Spring Finally

It seemed like this winter lasted forever and was worse than normal. We and (I think) everyone else are really glad that it is over.  I know our girls are super happy to be able to spend more time outside.  We are also happy for them to be outside because they entertain themselves for longer and wear themselves out so they sleep good. As a family we spend a lot of time outside, as much as we possibly can. We aren't ones to sit inside and watch tv or whatever. I really look forward to the days in a few years where we can really turn them loose and just let them go explore on their own and do whatever they want without having to watch over them as much.
Since it was extra nice today we decided to load up the girls and take them to some special places to play outside. First we went to a big parking lot at the Prairie Grove high school football stadium and let the girls ride their bikes. They are both getting really good at riding. Riding on pavement is easier for them than on the grass here at home so we take them to a big parking lot every once in a while and just let them go at it.  Esther is really good and needs no help at all riding. Clara still needs a little help sometimes getting started but she is doing great overall and is much better at it then Esther was at her age. After we rode bikes we went to a playground at the Viney Grove Community Building.  Viney Grove is a small community that we live closest to, it is just right down the road. There is not much there besides a church, community building and some houses. But they have some fun old school playground equipment at the community building and the church is a beautiful old church. The girls got to play on a merry go round for the first time which was lots of fun.

Hale's Angels Biker Gang

If you don't know her, you can tell from the pictures that Clara is always having a good time.  Her shirt is perfect for her (it says Local Celebrity),  because she is notorious for being the life of the party and always wanting to ham it up. 

Enjoying the merry go round

They loved running around and around pushing mommy and daddy also.  This picture shows perfectly where Esther learned to push running and then jump up on the merry go round while it is going.  This must just be instinctual for kids because she just did it unexpectedly and landed it the first time.  She is a natural merry go rounder.  

New Deck

One of my big projects to complete before the spring was the deck.  If you remember when we bought the house, the previous owners had removed the back sliding door and put in a fake propane fireplace.  When I remodeled, I took out the fireplace and put a new back door back in.  We love to eat outside when the weather is warm so I knew we were going to need a deck.  This one presented a new kind of challenge for me though.  Our house is not built very high above ground level and behind our house there is a slight rise.  Outside our back door it is a 16 inch drop to the ground but at the far edge of the deck it was only going to be 4 inches off the ground. The best solution would have been to pour a concrete slab or put in a nice rock patio.  But those are a lot more expensive and a lot more permanent (in case we ended up not liking it) than a wood deck.  So, we went with the wood deck.  Whenever this deck needs to be replaced in many years, we might look at one of the other options.
What I ended up having to do since we were going to do a deck, was to dig out a lot of dirt for the joists and joist supports.  It was a lot of work and not any fun.  In fact it may be one of my least favorite projects I have done in a long time.  One of the bonuses of doing a deck though is I was able to make it level going out the back door so there is no step down and that is nice. And because of the incline of the land, I am only going to have to put a step off the deck on one side.  I ended up building it 22' wide x 16' deep.  Which turned out to be perfect once we got our stuff up there.

Getting started

Clara was VERY helpful

Esther was really into it and actually was helpful at times.  She would hand me screws when I was putting on the decking.  Which I remember always being my job when I was little...handing dad nails. 

I did let Esther run the drill a couple times with me to put in some screws (pay no attention to the thinning hair)

In progress

Finished

Added a little wheelchair ramp so we were ADA compliant

With our stuff

Livestock

It has been a busy winter.  When trying to get semi run-down place into a good working farm and a nice home area, it takes a lot of work.  Even with the crazy winter we have had, I have had to keep going to try and get a lot of things done before summer gets here because summer brings garden and livestock which we need to be ready for.  I started working on fence a while back.  The fence that is here is 5-6 strand barb wire that is in bad shape.  I am putting up field fence so that it will keep in goats and sheep.  I will not be able to get all the fence done this year because it is too expensive.  I was able to fence a 2-3 acre pasture area so that just in case I get some goats or sheep, I will have a place for them.  My main plan for this year to just to get some steers to raise throughout the summer and then sell before next winter to make some money.  The existing barb wire fence will hold in cows. We really never thought we would have enough acreage to do more than one or so cows but with this place we will be able to do several which is exciting. We both like having cows around.  We will not do cows exclusively but it will probably be our main livestock we have here since we have so much pasture.
We set aside some money so we could hopefully buy 10 calves this year to raise throughout the summer. So far we have six. The cool season grass is starting to green up so they are able to be out eating grass most of time. It is nice to lookout our windows and see our calves. It makes us happy. We can't wait until the farm is completely set up (maybe next year) and we have cows, goats, sheep, chickens, and maybe pigs and turkey roaming around.