Sorry that it’s been so slow on the blogging around here. It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about, more that there’s so much going on that’s noteworthy and I’m working so many hours, that when I sit down at night to write, I can’t figure out where to start. Then I dither around for an hour and suddenly it’s 11 pm and I need to go to bed.

Today marks the 30 day mark for moving in. I thought that for the first year or so I would try to mark the months with our progress, sort of like those with babies do, but different. What have we accomplished? What have we started? What did we think we’d get to but haven’t?

So far we’ve unpacked most of the house and the garage, including the kitchen.

As of this afternoon the only boxes left are those that contain things that don’t have a home yet. I haven’t decided where to put my yarn stash, Mike is still deciding where to store his hunting gear, and there’s a couple of miscellaneous boxes that just need someone to dig through them and find homes for everything.

We’ve finished the fence to enclose a yard for the dogs. It took 2.5 weeks, help from 4 friends and more money than I want to think about. But really, setting 45 fence posts, stretching 425 feet of 2×4 no-climb wire and hanging 4 gates was not nearly as hard as we thought. It rained pretty much every day that we worked on it. And while Mike worked harder on it than I did - my jobs were things like running for materials, making lunch and pouring in bags of concrete - we accomplished a lot in a fairly short amount of time.

Mike setting a post.

Mike and Kevin setting posts with help from Jake, Coulter (Kevin’s golden) and Sam.

Finally, the chicks that started off as little fluff balls 20 days ago are now at that ugly stage where they look mostly like punk rockers and not like either chicks or hens.

This afternoon they moved to the barn and are currently a little bewildered by the change in setting. With 10 they were quickly outgrowing the box I had them in and I was quickly getting tired of cleaning it every day. Now they’ve got an entire 12′x12′ box stall to themselves with a big new waterer. Of course they pretty much hang out only where the lamp shines still. But in another week or two they’ll really be appreciative of the space. And I’m glad to not be running out there to fill the chick waterer every 6 hours. Next up a full size feeder.

The grown-up girls are still doing well. Penny and Lucy are finishing their molting and growing new feathers at top speed. Agnes is the only laying right now and she seems to be on an every other day schedule - but then at 3 years old I’m impressed she still lays as much as she does. Maisie should start laying again this week - she “assumed the position” when I reached down to touch her yesterday which is a pretty sure sign.

I had hoped by now that we would have been able to start digging up grass for the veggie garden but it hasn’t happened yet. Partly due to the fence project and mostly due to the weather. Oh well, my adjusted plan is to get the onion starts into the existing perennial beds this week and hope to start moving starts to the new garden ploy by Mother’s Day.

All in all, it’s been a busy 30 days full of lots of activity and changes. But I wouldn’t trade any of it away for anything.