congratulations Uncle John!

This past Friday, Aaron's youngest brother John, graduated basic training from the US Army. We are all so proud of him :) He's off to AIT, then has some time off to come home before airborne training. In celebration of this big day in his life, I gave all the boys a good military haircut.

We love you, and are SO proud of you Uncle John!

digging post holes

Seriously, how did New Hampshire settlers dig post holes for their livestock fence by hand without power tools? Oh, I know, they DIDN'T. They built stone walls, because building walls out of granite was easier then digging three feet into New Hampshire soil.

We're slowly plugging away at all the fence posts needed to build the paddock and fencing in the field, Generally, the auger only gets us 18 inches or so down, then the rest is hand digging, as rocks and hard packed clay bind up the auger easily.

We tried to focus on one fence post at a time, but it's easy to get overwhelmed at the total number of posts that need to go in. There is no doubt about it, this is hard work. But you know what they say, anything worth having isn't easy to come by.

my alpaca inspired truck

So, I decided I was annoyed at asking Aaron to use his truck for picking up fencing/chicken feed/alpaca related stuff. My van was up for inspection next month, and it would cost us (once again) nearly as much as it was worth to have it pass inspection. As lovely as it was to live car payment free, we decided to take the plunge and get a new (to us) truck for me. A quick "we're thinking about getting another truck" phone call to my brother resulted in an immediate trip to Maine auto to see this truck. I'm in mad truck love :)

lots o' work!

So we're busy preparing for the alpaca. . . which translates into LOTS of work. We finished the pen inside the bar, and got an excavator for the weekend, to grade the driveway around the barn (hey, a dry alpaca is a happy alpaca!) I am amazed at how much work Aaron and I are able to do together, when we're working with two boys tugging at our pants, asking us for things. ( not to mention chickens getting in the way!) I once saw a statistic about farmers having a lower divorce rate then non farmer couples. I'm sure it's because farmers have to learn how to work together :)