The Accidental Boilermaker

I went outside to check on the chickens and look for eggs when I found Spots, one the baby goats, had escaped from her pen.  She didn't seem to be wandering off too far, but I decided to call the landlords just in case.  Apparently this is not the first time Spots has escaped. I think she wanted to eat my jeans.  I am going to start calling her Houdini since she is so good at escaping.

Nate won first place today for a poster he presented at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine research day conference.  I kinda won 1st place too because I'm second author : ) He got a medal too!

Our landlord tilled up our garden yesterday afternoon.  In a few days, he will do another pass through to break up all the sod and then we can start planting!  We are super anxious about our seedlings, but a few have started to grow, so hopefully the others will catch on. The garden ended up being a little bigger than we expected, but as Nate put it, we can always plant extra sweet corn or green beans.   Vivian, Bea, and Wilma decided to come over and check out the garden.   Looking for any worms poking out of the dirt.

Sometimes I just like to take pictures of the chickens. We had gone to check the mail one evening and when we got back we found Bea exploring the porch. Vivian, Dolly, and Martha Martha Wilma and Big Red  The chickens usually make a run for the cow pasture first thing in the morning.

I have been thinking about the Boston Marathon a lot ever since Monday afternoon.  I'm not sure why. Maybe because running is so dear to me and many of my family members.  Or perhaps I am just really tired of senseless acts of violence. I read in an article (where I can't remember now) that marathons are one of the few sports where you won't hear any booing.  People line the race course to cheer on individuals they have never met before.  I remember the excitement of watching  my dad run his first marathon and I remember the sense of accomplishment I felt when I finished my first 26.2 miles.  So what hurts me is that the Boston Marathon runners didn't get that happy ending.  What was supposed to be the culmination of months of hard work, ended not in tears of joy and happiness, but in tears of pain and sorrow.  Even more, my heart is broken for the families of the three individuals who were killed and for all the injured runn...

Back in January I signed up for the Roanoke 100 miles (or more) in 100 days - Jan. 7th to April 15th.  All miles had to be human powered, but the event isn't a competition, just a fun way to help people stay active during the winter. I pledged to run 400 miles in 100 days.  So I had to run at least 28 miles per week to stay on top of my goal.  Logging 28 miles in any given week isn't really that hard for me, the challenge was running 28 miles consistently every week.  No slacking off, no excuses for bad weather because then I had to make up those miles the following week - that was hard.  And I'm proud to say I met my goal - 409 miles in 100 days! Some fun statistics: Total time? 63:54:03 hours Average pace? 9:19 mins/mile (not including 23 miles ran in Florida) How many marathons? 15.6 Distance to? Centerville, IN (just inside the state line) Roundtrip? West Lafayette, IN to Hudsonville, MI and back (with miles to spare) Best run? Pr...

Gardening is supposed to be a good way to save money on fresh produce during the summer, but buying all those seedlings can get expensive.  So this year, Nate and I decided to order seeds online and grow our own seedlings.  Exciting and stressful.  But this link I found on pinterest describes how to raise your seedlings using milk jugs as little mini greenhouses.  We started our bell peppers and tomatoes yesterday.  They enjoyed some rain overnight and are getting good sun today.  Grow little seeds, grow!

Dust bathing is how the chickens keep clean.  They roll and scratch around and then stand up and shake all the dirt out of their feathers.  This little corner next to the stone steps is one of their favorite places to hide. Big Red Wilma

I haven't run Chicago's Shamrock Shuffle, an 8K that kicks off racing season, in years. But Katherine and my dad still run every year. How cute do they look in their matching shirts? Great job guys!!

More snow!  On the weather radar, you could just watch the rain turn to snow as it moved over the mountains.  We got about 6 inches total yesterday and only in a couple hours because the snowflakes were huge. I had fallen asleep on the futon and didn't realize it was snowing until Nate texted me.  I looked out the window to see about an inch of snow already, so I decided I should probably check on the chickens.  Now the chickens do not like snow and I figured they would be safely inside in the coop, but only one smart little chicken was inside - Vivian.  And since Vivian seems to be at the bottom of the pecking order, I rewarded her with some bread and feed and went in search of the other chickens in the barn.  Well I couldn't find them, so I waited till Nate got home and we went on a little chicken hunt. We eventually found them hiding under a shed in one of the goat pens and it was obvious they were not going to leave on there own, so Nate and I had t...

My Mimi asked if I would crochet her some butterfly magnets so... ta-da!  Butterfly magnets.  Here's the link to the pattern I used.  They are very easy and very quick to make.  My favorite part was mix and matching yarn for two-tone butterflies.  The heart  magnet I crocheted for my grandpa because I didn't want him to feel left out.

There are a lot of baby cows on the farm right now.  One little cow is being bottle fed in the barn because its mamma hasn't really taken to it.  She is so cute and super soft.  Her name is Blizzard because she was born during one of our springtime snow storms.  You tend to see these three guys together and this afternoon, they just happened to be in the backyard.