Tag: spring

Hanging in there

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

It has been such a silly spring it’s truly unreal. So remember how I said we were having warm weather and I was stuck inside last update? About the time work started slowly ironing out, the temperatures plummeted and we went back into winter time. It only started warming up again this last week, and unfortunately I’ve earned myself a case of walking pneumonia so I haven’t been able to be out in it much yet.

That said, we got a few things done around here. The garden beds are starting to get cleaned out. It’s slow going, but we are separating bulbs, weeding, planting and replanting, and laying down some weed control and bark. It’ll be really pretty when we pull it together. And a little easier to manage. We are looking for pretty ground cover that flowers or stays nice all summer, or for a series of flowers that will bloom one after another and every year, so they are always attracting pollinators. I’ve been looking into chaos gardening, but I’m not quite ready to commit yet.

As you saw in the video, from three weeks ago, The canal was burned and cleaned out and it started filling up about a week later. Really stressed out the girls because they started filling it in the middle of the night. Very unusual, I never did hear why. But it also filled super slowly, I think it sat at halfway for almost a week. Probably because it started freezing again. Craziness. It’s full now though, and just so pretty. Such fun to have that “babbling brook” sound while you’re working around the farm. 

The girls have had a lot of lazy days lately, although we had the big vet day. All but Nellie got vaccinated, but the vet agreed that there’s two issues at play with Nellie and we need to address them separately. First she’s terrified of the needle, so I’ve been working on that with her for a few months and while the vet call and my getting sick set us back, we will probably be able to vaccinate in a couple weeks (the vet isn’t really worried because right now they don’t really interact with a lot of other animals, so we can prioritize making it a good experience.). We realized that the second issue is that she’s still just terrified of new people working with her. She panics before we can even get to the checkup. That ones a little harder to solve, but we will get there. I’m still so proud of her, and all the animals on the farm, they all did fantastically. It was Honey’s first big kid checkup, and other than turning me into a pincushion, she handled it like a champ. She was a little mad at me for a couple days, but she quickly decided we could be friends again. Didn’t help that she needed her rabies booster, that makes all the critters unhappy.

Nobody has gotten a garden in yet, almost any time we’ve gone to plant, it’s frozen overnight again. As much as I really wanted a big garden this year, I think it’s much more reasonable to get some potatoes in the ground and start prepping for next year. I hate to give up, but this spring is proving a battle, and I think it might be the smartest to work within our constraints for now. Plus potatoes are dope so I’m excited to be growing them. Lots of potato based recipes I want to try. For my fellow Psych fans out there, I wanna get brave and try “fries cuatros quesos dos fritos”. For my non Psych fans out there, go watch Psych, the first seasons especially will explain a lot about my humor haha.

We found some more Easter eggs today in the garden. I’m honestly surprised we haven’t found more, but it’s a running joke that I find Easter eggs all year long around the farm. We hide so many throughout the gardens, I figure there’s a few that are probably composting out there at this point.

Did anyone get to see the northern lights? We got them really faintly here, but they were so cool. Amazing to see them all the way down here. This far south, it’s a “tell the grandkids one day” moment. Very very cool.

Anyways, I wish I had more of an update for ya. I’ve kinda come to the conclusion that this spring is just a bit rough around the edges. Hoping it means there’s a great summer around the corner.

Until we chat again my friends!

A Chair Raising Experience

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

How are we? Doing good? How was your February? Feels like it’s been a minute since we caught up.

Not much has happened around here because it’s been pretty cold and rainy. We had a couple good sunny days and we did a little burning and a little cleaning up. But mostly it’s been a lot of making huffy comments about the snow and mud ad infinitum.

We changed up the hay storage, since the setup that had worked all winter involved the tarp being tied to the truck and, well, we needed the truck. So we built a nice little lean-to, and put the tarp over the top of that. It worked pretty good, neighbors even complimented it, and we knew it was temporary because my tarp took a beating over the winter and was nearing retirement. What we didn’t know is three days later we would have a crazy windstorm that would tear the tarp in half and throw the lean-to around and take the pieces of the tarp and toss them onto the tack room roof. It also took down tree limbs, threw a ton of tumbleweeds around, and tore off a hunk of gutter… but I don’t know from where. It matches ours, but I can’t figure out where it came from for the life of me.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I got my money out of that poor tarp, and with a little hemming and my grommet punch, I’ll just have two smaller tarps now. 

