Sunday, August 25, 2013

Hummingbird Farm becomes official

I should be doing some work right now, but instead, I'm going to write about our weekend.

Genevieve has been pretty sick, as well as half the kids in her daycare. As a result, the kids were home since Tuesday. On Thursday afternoon, I ventured out with the kids to get a few new chickens. A local feed store had pullets (young hens - about a month out from laying) available. Ghon and I argued back and forth about the quantity. We currently have 4 hens and one rooster, Bullseye, aside from the chicks. He wanted 12 pullets. I wanted no more than 8. Ya know, because 4 + 8 makes a dozen and I like even numbers and symmetry.

The kids and I loaded up into Ghon's truck, and headed to the feed store. This in itself was an adventure, as Farmer Ghon told me it was on Route 11. Well, acually, it was on a side road off of Route 11. I drove until I knew I'd gone too far (West Virginia line!!) and turned around with the GPS going. Still, no luck. I drove down the side road that the GPS told me I should be on. No luck. I drive around this little shopping area, no luck. Jonathan begins telling me that we are lost. Told him, nope, we aren't lost, I know exactly where I am, I just don't know where this store is!! I resorted to calling, and low and behold, we were almost in the parking lot. There was no signage out front and I completely missed it. Didn't even look like a feed store at first. Oh well...

While one of the men in the store loaded up our 8 pullets and a bag of feed, the kids and I loved on some bunnies in the store. Having a pet rabbit as a child, I'm a sucker for bunnies. Not a fan of rodents; and that includes mice, rats, hamsters, and guinea pigs. But I love bunnies.

Once we were loaded up, we headed home, and Genevieve promptly fell asleep. Jonathan helped me release the new chickens into the coop. One had a lot of white on her tail feathers, so since the kids named their chicks, I named this pullet Snowflake.



My handsome little chicken catcher.

Friday, the weather absolutely stunk. It rained almost all day. In the afternoon, I took Jonathan to the open house at his elementary school. Monday, he starts kindergarten. He's getting so big!

When we got home, I let the kids do a little painting. Jonathan was first charged with creating a sign for his lemonade stand at our yard sale. We decided he would offer lemonade and water, but he was desperate to add coffee and tea. He painted his own lemon, added some blue water, black for tea and brown for coffee. Genevieve created her own masterpiece along side him.

Preparing for our first lemonade stand - fun with paint!

Saturday we were up crazy early and headed to the farm with two somewhat cranky and impatient children. Ghon built some tables for me with cinder blocks and plywood and I lugged all of our stuff out. Jonathan was desperate to set up his stand, starting at about 6:30am. Then he begged to know when it would start and when all the people would come.


One trade newspaper, one highway sign, and four local Facebook yard sale sites. That's how much advertising I did for this yard sale.

Most of what we had for sale came from the great attic clean out this spring. Some from our house and a ton of kid stuff.

We had maybe 10 people show up.

Jonathan was nearly devastated. I am thankful for the first couple that came bought a lemonade from him, even if they didn't want any of our stuff. A few more people bought his lemonade and we even made a home delivery to his daycare family this weekend. In the end, he made $4 in lemonade sales. Not bad for 25 cents a cup.

While I was manning the yard sale (ha!) I also reorganized all of Ghon's chili gear stored on our porch. The kids alternated between hanging out with their old toys on the front lawn, running through the yard, watching a movie in the house, or tractor rides.

Jonathan takes Pop on his first tractor ride.

Jonathan loves taking pictures with my camera. At one point, he snatched my camera from me and ran around taking pictures of all of our yard sale items, the sky, his feet, and an awesome selfie.

Our yard sale spread, Jonathan's selfie, old bottles, and my goofball.

At one point, Genevieve started yelling, "A snake! A snake!" Thankfully, Ghon was close by and went to investigate, as I became cemented to the ground. After he leaned down and announced it wasn't a snake, I was able to breath and ask what it was. Proclaimed as a salamander, I think a little research has proven it to be a juvenile Eastern newt, called an eft.

Fun with creepy crawlies.

Ghon offered me a chance to hold it, but I declined. I am so proud of the kids for being willing to hold them. Genevieve thought it was so cute...

While the kids did their thing, and I did mine, Ghon worked on hanging up our farm sign. The sign was a gift from my Dad last Christmas. The view getting in and out of the driveway is a little difficult, so we've fretted over where and how to hang it. Something got into Ghon this weekend, and he decided to get the sign hung. Once he built the post, I helped him secure it in place. Quite a few of the farms on our road have signs up with their names, and Ghon has always wanted to have his own farm. He had such a look of accomplishment on his face when we were done. He's waited a long time to see his name like that. Sort of made being a farm; our farm; official, well, except from a tax perspective. We haven't gotten that far yet.


Finally hanging our sign. Jonathan gets photo credits for the pic of Ghon and I.

Oh, and he also killed an opossum that was in our trap. Too many corpses around. The farm is getting a little smelly in spots...

While I was on the street with the camera, I snapped a few pics of the flowers by the mailbox. I also caught some cute pictures of Genevieve, who had come to watch Ghon and I work.

The flowers by the mailbox are doing great!


Genevieve stopping to smell the flowers.

Ghon had to leave for work after our picnic lunch of the front lawn. My Dad and his friend BJ came to help me pack back up once my official sale hours were over. I've managed to set up a few meetings via the Facebook yard sale sites to get rid of a few other items. Ghon wants to try again another weekend, so despite my initial insistence that all the junk doesn't come back into the house, it came back in. I think our little farmhouse is just too far off the beaten path to do well at a yard sale.

Once we were all packed up, the kids and I climbed into the truck to head home to wash up before going out to dinner. Genevieve barely made it out the driveway before she fell asleep. Jonathan fell asleep about halfway to the restaurant once we left our house. They were two tired kiddos. Jonathan rode home with Pop after dinner, so Genevieve and I had to stop at the farm to take care of the chickens on our way back home.

If the thought of video of me trying to release trapped animals wasn't enough, the scene Saturday was a riot. The coop door is working well, however, some chickens seem to be early birds and other night owls. A handful of the new gals keep getting stuck on the wrong side of the door. I opened the door, then Genevieve and I went into their run and either chased to or picked up and tossed into the general direction of the coop door roughly 6 chickens, all while she yelled "go to bed chickens!" Once we thought we had them all in, Bullseye comes out, followed by three hens. We put them to bed, and I scurry out the run, around the coop, and into the coop to shut the door. Of course, my presence spooks them, and they run out the damn door.

I grabbed a plastic crate liner and head back to the run. Genevieve is squatting about 2 feet from the door screaming "NO CHICKENS! GO. TO. BED!" We get the chickens into the coop, again, I close it up with the liner, back to the coop, close the door, back to the run, remove the liner and we get the hell home. Ghon changed the timer this morning, so I hope they all made it in - I didn't check this evening.

Mr. Bullesye and Genevieve helping fill the water cans.

Another busy day Saturday. Sunday we had a big family breakfast before the kids and I headed out to get my truck washed and vacuumed,complete another Build and Grow project at Lowes then finally go grocery shopping. I had to do my first school homework tonight, and tomorrow morning, I help pack Jonathan's first lunch and take him to the school bus. Big things are happening around here. Big things.

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