A New Leaf

 Those of you that know me, know I am always in the middle of a project or two.  Or six.... But after a lot of thought I decided it was time "Prairie Barbie" became real.  I have launched my new website and I am pretty excited about it!  PLEASE check out www.prairiebarbie.com !!

My hope is that the new site can be a hub of sorts for us like-minded country girls to find and share what inspires us.  I am NOT an interior designer or an expert on anything what-so-ever.  But I believe we don't have to be experts to do inspiring things and chase our dreams. 

 

 

It's my wish to include content and ideas from others that have dreamy things to share.  I will visit some beautiful homes and share them with you.  I will try and share yummy things, especially if they are locally grown, organic or homemade yummy things.  I will share with you the things that tickle my fancy, because it might just tickle yours  too!   Please don't be afraid to toss ideas at me.  If something touches your heart and puts a spark in your eye, I'd love to hear about it.  If you are a farmgirl that writes and want to share something on the Prairie Barbie site, let me know!  Let's make something beautiful!

Bye for now,

PB

Good Enough Is Perfect

I'm not a perfectionist.... well, maybe I am sometimes.  But, like many of you I have dreams and visions of the way things should be.  Here on the farm I have wanted things to be a certain way.  I do not like clutter and junk laying around.  I wanted all my barns and sheds to be clean and bedded deep with fluffy, gold straw.  The garden was supposed to be abundant and weed free and the yard ought to look freshly mowed.  The animals are supposed to always behave themselves.... My little farm is supposed to be perfect.  Ha!  I bet your laughing at me right now!  That's ok because I am laughing at myself.

We've been on the farm for only six months.  I dove right in to many projects.  We raised thirty five baby chicks in the garage if the town house before we were able to move out here. We invested in two wonderful, Livestock Guardian dogs and went to work on their obedience training. I bought a small herd of alpacas and quickly learned all I could about raising happy, healthy camelids.  Then came the ten bottle calves.  Twice a day, every day, for sixty days we were tackled by ten hungry babies. I brought home ten lambs to help with our weed problem and provide us with another source of grass fed, all natural meat.  The weaner pigs arrived in June.  An acre of garden was planted including several raised beds that are scattered around the yard.  Irrigation hoses were laid out. By the end of June it was set up for perfection....

The first week of July brought the biggest, nastiest hail storm I had ever seen.  (I wrote about it here.) The garden had just enough time to get a good start and then it was annihilated.  It looked like there was no way we'd see and produce from this years efforts. The roof of almost every building was damaged. We were lucky though, the animals were all fine no one was hurt.

Soon after the storm we discovered our water system couldn't support the garden that had survived.  We had planted too big for our britches.  We saved what we could and watched the rest wither on the vine or get overtaken by weeds.

One of the "LGD's" had taken a liking to killing chickens instead of guarding them.  We lost about eight before we solved that issue.  We were sure she was going to have to find another living arrangement.

The lambs absolutely refused to stay anywhere we wanted them to stay!  For a while I had a daily round up using the four-wheeler.  Then I put them in the "riding arena" that happened to be full of grass and forage and they actually didn't escape from it. Except one.... We had a lamb just up an vanish.  I like to say it was abducted by aliens.  It was there one day and then "poof", gone.  No sign of a struggle or a coyote feast.  I actually think it must've been a cougar that stopped by for a sack lunch.

The pigs weren't much trouble except for when they figured out how to push their shed door open.  Thankfully they like their home and didn't run too far.  It's just that they like to pick nasty, windy days or the day I'm on vacation for their little excursions.

The tractor broke down and my mechanic was out bringing in the wheat harvest for month before he went on vacation for a month.  Needless to say, the sheds didn't get cleaned out all summer.  The poo piled up until Hired Man Jim bought himself a little tractor and  tested it out on my barn.  We're still waiting on the parts to come in....

Somehow I haven't found the time or energy to get the shop area cleaned out and free of junk.  I have seen worse, but there's definitely a few trips to the scrap yard that need to be made and some clearing out and organizing to be done....

In all of this I have learned a valuable lesson. Joel Salatin has a saying that I just love! "Good enough is perfect!"   If it is working, if there is a profit, if things are trucking along ok, it's perfect.  For the most part, things are working. The kids and the critters are all thriving....

