View from a Hill

People often ask us why we left the convenience of the city and the stability of a steady paycheck for life in the country. Believe me, there are times when this is a question we ask ourselves! In our more sane moments, though, we are reminded of the rewards of our simple life here. Enjoying fruit canned at its peak freshness and flavor, roasting a chicken raised organically in our backyard, knowing (and liking!) neighbors who would give you the shirt off their backs (and vice versa), sitting carefree in the backyard watching shooting stars after a hard day's work - these are comforts that cannot be measured in monetary value but are ultimately rich nonetheless.

Now that we feel we have made a little progress on the house and farm, Jordan and I are purposing to take the time to enjoy the beauty of the northwest. Recently, we made a trek to the top of Mt. Dominion, seen here from the north side of the house:


Despite a temporary roadblock (a not uncommon occurrence out here)...


...we pushed on and made it to the top in record time. We even managed to see some wildlife along the way. Here are some elk in a neighboring field:

At the top, we were rewarded with some amazing views of the north side of town and the Canadian Rockies beyond.


We even caught a glimpse of our house (circled at the bottom of the photo below). Seeing the size of our home in relation to the environment around us reminded me that our problems and issues are tiny in comparison to life beyond our four walls.


Actually, I think that the trip above accurately summarizes our decision to live as we do. Yes, we do hit some roadblocks, endure "hardships," and travel some unsteady roads on the proverbial mountains that we climb. Determining to make the trek and delighting in the sights along the way, however, make the satisfaction of arriving at the peak at each summit that much sweeter.

Big Sister

The biggest change in Annabel's life is that she is now a big sister, a role which she relishes. From the very beginning, Annabel has been quite taken with Thane, and she likes to hold and feed him as often as we will let her. She repeats his name all day long, and she'll tell him "Don' cry, ba ba" whenever he fusses.

Annabel continues to flourish here on the farm. She absolutely adores the animals, and she is fearless with them. Her favorite pasttime is collecting eggs from the chicken coop (whether the hens have finished laying or not!), and she'll boldly walk through the herd of sheep in search of Estelle, her favorite ewe. As you can imagine, keeping her clean is quite a challenge. If you ever stop by to visit, this is most likely how you'll find our little girl.

Don't worry, though, Annabel will grow up with some lady-like qualities (we hope). She seems to clean up fairly well - for a few minutes anyway.

She's great at channeling her inner diva, too. Whether she grows into a true blue country chick or a city-loving fashionista, we're pretty sure that she'll keep us entertained every step of the way.

Our Wee Sco'ish Bairn

On Monday, October 5th, at 7:47am, in a cold operating room, we warmly welcomed the arrival of Thane Brogan Lentz. Apparently we're not as good at math as we thought, as Thane ended up being a few weeks younger than planned and was technically premature. He still weighed in at 8 lbs 15 oz., and it just figures that we would have a 9 lb preemie! He initially had difficulty eating and gave us a little scare when he continued to lose weight, but he has overcome and is rapidly catching up (note the double chin in the photo below).

Thane, by the way, is the ancient Scottish title for a feudal lord. It comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "Thagn", which means warrior. At a mere 9 pounds, however, he'll probably need another year or two to live up to his name.

In the interim, we are grateful for a healthy baby boy, who is perfect from his hands...

...to his feet.

Thane is a very mellow little guy, and he mostly sleeps. In fact, people who have met him don't believe that we have ever seen the whites of his eyes. For the doubters out there, I've even managed to get a quick photo of his baby blues:

Everybody Loves Russell

Here are the long awaited photos of Dad and Mom's new place. As you can see, the boys did a great job building it, and Mom's done a fabulous turning it into a home.

This is a view of the kitchen, as you walk in the front door:

From the kitchen, you walk around the corner into the dining room:

Next you enter the living room:

The living room opens into Dad's little office (note the draft horse and farm paraphanelia). The black thing in the middle of the photo below is the spiral staircase that leads to the guest room/half bath in the loft:

Finally, the bedroom is at the back of the house:

Dad & Mom are settling in and are thrilled to have their own place again. I am desperately missing all of the things that my folks did for us around the house, and Annabel isn't so sure that she is happy with the new set up either - she sure relished being spoiled all of the time. While Jordan enjoyed having Dad and Mom around, he's happy to have his family to himself after living with other people for the past 15+ months. In the end, we'll all be just fine. After all, Dad & Mom are right next door. It's kind of like "Everybody Loves Raymond," except that Mom is a wonderful mother-in-law (as both Jordan and Jon will readily attest). Dad does, however, remind us of Frank sometimes...

Gains and Losses

It's been an eventful month at Stonehouse Farm. It all started several weeks ago, when we awoke to find that something (or several somethings) had gotten into one of the chicken coops and had taken almost 40 of our new laying hens and our largest goose. It could have been any number of predators, but the consensus of friends and neighbors is that it was a cougar (or two) and/or a pack of coyotes. The bizarre thing is that we, who were sleeping with our windows wide open at the time, never heard a thing. Jordan did catch a glimpse of a few coyotes while conducting subsequent late night perimeter searches, but we haven't lost any more birds with the exception of one - a mature chicken that got nabbed by an owl. The following night, Jordan spied the owl eyeing our remaining flock (which were safely stowed away), and he said it was a huge bird with at least a 3 1/2 - 4 foot wing span. Ah, life in the wild, wild west!

