We have been busy here getting ready for all the animals to come home. The barn is mostly done and is ready for the horses to come home along with a batch of baby chickens. My incubator eggs are two weeks from hatching. We candled the eggs and about 9 of them out of 14 that shipped are developing well. Fence is being put up and Jeff is going to pick up hay today. On Friday night we will be having the farm edition of date night by picking up the llama together. I am so happy that soon everyone will be home!

You might be thinking that doesn’t sound good at all but you would be oh so wrong. For a year now Jeff and I have been on a roller coaster journey of changing jobs and moving. We had our farm for sale for about 6 months before it finally sold. The new buyers then sold there house adding an additional few months of waiting. It was at this point in February we had a mad scramble to finish packing and moving all the farm (while still covered in snow).

We have been living with my mother in-law since the beginning of March with our two dogs and two cats. The farm animals are all staying with friends. About two weeks into our stay we found the perfect little farm in the perfect location!

Then it’s been a waiting game to close… and waiting… and waiting! I am not a patient person nor have I ever been but having the end of the be over has seemed like it is taking forever. Jeff and I look at pictures of our new house and barn and already have so many plans and dreams! Most of all I cannot wait to get my animals home I miss them terribly and I know my daughter Henley has missed our midway farm checks of all the animals!

This coming year has so many exciting things in our future. We have added a ram to our flock and will be having lambs in the spring. We have a new rabbit to add to the farm so we will once again be raising meat rabbits. I am also excited to say that this year I think I will finally get a garden planted!

The baby had gone down for bed, I had settled in to watch tv for the night with Jeff just as the transformer across the street blew up which plunged our home into darkness. Well of course Henley slept through the ensuing chaos like the champ that she is! Jeff calmly got up and proceeded to start setting up the generator since it was below freezing and we had a sleeping baby in the house. I settled in to watch tv on the iPad by candlelight while Jeff (being wonderful as he is) took care of making sure we wouldn’t freeze to death! Well he ended up having a friend of the family come over to help him.

I’m going to back up a bit… I asked for a rabbit for my birthday which my wonderful husband arranged. I found Calamity Jane (the rabbit) on a local farm group I am a part of. This rabbit is a Flemish Giant who is destined to be Pistol Pete’s (our giant chinchilla) new wife, and they will make beautiful babies! Well, we are still about a week and a half away from moving into our new farm so we are still living with my mother in-law. Now I’m sure any of you who know me can imagine the conversation about where are we going to put Jane at my mom’s house that I had with Jeff. In the end I convinced Jeff Jane would just have to live in the basement for two weeks until we get to the farm.

Back to the power outage… I’m all settled on the couch when I hear from the basement a very calm cool and collected “Well that’s not good…” this was followed by lots of crashing and banging. Turns out Gus was bored waiting for the lights to come back on and He wanted to go and stare at the bunny for awhile. Well as Gus was staring at Jane he must have got his collar stuck on the grate that was keeping Jane from jumping out. Upon realizing that he was now attached to the rabbit cage Gus proceeded to not so calmly freak out. The ensuing chaos resulted in the cage being knocked over and Jane escaping. Gus was torn between chasing Jane or dying of stress by being chased himself by her enclosure.

I made my way downstairs and made sure Gus was freed and told him to lie down so he wouldn’t make JAne panic. I have spent some considerable time bonding with JAne so when she saw me she hopped right up to me and let me pick her up. Much to Gus’s disappointment I calmly put Jane away in her cage with out his help and ushered the completely unhelpful border collie upstairs. In all this chaos I remembered that we are just a few days away from moving into our new farm (which will bring its own chaos) and that Hen and I would once again be farmers.

This time next month I will be setting up the incubator for baby chicks!! I plan to have it all ready so that when we get back from Florida I can pick up my eggs. A friend is giving me some of her hen’s fertilized eggs to hatch. They are going to be a mixed batch of wyandottes and ameracaunas which will give us both brown and green/blue eggs!

We have reached spring and with it comes so many new and exciting things for my family.  We will close on our new farm within the months or shortly after and we cannot wait.  My husband and I have already started dreaming about how we want to set everything up for everyone!

We are all surviving living in town for the time being although at times I feel we live in a clown car with so many people and dogs crammed into one house.  The dogs are mostly getting along great (Gus takes it upon himself to discipline the other two) even if they are barking all day.  My houseplants I think got the best end of this deal as they get much better sunlight here in this house.  My daughter Henley is loving living with her Nani and will probably be wondering where everyone is once we move out to our new house.

We have in fact found the custest most adorably little farm to buy that’s both close to my husbands job and his mom.  It has plenty of space in the house for the dogs and cats to spread out … as well as the humans.  My mom even has her own guest room to stay in instead of sleeping on the couch with the cats.  There is a small horse barn in the back that will look even better with painted barn squares on it!  Jeff and I have already decided where my garden and chicken coop will go as well.  We are planning to be moved in by mid- may and hopefully pick up everyone around the first part of June.

I am excited to get back to my farm and looking forward to hatching chicks this year, lambs in the fall and then again in spring.  There is great things coming up for us and I couldn’t be more grateful for all the people that helped us get here!