Our off-grid farm trip was everything we expected and then some~!  There is a huge sense of peace that flooded both Hubby and I.  Matt and Angie and their family are truly trying to live the life God has called them to.  Even with a batch of surprise baby raccoons in the walls of the cottage, we loved every moment we spent there, and came home feeling refreshed with new friends to boot!  I would recommend anyone to spend some time here if at all possible~

In the last five weeks our remodel project has been a nightmare (yes we are still without floors and walls:)), living out of coolers, cooking and living in our family room,  had wonderful guests stay with us for five days last week (and they still love us:)), had a booth at the Michigan INCH Homeschool conference and helped hubby while he taught workshops there, finished off homeschool music with two nights full of concerts last week (in the midst of remodel, guests, and INCH) and to top it off my Mom is still in the hospital after 4 1/2 weeks and I have been running back and forth to be with her.... I need a break.  My wonderful Hubby, for my 40th birthday in February, surprised me with a 1 night stay with Matt and Angela at the Maple Valley off-grid cottage  http://eclecticculturefarm.blogspot.com/ We are leaving today!  I am so excited.  I had visited there last fall to take a couple of classes, they are about an hour and a half north of us.  I hope to...

If any of you out there sell animals on your small hobby farm like we do, this article will hit close to home http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/20110524/pl_dailycaller/usdafinesmissourifamily90kforsellingafewrabbitswithoutalicense   I found out about this story through some of this family's relatives that live in the same town we do.  As someone who sells a few fiber rabbits a year, this is scary stuff!  What is next?  I hope they are able to find some very wise people to stand up for them.  Last I heard, if the money wasn't paid by Monday the fine was going up to $4 million!

Lilacs are in full bloom Garden ready to be planted Royal Palms Narragansett Chicken Tractors Goat area Free range meat birds Claire  Tiger and Robin Babies Rabbit area My "kids" New Kitchen There will hopefully be floors here...soon? New window for the new room new room

I have three French angoras available for sale.  We are located in Michigan.  They are $50 each and make wonderful pets!  They are brown, grey/chinchilla, lillac grey in color.  These are wonderful small fiber animals!  Leave a comment if you are interested, or you can email me!

What was supposed to last 3-4 days is now on day 11.  We are hopeful this week we will start to see our new rooms take shape.  We have run into make issues that were not expected, like the second story addition not sitting on load bearing walls on the first floor.  Floor and walls that are really, really, un-level, and my favorite so far has been finding out that our furnace/hot water heater pipe that goes up to the roof was never really attached and locked together when they put it in 20 years ago.  Which means we have had exhaust fumes being blown into the attic!  Our builder has been amazing and has done a great job with all the road blocks.  This week we should see electrical done, plumbing done, and insulation start to go in...as long as nothing else goes wrong. I said from the beginning this was going to be a character building experience for me, and boy or boy has it ever.  I am not necessarily a "clean freak", I don't dust...much and usually ...

I just love it when science shows up in the backyard, or in this case, the field across the road.  I often wonder what the neighbors are thinking when the see the kids and I, loaded with books and pencils, go running across the field.  In our research we decided that this was an old snapping turtle.  There are many differences to look at, webbed feet or not, 1 claw or all claws, short or long tail?  I say old because the book said that the older turtles have a worn shell, and he didn't snap once.  Boy was he trucking across the field though!  We had to run back and forth for the camera and books and had to look for him the second time!  My oldest happen to spot him from his upstairs bedroom window...don't ask me how!