Given our somewhat predator-prevalent location and our desire to raise even more livestock in the future, we decided it was time to get something that could help guard our animals. Thus, Angus, our 13 week old English Shepherd puppy, joined our family earlier this week.
English Shepherds are great dogs - they aren't bred to be show dogs, just good, old-fashioned hard working farm animals. They can be taught to herd livestock, and will guard their charges diligently. At the same time, they are gentle and are often used as therapy dogs, which makes them excellent companions for small children. Angus and Annabel are quickly bonding, and both seem to be thrilled with each other's company.

In the our loss/their gain department, Jon and Jordan finished my parent's place, and Dad and Mom moved out of our place and into their new home this weekend. The boys did an amazing job, and my parents are thrilled to have their own little house on the prairie. Once they've settled in a bit, I'll post some pictures of their place. It looks really, really great.

In addition, Jordan has kept busy in the evenings training the puppy and installing our new windows (not necessarily at the same time!) We love european windows that can open out or into the house, but these are very expensive and hard to find in the States. So, we compromised and bought energy efficient windows that look french. It sure is nice to finally have matching windows, all of which can open! He even built me some very cool windows with arched trim for our bedroom (see the second photo below). I love them!


Lastly, a quick update on Annabel. She definitely falls into the gain category. At 18 months, she is almost 3 feet tall. She is also starting to talk. Her first words, besides "Momma" and "Dadda", were "Uh-oh, where is it?" As she is still in that klutzy, drop everything toddler stage, we hear this phrase quite a bit. She is slowly adding to her vocabulary, and babbles on and on all day long. Oh, the things we'll hear when she starts speaking our language! Here's a photo of her at the annual rodeo held in town a few weeks ago. She LOVED the rodeo, especially seeing all of the horses and cows. Despite a few setbacks, life in the wild, wild west suits us just fine.

Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness (Or So We Are Told!)

I don't have any new photos of the house to show you this time, as we have spent the last 5 weeks doing lots of outdoor work. Much of this work has consisted of cleaning up building materials, moving dirt piles, relocating farm equipment, getting rid of huge mounds of straw, etc. I am very happy to report that we are no longer the white trash, redneck members of our neighborhood!
















In the midst of all of this clean up, Jordan and my Dad managed to prep a large section of land for our vegetable garden. The fence has been put up around the garden, and our older chickens are now thrilled to be free ranging within its confines. As you can see, we also have acquired 3 bunnies: Ginny, Hermione and Serious (who definitely lives up to his name). Annabel is ecstatic to have the bunnies, and she loves to try to pat them, feed them carrots and eat their poop (when we aren't looking, of course).




















While I wasn't able to help with the heavy physical labor, I did work on lining our driveway with rocks we've gotten from the field. Yes, I do realize that I placed the rocks on the grass on one side of the drive, but this was done purposely - I swear! We wanted to widen the driveway, and will fill in the middle with pea gravel later this summer. Annabel, as always, is very helpful when it comes to working with rocks. She tests (i.e. tastes) every one!



Lastly, we've planted 13 fruit trees to get our orchard started. We've got various types of apple, pear, plum, peach, nectarine and cherry trees. Next weekend we plan to get some maples, elms, oaks, beech and other varieties of trees to place around the property. Other than putting some sod down in the fall, that should be the end of our outdoor projects this year. Now we can focus on finishing the detail work inside the house. We hope to have the first floor completely finished before the baby arrives in early October.

Happy Easter

We hope that you all had a lovely Easter. We certainly did, despite the cold, rainy weather. Annabel woke up to find a small Easter basket on her high chair, and you could tell that she couldn’t quite understand what all of the fuss was about. By the end of the day, however, she seemed to have adjusted and was thoroughly enjoying the festivities.

In fact, it was hard to tell which Annabel enjoyed more – the egg hunt or the candy:

Either way, we are looking forward to sharing the real meaning of the holiday with Annabel as she gets older. Happy Easter!

Growth

A lot has happened here at the Farm since I last posted on the blog. I was in Baltimore at the beginning of March for a week, while Jordan and my folks stayed behind to watch Annabel. I had a wonderful time working (really!), visiting with dear friends and eating at every ethnic restaurant I could fit into the schedule: Spanish, Afghani, Irish, Greek, French, Egyptian, Italian, etc. YUM! While I enjoyed the culture of the big city, it didn’t take me long to remember why we moved out here in the first place. You couldn't pay me to go back to the noise, traffic and congestion. It’s amazing how quiet and still it can be here on the farm – even during the busiest times of the day. The four deer you see in the picture above shows the most traffic we've had on our road in a long time.

The weather in Baltimore was, comparatively speaking, quite warm. It was a bit of a downer to come back to winter, but there is beauty in winter, too. God even sent us a gentle reminder that we can hope for a quick spring.

