Signs and Wonders

More for Sonja!

A few weeks ago I promised my eldest daughter that I would do a weekly run down of our activities in a bid to help her feel apart of our lives. she misses us and of course we miss her now that she is living so far away. She is feeling a little disconnected and the following post is for her and other family members living in far away places.

Last week we had our new septic system installed GranBob sent up an excavator and we got to work.

First we had to take down fences and clear some old wire and tree stumps. This area will house the new round yard and be a feed yard for the goats

We decided to enlarge the house yard so this whole fence came down.

Prince wasn't happy at having his paddock invaded by the big yellow monster and I had to sent Erin over to calm him down.

Digging the pit for the septic tank the ground became quite hard and excavator performed all sorts of acrobatics to get the job done.

The cement tank is lowered into the pit.

The riser and lid are added and didn't fit properly so the plumber had to cement the holes up.

The children loved playing on the pile of dirt left from the pit excavation there was lots of clay and they had fun making clay creations. 
  
  

The finished job and the children have a much larger yard to play in.

This photo is taken from the other side of the yard looking back toward the house. We still have old fences posts and wire to remove but it's looking quite good. Now we just need the grass to grow back.

Our new round yard with Milly trying hard to hide behind the post. The round yard is nice and shady and I can work with the horses while keeping an eye on the children in the back yard.We also use this area to chain up the goats and feed them each morning.

Paddy helps daddy dig a hole for the strainer post.

Anthony finds digging to hard and has a rest

And just because their cute ... Amiee and Damian.

   
   

Spring is in the Air

Spring is officially a few weeks away never the less there are many signs around that indicate spring is well and truly sprung.

 The peach trees are a profusion of pink blossoms.

 The bees are just loving the lavender plants

      And the azaleas are providing some much needed colour in the house yard garden.

 We've had five new kids of the goat variety born in the last week. Aren't they cute?

Look at what we got for Christmas

Ok, she was actually born Boxing day so I guess that means she's a belated Christmas present. She's so cute and such a tiny little thing no bigger then our dogs, actually one of our dogs is bigger then her.

An Unwelcome Guest

 

We were well into the Sunday morning madness of trying to get thirteen people out the door by 7.20am when we discovered this fellow in our finch cage he had already managed to polish of six birds and we knew we had to get him out if we were to save the remaining four.

 

Michael had a hard time getting him out of the cage.

 

Out of the cage and into the bagJosh stopped on his way to Mass and released him in a nice bushy area. Just in case your wonderingour visitor is an Australian carpet python

Meet the Newest Member of the Family

 

 

Isn't she a sweetie!

Meet The Major

Major is our Pony stallion and in the last few weeks has developed a skin condition that requires him to be rugged all the time. Generally we only rug our horses overnight in winter and on really cold days.

Here he is all decked out in his new clothes what do you think? Erin says she is embarrassed for him and is afraid he might have an identity crisis because he now blends in well with our Friesian house cow.