Back Road Home

If you look in the sidebar you'll see I added a link to a really great website: Back Road Home .

I stumbled across it one day a couple of weeks ago. It's packed full of useful information for anyone who's renovating an old farmhouse, planning the layout of their farm and property, or decorating in a period style. I still haven't looked at everything on there but already have a better idea of how to position any outbuildings we decide to build. So take a few minutes to go check it out.

I did go looking for another place to blog but can't really decide what to do. I saw that blogger had been having some problems that they say will be fixed so I'm going to stick it out here a while longer.

The weekend was a busy one. With the lovely warm weather that came in I set about catching up on a lot of neglected chores like trimming goat hooves. Ken changed the oil and filters in both trucks, took Joshua to his shooting club, washed the trucks and a million other things.

Josh and I rounded up the ducks and put them in a pen to give the frogspawn in the pond time to develope and grow into little frogs. The ducks were gobbling up everything in sight!

After all that cold and ice it feels good to have accomplished a few things.

Building a Rustic Fence and Arbor

This is what's been keeping me busy all week.

I started weeding the borders for this year's kitchen garden. No sooner had I started than the chickens and the ducks showed up to help! No point planting anything as long as they can come and scratch up the seeds and eat them. So, I set about building a fence. It was only when I got this far that it dawned on me to take pictures and blog about it. I mean someone out there might want a rustic fence and not know where to start. So here are some step by step instructions because if I can do it anyone can!

Oh dear. I posted instructions and now this morning I find all the pictures have red Xes again!!! I think I'm going to find some other place to host a blog and ditch Blogger. It's been taking forever to publish anything and I'm really tired of it.

I'm going to go feed the cow and then come back and look at other options!

Best Horse in the World!

Isn't shady lovely?

She was waiting very patiently for her supper. I love her to bits.

Wild Turkeys

When I was washing breakfast dishes yesterday I noticed this huge flock of wild turkeys in the little hillside pasture by the stream. I grabbed the camera and crept down the side of the stream trying to stay out of sight. They have a way of melting into nothingness at the first sign of a human.

As soon as they saw me they were off up the mountain. I'm surprised they let me get this close.

Ice Storm

I tried posting this once and the picture came up with the dreaded red X!

Well, this is the ice storm that knocked out our power for most of last week. it also fried my computer! I'm using Ken's Dell right now and feel like my arms have been cut off because all my artwork was is on the other one. We've downloaded a free trial version of the graphics program I use but it's the updated version so I'm having to learn how to use it.

I'm also trying to add a little button that will link to the my CafePress shop. Grrr, I feel so old and decrepit. I need to learn html. I've been all over the web looking for instructions. Finally I copied someone elses code and edited it with my link etc. It's too big right now and covering part of the body text so I'll have to make some changes.

Sorry, I'm talking to myself here.

Winter Moon

After two years of using the thing, I noticed that Ken's camera has a night setting on it! I had to try it out. Here's our old farmhouse on a cold winter's night just as the moon was rising.

When I'm out taking the dogs for their last walk before bedtime I love to stand in the driveway and see our house all lit up. A little haven of warmth amidst the dark, frigid landscape.

Ooh, and look closely. There are orbs! Some people think they're evidence of ghostly, mataphysical activity of some kind. I think it's just the reflection of the moon. But who knows.

Now, if each orb contained the image of the other half of all the odd socks that come out of the dryer, now that would be proof! There's an awful lot of metaphysical activity in the laundry room.

Wood for the cookstove

As you can see from the picture winter finally arrived here in Virginia. We haven't had much snow but it's very cold and icy.

Since Ken's working full time now (Yes!!!) he hasn't had time to go out and cut wood so we had to break down and buy some. We had a few days without the woodstove going and what a difference. The central heat just doesn't warm the house up like the Pioneer Maid. Of course it does heat the house but it's just not that nice cozy heat that the stove puts out. So now we're back in shape for a while. I dont know how long this load will last us. We should make a pont of keeping track of how much we go through then we'll know how much to have on hand next winter. He's going to go back and get another load next weekend.

Now, perhaps I can get back to knitting. I've accomplished a LOT on the knitting front this year. I've finished a sweater and a bunch of hats and socks. There's just nothing like sitting by the stove in the rocking chair with your needles on winter nights after all the barn chores are done. When all the farm animals are out there bedded down and happily munching their hay I can finally relax.

No relaxing now though. I need to get out there and help download and stack this wood.

Easter Greeting Cards

I know it isn't Easter yet but I'm trying to be get ahead a bit!
Thought this print of spring daffodils growing in the woodland would look nice as an Easter Greeting Card. It's another eraser carving I made during the six months we lived in Maryland. I haven't done much carving at all since we moved here. But, the table in my art room has been cleaned off, the lamp set up, and the scalpel knives and erasers ready! Maybe I'll actually turn out some new work soon!

