Vanishing photos, policemen with rifles and biking

What do all these things have in common? My next blog post!

My husband bought me a netbook for an anniversary present (I think it was just convenient that it was anniversary time as he's been wanting to get me one for awhile so that he could have my desktop for some project). It came with Windows 7 Starter which is so full of limitations that it really sucked. He upgraded it to Windows 7 Home Premium last week and in the process, erased every single digital photo we had taken in the past two years. EVERY SINGLE ONE. I hadn't had a chance to back them up yet as I'd only *just* moved them from my work computer the day before.

When he informed me of this, I seriously thought it was just pulling my leg. He wasn't. Usually when you upgrade, the software will ask if you want to delete old files - that didn't happen this time. We think it's probably because he named my new profile the same as my old one so it just wrote right over it. Because of this, I have no more 'before' photos of anything on the farm or in the house. Not a single photo of Sass (who is now living on a different farm)...and every single photo I've taken with my new camera save the few that are still on it are all gone too. It was all I could do not to burst into tears while fixing dinner that night.

Luckily, because of a recent virus problem on my work computer, I have two profiles on it. I'd deleted all the photos out of the current profile because I wanted the space, but I forgot to delete them from the old profile that still exists on my laptop. I went searching and they were still there! I don't have any photos taken between when that virus struck and when I did the transfer (basically anything taken with my new camera), but it's better than being completely without anything since we moved in. Phew!

So, later that same night, as we are about to sit down to eat, my huband notices cop cars in front of our house. Two of them were out there with lights flashing and it looks like they were blocking off our road. OK, we figure there was an accident at the corner (it's happened before). Then we notice lights at the corner and further back on the other cross-street. Odd. We sit down to eat and not moments later the dogs start going crazy and we notice a cop in our backyard. My H puts on his jacket to go outside and see what is up and when the cop sees him, yells for him to take the dogs inside and stay there. Lovely.

I go to look out the guestroom window and there are now no less than a dozen town, county and state cop cars blocking our road! Flashing lights everywhere!

When I look to my right, I can see one cop standing half-hidden by one of our apple trees with a rifle in his hand. From a different window, I can see another cop squatting down, also with a rifle, using our greenhouse as cover. Holy crap.

Then we notice about 6 more cops with a HUGE black german shephard heading towards our back yard. They are combing the whole space - terrifying the goats. Luckily, by this time, the chickens were already in their coop or they'd be making a hell of a racket. We had to lock our dogs in the bathroom where they had no windows because they were also going ballistic at this point. A different cop finally had the courtesy to ring our bell and let us in on the story. Turns out, some lady reported that her car was shot at from the abandoned school building next door and when the cops went to investigate, someone was there and he ran from them. They were hunting this person down. I heard LOUD shots as I was cooking that evening - we hear them all the time - but I remembered these as odd because they were so loud that I heard them over the TV in the other room. Country living at it's best, right? To this day, we don't really know what ended up happening. By about 9:30 pm, they were all gone and we haven't heard any updates since then. Strange!

So lastly, about the biking. Last weekend we didn't make much farm progress because we spent a lot of time biking. On Saturday we met up with some friends and biked the route that my first triathlon will take in a few weeks. After the ride, those of us doing the tri also ran the race route for the run portion as well. It was my first brick and other than one fleeting desire to just sit down as I started the run, it went well. My plan is to do another one this weekend and then one more next weekend. On Sunday, we did a ride that we enjoy just north of us. We ended up doing just over 33 miles and it was a really great time. The weather was spectacular and we really enjoyed it. My sit bones were screaming at me (they aren't used to this much riding yet!), but it was worth the pain.

The hope is that this weekend we can manage at least some riding AND some farm progress. We've got some transplanting to do and the chicken coop needs to be cleaned. Fun! ;-) We are also working on relocating our compost bins so that we can build a new garden shed on the current bin location. I took some 'before' photos of the move - but they were among the missing so I'll just have to be content with posting 'during' and then 'afters' once we have them.

Weekend of pain

These are the three trees we worked on this weekend (one is partially blocked by the ladder). The middle one is now about 1/3 it's size and the right one is even smaller. The left one still needs more work done. In the foreground, there are two small trees that both produce delicious apples that we prunned last weekend.

I'm sitting here, on the couch, making typing errors and periodically moaning in pain. It's been one hell of a weekend!

On Saturday, we tackled the pruning again. We have three trees in the far back yard that don't look like they've ever been pruned. Two are apple trees, one is a plum of some sort. None of them produced anything edible last year, so we hope that pruning will help. Additionally, two of the three trees are in close proximity to where we plan to erect the greenhouse, so cutting them back some is critical. The last thing we need is a big branch to break off and fall through the polycarbonate roof! All three of these trees are about 30-40 ft tall. We had only hand tools to take them down to a more manageable size. My H spent most of the day on a ladder or climbing through the trees with a saw in hand. I was on the ground with a long rope, ready to assist by pulling branches down or out of his way. I was also in charge of using the big clippers to cut all downed branches into manageable lengths. Near the end of the day, my H made a trip to a local discount store and purchased an electric chain saw. That made a HUGE difference and we were able to make a good dent in the clean up. We cut down so many branches that we easily had more wood on the ground than was left remaining in the trees! By Saturday evening, my wrists, my back and my shoulders were screaming in pain.

