Bella - Not your ordinary Goat

Just a quick post today about our darling Bella. Everyone that meets her, just falls in love at first sight. 

A picture can say a thousand words...

Isn't her bow and necklace just precious :) love her! Being this cute can take it out of you, plus the memory foam has the effect of luring anyone to sleep. 

Here, Bella discovers whole wheat spaghetti pasta for the first time. This was part of her six month birthday dinner. 

A beautiful Daddy Daughter moment. 

This is her version of a hug. She will wrap her neck and head over our shoulder.

Last but not least our noble Sir Sainic aka Mr. Grandpa :) 

I give today's tip in hopes of preventing future DVD hate crimes, don't bother with Alien Uprising "starring" Jean-Claude Van Damme. I'm A huge Jean-Claude fan, but he literally gets only five minutes of scene time then they kill him. It was such a lame movie that I feel I need to share my painful watching experience. During the movie I suffered from both boredom and heavy eyelid syndrome, save the buck twenty and rent something else. 

Alright y'all till next time you know the drill - keep it clean, keep it green, keep it classy.

Shalimar

DIY Fence Tutorial

This how to is just how we did it, not necessary how it's done. Neither myself nor my Mr had ever built a fence before but we had both seen enough poorly built fences to know what we didn't want:) 

All our homestead projects are done out of pocket ...our pockets... so we have done everything ourselves. Well, let me amend that, because my lovely mom and dad helped in the clearing process which was a real blessing because it is very monotonous work.  Mostly it was just the two of us, but for a few weeks my parents came every Sunday to volunteer services and sweat it out with us. 

How to get started-

......I strung up fishing line from corner to corner so we would have a guide to follow. I added a few white ribbons so it would be more visible, this guide was extremely helpful.

First, clear out enough room for not only the fence but for you to have elbow room. Next, in the corners and every 100 ft dig a hole for 4x4 posts. We put ours 2 ft in the ground, using 8 ft post so we had 6 ft for our fence. 

I've mentioned in past post that we used a Kobalt post hole digger, but I want to embellish on why. 

Look for handles that have grip or padding because you will get blisters.

Open and close the handles to make sure that in the close position the blades actually close in together. This is of the up most importance because you need to be removing the dirt with the digger and not a shovel. Lastly, we went with Kobalt because it surpassed the completion and came with a lifetime warranty! 

Supplies-

Fencing

4x4 posts

T posts

Fence ties

Pole driver - I'm not sure that's the actual name

Post hole digger

Level

Concrete

Optional but highly recommended-

Spray paint

Fishing line

Come-along or wench strap 

This is what I'm calling a post driver, you have to have this. 

Once you have your holes dug, put in the 4x4 post hold it level (just eye ball it) and fill the hole with concrete. Now that the concrete helps hold the post use your level and get it exact. Let the concrete cure for 24 hours before you put an pressure on it.

 1- roll out fence, use t post to lean against it for support

2- put t post in the ground using the post driver, you need the driver 

Optional -use a come along strap to pull the fencing taut. My genius Mr got more and more efficient as we went along we didn't do this on the first two side but we finished the fencing like this and it was much easier.

3- attached fence ties

4 - repeat, repeat, repeat. 

There is our sturdy gate to match our predator proof fence.

Use UL-certified power strips for your tv, gaming consoles, DVD players, etc. then when you go to bed or leave turn the switch off. Many devices draw a phantom electric charge, that is to say that when they are "off" they are still drawing power, yikes! 

Till next time, keep it clean, keep it green, keep it classy.

-Shalimar 

Prepping for Fencing / Land clearing

When my Mr and I first started this project we called it the never ending story, because we had to prep for the fencing. The prep work involved clearing the land of these giant debris piles, removing what seemed like decades of vine growth, leveling the ground, and trying to stay motivated with the sun blasting away at us. The prep work was by far the hardest thing we have done on the homestead. 

Earth is heavy. Shoveling earth sucks. It's easy to feel that never ending sensation; shovel after shovel, hour after hour, day after day the same task is on going!?! 

Along the way we dealt with crazy Texas weather, tiny random eggs, spiders, snakes, and scorpions oh my. 

So here's a few pictures of the crazy storm that blew in. You notice how the angel of the pictures are from the car, that's because we were trying to get to safety. In a matter of minutes the temperature dropped twenty degrees and both my Mr and myself felt the energy in the air change, it was charged. I actually believed a tornado might form and we did in fact see swirling in the clouds. I couldn't get any more pictures because every piece of glass in the car fogged over, instantly. It really was a super creepy feeling. I've lived in Texas almost all my life and can attest to its crazy weather but this was wild. 

The weather wasn't the only wild thing we had to deal with. We also had wild vine growth. Vines are so intrusive and as the pictures show, the vines can damage saplings. We spent countless trips out just on vine and overgrowth control. While my Mr has been blessed with the most amazing skin, he has no allergies to poison ivy or poison oak, so he was able to dive right in and yank the vines out. I wasn't blessed with the same amazing allergy free skin so I had to be covered from head to toe but we got the job done:)

Now, these eggs are a mystery. We found them while digging out vine roots, just under the surface. Not knowing what they were we decided it would be best to rebury them. The soil was in a shady spot and a 50/50 sand mix. The eggs themselves were a bit rubber like, not hard with a shell. I took all this information to my friend google search and came up with a few options. They are either lizard or snake eggs. At that point we decided that we didn't want to take the chance of them being a small poisonous snake and agreed we needed to remove them.  (mr had already killed one coral snake, yikes!) As soon as we got back out to the land we rushed to the eggs and discovered we were too late, they had hatched. Not hatched as in broken open but they were no longer full; the eggs were raisin like in appearance like they had deflated. 

The egg mystery continues and so did our work. While we sang "the never ending story" we shoveled away at more dirt mounds. This particular pile was the smallest one at four feet tall, twelve feet in length, and eight feet wide. To keep ourselves on track we strung up fishing line the length of the fencing and used it as a guide. Just running the line through the "jungle" proved to be a job in itself. 

I know you were probably thinking "wow, can this article get any better?" .....a girl can hope:).....Well, it can! I'm now going to start including some really basic (common sense) ways to reduce your water and electric usage. Not to mention lowering your carbon footprint, yay:) 

Soak pots and pans instead of letting the water run while you scrape them. Even better, use an Energy Star-qualified dishwasher. With a built in rinse cycle so you don't waste water rinsing every plate and bowl first. When the dishwasher has completed the cleaning cycling, open the door and air dry. 

Till next time, keep it classy.

-Shalimar