Next Chapter, Please

Time for the next chapter....

or as Louis Armstrong says, "End of song.  Beginning of story."

The adventure continues at fiveinthefarnorth.blogspot.com

Come join the party.

P.S.  I couldn't help stealing Margaret Murie's title:  Two in the Far North.  It's so romantic.  But... there are five of us, hence the title.  Less romantic, but more fun.
Plus 2 more at random spots all over the earth.  So it really should be,
"Five in the Far North, one in Alaska, and one in Japan."

But that's a little long for a title.

Selling Crabapple Farm

I won't even try here to describe how difficult it was to sell our beloved little Crabapple Farm.  The entire selling process was so horrid, that even now, 5 months later, I cannot think about it without getting a little sad even though I do not regret selling at all.  I just think it is normal to miss something that was home for 8 years.  8 years of everyone growing up and having lots of wonderful times and lots of happiness.

We officially closed on June 10th and in celebration of a new start, Mr. Bechtel bought me a mountain bike, and I bought masses of flowers to put all around the cabin for the summer.

Good Bye Beautiful Crabapple Farm.  You took care of us very well.

It was a wonderful 8 years.

Goodbye Animals

Part of the difficulty of moving was trying to decide what to do with all the animals.  We sold Granny Smith's lambs.  Granny had them so well trained to follow him that they jumped right into the back of the man's horse trailer.  The lambs were in prime condition;  beautiful, bright eyed and  healthy.  It was hard to sell them.

Prairie Spy had a little jersey steer named Ropy.  He sold him on Craig's list.

We sold Kyra, Rita, and their adorable babies too.  I hated selling them.  Kyra had been around since before Crabapple farm even existed.  But we couldn't take them and there was no way around it.

Jack and Pete were coming to the cabin, and the boys were taking the horses back to Ricky Quinns. 

 That left just Alice the cat and her perma kitten, Kokomo, and a random assortment of chickens.  Alice was the last of the original litter of kittens that McCavity had.  Mc Cavity was a stray.  Crabapple Farm was her home.  I decided she deserved to live out her few remaining days at her home and we would not move her.  Whatever the owners decided to do with her was fine.

Same with the chickens.  I gave away all the ones I could catch, but the rooster and about 4 hens ended up staying.  They didn't really bother anyone back at the barn anyway.

The place seemed very barren of life after the animals were gone.  Part of the spirit of the place disappeared.

Packing

We put Crabapple Farm on the market right before Christmas 2014.  Nothing happened for a long time except we would have to show it occasionally.  That meant that instead of doing school or having a nice day, we would have to clean the whole house to a polished shine and it seemed to take forever.  There towards the end we got pretty good at it.

Finally we got an offer.  It was a terrible offer.  We countered and they went silent.  About 6 weeks later they came back with another offer.  We countered again.  It went back and forth and finally we agreed on a price.  Our realtors were crooks.  I don't say that lightly.  They were willing to do anything to get their commission and cared nothing at all about whether the deal was fair or not.  The buyers missed several deadlines in their contract and we could have stepped out of the deal.  It was agonizing.  Terrible.  But in the end Mr. Bechtel helped me see that moving was the right answer.  

We had exactly 10 days to move an entire farm.  I cannot even describe how great The Spy Twins and Granny Smith were during this process.  They consistently encouraged us to sell even though they were sad and they worked like galley slaves moving and packing day and night.

Braeburn was in Alaska driving tour buses for the summer.  We packed his room.  Same with Golden Delicious, who was in Japan on her mission.  I feel bad that they were not there to say good bye officially to Crabapple Farm - but everything was such a blur and it was so horrible that it was probably a good thing they were gone.

Moving a house in 10 days is bad enough.  But what does one do with an entire shop, a whole barn, and tons of odds and ends?

In the end, we rented 5 storage units, threw tons of stuff away, gave loads and loads to DI and hauled just the basics up to the cabin in Island Park.  Also, I made a few mental notes about things I will never do again, and topping the list is that I will never have 2 tons of wheat in my basement, ever, ever again.  The boys hauled every sack out and if it hadn't have been for them, it would still be there.

Nova Spy's Dud of a Truck

Well, as the saying goes, "You win some, and you lose some".  This third project of Nova's has been a real pain.  He has put at least $500 into it, and the solution still remains out of reach.  It hasn't helped that Mr. Bechtel has been gone most of the time.  I think the conclusion is two fold:  don't buy a truck without letting Dad look at it, and stick with the older ones that are pretty simple.  He's going to lose money on it for sure, but he's about ready to just dump it and move onto the next project.  Frustrating!

Bacon Mutton Industries

Once again Granny Smith's lamb crop was a 100% success.

We got 10 lambs from the sheep experiment station, and with a little help from his brothers, Granny kept them all going strong.  He named them all:  Green Dot, Bacon, Dorcas, Grandpa, etc.  He liked them all, but he fell in love with Bacon.  Bacon wouldn't eat and so Granny would hold him on his lap and feed him his bottle.  When Granny would baaaaa to call them, they would all baaaa back and come running.  Bacon, though baaaaaed the cutest.  His voice would raise at the end into a question mark and he had a happy/dopey look on his face all the time.

Prairie is our house vet.  He helped give the lambs their vitamin shots.

After feeding or moving pasture, Granny would usually ride up and down the lane a few times on the TW before coming back inside...