Since I’ve been stuck inside, I’ve taken to re-organizing my space. It’s been going pretty well, mostly just assigning things to better places. A good example was my dresser, I had a whole drawer of business casual clothing from a previous life. Explain to me why a remote software dev needs a drawer of slacks at the ready. It felt silly to toss them when I have some potential in-office trips happening in the future, and Lord knows I’ve done no growing (well, at least not vertically), so putting them in the back of the closet made much more sense. Now that drawer houses office supplies, which is a little unconventional, but I’m really excited about it. I’ve been really trying for Adam Savage’s theory of keeping the things I often use readily accessible, that really works with my brain. It’s also just nice to finally be getting ahead of the chaos that’s been compounding since I moved in. And it’s good practice for tackling the rest of the house. One day I’m gonna have to go after that pantry.

In other office news, I have a funny story that happened just a couple days ago, in case you need a good laugh. So, some of you may remember if you’ve been around a while, that I have, well, had, a lovely office chair my sweet brother gave me for my birthday a few years back. I loved it very much, super comfy and pleasant for long days at work. Well, after two and a half years of faithful service, my chair experienced rapid, unplanned disassembly…while I was using it! Rude.

So, I was sitting at my desk, and I went to lean back to contemplate a task, and the chair bit came off the pole bit! But it did so in such a way, combined with the blanket being all tangled up in the wheels, that my lower half was trapped under my desk and my top half was clinging wildly to my desktop to try to avoid smashing myself and the top of the chair into my bed’s footboard. Remember, my desk is somewhat lifted to accommodate the closet setup, so it’s a pretty unfun fall. To complicate things further, Watson was trapped under the blanket on my lap and I didnt want to squish or drop him.

It was a hilariously ridiculous situation to be stuck in.

Because I was stuck, clinging to my desk to avoid injury but unable to get unstuck, I had to call for help. Of course, I’m way in the back of the house and literally everyone in my house is nearly deaf or living in headphones, so I had to figure out another solution. I couldn’t reach my phone, but I could reach my keyboard, and luckily my phone was connected to my pc, so I managed to send “help” to my dad, who came running in and saved me. And then laughed at me for about 20 minutes. I can’t blame him, I started cracking up too.

Watson for the record is fine, but boycotting the office for now. Understandable.

But who would have thought I’d still have to send “come save me at work” messages to my dad after I stopped commuting? Better yet, can you imagine my boss’s face if I had hurt myself and had to explain that I’m calling in sick because my chair went on the offensive? Is it an L&I claim if it happens during work hours (I jest)?

Anyways, my poor chair is toast. The pole bit is pretty shattered, the plate thingie is sheared off, and the pressurized tube thingie no longer pressurizes. So, as much as it saddens me, if you have a good chair recommendation, lemme know.

Hopefully the next update will Be more farm and less chaos haha.

Until we chat again my friends!

A three part photos series…
…of Joe when he hears…
…He’s a good boy!
Burning tumbleweeds
The sun sets in the spring are glorious
Watty is not impressed with the lingering cold
Christopher challenged me to paint our breakfast
Got some seriously cool surprise happy mail from my sweet friend!
Help me brainstorm some cool return happy mail for my friend!
This is an insulator, I thought it looked cool
Suspicious Watts post chair debacle
Things are budding!
She artsy…

Signed, Confused in the Country

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

I’ve mentioned this a lot on the blog before, but if you’re new here, hi, I’m Amanda, and while I spent summers on my uncles farm, I did my growing up mostly in the suburbs and only moved full time to a hobby farm about 5 years ago. The area I grew up in was really lovely for most of my childhood, but as I grew up, it turned into an overgrown city that was lacking good government and good infrastructure, and was part of the Puget Sound area. Some of you familiar with that area have probably conjured a name, and you’re probably right haha.

