One of our “fences”
Before we bought this property, three years ago, it had been sorely neglected and abused. There were piles and piles of old construction waste piled all around the house and down in the pastures, old dilapidated sheds and the fencing was an array of hodge-podge materials and poor patching. Over the last three summers we have been steadily cleaning things up, making a dent in the garbage, hauling it off or organizing it to be re-purposed. Its a daunting job and we still have years of work ahead of us and about a zillion trips to the dump.
In preparation for adding a small herd of goats to the farm this spring we had to replace some of the worse fencing along the property line. It is something we had been planning for the last three years, but fencing is a lot of work and can be rather expensive, however keeping goats where they need to be required that we finally get to that fence.
This Saturday was fencing day, my brother came to lend us a hand. As you can see he was a lot of help…. The men watched on as our fourteen year old daughter dug all the fence posts. We are teaching them to work, right?
After my little sassy pants daughter got all the holes dug and the fence posts in (yes she actually did all that, with supervision from her father, and they were actually building a shed for the goats so they weren’t slacking as much as it looks in the pictures) the men ran wire and stretched it tight, wiring it in place. The goat pen is ready for those little babies in a few weeks.
The difference is amazing, it makes me excited for when we get all the fencing cleaned up and replaced.
Soil is defined as the top layer of Earth that allows the growth of plants. All areas have a different 
In a week or so I will introduce them to their older sisters during the day and they enjoy free ranging over the meadows and fields, doing what chickens do best.
The tomatoes are also getting their secondary leaves, I am happy with their progress. The biggest trick with starting seedling in doors is making sure they have enough light so they don’t get “leggy” where the stem stretches long and thin, trying to reach enough light. It makes the plant weak. I keep the tomatoes under grow lights, the light hangs about an inch away from the seedlings, to prevent stretching. Within the next week I will set them out side in the full sun during the days and that too will help prevent stretching. The tomatoes have to be babied a little bit longer, they are a tender plant and can’t take any freezing. They will be safe in the garden about mid-May and I will wait until the first of May to start hardening them off, depending on night time temperatures.
We also burn wood for heat during the winter. I had harvested all of the wood that I could with the equipment I had. So we asked our wood guy (we buy our winter wood from him) if he would be willing to process the trees for us. Well, he said yes, we came up with a price and the work started.
With the help of his numerous different sized chain saws and his hydraulic wood splitter. John and Tommy were able to convert all of those trees to 12+ cords of wood. We still have probably 5 cords more of trees to process. The wood will be great for us over the next couple of winters, and the cost to have them process it was more than half the cost to have them haul in wood for the winter.
Because of the size of her seeds she is very easy for little fingers to sow. There is much excitement when the first blossoms and peas pods appear on her bushes, for the children know they had a part in their creation. 
In the warmer days of May, when the summer heat starts flirting on the backs of our necks, we will be out picking our peas, giving thanks for the bounty and sharing it with others.
