All good things... must come to an end...

Well, I had a telephone job interview on last Monday for a traveling consultant position in Yonkers, NY.  And I got the call later that day that let me know I had gotten the job.  I will start on next Monday.  So my full-time farming stint has come to an end, at least for the next 6 months.  The job is a 6 month contract, and I will be flying to NYC on Monday mornings and flying back on Thursday evenings.  It's exciting, scary, bittersweet.  Not having a "real" job was really driving me insane.  But to go from one extreme to the other is no doubt going to be difficult.  Being away from the family and animals for those 4 days every week will make me very sad.  Plus, Jason will have the added responsibility of taking care of Ezra in the mornings and in the evenings on those 4 days - which of course makes me feel guilty.  But it's only for 6 months.  It was this or nothing, and nothing was just not cutting it any longer.

Looking back on the things I've done over the last few months of joblessness, there's a couple that I'm proud of and many more that I'm not.  
Proud of:  painted the barn, painted the chicken coop, sawed down a bunch of trees, donated bone marrow, learned how to hatch chickens and successfully hatched out at least a couple dozen.
Not proud of: didn't ever cut Peetie's toenails, drank way more than I should have, gained weight, watched the first 3 seasons of Dawson's Creek on Netflix, didn't ever get to where I made dinner every night or even most nights.

Frankly, I sucked at being a stay-at-home mom slash full-time farmer.  I'm just a lot better at going to a job and getting paid for using my brain.  Ezra is better off at daycare during the week, and my few accomplishments out at the farm do not come close to justifying not having a job.  But I gave it a go.  And it was a nice spring/summer.  I hope that when I become worn down at work, I can look back at this experience and know wholeheartedly that the grass is not greener in the unemployment line.

Here's a few pics from the last week or so out at the farm.

Barn painting completed!

MooMan and Stevie got into the paint before I could get the lid back on...

Yum, paint...

I let Mama Llama out of the fence to chow down on some "other side of the fence" grass - Brutus was jealous.

Took the 7 newly hatched chicks out to the farm to the upstairs coop to room with Cindy and Brenda

The "downstairs" chickens followed me up to the "upstairs" coop.  I just love our beautiful blue maran rooster!  Hopefully, he won't get all mean like our last rooster did.

The downstairs flock enjoying some morning grass

I love our little olive egger rooster.  Too bad he won't be laying any olive eggs.  He is the one chick that hatched out of 6 eggs I ordered off Ebay from Maryland, I believe.

The big laying ladies

Our beautiful white wyandotte hen.  She is just gorgeous!

Zelda made the move out to the farm.  I hatched 10 guineas in the garage back at the house, and she got into the brooder and took 6 of the guineas.  So she got moved out to the farm.  I deeply regret it now and will bring her back home if she shows back up.  She was there yesterday morning, but this morning I called for her and she wasn't there.

There's Zelda on the right behind the chicken run.

My beautiful kitty

Ezra picking up rocks.  There's no shortage of rocks out there for him...