Moving right along, the walls are now up on the new showerhouse!! I managed to get the plywood roof on, just before the winter rains came. I must add that this door is a Habitat for Humanity purchase. I highly recommend going to the local Habitat store to purchase building materials. The walls are two different colors, as I am experimenting with colors. I hope to put the sage green metal roof on, within the next 45 days, if the rain stops long enough to get it done. I have some beautiful blue pine, cut on this hillside, ready to have planed, to use for the ceiling in the showerhouse! I don't have this house finished, but have already figured out how to use it to hang and dry clothes and will use it to start my garden seeds, come March!

This is a confusing farm, on the hillside, as my new bull may not be tall enough to breed with those "Highland girls" and the young colored buck doesn't seem to smell bad enough for the does to like him!! Who knows how many new kids or calves I will get in 2011!!

Shower house construction

Yikes, I don't know where the time went, but it went. The shower house is really beginning to take off! My son-in-law came for a visit in May and we have now framed the walls and it is my job to finish the roof, before winter hits. With the lack of carpentry skills, it will surely take me all summer to get this part done. The local Habitat for Humanity store is where I am searching for some windows to put in the roof, for sunlight, as well as some solid wood doors for the entry to both the shower and the wash room side.

I just finished installing a small, instant hot water heater, in the yurt, so now it has hot running water. I was going to wait and install the solar batch water heater, outside, but then it can't be used in the winter. So, I guess the solar batch water heater will be used strictly for summer showering and washing clothes.

It rained so much this spring that everyone planted their garden very late, including me. I downsized from last year and only put in half as much produce seed. My fruit trees are really happy with all of the rain, however, and it shouldn't be long before I start getting fruit from them. I didn't touch the raspberry plants this past year, in hopes of actually gettting a crop off of them and now it is like a jungle down there! I do see some berries though, so maybe the jungle will be worth it, as long as there aren't any rattle snakes hiding in those vines!

There are now two calves on the ground, half breeds. They are half angus and half Scottish Highland and as a result of that mix, it doesn't look like they will have horns, which is a good thing. They are now two months old and eating out of my hand. "Here comes the beef" in about 14 months. They are "Sassie and Scottie" and Sassie definitely lives up to her name!

"Sir Edward" is like a two year old!

Wow, where has the time gone? I meant to make this a weekly writing event, but time has slipped away from me! The snow has come and gone and it is time to prepare the barnyard for the arrival of the "kids" and the "calves". When I started out living on this "hillside farm", I started the animal menagerie, with two does (angora) and have since added the long, red haired, Scottish Highland heifers. Well, the time is almost here to sit back and watch those little "kids" jumping and romping, as only kids will do and strengthen the fences for the arrival of the first of two Scottish Highland calves. In the meantime, I had to start the barnyard cleaning and do some repairs in my "shanty style canvas barn, from Costco" and "Sir Edward", who was my bottle fed baby last summer, had to help. He is like having a two year old, who wanders around looking for someone to pick on or something to get into. Here he is, eating the buttons off my shirt, while I attempt to make repairs to the indoor feeder! Goats can be the most entertaining creatures you will ever meet!

These first calves are half Scottish and half Black Angus, so will be great meat, especially being raised on alfalfa. I know, you may not be into butchering beef, but there are plenty of city folks who need and want some excellent grass fed meat! As if having them bred to the angus wasn't enough, I have a a deposit on a full blooded Scottish Highland calf, born last June, but he "Duncan" lives up in the mountains of Southern Oregon and so he cannot be retrieved til some snow melts, in May. Duncan will be in charge of the whole hillside, I am sure!