Summer Part 2!

As you can imagine, waking up to flower fields in August and September is pretty special! Our dear friend, Lindsey, and her “farm hands” worked hard all Summer! It was quite fun and lively around here to say the least…

One thing to know about the farm is that there are about 30 chickens on the property. While they have a designated area, and despite having their wings clipped, they are masters at escaping. (And as mentioned before, they are quite fond of our deck…ha!) One of the running jokes around here has been that you literally have to hunt for the eggs at times because they start to hoard them in areas. We’ve also joked that someday we’re just gonna find a bunch of baby chicks wandering around! Well, that day came in August… We had friends over for a game day on the deck when one of the girls yells, “there’s babies!” Uhhh, what? And sure enough, about 10 baby chicks came waddling out of the greenhouse with one very proud mama hen.

One of the coolest things was to see these four kids jump into action! All four kids have now raised chicks and baby ducks, so while Ryan and I stood there shocked, the kids knew immediately what needed to happen (with a little bit of coaching from Lindsey over the phone). Because there was a mix of yellow chicks and black chicks, it also led to a LOT of questions and jokes trying to determine “who the daddies are”… 😉 This event led to flipping the farm upside down hunting for eggs and potentially more chicks. After the “clean up”…we all said goodbye to the roosters. (They were quite obnoxious in a variety of ways…no tears were shed in their departure!) And no one is interested in more surprise births around here, haha!

Other Summer highlights included: sealing the deck, hosting our first party (for 4 family members!), lots of outdoor art projects and storm watching. As we sit in the dark of winter by 4:45pm and think back, tiny living in the Summer was truly dreamy. Its hard to believe that the end of January will mark 1 year of tiny living as a family of four. While we still can’t answer when our house will be built, I can at least say I know we can “make it” in a tiny house through all 4 seasons now (almost). We’ve laughed more than we’ve cried and our girls will have stories and tales that last a lifetime. Kylee remarked tonight that she’s learned many things she probably never would have if we weren’t living here – like digging a waterline or learning how to use an excavator or how to live without certain things. Its been remarkable to hear how a 14 and 11 year old can find the joy in interesting and sometimes uncomfortable situations. (More on that later…) Needless to say, they’ve handled this better than their parents, hahaha!