Hot Winter!

I know many of you who read this blog are shivering in your long johns right now and for that, I am sorry. Hopefully, pictures of our weekend at the beach, in near 90 degree weather will warm you up! Here's the scene: Jensen Beach, Florida. Ocean inlet with a park and fishing pier. Low tide. Early morning. Fiddler and horseshoe crabs. Dolphins. Yes, I said dolphins - playing and chasing their breakfast not too far off the end of the pier. Bar-B-Q. Afternoon fishing. Boys caught enough fish for dinner! Hazaa!

Cai's Best Friend

His name was Jiminy. He was just waking up from his winter sleep and was sunning himself on the sidewalk. In true Cai Cai fashion, he walked right up to him, said "Hello, friend," put his hand down, and Jiminy crawled right on. He and Cai hung out for about a half hour before Jiminy crawled up to Cai's shoulder, flicked his wings and flew away. Cai was devastated. He had lost his best friend. Ice cream was in order.

Tampa Zoo

Today was our first trip to the Tampa Zoo and Moise and phoenix's first time to any zoo - EVER. It was a GREAT time and Moise especially was overjoyed to be so close to the animals and able to touch them! I've been to MetroZoo and the Palm Beach Zoo and the Tampa Zoo is by far the BEST ZOO EVER! The weather was perfect, everyone had fun and we can't wait to go back! I'll be uploading more pic sinto a slideshow tomorrow, so check back for that.

My OCD kicked in again....

Here are Remy and Gusteau. Yes, Gerbils. You can take the girl off the farm, but you take away her animals and she gets all shades of depressed....So, they're like my medicine. Lasst year at this time I was milking goats, cursing the freezing weather while I installed heat lamps into each stall in the barn. I was enjoying fresh eggs everyday and looking into the crystal blue eyes of my horse while I groomed her. Yeah, I miss my farm. I guess these'll do.

Church day at the Park

Too. tired. to. type. Look at pictures.

Jolie, the Cockapoo

Killdeer - So cool

Okay, so I know this is random, but I have to take nature where I can get it now that we've moved form the farm. So, while Jeremy and Logan were playing soccer in the backyard over the weekend we heard a very loud, very insistent bird. Our search for the boisterous bird quickly turned up this little girl.

After some googling, I found out she's a Killdeer (thus named because the sound they make sounds like they're saying "kill deer"). Anyway, they are ground nesters and have these beautiful speckled eggs. Whenever perceived predators approach, the mom will run away from the nest a put on a little show. She stumbles around, contorting her wings as if they were broken in an attempt to make herself more appealing to the predator than her precious eggs.

Totally cool little bird. I'm gonna try to keep an eye on her nest to see of I can catch the hatching on film.

And there's your NatGEO lesson for the day!

Spring has Sprung!

There is a crispness, a freshness in the air. It came through with the front last night and kindly greeted us as we awoke this morning. The grass was a little greener, the animals seemed a little happier. Robins littered the ground, hopping and chirping, searching for their breakfast, while squirrels chased behind them, eager for whatever the robins had dug up. Spring is peeking, ever so shyly, around the edge of winter's long, gray coat, begging like a child on a too long car trip: "Are we there yet?" "Almost," I whispered in reply as I picked up 3 newly arrived baby chicks from the feed store and brought them home as a new school project for Logan. Even if this dream, this Utopian lifestyle we desired for our family is short lived, my children will experience everything it has to offer and will carry with them rememberies of a great adventure. Rejoice! Spring has sprung!

The Breaking of the Beauty

Since Jeremy had a job over the weekend down in Miami, my parents came to keep me company. My dad took the opportunity to start training our pony and it was a roller coaster of bucking and running and near-miss kicks. So, here are the pics for your general amusement.

Sunday Hike

The crisp air gently whispers through the ageless Spanish moss as the sound of a 1,000 crickets mingles with the crunch of carelessly discarded leaves to create a symphony worthy of a moment of silence. Let us bow our heads and respect the Sunday hike.

My Girls...

Yes, you are seeing right. They ARE rats. They ARE purposely and lovingly kept and played with. They ARE the BEST pets on the planet! Wouldn't trade my girls for anything!

It's ugly outside....