We let them eat in the back pasture from day 2 or 3.  But then we had this beautiful alfalfa/grass pasture in front so we moved them up there.  We baling twined 4 hog panels together and moved them twice a day.  That, with fresh water and Thorvin kelp and they all ate like little pigs.  They LOVED the pasture!  I was worried it was too rich, but they did just great.

Of course, the grass on the other side of the fence still tasted much, much better.

and they also ate every fruit tree leaf they could reach.

It was a sad, sad day when we had to sell them.  Granny has plans to expand his enterprise every year.  Everything will be named in honor of Bacon:  Bacon Mutton Industries, or BMI if you prefer.  We can hardly wait til next year.

Look Out! Granny is Officially a Teenager!!

Happy Birthday Granny Smith!!

You are the best!

Golden Delicious sent him a great card from the MTC full of "bucket list" type things that he needed to do.  He gave it a very solid effort - only missing going to a movie, since Golden is his movie buddy and she isn't here.  (did I mention that we miss our girl around here??)

Everyone was so stuffed after eating at Texas Roadhouse that we could barely have cake and ice cream.  But we made it, somehow!

Love you!

I hope this is the best year yet!

Baby Goats are the Cutest Babies on the Farm!

The very morning we left for Texas Rita had her babies.  Kyra's were born the day before.  We left them all in Nova's responsible care.

When we got home they were bouncing all around the field.

There is simply nothing cuter than a baby goat. 

They are sleek and precocious, and adorable.

(so much cuter than lambs - sorry- )

Here is Rita with her two little does.  She is an amazing first time momma - very impressive.

And the whole goat clan:  Kyra and her little Rosy and Buckling and Rita and her babies.  We sold the big buck because he was so annoying and kept bugging me when I was feeding them.  Things are better now with just moms and babies.

I love baby goats - I just hate dehorning them.

Shooting on the Hill

So I guess this is PE for Homeschool or something....

The other afternoon the boys went shooting and I went with them.

I love shooting.  We had a great time - and hit a lot of clay pigeons too.

Goin' Through the Big D

Mr. Bechtel had a lawsuit that was supposedly starting in March that he had to be there for, and Buck Brannaman was doing Legacy of Legends in Forth Worth, and we had Spring Break, so Prairie Spy, Granny Smith, Mr. Bechtel and I drove to Texas.  We left Nova home to take care of baby goats and feed critters and keep things under control.

Mr. Bechtel and Prairie went to Legacy for the day and were delighted to run into Sarah and baby Keegan.  The Spy Twins are stoked to go learn from them this summer.  They also saw lots of other friends and colt starting is always exciting.

While we were there we went to Babe's Chicken.  It was hilarious - and we should have tried the catfish, but we didn't.

And we went to Six Flags.  Remember, it was Spring Break.  We waited over 2 hours to ride The New Texas Giant.  Horrors!

I was so scared I wouldn't have ridden if I hadn't waited for sooooo long.  I couldn't back out then.  So, instead, I screamed bloody murder the whole time and the next morning I had no voice at all.  But it kept me from having a heart attack.

Granny Smith had a marvelous time though, and is looking forward to going to Golden Delicious when she gets home.

Sister Golden

Darling Nannie is STILL in the MTC!  I think she is actually loving it, but she is headed to Japan at the end of the month.  The lovely little cocoon is going to burst open.  Will she be a very fluent Japanese butterfly??

She is working very, very hard to learn Japanese and I actually think it's coming for her.

Mr. Bechtel sends her coded messages in Japanese each week.

Fun!

The Baby Chicks are Here!

I was struck by this desire to dive into life this spring.  I don't want to hang around watching spring happen all around us and have our life on pause just because the house is for sale.

This led me to blithely order bantie chicks when I was at the Firth Mill.  Then I figured if I was getting banties I might as well get a few laying hens too, and one thing led to another.... Then I forgot all about it because we went to Texas for a week.

The day after we got back I got this message on my phone:  "Hello Mrs. Wadsworth this is Clyde at the Firth Mill.  I have the  40 baby chicks for you that you ordered.  My incubators are full, so come get them."

40 birds???!  What was I thinking??  40?  I mean carpe diem and all, but this seemed a bit much, even for me.  

I called Clyde back, and true to form he was very grumpy (he is either extremely charming, or very grumpy) "Well, you better come get them soon," he said, "I'm not putting them in my incubators and if you don't hurry up they're going to die."

"They better not die!  I'm coming!"

Granny and I headed to Firth.  Then he very nicely put them all in our makeshift nursery in the garage.

I did all sorts of extra healthy things for them:  drops of probiotics and minerals in the water, Thorvin kelp sprinkled on their food, wheat soaked in clabber, and hard boiled eggs in addition to their regular food.  The kids think feeding them hard boiled eggs is making them into canabals.  (how do you spell cannabal??) Anyway, I don't know if it does or not, but I got the idea from Joel Salatin, and the baby chicks love hard boiled eggs.

They are all super, duper healthy.

 After a week and a half I decided we had waaaay too many baby chicks.  I put an add on Craigs List and got rid of about half of them. (One guy wanted to buy all of them and have me ship them to Tremonton.  uh, no.  Then he wanted me to meet him half way in Pocatello.  What?  We are talking about $4 here.... people are odd.)

We still have too many, but they are thriving and very happy.