Set something free, and it just might come back to you

Over the past month, a lot of progress has been made on the house.  The septic tank has been installed.  We have made it to the sheet rock process.  It also got painted green today!

We've also been working endlessly on a new chicken coop.  Hopefully we will have it done in the next couple of weeks.

A few weeks ago, we were sad to discover that Norman the tortoise had gotten out of his garden enclosure.  After searching for him throughout the big fenced-in area and outside the perimeter, we assumed he was long gone.  But alas, he returned today and I find it nothing short of a miracle.

Here's some pics from the past few weeks:

Mama Llama and Dolly

The quad of goats

Mama Llama

Siding for the house was delivered

Major progress - we got a fridge out at the farm shortly after the electricity was established.  It is stocked with beer and milk :)

Ezra and the llamas

Ezra pushing the wagon and toolbox

Working on the coop

Jason hard at work

This is sure to win us the parents of the year award

Ezra and his daddy pulling wagons

Ezra on the Gator with Big Beyonce stealing the spotlight

He's becoming quite the farmhand

Coop progress

I used my lack of painting skills to paint the goats

And the llamas

Coop is coming along

Ezra's excuse for being whiny - he's two...  I wish I had an excuse :)

I put hooks on all the watering stands to hang the brushes we use for cleaning the chicken waterers

Ezra thought the brushes looked better on the ground...

Big Blue and a lady friend - new house in the background

Fred lookin fine

Siding got put on the house

Darla and Fred

Coop continues to come along

Stevie B wanted to check out the progress

Ezra enjoyed a rainy day at the farm

Cousin Eli came to visit

Bran and Ash came too

Ezra and Eli had fun petting Stevie B

Goats and a house

Checking out the gate

Ezra sporting some dirt and a fly farm hat

We did some burning - long overdue

Scott tried out the goat milking stand

All the animals check out the fire

Sheetrock got delivered

Look at that gang o' chickens

The house is green!!!

Yes, it's freakin awesome

Got the tub/showers installed

And last, but certainly not least, Norman showed up today by the Gator!!

We are thrilled to have him back.  I'm going to pick up some fluorescent fingernail polish tomorrow to paint his shell so we can find him more easily if he decides to wander again.

Framing and roof complete, plumbing and wiring begins

A lot of progress has been made over the past month with the house.  The framing is complete, the shingles are on the roof, and almost all of the outside doors and windows are installed.  The electrician who also serves as the plumber is currently working on the outlets for the electricity and the pipes for the plumbing.

The decisions we've had to make thus far include windows (color, placement, grid vs no grid), doors (we went with white fiberglass to match the look we're going for), and - most recently - where the electrical outlets, lights, fans, and switches will go.  We just chose the tub/shower combos for the study and upstairs bathrooms and are still deciding between white and biscuit color...

Outside walls are up on the first floor.

Kitchen nook windows

Great room windows and french doors

Windows in the master bedroom

The first beams of the roof went up

More progress on the roof beams was made that day.

Here it is in the daytime.

A cuter view :)

We rented a ditch witch to bury some PVC pipe that we have running from the upstairs rain barrels down to the troughs.

Jason - ditch witch master

Ezra's drinking on the job

Ezra stands in our new garage

Storm's rolling in

I took my hand at the ditch witch and tried to dig out a run for the new chicken coop

Ezra got a little dirty...

Lots of ditch witching progress, and you can see the new house way back there.

A view of the new coop and the new house

Ezra watches Jason connect PVC pipe

Then he gets a tractor ride

I took 11 Llamas on the Loose original chicks out to the farm - moved them from our garage into the upstairs coop

Wood going on the roof of the new house

Another view

Mama Llama

Almost done with the roof

View of our awesome gambrel roof garage

Got all the wood on!

We took a couple of our Llamas on the Loose original chicks to my parents' lakehouse at Lake Walter F George so my brother could take them to his neighbor who has started raising chickens in Americus.  They enjoyed being in the dog pen and pigging out on luscious grass all weekend.

Lacey Lou checks out the house with me when we got back from the lakehouse.  In front and a little to the right of her is where the fireplace will go.

Lacey Lou looks out through the future back doors

The house got wrapped

I decided to paint the upstairs coop the color that we are going to paint the house so we can envision it.  I got 3 different samples at Home Depot that you can see above.  I ended up going with the one on the left, but it turned out a little too light.

Yep, a little too light.

Darla and Fred, our silver spangled spitzhauben chickens, decided they wanted to peck around by the new house.

Dolly eats hay off "Ezra's" gator.  You can see in the background that the tar paper is on the roof, ready for shingles.

I accidentally left the chicken coops open one night, so I drove out there in a panic at 6am the next morning, and saw a beautiful sunrise and a new roof on the house.

Here's the gable roofs over the garage windows.  Oh yeah, also discovered the windows had been installed that day!

It was a blue moon that night, and you could still see it as the sun was about to come up.  You can also see the new windows and can almost see the newly shingled roof.

Here's our new front door area!

Now, the electrician/plumber is installing receptacles and light switch hookups for the electricity.