Adding the animals...

2001, June and I've made a valuable online friend. She raises Nigerian Dwarf goats so I decide to drive up to her place in North Texas to buy a buck, a doe, and a companion doe retired from kidding. Debbie Burns has a beautiful place and I see that it's going to take a lot of work before my place ever comes close to being up to par. Debbie and her husband John hosted a homestead gathering that day and I learned so much and met people of like mind. It was a blessed day for Reidel and I. Our 'herd' had just begun. We soon added chickens, rabbits (Charlie Herrington gave sold us her rabbit hutches for a song), pot bellied pigs, ducks, and more and more goats (some from Vickie McGaugh at Lonesome Doe and Cindy Stewart at Buttercup Acres). I have a funny story about me telling a guy about Cindy that I will have to tell you one day. I was hooked on goats. Milking was and is the most peaceful thing I've ever done. I love it! I learned to make goat milk soap, cheese, and ice cream. Adding Corgis was just a matter of finding them. I fell in love with the breed when I read Tasha Tudor's book so I set out to find what I wanted. I bought the first one (Lilibet Vala) from Valerie from Piddlin' Acres and the second (Tasha Burgess... Gesse) from Suzy at Milk Maid Ranch. They are absolutely wonderful to own and love.

Since 2003, we've been working as we had time on the inside of the house (we call it the barn). I'll be posting photos of the inside when time allows. We used old pine lumber on the hallway walls that came off a 100 year old house. The upper walls in the kitchen is covered in the roofing tin from that same house. Very rusty, but very much loved by me. I love rust so much my family told me I should have named my son Rusty. :>) The tin on the inside ceiling was donated by our friends at church, Charlene and Jackie Pigg. More of our church friends, Terrye and Robert Burrous loaned us the tallest ladder I've ever seen or we couldn't have gotten anything done on the upper portion of the house. We tried to pull a fast one of them and claim something like 'common law' ladder status, but it didn't work. Rev. Lewis and his wife loaned us the scaffolding. We still miss having that around. :>) Doc came back and put the ridge row on the metal roof, because he is fearless and as agile as a monkey on high places. Thank God for a church family that has a giving heart, a help a neighbor spirit, and them all having a good attitude about their stuff being borrowed for so long.

Our pastor, Rev. Ronnie Frankens helped us sheet rockthe rest of the walls because we ran out of old material. I plan to redo them as we find old stuff to use. The kitchen cabinets still need some doors, the bathtub hasn't been plumbed, well, the list is long and the energy is short, but we keep plugging along when we have time. Reidel retires from the post office in Sept. 2009, so we are just basically waiting until then to really put in some time. Until then, we are working on the pond. I'm so excited about the pond I can hardly think of anything else. We need rain to fall now!!!