Isn't life great?

Today was a good day. Yesterday was a good day as well. I suppose every day is good, but these days were really very good and I wanted to write about them and hopefully inspire someone. I'll mostly be talking about yesterday.

So I started off the day yesterday not like I would have liked. I woke up late and it was all dark and rainy outside. But luckily that didn't dampen my spirits because I had something to look forward too; cleaning the chicken coop! Now you might be thinking "Hey Mary, did you just say you're looking forward to cleaning the chicken coop? thats not even fun" and my reply to that is "I did just say that and are you kidding me, it's one of my favorite past times." A different thought you could be having is "Wow, that sounds like so much fun!" (not sarcastically) to which I would reply "I know right! isn't cleaning the best?!" Anyways back to my day.
I got up and got dressed in my absolute favorite outfit, jeans and a flannel shirt. Stylish, comfy and good for working. I headed downstairs and got sidetracked eating and playing guitar and piano, and proceeded to go outside and start organizing our shed... but then I reminded myself of the chickens so by 1:00pm I was out accessing the situation.
The rain was coming down hard and I took one look at the muddy chicken run and decided that cleaning the coop could wait; my girls should not be walking in such mud. I threw off my coat (I was going to get soaked eventually) and proceeded with my plan of a makeshift "roof" over the run. I plan to build a more permanent one when spring rolls around.

The girls in their nice dryish run. 

I had to prop up a whole bunch of support beams under the tarp to keep the water from pooling up. Again. That happened today. The whole roof was about to cave in and one of the walls of the run would have snapped if I hadn't done something quick. Now back to yesterday...

It could be compared to a really ugly circus tent, but I like to think of it as a giant fort.

I constructed this roof with the help of one of my brothers, and by the time we were done both of us were quite wet. Me even more so as I had been outside longer.

Now for some reason I got distracted inside, eating food and drawing a rabbit....

Isn't she cute? As you can see, her name is the Fluffy Happy Velveteen Bunny of Life. I finally got "un-distracted" and headed out to clean the coop, even though it was almost dark out and still raining. After a ton of shoveling, scraping, sweeping and sweating (the four s's that describe chicken care perfectly) I finally finished cleaning the coop. That thing was Dirty with a capital D. Here are some pics of the end product. Sorry about the terrible lighting btw :P

The girls decided they like laying in this corner the best, so I decided to work with it and move the nest boxes back there.

The aftermath of my beautiful outfit... It was even dirtier than it looks. 

I came inside and was about to watch a hard earned show on Netflix, when the power went out. For three hours. Now I don't want to sound like I depend on electricity for everything but I was really looking forward to watching a show and the Wifi goes out with the power. Looking for a different source of entertainment, I picked up a book. My brain didn't have enough brainpower to read a book... I tried anyway and made it through two chapters of The Phantom of the Opera. Great book. 

I headed downstairs to see what the rest of the family was up to and heard a song in the distance "In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came..." so naturally I made a dramatic entrance on the stairs and assumed the role of Christine Daae, lip synching of course.

When dinner was ready I sat down at the table and looked around.

In my head I was pretending I was in Little House on the Prairie, with an oil lamp lit and plenty of candles burning, after a long day on the homestead... I want that someday... when suddenly the power came back on! Yay! Netflix time.

I finished this awesome day by watching an episode of my all time favorite show, Once Upon A Time.

Today I got a ton more done as well and took some fabulous selfies with my peeps. This is the best one.

That is Ruthie on my shoulder. I did have to put her there this time but she normally jumps up by herself.

These are my other favorite pics from today. I spent a good amount of time chilling with the girls after organizing the shed some more.

So theres that.

I hope this post at least entertained you, if not inspired you.

Thank you for reading! 

Blow up your tv, move to the country, keep homesteading and stay farmy!

Rabbit preparations

Hello! back to the farmy posts. I have wanted rabbits for a while now because they make a great addition to any homestead/farm.

Rabbits have so many uses. Their droppings can either be composted or applied directly to the garden for great fertilizer, some rabbit breeds are good for meat and pelts, some are good for pets, some are good for both. Rabbits reproduce very quickly, normally having large litters of 5-8 babies within a month. (about 31 days to be exact)

Their babies can be kept and until they are large enough to be used for meat and pelts or sold as pets providing a great income. I plan to do both. In addition to all these awesome uses, rabbits can be cuddled and played with and are just entertaining animals overall.
Those are the reasons I have decided to get rabbits.
After convincing myself to get rabbits with all of these great reasons, I did the fun task of deciding what breed of rabbit I wanted to get.

There are SO many options when it comes to rabbit breeds. I spent a long time researching and contemplating the different breeds that stuck out to me. After a while I came to the conclusion that the silver fox rabbit would be a great one to start with, after meeting a silver fox that a fellow homesteader has and falling in love with her. She goes by many names, her given one being "the evil bunny of death" but her personality is very far from that, she is the sweetest rabbit ever. Her coat is SO SOFT, and her coloring is gorgeous, a beautiful black with silver undertones.

