Step one:
find a new home for llama grove
What?
You heard me. Well, we needed to re-home the groovy grove, so, step one completed. Completed-ish.
I can’t say that there will be llamas. But there is a barn. See at the right? That’s a barn, yo! Sure, it needs work, but we can probably live in it instead of the house if we ever need to. And who knows, we might need to. The house has issues that we can discuss later.
Step two. Yes, let’s move on to step two:
move in llamas ?? I can’t answer to that at the moment. There might be llamas. Isn’t that a really bad
book? We can promise chickens, and maybe a dog. The little man didn’t do so well with Walter, our neighbor’s dog, but he loves dogs. It took him a while to warm up to horses, so we might get a dog. A ratter for the barn?
But definitely chickens. Orpingtons are a must. They are very protective of their areas, they lay at least one egg a day for more of the year than most chickens, and they are bright and affectionate. At least ours have been. Maybe a luxury bird like a silkie again? tiny little egg layers are cute and this farm is smaller than the last two, so maybe mini-chickens are the answer.
The farm house is more farm house than any Llama Grove farm house before it. It’s quaint and has barn siding inside. It’s awesome and scary. Let the remod begin! We can do this! Make it awesome! Any inspirational music out there? We could use it.
Let’s rething step two. Step two will be a garden this time. Let’s get some box planters and make an area for a green house to help the lack of CSA this year. Don’t worry. If you build it, they will come. The animals, silly.
before animals were brought to the new homestead. But a couple weeks ago, we did just that! Six baby chickens have made their way to the new Llama Grove. To the left is their chicken tractor. It’s pretty big, but we’re able to move it around the property. It also matches the house, with it’s steep angles and high-fronted design.
the mud room. Today there is no wind and a lot of sunlight, so the chickens are outside enjoying the green grass and spiders that run through it. The chicks get a fair bit of handling, so we’re hoping for chickens that come to us and don’t jump when we reach for them. They already jump a lot. We never thought that we’d be trying to clip the wings of pullets before they were fully laying.
More mowing, more fields. This is a lot of fun, really.
Llama Grove is moving. Are you a real farmer when you say things like, “Gotta mow the field before that storm gets in.”
These are the last daffydils from the flower bed. It’s a little sad to think that we will not get flowers from teh same bulbs next year, but plans for moving llama Grove proceed apace. We may have to rename the farm now that we’re changing to the top of a foothill rather than an enclosed hillside. 
Come on Spring! Bring that warm weather and beautiful veg. We’re ready for you! The spices are all organized and the last of last years sarkaut and pickling is done! When will the snow end? When will the sun come out? Will we be making our own apple juice or will we have to buy it? We’re ready for you growth. Come get us!
We’re not sure if this is the permanent homestead. The view is unbeatable, but the slopes don’t accomodate the larger animals without putting the soil in jeapordy. The chickens love the space that used to belong to the female Alpacas! So roomy and full of worms. They also have the entire barn to themselves. We’ll be looking for a new site soon enough, but hope to return to the llama grove as soon as we can. <3
The rhubarb and garlic are growing already! We’ve had such warm weather that today I was sweeping wasps nests off the roof and found a wasp. The nights have been very cold, though. there is no cloud cover at night, so we have a real risk of frost taking the buds off the apple trees and killing the garlic and rhubarb.
The chickens continue to lay as though it was summer time. They are doing great.
Well, everyone is gone now. We will miss everyone who went to live with other farms permanently. The cows were really lovable and the llama was probably the most beautiful llama we’ve ever seen. He quite a personality on top of that. We’d really been looking forward to training him for hikes.
It’s hard to see, but the insanely wet and cold weather we’ve had gave us our first hail this week. Unfortunately we’ve been getting over an inch of rain each each day.
Leif the llama protects his cows. The horse, though, he could do without.
Fall seems to have exploded this week. Somehow we weren’t looking and the leaves changed colors this week. Cherry trees, maples, walnuts and apples are all suddenly yellow and red.
This weekend we doubled the size of our flock. A neighbor gave us five laying hens they didn’t want to keep any longer. There are four Rhode Island Reds and the big coup for us was a silver araucana that lays blue eggs! We’ve bought so many araucanas looking for one that lays blue or green eggs.