My Happy Mess

 Is this mess not a lovely sight to see??

Called a GF this morning to see how she was going with the final touches for her Daddy's wedding tomorrow and found out she was in need of some clips for the bridesmaids hair....Being so last minute the last thing she has time for is shopping for such things....So I did what any friend would do...

I asked her what colors and is there a theme?...She told me the girls are in yellow sundresses, denim jackets and boots...Yup, country cute for sure ♥...And this is what I came up with.

So with that out of the way I better git back to my house work and prepping for the Photoshoot I have booked this weekend...Excited much?? You betcha

Blessings Kelsie

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These are a few of my favorite things...

Yesterday after school Lil Sara put on her favorite dress and favorite cowgirl boots before we headed out to help with the new goat fences....

 How could I resist but to grab my favorite camera and capture a few fun snaps before we got to work?

These images show so many of my favorite things that I just had to share....

Warm afternoons even in Feb.

Wide open spaces for us to play in.

Hay bales to sit upon.

Girly pink, mixed with country chic.

My little girl...

All pitching in to get the work done..

Silly moments that make me laugh...

Blessings Kelsie

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A little Aussie for Christmas

 I got a lovely surprise in my mail box this week, my dear sweet cousin who is currently traveling around Western Australia with her husband sent me a little reminder of home...

I wanted to really enjoy them so instead of hanging them on the tree I put hung them with the Christmas Cards...Which just happen to be hanging in front of the Navigation Chart of my hometown waters Albany Western Australia...Kinda fitting really.

 Two lovely hand crafted metal truly Australian Christmas ornaments...How cute is this ROO (yes ppl this is what we Australians call a roo lol) in his Christmas hat.

The Boab Tree is my favorite, so truly unique to Western Australia. (Click Here to learn more about this Iconic tree)..My Cousin tells me you will not find this one in any shops outside of Kununurra (where they are currently staying) because the Christmas Boabs are made especially for a local business there.

I was so touched that she thought of me and sent me such a lovely gift for Christmas.

Blessings Kelsie

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Christmas Mantel

Despite the fact we have not brought the boxes of decorations or tree down from the attic yet this year...

Or the fact we don't actually have a fireplace or mantel...

I have begun decorating the top of the book shelves as though it was a mantel.

I still need to de-clutter Lil Sara's portion of the shelves

I hope when the boxes do come down from the attic, I will find some more sparkle to add to the over all look.

Blessings Kelsie

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Farm Journal...Unexpected Blessings.

This week I was inspired by two lovely ladies...One an old friend (and a hero of mine) Kari and one new friend, Patty ..

Kari, is like an organized, homeschooling, artist, CEO, motivated woman super hero and has taught me so much with her fun journaling photographs, lists, and sticky notes.

And Patty with her "Homestead Diary" posts on her blog, showing me what I really should be keeping records off and how to put them into words that make sense to us "new farmers".

AND that has motivated me to finally crack open the journal I purchased the same week the goats came home and make use of it.

So here we have it, my Farm Journal...

Each month has a calendar overview at the beginning, I will record reminders of upcoming animal shots, vet visit etc...Post-its have stuff I need to research farther...

Inside each month I will record, daily diets for animals, health updates as needed, garden needs, and that kind of thing...Today's entry was not written at the time I took this photo and had a lot on it...I might need to think about upgrading to a bigger journal before I get to far into the entries and have to copy them over.

One of the reasons for such a long entry today was the unexpected expansion of our flock of chickens....Our wonderful neighbors needed to thin out theirs and asked us to choose who ever we want and as many as we want because otherwise they are going to the auction.

OMGosh...*happy chicken momma dance*

How could I not take the 3 Araucona hens and Rooster??
At least that is what I think they are called...My neighbor told me they lay green eggs (which was my guess as soon as I laid eyes on them)...I was planning to order some "Easter Eggers" come spring so this just speed up my dream a little.

The moment I saw the B&W girls, I knew I had to have them...My neighbor thought them to be Barrocks but I think they could be Wynodottes?..Well whatever you call them, they sure is pretty.

