frugal fashionable farmer: it's friday!!! and almost my bday!!

I can't believe 43 is almost here. August 12. Wow how time flies.... Almost 20 years ago in 1999, my sister was born, I started dating Christian, and life was so different. I wanted a farm, I had no health insurance, drove around a beat up 1982 Toyota Corrolla that I put through hell, and was working on a film being filmed here in Athens called "Road Trip". I hung out with friends and roomates regularly, drank Sangria, smoked cigarettes, bartended occasionally, and only had one animal. A cat named Puppy. Here I am almost 20 years later with a farm, two dogs, a cat, chickens, goats, horses, and lots and lots of wildlife here (we have had armadillos, skunks, opossums, snakes, bunnies, foxes, coyotes, and the occasional feral cat before it gets eaten by a 'yote).....

I wanna talk about dreams and plans for my next year... both are things I constantly do, and although both require being optimistic about the future, they are quite different... For me, a dream is something that surely at some point will become reality somehow, but there is just no clear path to plan for it just yet.... and of course a plan has a path, and a way, and just needs action.

My dreams for the next year are to have the goats help me with land maintenance (this awesome new Kencove fence is already working like a charm around the house!!), work with Reece so that he is more well-rounded and ready for the world, work on the landscaping of the workshop once everything goes dormant again, cleaning up the loft (I haven't even been upstairs in months since the workshop has been an actual place I can work), get some prettier fencing since the goats really put my original fence to the test (I have since gotten better at fencing), plow & till my field for flowers and greens next spring (I found a guy down the road that has offered to do this for a 6 pack!!), get a new flock of birds (I have been allowing the rest of my girls to live out their final days like they are in some sore of geriatric resort for chickens and am now down to two since Barnie's passing), continue to work on ideas that can generate income from the farm/ land, and HAVE MORE FUN!!!

In more recent news, Bonnie (my most recent rescue goat) has gotten very affectionate with me! She allows me to pet her for long periods of time, brush her, and dote on her like the others. Eddie is battling old man ailments but we have him on meds, supplements, and home-cooked food, and are taking it day by day and making sure he is never stressed. Reece had his first ever muzzle-free training session at a public park with his trainer and did really great! I have also enrolled him in some upcoming classes at a local training facility in hopes to expose him to more of the world and have him become more a part of our family. I have a nice long weekend ahead with pool-floatin', cake eatin', and hopefully a waffles date with one of my besties.

As you may or may not know, I recently started back up the 100 Happy Days photo-a-day project. I am sharing the last 13 days of posts from this go round here, and will continue to share them weekly as well.

day 1