Lil Update

K peeps. I loathe typing on my phone, and the phone posts look weird because of the odd picture size, but it's what I've got right now. So. I'll bore your eyes for a bit, then when I get sick of typing I'll just load up some pics of the most adorable children ever.
So the week of the house fire, A's pony, her birthday present when she turned 1 -year-old, passed away. Plus multiple car/truck issues, it was a rotten week.
I wanted to tell you that, so that when I show pictures of our new horse it's not alarming - like thinking really, what they needed was a new horse? But I could only take so much of Grimmie following us around with his nose on our shoulder before I folded and bought him a friend. Although, the bite mark on his shoulder and the way he hangs his head over the gate makes me think they aren't exactly BFF, if you know what I mean. But he'll get her back when he leaves for training this weekend.
In house news, our first restoration company quit on Monday. So the fire investigation was done this past Wednesday, we should be ready to go, an the company quits. But we have another that we called Monday afternoon, met them on Tuesday morning, and they are raring to go. Which is good, because I love camping, but preferably not in my front yard.
Baby J has turned 1!!!!!!! This kid rocks my world, he's great. For his birthday he got a cupcake and ice cream cone, as we'll as a bucket of water to play in. What 1 year old wouldn't love that?
My fingers are cramping. I'm out ya'll.
PS. The pigs are doing awesome! Go Bacon! And free rototilling!!!

FarMFire and other news...

Since we're received so many phone calls, texts, etc. from people who have heard from other people, we want to contact y'all ourselves and let you know "from the horses mouth" a little more and that we are OK.

By now most of you know that on Easter morning, about 3:15am, we were woken to a fire starting in our house ceiling above the woodstove. For those of you that didn't know, at 3:15am on Easter morning I awoke to our smoke alarm bleeping 3 times. Something made me run out into the living room, where I looked up and saw a ring of orange around the ceiling where it meets the woodstove piping. We didn't know it at the time, but flames were shooting out of the soffit on the side of out house. We all got out safely, including the dogs and chicks, and are doing well given the circumstances. The house, on the other hand, will need to go through a major renovation before it is liveable. Though the fire damage itself wasn't great, water permeated our great room and is now seeping into our basement. The house reeks of smoke. Praise God, above all else, that we are safe and unharmed. The rest is just fluff. :)

For those of you who have contacted us - Thank You, from the bottom of our hearts, for the offers for help, prayers, and genuine concern you have given us. Your support means so much. At this time, we are just taking it day to day and our needs are minimal - we had good house insurance (Trav had double checked on our coverage after he was on a call for a fire about a year ago.). We are at an extended stay hotel in town, one of the few places we can stay and have the house dogs with us. Travis is commuting to Gun Lake and feeding the animals on the way to/from - unfortunately, our current location places much of the "FarM" duties on him. Hopefully within a week or 2 insurance will know why this has happened and have an expected timeline for restoration, and at that time more permanent living arrangements will be arranged - we're praying closer to Leighton, so Trav can continue his fire department and EMS roles, and so we can more evenly split up the FarM chores. If anyone knows of a rental something (we're flexible :) in Leighton let us know.

In other news, more Praises!, Trav found out yesterday that he was offered a position on the southwest MI Tactics team that he interviewed for a few months ago. HUGE PRAISE! I know Trav will be awesome in this role, congrats hon!

So, to recap, we are doing well. We are well aware that it could have been much, much worse. We have faith this will all work out for His good, and God has blessed us so much already that we know that He will work out the rest of the details, and give us the strength to carry on through this. We are so very, very thankful for all of you and thank you for taking the time to check in. We feel very loved. 

God's Love, Grace, and Peace from the FarMasselinks.

Even though the weather isn't agreeing...

Spring is springing at the FarM! Today 2 monumentous arrivals occurred - Broccoli sprouts and 9 piglets! Woot woot! More pictures to come, it's late.

Preparing for Spring

So there's a mess of snow on the ground right now, and T informed me this morning that there is more on the way. I'm ok with it, the kids love it and it gives me more time to prepare for spring. Cause let me tell ya, it's going to be busy here on the FarM. Starting with pigs and chicks, moving into fencing in our back acreage, add in the garden and working with the Colt, and we'll never get to leave. Which, is ok with me. We haven't planned away the winter though. These past few weekends we've had some time at home. This weekend was fab, and the kids LOVED playing outside. This morning the sun brought some frosty winter beauty to the landscape. Enjoy!

Happy New Year! (a bit late *blush*)

We're hanging out here at the FarM, getting into the swing of things. T has been super busy with trim in the house, finishing up odds and ends, and generally getting stuff done.

On the house side, the trim ROCKS. T and Papa have done an awesome job, and it looks amazing. The loft also rocks. Papa found an old 20' cherry picking ladder that we (and by we, I mean T) cut down for the ladder to the loft. T built a platform for just outside the loft gate, and it's pretty much the best thing since sliced bread. The girls' think so too!

                                 

The remainder of the ladder went into my laundry room. We line dry most everything, it's very rare that we use the dryer. I pretty much love it.

T, awesome T, fixed up this old wine rack (on the left) and mounted it on the wall for our hats, gloves, and other miscellaneous. While Banks is upset that he lost his cushions to lay on, I am ecstatic that I no longer wear dog fur on my head.

In other news this winter, A and I built one (1) snowman with one of our few measly peasly snowfalls. It was tons of fun though.

The kids and I have been attempting to take Tally for walks, this dog makes the Energizer battery look fatigued. J was present, but tied to my back. 

Speaking of J, he's growing like a weed. Here's his GQ pose:

The kids have started up swimming again. J too!

Thanks, Aunt Jenny, for the swim trunks!

The FarM is still hangin', laying mostly dormant while waiting for summer. We've got some awesome things cooking - pigs, turkeys, and 'lil chicks. More Muscovies too, if we can find them. Oh, and Grim? He's leaving in May for a few months to git some trainin'. He's super excited, can't you tell?

Punzi and Chop got a Christmas present too, invisible fencing. They are responding to it great, and we love that we can let them out and not have to chase them a mile down the road (and 4 miles back). While the fencing isn't quite invisible (I wasn't going to dig 10 acres, sorry), it does go around the perimeter of our property and we feel pretty good about it.

Punzi and Chopper, I'm not so sure. I don't think Chop has left the barnyard since we've hooked them up. Punzi went on a walk with me the first day around the perimeter (I suppose it's called Training). Got shocked twice, and the 2nd time ran back to the barn and wouldn't come back. The next day she walked with me for a very short time before giving up, laying down as the Queen of the Hill, where she could keep her keen eye on me as I walked. Thanks Punz.

We're continuing to live and learn out here. I tell ya, the things about farming you don't know before you do it! For example. We ordered a different breed of turkeys to raise for Thanksgiving this year. Last year our turks grew fairly little, the Toms dressed out in the lower teens the the hens around 8#. They tasted good, but we wanted to go a bit bigger, so we researched and put on order a bunch of 14 poults of Bronze Breasted turkeys. While realizing that the way we feed them (mainly on pasture, with natural food sources) will lead them to grow a bit slower, we set a March delivery. Then, I read today that another person had these turkeys grow to 60lbs in 8 months. Yikes! A bit big, I believe. While T was excited and wanted to grow an 80lber I also read about, we think that most people probably won't want their Thanksgiving turkey to take up the entire table. Now, the poults will arrive in May and we'll have awesome Thanksgiving turkey. I'm just glad I read about that one, rather than us having to live with 700lb of turkeys on the FarM!