good news and fun news

The pipe. You remember the one, right?

Well, G and I went out and bought these things to repair the pipe. S and J made all the repairs.

Im happy to say that the good news is that it worked! The sprinklers (in zone 4, anyway) are now officially working and at full pressure, too. Yay!

And then today, one of my new neighbors came over to welcome us to the neighborhood. Nice, right?

Look what she brought us....

Straight from her 6 Rhode Island Red chickens that just started laying this Spring.

Isnt that fun? And now I know where that rooster is that I enjoy listening to every day!

Not to be overlooked

The day we had all been waiting and waiting and waiting for.

The move in!

And guess who showed up to help me get all moved in??? Thats right. My best pal, danni. She left Critter Farm and drove all the way to my house. Im not one to keep track of points, like say, someone else I know....but, I have to say....this was worth some pretty big points.

And youd think with all that waiting and waiting and waiting that Id have more pictures to share...but not so much. I could use the excuse that I was extremely busy...but thats not a *good* excuse. I mean, I WAS busy. But, Im quite certain that my partner in crime was equally as busy, and Im 100% sure that she walked away with a ton of pictures.

There was lots of exploring to be done.

Especially since before we moved in every single room was stuffed to the gills. Like this.

And this.

Securing the perimeter is a full time job for this little pup.

And, of course, trying out all the potential napping spots.

The kitchen was quickly covered in all sorts of cleaning supplies and odds and ends.

An empty house is a wonderful place to play with a great big, red, bouncy ball.

As the morning took off, the job of box and furniture inventory was given to danni. This required a very quick hand and a good set of ears and eyes....looking for color coded numbered tags and listening for them to be called off as man after man walked by with dolly after dolly of boxes.

And for a good part of the morning G played right there in that big window.


But at times, he did contribute. His toys did need to be inventoried after all. This "toy box in a wagon" was a huge hit. Only cool miss danni would think of something like that. G is still talking about how he got to sit in the big, green wagon AND have all his rescue heroes in there.

And since he worked so hard, naturally, he needed a break for lunch.


And then after lunch it makes perfect sense to spend a little time in the tree.

In amidst the chaos of box after box being brought off the truck...we were pleasantly surprised to see what appeared to be a huge groundhog tunnel in our front yard.

It went right up to the house.

And curved around.

And YAY for that because thats our cable line that allows us to access the internet!!! We were initially told that it would possibly take a week to even *try* to get us connected.

The truck arrived at 830am and by 1pm it was pulling out of the driveway.

And even tho I dont have a full picture diary for the day...I can tell you it was a very long day. Filled with lots of work and snacks and laughing and more work and more snacks and paper plates and paper cups and pizza and fried chicken and gummi bears and sparkling cider and wait. I want to make a toast. Heres to the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. Getting the amazing opportunity to fulfill my dreams of living on a farm and having some critters.

Mostly tho, it was a fabulous day. Never to be forgotten. And I cant thank my amazingly, wonderful best friend enough for making the trip here to help me through this very hectic time in my life. I honestly dont know what I would have done without her. Thank you, danni. (Your mere presence was delightful. And made me so very happy. The fact that youre very strong and helped me move some great big boxes was a bonus. And even more? The kitchen was a HUGE task....but since you were here it was all done even before the end of day 1.....I could go on and on and on...Thank you so much for all your help.)

Im also really glad that the people who lived here before me decided to take this with them.

Jumping in with both feet

We have been in the house for 5 days. No better time to jump right in to farm life, right?

Rewind a week or so. Even tho we owned the house at this time, we were letting the sellers rent it back from us since their newly purchased house was not ready to move into quite yet. As part of our sales contract we required that the seller have the septic tank pumped and certified. Upon the certification inspection, it was discovered that the whole septic system(tank and drain field) needed to be replaced.This was my front pasture about a week ago.

They were digging trenches(5 of them to be exact) to install the new drain field.

This is the new septic tank.

This is where the septic tank will be connected to the drain field.

