The Wife's Log: April 14, 2016

The day started like any other day. The Pied Piper was sent outside to milk the goat, he returned in the house fifteen minutes later whining that the goat was not cooperating.
The Farmer's Daughter had to leave for work, but went down to milk the goat for the brother instead.
Meanwhile, the Haus Frau Farmer's Daughter (who just had a birthday) madly was doing her own chores so she could go and enjoy her new kayak on the pond.
The Wife drove the Farmer's Daughter to work and sent the Farm-boy Trio out to help Dear Farmer finish preparations for the incoming 1000 chicks this morning.
The Haus Frau Farmer's Daughter finished her work and pleaded to go kayaking on the pond. She took with her the Pied Piper.  The Keeper of the Flame and WhizBang! were anxiously anticipating the soon-to-be chick delivery. It is always amazing how the Wife can find jobs for waiting people to do...they began a job and disappeared "under the radar"(which means the Wife doesn't see them again)...
Left alone in the house with the smallest Farmer's Daughters, the Wife tried desperately to get dressed and clean the kitchen from the onslaught of breakfast.  With three "helpers"...it was going slowly.
In walked the Farmer's Shadow, who had a cold for the past few days and couldn't manage to get up and collect eggs.  He had been feeling well enough to make a dime, and brought in three dozen eggs that he found. He began sorting through the hay in the egg basket for the eggs in the middle of the kitchen floor. Hay all over one's kitchen floor, does not make a cleaning process go faster or smoother.
While changing a diaper and giving orders to the egg sorter a faint "Mother? Mother?" is heard above the roar of life.  The Haus Frau Farmer's Daughter was back with the Pied Piper--both wet.  Apparently all of kayaking is fun, except for the part when the electronic device slides out of the back pocket and lands in the murky bottom of the farm-pond. Tears were shed over the device that she was sure kept her world revolving...but lesson learned:  Don't go kayaking with anything in your pockets.
During the tears, and before the laughter, the chicks came in. Out went the Keeper of the Flame and the WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter to settle them down in brooding houses with Dear Farmer.
Into the house whooshed the Farmer's Daughter with a friend for a lesson on the attachment of fake eyelashes.  Upstairs echoed giggling and laughter. Downstairs we were preparing for a (hopefully) early lunch. With four helpers making lunch, snitching ingredients, and generally causing chaos lunch did happen.  All were called with a whistle.
Downstairs whooshed the Farmer's Daughter with friend to the next appointment.
In came Dear Farmer...the 1000 chicks were short...by 800???  On the phone went Dear Farmer to find out where 800 chicks are peeping currently.  In came the children to snarf down food, all are excited about being next to try out the kayak.  The Youngest Farmer's Daughter Trio is just too small to kayak.  Great tragedy's of life are often solved by popcorn and a movie about a dancing British mouse.  Which works once again today!
Clean up in the kitchen goes much faster without help.
The Pepper Goat was arguing with the Garlic Goat, and the Garlic Goat snapped the Pepper Goat's neck. Tears shed over the loss of a pack-goat, but quickly recovered with another ride on a kayak.
The Nordic Ninja is over to replace headlights and tail-lights with Dear Farmer. The Farmer's Daughter whooshes back home to change into work clothes and whooshes out again to evening work.
No one can find the 800 missing chicks currently, they are somewhere in the USPS(where I am sure someone is going mad listening to unrelenting peeping). Dear Farmer is working to build and wire infastructure, while at the same time keeping the phone nearby in case he hears word of the chicks.
And now, onto those dinner preparations...at 6pm the whole family will be at the table, there will be laughter of the fun, remembering the losses, and encouragement that we can all do this again tomorrow.
This is an amazing world we live in!

The Careful Planning of a Tiny House...or...The Size of My Shoe

Dear Farmer promised to build the Wife a tiny house in lieu of tent camping this year out at the garden.  The Wife has always loved tiny houses, we first started in one(see article: The Movement We Never Abandoned 2/23/2016 ) and the thought of being able to go back into one is a dream come to reality.
But exactly how to build a tiny house for a family of...ahem...thirteen?
Start by checking out the regulations for building a tiny house on wheels.  For a family of thirteen to live in the tiny house for an entire summer and fall...that size is SO not happening. He would need to build three tiny houses...but as we do not have three trailers, three vehicles to pull trailers, or three drivers. We quickly eliminate the wheels and trailer.
Now we are looking at building tiny house on skids.  This way house can be moved from location to location on site which makes the house an option for more uses.  If no one is residing in it, the house can become a storage shed, a studio, or even a chicken coop.
The tiny house will have two doors, two windows(actual double hung windows) and sleeping spots enough for thirteen.

But what happens to all the stuff you need?
Let's talk needs:
Food
Water
Clothing
Shelter

Those are all our basic human needs. Past that it's all luxuries.

The Wife has every intention of giving each child the luxury of electricity, internet, plumbing, fans, heat, and a small space for individual trinkets/toys.
Clothing will be kept in a mobile trailer that we will need to power-wash to get the stink of animals out of(the goats had lived there for a time) and Dear Farmer has plans to make it into a "family closet".
So far as washing those clothes go...a Laundromat isn't so bad, and if the Wife gets desperate to have her arms get a good workout, there's the clothing plunger and wringer secured on a tub.  Old Fashioned has a time and a place.
Now Dear Farmer is in the process of drawing up the plan for the tiny house for the Wife.  He estimates the size to be 10 x 20.
I guess for the summer the Wife will be the "...little old lady who lived in a shoe, she had so many children she didn't know what to do...".  Perhaps, like the Gilbreth Family (Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank and Ernistine Gilbreth) we will have to name the tiny house "THE SHOE".