Annabel seemed to grow inches while I was gone. Come to think of it, I think it was only her hair that especially seemed to grow long. Jordan took the following picture of her while I was away, so you can judge for yourself.

Our poultry flock has definitely increased, as last week we took in 120 chicks and 6 goslings. About 80 of the chicks will be used for meat (I think I’m going to need a much bigger freezer), and 40 will be kept for eggs. The geese will also be kept for meat and their watch “dog” capabilities. All will be free range and will only be fed organic, pesticide-free food.

Last, but not least, our family is growing, too. We recently discovered that I am expecting, and Annabel is looking forward to playing with a new brother or sister sometime in October. Jordan wants a boy, but I honestly don't care either way. All I want to do is slug the guy who called it “morning” sickness when it lasts ALL DAY LONG!

If You've Tried to Post Comments...

I've gotten feedback that some of you may have tried to post comments on the blog, but were unable to do so. Ooops! I think that was my fault (that's what I get for trying to get all technical!) I think that I've remedied the problem, so feel free to comment to your heart's content (unless, of course, your comments are critical or negative, in which case let me direct you to our www.wedontwanttohearaboutit.com website).



When we moved here, I thought that I would very much miss the ocean. While I do miss the sea, I am amazed at how similiar the weather here in the mountains can mimic weather on the coast. The weather constantly changes here, the wind can change direction on a dime, fronts pass through at an alarming rate at times, and we get socked in with thick fog on a regular basis. I took the photo above a few mornings ago as the fog was descending on the valley. It's so beautiful here.

Puppy Love

Annabel has already experienced her first love. It's a case of puppy love - literally! Jon & Kim recently brought home a puppy. (As they will tell you - it only takes a quick peak to fall in love!) Morgan was a cute puppy, and she is now turning into a beautiful, LARGE dog, whom Annabel just adores. Unfortunately, I don't have any recent photos of the two of them together, but the photo below provides a glimpse of Annabel's excitement when she's around Morgan.


Annabel loves Morgan's Mom and Dad, too - especially when Auntie Kim sneaks Annabel bits of ice cream. (Sure - SHE doesn't have to stay up late with a sugar-crazed whirling dirvish!)


Best of all, Annabel LOVES being outdoors - especially when she is unfettered and free to roam at will. Spring can't get here soon enough! (Wishful thinking as I sit looking out the window at the snow squall coming across the valley).


She's a very determined 14 month old that is beginning to exhibit signs of the "terrible two's", but who can resist that cute little face?

Food Pantry

The house is coming along, although much slower than Jordan would like, I'm sure. Poor guy - he has to work around the constant shuffle of people coming and going, a toddler who loves to "help" her Daddy, and a wife who keeps thinking up really cool things for him to make and do.

For the past couple of weeks, Jordan has been focused on the pantry/mudroom. First, he put mortar between all of the rocks in the walls (see the right side of the top photo), and then he built me a great wall of cabinets. He has built doors for the cabinets, but we are waiting for the chicken wire that we will install in place of the wood panels in the doors - just to give it that down ole' country feel.

He's now starting to work on the kitchen, which is a bit more challenging logistically. He even started putting my AGA (a very cool British stove) together last night. Yahoo! More photos to follow...

Diva

This will be a quick posting. I've gotten a lot of flack for not including any photos of myself on the blog, so here's a picture of Annabel and myself. Now I know how celebrities feel - the pressure from my public and the paparazzi is just unreal. (Hey - stop rolling your eyes out there.)

Seriously, I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend!

And So It Begins...

Stonehouse Farm has officially become a farm. Laverne & Joanne VQ, good friends/distant relatives of ours here in Colville, called a couple weeks ago to see if we would like some of their hens. We jumped at the chance, and Jordan came home a few hours later with 4 skittish hens and an, em, exhuberant rooster (let's just say that we shouldn't have a problem filling the coop!)








We had been hoping for some "layers," but the girls didn't seem to want to cooperate until yesterday morning when we found an egg. It's a good thing, too, because they were heading to the backyard butcher block and freezer this weekend. Now that they are producing eggs, Jordan is going to let them live awhile longer.

Jordan hopes that this is only the beginning of a huge menagerie of critters to make their home at Stonehouse Farm. I, on the other hand, am just hoping that the menagerie doesn't include too many field mice and snakes. And Annabel? She's just happy to have something to play with (whether they like it or not!)

Book Worm

Annabel, much to our delight, has become something of a book lover. (If you know Jordan and I at all, you know that this is a MAJOR deal - we are huge book fiends). Admittedly, Annabel still occasionally views books as a snack (especially when she's teething), but we often find her sitting quietly in the dining room (our temporary library) perusing a new title from her own shelf in the book case.

Other than that, much is the same with Annabel. She walks/runs all day long, "chatters" a lot, is very iniquisitive and now has 11 teeth (only 9 to go, but who's counting?). Her latest antics include learning how to "shush" people when she's trying to talk, using her fake laugh, and helping Daddy rearrange his tool shop. (If anyone visits and sees an 8" wrench and some wood glue, could you please let us know?)