31 Everydays...oops I missed a few

 I'm going to just begin this story with a short version of some background and maybe at some point I will dive in deeper. For now I will just tell you that I love old, vintage pretty much anything that had markings of time and use, but I haven't always been that way. When I was younger the veil over my eyes told me that I needed everything to be new but as I've matured (just a little) and I have discovered who I am I have come to realize that perhaps it's not so much that I was born in the wrong era per say but maybe through my life pieces of times gone by can live on. Anyhow we built our farmhouse which I call, Whippoorwill Cottage  a few years ago, however there are still loose ends in need of tying up. So last winter we laid wood flooring upstairs in our hangout place that was left over Virginia milk works hand scraped hardwood 3/4"x4" flooring from the house we had built and lived in before our farm adventures began. Don't get me wrong it's beautiful but it's not engineered to handle much use. In Autumns room as well as in the girls bathroom we laid recycled basketball gym flooring. In the rest of the house we laid number 3 solid oak wood floor from lumber liquidators, which translates too it's rough. It has knot holes, it has worm holes, beetle homes, termites as well as being able to tell years of drought and years of plenty....I LOVE it. It's chalked full if unique charm and a ton of character and it tells it's own story. I also would like to interject here that in every bundle it's marked #3....at one point the girls asked why it has the number three written on it and I kinda sarcastically said "it's the number of the day and you are secretly being filmed for an episode of Sesame Street ;))) well Ty is much more a perfectionist than me so my line through out the building of our farm has been "it's okay, it's cottagey" he wasn't really a fan of the flooring but we went with anyway....soooo last winter we laid this floor and it was way too cold to sand or seal it. In February we started building the apartment complex which put Whippoorwill Cottage on the bottom of the list. So a few seasons have passed and life has happened on those floors. There have been cows, goats, chickens, sheep, ducks, muddy feet and vegetables galore all over those floors. Well this week I decided to work on the mudroom floor which is the worst one of them all. I lightly sanded because as I started I could see evidence of our story on the floor, bottle raised goats, sick animals, and a few #3. I left it all. Rubbed a little stain in and then I decided that I'd like to add a custom something to remind people when the walk it that it's a farm and farms are dirty. So Summer, Autumn and I came up with this....the cow, the sheep and the rooster. We joked about trying to get maybe Adelaide my jersey calf to lay still for a chalk outline...we laughed about imagining Adelaide standing there with Cordelia on her back and Leonitis   My rooster on her back. We laughed so hard at our sill antics to figure how to project this silhouette...finally it happened! Don't you love when things come together? This I'd like to share with you is our very own unique farm scrapped wood flooring, it's cottage❤️ <a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/15764795/?claim=mteq2gv7vqd">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Everyday Farmgirl

0

31 Everydays of October...

Today began like most days. Early, with a to do list bigger than one person can handle however this is quiet normal for me. The thing I did not count on today was for Summer to send me a text message telling me that my young Alpaca Peony was down and couldn't stand up....dread overwhelmed me and I raced home, scooped her up into my little red yaris and took her to the vet. He ran a series of test on her which delivered a better prognosis than what I had expected. He tested her blood and her red blood count was 6, at 10 is when they do a blood transfusion. So he said he would try to keep her calm and alive while I go get my other Alpacas so we can test them and see if one could be the donor. So I gather them in the stock trailer and take them to the vet. Edward is the one, 25 is normal for red blood cell count and his was 45.... He donates his blood to little Peony and when the transfusion is complete she starts lifting her head and trying to figure out how to get out of there! As it turns out the Alpacas have a strand of 

Haemonchus contortus

 Which had become immune to the wormer I have been using. It's amazing to see how things can work together. This Farmgirl is eternally grateful.

Everyday Farmgirl

1

31 Everydays of October

Today started off like most days...coffee, then chores or "farm rounds" as I like to call them. My daughter Summer isn't feeling well and Autumn and I were tending the farm together. As I went through my list of things to do Autumn was doing her half and I ended up finishing before her. So she walks into the farm house and with heavy eyes she barely manages to get the dreaded words that have been uttered here at the farm far to often. "Mommy, I can't find Joy and there's a pile of wool on the ground...."

As usual I tend to face every trial with far too much optimism....and I go out to the sheep pasture and I see wool, I picked some up and started following the pieces. There nothing like the feeling of having the enemy in the camp.... I called to Ty and Richie to help us search for her...and I just couldn't find her or anymore of a trail. Ty tells me "I guess you bragged about your guard dogs too soon, you know she's gone. " And I told him "I can't stop looking. What if she's just hiding and she's hurt and she needs me, what if my anatolians Spartan and Roman scared the predator off or killed it?" So I keep looking. Autumn keeps looking and after awhile I hear Richie and Ty start yelling my name. They found her. Disoriented and missing wool and she only appeared to have superficial wounds. I ran to her and picked her up. She spent the day in a stall and I observed her all day. Finally this evening she felt well enough to start baaaaaaing for her momma  Francie. So she's settled down in the Sheep Barn with her sheep family and I am so very grateful she's alive and I'm so proud of my roughntoughins for doing their job while I'm fast asleep. I'm looking forward to this season of good restful sleep while my guards are keeping their flock safe. This farm girl is grateful. 