Anyways, all that to say, when I moved headlong into Small Town America, I came barreling into rural life with all the self preservation and paranoia that comes from a doors locked, alarms on, don’t walk around outside at night lifestyle, and it showed. I’ve relaxed on a lot of things, but some will never change. And some small town idiosyncrasies just absolutely blow my mind still. I thought I’d share the ones that still confuse, confound, and sometimes, crack me up the most.

First one, and the one that prompted this whole rant: small town stores keep whatever hours they want. This isn’t a bad thing, we love a flexible schedule in this house, but when it differs from day to day it’s a little hard to keep the plot. Recently I walked into a store that had, up till then, been open until 5 pm, google said so, Facebook said so, I’d been in there at 4:45 before. Other than the occasional time I’d found it closed for the day with a note on the door (always for adorable reasons like “out for the day with my husband”), it had been fairly consistent. So, you can imagine my absolute mortification at walking into their staff meeting with the air of uneasy, keyed-up confidence only someone who’s hiding some serious social anxiety can conjure (we’ll discuss my “fake it till you make it” non-coping methods another time) only to hear “excuse me? We’re closed, you’re not supposed to be here”. Now, to her credit, they were truly lovely, and still helped me, AND two more people walked in after me, but I still feel all sorts of cringe about it and, more importantly, this is not even remotely the first time that’s happened! I get sweaty palms now even recalling it. But shops run on rural time.

Beyond needing a crystal ball to see if a shop is open, “rural time”, as I’ve taken to calling it at work, is a persistent source of confusion for me, even 5 years in. Some things make total sense, for example, anyone who works with horses knows that scheduling with the Farrier is a loose event, because your appointment depends entirely on how well-behaved the clients before you are. I’ve gotten calls from my farrier before that go something like “just finishing up at urgent care, last horse broke my arm, I’m gonna be late” and I totally get being late because of that (I shoo them off anyway, I’m not going to let them aggravate an injury on my account, geez). But I’ve also had irrigation guys show up three days late because they “finally got around to” us. I can’t be mad, they’re honest, but I’ve learned to just not to get too invested in times. My pest guys (I saw one mouse, once, never again) regularly call me to set a time window, and are almost ALWAYS 2-4 hours late, unless I have a meeting early, then they show up during that meeting. Without fail. Time just moves differently out here, it’s like everyone took training from the cable installers. My morning check ins at work now often include “…and if the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise, at some point today I might need to step away for a tradesperson…maybe”, because I can’t accurately give any more info than that.

A funnier one, that I get teased for but I don’t think I’ll ever change, is locking points of entry. Whether it’s my car doors or house doors and windows, I lock up. I almost always lock my car up, and while I’ll leave the house back door unlocked during the day, it’s only if others are home. I’m much more willing to leave doors and windows open, since moving here, in parts of the house I’m frequenting, but I won’t, for example, leave the back door unlocked if I’m in my office up front. This leads to family members often calling me to let them in, or someone offering to grab something from my car only to wait while I fish my keys from my bag (or unclip them from my belt). My great aunt and uncle, who live farther out on the farm/ranch I spent summers on, haven’t locked a car or the house up since I’ve been alive. I regularly walk into their kitchen to find no one is home, which IS convenient because I can leave treats or paperwork or whatever on their counter as needed, but it’s a weird thing to just let yourself into someone’s empty house without a key. I could easily “borrow” a vehicle if I wanted and I’ll be honest, I don’t even know if their garage door works if there’s not snow on the ground. It might be a prerequisite. It’s the only place in the world I’ll leave my keys in my vehicle while I visit… out of reverence.

My uncle, who lives in town (and on a main street too) regularly leaves his door unlocked. We regularly end up accidentally swapping dishes at family events, and so many times I’ve stopped by after work, gone in, gotten my dish and returned his, without any of them being home. I can maybe see it farther out, like at the ranch, but in town? So trusting. 