Bravo was not happy to see a new man in the coop...And they spent the next hour or so fronting up thru the fence at each other...

I think I will keep that fence between them for a few days at the very least....

Tomorrow I will go and get 3 more hens...Road Island Reds...They will join Bravo's girls...So maybe he will be not so threatened once he and the new Rooster have the same number of girls each lol.

Blessings Kelsie

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Dream Goats

Many years ago before Farmer Brown AKA Hubby and I were married, we talked about what the future would hold for us...We discussed all the usual things, children, career paths, our expectation of a future together, what country we would live in (he is American, myself Australian) and the logistics of the relocation etc....and of course GOATS....

Just like any other couple preparing to spend a life time together, right??

Of course our discussion about goats was about one day when we retire, it sure would be nice to own a little land and raise a few goats, sheep and potter about our garden enjoying the quiet country life style as we grew old and grey together...

Well seems this dream was closer than we could have ever possibly imagined back in 2000 when we tied the knot...Due to a series of events that started with 9/11 and the impact it had on the airline industry (my husband's chosen field) we found ourselves re-accessing, re-working and by 2004 relocating to a small parcel of land in FL that had been home to more than a few generations of my husband's family...(they homesteaded it in 1896)

Finally in Nov 2009 we had the opportunity to purchase the parcel of land for our very own and we began to build us a little blue house...We moved into the house on May 4th 2010 (Our 10th Wedding anniversary) and then started working on making our long shared dream come true..

This year we purchased our first 2 Nigerian Dwarf goats...and though we have a long way to go, each time I look out my back windows to see these funny little creatures (usually eating) I have to pinch myself....Because these 2 little goats are just the beginning of the dream...

They are our DREAM GOATS...

Blessings Kelsie

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Getting to know you...

Today I have a little bit of a random assortment of images to share with you...As I have mentioned in a previous post I am trying out a Nikon 5700 camera to see if I want to buy it...Well as with everything around here, it got interrupted and delayed a little.

BUT, Yesterday I did manage to find a couple of moments to take it out into the front garden...Alas all the squirrels and birds scattered and I did not have time to await their return...So instead...

I took a new photo of my little Cherub statue...
Don't blink, he might cry
(little Dr Who reference for those of you are confused right now *grin*)

Change of focus, Cherub in the background and a lovely new Lavender stem in the front.

Then in the afternoon Lil Sara, her dolly Wil and myself took a little stroll to see what we could find...

Look we found Daddy working on his cars...So Lil Sara and Wil helped him out some.

Then Sara checked all the tires where good and tight....

The cows next door were very curious to see what was up...Who would have thought dust from them running to the fence could look so pretty in the afternoon sun light...

Talking of fence...Only our southern property line is fenced...We dream of the day when the rest is too and we can bring in more animals and really get serious about raising our own food.

The gate in the south fence...It used to get used a lot but alas our neighbor moved away and now his house stands empty and his fields are rented out.

I hope today to have more quiet time to work with the camera so I can try and make a decision about buying it or not...We have a hawk that hunts in the Sorghum field behind the house each day that I am dying to get some photos of.

Blessings Kelsie

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Fall Veggie Garden

Finally found the time to get some of the fall veggies seedlings planted this week.

Farmer Brown aka Hubby, planted 7 more rows of corn seed...The soil (who am I kidding I live in FL it is sand) was good and soaked thru from all the rain earlier this week.

Bok Choy ( Chinese Cabbage)

I mixed in some cow compost and then covered with used hay from the goat pen...I hope this will do well to build up the "soil" so we can avoid having to add any man-made chemicals...

We still have plenty more to plant....Hope the nice weather holds.

You didn't really think I could do a post without a goat update did you?

As you can see they are settling in well and lil Sara is even kind enough to share her slide with them....

