What a week it has been!  We have had a thunderstorm and some other showers. The pony was doing great but now he seems to have lapsed again.  We are on our way to Coastal this afternoon to purchase him some front boots to wear out in pasture.  We live in a pretty dry climate, so when the rain dries up, and the short lived green grass season has passed, we are left with very hard, clay soil to walk on.  Chewy came from a much wetter climate and this hard ground is very difficult for him to navigate with already tender feet.

Then, because I seem to like to make my life harder, I brought home a dog to foster from the local shelter. Her and our old guy Teddy don't particularly see eye to eye about the dog bowls/feeding time, so I am not sure how long we will have CeCe with us.  When I take in a foster, it is always with an open mind. Even if I can give them a respite from the shelter life from time to time, something to give them a little hope or a break to look forward to, I will continue to do so. This dog is a 13 year old collie shepherd mix.  She is lovely.  She is not food aggressive at all!  It is our old man Teddy who is showing guarding behaviors.  Otherwise, they walk along outside just fine. Interesting dynamics.  

Can we teach an old dog new tricks?  Is it possible to integrate a senior dog into an already senior pack?  Babie and Cupcake, our two older female dogs, are fine with CeCe, and her with them.  I just have to keep close tabs on Teddy around the food bowl zones, not to mention that Megan's cat goes into hiding in our master bathroom closet by day, and only comes out at night.  I need to keep in mind that I do not want our current pets to feel displaced or stressed. 

Other happenings are that Travis has started selling his lettuce mixes and after tonight, the first batch is all gone!  He has signed us up for the local Farmers Market which is set to start the first Saturday in June.  I honestly think he is doing well by delivering, but perhaps he doesn't want to accommodate delivering forever. 

I am so happy for him because he has worked hard and even I (who have been married to this man for 19 years) am impressed by his crops and salad products.   Now that his first trial run in growing produce for more than just our own family has been a success, I am sure he will delve into making his business more productive, and bigger.  I may never see him in the house again, haha!

We also have ordered a metal carport to use for our hay storage. We were considering building a hay shed but getting the wood and materials has proven to be very challenging during quarantine, what with waiting in lines at Home Depot for hours, and building from scratch being very time consuming...I worry it is too much for Travis to take on, on top of his I.T. job, gardening, family, etc.

So it was decided to order a metal carport. We can close in the sides as we go along, instead of building all at once. It will be just a tab bit bigger than what we are currently using, which is perfect for the amount of hay we need to feed the animals we have. 

Oh!  We also were finally looking at, and pricing, wood flooring to replace this old horrible, blue carpet that resides on our floors. (They keep me humble every day.) I am grateful, always, don't get me wrong, I will just be so pleased to not have this carpet anymore. I am content with looking for now.  It gives me promise for the months to come. In the meantime, we have some white paint and I am going to paint the picket fence out front.  That will create a little more pizzazz around here!

As far as the kids go, Trevor has been applying for jobs each day and it has been nice having him around with his own car because he helps complete errands for us. Blake has been working part-time in an orchard close by each morning.  Blake started working at this farm three years ago, and we have been having Trevor drive his brother and pick him up, but they already share a room, and an x-box, so don't particularly want to share a job, too. I don't blame them for that.  They have always gotten along very well and I don't want anything to come between them to mess that up. Trevor is just going to have to keep job searching. Trevor is not as outgoing as Blake, so this will be a harder journey to embark on for him, but I love that they are each navigating their own journeys, at their own pace, in their own way.  Megan is still quite restless to see her friends again but is continuing to keep busy enough with home school lessons, chores, and helping with the animals. We got her signed up for Mosier Community school in the fall, so we are hopeful that life will slowly start to resume again, as far as opening things back up after quarantine goes.  In most stories, I would need to explain what I mean by that in better detail, but with our current world events, I feel you all get the drift of what, "slowly opening things back up" means.

There are a million more things I can share, and I feel I have not gone into great detail on everything, but I will be back soon to update.  Until then, stay well and continue to take care of each other. Thanks for sharing in our animal rescue stories, and our life on a small budding farm in Oregon, while raising a family. We hope everyone gets an opportunity in life to be as blessed as we are.

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Much Love From,
Amy Darr
3 Corners Farm
Mosier, Or. U.S.A.