Then & Now #2
February 2020, 2021, 2022
This post is part of a monthly series, Then & Now, that uses photos to show the development and changes taking place on the farm.
February 2020
February is when the daffodils are likely to spring up.
A lot of what was to become Magpie Hollow was a real trash heap. Though as highlighted in the previous Then & Now, there were some treasures to be had among the junk, like this ladder.
I met the home inspector about a week before closing to go over the main house, which was in pretty good shape (it was immaculate compared with this single-wide we nicknamed the “meth trailer”).
After the inspector left I set out to walk the property boundaries, which are about 80% in the woods. The back line of our property cuts a straight transect over the topography. I plunged through the woods, climbing over rocks and downed trees and avoiding thorns, and down into a ravine where I discovered this…we have a spring! How awesome is that!!?!?
Until the well was drilled for the main house, this spring was the farm’s water source. Clearly the spring box, pump, and piping had fallen into disrepair. But I was super excited about this discovery. Someday we’d get it all fixed up and flowing again, perhaps for providing water to the animals.
February 2021
Guinea tractor. There was a huge pile of old logs in our backyard where they had cleared trees to build the main house. We cut and split the wood and used it for heating over winter 2020/2021. I put the dog kennel on the spot where the log pile was and put the guineas in there to till and fertilize the ground. This is where our kitchen garden will go.
The livestock guardian donkeys were fully fuzzed out in their winter coats.
More gems from the junk pile - I found and restored some cast iron cookware to add to our collection.
This little chicken house was just about destroyed. But I brought it back from the dead, including putting a new roof on it, and it became our rabbit condominium.
I built a bat house (“batbitat”) using reclaimed materials and hung it from an electric pole near the house. Hopefully bats will come and eat bugs out of the air during the warm and sticky summer evenings, and we can sit on the porch and watch them swoop and dive.
Being thrifty, salvaging and repurposing things, finding treasures in junk piles - this is how we were raised and it’s how we’re doing things at Magpie Hollow. Out of necessity, and also because to be wasteful is just unconscionable.
February 2022
February started off fantastic with a eweling born on the 1st. It was a sunny afternoon when I looked out in the pasture and there she was. The best kind of surprise.
We named her Vidalia (her brother, born last year, Rachael named Onion).
New pasture fencing completed, I let the young billy goats out of the barn to mob around.
February can be a little depressing thanks to cold gloomy weather. Beauty and color can break through sometimes too, though. It’s like spring calling ahead to say it’s on its way.
