Nellie turned 3 on May 17th!

A visit from Grandma and Grandpa Chrisman a month or so ago.

Goofy trampoline dwellers.  (Hm, the next two turned out sideways and I’m too lazy to fix it.  Pretend they’re fixed.)

The search for intelligent, extraterrestrial life continues.

It’s not found here in Redneckia.  (This trailer was put in a few miles from here last year and, believe it or not, it has not yet fallen over and killed anyone.)

The lower garden is finally planted — the entire thing in watermelon and spaghetti squash.

And the upper garden is planted in a couple types of summer squash, tomatoes, and chiles.

And, yes, I’m a freak.  I think the lettuces and onions are gorgeous, so sue me.

I may or may not be back later to fix the sideways pics…

The kids found some colored hardboiled eggs some maniac hid around the yard.

Then, with egg farts, they propelled themselves to the pond for some fishing.

Some pics of the flooding on the road to our house.  Note the little dark spot just to the right of middle of the first pic?  That’s the top of one of the road signs on the road we usually take. We’ve been stuck going clear around the Heavener way for several days now.

And guess what happened on Good Friday?  A new baby!   Here she is just minutes after birth.

And a very ticked off billy goat because we stuck him in a separate pen for a bit.

Steve built a multi-station contraption for me, for pull ups, chin up, hanging leg raises, dips, and safety for bench presses.  Love it!

Spring??

Random pics from some recent (rare) measurable snow.

It’s been a month since I last slapped something up here? Dang. Well, here ya go.

Spring has sprung… mostly. Steve built a retainer garden kind of doohickey, right in front of the wellhouse. (Remind me to tell you guys about the new plans for both the wellhouse and the regular house!). It has a concrete foundation and the walls are made from welded I-beam drops. It’s about 20′ x 20′ and 5′ high in the front. Had to move a lot of dirt to fill it! The bottom is filled in with rocks and the usual clay. The topmost layer is good stuff, dirt we’ve been “growing” in the old garden for the past few years. The outside of the garden still needs some cleaning up and maybe painting… or who knows? But the interior is planted! There are three elderberry trees/bushes planted, along with one lonely mullein (it brough babies with it), Egyptian walking onions, Catawissa walking onions, Racambole garlic, elephant garlic, and tons of I-can’t-even-remember-what-they-are garlic and onion types, along with seeded chives, garlic chives, and a big mix of lettuce and spinach seeds.

Yet another gorgeous sunset over the lake.

These next ones, I’m saving for bribe material as the kids reach dating age…

First, a couple of more pics of the critters from yesterday.  We’re trying to get them used to us so we can milk them when the time comes.  The goats are pretty tame and friendly but the sheep are very skittish so we’re taking it slowly.

And, just so the hogs didn’t feel left out:

It snowed today!!!  Big ol’ snowflakes!  It rarely snows here so I made sure to take pics.  Of course, none of it stuck.   We all got wrapped up and ran ouside as soon as it started!

Guess what we found when we went out for the snow?  (Did I mention that one of the sheep was pregnant?)

We didn’t know she was THAT pregnant!  Sheesh.  Only one baby (that we saw) and it seemed to be doing well.  It’s very strong and Mama looked to be very attentive.

Look at what we brought home today!  Three goats (Nubian & Nubian/Boer cross) and five sheep (Barbados and/or American Blackbelly and/or whatever else found the opportunity in an available ancestor).  Yum!

Today, Isaac “graduated” from his speech therapy! Yay, Isaac! He’s so very cool!

And a not-so-random photo I took a week or so ago on my way home. This is just as we cross the “floating road” to head back into the woods on our way home. Man, I love living here!

Oh, and FYI:  I’m going back through every post in the blog, fixing all of the broken pic links.  Before I started mooching off of David for photo hosting, I used Photobucket.  Now, it’s been so long since I used Photobucket, most of those links no longer work.  That’s what I’m fixing, bit by bit, as sanity allows.  Give it a couple of weeks and every pic should work again.  *knock on wood*

Steve built me a beautiful squat rack!  It is not only a squat rack but also an adjustable step.  In the first pic, you’ll see the step pushed back out of the way for doing squats.  In the second pic, you’ll see it pushed to the front for use as a step.  It’s 18″ high but see the lower bar beneath it?  That’s for when I want to make it a 12″ step.  Just move the step on down.  Freaking cool!