Hello Again! Read what we have been up to....

Good day to everyone out there!  It has been a long time since I've written anything for our blog so we need to bring you to where we currently are in our lives.  The last time you heard from us, we were living on our sailboat "Living the Dream" and had plans to travel the world.  SO much has happened since then!!  Read on....

Last time I posted, we were traveling around the country to visit with family before Mark went to Abu Dhabi for a fantastic opportunity.  He flew over and I followed him a month later.  We had our home (sailboat) moved from the slip in Baltimore onto the hard for storage while we were away.

We met sooooooo many wonderful people during the 2 1/2 years that we were in Abu Dhabi and are still in contact with many of them even though we are no longer there.  The decision to come back to the states was a tough one, but we came back because my grandmother and parents were not doing very well.  I am thankful that we came back when we did as I was able to spend quality time with my grandmother before she went to heaven and then with my parents, as they also have gone on to a much better place where I will see them again.

When we moved back to the states and got somewhat settled, we decided to start a small farm on our property.  We bought a tractor, cleared a large area for a garden and purchased some chickens and ducks. The learning curve has been amazing!

Mark grew up having a garden in his back yard every year so we decided to try to have one large enough that would allow us to be able to sell our crops at the local farmers market, but cooler weather, powdered mildew, poor soil (that we purchased a specially mixed fertilizer to fix) and pests (both bugs and the 4 legged kind) have made it impossible to harvest enough to bring to market for sale thus far.

Although neither of us really knew anything about raising chickens or ducks, we made the leap and have learned something new on a continual basis.  Mark has been wonderful about coming up with ideas for the coops and has build five different buildings so far.

We started our flock with Wyandotte chickens and have grown to having a large variety of chickens (ten different ones).  My "Girls" as I call them, know my voice and will come when I shake the bag of meal worms, which are their favorite treat.  They put themselves to bed at night and I just need to go into the coop and count to ensure that they are all there.  We have lost some to predators, old age, a couple to sickness and even one to someones careless driving on our road.  Overall, I love the "Girls" and enjoy raising them even though it is tough when you loose one.  We gather the eggs daily and have been able to find people interested in purchasing them so far.

Although we only purchased supposed females, we ended up with a rooster our second year into raising chickens.  His name is Buddy and he is a Buff Orpington.  He can be a bit aggressive when people are around "His" girls (with the exception of myself), but he saved the flock at least four times last year from a predator so I guess I can overlook his behavior somewhat.  He even got into a fight with something and lost one of his spurs completely down at where it connects to his leg bone and I had to learn about how to take care of a gaping wound.  He make it through healthy so I guess I did a good job in nursing him.

This year we have added enough baby girls to double the flock.  We also added five new varieties because I wanted to try out some new ones that are cold hardy and a couple for their reputation as being good brooders (mothers).  The brooders are soon cute as they have feathered legs and feet.  I will add pictures of them soon.  We also added one additional rooster named Blue as he is a Blue Orpington and I am hoping that the two get along and keep to their own flocks happy.

Our ducks started our with a straight run (you don't know what sex they are until they mature) of Pekin.  They are called "Babies" and come to me when I call them also.  They also put themselves to bed at night usually but sometimes need a little help in that department.  Most of the time all we need to say to them is "It's time to go in Babies, go in, go in..." and they usually run to the coop.  We have a pond where they stay until it gets too cold for them and then they get moved up close to our house for the winter.

We had two male and four female Pekin until this year.  We purchased some additional Pekin and had some issues with the first batch we purchased.  They had some sort of genetic problem as all except one had their feet turned in.  As you cannot return them and they were suffering because they couldn't walk, we had to put them down which was very hard because they were so young.  We purchased a couple more and ended up with one male and one female.  We have decided that we will substitute the new male with our non-dominant male and add the female into the flock for a total of seven Pekin.

We also tried a straight run of six Khaki Campbell this year and ended up with one female and five males.  We had originally decided to keep the dominant male and female, but a raccoon or raccoons broke into the duck pen and of course caught our female Khaki Campbell.  Now we will raise the males until fall and put them into the freezer for a great duck dinner.  Maybe we will try again next year to add Khaki Campbell to the flock.

Well this kind of brings you up to date on our farm adventures as far as our animals go.  I will write another post on our other farm adventures and our life in general and what has been going on since our adventure in Abu Dhabi.

