Jamie and I made the decision to tie our families together (with their consent..the kids that is) in August of 2006. At that time, we (Jamie, I and all 4 kids) lived in a single wide in East Bend. It was cramped but not overly so because the kids were still little. In Feb 2008 we moved into our current home on 8 acres of land. It is an 1800sq ft double wide and it is home sweet home. Before we moved in, we spent 5 months painting and moving to prepare this house to be the first home for everyone as a family.
In the last 3 years we have done a lot of things to the property. We have planted a veggie garden, expanded this garden, rescued more animals, planted flowers, started a grove, moved a hill, sowed grass, transplanted grass, started a memorial garden, put in a road, and fenced in the back yard. There is so much more we want to do. Where do we begin? Well, lets see. We want to fence in the rest of the property (about 4 acres) that is behind the house. I want to build a front porch and back deck. I want a covered garage and an out building to store stuff in, plus Jamie wants an out building for lawn stuff (lawn mower, rakes, etc..). I want a cute little fence coming off the side of the house with an arch in the middle so my roses can climb it. We also want to be more self-sufficiant. This means growing a better crop, learning to can, possible digging a cellar to be able to store the canned goods with as little man made energy as possible, and having more animals. With these animals comes change and added responsiblity. So where do we even begin with all of this. I am thinking the first thing we need to do is figure out What animals we want.
One of the first things we did was to go on a tour at a self sustaining farm that is close by. I grew up with the daughter of this particular farmer. In fact, she was a good friend of mine and I spent many a Saturday morning at their kitchen table eating cereal with goats milk. The farmer is a retired teacher and just so happens to have been my kindergarten teacher. The tour was very informing to both of us, Jamie and Kaitlin especially. During this tour, we found out that 2 of the baby goats are for sale and they are dairy goats. Jamie jumped all over that and I will admit to being a little happy about it despite my ranting, raving, and stomping of my feet in protest to getting a goat for the last year (at the very least). Working for a large animal vet for several years, you get to see all the trouble these animals can be! Ok, so now we have a goat on hold for us....Awesome! Where the hell are we gonna put the damned thing???
First things first, how much is the food (cause they have to be grain feed once a day for the vitamins and minerals, and have to have hay in the winter when the grass is all dead or covered in snow). This was a trip to the local LTD.The poor guy behind the counter was so very sweet in answering my endless stream of questions. I got the info I needed and figured out that the food part my not be as bad as I thought. Awesome, one problem solved, next! Where are we putting the goat? This is were I have to do a little explaining. See we have an "L" shaped garden. The long part of the "L" is where we have been (trying) to plant veggies (very unsuccessfully cause it is clay soil and sucks when trying to grow ANYTHING in it) and the short part is where we have some bushes growing (grapes, blueberry, and thornless blackberry). Since the garden has been doing horrible for the past 2 years, we decided this year to start some very small boxes in the side yard. They are doing Great!!! We tried the boxes in the garden last year and that didnt even work. These boxes will have to be moved. I am thinking they can be put on the hill beside the driveway, near the top and all the viney stuff can be planted there next year. They will have the Whole hill to roam on. So we have decided to put the goat(s) in the fenced in area that is now the "old" garden. Now we have to figure out how to block off the short part of the "L" from the goat. We have been working in this part of the garden trying to kill all the grass to keep the bushes from being sufficated and lay down mulch. I get the bright idea to move Abby's (one of the rescue dogs that is too goofy to stay in the house without being in the kennel) lot around. I can move her dog house into the upper part of the backyard and add a small fenced in area for her and she can just stay in the main part of the back yard most of the time. The lot she is in has 12 foot tall and 12 foot long panels that connect together. There are 8 of them total. I can move one of these down to the opening of the short "L" and add a gate and that problem is solved...Awesome (now to actually move it..ugh!). The other 7 panels can be used to form new fencing to extend the garden area and section into 2 sections. Now we have to areas for the goat and for chickens (thats right, I said Chickens!). Now to come up with a shelter for this goat. It has to be a place that can be made safe at night due to the coyotes that are running around here. It can be simple for now, but by winter it needs to be shed like with plenty of room so any animals that are in it are safe and warm with access to food and water. This just keeps getting more and more complicated. The chicken side of this pen is the easy side. The chicken house is already made, we just have to go get it. Then to get some chickens (about 4) and a rooster, water pan and feed dish and we are set. The goat needs a feed area plus water area. Goats need their hooves trimmed about once a month (need to learn to do this!)
Jamie wants bees! I think this is awesome because it will help our garden grow! Plus we get HONEY!!!!!! Yumm. The farm we went to visit had 6 hives. The health benefits of honey and bees are endless. So where do we put the bees? I honestly haven't even put any thought into this yet. I will leave that one up to Jamie...It can be his baby..totally!
My thoughts are, if we are going through all this change for the goat, we might as well throw a cute little piggy in there too. I am not talking a farm pig that will be beefed (cause once its named, eating it is out of the question!) that gets to be 400-500 pounds and eats 10 pounds of food a day! NO! I am talking a cute little mini potbelly that gets 100 pounds full grown. 2 cups of food a day and a mud hole, weekly bath, monthly hoof trimming and your good.
Add ALL this on top of the normal cleaning and washing it takes to maintain a 6 person house, one adult with a full time job, one adult in full time college, and 4 kids always active in something and you have our happy little home.
