Well folks, its time to do a post again! My viewers may be numbered, but I've been itching to write something for the past few weeks. Writing papers was my favorite back in college (hah! look at me, "back in college" when I only graduated 5 months ago ;D ). I figured I learn a lot more doing research myself and writing papers than sitting in class for hours listening to someone babble all day long. Anyhow, I'm gonna stick to the one important thing I learned in Comp I, "Don't sway away from the topic" ;)
We've been enjoying every second we spend at our homestead. I mean, who wouldn't! We have gorgeous chickens and baby chicks, dabbling ducks, guineas that freak out over their shadows, cute little gobblers, kittens and cats, doggies.... oh I could go on and on. Their little antics make us laugh. It might be just that, what makes it worth it to us, to spend our whole budget on these animals. I can go outside and sit on a chair and a cute little easter egger with fluffy cheeks would fly on to my lap and perch. How awesome is that?! How many people in the world do you think would get to experience that?! It is worth it to me, to work 14 hour days throughout the week, get as little sleep as 5 hours a day, deal with snorty little bitches(this is an understatement, female dogs are much better behaved? than some of these people I get paid to deal with) at work, just to get to our weekend retreat. Its not easy being us, but lemme tell you, coming home to a broody mama with 8 little baby chicks peeping under her is just an incredible feeling. She sits there for 21 days and hatches these gorgeous babies that pop their heads out of... well all over her. ;D It amazes me how the broody hen knows how to call her babies, better yet, how the babies know how to come to mama when she makes this distinctive little cluck. Who teaches these animals how raise their young, or how to be broody is just beyond me.
Maintaining a homestead definitely comes with a lot of hard work, like, feeding schedules, cleaning and building coops, tilling, planting, deweeding oh its an uncountable amount of jobs that need to be done. We work harder on weekends than the whole work week combined. Mondays are officially named sore-days here at Urteaga Farms. All the physically hard work, and we get to enjoy meals cooked outdoors on a fire , yes, even the usual rice and curries. For some reason, food always tastes much much much better cooked on a wood burning fire than on a stove. When the weather complies, we cook all three meals outside on the fire. Oh, toast made on a cast iron skillet is just out of this world! After a day of hard work, sitting down by the fire, under the beautiful blanket of stars, with a beer in hand and dinner cooking on the fire, listening to the enchanting tunes of country music playing in the background is such a relaxing and peaceful feeling. The slow winds bring in the delightfully fragrant smell of nearby honeysuckle vines. Our neighbor is always invited for dinner on weekends because he helps us out a lot. We sit around the fire discussing various topics. He's much like us, and loves and appreciate what we do, so just having him around is reassuring to us, because our families (except Mike's dad of course) don't quite understand why we moved out to the country when we could have gotten a house in a neighborhood in town (yuck). Seriously, after almost a year my aunt says "when you grow up, in a couple years, you can sell that house and move to an actual house (not a playhouse-- these are her exact words) in the city". As much as I want to explain to her again and again why we do what we do, I just grind my teeth through the conversation and move on. I like to think that she's missing out on such a great experience. We don't like to deal with people around our house, we like and value the privacy. Family drama is poisonous, we stay away from drama as much as we can. Sadly, more drama they present us with, the more distant we get. Maybe its time to think alternatives. Family is important...
Speaking of, our little family in the homestead keep growing by the day. We have 28 breeds of chickens, 5 breeds of ducks and 3 breeds of turkeys so far. My addiction for collecting have kicked up a notch. But hey, that also means I have very valuable birds, going as far as $70 a trio. And I've got many many trios. ;)
Well, I'm gonna pause this here today, hoping by tomorrow we will have a website of our own, urteagafarms.com. Cheers!