This is what the pasture looks like now.

All my lovely green grass is all covered up with dirt.

Or, as I learned a couple days ago, silt. A sedimentary material consisting of grains or particles of disintegrated rock, smaller than sand and larger than clay. The diameter of the particles ranges from 0.0039 to 0.0625 mm. Silt is often found at the bottom of bodies of water where it accumulates slowly by settling through the water.

Well, over the weekend, we decided it was a good time to try out the irrigation system. We have several different kinds of sprinklers out there. We have this lovely version, that is hidden in the ground, but pops up when its time to water. This one is nice as you can mow right over it.

We have this version. This one is found mostly in the flower beds. It is supposed to be some type of drip sprinkler, but really? Its more of a spray.

And then there is this version. Which is clearly not hidden and not dripping. This variety is found mainly in the pasture.

Well, this last variety is what prompted me to throw on my boots today and head outside to see what the heck was going on.

They should all be spraying like this(only with much more force) But there was one that just was not pulling his weight at all. (see above picture) Not one drop of water was coming outta that puppy.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed this pretty river running through all the silt.

Now, the water pressure coming out of that sprinkler was not nearly enough to carve that kind of river through all that silt. So, I go back up closer to where I think the source is.

Hmmmm....this little geyser cant be a good sign.

Lets step near it...and see what happens.

The geyser gets much bigger.

The realization sets in pretty quickly that I am going to have to put my hand in that water to see whats causing this. ((shudder))

It turns out that it was a little more than just my hand.

After my arm is fully submerged, I can feel water gushing out down there amidst all the tree roots. That water is coming from what feels like a pvc pipe.

At this point, I go back in the house...and just pretend everything is fine.

Okay, fine. I go back in and turn off that sprinkler zone. Once its turned off the water is no longer gushing out of that pipe. Thats good right? Maybe? I mean, at least I have it narrowed down to a possible source.....

This discovery requires a dig. The pipe needs to be found so the situation can be assessed.

And find it I did. However, Im thinking it should maybe be all one piece......

A little more than 200 miles=a weekend of happiness

And so it happened. My first ever DRIVE to see my friend, danni. You see, since I moved to Washington state, I can now drive to see her instead of having to fly....and I have to say....this is one of the best things ever. I should have moved closer to her a LONG time ago. Im just sayin.

Upon my arrival, I think the llama ladies were a little concerned that I may upset the daily routine. See how they looked at me?


They were pretty quickly won over with some carrot coins.

But you have to be quick in this crowd. Amazingly, Kai was the one to nab this particular carrot coin.

And she had no problem leaving Dolly looking like this after she walked off with that carrot in her mouth.

I, of course, had to spend some time with the critter farm donkeys.

This was my first time meeting Beau. Hes such a sweet boy. And those ears of his just make my heart go pitter pat.

The goats had a good brushing.

And Kai was very, very curious about that pile of fuzzy goat hair. But if you look closely, you can see that she kept an eye on danni that whole time she was sniffing that pile of fuzzy hair. Just to make sure that she didnt get any ideas about using that brush on her lovely llama hair.

Luckily, I was there just in time. Because we got to clean out the goat house.

And even luckier yet, I got to feed the llamas. Which meant that I got to hold the bucket while Dolly enjoyed her tasty hay treats.

She even shared with Kai....for a minute anyway.

And then she wanted it all to herself again. Shes searching very intensely for those tasty treats...at one point I was wondering if she was gonna stick her whole head in there.

After a couple days tho, it was time for me to head back home. To Washington. In my car. (I just love that) And for my second first time ever....look what I got to bring home with me.

Yep. Thats right. My very own dozen of critter farm eggs....no 12 hours of airplanes and airports to stop me from enjoying those eggs this time.

A specialty Dottie egg, too, of course. Seeing critter farm eggs in my fridge made me smile all day today.

And never to be forgotten by the cool miss danni....the kids (and S and I) were sent home some very yummy cupcakes.

I have a feeling that Im gonna be doing this way more often now.