Bought the farm....

This was a photo taken just this morning before I went to work.

Now, living in Cheddahville these past five years has certainly been entertaining, to say the very least :) I smile now-because I have survived it!

When I first saw my house, it was on the Internet. So after throwing my children in the Ford Windstar, we all saw it for the first time. I saw paradise! A new world, far from all of the over population of Southeastern Mass. A new frontier. They saw; nothing for miles and miles. What I thought of as heaven, they saw as pure h---(no malls or Chucky Cheeses). Well, to make a long story short (the best that I can anyways,)... We arrived in late June with a large U-haul and a smaller one in tow. Everything of value was in the minivan. My computers, the cats and the kids (notice the order...). Hahahaha. My now ex-husband was driving the large U-haul. his brother was driving the smaller one and I, naturally headed the expedition in the trusted Windstar.

When I arrived at the house, I dropped off the kids with my brother in law and noticed my husband was not there with all of the furniture. So I went to the closing and signed all of the paperwork and the house was mine-finally. I went back to the new house and he was still not there. It turned out that he was arrested on route and the moving truck was impounded. My first ex-husband (I have only two!) had to bail him out so we could move all of the furniture in! (He had an outstanding speeding ticket and was not allowed to drive in the state that we had moved to!).

That was not all! It just happened to be the warmest day in history in both Massachusetts and Maine! It was 98 degrees in both states (probably the only time in history that happened!). So we had the air conditioning hooked up-with the doors open to move in the furniture and three refrigerators! It was even too hot for the blackflies-which we still blissfully did not know about!

Once all was moved in, I set up my farm. We arrived on June 23rd. When we moved in someone from our old hometown of Norton, Mass-gave us some baby chicks and gave us a cute little cage for them as well. Our proud new editions to the new farm. Well, no one told us how cold it got at night-even in rural Maine and those adorable little chicks died of frost. They were our first farm casualties. Then, someone gave me a rooster and ten chickens, which eventually ended up as victims to the local predators. I did manage to have many wonderful meals of fresh eggs. Naturally, I did not eat my newest members of the family (chickens that is!)-I had to bury them out back instead-next to the frozen little chicks. It was horrifying! Our first lesson on the brutality of nature! We still kept replenishing the chickens, though eventually gave up. I still had not found out how they died, only they would be taken out of the cage at night and I would find them in my yard. Even the roosters fell victim as prey.

My neighbor loved to scare me and told me of the wild fisher cats and mountain lions out back. I was so afraid, it took awhile for me to go outside in the dark without my bat (this was before I bought my first gun at Wal-Mart). (Bats are what suburban people have beside their bed) I never knew what was lurking out back. I did find out about the local peeping Tom who was outside my window one night! The police just told me that he always does that and he is completely harmless. Could he have been the one to eat my chickens!

Then, I decided to look for larger livestock. Not something larger than me or scary like a cow! My Mainer friend is laughing as I write this. So I looked in the Maine bible- "Uncle Henry's". I learned that it is more sacred than even duct tape! I found my first sheep-Freyja! She is Icelandic, hence the name (and still alive!). We took her home in the back on my minivan (we had to take out the seats in the back and hold on tight to her-she really did not like it very much!)

When I bought her, I also bought her a sheep husband named Thor. However, Thor did not make it home since he was little and got kicked by the other sheep. So, I brought my poor lonely, and pregnant Freyja home to the farm in Cheddahville. I had divorced my carpenter husband by then and my new Sugarloaf hippie boyfriend was not that great of a carpenter. So, I decided to make her stall on my own. I had no idea what I was doing and could not figure out the skill saw and had major troubles with the old fashioned saw. So, I took the wood and made it fit (old barn boards left behind) and hammered them together dreadfully. It did last for a little while. I could not again figure out how to make a gate. I somehow managed to figure out how to put on the hinges (Don't ask) and then for the latch-I tied it skillfully with telephone cord. I thought it was very artistic looking. Freyja liked it. She was probably planning on her great escape in the Spring.

I was a good mama. I made sure she was not lonely and visited her often. I put in a small black and white TV-and watched Mr. Rodgers with her, she liked PBS, and even Oprah. Sheep are a part of a herd and she had not created hers yet-So it was up to me. In the Spring she had twins; Njord and Skaadi and the rest I will write about later.