Have you ever met our hedgehog, Paprika? If not, we thought we’d introduce you to her, today. If you have, you might want to see how much she’s grown!
You’ll just want to let all of the photos load, so you can see if she does indeed have some serious cute-factor, or if it’s just us.
So give it a moment.
We think you’re going to love her.
P is for Paprika, of course.
And here she is . . . .
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It finally happened on a late Saturday afternoon, this past December, actually. After keeping chickens for nearly 2 and 1/2 years, a predator finally got one. And it was all kinds of sad. Of all of the ways such a loss could have gone down, and any chicken it could have gone down with, it was about as sad as it could get, if you ask us.
(Just a picture of our chickens from last year, for your enjoyment.)
Before we tell the sad little tale, we have to say first, that we still maintain that our predator deterrent set-up has been working very well! It was never meant to be, nor going to be, predator-proof. But it has definitely done it’s job well in serving it’s intended purpose, in deterring hawks, especially. It was only a matter of time though, that a more unusual situation with a predator would arise, and well….that time came.
Just a quick post today, to share with you all a few details about the new House of Joyful Noise rooster, since we mentioned we would tell you a little more about it in this come-back post.
When I got to thinking about freshening up our blog and giving it a bit of a new look, for some reason the idea of incorporating a rooster with a fancy tail, popped into my head. And once it did, I couldn’t let it go! We love roosters, and their big fancy tails anyway, and it felt like it fit well, because they are certainly farm-ish enough. We do keep chickens, and have certainly dealt with our share of roosters. We had a big and beautiful rooster with a fancy tail for awhile, until he died unexpectedly. We miss him on the one hand, and he took real good care of his hen girls. But on the other hand, he was getting [Read more…]
No one could have known how sad I have been this season, without my gardens to work in, and watch grow.
But I have been. Until I was blessed by surprise, with a Tropical Hibiscus and Blueberry Bush.
We had decided to completely overhaul our garden area this year, in an effort and plan to re-plot and grow a lot more of our own food. Although I’ll be the first to admit, there’s been many plans made over the years, that never materialized. And considering we’re deep in July here now, with little accomplished still, I’m losing hope on this one, too.
But I’ve happened to get a lot of joy and satisfaction out of working in the soil and growing things in my gardens over the past years. Growing anything, beautiful or nutritional. This year, however, there has been nothing out there, but dirt. Then, some gardening-related joy came my way. On two separate occasions, I was given these two very unexpected gifts:
And oh, how they helped soothe my little gardenless-woes! I have been loving having them to tend to, and seeing them grow. But what makes them mean the most to me, is where they came from. Let me tell you a bit about that.
This is probably the kind of beautiful plant that I would always want to buy, but never buy for myself. And therefore, I would have probably never had something so bold and lovely. But now I do.
And how is that? Because . . . . a very special and thoughtful young man in my oldest daughter’s life, surprised me with it. I think he got quite a surprise, himself, by [Read more…]
One of the awesome things about having skills, and owning your own small businesses especially, is the ability to barter with other small businesses! Michael and I have made some fantastic bartering agreements over the years, that have really made us feel like we got quite a deal. They have also enabled us to get more tasks accomplished sooner, than we otherwise would have been able to.
Not sure exactly what bartering entails? Here is an official definition of the term:
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I bartered a few deals when I had my photography business running. Michael has bartered many great deals in his business, over the years. Michael works full time for our church now, but he still runs his own business on the side that started 15 years ago or so. He is a truck letterer and sign maker, and so the majority of his many client accounts are small local businesses; men with families they are trying to support. We always make an effort to support small business people, and do our part to help our own community thrive. We know many have done the same for us. Needless to say, Michael is tapped into a vast array of blue-collar trade services, and has known them all long enough to know who does the best work.
For example, Michael has exchanged his truck lettering or sign making services for [Read more…]