moving to the country (sort of)

Sorry for the absence fine followers, what a busy few weeks it has been. We are moved and settled into our new home on the farm, enjoying the work and scenery, as well as the company of our hosts, Daniel and Emily, and our fellow intern and roommate, Alex. Our last week at home was busy with packing and spending as much time as possible with our dear friends and families. We miss them terribly already. And now, what I know you're all waiting for- pictures! Here's the (many many) highlights of our last week at home in the 540 and our first week here in the 804 (that's right, I'm speaking in area codes- sue me.)

Part 1: You say goodbye...

Penny threw us a very nice going away party before we left. Good times with friends and family all gathered together to say goodbye. We also had dinner with my family on the mountain, where Amy and I painted roses and butterflies on the wall for my sweet mother to see and think of me everyday I am away. Oh yeah and did you see? I voted.

Part 2: and I say hello.

Our first week here has been hard but a lot of fun. It helped so much having my parents, Jonathan's mom, and my sister, Amy drive down to help us move. The house we live in is a huge old farmhouse, with more rooms than I can count and oh-so-much potential. Our hosts only moved in a few weeks before we did, so there's tons of stuff that needs to be done, and we're very excited to be here to help and witness it. Our part of the house is an apartment on the side, two stories with a nice open living and dining room, a tiny tiny little kitchen, and two bedrooms (well, one real bedroom, our roommate was lucky enough to get the landing at the top of the stairs as a bedroom, which is fine, I just feel very rude walking through constantly.) The beautiful jars that Penny scored at a yard sale work great for my coffee station. We have 4 bins for the recycling, plus a bucket for things that can go in the compost piles (yay!) I found the coolest yellow and white bowl outside in the dirt, I cleaned it up and it makes a beautiful kitty water dish. My two favorite parts of the house are my art corner in the bedroom, and my "Amy wall", with my favorite yellow elephant, accompanied by a Kurt Halsey postcard with a couple that always reminded me of my sister. The wall is right in front of my side of the bed, so it's the first thing I see in the morning. I hope she knows that she means the world to me. The property has several huge barns and tons more outbuildings. The one huge barn in the middle is three stories tall! We have been working on cleaning them out in our spare time. There's also one huge barn that used to be a dairy. This week Jonathan and I have been taking care of the chickens and the rabbits for our chores. The chickens live in a chicken tractor, a moveable home with nesting boxes and roosts, where they get fresh pasture everyday. The bunnies live in rabbit tractors, big cages out in the yard where they get fresh grass and clover. They really love clover. As cute as they are I am still excited to find out how they taste (apparently rabbit meat is incredibly good for you, but I haven't ever tried it.) The kitties are making themselves at home here, Patches seems to love it outside, never wanting to come in, and Erowyn has taken on an incredible personality change, becoming strangly friendly since we arrived. In the middle of the week we drove into one of the nearest towns, Farmville, to have our first farm date together at Macados. Right outside of our door live the piggies (for now). They are quickly becoming one of my favorite animals here. This morning we came back in from doing chores to find Zaphod carrying a bird around in his mouth. He caught a bird in the closet, and he did not want to give it up. There is a very cool old shepherd's shack on the property. The windows are broken and it needs some major TLC before it will be in a liveable condition (if it will ever be), but it is still undeniably cool. It seems the most labor-intensive animals here are the sheep, but the lambs are just so adoreable that they seem worth it. There were several young lambs when we arrived here, and yesterday we had 7 more born. They are so cute, I held a little black one and thought I was going to die.

Well, I hope that satisfies your curiosity into my life on the farm so far. I promise to post regularly and share all the pictures I can with you. Our internet is a bit tricky here so I may not be on as much as I would like, but I will still be here at least weekly.

Until next time,
Angela Kelly