Christmas Journey - Part II

After leaving Vicki's parents house in MN, we headed to NC for a visit with Vicki's brother and his family (Brian, Rebecca, Nathan and Jared). Our daughter Nicole and her children (Aubrey, Christopher and Thomas) came to be with us for a couple of days to celebrate the holidays and spend some time with Mark before he leaves for Abu Dhabi. We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Aubrey got to sleep in a "Big Girl" bed for the first time and did a great job! We had a great time and got a chance to cuddle with the grandkids. Auntie Rebecca took every chance she could get to snuggle with the boys and help give Nicole a break to rest a little. Of course Grandma couldn't resist snuggling too. Mark got a surprise gift from Brian and Rebecca of a NUK! You will have to ask him about it. Nathan and Jared loved having Aubrey to play with and she enjoyed them just as much! We will miss them when we are in Abu Dhabi quite a bit!!!

The Christmas Journey - part I

Another page in our lives is unfolding and we find that Mark has been given an opportunity of a lifetime to go and work in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He will be helping them to start their training program for their new industry of nuclear power. We are very excited at the possibilities before us: from learning a new culture to all the potential travel that we can do from a much more centralized location to the various places in the world that we long to explore. He will be leaving the US on Jan. 13th and has an initial contract for 2 years.
In preparation for leaving the country, we decided to travel around to see everyone. We started in Detroit to see Micheal, Dana and all the kids. Jack and Charlie are growing sooo fast and really, really cute!
After visiting with them for a day, we continued up to our house where we had a quiet Christmas all by ourselves. We really enjoyed the few days of quiet and each others company that we had there!
After Christmas, we headed up to and across the upper peninsula to Wisconsin and on to Minnesota to visit our great friends John and Nora. Mark and John went ice fishing while Nora and Vicki did a little lunch, visited with Mom Costello and just had great fun with each other! We were also able to catch up with Vicki's high school friend Barb and her new hubby Rick. The six of us met at a local restaurant and had a wonderful time catching up with all that has been going on in our lives and what the future might hold for us.
After visiting with our friends, we headed to meet Vicki's brother Don and his wife Tessie for breakfast. It was very nice visit.
We make a quick stop in Duluth to see Vicki's grandmother, Edna Victoria, whom shares her birthday with Vicki and whom Vicki is named after. She will be 100 years old in February 2010. It was wonderful to see her and Vicki didn't want to leave but we needed to continue our journey south to her parent's house.
Next on the stop was Vicki's parents, Don and Betty. We stayed for a couple of days and took them out shopping and to dinner. We had a very nice visit with them and got them set up on their new computer so that they can Skype with us while we are in the UAE. Believe it or not, both of them took lessons from Vicki on how to get on to Skype and make calls. They are both proficient at this time and looking forward to staying in contact with us.

Thanksgiving in MI with family

Thanksgiving this year was extra special because we had Nicole and the grandkids in MI with us. Aubrey loved the Rhino and when we took her riding, she would say "Go, Go, Go!". She got to see deer in the backyard in the evenings eating bird seed out of the feeders and to my delight on Thanksgiving morning it was snowing and I was able to show it to her. When I told her to look out the window at the snow, she literally dropped her mouth open and babbled something at me and pointed at it. I took her out the front door and let her put her fingers in snow on the wheelbarrow and listened to her squeal in delight! What a great thing childhood innocence is! The children were a wonderful addition to our normally rather quiet Thanksgiving.

More of our CO hunt trip

More pictures from our hunt in CO with Pam and Randy. What a great time and such beauty all around us. The picture of the pool of water is actually a hot spring that Mark and I made it down to from our camp the first night there. We were really glad we did as it soothed our sore muscles from the hike in.

Hunting in CO

Hunting for Elk in CO was probably one of the best vacations that we have had as we got access to so many of the things that we enjoy! Family, the outdoors, hiking, camping, hunting and each other! Pam and Randy (Mark's sister and her husband) brought their trailer in from TX and we flew in to Denver and drove down to meet them in Pagosa Springs. We spent a couple nights in base camp getting prepared and then hiked 6 miles & up 2000 feet into the mountains to where we camped and hunted. It was a spectacular place to see and walk through while we were there. It rained, sleeted and snowed on us. Of course on the way out, we had sunshine.....LOL. No Elk but a great trip which we would do again!

October and hunting in MI

October is always a great time as we go hunting in MI for whitetail deer. Mark and I love the woods in the fall and this year was no exception. We were able to spend time with our good friend Ralph whom we love dearly and spend time getting ready for our next hunt out in CO with Pam and Randy for Elk. Mark put a deer in the freezer before we left MI.

Christopher comes home too!

YEAH!!! Christopher gets to come home today! Now we will have both of the boys home together. Aubrey is so excited to have Thomas at home. We are wondering how she will do with both of them at home. Now Nicole's real work starts! Please pray that she will have the stamina to do what she will need to do for all three of her precious little ones.