It’s been a long time since we posted, simply because this Fall has been pretty overwhelmingly busy!  To give you an idea of some of the things going on these past couple months at the Flying T… Fall was spectacular this year, and though we got a light dusting, we didn’t have a repeat of the Halloween snowstorm of 2011.  Here’s a pic of the Flying T in late fall from the air. The beginning of Fall also brought some new additions to the Flying T.  One is “Rocky,” our new black

It’s been a while since we last posted – the summer has been busier than we expected both on the farm and at the jobs that are making this farm possible right now!  So, it was quite the blessing that we were able to get away for 5 days to explore a bit more of God’s creation at Acadia National Park in Maine. NPS Photo Acadia National Park covers about 47,000 acres of coastal Maine.  Largely contained on Mount Desert Island, the park has a vast assortment of forests, rocky cli

When we bought the Flying T, we knew that one of our two pastures was “rough.” OK, it’s really rough.  Half-forested, largely with poisonous [to livestock] pin cherry trees.  Not much growing in it but rocks and  goldenrod.  Fence falling down.  Steep slopes on a good portion of it.  Rutted with holes to the point that it was unsafe to let the horses loose.  Rough. The book answer for a pasture that had been let go for that long would be to call in the bulldozer, then trucklo

Summer is arriving at the Flying T.  Here are some recent pics that tell a story about what that means on the farm. It’s been really rainy lately, but today we have a good bit of sun… just in time for our son’s baseball game! The ducklings are now a month old.  Just before the three week point, one of the other ducks (Mocha) adopted them as her own. Unfortunately, this meant that she stepped off her own nest a week early, so we lost a clutch of 20. However, she has been a gre

Spring is in the air here at the Flying T. Our resident Boer Goats, Jessie and Gracie, are off at another farm for a month or so in the hopes that they make very close friends with the buck there.  That would bring us kids in September.  In their place, we welcomed two more 4-month-old full-blood Boer does, Ruby and Samy (Samantha). The Muscovy ducks started laying a few weeks ago, but weren’t sitting, so we ended up collecting a lot of them.  They’re not bad eating and very

Some people leap into homeschooling.  We were pulled into it.  We resisted homeschooling strongly when our oldest started Kindergarten, praying that God would show us how He was going to make another option possible.  We weren’t capable or willing, we didn’t have the time and energy, and frankly, we were scared that we’d ruin our kids and rob them of the benefits of traditional schooling.  At several points, we thought we had found that other option, but slowly we saw each po

With the unseasonably warm days we had in the beginning of November, we put some of our other work (including some of the kids’ studies) aside and got to work improving our rear pasture. The rear pasture is about 1.25 acres and “rough” to say the least.  Based on the size of the poisonous pin cherries throughout the pasture, we figure the pasture has been let go for a good 5-10 years.  We’d previously cleared about a quarter to third of it, and then broadcast spread winter ry

The snow hit hard on Oct 29th.  We measured over 18″ of the white stuff. From the balcony "Yeah, it's snow. Now get down here and feed me!" Winterberries Mocha checking out the snow. OK, this was staged. We should get a couple more later on today. Snow curling off the barn's roof Jasper running in the pasture. Kids making snowmen Walking on the trail from the back pasture. The last of the fall colors? Red maple and Red oak leaves in the snow One of the kids' snowmen and the b

Pics taken by our daughters of our first snow of the year: Zip in his blanket. Jasper loves the cold. Zip (foreground) and Jasper. Hugs and Kisses Jessie thought the snow tasted great. View out the back balcony. #newhampshire #Horses #newengland #photography #HorsesinSnow #Snow #smallfarm

Just a bit south, the trees aren’t nearly as far along.  Some pics from this weekend: One of the few trees that was well along in Autumn glory! In somewhat of a last minute whim, we decided to go for a trail ride down the road a bit at Bear Brook State Park, the largest State Park in New Hampshire.  The trailering went very smoothly, with Jasper loading up without any fuss whatsoever.  If you’ve read some of our posts on trailering (here, here, and here), you know that’s an a

Not too much writing… just some photos of the Suncook River this afternoon. #river #canoe #photography #autumn #fallfoliage #photos

I’m still working on the back story, but in the meantime, I figured I’d post some pics of our farm animals. Zip (l), our Quarterhorse, and Jasper (r), our Haflinger cross, started this whole adventure. Next came the chickens.  As of today, we have 6 Rhode Island Reds and 5 Araucanas (including the rooster), and 15 Barred Rock chicks hatched on Sept 6th.  Our other rooster was donated to a neighbor who had lost his to a fox. The chickens free-range all over the farm, keeping t