New additions at the farm

On Saturday, I went out to the barn and remembered I better check on Hazel. Hazel is one of the chickens that the previous owner of our house left for us. She had been sitting on eggs and I didn't think any would hatch. Travis, our tiny little Serama rooster really likes she and her sister, Agnes, but I never dreamed we would have babies. I was wrong!

In all her glory! Four new little babies! There were five that hatched, but one didn't make it. I decided since it is so hot, that I didn't want her to have to take care of them, plus I didn't want to risk losing any. I brought them into the house for a few weeks until they are bigger. Then they will go back outside. Our suspicions are that the eggs in the nest are Hazel and Agnes' only, since it's their nest. So now we have *mutt* chickens but that is fine with us.

Today we added two new dairy does to our herd of goats. This makes three milking does for next spring. The two that we got today are in milk, though are not huge producers, but a good start for us. We will likely add a couple more, as well.

This is Tootsie. She was a year old in March. She's so sweet!!

This is CindyLou. Not her *real* registered name, but it's what we are calling her. It sounds very similar to her registered name, so it works. She is three years old.

This is Sandy. She is the baby we got a week and a half ago. She is four months old. She ADORES Felicity.

Starting tomorrow, no more store bought milk for our family!!

Help Us Name Our Farm - Win $25

Since we now have Sandy (our new dairy goat doe) that needs to have her registration completed, we must finalize the *formal* name for our farm/homestead/ranch(ette).

This has been such a difficult task for us. In past years, naming online businesses and blogs has been especially easy for me. Don't know why naming our farm is giving me difficulty.

We have the following children and animals with something special about them:

Two children with special needs (autism and Aspergers).
Two chickens that both have the ends of their middle toes missing.
A poodle that was seriously abused and is also loosing her vision.
A goat that is blind.
A cat that is geriatric and getting around more and more slowly every day.
Future children that will have been abused and possibly be medically fragile or special needs.

So do you see where I am going with this? We have decided that we would like to name our farm something that incorporates *special* or *unique*, etc in the name.

Then there are the terms "farm", "farms", "acres", "homestead", "ranch", etc.

More info to help:

Our house, at the present time is a old, very small, manufactured home. We will be replacing it with one two times larger later this fall or in the winter.
We will stay on this land; it is 1.17 acres. Eventually we hope to buy an adjoining acre if it were to become available.
We live in the Texas Panhandle, between the cities/towns of Amarillo and Canyon.
We plan on more dairy goats; breeding and for milk.
We will be breeding a few heritage/endangered breeds of chickens. Selling live birds and hatching eggs.
We have laying hens and are selling fresh eggs.
We will grow our own fresh foods in our garden.
We may get a milk cow and grow our own beef.

We'd like people to know, right off the bat from the name, that we are a place with some special kids and some special critters.

Oh the decisions!

So what I am asking my readers is to leave comments with suggestions. Please also spread the word about this, as we are asking for all the help with this that we can get.
Disclosure: By suggesting names, you agree that our family, the Harrett's, will have full use of, rights to and ownership of the name and that the name is not a registered copyright or trademark to any other farm, ranch or business to the best of your knowledge.

Happy Fourth of July

We are celebrating today with the two new additions to our family. Wishing you and yours a wonderful Independence Day!

Homemaker - The best occupation in the world

In 2002 when I was part of a company-wide lay off, most people we know thought we were crazy for the decision we made that I would stay home and not return to work outside the home. I had worked for 18 years, since I was 18 years old.

Over the next eight years, I ran a registered day care in our home, started and grew several online retail businesses to include designing and manufacturing a product line of cloth diapering accessories. I kept adding on more and more for me to do. I was bored and the more I piled on myself, the happier I was. Or so I thought.

Finally, I realized that I was not helping our family at all. I was stretched so thin and stressed all the time. Not to mention I wasn't *there* for my husband and kids. So I officially retired to be an official homemaker.

I read a wonderful post over at Raising Homemakers that I want to share with you.
I finally realize that I am where I should be. Where I should have been starting in 2002. I love being a homemaker, although sometimes I am not quite up to the par I would like to be. Having our family grow is helping me, though. It seems the more I have depending on me, the better I do and focus on the goal at hand.

All my life, even through high school, all I ever *wanted to be* was a wife and mother. I'm finally there.

It's a beautiful morning

We have had many rough mornings around here for the past week. Timothy obviously isn't a morning person and throwing in an additional person to our morning mix has been a bit difficult.

Today. Today has been amazing, though! Everyone woke in a good mood. Breakfast was eaten with no issues. Mike and Gregory got out the door five minutes early! That's what I call a beautiful morning! I won't say that things have gone completely swimmingly since Timothy arrived. Of course, we are all going through an adjustment stage. There were a few really rough days the end of last week and the weekend. Yesterday, though, seemed to be a bit of a turning point. At least I hope so.

Felicity and Gregory love having Timothy here. Felicity tends to want to play the third parent in correcting Timothy, so we have to watch that and remind her that he only needs two parents. Otherwise, as usual with other kids, Felicity is wonderful with Timothy. Gregory likes having a friend around his own age, though Timothy is intellectually much closer to the correct age of 7 than is Gregory. They still do well together.  Timothy gets frustrated with Gregory because Gregory cannot pronounce Timothy's *real* name correctly yet. We continually explain to Timothy that Gregory's mouth just doesn't work exactly right and he does the best he can. Some days with that are better than others.

So we continue on. We are looking forward to our meeting with the new prospective foster-to-adopt son next week and the July 4th weekend.