Hooray For Great Weekends!

The babies are right about 5 months now. They're both quite a lot of fun and very friendly, outgoing, smart, and personable pups. Ben has claimed Logan as his own, and that's just fine. Emma is my girl! She's going to be character and is not always going to be easy, and that's just my type! :-) I have some more pictures of them just having fun, but it's getting late and I'm working 8-8 tomorrow... time to turn dogs out one last time and then hit the hay!
Good Gosh, I think even an elephant would move for that ice-cold stare!!

Sisters, Clare and Kit. (different litters) Clare is Emma and Logan's Aunt.

Below is Kit, Ivy, and Clare

Ivy and Clare are quite close. They pretty much hang together.

It dawned on me that I have never published any pictures of our house. Too bad I didn't think of that while the Crape Myrtle trees were full of color!

It's an1880's (documented babies being born in the upstairs bedroom in 1901) farmhouse. This corner right here is where the bathroom was built on. Between the bathroom roof and the ceiling is part of an old porch... yeah, it was never taken off, just built over. The bathroom is serious project #2 on "the list"- kitchen is currently #1.

The top photo is the side that faces south. I counted one time and I think we have TWENTY NINE windows... might have been 31, but I think it was 29.

This is the side that faces west. Someday this will be a big beautiful southern porch again! It's probably serious project #3, unless something else like a new roof bumps it out of the #3 slot while projects #1 and #2 are being completed!! LOL!

This is the north side.

This was one of Ben's big projects over the summer! (east side- under a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE Sycamore tree- actually it's 3 trees planted together) Whata cool deck huh? The deck around the pool is probably 3' wide or so and the rectangle deck off from it is very generous in size. You could easily fit about 4 picnic tables on it. Ben is so talented. He never does anything half-ass and all of his work looks like you hired the job out to someone with 20 years experience! :-)

The building next to the pool is the 2 car garage (insulated and on it's own power) and the "apartment". The apartment is serious project #52... It's not finished, but all studded for a nice little apartment. It would really be a cute little set up. It'd be great for a home office for someone. The garage has a small septic that is separate from the house. You couldn't run laundry, etc... but you could have a bathroom.

This was one of the first things Ben built for me for the animals. This coop is probably going on 5 years old now. It's a perfect little coop, complete with nesting boxes inside.

My geese have the newest spot. It was either move them and build them a shelter, or let them go. I decided to move them. The now have a very nice size pen and when Ben returns home, they'll have a very nice enclosure, similar to the drawing above. I want to build a lean-to off the barn, starting about that window height and slant it just enough for run off. Then enclose at least the 2 short sides. I don't think in our climate they would need the front made into doors- especially when the open side will face east. So that will be very nice for them. I'd like the lean-to to come out as far as that post- that's why I left it there. So that's quite generous, given that the barn is 12' deep. Their enclosure will be approx. 12x8. Pretty darn cozy. :-)

It's hard to see in the picture, but below is the rest of their pen. It looks very, very nice done up with the cattle panel (or hog panels, whatever...) I had for the round pen I never need. I only had to use 3 panels because of the already existing fence on 2 sides.

It felt good to get that little goose project done this weekend. (and work all my dogs) My next project is making a serious enclosure for 2 pigs. ;-) Oh, I saw the best news tonight on my way home (in the dark)... A farmer harvesting his soybeans!! Yaahoo! That means it can't be long and the farmer that rents the field across the road will be doing his and the dogs and I can once again work on the big field over the winter. I'm sooo looking forward to that, as even my young dogs are in need of more space and less pressure everything single time I work them! (probably what Ivy needs tremendously) I may head over to David's one day this winter and ask him with some real seriousness about renting some land from him. Even if it's not the 30+ acres across from us, I know he has lots and lots more! Truth be told, if I found somewhere close to home to rent or buy (speaking just a big field) we would probably make this our forever home... don't know... might not be a reason to up root and start all over if I can buy enough land for a small farm close to our house.... It's a real serious possibility. Only time will tell. Ben has decided to finish his Bachelors Degree while in the Navy and then do his Masters in Math in relation to teaching.... He has 6 years left if he wants out at 20....

Well.... off to bed!