Some people take it even further and leave their keys unlocked in their running vehicles when it’s very hot or very cold. I know it’s for AC or engine warmth purposes, but, like, it’d be so easy to steal a car in the grocery store parking lot. Shockingly easy. Not that I would, but I could, is my point. Especially little old people, they just trust that God and the Sheriff will do their jobs, and the thing is, it’s worked so far. I simply could never. I still wake up in the night when I hear a car that sounds too similar to my car driving by up on the road. I don’t think I’ll ever outgrow that. 

For those of you who’ve had a huge lifestyle change like this, what’s the thing that got you the most? Grocery store stock? Price of gas? Level of friendliness? Did you move to a small town? A big city? A whole new country? Tell me all about it!

Until we chat again my friends!

Training and Raining

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello Friends!

Much has happened since we last caught up!

We had the vet out for our yearly checks. Nellie actually did pretty good all things considered. She didn’t let us vaccinate (I did that later) but she also didn’t really kill anyone, so ya know, we count our blessings. The other critters acted like the vet professionals they are and handled it with grace. Ro is on some anti-inflammatories now for some arthritis aches, and so we mitigate any unnecessary damage. Nellie is supposed to be wearing a mask now, as her little pink skin around her eye is just primo skin cancer material and the vet is worried. We are working on it.

Unfortunately, this vet visit caused a bit of a spiral in Nellie’s behavior and I’ve had to employ some tougher love lately. She started getting pretty aggressive about haltering and the barging and kicking officially put us into dangerous territory. So as much as I hate giving the girl any sort of uncomfy consequences, I had to take off the mama hat and put on my trainers cap, remind her and myself that allowing bad behaviors like that is a huge disservice to this horse and her cleverness. I’m happy to report that while it’s still a massive work in progress, she seems to have a lot of pride in the new, tougher consequences style work. Unsurprisingly I don’t have to dole out consequences often when the right answer is easy.

We’ve had some interesting storms rolling through. I’ve been trying to capture what I can, I’m still not great with the GoPro and lately, these storms have come with so much dust I’ve worried about leaving it outside alone anyway. I know they are tough, but I don’t have any sorta tough weather case, just a little tripod and I usually tie it to the porch post.

We’ve had some dry lightning, and lots of rainstorms. Although, we’ve had a lot more drizzly days than usual too, normally it’s a downpour and done, but the gray drizzle has persisted this year. We’ve also had our usual share of windstorms, which always stress me out. At least with the roof replaced I don’t worry so much about another waterfall from my kitchen light. My favorite thing about the storms around here is that often they come in the evenings, after you’ve already put in a good day’s work, almost like a little reward. But they are also usually gone by the time bedtime rolls around, so you aren’t often sitting up late worrying over the weather. 

The rainy day cuddles are adorable

I was out at the ranch the other day when a little cell went through. In theory I was out there to help my aunt with her scanner, it wasn’t scanning again, but it kinda sorted itself out. I’m not exactly sure what changed but it was scanning by the time I left. I’m a little afraid to ask if it’s still scanning to be honest, I don’t think I really want to know the answer. Anyways, while I was there I got to see the latest batch of babies. Love me some little cows. We met Little Boy, Sue, and Esuni. Little Boy got his name exactly how you’d imagine, but Sue and Esuni have cute stories. Sue is named after my great great grandma, because they share a birthday (how my great great grandma would feel about sharing a name and birthday with a cow is a question for another time) and Esuni was supposed to be Sunny, but they realized she was out of Eve’s line, and they try to keep with the same leading letters to make lineage a little easier. Luckily Sue is out of Sissy, who is out of Sadie. Remind me to tell you all about Sadie cow one day. It’s a cute story (have I told it before? Maybe, doesn’t matter, it’s worth a retelling). Little Esuni was born so small, she literally weighed less than one of my grain bags. They were worried about her, but she prevailed. Those little guys can be hardy when they wanna be. I helped my aunt count the herd, and, of course, we did it in a rainstorm, while that random cell went over. Didn’t rain a stitch before or after. But it was fun riding around with my aunt goofing off.

