Deo Volente Farm - Blog

For the time being

2009-06-08T19:26:00.000-07:00

we are suspending the blog. Unfortunately we have been in California every month but one this year mostly due to my grandfather dying. While we are thankful that we were able to be with him at the end and with our wonderful extended family, this hasn't left much time for the blog. The farm requires so much work in the spring and we are behind this year due to so much traveling! Hopefully at some point we will be able to continue this blog but for now the link will be taken off of the front page.

Blessings, Sara

Happy Resurrection Day!

2009-04-12T20:05:00.000-07:00

Visiting with family friends

2009-04-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

Today we had family friends from California over for dinner. We had quite a lovely time. I think they enjoyed holding the baby chicks and feeding the sheep. We heard how Peggy had first met my grandmother. Apparently they lived somewhat parallel lives, both having gone to the same girl scout camp and they both lived in the same areas of England and Belgium. Her daughter Lisa and three grandaughters also came over. Their ancestors originally came over to Oregon to be a part of the Aurora colony nearby so they were taking spring break to show the girls part of their past.

The sad news is that we just recieved word that Mom's dad is not doing so well. He's in the hospital and they're not sure when he is coming out.

Going to go take a night time stroll with Scott (and anyone else who wants too). Hopefully there's stars!

2009-04-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

Clouds

2009-03-02T17:12:00.000-08:00

Pause

2009-01-27T19:52:00.000-08:00

Taking a pause from blogging...Most of our family was in California for the past two weeks, and now I will be gone off and on for the next 3 weeks. Hopefully, it will resume then, if life doesn't get too much in the way, as it has a tendancy to do...

Wilma in the clean laundry

2009-01-09T22:20:00.000-08:00

Getting the mail

2009-01-08T23:00:00.000-08:00

Setting out on the great adventure

The neighbor's horses watch in amusement as we wander by

Daniel and Jacob running off all of their extra energy

Panther watches on with great amusement as the younger boys race for the mailbox

"See I got the mail out without a key, cause I
could stick my hand through the slot and grab it"

Panther faithfully follows Daniel walking back down to the mailbox to see if he missed any mail.

Tyler exploring whether Daniel really could stick his hand in all the way.

Tyler: "Hey, Sara, we got a hand in the mail!"

Sara obviously not paying much attention takes

pictures of a fuzzy Panther

"Do I look like I care?"

Linking his chops, Panther wonders if the mail is edible.

Still burning off more of that extra energy.

Let's go home and make ourselves a nice cup of tea, shall we?

Winter Loveliness Part 4

2009-01-07T23:26:00.000-08:00

Winter Loveliness Part 3

2009-01-06T22:40:00.000-08:00

Winter Loveliness, part 2

2009-01-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

Winter Loveliness

2009-01-02T20:49:00.000-08:00

Fall is coming

2008-10-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

The walnut trees are changing color.

The same corner, only better

2008-10-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

Painting

2008-10-04T12:23:00.001-07:00

We were able to get the painting done this week before the rains came. Pictures next week!

Rain...

2008-09-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

Wednesday and Thursday we took off from working outside to work, yup, you guessed it, inside! The house cleaning had gotten a little neglected with all of our efforts being put into prepping. Today we are doing more priming and starting to cover the windows with plastic. Soon we will feel like we are walking around in one of those bedding display areas with the windows that have the light shining through the plastic...

Tuesday's Prepping (4a)

2008-09-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

Monday's Prepping (3b)

2008-09-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

We had to caulk each seam between two boards and around each window. Tyler, Andrew and I spent three hours doing it on Saturday and Tyler and Andrew spent about 4 hours on Monday. The boys got to be quite good at it.

Just some of the debris going to the burn pile!

Monday's Prepping (3a)

2008-09-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

On Monday our focus for prepping the house to paint was replacing all of the cracked cedar boards. Scott with the help of the rest of the boys replaced about 400 feet of cracked siding.

Daniel working on priming the fresh boards.

Daniel was pretty excited with how he could walk around on the platform with out being scared. It was a little wiggly!

Saturday's Prepping (2)

2008-09-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Here Daniel is bleaching the gutters on the second story. He wants to make sure that everyone knows how high up he is on the ladder. It was rather a time consuming process as we had to move the ladder very 3 feet or so. I was the ladder mover and ladder stabilizer. So mostly that means I stood on the bottom rung of the ladder to make it more secure. For the whole afternoon. Somebody has to do the hard work around here!

Prepping the house to get painted (1)

2008-09-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

Daniel getting ready to bleach the gutters

Rhodendrons gone!

2008-09-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday Tyler and Dad took out the rhodedendron bushes around the house. The former owners had about 12 rhodendrons planted along two sides of the perimeter of our yard. We had decided to take them out as it took a lot of hours to weed in between them. Herbicides are not an option on our farm! The previous owners used them and we are still feeling the effects five years later. While we normally would not complain about no weeds it is rather disturbing that after five years some flower beds still have no weeds growing.

Dad tightening the chain around the rhodendron bush.

Hooking the end of the chain onto the tractor bucket.

The bucket starting to lift up.

Up and over the fence to get carted away to the burn pile.

You can see the rams watching in the background. They really want to be on the other side of the fence. Not because it is greener, but because their lady friends are over there...

More Baby Chicks!

2008-08-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

We are unexpectedly now doing an October batch of chickens. We lost over 100 chickens in the latest heat wave and decided to go ahead and do another batch.

Peeking into the brooder pens.

Lots of feed for the chickens to eat.

The chicks exploring a feed bucket left in their pen.

Tool Room

2008-07-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

Scott and Sam working on the tool room

One of our latest projects is building a tool room in the barn. Scott will be using it mostly for his tools, but it will help clear up some space in the barn and garden shed too. We have been excited to have Sam, a friend from church, helping around the farm a couple days a week. We can always use another pair of hands!

Lavender

2008-07-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well, it has taken a little longer to get back into the swing of things than I had anticipated, but we are finally caught up from being sick, gone, processing and hosting friends...

Last year our lavender bloomed three weeks earlier, but it was worth the wait. It seems to be particularly beautiful this year. We have about fourty lavender plants that the former owners planted. Apparently deer don't care for it, which prompted them to plant LOTS of it.

It seems that most plants are behind schedule here, thanks to our cooler spring. Only the peas and lettuce have benefited from it. The warm weather seems to be finally here though and the squash is growing like crazy!