Sunday, we had plans to go for a bike ride in the morning. The weather cooperated, so we headed out around 11:30 am after doing some morning chores. I planned out a short 20 mile loop that kept us off the main roads (we rode those last weekend and the grit/gravel remaining from the December snow storms made it rough going). Unfortunately, I don't know the roads in this area all that well, so I wasn't 100% sure what types of roads we were going to be riding. Turns out, not good ones! About half our route was on dirt/gravel roads and about 1/2 of that was some serious climbing! Oops. After 4 miles of slogging up very muddy, dirt roads that probably had an average incline of about 7%, we were totally spent. We'd picked a 20 mile route because we are out of shape...a tough climb was more than we bargained for...though we did get some nice views for our effort. And the descent was paved (thank goodness - I am terrified of descents in mud!) and probably would have been fun had it been a little warmer. 40 degrees is too cold when you aren't actively pedaling!

Anyway, tonight my legs are joining my wrists, shoulders and back in the pain department. I'm glad we got so much done on those trees (we still have more to do) and I'm glad we rode - but I'm looking forward to starting the work week so that I can recover!

Our First Egg!!

Our first egg is the one on the bottom. The one on the top is a grocery store "large" egg for comparison.

I'm so excited! The roosters have been 'violating' the chickens for about a week and a half now, so we knew it must be close to laying time. In fact, today we had to separate the roosters for the first time because they were fighting so badly. We put the smaller one into the goat paddock for the day so that he could free-range. The others we left in the coop/run since it was rainy anyway. When my H went to put the rooster back in, he saw the egg sitting there in one of the nesting box! Thank goodness we got those boxes done last week! This is an egg from one of the two white leghorns. They are supposed to be the most prolific layers of the group, so it makes sense that they'd be the first to lay for us.

This was a busy weekend as usual. We did get the chicken coop waterproofed yesterday. It had been clear for a few days, so the coop was nice and dry and it was supposed to be sunny yesterday and warm enough (barely) to apply the water seal. By the time we'd put the chickens back in, it was dry enough that the fumes were mostly gone. Today, it rained and we could see the water beading up on the coop. Excellent!

We also skimmed more milk and ate the last of the carrots from our garden. And we tried one of the pints of canned carrots with our dinner one night...they were surprizingly good! Not mushy at all...which I was totally expecting. Next weekend I hope to can a batch of something else (I did no canning this weekend). We did get some big beef bones from our CSA, so maybe I'll use those to make some beef stock.

Today we managed to get in a 20 mile ride. It was pouring rain the whole time, but all of our gear served us well and we stayed dry and comfortable. I was actually kind of glad that I got a chance to test everything out (including my fenders) before I have to ride to work one day in the rain. We are both also working on getting back into shape, so a 20 mile ride was a nice workout towards that end.

Lastly, I managed to get the outside of our house decorated. I put up icicle lights hanging from the front porch overhang. Then we put rope lighting as an outline of our roofline. Lastly, I framed the front door with fake evergreen boughs laced with white lights. It all looks nice but isn't too much. I'm not a fan of house decorations that light up the night! Tonight we are putting up our tree. The ceilings in this house are 7ft. The tree is 7.5 ft. Somehow, we'll make it work!

Sunday biking and blackberries

Today's 'harvest'

Yesterday after the siding estimate, we ran a few errands. I picked up a water bath canning pot (big enough for 7 quart jars) for a great price at a local discount store. I was also able to pick up some sturdy hooks to add to the goat shed for use in milking. I needed a place to hang the milk pail out of the way while I did chores and another place to hang the lantern when milking in the dark. I also talked H into the long handled 'fruit picker'. I can't wait to make use of it later this week!

After we got back, I installed the above mentioned hooks and installed 2 removeable perches in the chicken coop. I still don't know if the chickens are using them yet because they scatter when we open the door, but I imagine that they'll get used to them eventually. My only fear is that they are too slick since I used broom handles that were already varnished. If I don't see evidence of their use in the next couple of days, I'll take some sandpaper to the finish and rough them up a bit.

This morning, we decided to go for a bike ride. After the chores were done, we headed out. I'd mapped out a route the night before, but only had a cue sheet printed out (because the map was too hard to read). The ride started out ok, but we made a wrong turn and headed towards Hagg Lake. It was actually a nice ride up there, so all wasn't totally lost. Then we turned around and headed back. We continued on our route and made a second wrong turn. This one wasn't my fault though...the directions were wrong. Anyway, we headed into a nearby town (which was smaller than our town!), and looped back towards the way we came. All in all, it ended up being 28 miles, but we were angry and fighting with each other most of the route. It wasn't pretty. The rest of the day was somewhat tense because of it, too.

After we got back, I adjusted a few things on my commuter bike in preparation for commuting to work on Tuesday. Then I started up the mower and got to work mowing the lawn. I did about 1/3 of it before the rain started. During that same time frame, H managed to shingle another 1/3 of the lean-to before it got too slippery to work. We then moved the chicken coop to fresh grass before heading inside. H ran to the store to get plumber's putty to replace the faucet in our bathroom sink while I headed out to pick blackberries (in the rain). I picked 3.5 quarts of blackberries (1.5 of the wild and 2 of our cultivated ones - with H's help). I also picked our first zuchini and a few tomatoes which we had sauteed with our dinner.

Zucchini & tomato saute - one step closer to our 100 foot meal!

I mashed the right amount of berries for one more batch of blackberry jam, and the rest are in the fridge. I'll make the jam Monday after work. I'm also going to make a blackberry apple crisp recipe I found - and we'll definitely be eating these on cereal and ice cream every chance we get! I think I may even freeze a few quarts with the next harvest. The wild ones won't likely freeze well because they are too easily squished. The cultivated ones are firmer and more likely to survive a freezing.

The next step will be figuring out how to preserve all the apples, plums and pears for the winter!