Everyday Farmgirl

2

31 Everydays of October....

3rd.........

       today i thought id share a small quirky detail about myself. i have a slight obsession with pin-keeps....and here are a few of my favorites i have collected over the years. there is just something about their charm that makes me smile. each one carries their own story. i always tend to keep my eyes open for tiny treasures....

this one Summer got for me..

my rainbow got this one when i had a little shoppe once upon a time..

this one came from my mother in law over a decade ago...

this one came from a darling auction...

xoxoxoxo

0

31 Everydays of October

2nd......
    You know how "they" say "everything happens for a reason"? I'm not gonna lie, i want to punch  'those people" in the throat. There are a series of unfortunate events that led to such an amazing story and i want to share it with you.
      This summer has been a very busy season for me and filled with more "man" work than quiet possibly any other year thus far. I have felt like the things that need done because of this, that or the other are continually leaving me feeling like my time is not my own and because of that my hours feel hijacked. All of that is just to give you an idea of where i have been.
    i am going to back up just a bit to last May when i added four of the most beautiful Alpacas to my farm. Three of them are Siris and one was a Haucaya. i was so excited to add such beautiful fleeces to the fiber side of my farm. A few short weeks ago my young haucaya died in my arms. It was terrible, and the worst part is i still don't understand why. This event has left me feeling so responsible and neglectful.......but hey..you know what they say {insert throat punch here}
   Consequently over the next few days i was reading everything i could to pinpoint what exactly happened to her. One day i decided to pull up craigslist and search for some local Alpacas, not in an attempt to replace her but to ask them if they ever experienced my situation. Honestly everyday that passed i was so afraid another one would die.
   Interestingly enough i did see a listing, so i called and it became one of the most heart wrenching phone calls i have ever made and it sure did put my quest for answers to a screeching halt because i was suddenly filled with so many more questions.
   I visited with this stranger, this man for 2 hours the first call.  You see he had just brought his wife of 32 years home to die.
   Sadness, sympathy and empathy wrapped in a deep connection filled the void between us. As he went on to tell me their story and of  her deep love for fiber, animals, crocheting, sewing and gardening. About their times together raising Alpacas and at one point they had a fiber farm of 250 head of sheep! He told me of journeys they made to show animals or fleeces she had spun and dyed and ribbons won. As he went on and one telling me about his 61 year old wife i couldn't help feeling like he could have been talking about me. I spend a lot of my time feeling like no one gets me, no one understands. i often feel like i don't belong, as if i am a complicated puzzle piece thrown in a box that i wont ever fit in. To feel accepted as i am, to connect to these people was so much to me. My heart was so drawn to these people and their life together, i felt such a kindred grip. i had so many questions for them, and more importantly i wish i had known them forever.
   I told I'm what happened to my Alpaca, i told him about my farm and my dreams, i told him about my yarn obsession and the heritage that it came from. When we got off the phone and he talked to his bride about me, and i hung up the phone feeling so sad for them......but you know what they say.
       He called me back and he said the parallels that can be drawn between my wife and you are just far to apparent to ignore, and we think that everything happens for a reason and my wife wants you to have her Alpacas and she will be at peace knowing that her animals will be loved by you and that somehow part of her will live on through you.
      Crash, my heart fell to the floor, humility rose right to my throat and salt betrayed my eyes.
How strong are they to face this mortality, this finite ending, believing that my alpaca died so i could find them, so that she can leave this world feeling like she left a piece of her to be carried on, knowing her babies would be mine and i would take care of them. Yeah i know what you are thinking...it is just farm animals and maybe they are to you, but not to her and not to me. I will always remember her kindness, her fingerprints on my heart, i will tell her story and i will think of her often.
   I brought her boys home to my farm, and he husband said "I bet you thought we were backwoods Waldron hicks that didn't know the value in the animals we had." "No Sir, i was just looking for answers and i didn't even fully understand my questions."
    So "hick" names they did not get however i did crown them with proper English names since that is where her connection and mine lead back too. My Alpaca flock doubled and i will enjoy winning over the hearts of Edward, Bennett and William.





                                                                         Everyday Farmgirl

5

31 Everydays of October..........

1st.........
    Well here i am again just under the deadline of yet another commitment, it seems as though i find myself continually commiting and ever procrastinating many of my life's events, nontheless. i found myself drawn to this challenge for the month of October in which i will attempt to write/blog for each of the 31 days this month. As i began to throw ideas around in my head of topics or subjects to possibly write about it seemed as though the suggestions made to me and my own brainstorming kept circling back to one main idea, my everydays, those things that happen to me daily that maybe an image on instagram or even a status update on facebook fail to fully disclose who i am. so here we are 31 days of me. its not that i necessarily think that i have anything profound to share but maybe you'll laugh or possibly shed a tear, maybe my puncuation and grammar may drive you insane, however as i embark on this journey i hope that you'll set those presepts and judgements aside, kick off your shoes and sit with me a spell as i pour myself out to you my readers.......


                                                                                   Everyday Farmgirl

3