This is not evil, just an example of a silver foxes coat.

Another example.

Gorgeous! Silver foxes are a great breed overall, they make great pets but can also be used for meat and pelts if you so desire. I definitely recommend this breed for any homestead.
I plan to try breeding dutch rabbits as well as silver fox because I have read that they are great pets, generally calm and easy-going and can also be used for meat and pelts. There are a lot of color options when it comes to dutch rabbits. These are the three that stuck out to me.

This is a black dutch rabbit, so cute!

Brown dutch rabbit, beautiful.

I believe this coloring is called either blue or lilac, either way I love it.

I just love the markings on the dutch rabbit. The words that come to mind when I try describe them are authentic and simple. Now I thought I had my mind made up but then I remembered holland lops.....

 

THEIR EARS!! So cute. And there is so many color varieties, I could have a lot of fun experimenting with coloring. If I did get holland lops they would probably just be to sell as pets.

After picking the breeds I wanted(or trying), I started making plans for my rabbit setup. To start out I am going to have eight cages, for one silver fox doe, one dutch buck, and two dutch does, or hollands...(as you can see, my mind is definitely "made up") The extra four cages will be for the babies I plan to keep.(And I'm sure the number will grow over time : ) I am also going to get a silver fox buck at some point.

I'm going to use all wire cages because they are easy to keep clean and are fairly simple to make. 

I plan to make them 2'x3' so that the bunnies have enough room to stretch out and hop around. 

My rabbit setup is going to be on the side of the shed we have in our front yard. It's a nice spot that is usually shady and can easily be turned into a cool rabbit setup. 

For food, I plan to feed them whatever extra veggies or kitchen scraps that are safe for them and their main diet will consist of timothy hay because my guinea pigs eat it as well so I can just buy a big bale of it and it will feed them all.

Now I just need to start saving up for all this and begin building the rabbit setup. I'll try and post updates as the project moves along.

Thank you for reading!

Blow up your tv, move to the country, keep homesteading and stay farmy!

Harry Potter Fangirl rant. **CAUTION!! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS**

If you didn't read the above warning... **CAUTION!! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS**
We interrupt the regular farmy posts to bring you a Harry Potter fangirl rant.
                                     
Harry Potter. The boy who lived. Wow. I just finished reading the entire series and let me just say, it was an emotional roller coaster. I laughed, I cried, I nearly threw a book at the wall because Umbridge is just that awful.

I very much doubt there is anyone who hasn't at least heard of this amazing book series. If you haven't read the books, READ THEM! If you haven't seen the movies, WATCH THEM! They did an amazing job at recreating the books through film.
My favorite book was definitely all of them. If I had to order them by how much I liked them it would go:

1. Prisoner of azkaban
2. Order of the phoenix
3. Deathly hallows
4. Sorcerers stone
5. Chamber of secrets
6. Goblet of fire
7. Half blood prince
But I love them all so much.

So lets talk about the deaths.... I don't understand why in EVERY SINGLE DARN BOOK I read every character I grow to like and develop an attachment to DIES.
Sirius was my absolute favorite, and IN THE MOVIES... I can't even.

Lupin and Tonks.... those ones came as a shock, I had just started to accept Fred as gone...
FRED! He reminds me of myself in some ways, I can only hope to one day be as good at jokes as him and George. I cried at this death as well..
Dobby, man, Dobby.. He was a free elf.
Hedwig... I know what it's like to lose a cherished pet.. Harry had been so close to her.
Dumbledore. Definitely a sad one though I knew it was coming so it wasn't as sad when it happened. Harry's heartbrokenness hurt though.

Snape... Can't decide if I liked him or not... If he "always" loved Harry he had a bad way of showing it.
Cedric was hard. I took the sorting quiz and I'm in hufflepuff, felt like I was losing a friend though I didn't get to know him well enough.


Brighter subject... My favorite characters that aren't dead!
Ginny is just awesome. I love her character development and spunky personality.
Hermione of course is fantastic. I would love to have her as a best friend.
Luna is great, she made me laugh. I suspect the nargles are behind it.
Fred and George. Enough said.





Now I know he's a "villain"(not exactly I suppose) but I can't help but like Draco. First of all, Tom Felton. Second of all, he is such a drama queen."I'M DEAD! IT KILLED ME!" I can't even. Third of all, he's Draco. Fourth of all, Tom Felton. If that wasn't convincing enough for you, I don't know what is.


J. K. Rowling is an amazing author. The books are so well written, the plot is fantastic, character development is amazing, the deaths are heartbreaking, funny moments made me laugh out loud, and the way everything comes together in the end, I just, I have lost the ability to even.

So now I am officially a potter-head and I am working on buying all Harry Potter merchandise, and my next targeted item will be a HP blanket to add to my blanket collection.

Theres that. Harry Potter, the master of death, the boy who lived, greatest book series ever.

Thanks for reading!

Blow up your tv(after you've watched Harry Potter), move to the country, keep homesteading and stay farmy ;)