I do also want to explain why I have not been visiting all my favorite blogs much lately...Being out in the country we are on satilite internet...and this comes with limited daily bandwidth usage...With Big Daughter home, not only does that put a 3rd person on the internet, but also she needs it to fill out job applications...So as any mummy would do, I have scaled by my own usage to allow for the extra draw on our bandwidth...I miss seeing what is going on out there in blog land and all my fellow blogging friends.

Blessings Kelsie

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THEY'RE HERE!!!

It has been a long and exhausting 48hrs here, but we did it...We got the pens finished the shelter in place and drove to Fort White and collected our goats....Only took us 8 weeks to get them home...

I only managed to snap a couple of photos with my phone because as soon as we got home and them unloaded it stated to rain...Then we had to run to town and pick-up Sara from Daycare....Maybe tomorrow I will be able to take the Nikon outside and try for some better photos.

Boots in the back and Princess (the goat previously known as Deenie) in the front

Not a great photo of the goats but I love the over exposed Americana feel of this photo of Sara, whom is VERY happy to have the goats home...Boots of course is hers and Princess (goat formally known as Deenie) is Big sisters.

And lastly Farmer Brown aka Hubby with the goats...You get a real sense how small they are in this photo...I love the fact that as Nigerian Dwarfs they will not get much larger either.

Blessings Kelsie

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Home grown Pear Pie

I believe I have mentioned occasionally that we have a few (14) very old, very large, super productive pear trees at our place...I know...Joy, Rapture and all those fun noises...Well the trouble is everyone of them are "cooking pears"...not the kind you could just pick off the tree and nosh on...So what does one do with so many cooking pears??

This was one of 4 box we took to Miracles Happen Ranch a few weeks ago

Well many of them go to a friend for her goats and horses to enjoy....I send some home with my MIL...I actually enjoy watching the squirrels and birds devour them....and many get run over with the lawnmower and/or get composed...My chickens do try very hard to make a dent but alas, we still have hundreds of pears EVERYWHERE....

Well this afternoon I took some advice I was given to "treat them like apples" and made a Easy "pear" Pie....I simply followed the recipe here
http://www.tablespoon.com/recipes/easy-apple-pie-recipe/3/
but substituded pears for apples....

The perfect way to end the evening...
Delish pie from home grown fruit and a glass of milk...

Blessings Kelsie

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Basket of Nuts

The nut collecting has begun.
I was a little worried we would get no pecans of off the tree in the front yard this year because of the number of branches that have come off during the afternoon thunderstorms this month....

I shouldn't have worried...20minutes in the front yard and Lil Sara and myself half filled the basket...We did not get to the driveway yet or under the larger pecan tree...I just hope they have a good amount of "meat" in them when I start shelling them for the freezer.

Would be very cool to be able to make our Thanksgiving Day sweet potato casserole from not just our own sweet potatoes but our own nuts too..

Blessings Kelsie

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New Feathers

Lucy and Ethel are looking lovely with their new bright white clean feathers, now the end of summer molting is complete...Sadly the their tail feathers are not looking so pretty...

Ethel in front, Lucy in back.

It has been a busy few days around here getting hubby ready to head to NC until Sunday night...I am not looking forward to picking lil Sara up from daycare today and have to explain why her Grandparents and her Daddy are not here...I think we will go visit the neighbors on the way home to distract her...Please pray for me alone on the farm with a 3yr old for 4 days....

Sunday sure does seem along way-a-way right now...Not just because hubby is gone, but that is the day my other baby moves home for awhile...I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning to come around but without the help of Advent chocolate to easy the waiting.

Blessings Kelsie

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Farm Photos

With the evenings getting cooler Lil Sara and I can get out walking after dinner again....The other evening it was to check out the big "sprinkler" across the road in the peanut field...Of course I took my camera along...

I had a little fun playing with my editing of these ones also...

Told you it was big a big sprinkler...You need click and enlarge this one to full appreciate how far back it goes into the field...

Am I the only one that loves photos of fence posts?
Maybe it is a sign I desperately wish we had our own fences already..

I love the sight of the Beauty Berry's...
Not just because they are so pretty, but they are a sure sign Autumn is on the way...

Blessings Kelsie

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