 

 I have so very much to be thankful for!  I did get an amazing harvest of tomatoes after they regrew.  The alpacas did provide an abundance of fleece that is becoming yarn that is so beautiful it has inspired me to learn to loom knit and people actually want to buy it!  The lambs fleece happens to be just the thing to blend with the alpaca to make even more amazing yarn. 

 

 

 

 The chickens are laying wonderful, fresh, organic eggs.  The calves are all healthy and looking fat and sassy.  The hogs grew like the weeds and are ready to harvest a month ahead of schedule.  The dogs now do a great job of holding off the coyotes and protecting things, most of the time.... I was blessed with a yard full of flowers and beauty all summer.  So even though this year hasn't been just like I had imagined it.  It always feels good to come home.... because it is perfect.

 

Bye for now,
B

Two Whole Years!

My goodness! I can't believe it's been two years since we descended on this little town.  We moved to Geraldine the night before Halloween exactly two years ago.  My rugrats were so little then....

 

 

My big boy was in Kindergarten.  He's the handsome one in the yellow shirt.  This was his first school concert, just a few days after we moved here.

 

 

Tonight we made the rounds trick-or-treating through Geraldine.  Just like we have for two previous Halloweens.  (You can recap a little about our first Halloween in Geraldine by going here.) This is not one of those places that frowns on trick-or-treaters! No way!  Folks here love to see the kiddos all dressed up and running amok all over town.  Hired Man Jim was over at the V.F.W. hall serving hot cocoa and handing out treats like they have done for more years than he could remember for certain.  We stopped in to Rusty's Bar and Café to chat with our friends and show off our costumes, then we hit the streets.

 

 

 We were lucky this year, it wasn't snowing!  Around here we choose our costumes by making sure we are able to fit winter coats, and snow boots under them.  I spent quite a few Halloween nights trudging through snow when I was growing up over on the other side of the mountains....

 

There was a little magic in the air tonight.  The good Lord gave us an amazing sunset.  The sky looked as though it were on fire with it's gold, orange and purple lighting up the sky.  Then a flock of eight whooping cranes swooped over head in formation.  I had never seen more than one or two of the cranes in one place before!  It was a very special sight.  Someone shoulda told them they were going the wrong way though!  They were on a path toward the northwest....

 

The boys had the time of there lives and momma enjoyed it too.  Then we came home to our warm house, had a treat or two and then got them tucked into their beds.  Now I'm off to bed as well.... tomorrow is another day in paradise,

 

Bye for now,

B

 

 

Hunter's Hideout Update

Remember the little project Prairie Granny, Hired Man Jim and I have been working on?  We have been turning the old grain crib into a cozy bunkhouse for visitors, guests or hunters to have a place to stay.  Geraldine is so limited in places for anyone from out of town to stay and I have always enjoyed having guests.  I think it is a very fun addition to the farm.... Remember what we started with?



The living area before.

The "bedroom" before.

 Now it is furnished with comfy, cozy refurbished, repurposed and hand made items.  I want it to feel like a cabin in the woods.....even though we're on the prairie.

I hung the curtains on a tree branch.  I might need to find one that is a little more straight though....

 Hired Man Jim and Prairie Granny custom built the bunk beds so they are "adult sized".

 

Staying in the bunkhouse is meant to feel like "Glamping" more than staying at a motel....

 

 

 

The only things in this room I had to buy were the really cute antler lamp, the burlap coffee sack and the duck on the shelf.  Special thanks to Prairie Momma Trish for donating the awesome couch! It is perfect! Now I think I need to have my girls all out here for a slumber party....

Bye for now,
B

Autumn in Geraldine

 

I love, love, love this time of year! I always feel that I have the most energy in the fall.  Many of us are inspired by the dawn of Spring.  It encourages us to throw open our windows and get into freshening everything up.  For me that feeling always hits in the fall.  I get the itch to cook yummy things, spruce up tired rooms in my home and decorate with the beautiful things the good Lord gives us at harvest time.

 

The slant of light is always different in the fall.  Sunlight seems richer and the shadows are deeper....

 

 

 

A few leftovers are allowed to stay in the garden beds.  Just because they are too beautiful to toss to the piggies....

 

The dirt roads are perfect now for meditative walks....

 

 

Geraldine is brimming with apples in October.  It seems almost every yard has a tree and the streets are littered with them.  Hired man Jim gathers them for my piggies and for my table.

