Wrung out, never felt better :)

I may seem to complain a lot, but this blog is a place to vent, a snapshot of my life in bits and pieces... I should make an effort to balance it out more with some of the positive stuff going on - lord knows there's more of that than anything else!

For example, my farmer's tan is coming along nicely.

Bonus!

Today we knocked off quite a few projects, it felt great. Of course the land looks like shit after all the digging and spreading muck everywhere - it will take days of slowly putting it all back together and another month or so for the grass to grow back but hey, that's what renos do: makes things look bad before they get better.

Or something like that!

*deep breaths, it wasn't a bomb that hit, it just looks like it*

Vegas worked like a dog the past three days with the rented tractor, you can say we got our money's worth and then some.

The stables got a proper french drain on two sides and ledge spread on the other two for more drainage. The damn thing is built on clay, of all things, the century-old foundation is all cracked and the horse boxes got flooded every time it rained! Why nobody cared to fix the problem before, I will never know.

I also don't know how many tonnes of manure got shoveled away, but it was a mountain and it wasn't pretty. Ten horses crapping for a year will give you SUCH a gift, eh?

Vegas also put in a french drain in the back of the house to prevent water infiltrations in the spring. He ripped out an entire vineyard, dug holes to bury the crap and spent many hours transporting rocks and gravel and cement blocks from here to there.

We're so getting one of these machines some day! LOL

On my end, today I spent another two hours cleaning one row of grapevines (three down, seven to go) and cleaning out the secondary chicken coop. The former owners only used it as a shed but it's good enough to hold the chicks until the insulated coop & outside run are renovated, which should be by this weekend. You're supposed to leave new chicks inside their pen for the first few days anyways, so it works out great.

The two feet of ancient-chicken-manure-turned-powder are gone, the thick spider webs are gone, the windows are clean and have new night coverings, the hooks are in place for the feeders and the new bedding is down.

I go get the cluckers Tuesday - so exciting!

Tomorrow we're doing the unmentionable... going to "the city" - yeecchh. Vegas has to go work and I need a meat run for the kids, so I get to spend five hours fighting traffic, going from shop to shop to pick up heavy bags of carcass for the carnivores. Lovely!

The only fun part will be seeing Dante in the afternoon - he got his first shots last Wednesday and weighed in at 12 pounds at six weeks old. For sure he's changed a lot since we first saw him, I'll take pics if he behaves!

If all goes well he'll come home in two weeks.

!!My dog time flies!!

I'll try to upload some new pics soon, although I've not documented much this weekend. Too busy being outside, working the earth with my hands, building and creating, dreaming, loving, smiling and just grateful to be alive.

I feel blessed beyond belief.

PS: have you voted on the new poll yet?

/end of So This Is What Life Is All About post/