The Rearrangement of Things

Thank's to Karen Anne's suggestion, I took a not-so-scientific pole on facebook and have settled on this arrangement in the sitting area. There was much rejoicing from the men in the house. I've been under the wether lately and stuck at home. I'm not one to sit still long, so I've been coming up with things for them to move, scooch, hang, etc. I think they are ready for me to get better.

I like this version. I have a rug on order that I think will help tie it all together. Yes, I know I have carpet. Yes, I am aware I don't need a rug. But that carpet is not staying long term. It has been nice this winter. A far more cozy winter than at the old farmhouse, I'll give you that.  But I personally think that has more to do with the walls being three bricks thick than the carpet.

What lies beneath this carpet is the question. We know from talking to the neighbors that the breakfast room has some sort of old linoleum on top of the wood floors. The Sheville addition, of course, is most likely just plywood. A wall was removed between the sitting area here and the formal dining room so the wood floors there are probably non existent or filled with who-knows-what. So until I am prepared to put new plank flooring all throughout the downstairs, I am just going to pretend the carpet isn' t there. So yes, I'm going to put a rug on it.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... Easter?

The calendar says it's Spring but the weather hasn't caught up. We woke up to a seven inch blanket of snow this morning. It has been a very, very long winter here in Indiana.

We've not accomplished a great deal of work on the house for various reasons.  Instead we have focused our energy on just trying to get settled. It takes a while to get a feel for a place. How it lives. Or more importantly, how you live within it. With old houses there tends to be more than one possible use for any given room. So, while repainting the family room I decided to do some major rearranging. 

 The formal dining room is now where the family room was. It makes more sense here.

It is nice to be able to use all the table leaves and really spread out while entertaining.

I left a sitting area around the fireplace. Mainly because that furniture needed to go somewhere, but it almost seems like I planned it that way. 

Or taking Karen Anne's suggestion...

The former dining room is now the breakfast room. I made a curtain for the front of the shelves to hide all my not-so-pretties. 

I did purchase new chairs for this room, but otherwise everything is stuff left over from our last house. 

I also have a new light fixture coming. I don't do crystals. Especially crystals that clearly don't belong in this style of house.  I mean does this thing say victorian era farmhouse to you? It is going bye bye. If anyone out there thinks this thing is fabulous and has a proper home for it, please leave your address in the comment section and it will be yours in no time flat. 

Because I will be replacing the crystals with this the moment it arrives. 

Fun With Food

One of the really cool things we have going on at work is our youth volunteer program. One hundred kids volunteer every summer. These aren't just your average tweens and teens. This is a tough program to get into, so they are the best of the best. The kind of kids that restore your faith in humanity and make you believe that maybe there is a future to be had after all. Out of these one hundred kids there is a select group that show leadership skills and an interest in agriculture. They belong to a group we call our Youth Ag Captains. We provide them with some additional training so that they can mentor the other youth volunteers. Saturday, we held one of those trainings.

The training topics are driven by what the kids are interested in. They decided they wanted to know more about animal health and the routine veterinary procedures we perform with the animals. So we put  together a pretty nifty Powerpoint presentation.  However we are known for being a hands-on learning organization so we knew we had to take it a step further to make it really interesting.

Our local veterinarian supplied a bottle of sterile water for us to use as a "vaccine."

Obviously, you can't just go around shooting up water in a real animal so we opted for bananas instead. The peel simulates skin pretty well, so the kids could practice both IM and SQ injections.

Demonstrating how to dock a tail was also part of the program. We decided not to let them band their own fingers.

Instead we had them castrate some baby socks with two grapes inside. 

The resemblance was uncanny.

This was a great program that the kids really enjoyed. 

Proof that you don't need a huge budget or a lot of expensive equipment to create a perfect learning environment. You just need to combine a desire to learn, a passion to teach and a dash of creativity.

Although I will admit I am looking for a grant to fund the replacement of Skinny our biology cow. After multiple surgeries she is ready to be put out to pasture.

Donkey-Otie

When I was at Billie Creek Village we had a pair of females donkeys. Their names were Jenny and Jenny. Hey, don't look at me, I don't know who named them. They were "rescued" by the village owner from a farm where they were not being well cared for. It took awhile, but after some love and attention their coats and hooves eventually healed and they became lovely jennets again. Having been two of only a handful of remaining livestock on the property, they were pretty popular amongst the guests. The donkeys thrived on the attention. When a small child would approach the fence I would often see one bend its head down so the child could scratch behind its ears. They knew why they were there. It was as if they appreciated the care they were getting so they tried their best to entertain the guests. Each morning during chores, Jenny or Jenny, would give me a hug. Just a gentle head on my shoulder. Their way of saying thank you for feeding them. Needless to say I was smitten. Then the village closed. I never found out what happened to them. 

