Our farming milestone

We got the key, the farm is now ours. Daniel and I have been in a heavenly state of bliss all day!!
Today isn't actually move in day, since Daniels whole family comes down tomorrow and we'll be moving everything then. Moving is the easy part. Getting our farm ready and set up for all our birds etc is the hard part!

Daniels parents are coming down for the week, which is so amazing! Mike will be able to help build things- since we need to be ready right away for our turkeys that are coming soon, have somewhere to put our chicken flock that we currently have at johns, etc. perhaps purchasing a donkey or two, since we decided they would be our best option for instant protection for the chickens from the coyotes and other predators. And Mel will help us settle into the house and make sure it's clean ;)

Daniel and I did another walk about on the property to assess our plans and things we'll want to prioritise while his parents are here to help. Sssoooo many things to do. We're really getting excited. At first both of us felt pretty overwhelmed. I especially, just looking at all the buildings and fencing, what paddocks are where...at first it was difficult to picture how we'd make it work and what we'd all use different parts for... Like, we could put the chickens here, but then what about the ducks? And one day we might want goats in here (the barn)? Is this a good spot to potentially milk goats? Oh, but those fences are in the way, do we move all the fencing? And so on :)

It's a thrilling feeling once it's starts to all come together. The more time we spend around the buildings and talking about our plans, assessing layouts etc, the more we see how everything will actually integrate with our ideas, future plans. We now plan to do a "Plein air" type of a chicken coop in a large building that used to be a hay storage building, we think. The more we learn the more Daniel and I believe chickens are very hardy and actually benefit from fresh air. Although our chickens will truly free range during the day, we'll be locking them up at night, mostly to protect them from coyotes. The coop will also most importantly offer the birds protection from wind/exposure in winter time. So that's project number one. Get chicken coop and duck coop ready!

Here we go!!