Welcome

Welcome to our country home, complete with gravel road (but unfortunately no barn).

This is the direction most people come from when they visit. If you keep going north on this road, you cross a 4 lane highway and then end up in Colchester, population 1500. Before you get to Colchester, there is a four lane highway. If you turn right onto the highway, you will end up in Macomb, population about 18,000.

It’s hard to see in this picture, but there is a bridge. That’s the bridge that goes over the big creek near our house, aptly named Troublesome Creek, which floods frequently.

Country road, north view

Here is our mailbox. We have a new one, but still need to paint it and put it out. I did, however, spruce it up with some plants and a little border (with a little help from Tim).

Spruced up mailbox area

South view of country road, with entrance to our place on left

We have a little creek that feeds into the big creek. There is a small bridge over our creek, but the creek still floods and we have mud patches on either side of the bridge. If you look on the left of the picture below, you can see some stubble from the corn, still, but mostly it looks like dark green, lush grass. That’s the oats. There are two fields on either side of the driveway. This field on the left of the picture ends, but shortly after it ends, way up that hill, there is another much bigger field. The other field is up the road in the picture above. The house is way in the background (it’s a white kind of blob). There are two small black dots to the left of the telephone pole and those are Sweetie Cow and Bullseye, our two calves.

View from the "bridge" near the front of the lane.

In this next picture you can see the house a little better and you can see the dark green oats on either side of the lane. The lighter green stuff is NOT oats and is a mixture of grass and weeds.

View of the oats and the house

We love where we live. It is private and secluded, but also close to town. We are surrounded by trees and animals. I do miss my Phoenix friends, and I know the kids do, too. But we also live closer to family now and we are happy we moved.

The cows are coming!

One of the things I did yesterday was go to Farm King to try to find the following: check prices on charger for the electric fence, hoses to connect together to get the water up to the cows (and for the garden), and a gate handle. Well the trip to Farm King didn’t go well. It was such a nice day and I think the kids and I really wanted to stay home, even though I thought it would be fun to go into town. We were there way too long and I couldn’t think or find anything, including anyone to help when I really needed it. So I came home with bedding for the chicks, chicken feed, watering cans, two buckets to take treats to the cows and chickens (one for each kid, in theory, though I doubt they will be helping me every day), and some more seeds, including some shorter carrots, pole beans to grow with the corn, and something else I can’t remember. Oh, and two arrows for Aidan who now has a bow and some practice arrows. Of course, I have no clue about how to buy arrows and what is good or appropriate for someone learning. No clue. So I bought the wrong tips for the arrows we bought and one of the arrows broke on the way home. I don’t know how it ended up being a bad trip to Farm King, but it did. It was just too long, I think, and too nice to be indoors. In fact, the best part was when we were in the greenhouse/gardening area and the kids could run around. I’m trying to focus on that part because it was fun and nice to be outside.

Anyway, last night I was trying to figure out when to go back to Farm King since today we need a day at home to recuperate from yesterday’s trip to Farm King and tomorrow we are heading to Peoria for an overnight stay. I thought perhaps I could take the kids to Granny’s while I get groceries and go back to Farm King. Then we woke up a bit earlier than usual today (not early by any means, just earlier than usual) and we are all tired and a little grumpy. So we did our morning chores, minus walking the fence, then played in the creek, and inside to warm up and watch Spiderman 2. So we’re sitting inside mostly naked and I was totally absorbed in the movie, which is unusual for me. Then my brain registered that someone pulled up to the house, so I had to scramble to put on some pants! It was Scott the Farmer, who came by to see about our trip to Farm King and to tell us that the cows will be here either today or tomorrow.

Holy cow! Haha, no pun intended. I’m just a little excited and nervous and amazed that we will have two calves soon. Scott and I mixed up some feed for treats for the cows, talked about how much to give them, how to do it, and what time of day. Apparently morning is the time they graze a lot, so it’s better to wait so that they won’t fill up on treats. I need to do a little pile of treats for each one and each will get only about two quarts of treats. The treats are wheat gluten mixed with some other minerals. Scott told me the wheat gluten is mostly protein and is what is left after they make ethanol from the corn, so is probably from genetically modified corn. Apparently the lady who is selling us the cows doesn’t care for that feed, and I can’t blame her. Scott seemed to feel the same way, but it’s only temporary because soon we will be planting oats and that is what they will be eating. We will harvest the oats and save some for winter for the chickens, as well.

So anyway, Scott is going to call a farm supply store near where the cow people are (I have no idea who they are or where they live, but apparently near some other farm supply store), and they will pick it up and bring it all when they bring the cows. Since we are going to Peoria tomorrow, we may not be here when the cows get here. Tim will be here, most likely, and as long as I leave a check for the cows all will be well. We’ll come home Sunday and have cows (unless they arrive today, in which case there will be lots of picture taking and a third blog post for the day!).