Loafkeeper Farm

It's a good thing farts aren't photographicable. At least not this far south and not in the summer. I heard tale of visible fartage in the cold of winter, and so I think that with enough practice and a bit of luck, a fart could indeed be photographed.



Today we drove down Alleghany Spring Road, a narrow and windy road (which says a lot around here), to go get our most recent craigslist find. We bought half a dozen or so locust posts. They started out being around 16 feet long, but Andy took a chainsaw to them and cut them in half so we could get them in the truck without it tipping over backwards from the weight. Even if they hadn't been so so heavy, they may very well have not made it around some of those curves on the way home.

The original owner of the posts lives on a small farm with about a dozen horses, two small dogs, a doberman, and cranky cat. Anya wasn't real sure of what to make of the dogs, especially the doberman, whose head was above my waist. He was a nice puppy, but I think he scared her a wee little bit. Anya also got to met several of the horses (neighhhhh neiiighhhh!). One of the horses tried to pull my gloves out of my back pocket, one of them nibbled on my finger, and all of them almost sniffed us up into their ginormous noses. Too bad we didn't have the camera.



So what are we gonna do with these posts? They are about 8" x 8". Some of them are going to become Anya's sandbox (whenever we clear out the brush pile that is where I'd like the box to go). The rest are going to be a raised bed, either for my pathetic raspberry patch or for veggies or something somewhere.

We've been working on a lot of projects the last few months. I think a list is in order. We ...

- finished the terracey garden bed behind the house
- planted tomatoes, basil, sage, dill, rosemary, and lavender behind the house
- pruned most of the trees in "the yard"
- planted a fantastic-smelling viburnum by the duck house
- worked on the rock border by the driveway and planted a verbena there
- started to clean up the lilac and spice bush bed on the side of the house, pruned the spice bush but didn't get to the lilac because the rams got loose and wanted to eat me
- have kept "the yard" mowed
- cleaned off the porch and planted and hung some baskets back there to make it feel homey
- deconstructed the big bunny cage and put the bunnies out on the porch until their room is finished
- cleaned out the sun room so Andy has an office area and Anya has an area to bounce balls and run in circles
- got the roof up and a bunch of the trim down on the kitty / plant room
- packed up and moved out a bunch of stuff in Anya's room
- have kept the garden weeded and watered



I think that covers the main things. We have lots of projects for the summer, like putting new gravel on the driveway, getting the septic tank drained, chipping the huge pile of brush, building that sandbox and those raised beds, and finishing the kitty / plant rooms. Anyone who is bored is welcome to come out and do some work.

I guess we've been watching too much BBC programming. Because for the life of me, I couldn't understand why on the radio yesterday there was an ad for a community class called 'Learn to Shag.'

Beginners or Advanced students welcome!
Fun for the whole family!
You don't need to have a partner!

A quick summary of what has been going on since Easter:

• Pumpernickel had one baby, also white.


• The roof was put on the sunroom. Much of the face boards have been installed on the room to make it look a little nicer.


• Cabol's dad and I fixed an old door.


• Cabol's dad was attacked by a ram. He reciprocated by throwing it through the air in a demonstration of top secret military sheep fu.


• Andy learned it is hard to rip a 12' board by yourself.


• Andy learned to refer to himself in the third person.


• Anya has lost both her working cups-with-straws. One at daycare. The other...?


• We bought lots of bright colored paint for Anya's room. And a fan. A groove may have to be cut in the wall so the fan can spin.

Looks like the Easter Bunny stopped by a few days early...

Week five saw a trip to the doctor's office for Anya and the corresponding Rx. Plus the cocoa butter and sticky bandage the doc told us to put on her sucky thumb...which had become her boo-boo thumb. Silly doctor. A sticky bandage is no match for a toddler.

Non-essential spending:

- $4.43 for lunch 'cause Andy is a goober butt

My parents are here this week, and so that means all sorts of crazy spending on stuff to finish up the kitty room. That stuff was on the moratorium okay list, though, so no violation.

Andy took some photos of Anya in a tree. Maybe he'll post one some day. She was helping me prune one of our apple trees. Pruning is addictive. Ya start cutting and just don't want to stop. Next thing you know, you've pruned the tree, the shrub next to it, the cat, the kid, and your leg hair.

I also cleaned the duck house. The question of the week: why did the ducks turn one of their nest boxes into a poo box?

May we please have a moratorium on the moratorium? I want to buy garden stuff like plants and bricks and mulch and plants and did I say plants? Darn moratorium keeping us from buying fun stuff but allowing us to buy non-fun stuff like tires. Darn states that require annual vehicle inspections that make us buy new tires. Safety-smafety. I want plants!

Non-essential spending:

- Eating out to preserve our sanity: $8.39
- Super-cheap chocolate on clearance: $35.00 (see note about sanity above)

Raisin update: name-brand raisins were on sale for only twenty cents more than the generic, so I bought some name brand. WOOT!

So, we've been doing this moratorium thing for a month now, and I'd like to say that we've saved a bunch of money and paid a nice chunk of that credit card off. Nope. I'm not quite sure how this whole thing works that we seem to be spending less but in reality are spending about the same as before. Would someone please explain that to me?

Oh well. We got some free rocks yesterday and will get more today. A family moved into a new house last fall and wants to turn a shady spot under their deck into a turtle habitat. The previous owners had put down a ton (or three) of river rock stuff. The new owners took about half of it out and put it somewhere else, but they didn't want the rest of it. So, we went over yesterday and shoveled about half of what was left into the truck. Andy will go get the rest today. Not sure where it will all go, but some will go into a shady flower bed under our deck.