Antiques & Junk Shopping

This past weekend was an event I look forward to all year long. Every fall there is an Antique sale outside of Mayville. They fill up their barn with fabulous old finds and their prices are AMAZING!!! Every year that I have gone I have found awesome items that have become important pieces in my home decor! This year I was ready weeks in advance with my calendar marked and my money saved up. I invited some of my dear friends (Leslie & Shyla) to come join me and we all brought our kids, our mini vans and we lined up early to get the best finds. Part of the fun is standing in line outside the barn craning your necks to see what treasures lie inside. You can't go inside until 9am sharp, but you can look from the door all you want. They pass out pages of "sold" stickers so you can tag your big items without slowing down- and me & the kids strategized while we were waiting as to which items were the most important to get to first! There was a cool vintage black cupboard that we could see and I told Simon to run for that first.

 Do I need a cupboard? No. 

Do I have a place to put it? No. 

Did I know the price when I asked him to tag it as sold? No.

Did I buy it without hesitation anyway? Yes.

See that crock in the picture? 

Simon saw that piece of Red Wing Pottery "on the way" to the 

cupboard and asked me if I wanted it. Umm, yes please!

Matt and I became familiar with Red Wing a few years ago when we visited the town in Minnesota while going to the 100 mile yard sale along the Mississippi River. Red Wing pottery is quite collectible and can be pretty expensive. This piece was only marked $7 because the bottom was broken out. It is stamped December 1915 & besides the bottom part & a missing handle, it is in really nice condition.

Julianna spotted a black framed mirror from the doorway,

 and that along with a cool glass jar were her first targets.

(Does anyone know what exactly that was used for??)

  

When it was finally time to go in and shop, I grabbed the garden arch first 

(at at the CRAZY price of only $10 I think it was probably the best value of the day!)

Then I snagged a few other cool odds and ends....

A printer tray- a super find at $7

A wash board, a bench, a flower box, other glassware...

I went a little nuts!!

I got this chunky throne like chair too. 

What am I going to use it for? No clue- but it is fun to sit in!

And this heater of some sort? I don't know what this is at all, but it was only a couple bucks and I think I will use it in my garden as a plant stand. 

(again, if you have info here, please tell me about it!)

  

Oh yeah, and this trunk simply because it is piratey. 

I also got a small brown desk & chair that might be perfect in my upstairs hallway.

We left with a full van and arranged to come back for the big pieces later!

Next stop?

We came to the farm to unload all the goodies and the kids played with the animals

Shyla's kids were pretty excited and were quick to explore and make friends!

After hanging at the farm for a bit- we were ready to hit the road with an empty (again) van and a travel mug of coffee. Our next stop was "Junkerama" a junk & antique sale in Gardner. Twice a year they put on an event, and it just so happens that their fall sale was on the same day as the Mayville sale. 

We got there around lunch time, but there was still plenty of great finds!!

A potting bench, a wishing well, a copper boiler, an old wash tub, 2 birdhouses, a cream can, a handmade side table and a rusty crate later- my van was full AGAIN!!

   

After we got home- I arranged everything on the lawn for a fun picture!!

Such a FUN FUN FUN & successful day!

Junk hunting with good friends and finding amazing things at amazing prices 

made the day absolutely perfect!

(we even had a lot of fun with all our kids with us!)

I can't wait til next year when we can do it all again!!!!

"Chocolate" Kisses

Today was such an exciting day at the farm! 

"Cocoa" and "Snickers", our new miniature horses arrived this afternoon and we spent the day welcoming our new babies to the farm!! We fenced in a section of pasture for them and the kids took turns leading them around the yard. They were born in May of this year, so they aren't even 5 months old yet... they are ABSOLUTELY adorable! The term "love at first sight" definitely applies to these little sweeties! The kids are all so excited to finally have horses out here- and I feel a little bit safer having them learn how to take care of minis instead of full sized horses as beginners.

