House Is Almost Finished

The house is finally almost finished. We are waiting for all new gutters and downspouts, painting the doors, a white screen door for the second door (behind screen), and painting the bricks on foundation/basement. But it looks great so far. Here is a before and after shot.

Roof was changed to a soft brown, siding is a light green called "Cactus" and all brown trim is white. The pictures don't show the true color.

Here is the backside after the storm and now. We have to paint the basement bricks and cover where the old shutters were. We also have a new sliding glass door in the basement. I have not decided if I should put shutters back on or not. I would welcome your advice on that.

Butter and Chicks

I've been making butter everyday. I use cream from several days ago that has been refrigerated. I take it out in the morning when we do milking and let is sit all day. After supper each evening it's put in a big jar and I shake it until I have butter! This is as it looks in the jar with the buttermilk before washing and working.

And here it is cleaned and worked. A little salt is added and worked in and then I store in freezer. I probably have a couple pounds always on hand.

We got 18 chicks from someone for free. They are all Leghorn roosters. They were shipped as warming chicks for the ones she ordered. These will be stew birds, no doubt. I don't need any more roosters. They are so cute when they are little, aren't they?

The Heat Is On

We have been very busy the last couple of days trying to get as much done before the hot, hot, hot weeks of Nebraska summer hit us full force. Today was the first bad one with temperatures over 100 degrees! The children have found a great way to stay cool!

We have our new roof on and they should be finished with the siding tomorrow or soon after. It will be nice to get the equipment out of the yard. The chicken coop is finished and a batch of chicks will be here tomorrow. It turned out as planned but I think it's a little heavier than I wanted. We will try a different plan for the next one we build.

Bullseye escaped twice yesterday. We found where he was knocking the fence down. He discovered which fence was hot and which one was not. So we put him in the back pasture next to the cow. And we are picking the last of the cherries. We had mulberry cherry pancakes tonight! The apples are looking nice and soon I will be doing apple butter.

My cherry pickers!

Our First Milking Day

Britney Has Arrived

We finally have the new milk cow! In case you did not hear, we did not get the original cow, Scarlet, as we were having trouble breeding her. So we got her sister, Britney, who will calf in October! And here she is..............................


Just like her sister, she is pure Jersey and organic. If she has a heifer calf we will do a trade on it for Scarlet and by spring we could have two milk cows. If she has a male calf we will raise it for beef.

Here is Britney's proud milker. He worked hard getting everything ready for her. He has learned a lot about dairy farming at only 15 years of age. We are as proud of him as he is of Britney.

New Barn Stall

We got the milking stall built but being that the cow is not here yet Bullseye has made it his home. We will build a second stall for him to use in the winter and eventually cement this one for milking.

We also completed one of the movable chicken coops. It does not have the tarp on it yet but no need for that until we have the chicks. We will build a few of them and have all the meat birds in different ones including a pen of turkeys.

The proud builders of the coop! They worked hard. They should be proud!

We have decided to get a different cow than the one we were going to get. Scarlet was not getting bred so we decided to take her sister, Britney, instead. She is going to calf in October and if it's a heifer calf we will trade her for Scarlet or another milk cow. So bottom line is by spring we could have 2 milk cows. It was just a better option for us. The bad thing is that Britney is only giving us a gallon a day and will soon give us nothing. We will have about 2 months of no milk. But by November we will have LOTS of fresh raw milk!

Our New Addition

Everyone...meet Bullseye. We finally have a horse! He is a paint horse that we bought from someone that is moving. She had to get rid of him quickly so we got him for $50 which our son has more than earned (we paid for the gas!!!). The children named him Bullseye from the horse on Toy Story. He is in the winter pasture for now but will follow behind the cow eating the grass that she does not eat. He is not gelded and is not saddle broken but he is only 2 years old which gives us plenty of time to work with him. He is very well mannered, is easily led, and has had a saddle blanket on so he should be easy to break.