Dear Farmer Gets Comfy

When the day is done, and the work is at a point where Dear Farmer can sleep(because work is never actually done), Dear Farmer comes inside the house all excited.
The woodstove is still blazing, the weather outside is muddy and wet and cold (spring in the North! Yippee.), and Dear Farmer begins the process of getting comfy.
Aching joints and sore muscles get oiled. Bumps, bruises and nicks are identified and patched up. And then he sits down in front of the stove.
Off come the wet socks to be hung behind the stove, wool is a wonderful material!  It's kept his feet warm and dry all day!
Off comes the crocheted hat from the Farmer's Daughter (also wet), to be hung to dry.  He loves this hat! It's his favorite!
Off comes the flannel button down shirt. It's also dripping wet.  We make sure we take everything out of the pockets...the pens, the notebook, the index cards(his field and herd logs), and the immense amount of hay. Into the laundry it goes. He's now down to his T-shirt.  He goes and changes this for a dry and clean one for the rest of the evening.
And finally the pants come off. No, this is not a strip-tease!  The pants are covered in muck and mud, poop and hay, and don't forget the occasional egg that he's sat on accidentally while working on the chicken coop.
(Seriously, would you want your husband sitting around the house in these pants???)
To put everyone's mind at ease...he's wearing polar fleece PJ pants under his work pants, so he's not in his undies! So, the pants go into the wash as well.
And now, Dear Farmer is officially comfy.
With all the work clothes off, the house shoes on, lounging in a T-shirt and PJ pants...he's ready for some good conversation and coffee.
Sounds like it's time for some Country Hospitality!!!

Do What You're Supposed to Do...you won't have time for the "don't"s

Here's a thought...if you do all of what you are supposed to DO, then you won't have time to DO any of the "DON'T"s.

In the farmlife it looks like this:
DO your chores
DO your responsibilities
DO love eachother
DO take care of the animals
DO take care of the land
DO be respectful of others(even city-people who don't know what a farm is)

there's no down-time from doing the "DO"s.

This is simple.
So why do we all make this so hard?

Just a Thank You! On Our Blog's Anniversary!

Thank you for laughing at us, with us, and for us.
Thank you to our readers...in the United States, Poland, the Ukraine, Germany, Canada, Japan and Puerto Rico.  We don't know most of you, but it's so exciting to see that you keep getting to know us better. 
We hope that you get the opportunity to see that farmers are just people, families aren't perfection, and love abounds.

Thank you to our family who has graciously been added into our posts-thank you to our family who has yet to be added into our posts(your time is coming).  Your support keeps us going on the days we don't want to...
Thank you to the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, Soli Deo Gloria!
Shalom!  Dear Farmer, The Wife, and family

This Farm has Princesses

The Bucket, the middle-younger Farmer's Daughter, loves to DO just about anything...as long as it works into the current play...
"Mama, you be the Princess Mama, and I am the Princess Mermaid.  What are we doing Mama?"
Usually the Princess Mermaid's Mama responds, "Unloading the dishwasher." After that job, there's plenty more!  Anything can be done singing and laughing as long as we are Princess Mama and Princess Mermaid.
Chicken Dinner, the youngest-younger Farmer's Daughter, tags along with the Bucket.  She tries desperately to be a princess, but past looking cute is yet mastering anything else. Apparently her primary job in the house is to "seek and destroy".
The Bucket tries to wrangle and teach, but Chicken Dinner is young enough to not care about her sister's direction and will march off in her own tornado.
Over-seeing the entirety of the Princess Population is the Oldest of the Youngest Farmer's Daughters...Me-Oh-My!  She is the one that has to be the boss over everything, even if she doesn't know what's going on...she is the oldest of them!  And having the three bigger Farmer's Daughters always bossing Me-Oh-My! around, she knows how it should be done:

"No, no, Bucket, Princesses do it this way!"
"No, no, 'Ninner Dinner!!! Don't Touch that!!!"
"NOOOO!  We will play this or NOTHING!"

Me-Oh-My! Can be ruthless...


Before I had three Younger Farmer's Daughters, I had no idea Princesses could herd goats, use chickens as confetti that they throw to imaginary admirers, or dance through cow-pies in high-heeled play shoes.  I never foresaw a princess dress riding on a tractor, or a tiara-clad little girl dunking chick-heads.
All of this must prove that Princesses really can be everywhere, and do everything. Even farming.

The Hunt is On!

Now that the snow is gone, and warm days have begun, the chickens are re-establishing their egg laying spots and routines.
This means...not all the chickens are laying eggs inside the coop.  Some of those chickens, the renegades, are laying in the barn, on the hay, in the window wells, in the tiger-lilies, and on my front stoop.
The eggs on my front stoop aren't hard to find.  It's all the other eggs.
So, who's job was it last year to find eggs?
Well, we aren't really sure who was assigned to do it, and who actually did it every day...so we needed to make sure that this job was covered.  We needed someone who wouldn't get distracted, someone who would be thorough, someone who would be careful with the eggs(not to bring up a dozen cracked ones)...the choice person was the Wife.  She's just too busy.
We chose the Farmer's Shadow.  He's great at the job!
Everyday is an exciting adventure to find as many eggs as he can!  AND he gets paid for each (uncracked) egg that he brings in!
So the hunt is on!!!