 

 

The boys adore being able to romp outside without being subdued by the heat of summer. Their momma does too....

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting  my little piece of heaven....

 

 

 

Bye for now,

B

This Is Not An Interior Design Blog, But Here's My Living Room

I never really thought I'd blog about my house.  Not in the "house tour" kind of way.  So I didn't prepare for it with lots of before pictures.  So this is pretty much the only one I have of the entry/ living area before.... You can see "The Tenant" was in his place above the stairwell and that the entry wall was olive green.  The main living room wall was also that color and had a mountain man wall paper border. I'm sorry I didn't get a photo of that.....

 

I had the walls painted Behr Wheat Bread.  I wanted light, but not white.  The old barn door behind the stairwell was found down by the corrals.  Once again I dragged in an old piece of history and gave it a scrubbing.  As far as farmhouses go, this is a pretty new one.  It was built in the early 1990's.  So I feel that giving the old pieces a purpose also gives my home a sense of longevity.  This farm has been here a long, long time even if the house didn't show it. 

Here's a chuckle for ya.  I'm raising Holstein calves that will someday be grass fed beef for my family and maybe yours too.  I have been pampering them along since I brought all ten of them home as teeny babies.  Prairie Momma Trish (from the Cowgirls post) has helped me with them quite a bit and knows them well.  When Trish stopped over the other day, she looked down at my brand new cow hide rug and exclaimed, "Oh no!! What happened?!"  I explained I had just purchased the rug at Sam's Club and everyone was fine.... but we sure laughed about that.

The front entry makes me smile now.  Some Behr Hawaiian Cinder is in the wall and I love the little bench.  The perfect place to yank your boots off after doing chores.

 
My world is one with rugrats, toys everywhere and sippy cups on the floor.... so I just left those where they lay.  Some reality never hurts.  This isn't an interior design blog ya know.  It's a "life on the prairie blog".

The look I was going for in here was western, but not so western that it looked like a rodeo was happening in my living room.  I love cozy, I love rustic and I love simple.  So this is what I ended up with. There's another post about my decorating style if you go here.

I had fun putting this autumn tray together.  The pine cones, pumpkin and butternut squash are from my yard.  The other things are from the grocery store.  Cheap and easy, gotta love it....

Thanks for checking out my living room! It really has been fun to write these posts and hear what ya'll think of my farmhouse.

Bye for now,
B

Dining Room Exposed

 It's been really fun for me to go back and look at the way my house has changed over the past six months.  I have had a request or two in the past to show more of what my home is like and I like how this little tour had come about.  So today I'll show you a dining room before and after....

 

This room had a dark, rust color on the walls prior to this photo being taken.  The "befores" were almost forgotten!  But you can see the not so lovely light fixture that came down about five minutes after I took the photo.  The barn wood wainscoting was done by the previous owners and it's gorgeous.  But the rust paint color seemed make it blend into the walls.  The color I chose to use in the dining room and kitchen is Behr White Truffle.  I usually don't gravitate towards white.  Like ever.  But this color has a touch of  "greige" and makes the wainscoting and knotted pine ceiling pop.

 

The only things in this room I had to purchase were the light fixture and the Farming Traditions artwork.  I saved money on the fixture by buying one from the "commercial lighting" section at Home Depot.  It saved me about a hundred dollars!  The color and style worked great too! The table was handed down to me by my step-mom.  Her Dad made it by hand for her in 1975 and she gave it to me 12 years ago. One of the chairs came with the table and the Windsor was a Christmas gift from my mom.  A can a black spray paint made them "match".

The little, antique wooden high chair was a gift from one of my mom's "Ya-Ya sisters".  Her husband had refurbished it and it is the perfect thing for the corner of the room.  The art on the wall is a Paul Cameron Smith print my mom gave me the Christmas of 1998.  It's hung in every home I've had since then....

 

 

 

These old sheep shears were laying in the dirt down by the barn.  I loved them and immediately gave them a scrub and a place in the wall.  The stamp says "Burgon and Ball" and "made in England".  I don't know how old they are, but I'm thinking they're pretty dang old and that works for me!

 

I really love the vaulted, pine ceiling in here.  The dining room really had a lot going for it and it was really fun to add my touches to it.

  Hope you are enjoying the tour of my little farmhouse....  We're headed out to start the day.

 

Bye for now,

B