The Adventures of Dear Farmer and Indoor Plumbing

Disclaimer:this is probably one of the more disgusting posts. But in our family everything is shared news. Everything! It is part of Dear Farmer we love. However, the Wife does not believe that this is part of country hospitality....though, should you visit, you should know this beforehand.


No, We do not have an outhouse. Yes, we do have indoor plumbing. However, we have the indoor plumbing from when indoor plumbing was first made. And then in the ninteen sixties someone thought it looked old, put a new pink face on it, and made it appear hip and trendy.
A mere fifty years after the facelift, the bones of the original plumbing are brittle and clogged...and needing replacing.
Insert Dear Farmer's newest adventure...indoor plumbing.
To give Dear Farmer more time to research the "how to" his family has come up with a jingle you might have heard in a playground, " If its yellow, let it mellow. If its brown, flush it down." This is the core of playground humor, and reality in this old farmhouse. Well, reality until Dear Farmer has figured out how to fix and replace the old plumbing.
Insert the family joke: "but what do you do if its green?"
Now you can screw up your face, giggle and laugh. But really...what do you do?
Here in lies the adventure every time we open the toilet lid. What did the person who used the bathroom before you do? What did they do with the green?

Dear Farmer "Repurposes" The Wife's Furniture

Dear Farmer has built the Wife almost all her furniture.  Everything starts with scrap lumber from farm projects. The only things Dear Farmer hasn't built have been handed down to us by generations before(family heirlooms).  The coffee tables started as wood racks-which explains why they've been built with 2 x 12 boards.  The tops were the siding from the first barn he built.  Leftovers, cut to just the right size. Our bed started as the children's playtable...but built with the thought that four children(at that time) never fit around a small play table well, it needs to be big enough for all four...like the exact size of a king-size mattress.  As time marched on the playtable repurosed into the Wife's bed. Which Dear Farmer built her a frame for, that looks just like the fence that he built around the perimeter of the farm.(Check out blogpost 5/8/15 "Building, building, building")
So this leads us to the next repurposing of furniture...since we're moving what can we take apart and reuse elsewhere?  So far the list of furniture Dear Farmer can't touch is simply the list of heirloom furniture.  Everything else will be far game...
What will the bed frame become?
What will the coffee bar become?
Will the wood racks that became coffee tables become shelving or countertops next?
Will the boxes to store blankets, that became end tables, which now store toys stay the same, or change?

This is all very exciting!  Like getting a whole bunch of new gifts, a whole new furniture set of furniture!  And the Wife will be able to look at the countertop, or butcher block, or stud on the wall and tell a story of how "this plank was....and I always loved how Dear Farmer thought of each detail and each need we had, and filled it."
{Sigh} I love this Dear Farmer! What a guy!

CHICKENS! It's what brings Fathers and Sons together?

CHICKENS! It's what we're doing on the farm right now...preparation, anticipation, building, and raising.
CHICKEN fencing, CHICKEN waters, CHICKEN feeders, CHICKEN brooders, CHICKEN houses, CHICKEN-egg washing, CHICKEN butcher dates, CHICKEN chicks, CHICKENS roosters, CHICKEN...CHICKEN...CHICKEN....
So it comes as no surprise to anyone around here when the current project is the CHICKEN house.

Dear Farmer and Honorable Son No.2 have been plugging away at the creation of the new CHICKEN house.  They had the spent one day grating and leveling the area where the house will go.  Now they are in the shop building the frame...because that's a good indoor activity during the cold rain.
Dear Farmer is loving getting to work with Honorable Son No.2.  The two are very alike in ability and practical thinking.  Honorable Son No.2 anticipates what is coming next, measures everything correctly, and laughs at the same jokes as Dear Farmer.

Dear Farmer came in from work...after day number two of working together...very happy!
Dear Farmer is anticipating the work taking half the time, and turning out to be correct from all angles in the end.  Those alone are reasons to be happy...but the best part is working, laughing, and spending time with his son.

And Honorable Son No.2 has found out...he really likes Dear Farmer too.

This proves two beautiful facts:

1. Neither Dear Farmer or Honorable Son No.2 are CHICKENS themselves.
2. Real men aren't CHICKENS about mending relationships.

Dear Farmer get's the "bird"

There was someone who once said, "When a chicken looks at you with a gleam in it's eye...it's giving you the "bird"."  If you've been around chickens in mass quantity, you'd know it's true.  There is something a little disconcerting about large quantities of foul.
Dear Farmer doesn't really like to raise chickens, but they act as our veterinarians.  They follow the cattle and clean up the pasture of cow patties and bugs, making the pasture a sanitary place for the grass to grow and cattle to roam a month later.  So, in our situation, doing things natural and organic...the chickens are needed and the job is important.  Bonus: Dear Farmer brings the Wife an egg or two!!!
There are meat birds that Dear Farmer raises as well.  This is totally only out of necessity for eating.  (People like to eat chickens, Dear Farmer will supply.) And our chickens are raised on fresh grass everyday.  Dear Farmer built the movable pens, he's a genius!
Our need was for 200+ chickens to be vets and we have 1500+ for meat.  Do some quick addition...this is more than 1700 birds at any given time.
Dear Farmer has to open the door to the chicken houses and step inside to fill feed buckets.  That's when he gets it...the "bird". With a gleam in their eye, they look at Dear Farmer and all his wonderluss buckets of food and water.  For some strange reason those chickens think Dear Farmer is only there to fulfill their desires. Should Dear Farmer not move fast enough, they will pounce on him!
Dear Farmer's been hen-pecked, nibbled, spurred and pooped on.  Oddly enough, it doesn't bother him one bit...and his reply to getting the "bird"?
"In the end, it all tastes like chicken."

Building, building, building

Sometimes all Dear Farmer does is build things.  He builds barns, chicken pens, brooding houses, fences...the list goes on and on. Today, Dear Farmer built his wife shelves for her bedroom closet (consequently his closet also).  It was a marvelous thing!  She put on her shelves ONLY things that belonged to Dear Farmer and herself.  There are no school supplies, no children's clothing, no sewing projects, no tools...just winter clothes, summer clothes, and sheets for their bed.  There's a lot of room in this closet! This is the first time Dear Farmer and his Wife have ever had a closet, in twenty years of marriage!  This is a luxury!  (ALMOST as good as chocolate!)
Now, don't get down on Dear Farmer!  There's a reason the closet has taken so long...here's the reasoning:
When the pioneers moved to the westways the first thing they did was build safety for the animals...those were the lively-hood of the family!  Well, the cows have the hay barns, the chickens have their pens, the tractors have their garages, the children have their closets and beds, he's built the woodracks, and bookshelves, now...it's the Wife's turn.  Last year, for their anniversary he built her a bed.  This year, for his birthday...he built her a closet.
Isn't Dear Farmer wonderful?!  The Wife thinks so.