We've got girls!

Chickens

Well after all these years of boys boys boys I finally got some girls!  We have ten girls.  Five are Buff Orpingtons and five are Barred Rocks.  They are good for both meat and eggs and are good natured chickens.  We started them in the house in the dog crate.  The boys were all in love from the beginning and have held them everyday. Cooper has taken to telling people he has ten girls in his family.  Marshall loves to catch worms and bugs for them.  They boys have taken care of the girls by keeping them with fresh food and cleaning out their water.

  

BUT...when they were about three weeks old I had to move them outside to the garage.  The dust from the pine shavings was too much to have in the house.  

Robert was tasked with building their coop.  We are going to have them free range within electric netting with a mobile coop that can be moved around the acreage.  That way the girls gets to eat bugs and fertilize the ground and they are safe from predators. He came up with a plan based on what I told him the girls would need.  I think he did an awesome job!

Flamingo Flock pink!  Because something at my house should get to be pink.

They should start laying in July.  I have the date circled on the calendar and I just can't wait to get that first egg!

A Big Long Break from Blogging

It has been a year since my last post but MY OH MY what a year it has been. Here is a quick re-cap:

Januaryish - Oil prices drop and Rob gets laid off along with half of Houston, flooding the job market and upsetting our perfect little surburban life we had made for ourselves in Katy, Texas.

Febuaryish - Rob interviews with a company in Greenville, Texas that appears to be a dream come true.  Well, if your dream is to move out of the suburbs and own land and grow things.  This is exactly what Rob and I have always wanted but due to the high cost of real estate in the Houston area was never going to happen for us.  By the way, he got the job and we got two weeks to get our butts up to Greenville.

March - We got out house ready to be put on Market (paint, patch holes, new carpet), sold house and moved to Greenville all in two weeks. My head still spins when I think about it.  Luckily, Rob's Mom and my parents helped out a ton and we got it all packed and moved.  

April - Why do all the homes on land cost sooooooo much money and they all have broken slabs!!!!!!!!

May - We buy land!!!!  Four acres of Texas to call our own.

June - Hey let's build!

July - start getting on the wait lists to get utilities installed.  Due to the heavy rains in Texas this year all the contractors were backed up 6 weeks.  Maybe building isn't the way to go...

August - the patience of Job is brought up a lot.

September - Our house is delivered and set up and we only had to go one week without air conditioning. Moving people come and up deliver way to many boxes that had me hiding in the corner about to have a panic attack until Robert coaxed me out with a game plan.

October - starting to feel like home around here.  It would be even better if it would stop raining!

November - Oh my the stars at night. I can see the milky way!

December - Christmas in our new home somehow was the real turning point for this new place feeling like home.  

Somewhere along the way (I think it was May) we placed membership at the local church and started the slow process of getting to know new people.  In the fall we joined a really neat homeschool co-op where the boys got to make some new friends and I got to see some other homeschool mamas. Somehow in there we homeschooled and explored the area.  Many a day were spent at the duck pond to avoid going crazy in our small dark apartment.  

So we are back to January and a new year.  We are back to school and co-op will be starting soon.  The big boys are playing basketball.  Life is moving on and we are happy where we have landed.  I can't think about how much we miss our friends and family or I will get all leaky around the eyes but I hope you all know that we are blessed to have ended up here and I just wish I could bring you all along with us. This is my happily ever after. 

  

Fairies and Orcs

We are back to school and we have added so many things in this year.  Things that make this mama very happy that they are actually happening! Reading and math have always happened but homeschooling is supposed to be so much more than just getting school work done.  I am trying to offer a feast of ideas and expose them to the beauty of this world that God created.  I'm trying to ignite a fire not just check off boxes of completed work.

We have added morning time in which we all come together and sing, pray, do memory work and read good books together.  We then separate into bigs and littles and I work with those groups until lunch time.  After school work is done and if the weather is nice we all go outside to run around.  In winter there is not much to do on our fledgling homestead so taking inspiration for Pinterest I decided we would make a fairy garden.  

So what is a fairy garden and why would a family with four boys need to make one?  

• It is a spot that you make believe in and create a little world with sticks and stones and whatever else we can find or re purpose 
• It is where the fairies with their truth and light fight against the orcs and darkness of the world.  
• It is a place to keep their minds alive with wonder 
• It is something else to do with the long hours of our day   

So here is the beginning of our new imaginary world.  It only took a little help from me before their creative juices got flowing and they started coming up with their own ideas.  They have some birdhouses that my mom sent them to build and we are going to put them in the there as fairy houses.  

This is what we started with.  We used some wood from an old fence that perfectly made an arch as an entrance.  They had already made a pathway with rocks and sticks before I got the camera out. 

A dear friend passed down some of her mother's birds to me recently. I couldn't use them all in the house and these are made of resin and I though they would hold up to the elements. 

Barrett is laying shells (from Galveston) around a bird statue. 

Marshall went right to work making arches and pathways. He has a eye for aesthetics and construction.

Alright so it was my idea to hot glue the sparkly stones to the reclaimed wood.  But hey, as the only female presence I felt the need to pretty it up some.

From the other side of yard...  MORDOR!

They are working on getting all the green gone and making it look dark and dank.