's currently giving milk, but will have another calf in March, so the farmer said we will need to stop milking her in January.  Her name is "Pansie" but I want to rename her.  She is mostly black with white spots, looks like a Holstein, because of her papa.  Her mother is a dark brown.  I will have to take photos of her soon to share.  I'm hoping to learn to make cheese with the extra milk.

Foggy field

This morning we woke up to see fog.  It's the 4th night we've been here in the smaller house on our new property in upstate New York.  Hannah was here to help us move, unload and clean the house.  She's now driving out to Oregon!

Yesterday we walked through our field of goldenrod, burdock and milkweed to find a recently cut field, belonging to our Amish neighbors, with red clover and many butterflies.  The boys ran and tried to catch one.  The neighbors have two horses and a three-month-old foal, who followed Paul along fence line and wanted to be pet.  I forgot my camera, but we'll be back there soon.

We have mint and lemon balm growing in our yard.  I plan to get more herbs in 2022.

There are two apple trees and we've gotten quite a few so far.  I want to make apple pie later today.

This is the church in Jordanville.  Up the hill is the cemetery where my father's grave is...we hope to plant mums there this weekend.  My mother is coming to visit!

Before and after (below) of our living room.  We still don't have running water, or a kitchen sink set up, bathroom is in process, and we're currently using the outhouse.  We have 5.3 acres and met a milking cow that we plan to buy once we have a fence.  We'd like to get chickens.

Little by little.  Hope your week is going well!