We Bought a Farm: Fifty-Eight and Sunny!

 "If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm." Frank Lane

Like most of the country, it was freezing around these parts for quite a few days. But the wonderful thing about Tennessee is that we get the cold, we get the snow, and then ...

It

Goes

Away.

It isn't like the past places that I have lived:

• Florida (never gets cold -- and don't even try to explain to me how it does. I'm sorry. Nope. Not cold. EVER!)
• Minnesota (gets and stays cold forever!)
• Turkey (hot! hot! hot! -- where we lived at least)
• Azores (rain! rain! rain!)

Here we get all the seasons, but they are mild. We get snow. We get fall. We get summer. We get spring. But none of them kills us. (Minnesota winters almost killed me. Honestly. Really.)

Today I had a MAJOR farm day. On my fit bit I registered 150 minutes of "exercise" when I didn't technically ever plan to exercise. That to me is a great day. A day where I am outside, working as I believe we were intended as human beings to work. 

Moving sheep paddocks is a lot of work. It requires a lot of hill-walking, reel-lugging, post-carrying ... we worked for about two hours and were quite tuckered out.

Today I also learned that shoveling wood chips out of a truck into a pile is quite the workout as well. I'm constantly amazed how so much of your farming life is determined by the weather. We are expecting a lot of rain next week which meant we needed to get those wood chips unloaded TODAY. There was not a way to wait until tomorrow. 

In other news, we've now had six of these boys born on our farm (one single, one set of twins, and one set of triplets -- one of which did not make it.)  

Not surprisingly, they all look like their very sneaky father who disguised himself as a castrated male but wasn't really castrated at all. (He's now in our freezer.) 

This nice weather has also meant lots of time to be outside. While we've lived on a farm for four years now, it has only been in the last year that my kids have begun clamoring to be outside. (They are old enough to go by themselves which makes a very big difference!) 

I've noticed how much they are outside by the times they canNOT go outside. Oh man when we are stuck inside all day it really gets to me. Why do I have so many children? Where did they all come from?!

A very favorite spot outside is a place the kids call "New Zealand" because it is so far away from everything else on our farm. The kiddos (lead especially by Sidge and my cousin's son, Gabe,) are working on making this a clubhouse of sorts. In fact, Sidge got a saw for his birthday, and it was one of his very favorite gifts. They are sawing wood, tying things together, all kinds of boy things. 

This picture below features the kiddos trying to use a pulley system. I couldn't figure out how they got the rope tied up into the tree. Then I turned around and turned back and discovered Abigail and Kari had shimmied up that tree like it was nothing: 

 

Abigail and Kari in the tree with Jacob looking on and Sidge overseeing the work!

I truly try not to think about the injuries my children can sustain outside. I also try not to think about predators very much. Arabelle goes with the kiddos everywhere on the farm to keep them safe. The only issue is that she really is attached to me and will sometimes abandon them to come and find me. (When she does this, Sidge called her a "deserter" which always makes me laugh.)

Anyways, a little look at our life today,