Another Addition to the Farm

Well, we are an official farm now!  Thanks to our neighbors who provided us with our first 6 laying hens.  The chicken coop is pretty deluxe as far as chicken residences go, plenty of space, multiple roosts, lots of daylight, great protection from the elements and possible predators.  We look forward to fresh eggs soon, although we realize that egg production slows way down in the winter-we'll take what we can get.  Life on the farm is lots of work, but still lots of fun.

Something VERY new for the New Year

Mowgli....the cat.Anyone who knows me knows I am not a cat person, but thanks to my cousin, Andy and I are starting the new year with a new orchard cat. Mowgli was a Seattle cat who was having trouble playing nice in the city life. He now resides in our greenhouse and is taking to country life quite well. I have been the one feeding him, so he likes me way more than Andy, so we call him "my cat". Somehow having a "barn cat" makes our place seem even more country now. Happy New Year to you all, I hope you each have something new to enjoy this year.

Country Living is Good

A quick 5 minute walk around the property can produce vases of flowers like this every day, so nice!

A summer staple: Pulled pork. Andy is smoking 30 pounds of pork for the 4th of July celebration.

Smoked Alaska! We are trying desert on the grill for the 4th of July. Pound cake, a layer of cherry preserves, ice cream, fudge, all wraped in a layer of meringe and frozen. The whole thing is put on a wood plank and placed in the grill to toast the meringe...should be exciting!

We net our cherry trees to keep the birds from eating all the cherries. Sometimes birds get caught in the net and we have to go out and "take care of them". While checking the nets the other day Andy realized he had caught something much larger than a Robin. This is a Hoary Marmot who was trying to get a free treat from the cherry tree and had gotten stuck. Andy freed him from the net and we have seen him every day since. He is currently residing underneath one of our out-buildings we used to refer to as the "Skunk House" because skunks used to live under it. Looks like we will now have to call the building the "Hoar House"...not sure about that.

We discovered that we have three fledgling Barn Owls living in our silo. When you peek in on them they hiss at you and snap their beaks to sound intimidating.

Life is good. We work outside every day, but love it. Our friends and family are over regularly to enjoy good food, help with a work project, or just hang out on a nice summer evening. I can't imagine life any other way.

Owl Banding

Andy and I got a chance to go out on a trip with the BLM and band fledgling Western Screech Owls for a day. We covered nearly 250 miles that day, most of them on dirt roads. It was a fun day, except for the baby owls poop all over your hands when you pull them out of the nest box!

A Photographic Update

Andy's newest love...an All Clad Skillet full of Apple Crisp!

It wouldn't be the Frahm house without a project...we rebuilt the front deck over Labor Day. (We take the name "Labor Day" literally at our house)

Another two of Andy's new loves. He has gone full charcoal and there is no looking back. (We may have had a major catastrophy with the previous gas grill.) Andy is now capable of BBQing for a small army with his new grill and smoker.

Andy ran a 1/2 marathon last year. This picture was taken at the last mile and he is still smiling even though it rained the whole time and was about 40 degrees.

Peace

This is what peace looks like at our house. May you also find peace during this season of celebration.

Merry Christmas!

(Yes, I am going to just pretend that I have been adding updates all along and not appologize for the 7 month gap in updated posts.)
Merry Christmas! Andy and I have been enjoying all the important things of Christmas: peppermint bark (homemade by Andy), Christmas cookies, waffles, peppermint cocoa, and NNU baseball fund-raiser oranges (gotta have something healthy on the list). We have also attended some great Christmas performances of our nephew Noah.

Yes, our Christmas tree is HUGE!!! Originally, we bought a living Christmas tree that we plan to plant on the property with all the other pine trees, but a live tree can only be inside for 5 days max. Andy and I were feeling very un-Christmas-y, with no tree in the house, so we caved and bought a tree. This was literally the smallest tree on the lot! I plan to decorate the living tree out on the deck and enjoy the two trees, since last year we had no tree.