We’ve had lots of fun things happening around here lately. We’ve had a new baby born to the family, my uncle has a new little girl named Sadee (yes, I know, I don’t think anyone else put it together, but Sadie the cow spells hers different, and has since gone on this year after a long and happy life anyway, so I am not saying anything). Another of my cousins is graduating high school this week. We’re prepping for the Fiddle Fest and I’m very excited, because a dear friend of mine is coming down to visit while it’s going on. 

Lots to look forward to, can’t wait to share it all with you soon!

Until we chat again my friends!

Family Adventure Day

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello Friends!
I took the family on an adventure in and around Boise recently, and let me tell you, it’s been a minute since I have been to a bigger city. I was a little out of my element, but it was so fun!

So, we had two goals in mind, one was to find the Reuseum, and one was to find a kitchen store. We were successful on both fronts and had some great food to boot!

So first, what is a “Reuseum”? It’s super cool, it’s basically like a tech-centered thrift store, maker space, and STEM learning space all in one. We rattled around the retail space looking at everything from old radio equipment, to old monitors, some old camera equipment, and refurbished computers. Plus just lots of odds and ends, actuators, soldering supplies, every kind of nut and bolt you could think of. It was really awesome! They also have a “maker space” which I love. It’s super cool to see more and more places like that opening up. It’s basically a shop with various tools for machining and building, usually specialized things that may be hard or impractical for the hobbyist to own, that you can come in and use for a fee. Think things like 3D printers or grinding wheels, milling machines, things like that. If you’ve ever watched Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) on Tested (his YouTube channel), he has a very extensive maker space style shop. Finally, they have STEM classrooms for kiddos, where they host various classes throughout the month, like build-a-robot and learn-to-code classes to get kiddos interested in math and science. I’m sure, since my official job title is “software engineer”, you can guess how excited I get about making STEM accessible.

We managed to surprise Dad with some old radio equipment from an old police car they had for sale. He brought it home and was able to plug it in and, after a little clean up, get it working again. Dad just loves old police memorabilia. I guess you can’t be a second generation, thirty year vet of the force without a little vested interest, huh? I wonder if I’ll be that nostalgic about old tech when I’m 30 years into my career. More pressing question, I wonder if I’ll still be in my career in 26 years and what my field will even look like. Dad says police work really changed over the years, and I imagine I’ll be looking at that too.

We found two different kitchen stores, one a restaurant supply and one was more boutique-y. I bought a few whisks, and a giant bowl from the kitchen store, and Christopher bought a pizza pan. I’m really excited, we’ve broken so many whisks so I’ve invested in some heavy duty ones, and I’ve been wishing for a big bowl for a while. Just today we used it for dinner, but so often I’m cooking for a lot of people and need a big bowl for mixing. I was looking for a big pot with a strainer built in, but I’m still on the hunt for that for now. 

The other store was really cute, they have some gorgeous spoons made with stripes of different woods, a whole matching set of spoons and stirrers. Thing was, it was a little more form over function, and while I love a good aesthetic kitchen, I need hardy tools that hold up to heavy work right now. They did have some cute reusable straws I really thought about, but they were metal and I’m not a huge fan of metal straws. At least not without the little squishy bit, ya know? Lots of niche cocktail making gear too, which always looks so fancy, but would be virtually useless in my kitchen.

Finally, we decided to eat at Tupelo Honey again, which I wrote about when I last talked about a visit to Boise. I am down there fairly often, but rarely for “fun”, like window shopping for just goofing off. So, it was fun to splurge on a nice lunch, and no one else had been there so it was an exciting new experience for them. I had a shrimp po’boy, which honestly I am still thinking about. 

It’s been just crazy busy around here with errands, adventures, work stuff, and holidays. Not to mention birthdays, new cousins on the way, and the very beginnings for spring prep (if the weather would cooperate). I’ve been trying to find moments of peace on the farm, and I shared some in last week’s video, and finding little ways to engage in some old hobbies as a way to settle. Share with me, what do you guys do when you need a little calm in the midst of a fun, but crazy, world?

Until we chat again, my friends!