HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, LADIES!

Super cute Rustic Herb Garden idea that I was blessed to receive from my mother in law, via my 3 kids of course!  What a fun project to do with your kids on any day of the year!! I am officially on the look out for any oddball rustic, random antique pieces (aren't I always on the lookout?), that can be used to house plants of all kinds. 

... I don't think she'd mind if you stole her idea.... I'm planning to!

Have a great day!

Earth Day 2012

In honor of Earth Day 2012, we did all things outside. I spent the entire preceding week working in my flowerbeds, and mulching like crazy. Time well spent seeing as how they looked appalling before, and now they look truly spectacular... at least they do if your standards are still pretty low. ;)  To the flowerbeds at the front porch, I raked out all of the old mulch and weed-y type stuff, pruned what needed to be pruned, aaand completely redid the edging, making a new trench and berm in a nice straight line.

Along the barns I mounded the dirt and put mulch on top. Around my beloved sweet pea I created a berm by cutting a trench to define it's space. Ben has a tendency to mow over it (in his defense, because you couldn't tell where the grass ended and the plant started).

We officially introduced the broiler chickens to grass, and bugs, to fatten them up before 'you know what' day.

And we began burying our intricate system of drain pipes from the gutters and downspouts. Something that I have literally lost sleep over. I'm a bit of a spaz, and any time it rains, or drizzles even, I worry that our house is going to sink into the ground because of the water dripping right alongside our foundation. I know, a little nutso, but feasible enough that I still worry.

Samuel has learned about a new piece of machinery: the trenchow (that's toddler for trencher).

The absolute best part about being done with the drain pipes, is that we can finish our final grading, build a walkway so that we don't have to balance on random boards of wood (no joke), and have a yard!  I am so excited. We used more brick to have a bit of a landing once you've stepped off the little porch, and met that with some of the hand cut stone Ben and I bought from an old barn foundation, for our walkway. Here is the progression.

And, thank goodness, when it was all said and done, we cleaned up our yard! We even planted grass seed. I can't wait to mow it.

All in all, we had a super productive week(end). One that mother nature would be proud of.

Chapel Rural Historic District

I am very pleased to announce that our immediate neighborhood/area in central Clarke County, Virginia, has been nominated to be included in the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places. It compromises 16,000+ acres and is eligible as a Rural Historic District. The best part.....  our farm is included in the district boundary!! Actually, I've known about this for awhile, after having been informed through a letter in the mail that the location of our property is within the proposed boundaries. This historic district intends to document and honor the history of our area, while encouraging the protection of historic buildings and property by requiring development funded by state or federal funds, to consider the impact on such structures and conservation easements.

It will take some time to determine the actual boundaries before formally writing the National Register Nomination. The center of the district being Old Chapel, the oldest Episcopal church west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This detailed fieldwork is being done by the fabulous Maral Kalbian. Fabulous in my book because she has 20+ years of experience as an historic preservationist in the Clarke County area. Fabulous because she has so much knowledge of our history, knowledge that I only wish I had a fraction of.

Well, can you guess who stopped by this afternoon?  Mrs. Maral Kalbian herself. I was outside weed eating and moving rocks around, while my children played in piles of gravels and dirt. No Joke. A little embarrassing considering the outside of our house looks pretty sloppy, if not straight up junky. (It's been winter.... we haven't had a chance to clean up from construction. We're working on it)  But I was floored to have her stop by, and only wish that I could have taken up more of her time. ;)

She walked around the outside of our home, and I talked with her about the construction of the house; the daubing, the bricks, the lap siding and stucco, the round timbers as the roof support, the limestone foundation. I tried to sound as knowledgable as I could....  I talked about the old families that are linked with the land and house, that we are mentioned in the memoir, The Story of a Long Life as being one of the places that Aunt Bet visited regularly, explained where the name of the farm came from, mentioned that our milking parlor was the first mechanical one in Clarke Co. Stuff like that. Like I said, I could have kept her there for hours ;)  She didn't seem particularly enthralled with our property or anything. She wasn't like overly blown away, not like I am about my own home (understandable).... For her, this was site number 289 that she's visited since the fall. The two-hundred-eighty-nineth house! so I don't blame her. But she did say that she was very happy that I was home to speak with her. Aww. Me, too! And she did say that the addition fit the original home, and that we'd done a nice job. Wait'll I get her inside!

Again, it will take quite some time for her to compile all of this information... if only she needed some help! Is there a place for volunteers to sign up?


Seriously.

Chicken Tractor

We house our laying hens in a portable chicken coop, or what is now commonly referred to as a chicken tractor. It is complete with enough nesting boxes to accommodate probably 100 chickens (we have a tendency to go overboard). There are plenty of 2x4's for the chickens to roost on at night, and a 'pad' that we keep a barrel of feed on. There is a door that we open and close for them to come in and out of, and what we call a man door for us to use. 

Last fall we moved the coop into the garden which is approximately an acre of fenced in area. They were able to pick through all the leftovers and silage that the garden has to offer. They had 4 months or so before we felt like they needed the shelter of the barn. 

For the last couple of months they have been housed in their coop up near our barns. We still let them out daily, but we have to manually (dreadful, thumbs down) provide them with fresh water, and they tend to lay eggs in the hay that is stored in the barn. It's really annoying, but the kids think it's fun... our own personal egg hunt. We've had a pretty mild winter, though, and we were able to move the coop out into the field sooner than we'd planned. Awesome for them and us!

The point of having a portable chicken coop is so that the chickens have access to fresh, clean grass, and so that they don't get so familiar with an area that they find new places to lay their eggs. Preferably, you want them to lay in the nesting boxes. ;)

But the absolute best thing about having the chickens out in the field.....   is the availability of fresh water! ! !

We are blessed to have a creek that runs throughout our farm, in and out of different fields, so that we can still move them to new places, but they'll have water. (Water that I didn't have to carry to them)

Roosters look silly when they crow.

They freely roam the fields looking for bugs and such.

...But come back to lay in the nesting boxes. 

Farmhouse Kitchen

The big reveal..... my kitchen, and how it came together. It's been {mostly} done since Christmas, but I'm just getting around to posting about it. 

The slew of cabinets in the process of being painted; by hand.

The reclaimed oak countertops for the painted cabinets. This was an amazing piece of wood that actually was long enough to span the entire 8 feet. 

 Installing the glass in the upper cabinet doors.

The oak island.

 Don't mind the 36" stove in a 48" opening....  didn't want to have to remodel my kitchen when we bought a new stove, but don't have the funds to actually buy a new stove yet.

 A shot of the finished oak countertop.

 This is my farmhouse kitchen... complete with a massive apron front sink.