First Spring Pictures

In case you haven't notice, I love taking pictures. There is something about capturing (I should say trying to capture), the moments of beauty that the Lord gives us, that is so very exciting to me. So, here is a sampling of what I have gotten so far this spring.









Spring means Daffodils, one of my all time favorite flowers. Every year I try to do something different with them. This is what I came up with this year, after finding these great old jars in amongst some newer secondhand ones I bought.

One of the fire baskets from our wedding. They also make "rustic" looking suet feeders for the birds, when they aren't full of snow that is! :)

This is why I held off on my gardening last month.

All of the "snow" pictures where taken on the day after the first day of spring. I want to take them on the fist day itself, but we were in town and it took us so long to get home through the snow and ice, that it was too dark to by the time we made it back.

These baskets where part of the decorations at Thea's wedding, and I was thrilled to be giving one after the wedding. Not only are they beautiful, but they are even more special because her mom HANDMADE all of them!

My idea of a "good" picture (and my personal goal), is to take one that doesn't have to have any kind of editing done, it is the best that it can be from the beginning. That said, it is fun to play with the pictures sometimes, just to see what you come up with. First we have "Faded" (above), the we have "Enhanced" (below).

And finally, some goat pictures, just because I like my goats so much, and because I had to take them for registration forms anyway, so I thought I would share them.

Luka, our "baby" goat from last fall. She is the first Kinder that we have had born here. So far she looks like she is going to be a really good goat.

Luka, having run all over the pen several times, jumped on or over everything that she could, and gotten all of the other goats as worked up as possible (yes, this was while we were trying to get pictures of some of them. Oh well, maybe next time.....) She was so hot she started panting like a dog.....right before biting first Lizzy, then me.

Well, that's all for now folks!

God Bless,

Rachel

Two years ago yesterday.......

......on a cold and cloudy evening, we were married (yes, it was an outdoor ceremony) . The wedding was beautiful and perfect in every way.



The two years since then have been wonderful. The Lord has answered so many of our prayers, we have met new people that have been a help and an encouragement to us, and we have grown closer to each other and the Lord.

We look forward to the years ahead and seeing what the Lord has in store for us.

So much happening....

Justin and Thea are married! And I don’t have a single picture to post of the wedding :(
I did take my camera, but because I was busy pretty much the whole day, I never got it out to take a picture. I can’t complain though, since I was busy fulfilling a dream of mine; doing the hair styling for a bride and her bridesmaids! Thank you Thea! I can say that the wedding was beautiful, everything went smoothly, everyone did great, and the only tears were those of joy (at least until J&T left). So, one wedding down, three (as of now :) more to go!

Well, the weather this week is making it really hard to hold off on planting the garden, but I keep reminding myself that if snowed last year on April 15th, so waiting a little longer is not going to hurt anything. I do have some radishes, spinach, and mustard greens going in a cold frame, and I started the tomato and pepper seeds yesterday. We are trying some new things this year and I am really excited to see how everything does.

Another new project here is heritage pigs. We wanted to try Gloucestershire Old Spots, but we weren’t able to find any in this area to get started with, so we went with Red Wattle Hogs instead.

There are several reasons we choose to go with a heritage breed instead of a commercial breed. The heritage hogs are hardier, better at raising their offspring without a lot of help, good scavengers, and their temperament is MUCH better. Our pigs are very calm, nonaggressive, and even like to have us scratch their backs. Compared to the pigs we did last year, these guys are saints. We did get a breeding pair, so sometime this fall we should have a litter of little squealers running around here!


Aren't they cute?

We have also acquired some New Zealand rabbits. These are a meat breed, which is why we have them.

In goat news, we have several things going on. We got a new doe last week. She is not a Kinder, but she is a small goat, so she fits in well here. Technically, Willow is a Mini Saanen (Saanen Nigerian Dwarf cross), but she is just a first generation so we got her for a good price. She, along with at least two of our Kinders, are due to have babies in the next 4 to 6 weeks. I am also suspicious of Maria. I think that she may have some “surprise” babies on the way, but all I can do is wait and see.

And finally, a random, funny story that I have been meaning to get up here, and keep forgetting about.
One day when we were coming home from my parents place, we came upon some cows (about 15 or so) that were wandering down the road right by our house. At least, that is what it looked like at first. On closer inspection, it was discovered that they were actually being driven along by......

.....a wild turkey.

The said turkey was not just walking along with the cows, or trying to go around them, he was moving them on down the road. He would turn them to one side or the other by moving to the opposite side, sticking his neck out, and gobbling at them. And it worked. It was just like watching a dog herd cows along. In order to prevent an accident, and not knowing who’s cows they were, we stopped, and with another neighbor got them to go into a pasture until the owners could be located. The turkey helped with this process.

After they were locked in we went on up the hill to our house. As we waited for the owners to come, we could see the turkey moving the cows across the pasture, towards the next farm. After awhile they disappeared over a hill and we thought that was the end of it. But I guess the turkey like to the grass on this side of the hill better, because in about twenty minutes, here he came again, driving them all back. Eventually someone came and got the cows (I don’t know if they took the turkey too), and that was the last that we saw of them. Needless to say it was one of the strangest things I have ever seen, and I am glad that I had the camera!

Well, that all for now!

God bless,

Rachel

Thea's Wedding Shower

I don't have as many pictures as I would like (I took most of them on a camera that wasn't mine), but here are a few to enjoy. Everything went very well, and I think that everyone had a good time. Thank you too all who helped get things ready, set up, served refreshments, and kept things running smoothly!