It was pretty funny watching the other barnyard animals curiously inspecting the new tenants. The kittens approached first and lost interest quickly. The guineas raised a ruckus but eventually went about their foraging. The goats seemed a little put off, especially because we put the minis in their goat yard while we finished off the pasture area. They went inside the barn and stayed there until we took the horses back out. It will be interesting to have a new species on the farm!

 our little filly- Cocoa

our little colt- Snickers

I am excited to get to know the babies and see how they fit into our Funny Farm!!

Coming Soon...

We are so excited to welcome Cocoa & Snickers out to the Funny Farm this weekend!!

Found these adorable mini's on craigslist this week and after talking to the seller, 

we are very excited to purchase them and add them to our family. 

The kids especially!!

Will update again after they arrive!

Playing Catch Up

Ok so I completely busted my New Year's resolution to blog more... 

It has been 9 months since the last post. Sheesh.

The farm is still here and we are having a blast and excited for fall-

 life has just been busy and blogging got put on the back burner. 

Some changes around here? 

The biggest one is GUS!

Gus was born March 11. 2012 and is a JOY to our family!!

At 6 months old, everything is exciting and interesting to explore. He LOVES to be outside on the farm and he especially loves to play with the kittens (who seem to love him too, despite his tendency to squeeze them)

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In other news, we added Gracie to our goat herd earlier this year. 

She is a 2 year old Nigerian Dwarf doe and we are hoping to breed her soon!

Gracie gets along with the boys too, which is a relief!

We also acquired Ginger- Julianna's new bunny. 

She roams freely during the day in the "hen pen" and loves the freedom to hang out with the chickens.

We also got 15 new "chicks" in the spring,

 that are now old enough to start laying eggs.

3 of them were actually hatched by 2 of our Silkies that finally went broody in the spring and made a joint nest that they took turns sitting on. (haha!) 

                                    and a few chicks turned out to be roosters-
                                         this one is my favorite of the bunch!

We also got 5 new guinea keets to replace the one's we lost last fall, they are already fully grown as well and they roam the farm making a ruckus!! I laugh every time I hear the barking start.

Last but not least, we have 6 new kittens on the farm. 

2 from Lulu, 1 from Tiny and 3 we rescued from the side of the road. Lulu disappeared when her kittens were about 6 or 7 weeks old, and Tiny adopted them as well as the 3 orphans. She was pregnant at the time, but started nursing all 5 of them anyway. Not long after that she had her own babies, but one of them didn't survive. The other one "Tick" is absolutely adorable and we LOVE her soooo much! She got her name because she would be the only kitten nursing when she was a newborn and she was the roly'est poly'est kitten we had ever seen! She looked like a swollen tick with a milk mustache :) All 6 kittens love each other and play together now, and Tiny proudly claims all of them as her own. 

Oliver & Ticky

*****

This summer we also started the huge Garden project. I have been dreaming of a "Therapy Garden" in the center of the circular drive since we moved here. My wonderfully handy husband started constructing it in July and we spent MANY, MANY hours over the next couple months working on it. There is still a long way to go, but I am very happy with the progress we made and next year we hope to add lots more to it!!

Here is the original sketch I made 

(we have made some changes- but this is basically the idea)

Here are some of the construction pics:

                                                   my herb garden!

                                  and my FABULOUS garden entry arch!!!

Anyway just wanted to jump on and post some pictures and the important news from The Funny Farm. Perhaps the next post will be sooner than 9 months from now ;-)

2011 in Review

Happy New Year!
I can't believe it is 2012 and that we celebrated our 1 year anniversary on the farm last month! Time really does fly by when you are having fun. We experienced many highs and lows throughout the year:

• We got our first group of chickens right after Christmas of 2010, and with The General and his small flock of 5 hens our dream of hobby farming began! 
• It wasn't long after 2011 began that we started exploring goat options, and after researching the different breeds, we decided to start with Nigerian Dwarf Goats.  We found 2 wethers at a farm over in Minnesota and it didn't take us long to fall in love with Black Jack and Sundance and their funny personalities. 
• With Spring came chicks! There was a couple months that our dining room was full of the sound of peeping fluff balls and we loved holding the chicks and watching them grow.
• Right as summer break started we added 2 baby Fainting Goats to the mix. We enjoyed bottle feeding them and lost our hearts to their sweet dispositions.
• That same week at a nearby farm "Sassy" gave birth to her first foal. We were thrilled as Tornado would be coming to live at the farm as soon as he was old enough to be weaned. 
• During the summer, the puppy we had rescued, Scurv, decided he like the taste of blood. He killed our 2 baby goats and several chickens before we found him another home. We were devastated and lost some of our most favorite pets. It was our first experience of loss on the farm and it was a hard lesson for the whole family.
• With July the barn cats had litters and we ended up with 17 kittens on the farm!! 
• In August we found out we were expecting our 5th child in March of 2012! It was unexpected news, but soooooo exciting for us! 
• As fall came we were thrilled that all of our spring chicks started laying eggs! We get an eclectic assortment every day- different sizes and colors! It is like an Easter Egg hunt collecting them- white, light brown, dark brown, speckled, green, olive, blue... so many varieties!! 

• We had a pretty good garden harvest for our first attempt! LOTS of zuccini & summer squash and it was delicious! Unfortunately our corn never ripened enough to eat, but we will try again next year.
• We fell in love with one of the barn kittens and Muggles became a house cat!
• During the fall we lost 2 guineas and 2 of our barn cats Fluffy & Poe to predators (we think coyotes) all in the same week. It was a sad time for all of us.
• We had a Halloween party and bonfire out on the farm and bobbed for apples and busted open a Pinata. It was fun because Memama (Zoa's mom) was visiting from Florida and got to experience fall on the farm!
• With winter, came only a light dusting of snow and milder temperatures than usual. Christmas Day was NOT white for the first time in the 5 winters we have lived in North Dakota! 

I have been slacking in the blog department the last few months, but one of my New Year's resolutions is to try and update here more often. It is such a great journal for me to reflect back on and remember the milestones of hobby farming!!  We are excited to see what changes 2012 will bring to the farm!

Tiny Eggs & Giant Zucchini

Some of our spring chicks have starting laying! I know it is kindof odd, but I feel such a sense of accomplishment!! ;0) I raised them from day old chicks and now they are laying eggs of their own- I am so proud!!!

Maya is one of our Bantam Cochin pullets. She is black and tiny and a very serious egg layer already! She was one of the first babies to start laying and her first light brown egg arrived on her 19th week birthday!! Her eggs are about the size of a ping pong ball, and almost every day without fail since then, she makes her way into the nesting boxes and leaves us a tiny gift.

Maya- one of our Spring chicks 

(I named some of the chicks after my favorite scrapbook companies &

she was named for the company "Maya Road")

4 of Maya's tiny eggs, next to one of our "normal" large size eggs

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My garden has been kindof a bust this year. I admit that gardening is not my forte! I did not keep up with weeding and it has gotten quite overgrown with weeds. Despite the weeds, the squash, zucchini, peppers & corn all seem to be doing quite well! Simon went out to the garden today to chase a chicken out, and tripped over a HUGE zucchini that had somehow been missed underneath all the plants. This is the biggest zucchini by far that I have ever seen!!! He was thrilled with his find and came in yelling his excitement. 

This will be fun! I have already pulled out my mama's zucchini bread recipe and I am wondering how many loaves we can make with this monster- yummmm! Can't wait :)

August Updates

I can't believe we are already half way through August. The summer is flying by and school starts here in 11 days. Where did the time go? The heat wave is over, thankfully and we have had much cooler days and LOTS of rain and thunderstorms. I actually love the rain, but a lot of people here don't because of the flooding and the fields being too wet. I can certainly understand that!

Lots has been happening in our family lately, hence the lack of blog posts. Times have been stressful, but in all things we will give thanks- or at least try to. When life gets busy, the farm gets put on the back burner. However the farm is growing and everything is green and lush and full of life!

We have 14 kittens!!!! All 3 of our barn cat mamas had litters within a couple weeks of each other. Sadly, 3 kittens didn't make it, but the others are all healthy and playful (and ready to find new homes soon...) The kittens all grew up together and they all play together. The funny thing is, the 3 moms take responsibility for all the babies, they don't discriminate. I see kittens from all 3 litters nursing from the same mom- it is quite humorous to me!

how many kittens do you see in this picture? There are 8 here!!

