Fair-View Farm Blog

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

A kennel expansion has been happening the past couple weeks: On Dec 9th the fencing was installed. Thankfully, the ground wasn't frozen very far down, so they could dig the post holes and the trench for the fence. Silas looking like a county worker- holding the shovel up...  But he was working too.  Good timing Midas! I wasn't trying to get her with her tongue out- she just stuck it out at the right (or wrong) time, depending on your perspective.  The completed fence- the gates were hung later. Since then Matt's been busy getting other things ready. Building dog houses  (and painting them) Installing stakes and chains.. Modifying dog boxes for the truck,  All this work for: 2 new huskies!! Meet Rocky and Drago!  Rocky is a friendly dog, who loves to come say "Hi!"  Drago is a bit more shy and didn't like the camera- I only took a couple pictures and then left h...

Happy First Day of Winter!  We are enjoying the mild weather after our cold snap over the weekend.  Exciting things are happening here at the farm!  Check back soon for the news:  But in the meantime you will have to wait patiently like this husky. Grace finished her first semester at the local tech school this past weekend! She did all online classes and for the most part enjoyed it. Now she has a nice long break before the second semester starts.  A few other pictures from today: Nate cut us a Christmas tree the other day. but it was too tall- so we cut some off the bottom and Grace fed the leftovers to the goats... they love it! an overflowing mouth of green goodness. I took this picture with the intent of getting the layers of snow on the bale.   A while back my great uncle told me about "leading lines" in photos- here in this picture the bales make good leading lines. Only one small problem... they don't...

Winter seems to be here to stay so now I can post these pictures I took at the end of November: I love this one!  Our Advent wreath: with homemade beeswax candles. We (the 3 of us girls) hadn't made candles before, so this was a bit of an experiment... for the first few days they burned pretty good, but lately they aren't burning quite as well. We're thinking that we should have used bigger wick for this size of jar.   Dad's new wheels! The truck he bought earlier this year, came with a snowplow that we didn't need, so a couple weeks ago he sold both truck and plow. After quite a bit of looking we finally found this one! Looks sharp doesn't it! :) He'll be farming in style now!  Laura took Ringo for a ride this morning. She got some over-sized stirrups this week so she can ride in her winter boots. Proud of the patience this girl has when working with Ringo- (a horse who wasn't broke when she started working with him.)...

It was time to move Nate's beef herd from the summer pasture to land closer to home for feed and water.  Rather than make multiple trips with a truck and trailer- we do a cattle drive! We've been doing this for several years now, and find that it works quite well, but it takes a number of able- bodied people to make it work. Thankfully, that's not too hard to find around here. :) Rounding them up and getting them gathered by the gate: Nate shows up, and they start bawling- so much noise! Then Mom took several of us, to drop off at various driveways and roads/trails to make sure the cows didn't head down them.  Dad had the tractor with a bale of hay to lead them down the road, (or to try to stay a head of them some of the time at least) After the herd passes the driveway that someone has been stationed at, they follow them from behind and make sure they stay on the road, and that no one gets left behind. If the cows are behaving, they cat...

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours! Psalms 100 -A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. (Psalm 100 ESV)

It's that week of the year... The Friday where truck after truck with ATV's go by our house, when you drive down the road you see the neighbor's blaze orange hanging on the line to air out. When your brothers go digging through storage containers to find their warmest winter clothing, and their blaze orange makes an appearance. Saturday AM comes- no snooze button is hit this morning- excitement is in the air! The brothers make themselves breakfast [this happens once a year 😏 ].  Just before the first rays of light they are off. It's the Silas' first year to hunt so he heads one direction with Nate, while the Matt heads another direction.  It's a cold windy morning, but they brave the weather to go sit and wait for some deer to come past... not much deer action though and Saturday passes. They hunted some on Sunday and Monday, but still no shots fired. Tuesday- Matt heads to the ground blind they moved the day before and takes a heater and school work-...

You know it's been a really wet summer when you see this: 

What a lovely day it is today. Half of the crew is at a grazing conference today, and the other half of us are here at home eating cookies- Well, you know, we are eating cookies in between doing things on the list ;)  A brief update on our October. We've been thankful for the mild weather, and currently, almost all of our animals are still on grass.- so nice to still be able to be grazing this time of year! Still lots of projects to get done, but most of the garden is harvested and preserved- Thankful that we are able to grow so much of our food. A few pictures of other projects in progress: The MX has an engine again, and is undergoing a repainting job! Going to look sharp when they get done. Another painting project- Silas likes spray paint: Other pictures from the past few days: And a family picture: we finally took an updated one since one was requested for an upcoming gig

There was a lovely sunrise this morning!     Shout for joy to God, all the earth;  sing the glory of his name;  give to him glorious praise! Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. All the earth worships you  and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name.” Selah (Psalm 66:1-4 ESV)

September is here and half over! Where oh where did the summer go? Here what we've been up to so far this month. Grace started her first semester of online college classes and they are going well for her so far. Handy for her to have an older sister just down the hall to go ask "How do I do this?" :) The said older sister doesn't mind at all! The youngest 3 have started school as well, and are putting in full days with school and farm chores. I (Emily) have started my fall lesson schedule. It's good to have the first couple weeks behind and be settling in the the schedule. Lots of travel time, but thankful for all the students the Lord is allowing me to work with this year. :) Nate's latest project is helping one of his bosses, Jim, change out engines in a Case IH MX170 tractor. Since Jim doesn't have a indoor shop, they brought the tractor to our place to work on. Here are a couple pictures from the process.  The tractor- without hood, front...