How do we like Iowa?

Things are going really well here in Iowa. The snow is finally starting to melt and I’m amazed by how much of a thrill I get when I see green grass popping up here and there. We’ve planned out our orchard and garden and have pretty much everything ordered in anticipation of spring. When the satellite company stops zinging us in a couple of weeks for having maxed out our uploads (accidently left a bittorent running overnight) then I'll scan and post a copy of my beautiful garden plan.

Right now, we are trying to figure out design plans for our portable chicken coop. (We have 5 laying chickens ordered-- 2 auraucanas, 2 buff orpingtons and 1 bantam). We also have to figure out what to do with the rest of our land unless we want to have almost 10 acres to mow (or 10 acres of head-high weeds). Cows? Sheep? Or should we hire a local farmer to till and plant hay or alfalfa and then hire them to harvest it later? Or we could buy a tractor and do it ourselves, but time and money are issues with that plan. So much information to gather before we can make a good decision. And Jonathan and I are rather risk adverse so we will probably gather way too much info and then hem and haw for a while trying to make our decisions. We know that in the long run we want more farm animals, but how much can we handle the first year? And where do we buy and sell animals? We need to get in with the local farmers.

We have also figured out that we ultimately want an LGD (Livestock Guard Dog). They are really cool, but super expensive so we’ll have to wait on that one. In the meantime, we’ve promised the kids we’ll get a little inside lap dog (Jonathan prefers to think of it as an “alarm dog” for alerting us to when strangers are pulling up). I’m looking at the Havanese breed and the girls think they are adorable so they are super excited. They are also hypoallergenic which is a must for Isabelle. The girls also somehow extracted a promise from us that when the neighbor’s cat has kittens that they can have one. My one condition was that it has to live in the barn as our “mouser.” At this point they’ll agree to anything as long as they get to have one of their very own. As I’m typing this, I glanced out the window to my left and I saw a tractor driving down the road. It just makes me laugh when I see tractors as often as cars on the back roads. So far this seems to be the perfect location for us. Close to the city with all of its amenities, only a 20-30 minute commute for Jonathan from work, and yet we are out in the country surrounded by beautiful farms. I can think of only 2 downsides so far… a lot more driving to get to the Church/stores/friend’s houses, and more extreme weather. We are hoping to tap into the high winds eventually with a windmill and then we’ll feel better about the weather. And all of the driving has been fairly relaxing since I can pretty much count on at least 20-30 minutes no matter where I’m going, and the roads are fairly straight and empty. The people here in Iowa are amazingly friendly and welcoming. And it seems like everyone goes to Church. My favorite grocery store is even closed on Sundays. :) That never would have happened in Connecticut.

We've also enjoyed our property. With the snow drifting up by the barn and the natural slope away from the barn, it made a great sledding hill. When it was iced up, the kids could slide almost all of the way to the pond. Jonathan had fun ice skating on our pond when it wasn't too covered in snow. We've started doing "Pioneer night" once a week and I've had a lot of fun learning how to cook over a wood stove. I even made chicken and dumplings one night. And every morning I wake up to the sun coming over the trees and shining across our pond and field. Breathtaking.