In other news, we had decided to give Scurvy Dog another chance. We tried in vain to find a new home for him, and after a few weeks of searching we decided to give him another shot. Unfortunately, that was a bad decision on our part. One day when we were gone running errands, he broke off his chain and killed 6 of our chickens. It was a very sad day because one of them was Anabelle's beloved "Mohawk". Of all our 38 chickens, any one of us would have gladly given one of ours to spare Mohawk. He was such a special Silkie, and he and Annie had a very special relationship. I am glad I have many pictures of the 2 of them together (I even have a video of her riding her bike down the sidewalk with Mohawk sitting in the basket on her handlebars!)

I don't think any chicken could ever take his place, but we do have the 3 young silkies that haven't been named. I am hoping that Annie will bond with one of them.

Anyway hopefully one day soon I will be back to blogging my funny farm stories... I promise to let you know when I do!

5 Mins to Whine & Complain

We have been in a heat wave since last weekend here in ND. The "feel's like" temperatures are over a 100 every day and the humidity is awful. Even at night the temps are still in the 80's and there is not much relief. Now being a born and raised Florida gal, you would think that I could handle this. The difference? In Fl, there is air conditioning. I could turn my thermostat down and still carry on as usual. Chores, done. Cooking, done. Being nice to my kids, done. >:-} Up here there are usually only a handful of days that get unbearable and so a lot of the older homes do not have AC. Our home does NOT have AC. I am the first to admit- I am not good with heat. I turn into a miserable, whiney, hard to get a long with baby. I prefer cold any day of the week! The last week or so has been totally wasted on me. I cannot function. There is no cooking or cleaning being done, and whenever one of the kids wants to hug me, I wince. I hate feeling like this!!!!!!  The house is in chaos and we are all sitting around like grumpy slugs. My son's therapist sets aside 10 minutes everyday to listen to him "whine and complain". After he vents all his frustrations and injustices, he is able to go on with his day and function better. Today I have decided to adopt this practice. Today's blog is my whine and complain time. I am hot and I hate it!

I suppose this post is not really farm related, except that I wonder if all our animals are as miserable as I am? I look out the windows at them and I feel sorry for them. Maybe one day if I strike it rich I can install central air in the house, and then in the barn.

The Dog Days of Summer

Where does the time go? I apologize for not updating lately. Spring turned quickly into summer and now we are all bearing the heat. It seems especially hot & humid this year and we are all miserable. Even the barnyard crew seem to be suffering and laying low. I find them in the shade or in the coop usually and I know they will be happy when it starts cooling off again. We have noticed an increase in coyote activity in the last month or so.... We hear them every night howling and sometimes it sounds like they are surrounding our farm. In the last week 2 of our 4 guineas have disappeared, and I assume the coyotes are getting them. So sad :( There is no trace of them, they are simply gone. The first one about a week ago, and the 2nd we noticed was gone this morning. I wish it was easier to get them into the coop at night with the chickens where they would be safe, but they are free spirits and turn their nose up at our protection (or they are just too simple minded to know what's good for them). Our sweet barn cat, Poe has also been absent lately. We are HOPING that he is off on a romantic adventure, the alternative would be very sad to even contemplate. I will keep you posted. Otherwise everything is business as usual. The garden is doing well despite my meager gardening knowledge. The corn did get planted (finally) and it is a couple inches high. The squash and zucchini plants are huge and leafy!! As soon as we can actually eat something I will really feel a sense of satisfaction! The kittens are growing rapidly and are getting quite playful! We have a total of 14 between the 3 mamas and so in another few weeks we will feel overrun I am sure! For now I am happy that they are safe in the sun porch, as I know that is offering them protection from predators and the elements. Anyway- that is all the news that is newsworthy... I miss the days where there were multiple blog posts running around in my mind... it just seems that there isn't much new to report. Hmmmmm..... maybe there will be more after we make it through the dog days of summer.