New Baby!

Born while I was at work, here's the brand new, sweet, unique, teeny tiny adorable new baby - Mellie had an all black baby girl. She was born just yesterday (Friday the 26th) and, in my biased opinion, is just too cute for words!

With Mellie and her new baby needing the "maternity suite", we let Olivia, Amelia and Franklin (have I mentioned we named the twins? My sister chose the names) out to romp around in the one section of our barn so that we could still easily catch them to kiss them, squeeze them, hug them, scratch their fuzzy chins, etc. They're so darn cute ... ugh, and that little Franklin is just so darn adorable. He's so hard to resist! I hold him until he really starts to scream and squirm :)

Spring has sprung

Spring has sprung for sure!

The sun is out, things are looking green, all of the garage cats (including lazy Champ) are off the side porch and lying in the gardens (note photo of Norman and Champ) and...

We've got babies!!


That's right - babies!! TWO! Our Babydoll Sheep, Olivia, gave birth to twins today! So crazy! So wonderful. (weird side note: last night, between fits of coughing, I dreamed of two baby sheep being born today!) Let me give you all the details.

After dad told me there were two new babies outside I jumped into action. Grabbing towels and calling my mom, I rushed outside.

After getting into their pen, I picked both the babies up in towels and their good mom Olivia followed me into their "maternity suite" which is a little bonding pen we have set up so mom and baby(/ies) can have some privacy and, well, bond. After some issues with what my dad had to do to help (lay out wood chips, open the one fencing, open the pen, etc), everything was pretty much settled and I took some photos.


That's not one long lamb, that's one baby's back end and the front end of another ... their other halves just happen to be hidden by their mom. Like the sweaters? Yea, I also forgot to charge my cell phone this morning like I planned too (another task on the list neglected), so halfway through taking photos to send to people, my cell died. That's when I took the chance to put sweaters on the little munchkins. I put the most appropriate sweaters on them: the little boy has the blue with spaceships sweater and the little girl has the dark red-ish plaid one on.




Now, we're just waiting to see when Mellie will give Patty her first little sibling!


Also (though less exciting and you probably don't need me to tell you), the blog site has been remodeled. We've got a new background for the new season and fresh start! :)

Jersey Under Water

Today's attire for walking around the property today? Well, it's this...


Why you ask?? Well, we're under water:


The fire pit is under water. Trees are under water. The island is under water. Everywhere around us seems to be under water! The lake is higher than it has ever been and the large area between the lake and the drainage pit out front (which is full instead of the usual half-filled) are so full that they're spilling over, covering up the ground in our front field and almost touching! Here are some photos from around the property today...





Thank goodness for boots! The usual paths we walk near the lake are also apparently covered. It was walk through a tree (an ability I lack lol) or walk through some water.

Coming Soon!

I'm very excited to say that the farm stand my mom has been considering doing for some time now is going to officially be opening this spring!

We'll be selling eggs from our chickens, possibly some of my photos, the produce we grow in our own yard, local veggies and local honey too, which I'm quite excited about. The honey is made locally and with anything from pollen from wildflowers to the pine barrens to clover. Sounds yummy!

Just today we received these in the mail:



I'm stopping there though. I don't want to give away all our secrets! Just know that I'm excited and you should be spreading the word! Look, even this Blue Heron checked out our shed and flew off to spread the news :)

Spring Sprung?

Has Spring sprung? I'm left wondering just that as things begin to warm up here even though some snow still remains. Maybe I've still got some vitamin D from my visit in the FL sun following through my blood, but still, I sure hope so...

House Work

You may recall this post ... well, I returned to the farm from Florida to find a finished project - well, almost! Check out what all the noise was about:






We are very lucky to have some incredible friends willing to come to our house and close in our front porch. My dad stands a lot at our big front windows, so we thought closing in the front porch would be nice for him to be able to see more. Old high school friends (including the Nesbits from Florida who flew up), family and new friends all came to help out. It was very kind of them since this is a project my dad, if he were still himself, could probably have done himself. The help of friends was so wonderful!

And what, you might ask, were the ladies up to while the guys were busy measuring, cutting, nailing, etc?? Supervising!