Another day on the farm, oops,The Ranch

Hello folks,

I am new to blogging so I am still trying to get the hang of getting on here everyday to post. It is very good for my soul to bear my successes and my failures. (even though the failures usually out weigh the successes)

So.. while I was away this is what has been happening. We have been working on our garden. The soil her is not that great so we decided to do an above ground garden. I found some great ideas online. Some from Pinterest, others from Facebook pages and other bloggers. I will share the ones I can remember..lol. I decided to do a large box garden and some separate sections done with pallets. I love pallets. They are usually free and the ideas are limited only by your creativity. We loaded all of the boxes and pallets with top soil yesterday and man that was a job. It was made more challenging by the constant energetic interruptions by our new addition, the German Shepard puppy named Z, ( Alaric Zelic Von Lewis Haus)and our chickens. the chickens thought we were putting all of that dirt out for their amusement. Pics to follow.

" Z"...the new puppy

the dirt pile

the pallets...they are ugly right now but I hope for tons of beautiful green stuff soon

Also, a diet update. i have been on this low carb diet for 9 days. it has been an adjustment. I wanted a BLT yesterday and I cant have bread so..I did a Lettuce sandwich with bacon and tomato between the lettuce... It was awesome and I didn't miss the bread.. I could get used to this, I think.Give it a try..

Laken is working hard on her school work while I blog. I decided to home school when we moved to the middle of no where. She is very smart and has always been in gifted programs. There are no resources available in this area for her. We found an awesome Christian School with an very appropriate program. She is loving the work and it has been a challenge for both of us. We spend several hours a day covering her work and I have learned a lot also. Some of it is self guided and other parts are not. I am new to home schooling so I did a ton of research. I advise everyone to read all the pros and cons before deciding but I know we made the right choice for us. Lola said ..." That is enough school work Laken." We need to play!

Lola telling Laken it is play time

The four legged friends in the pasture are loving this awesome weather. They are as sick as we are with the cold weather. Spring is awesome when you have a true winter. In the south we don't normally have a cold winter and of course we complain..lol. Without a good cold winter we are bombarded with bugs and it is impossible to fully enjoy this awesome climate we live in. We are a funny bunch( southerners)  when we get a little ice and snow...we freeze... no pun intended, but hand us 100+ temps with 100% humidity and we seem right at home. However, as I said before..it is impossible to enjoy this beautiful spring weather when you never have a winter and this year we had a winter.. a cold one for us and I could dance outside in the sunshine on a day like this...No pics for that one...lol. So back to the 4 legged friends. They are soaking in the sunshine, running and playing and "talking" to me every time I walk outside. The donkeys are especially vocal...very loud. I am sure the neighbors ( a few miles away) can hear them. I have scheduled the horses for a bath in a few days, I will let you know how that goes. We got 3 of the horses from a lady that had not had time for them. They have not let me bathe them. We decided to work on other grooming until they got used to us. They will let us brush them an clean them now so a bath is the next step..I think I may get a little wet.
Trust is a lot of work with an animal that can crush you if they wanted to. I trust my babies now but they are still getting used to us. They are a little jumpy sometimes. They donkeys are not on the bath list... I am sure they are fine. They tend to do their own thing. We got them to ward off any predators, so I would not classify them as pets but they will eat out of our hands but that is about it. Frosty, The Ole Man isn't in these pics, I will have to include one of him later.

The snow...we are not happy

Patches, Penny and Sugar

Momma, Clairece

Daddy, Cletus, He loves playing with the strangest things

Cletus, posing

Laken , taking a break and feeding the horses

My feathered friends are wandering around the yard, digging and dusting. The large pile of top soil is a hit..They are aerating and  fertilizing it for me. Thanks guys...I cant wait to get my new babies. I want to add about 30 more chicks. I am expanding my coop to accommodate them. they all free range during the day but I have to have room for them when I am unable to let them out. We have about 20 projects in the works and the coop is one of those. On the farm..oops Ranch..lol we have to work till the money runs out..then come back when we can. It is a juggling act but I would not trade it for anything. One day it will be much better. All of the essential will be done. Now if you ask my husband about the loving it part..well you may get a different answer. God love him, he is always doing a "honey do" list. I love him more everyday.

Marvin, the beautiful..strutting his stuff

the beginning of the addition to the coop

"what cha  got momma," , we are coming....

A few weeks ago we had a pig problem. The pig pen had to be moved. Saban the pig is a pet and he thinks he is a dog. I have heard him bark... Really, no joke. We moved his pen and we thought all was well. We left for work and upon our return we were in for a little surprise. The horse buckets were turned over, the gas grill was on its side and various other things were moved and or destroyed. I immediately knew what had happened. We have seen this destruction before. Saban had escaped before and we had a rather comical time with it. It included a rain storm and me chasing the pig in the rain storm. He was lucky to be a pet at that moment cause Bacon, I mean Saban was looking tasty. So back to this episode. I got out of my truck and what do I hear...oink oink oink.. I look up and I see this fat pig waddling towards me full speed across the horse pasture. He is so excited to see me that I can not be mad at him. Besides it isn't raining so my mood is much better this time. I took him back to his pen with a little help from a loaf of bread. I put him in, try to establish where he escaped and I am clueless. No gaps or dig makes..hmmmm. So i leave him and head back to the house. Before I make it to the house I hear...oink oink oink. I look behind me and yep.. there he is... running behind me. We head back to the pen, he follows. I lead him in with food and he lock his door back. Scratching my head , I decide to wait at the top of the hill and see what he is doing to escape. I will have to say..he is one creative pig. I wish I would have had my camera. He managed to climb the fence and push his weight against it until he flipped over it. Well, now we have poles much closer together and a few other adjustment and no more " Saban on the loose" stories.

Well Laken is done with her self guided stuff, so time to teach my little genius. Be back soon...