So, we woke up to cold and wet and gray and as the day progressed it actually got colder and darker and now....it's torrential. What a nasty day. Your first reaction is "Wow, what an awesome day to curl up under the covers, watch movies and read." Then the screams start, and the crashing of undoubtedly unrepairable things, and the whining of the dogs to be let out, and 8 million other things that immediately ruin your perfect rainy day and remind you that those are the dreams of a single woman without children. Then again, there's nothing better than a warm little body, all snuggly in fleece pajamas, squeezing your last ounce of breathe out of you as he sweetly whispers, "I love you mommy. You're my best friend." 2 minutes later - screams and temper tantrums ensue. Ah, the joys of the Jekyl and Hyde nature of a 3 year old.

On the upside, we visited the Gainesville mall today and were so happy to find a sense of familiarity that we missed. The Ocala mall has nothing. When I say nothing, I mean we've been there 3 times and every time have walked out in 5 minutues because we have both, walked the entire mall (not joking) and could not find anything we were looking for. So, the Gainesville mall was definitely a welcome change. Then we decided to take the scenic route home. First of all, may I say that the UF area of Gainesville is one of the most architecturally beautiful places I have ever seen. The town itself is very...."bricky." Seriously, nearly every building is brick and old and crisp - like the feeling of a perfect fall day. We took 441 home through these beautifully historic little towns like Micanopy and McIntosh. Little towns where the people have things like "Historic Days" and everyone dresses up in period garb and reenacts how life was like in the 17/1800s. Can't wait until we can check one of those out. Beautiful scenery - giant trees, weeping with Spanish moss, decaying buildings dotting the countryside as a moment frozen in time. Perfect area to build a photography portfolio!

So, now we're back home. Back to our conveniences and electronics and preoccupations. 2 laptops open, Guitar Hero being played on the Wii, iPod blaring. But just outside, past the white window panes and the glare of artificial light lies beauty. The beauty we are desperately trying to incorporate more and more into our daily lives. The beauty we are striving to instill in our children. The beauty that is so rarely appreciated by Floridians living just a few hours south of us, waking up in their cold, concrete jungle they so willingly lie to themselves and call paradise. Though no one thought so when we made the decision to move, I wholeheartedly contend that we "moved on up" and 5 acres of open sky is better than a "deluxe apartment in the sky" any day!

So we needed the .22 today....

So...Big Poppa had to be put down today.


Strange thing about animals....they are all basically wild, I suppose, and can be completely unpredictable. When I fed him this morning - totally fine, sweet, grunting, rolled over for me to rub his fat tummy. Went out to give him water this afternoon, he greeted me, happily drank and promptly turned and attacked. Bit me, chased me, slashed with a tusk, chased some more - all while I'm screaming like a freakin' school girl. (Which in and of itself was embarrassing and an annoyance. For those of you who know me, I am in no way girlie - until, apparently, a 150lb pig is chasing me with a certain look of death in his eye. Then I scream like a freakin' 5 year old girl running in her prettiest Sunday dress away from the neighborhood bully.) Guess I made one too many bacon jokes and he just snapped. According to Jeremy, now he has to crackle and pop, pop, POP too. Sad, really. He was sweet and friendly and loved to roll over and let us rub his tummy. But now, we can't even approach the paddock without him charging the gate and frothing at the mouth and snapping. Rabies? That's what I thought at first. But then I read that male pigs can turn for no apparent reason, froth and posture. Or he could just be sick. Either way, he's ridiculously aggressive and a danger to us and the other animals now. We can't approach him to quarantine him and no vet will come out and deal with him. Neither will animal control.

I'll save you the gruesome pics of the bite marks on my leg and the tusk slash across my knee cap. Just know that it hurts like a *bologna sandwich*.

So, farewell Big Poppa. We hardly knew ye. May you run through fields of the freshest dandelions. May your mud wallows always be fresh and cool. And may your bacon be the best damn bacon we've ever had! Amen.

Finally! A working farm!

So, my supposedly pregnant goats have still not kidded and I doubt at this point they will. So, the farm motto ere is: if you can't contribute, you can't stay! Went and got a beautiful Nubian mommy with her kid today.


The kid'll get one side and I get nearly a 1/2 gallon out of the other side - per day! That's more than enough milk for us plus some for butter and soap as well. MMMMMMM! The chickens are producing beautifully - we're getting 12-18 eggs per week. I love my little working farm!

We got the kids a pony for Christmas. She's a painted Palomino, but with her winter coat in, she's pure white with CRAZY blue eyes!

She's so sweet and loves Logan to death. Whenever he comes outside she runs up to the fence and pokes her head through. The kids were hysterically laughing at her yesterday as she acclimated to her new home. She was so happy she was bucking and racing around the pasture and talking so loudly!


