My New Love--PLUMS!

So, my wonderful-used to be-painting professor Ms. DeLap, her husband Prof. J, and I had a wonderful visit on Wednesday. They gave me a box of plums and I've made eight loaves of wonderful Plum Quickbread--the recipe I kind of tweeked. This is what I used:

Ingredients:
1 C. Sugar
3/4 C. Packed Brown Sugar
3/4 C. Oil
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 C. All-Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 C. Buttermilk
2 C. Pitted, Chopped Plums

Topping:
1-1/2 Teaspoons Sugar
1/4 Teaspoon of Cinnamon
Pecans Chopped

Directions:
In a mixing bowl, combine sugar, brown sugar, oil, egg, and vanilla. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Alternately add parts of the flour mixture and buttermilk to the sugar mixture. Add in Plums. Pour into two greased loaf pans. Sprinkle desired amount of pecans to the top of the batter (I cover the top lightly), then sprinkle the combined sugar and cinnamon on top of the loaves and bake at 350-degrees for about an hour. Cool on wire rack.

Oh My Goodness!

Laurie of Made By SwirlyGirl's Side Lines featured one of my etsy listings on her blog today. In a post entitled Moody Monday--Time Flies: my "Turning Pages" print was one of the artworks listed. How exciting to be noticed. Let's hope for more exposure!!

Finally got my rabbits.

At Dinky's on Friday I finally got myself a couple of does. This is my new Flemish Giant doe--she's only two months old and huge already. She has a wonderful personality and I'm very pleased with her.

This girl is just a medium sized rabbit, she was very easily handled from crate to cage, but now she's as nervous as could be. I wish she had the Flemish's disposition. If I could find another girl like my Flemish I'll most likely trade this one. We'll have to see--now I'm on the lookout for a suitable buck.

A look at the livestock.

An abstracted view of Ace, but he's still a very handsome boy. He keeps me company and is a big sweetie--he just turned a year old last month, and is just starting to look like an adult dog instead of a gangly puppy. The chicks are growing up. This was taken two weeks ago, but it's proof that they are beginning to look like real chickens instead of birds with fluff falling off and bald spots...which all chicks have to go through--quite an ugly rite of passage.

Did you know that goats dance? These were our two whether goats--I ended up giving them back to the family we got them from. My husband decided they were too much work for me while I was pregnant--they were severely human dependent when they went out to pasture to graze--so as much as I hated to admit it, he was right. They were really funny though always trying to get to the tree leaves. Don't worry there are more goats in my future--I can feel it.

I am happy that my only real chores involve the chickens, the dogs, and the horses. As little as that is--it wears me out. Next year though there will be a generous increase in all livestock species I hope.

The Garden Up Close.

The garden is only still surviving thanks to my mother-in-law. She's been so good to me and I can't thank her enough--I helped plant and I've plucked some weeds, but my pregnant belly doesn't let me do much else. I can, however, take photographs of the garden. So I'm not completely useless. Lillies.

Pumpkin leaf with a silhouette.

Hairy green tomatoes.

Strawberries.

I'm really excited about what the garden is going to do for us in the coming years. We'll be sitting pretty on all that fresh fruit and veggies!

Pregnancy Makes the Time Fly By.

I swore that I wouldn't let this blog go by the wayside, but alas I did, and I apologize.

Anyway--I listed more items on etsy today--yay! Check them out here. And I'll be putting some printmaking prints on there too. Here are some of the listings:Chicken Frenzy

Not Quite the Broadside of the Barn

In the Shadow of the Silo

Pastured Geese

Elusive Window Wiper

Turning Pages

The summer has been a blur, our garden is really coming on. I'll post some photos from out in the garden patch tomorrow. My chicks are almost adult looking--now they've just got to grow, but they did make it out of their 'ugly stages' successfully. I'm also really excited that I've gained some new penpals this week! Some great girls over at MaryJanesFarm Farmgirl Connection and I are going to be writing letters back and forth and I'm really excited about it. I wrote two of them yesterday, and I've got two more to write to tonight. There's nothing better than a handwritten note in the mail. I suggest you write a note to somebody, anybody, today--it will brighten their day--I guarantee it.

Until tomorrow--have a wonderful evening!

Farm Chicks have such Great Ideas!

I was reading on facebook a new note posted by The Farm Chicks, it talked about using old pop bottles and filling them with your own drinks. Quite genius. I'd love to have a little get together and use them instead of plastic cups and pitchers. Really quite neat. You can read the post here.

I Forgot to Say I Bought Some Chicks.

