I will try to do a complete update from the farm since my last post. We have survived the flooding. No lasting damage from the water, I feel really lucky after seeing what some of the areas around us endured. The barn is done and looks great, I will post pictures soon. We still have to get the electric hooked up and build the stalls before the goat can be moved in. We are looking a solar panels for the power :) Speaking of going green I have given myself a goal to meet in regards to going green. First I am changing all of the light bulbs in the house to the energy saving one. It is amazing how many light bulb you have in one house. Second I am only using reusable bags at the store, no more plastic bags. I have found that the cashiers are not too happy about it at store like Walmart, even through I am using one of their reusable bags :( I hope more stores stop using plastic bags altogether. Third I am not using the clothes dry at all. I love the way the clothes smell when they have been hanging out to dry so it is all good. I even think of it as a way to get in a little exercise :). I will see what kind of change we have in our kw hours next month. Another much larger change we are looking to make is getting a wind turbine. Since this is a big purchase we have a lot of research to do before we commit to a brand. When we moved to the farm we hoped to be as self supporting as possible. Going green is more expensive than we thought. I am sure more people would go green if they could afford it. We finally got the garden planted. With all of the flooding we had to wait until the ground was dry, luckly we have a greenhouse. Tomatoes and gourd where the only thing we planted this year, next year we will have a much bigger garder. Weather permitting lol. A couple of weeks ago we headed out to the city to my SIL Tamra's graduation from design school. Brian's mom and stepdad came in from Los Vegas also, it has been a long time since we have all been together. We had a great time but could have done without the traffic. When we left the graduation we took the expressway to go to the resturant for lunch. It took us almost 3 hours to go 15 miles. We could have driven home in that amount of time :( I still can't believe we drove in that traffic everyday and didn't think much of it. Don't miss it at all. Sadly when we where in the city a racoon got into the pole barn where we where keeping the baby chicks and killed them all. The kids that take care of the farm while we where gone felt so bad. We told them don't worry it couldn't be helped. More baby chicks are on their way and we are working on a coonsafe zone right now. I sold the fair booth, we are going to head up to the faire this year and have some fun :) I also closed on my dad's house this past week,, YEAH!!! I have been dealing with this for almost a year and a half. I am very glad to be done with it. The village of Bellwood is not an easy town to deal with :( This weekend we did some local things we had not been able to do in the past. Saw the fireworks in Shullsburg Wi, nice show. Last night we went to the rodeo and saw their fire works also. The rodeo was great and makes us want to go horseback riding.
On a sad note, my friends Skye and Dave are heading into another stage of their battle with cancer. Here is a link to Skyes blog, please send good energy to them. http://dreamsofawildflower.blogspot.com/ I hope to go and visit them next weekend. I feel so helpless.
I am off to the studio to make and clean beads. Thank you for all of you interest in my beads, I don't have time right now to update my site. Please go to www.vintaj.com to purchase my beads. Thanks.
Willow is doing great, she didn't like the fireworks at first but in the end she loved them. I will try to post more pictures soon.
posted by Cathie on 12:46 PM