So when Donkey-Otie arrived at Conner Prairie I decided I didn't want anything to do with him. Nope. Don't need no stinkin' donkey in my life. 

Then I started working in ag full-time. Then I had to see him regularly to feed him. He chewed on my scarf a little that first day, I didn't care much for that. I kept my distance at first. I avoided eye contact. Then one morning, he hugged me, and I fell. I fell hard. He totally played me.

Leicester Longwool Love

Look who joined the ag team at work. Two Leicester Longwool ewes!

We are incredibly excited to add these girls to the team. Not only are they beautiful, but they allow us the opportunity to introduce our guests to the story of Robert Bakewell, who revolutionized agriculture by being the first to use modern line-breeding techniques with his flock in the 1700s. Another famous farmer connected to the breed was George Washington.

Despite their presidential connection, the Leicester Longwool fell out of favor and had all but become extinct in the United States, until the 1980s when Colonial Williamsburg stepped in to reestablish the breed. Today, the Leicester Longwool is one of the sheep breeds listed by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy as critically endangered. Breeds considered critical have fewer than 200 North American annual registrations and an estimated global population of less than 2,000. 

We are humbled to have the opportunity to play a role in conserving this grand old breed. Both ewes have been exposed to a ram so we are looking forward to spring lambs right about the time the grounds open again.

Sorry, Elmo

Elmo is not happy with me. You see I posted the unflattering shot of him the other day and now everyone thinks he's fat. He is an outdoor long-haired cat so he has a really thick winter coat.

"You're not exactly looking slim and trim in your long underwear and Carhart's there missy," he said.

I can attest, in his case, he really isn't fat he's just fluffy. Sorry, Elmo.

Why I Don't Have Time to Blog

I suspect that if I just told you I've been too busy to write you would think, "Yeah, yeah, we're all busy. Whatever." So I figure I better show you what I've been doing with all my time lately. 

This is Elmo, the friendliest of the four cats at work. The first priority of every work day is to feed and rub Elmo. 

Elmo is the same color as Blue, but they're not related. It is taking me a while to learn the pedigrees of all the stock, but I think I've at least got this one straight in my mind. Blue is a Randall Lineback. He prefers to be next in line for feeding and rubbing. 

Feeding the big stock is always an adventure. Remember the scene from Jurassic Park when the people were being chased by the dinosaurs? Yeah. It totally felt like that the first few times I did it, but I'm better now.  Kittens are more ferocious than these cattle.

The flock of Tunis sheep get their provisions next. 

Along with a healthy dose of rubbing for the beggars.

Inside the Animal Encounters barn are the Horned Dorset ewe lambs who are temporarily sharing their space with a few Nubian goats. I often have to stop here for a minute or two to clean Mine off. She tends to wear her breakfast. 

For the moment, two calves are still in another pen inside the barn. They will be moving out very soon. Dena is a dual-purpose Shorthorn. A breed who's dual-purpose genetics fell out of favor. Her father has been dead for 40 years but thanks to modern technology we are bringing those genes back.  

New inside the barn this week is Houdini, an Ossabaw Island Hog and his lady friends. They have taken over the goat pen as their love nest and will help loosen up the layers of straw and wood shavings to make the pen easier to clean out. Well, in theory. None of the pens are particularly easy to clean out, but that's a whole 'nother blog post.

The rest of the 40 or so pigs are getting fat in two other pens on the property until it is their turn to go to market. We are all pretty much ready to see them off, the 50 pound bags of feed are heavy, not to mention expensive.

Then there is this guy. I tried to completely ignore him for months. Then it happened one day; I looked him in the eye. He's had me wrapped around his hoof ever since. Donkey-Otie is the guardian over the Horned Dorset breeding flock. 

Who pretty much have me at their beck and call as well. I mean look at that face. This is the worlds sweetest little ram.

Last, but certainly not least are the chickens. There are two roosters. They don't care for living together. One has taken up residence elsewhere. Sound familiar to anyone? Only here he isn't getting a private suite, instead he's taken up living with the pigs. How he has convinced them not to eat him I'll never understand.

So you can see why I've been busy, that's just the morning chores!