A weird feeling hit me this afternoon.   We were working on some little nagging projects… things that we had been wanting to finish, but also had put aside so many times it wasn’t funny.  Little 15 and 20 minute tasks that were piling up.  We finally had so many that it took us about 3 hours to get them all done!

Like fixing a proper latch on the little coop door.  The one from the previous family was barely hanging on for dear life.  And we had tried to put another in but it was not alined properly, so you had to wiggle it a bit and use two hands.  And usually while you were doing this little odd dance, the chickens would puddle at your feet and try to escape… it was a pain in the patootie, if you ask me.  We even had a new latch, but just hadn’t gotten to it.

So today, we did.  And it works fantastic!  And with one hand…  gee…  should have done it weeks ago!

We also lowered a nest box, since the chickens seemed afraid of it’s height… and sure enough, the little peeps jumped right in there, at the new height.  Hopefully, that will encourage more egg laying in the little coop.

We installed a new sheep grain feeder in the big barn.  It should help to spread out the flock some when they get to be in the big barn for good.  Soon…. soooooon…..

We put up Domingo’s grain feeder.  We had it one the floor for the last week, pretty dumb because it was pretty apparent that the boys were using it as a soccer ball and we would have to hunt it down every night, and it was ripe with bite marks and hoof kicks!

We secured the fence door on the new coop’s outside run.  It took about 10 minutes.  And of course, this would have saved us quite a bit of time because the girls have gotten out about 4 or 5 times now and rounding up hens on the lam is hard work.

We also added a handle and latches inside the new coop to get a bit closer to finishing that project.

But one of the things that hit me when I came inside, was that we are really settling in now.  There’s really nothing that we NEED to do right now, just things we’d like to do.  The place is getting to be really comfortable and totally livable.  Its nice.

We went to a garage sale across the street and down a block.  And something struck me as odd.  All the people there were smiling and nodding, and saying hello as if they knew us.  Like really knew us.  And finally, one gentleman spoke up.

“Nice sheep you have there.”  I had to look around for a moment, it was like I thought he meant they were there!  And then I knew he was talking about my flock back at the house.  They knew we were the NEW people.  Next thing you know, he’s introducing himself and he’s asking me if I knew the previous family  (we didn’t)  and then he says, in the nicest way…  “You ladies have sure worked hard on that place.  I didn’t even know there were buildings in the back, the place was so overgrown.”

And then another fellow came over, older gent, with a sweet smile.  “Oh, you gals have made that the nicest little farm… my roosters love to hear your roosters in the morning…”

It was so cool.   I mean, there is something about rural living where people aren’t really super upfront and in your business.  It’s been a little hard to meet people out here.  Really, we’ve only truely meet our fantastic neighbors Junior and Julia and their family… and that I think was only because we were SO chatty at their garage sale and we were just destined to be good pals!  Haha…  but aside from them and the fellow at the feed store (whom I’m pretty sure is nice to us because we buy a lot of feed from him….) we really haven’t met many folks.

I think they like to wait and see if these city folk are going to actually make it for a year or so, just in case they throw in the towel and give up.  Like they imagine city folk to do.  After all, city folk, well, they can be a little lacking in the skills needed to really throw down and give this kind of living a good wrassling.  It’s not the depths of Montana out here, but it does take a little getting used to.  Things are just different.

So when a nice lady pipped in about my mailbox?   And how cute she thought it was?   I was pretty much beaming.  I bought all her old candles she had.  Yep.  $5 worth.   (I like melting them down and making new ones…)  And Jessy and Maggie couldn’t pass up a couple $2 Playstation games.  We drive a hard bargain.

Well, we didn’t get out of that driveway for a good 45 minutes.  They were itching to talk with us, find out more, wondered if the place ever flooded and did we have goats or sheep and how many chickens did we have and did we work at home?  They had a lot of questions and I dutifully answered them.  I suppose some folk might think it was a little invasive, but I could see, it was just good general curiosity and acceptance.  It felt good.

And then later on, as we finished up our little roundup of menial tasks, I really got a sense that we were really settling in.  Routines are becoming second hand.  Chores are just done, not asked or explained.   Maggie told me as we were walking back with a couple dozen eggs we had rounded up and swinging our tool bucket, she thought it was like we’d live there for at least three years, not one year.  I had to smile.  Yep.  At least three.  Maybe four.

We could probably rest on our laurels for a while.  Just do basic spring clean up, finish a little fencing.  Everything we wanted to get done, it’s getting done.  All our to do cards are not MUST DOES… but want to does…  Refinements, improvements….  finishing touches.  That really feels good.  Really good.

Wow.  The natives like my mailbox.  That’s cool.

 

Pin It