About three weeks ago I bought a box of eleven Light Brahma chicks at Dinky's (our local Auction Barn). They are getting big in a hurry. They mature to about ten pound hens and almost thirteen pound roosters. Very nice birds. We had them when I was a kid.

I've also been on the look out for Flemish Giant rabbits while I've been down there, but can't seem to stay long enough to watch them sell. I hold out until about 9:30, and they are still nowhere close to being ready to sell them, so I give up and go home. Someday soon though, let's hope.
At any rate, I'm still moving forward on my dreams. This little girl in my belly is a big dream of mine and I'm really glad it's coming true. She'll have a life kids' will envy--filled with livestock, dogs, cats, and plenty of outdoors that for sure.

We're Having a GIRL!!

My wishes came true. We're having a little girl (as per the ultrasound technician's guess anyway). I'm really excited. I've been so busy just trying to keep up with this house and normal stuff (you get tired so easy, who knew), that my blogging and business endeavor's have been hurt a bit.


Just a quick thought on some plans for the nursery. We're going to be putting barnwood on one wall of the room for sure.

I want some kind of unique, industrial type, lighting--like this one from pottery barn kids, I believe. Plenty of art, old photographs, and shelves on the walls for nature finds. I want the paint on the walls to look old--so I think I'll either paint the walls a light turquoise and then put some dark turquoise in the corners and leech them out into the room to give it an aged effect, or try to mimic this:
A turquoise color with a light brown aging somehow. I think this came from Ann Wood's blog. Otherwise I just want a room that is enfused with Science, History, Agriculture, Art, Nature, and Heroes and Heroines. A kid's room where they can dream. We'll see what we end up with.

Sorry for the lack of updates--it's been busy.

I ended up with one painting in the show--there was a lot of competition this year. I'm just really happy I got something in. It was a painting of a nude seated figure with a good sense of light. I'm going down to campus tomorrow to pick it up as well as a painting I bought off of another student. She painted an amazing picture of a green glass jug with lots of blues and blue greens--I'm going to hang it in the baby's room. While I'm down there I'm going to stop at the stockyards where I used to work to visit with everybody.

The garden is doing GREAT--everything is growing! So far there are two types of tomatoes, two types of peppers, cucumbers, onions, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, strawberries, red and black raspberries, grapes, peaches, and apples. I still need to plant some pumpkin seed, green beans, peas, and carrots. I am really looking forward to all that fresh produce.

For Mother's Day my husband got his mother and me a goat each. They are both meat goat cross whethers and they are about 9 months old. The place where he got them only had them on hay and grass so they are skinny, but I'm working on that. They were bottle babies so they are very tame. This gets me started on goat practice, so maybe by next year I'll have a few dairy nannies to tell stories about.

We took my last steer to the locker last Monday. He weighed 1,420 pounds which is very good gain considering about nine months ago he only weighed 400 pounds. This steer we sold as freezer beef. The other steer (that we took in about a month ago) we kept for our own freezer. He weighed 1,290 pounds and was a very nice steer too. Brown Swiss make very good animals all around. The steers are easy to fatten, the cows are excellent mothers and milkers, and they are a very hardy and sweet dispositioned breed. They are very calm and naturally tame. I can't praise them enough. The only problem is that they are hard to find anymore. They don't milk the volume of the Holstein (although because of their hardiness they can be milked longer), and they don't have the butter fat of the Jersey (but they are a bigger animal so they have more potential for freezer meat). So now I'm Brown Swiss-less for a while. I'll probably get a couple again next summer (when the freezer starts getting low). Someday I'd like to raise a couple pasture cows in order to get the breed going down here in Greene County. Just another goal to add to the list.

I've been having morning sickness again these past few weeks (note the lack of posts), but I feel pretty good today. I figured it's because my hormones are spiking to another level--but at any rate it hasn't been much fun. Gotta just push through though--can't let it stop me--I've got too much to do.

I've promised my husband that I wouldn't bring home any chicks, ducklings, poults, or goslings until June, so I've only got a month before I get to start bringing home the re-start of our homestead flock. Also in June I get to finally have an ultrasound which will let me see what this bump growing in my belly really looks like. I'm really looking forward to it. They should be able to see whether or not it's a girl or boy too.

I've got to go let the goats graze for a bit in the pasture. I'll try to write more later.

Quick update of the past few days...

I spent all day yesterday with my mom. It was great--we went gallivanting in the rain into the valleys of Greene County which she had no idea existed, and which secretly are part of the reason I love this place so much. We stopped at Dinky's for a moment, but I saw too many things that I knew I would bid on, so we just came home. I sold a bunch of my work to her, so she's now my best customer, and life is a little better knowing some money is coming to me.

