Look out Arizona, here we come

Scott and I are leaving tonight to head south to Arizona. We're bringing  my sister, her son, dogs, and horses, out here to live in the little house next door. We'll be driving the Dodge, pulling a flat bed trailer. We're meeting our friend Honey in Ely. She bringing a friend down with her. She'll be driving her truck, pulling her three horse trailer. We're supposed to meet her around 4 in the morning so we can drive down before it gets too too hot. We're also making a stop in Vegas to grab Jesse. She'll be coming back with us to Idaho as well. It's almost 6pm here, and I think I'm gonna catch a couch nap before getting all our crap together and ready to go. 

Gratuitous pony pictures

I spent the afternoon and evening tonight after work digging ditches in the pasture next door so the irrigation water will go where it needs to, and switching gates opened and closed. I didn't take any pics of that, so enjoy this one pic of Scott, Pat, and Larry fixing the Tee in the pipe when it blew out last time we had water.

Holy crap, they can CRAP

I need a fence.

I have free ranging chickens. The wander around the property, they eat bugs, tasty bits of grass and alfalfa. The hunt and scratch in the the dirt. And they crap. Everywhere. The crap on the porch, on the deck, they crap in Scott's garage. They leave chicken sized land mines in the grass in the front yard. We don't leave the garage door open without feeding them otherwise they come in the garage looking for something to eat and leave dropping in return.

Mountain Trail Challange

I took a day to play hooky yesterday. I wasn't at work and I didn't do anything on the farm. I was invited to go to a trail riding obstacle course to watch some friends compete. What a blast it was. I got sunburned, dehydrated, forgot my stuff in Carrie's truck, but I'd do it all over again. 

Goose Goose and Giblet go for a walk

   While Connie was in Utah, Giblet and the Goose got to take a walk with me down to the pond for a swim.  These two are the best of friends. The follow each other around, sleep next to each other, and the turkey even goes wading a few inches into the water while the goose swims.

It had to happen eventually

Five years I've been in Idaho. Four of them here on the homestead. Four years we've managed to avoid losing any livestock to anything other than a dog or two that were brought out by friends that snagged a chicken before we knew they were loose.

Adding to the homestead

I've made two mortgage payments on it, I have homeowner's insurance on it. I turned on the electricity, and the kids next door are gone. It's all ours. Five acres to add to our five acres, fenced, cross-fenced, a pond. There is a ton of work to be done over there. Heather will be here in two weeks with her kid, horses, dog, and all her crap.

Working Echo

Echo is finally lice free, she's gaining a little weight and starting to come around. I would have loved to turn her out in the pasture with the other two knotheads, but we ran into a snag. We couldn't catch the bitch. Each day she got a little harder and it took a little longer trying to get her to let us slowly inch our way up to her without her turning into a blowing, snorting, spooking idiot. Scott and I tried all the tricks we knew, but she was getting away from us. If we didn't get help, we were going to turn her into a monster.

Chicks get new digs

14 chicks, two goslings, two ducklings, and a turkey can make one heck of a stink in a 4x4x4 brooder in a week. Not to mention running out of space pretty fast. When we got back from Minnesota the little chickies went down to the new property. I kicked out the five teenage chickies to free range, and moved the little chickies into the coop down there.

Blog-a-Day

I did it. I signed up for Carolyn's Blog-a-Day over at krazoacres. She's noticed, I've noticed, we've all been guilty, of slacking in the blog department. We sat around all winter long dreaming of what we wanted to get done come spring and now I'm still stuck in procrastination mode. I have a ton of pics I've taken, a bunch of blog posts I wanted to write, and didn't get to any of it. So starting today I'm going to try and do a blog post as often as I can. I don't think I can hit one every day, but I'm gonna try.