Vintage Home and Farm

Living next to a creek, we expect to see various wild animals coming and going, as this land is their home, too. We've got deer, chipmunks, raccoons, and a wide variety of birds, including birds of prey like barn owls and bald eagles. Once, a black bear was spotted behind our milk shed down by the creek, and our neighbor has seen cougar tracks on the trail that runs behind our house. Occasionally, we get word that someone has seen a cougar along Morse Creek. Even so, we were rather surprised when we spotted five coyote pups hanging out around here. They are not hiding from anyone and are present during the day. If they spot you, they don't run away too quickly, so they aren't all that afraid of people.  The coyote pups look like small dogs, and they spend much of their time hunting for field mice and other rodents in the fields on and around our property. All five pups were hunting together for rodents in the newly hayed field across the road at Elton's farm. We noticed...

A neighbor who lives on a farm down the road from us bought guinea hens last year. A few weeks ago, the funny-looking birds started showing up in our yard. They've established a routine that begins in the field near our milk shed, where they hunt around for bugs. Eventually, they make their way through every section of our nearly three acres. They spend considerable time eating fallen seeds under the bird feeder in the front yard.  There are seven of them. I can hear the odd birds squawking when I'm sitting at my computer in the living room. They are the only co-workers I have each day (I work remotely). Next, the seven strange creatures wander over by the blueberry bushes. I think they're looking for slugs, as there are a lot of them out in that field. Later in the day, they head toward our neighbor Brian's yard, where they skirt under the fence and then squawk up by his house for a while. Finally, the guinea hens go past our chicken/duck run in the back yard, where th...

Even though we've had a lot of chores and projects keeping us busy on the farm, we've found time to have a little fun, too.  I thought I'd share a few recent photos. A tradition for our family is participating in the neighborhood Independence Day parade.   This year, our daughter and her friends decorated the golf cart and joined the parade.  While waiting for the parade to start, Andrea visited us with Reggie the Miniature Horse, who is the star of the parade every year. We stopped work on painting the house and enjoyed sitting at the clubhouse while watching the parade go by. It was nice to rest for a bit before we returned home to finish painting. The pool is open and our daughter has spent a few hours making good use of it.  Her friends joined her a couple times as well.  We're looking forward to spending more time at the pool now that our house painting is finished. This family of deer live on our property.  Mama and two twin fawn can be seen ever...

We've had the pleasure of taking care of our friends' donkey while they are away.  He is the most gentle animal and he is also quite happily spoiled.  Our friends refer to him as their "pasture pet" because they fuss over him much like anyone would one of their pets at home.  He has many toys and is given special foods and vitamins for his health. Patch is an American Spotted Ass. I will admit I feel rather uncomfortable calling this sweet animal an ass.  So, you can imagine my relief to learn that Patch is also a donkey.  This tidbit came from a book I'm reading,  The Donkey Companion: Selecting, Training, Breeding, Enjoying and Caring for Donkeys .  At the beginning of the book, it explains that the terms donkey and ass mean exactly the same thing; people transitioned away from the term ass due to it's similarity to the British word "arse".  Patch is no arse.  So, we will gladly refer to him as a donkey. My daughter and I both go ...

The other day I had the pleasure of a leisurely drive along Highway 101 with a friend. We were headed out west to Forks, where we participated in a beginners' cedar bark basket weaving class taught by Quileute Tribal Elder Phillip Ward.  When we signed up for the class, I was imagining a very large basket woven by my clumsy hands, and came prepared with several big plastic bags to carry our baskets home in (it does rain a lot in Forks and I didn't want our newly-made baskets to get wet).  I was a bit wet behind the ears myself, as it turns out these were tiny baskets that we made. They were so small that we could tuck them into our pockets or purses.  I was enlightened as I discovered how difficult baskets truly are to weave and I have new respect for the craftsmanship and art of basket weaving.  These little baskets took a lot of concentration and just under three hours to weave.  As we headed home, our little baskets looked quite lovely sitting on the das...

A local tree service took down nine hazard trees from a property not too far away and offered the wood up for free on Craigslist.  The fallen trees included two cedar and seven fir. My husband was one of the first to call about it and was the first to have a truck and trailer available for moving the wood.  Free firewood would soon be ours! The first load was moved by my husband and daughter while I was at work.  It was a monumental chore to roll each 250-pound round of wood up the aluminum ramps into the trailer. Once a load of the wood was home that first day and unloaded alongside the house, our neighbor, Brian saw the activity and came over to offer help.   In exchange for helping with the remaining loads, my husband offered Brian half of the free wood. Like us, Brian heats his home primarily with wood during the cooler months, and so he appreciated the offer of free firewood.   The two men then worked together, alternated drop...

We woke up Saturday morning and discovered the latest storm had dropped another 6 inches of snow. It's been a long time since our area has seen snow like this - not for at least 12 years or more.   I was amazed to see we had 12 inches of snow on the picnic table. It was a beautiful winter wonderland.  Of course, there are a few farm chores to take care of regardless of whether there is snow. The first chore of the morning is always taking care of the chickens.  The chickens seem to be doing okay in the cold weather without much extra effort.  They don't have a heat lamp, which I feel guilty about, but I'm following advice from The Prairie Homestead which says chickens do not need (or even want) the extra heat.  This is the first year I've left them alone. Last year our three original chickens had a plastic heating pad that they could sit on.  We didn't even get the heating pad out for them this year, since it wo...