On Wednesday I went down to the University in order to get some works ready to submit to their annual juried student art show. This is the last time I'm eligible, so I'm a nervous wreck about getting in. I matted work from 12-6:30, and by the time I got home I had blisters on my feet because they were so swollen (thanks to the kid that's inside me), and I had a heck of a time getting my socks off my oversized feet. Needless to say Thursday was a resting day.

The painting professor was a life saver though, she went out of her way to help me make sure my paintings got into the show. Heck if it wasn't for her I wouldn't have even known that the show was next week. She is somebody all professors should strive to be. An amazing teacher, role model, and above all friend to all the students that are in the art program. If she only knew how much she meant to me these past few semesters.

That brings me to today--I think I'm going to venture up to the studio today and ATTEMPT to tidy it a bit in order to maybe paint with some acrylics next week. The Rosie painting is asking to be painted whether it's a girl in my belly or not. So I'll let you know how that goes. Plus, the gallery opening is on Tuesday so wish me luck on getting something into the show!

Projects to do if this kid is a GIRL...

I know it's selfish, but secretly I'm hoping this little rolling, tiny ball inside me is female. Not because I think little boys are gross and dirty--because, believe me, I DO NOT want a girlie-girl. I want a rough-and-tumble tomboy who is an all American Farm Girl like I was. No I think the reason I want a girl is mostly to decorate her room. If this kid is a boy I'm going to be clueless on how to make a cool 'boy's room'--BUT--I have tons of ideas for a really neat 'girl's room'--for instance:

I found this project on Two Brunettes' Blog:



Easy enough--just a butterfly punch and magazines to punch from and a frame to put them in when you've punched enough of them--quite a statement.

The second project is to paint yet another "Rosie the Riveter" (since I gave the first one I did to a friend) because I feel it's important to let your kid know from an early age that they can do ANYTHING they can dream of if they just push themselves--to see my monochromatic original "Rosie" painting that I did scroll down a few posts below this one.

The Orchard has been Ordered.

Last night we ordered what will be the start of our orchard.

2 Apple Trees
2 Peach Trees
2 Grape Vines
4 Blueberry Bushes
3 Raspberry Bushes
25 Strawberry Plants

In the coming years we'll add Apricots, Cherries, Plums, and Pears to the orchard too.

I'm really excited!

At Dinky's on Friday there were a lot of kid goats. Makes a girl wish she had one of her own. It's hard to take a chance on one at the auction because they rarely show them suckle a bottle, and guaranteed the one I would buy would end up not wanting to take a bottle. There were a couple that were weaning size (which actually go cheaper than the "cute" bottle babies, but are a lot less risky), but I don't want to spring one on my husband just yet. The chicks are still 1-2 bucks a piece, so I didn't buy anything but some rabbit feeders that went really cheap.

Second Trimester and a Chance to Refocus

This is a painting I did of Rosie the Riveter

I always liked the slogan "We Can Do It!"

It helps remind me that

I can make this business, and

my dreams work as long as I keep moving forward.

Next week will push me into the second trimester--I'm already a third of the way through this pregnancy! With the end of my first trimester I'm hoping there will also be an end to the fatigue, nausea, and the overall blah feeling. I've got to get refocused and start moving forward again. I've sort of slowed to a snail's pace since I've gotten pregnant, but now that I'm feeling human again I've got to speed back up.

First, is getting out of this house and gallivanting to small towns and such like I said I was going to. Second, is to get more things listed on etsy, AND get my name out there for people to see. Third, is to continue to blog on here and let all of you know what I'm up to.

Homestead Dreams...

I have wanted (for as long as I can remember) to be self-sufficient as far as food goes. I also used to want to live up in the mountains by myself and far away from everybody (I even did a report when I was in the eighth grade about Mountain Women)...I got married, so that dream is no longer a possibility, but the self-sufficiency one is still alive and strong.

My family always raised beef (I currently just took one of my steers to the locker), so I've always been partially self-sufficient. I've had chickens off and on (I'm planning on getting some more this summer when you don't have to try nearly as hard to keep them warm AND their price drops to about $.50 a piece versus the $2-3.00 they are right now. Farm fresh eggs cannot be beat. My other livestock that I'd like to get in the near future includes goats (Nubians for milk possibly bred to a Boer or other meat-type buck in order to use the offspring as freezer meat), ducks (Muscovies because they are unique and I've had them in the past and love their personality), geese (probably White Chinese, but I'm really not too picky. I raised a few last summer and really enjoyed them), and rabbits (Flemish Giants if I can find them).

