Sunday, April 13, 2014

Spring, Barn, and Dye

Spring is beginning to arrive here at the farm! We had a lovely sunset the other day; I just love that moment when the orange sunset lights the hills and makes them glow.

We have not yet sold our farm, I continue to hope we find the right person to buy it. I think someone who wants to raise sheep or cattle like we do or perhaps who wants to grow grapes or have horses would be a good fit. Part of the difficulty is that we don't have a big old farmhouse; it's a well-proportioned space but not large. We have plans for an addition that fixes that; but didn't think it made sense to build that if we were moving. I am very tired of driving an hour each way to work, but I just have to have faith that the right buyer will come along soon.
Here are the cows chewing on a bale right before our weather turned; Ryan was on his semi-annual trip away so he put hay in a bale ring for me so I wouldn't have to haul half a dozen sleds of hay to the cows twice a day.
On the new farm, I took a better picture of our driveway. It's steep, but nowhere near as steep as everyone thought it would be. That's Ryan at the top in the new tractor. We also got our building built at the new place. We're calling it a barn, but it's a modern barn rather than the picturesque type everyone always thinks of.
Under construction:
It's about 50 ft square with the south side open.
Cleary Buildings built it for us, I love the weathervane on top. 
While we checked out the building, we also walked through the old mother-in-law house on the farm to see if we could live in it temporarily while we build our place. 
The answer to that is definitely no. It hasn't been inhabited in 30 years, which might be OK if it didn't have a ton of mold in it. That was disappointing because even though it is much smaller than our house, it would have been a rent-free way to have somewhere to live while we built our new one. 

In crafting news, I've been playing with dyeing recently. Here is my next attempt at ombré, it is a much smoother blend than my last try. I'm dying fabric for a new quilt, which I will share with you when I complete it. 
I also dyed H's flower girl dress from my brother's wedding. This makes it less flower-girl like and very useful for other occasions like my grandfather's 90th birthday party today.
Before:
After:

The kids are growing well, Here H and Ryan plant some seeds for starting in the garden:
And Z gets read to by a good friend of ours. That kid loves books:
And H shows me things in her school open house:
While Z hangs out on the porch in summer sunshine:
Happy spring, everyone!