Anniversary continued...

Like I said before Yesterday marked the 2 year anniversary of the creation of this blog. It was started the day after our offer was accepted on  the Acreage. The first post is Here. And Here is yesterdays post re-capping our first year.

Which leads us to 2010.

We went into it with an attitude that was kind of similar to get serious or go home. We were determined to add more animals and have a much more "farm" attitude the second year. (Most of these pictures have links to the blog post about them)

The Spring of 2010 marked Nathan's first Rodeo. He rode his first sheep at a Bull-a-rama, and was the greatest Mutton buster ever. He got to meet some real cowboys behind the chutes and this one let him check out the real gear.

We bit the bullet and order 25 baby chicks. That was an experience of trial and error. We definitely learned a few things stumbling our way through a first season of chickens.

We had another bird move in about the same time. The fact that she would so fiercely defend her claim on the hay bale lead us to believe she was sitting on a nest.

We had lots of outdoor meals this year been campfires and tent picnics with the boys. As well as lots of pool time in the summer months.

We started a bunch of seeds indoors hoping for better garden success. Nope. Garden #2 was also a gigantic FAIL.

By June we got better at recruiting help. Like my Dad who spent a weekend up here cutting down dead trees, or watching playing with the kids while Chris and I tackled insulating at least one wall in the garage.

Nathan did a second rodeo event in June. He was even better. Clinging to that poor sheep for all his was worth.

We eventually discovered that Mama Goose was in fact sitting on a nest, and when she just disappeared one day, it was over to the dug out with all the hatchlings in tow. We had a fun afternoon tracking them in the field and the pond trying to get a count of how many little ones were there.

By the end of summer we added our goats to everyday farm life. It's been an adventure getting the dogs and kids used to goats and goat antics.

It also lead to some farm lessons when we were outside with the goats and the cat caught a mouse in front of Nathan.

Most of our chicks survived and grew and GREW. We bought and constructed a chicken plucker machine, but in the end wussed out and took them into a processor.

The warmish fall saw us busy. We painted parts of the house, built, dug  and painted new fences from scratch. Sourced hay for winter feed. Painted and insulated barns.

And as the snow began falling we learned some hard lessons about hypothermia and goats. We heartbreakingly fought for and eventually lost one of our favorites. Added another just to lose him too.
It's made us reconsider a lot of things.
We have so many more plans, for how to do things differently in the years ahead. What types of animals we're interested in pursuing, and what we might give up on completely. But again this post is getting long. So I think I'll share some of what lays ahead and where we are so far this year in another post tomorrow.