Things look really attainable to me right now. I've got my orchard planned out and ready to purchase. I've also got my garden planned. I'm about 9 weeks pregnant which I think is really causing me to push myself even harder to make this homestead plan of mine work. I want a child raised on food that we've grown and that way I know exactly what is going into my kid. I want a simple life of hard work and country living. I've got the country living, and I've got the hard work, but I just need to simplify.

Being that I am working from home, the thought of growing almost all of our food on the property is a bit of a relief to my worrying about money troubles. Yes, there is input costs for gardens, and livestock, and orchards, but I think the payoffs will outweigh the costs easily. Plus, since I will be home a lot with the new baby and my business I'll be able to focus on the livestock and garden and orchard to cultivate an incredible world to raise a child in. I was lucky enough to be raised on a farm that was dream-like. We had every kind of animal imaginable and it was more than a kid could ever hope for--and I definitely want that for my kid too.

My amazing farm dog Ace (part Newfoundland part Border Collie)

My Brown Swiss Steers from back in my 4-H days.

Some of my previous chickens

One of my previous geese.

Some previous Muscovy duck hens of mine.

So you see I've had bits and pieces of my dream life, I just need to focus on bringing them all together. I've got a wonderful farm as a starting point, so I know it won't be too far of a stretch of the imagination. Anybody out there who is in the same boat as me or who has been successful at becoming a homesteader or anything even close to that I'd love to hear any advice that you may have.

I finally listed things on etsy!

I actually listed them over a week ago, but I've been under the weather, and I haven't gotten on here to tell you about it.

My etsy site can be found at gallivantinggirl.etsy.com.

Some things that I've already listed are:

So please check out my site and enjoy my artwork. I'll get more on there soon enough.

Life is Gonna Change.

It's warm out today, but I shot this a few weeks ago.

Getting ready to eat some lunch--just thought I'd take a minute to update the blog. I've got a stack of pictures to photograph and post on etsy--my first items to be for sale. I'll be sure to put them on here too.

Got some other news to tell, but I'm holding onto it for a bit longer because I don't want to jinx it. I'm so happy about it I could burst. I've got a lot to do today, but I'll write more on here later.

Bad Weather + Old House = Tears of Frustration.

This is my house as it is this moment.

The wind has been howling ALL night and day today, add to that the fact that it's been raining like crazy and we've got a mess. The south side of our house only has the original board siding on it, so water comes in and drips and soaks and ruins things that I'd rather it not. I've gotta just keep telling myself that someday it won't be like this and that someday my house will be solid and repaired and decorated. So in order to salve my frustration I've been looking at Better Homes and Gardens Website. They send design emails to my inbox and when I'm bored I always seem to go over there and drool at the wonderful design possibilities. Take this one for example:

The furniture is unique and it kind of looks rustic, but at the same time looks uppity and chic.
Or this one:

Which is actually too elegant and chic for me, but I really enjoy the chairs at the end of the bed.

Then the color scheme suggested here works well: lime green and blue--although I prefer a different shade of blue and lime green.

That's just a few of the thoughts that go through my head as I pour through the slide shows. Perhaps someday I'll be showcases my rooms to inspire you guys. Although I can guarantee that it will look nothing like the above images because all of my furnishings and decor will be coming from junk heaps, auction barns, and garage sales, but it will match my personality which is all that matters to me.

If there was a book written about me what would the back panel say?

Never has there been a girl with dreams such as hers. Julia grew up on a small farm in Central Indiana to become one of the most well known artists in the United States. Among the livestock and her family she created a life all her own which she wrote about in the numerous books she penned over her lifetime (the most well known being "The Gallivanting Girl gets Grounded: Kids in the Compost Heap and Piglets in the Bathtub"). She attributes all her success to the love and support of her dear husband whom she married at the tender age of twenty-two. If you're looking for a book of inspiration mixed with hilarious real-life events, then this book is for you.

(at least that's what I'm hoping life will dole out for me)...a girl can dream!

Logo Struggles.

Don't you hate it when you have an idea in your head and you just can't get it down on paper exactly how you'd like it to look? That's become my problem with my logo for The Gallivanting Girl. I want it to be an image of my old truck Brute with wings on him with a banner that has "The Gallivanting Girl" on it. I want it to look vintage and semi-rough. Definitely not pristine and new.This was my first quick sketch of Brute with wings. I just can't seem to get the wings to evoke the vintage, simple vibe that I want them to.
This was my first banner design that I really liked. I added the text to see how it would look. I'm definitely wanting a font that is relaxed, yet looks like it goes with the logo.This was another truck/banner combination. Then I began thinking about possibly having Brute be a profile image.This is where I'm at today. Just a fast sketch of Brute. Now I'm really liking the idea of using him from the side. Now I'll try putting wings and a banner using this image and we'll see where I end up.