Merry Christmas!

The new drinking fountain!

I discussed my search for an outdoor drinking fountain a few months ago here. It took a few months of following eBay to find a decent one that was cheap. TIP: If you ever want to buy lawn furniture or a drinking fountain on eBay, wait until December when most of the country is snowed in!

We gave the fountain to the kids on Christmas eve. Hubby modified an old post to attach it to, but he'll need to go to a plumbing specialty store to find the correct pipe b/c they didn't have the correct kind at Home Depot. The pipe that is currently attached is a gas pipe and is full of rust.

Excuse my daughter's closed eyes in that pic!

I'll take another picture when it's finally installed!

Can I hold your dirt?

I put an ad on Craigslist.com a while back -- advertising our hay bales for sale. A young, college-age girl called and we made arrangements for her to come over and pick up her bales. Like most customers, a 10 minute chore turned into an hour-long discussion of chickens, "Whereyafrom?" and other farm-related conversation. Turns out, she and some friends have formed (what sounded like) a hippie commune, where everyone gets to live on the acreage for free, so long as they help with the garden and their joint booth at the farmers market.

The area where these folks have their farm is near a sandy creek about 10 miles away from me. When this young girl turned and saw our garden, she freaked out. She kept asking what we amended our soil with. We explained that this was only our first year with the garden, and we didn't do a thing except till it up. She couldn't get over how dark and rich it was...and finally just asked, "Can I go over and touch your dirt? Can I hold it?"

That's the first time I've ever been complimented on my shirt dirt.

She even paid cash for one of our surplus roosters.

I like that girl.