Okay - I think we're done. No more animals. We have what we need for food and pleasure and can't handle NO MORE! Jeremy doesn't believe me, but I promised I would try to keep my obsessive/compulsive tendencies in check! ;0)

Our Weekend Project

We got new chickens (Easter Egg Layers) and therefore needed a bigger, better chicken run. My hubby's so handy!

We're thinking of naming the new chickens Paris, Lindsey, & Nicole. Why? They seem to be on the trouble-maker side and are quite STOOPID! They decided to sleep on top of the nest boxes instead of inside them or inside the coop. We did already get one egg today though, so I guess i could cut them a little slack....

Pea Soup

If you're the romantic, classical, Olde English literature fiends that Jeremy and I are, you would appreciate waking up in the morning and walking out into a scene from Hound of the Baskervilles:

When you can literally taste the condensation, that's a beautiful thing. If you cock your head just right and you can actually see the mist falling, that's the kind of fog stories are written about. And when the silhouette of a horse, head-on freaks you out because it looks like a man standing where a man definitely shouldn't be standing, well, it's time to go back to bed!

The first month

Okay, so when you're looking for a house and you find one that instantly clicks, there's a romantic part of your brain that shuts down all logic and reason and all you see is "the dream."  Then you move in and reality sets in and well, let's just say, turns out the house needs FAR more work than we realized.  But, there is an upside to 5 acres of dilapidated fences, poorly grassed pastures, jimmy-rigged barn apartments and more hand-sized spiders than one can count.  FREEDOM.  The freedom to be, the freedom to do and the freedom to live the dream.  So, here we are.  On a farm in the middle of Florida, making far less money, away from all the people, activities and comforts of familiarity, settling into what seems to be shaping up to be a pretty nice change of pace.

So, some of you have asked for observations, updates and the like.  Well, here goes....

1. Got a pig.  She had 5 piglets.  3 sold, 2 died.   She's sweet, but who knew disposing of her waste would be a full time job?  So nasty.

2. Wanted fresh milk, got some goats.  Lower lactose, higher fat, better for you.  2 pregnant does

and 1 very horny buck.

All I have to say is.....don't ever turn your back to him!  Girls are due sometime before Christmas, so you all can expect some killer goat's milk fudge in your future!

3. Spiders suck.  Cannot TELL you how much I hate them.  How fortunate for me that there are more species and sizes of spiders here than I can keep track of!  Ironic enough....there is a large spider who has made her home across the opening of the pig pen.  We've named her Charlotte.  

When you walk outside in the morning, the dewey grass sparkles with thousands of little grass webs.  Never seen anything like this - pretty cool, though.

4. I thought trading in palm trees for oak trees would be fantastic.....uh, NO.  Hundreds of thousands of acorns crunching under your feet - beautifully romantic sound.  The MESS from hundreds of thousands of acorns crunching under your feet - P I t A.

5. Wanted fresh eggs, got some chickens.  Realized very quickly chickens are persnickety and will only lay during the winter if the sun, moon, and stars are all in the proper alignment, you praise and compliment them every morning and sing them a  lullaby every night and pray for a miracle.  Maybe it's just the breed I got.  Call me shallow, but I wanted CUTE chickens....whatever.

Let's hope we get some action soon or Snowball I and Santa's Little Helper will be coming to dinner! (Props BTW to those who caught the pop culture reference in the names!)

6. Okay, so we have these ginormous troughs out in the pastures for the horses' water, right?  They get filled up by the rain, and woodland creatures of all types help themselves.  No problem there.  Walking out in the morning and finding a squirrel float  - problem THERE!  (Out of respect for Nichole, I will NOT post the pic - pretty nasty though).

7. Farm work is hard, ya'll!  From mending fences to mucking out stalls (still aghast at the amount of poo I have to clean up!) to feeding and watering animals...this is a better work out than any $30/month gym membership!  Come spring, we're planting a fruit/veggie garden.  Let's hope my black thumb didn't make the move with us!

8.  There's nothing better than a warm fireplace on a cold evening!  So long as the wood is stacked properly, the floo is open and the entire house doesn't fill up with smoke!

9. Finally - first AWESOME experience in the city vs. farm life:  getting to find and cut our own Christmas tree from the local Christmas tree farm!  There's is nothing cooler for a little boy than to help his dad cut down his very own Christmas tree!

So far.....City Life: 0, The Simple Life: 100