The Return of the Ox

Well, the beast is back!

Mr. V. brought him back the week before Christmas. This time we got a halter on him and here he is in his new stall in the barn as suggested by the more experienced ox drovers I've spoken with.

Ken fastened an iron bar to the post and he's secured to that with a chain with swivels. The ring on the chain slides up and down the pole when he stands up or lays down.

The barn floor is dirt and we were concerned about a mud hole forming underneath him so we dug a pit in the center of his stall and filled it half full with gravel. We placed a pallet on top of that then continued to fill in with the gravel. He's kind of standing on the wood slats of the pallet rather than straight gravel. It's working out well. In the morning I take out the poop and any wet bedding then push the dry stuff to the side so the damp area can air out and dry. He stands up all day anyway so he doesn't need bedding. Then in the evening I clean out the poop and spread dry hay under him so that he's nice and comfy for the night. I thought having a cow in the barn was going to be a major pain in the neck but he's very easy to keep clean. He's really come a long way. He's no longer quite as intent on disemboweling me whenever I go in there! Gosh, when he first came he would give me the evil eye and get ready to charge whenever I walked by. Since he's realized where his food and water comes from he's starting to look forward to seeing me and begins mooing as soon as he hears my footsteps. He'll now let me scratch his shoulder while he eats, which I think is quite an improvement. I still move very slowly and keep a close eye on him but for the most part as long as there are apples in the offing he couldn't really care less about anything else. He's also learned the command "over" and steps to the side while I clean out the soiled bedding. Yesterday I was able to brush him a little bit.

I guess February's goal is to be able to brush him all over and live to tell about it!

Oh and here area a couple of ox and oxen related t-shirt designs I just uploaded to the cafepress shop.

Box Turtle

Someone I met on the trail just before Christmas. Look how camoflaged he is. I almost stood on him. Or her!

Tree Farmer

Well, I'm sorry I haven't been blogging much. Blogger was giving me fits every time I tried to upload something. I wanted to wish everyone Merry Christmas but couldn't. So now the holidays are over. Hopefully this post will publish and I can at least say Happy New Year!!!

In the mean time I've been working on my Cafepress shop. A big Thank You! to those who bought t-shirts and hoodies over Christmas!!! Your custom is much appreciated. I'll post some of the new designs on here.

While looking through some eraser carvings I did last year this one -above- struck me as having possibilities. Thought it would make a nice design for tree farmer t shirts. So, if there are any tree farmers out there or if you know someone who has a tree farm or orchard you could surprise them with a t-shirt for Valentine's day! Actually, it would work just as well for Father's Day, Mother's Day, or even Easter! Or just beacuse you love a tree farmer. What the heck.

Ok lets see if this will publish.

No more supermarket meat!

It's hunting season here. Ken headed out one frosty morning a couple of weeks ago about 0700. At 09:30 he called me on the radio to say he was about to start field dressing a nice doe! She was nice too! It was a perfect shot, right through the heart, so she died within seconds - which makes me feel better!

He was quite a ways from the house so I went up and helped sling her to a pole and we made our way precariously down the mountain with the pole on our shoulders. It took us about 45 minutes to bring her out of the woods -and 3 days to get the crick out of my shoulder! Then the real work began! Skinning, cutting, processing and bagging the meat for the freezer. This is only the second deer Ken's dressed out so I think the next one will go a lot faster. He's very meticulous and tries not to waste anything.

The steaks and stew meat from this deer will last us most of the year. He's hoping to get one more before the season ends in January. Most of the meat from that one will be ground for hamburgers, sausage ect. A lot of the old timers around here can or bottle -for those in England- the meat. They put it in the pressure cooker. The guys at the fire station told Ken how to do it. I was always a bit worried about canning meat but our neighbor Ann cans anything that'll stand still long enough and she's healthy as a horse. She offered to lend us her pressure cooker and come and show us how she does it.

Between the deer, our rabbits and the garden we're getting more and more independent of the supermarket. Hopefully the goats will have kids in the spring then I won't need to buy milk for a while. I need to give them their shots and find out if they need extra selenium before breeding them.

One thing I like about the deer, I don't have to worm it , I don't have to give it shots, I don't have to trim it's hooves and I don't have to buy hay and grain and feed it! Well I guess that's more than one thing. But you know what I mean. And they look beautiful grazing on the lawn ( but not in the garden!)

This is where Ken got our deer. It's way back up in what we call the 'other holler'.

For Susan and David who've been here, it's over the other side of the mountain that's on the other side of the steam!

Gosh, we need to come up with some names for the different areas of our property! 

She doesn't look all that big here but she must have weighed about 200lbs. Here she is still with the pole we slung her from to carry her down off the mountain.

 

Dressing the deer

The pine tree by the driveway turned out to be a good place to hang the deer for dressing. We got a couple of pullies and hoisted it up there.

Ken cutting up the meat.