We often say, “Oh to be a teenager again!” We make that statement freely, but I don’t think many would really care to go there again. Some say “If I could go back and know what I do now… I’d sure make a bunch of changes.” I suppose most would…but would you be willing to give up all you have now todo that? Remember…… every choice you’ve made throughout the years, no matter how bad…… has led you to the place you occupy today. Your mate, your family, your career, your entire life, would not even be remotely the same if you went back and changed even the smallest occurrence that happened back then. Every miserable thing that ever happened to you, in some way, made an impact or deciding factor in everything you’ve done or the direction your life has taken through the years. I know, I had a pretty lousy time of it for a lot of torturous years, but it all led me to Vicki, the Cluckin’ “A” Critter Farm, here in beautiful New York and the life I now love. With that in mind.....I wouldn't change one lousy thing I've endured over the last 36 years.
Today……… we build a door in the front end of the loft…… frame out the bunny’s quarters in the rear of the barn and make up a lumber list and such for the future work we plan to do and also give Ed, from Middle Field Lumber, a chance to get our lumber cut for us. Here is a picture of the front door with battens installed, the rear door area where the bunny hut will be built, the side pasture and a picture of Gracie’s baby bunnies and one of Fuzzy’s baby bunnies too.
Potting shed and garden pond.
Front view of the barn. It's gonna look neat & Clean.
The front door with battens came out nice.
Here is the world's first view of Fuzzy's babies.
Fuzzy's three little fluff balls.
Here is Gracie's two little cutties.
There is one day between the litters.
The rear area of the barn. We need to install batten strips.
The rear of the barn will remain neat & clean too.
These fence posts are just sitting in holes. They need filled in.
This fence goes all the way around the field for a pasture.
This is a view of the entire pasture area where donkeys and/or sheep will graze next summer.
The Hospice House will go between the driveway and the center tree in the picture.
Another viewof the lush garden pond with waterfall. It sounds so pleasant when sitting out there in the shade in the afternoon.
The morning started as a drizzling, dreary day with a lot of cloud cover and it has been sprinkling and raining off and on ever since we returned from therapy in Guilderland. We have plenty of inside work we can complete on the front entry door with bracing and reinforcing strips, making the upstairs doors, both front & rear… studding out the rear bunny room and then framing out the feed room, where the bunnies are now, so we can do a lot of work inside, so let it rain. If the rain stops, we will manufacture and hang the rear entry door, thus closing off the entire bottom of the barn so we no longer need to worry about coyotes, weasels or foxes and such at night. 
I’ll be seeing doors in my dreams…… like Vicki didn’t think it would take so long to make doors, but she is now a believer that you can make a career making doors & doors & doors & doors…………
After we run a few small errands this morning, we will settle in on making the doors of the barn. We will hang one front rail after removing some of the 2x6’s placed to keep square as we were building the barn mainframe early on and then we'll manufacture the two doors to get the barn closed in. We are definitely looking forward to closing everything in, especially after last night when the coyotes seemed to be in the back yard, as they screamed and yapped after a kill out in the field just beyond the tree line. l'd say that would make it about 50 to 75 yards from the house. I sure hope it wasn’t one of the cute little fawns we’ve seen this summer, especially Deer-Deer’s fawn. (Deer-Deer has been coming into our yard for two years now and has been especially serious about visiting with her fawn to eat grass and visit the pear tree in the backyard) Anyway, we’ll be glad to have doors on everything so it is closed up tight at night. Everything has chicken wire around it and every place near the ground, it's doubled both inside and out, but solid doors and boards are much more secure……especially with a pack of hungry coyotes when they can see a chicken, let alone smell them. 
We got the rear door, hanging rail for the ten foot entry door, mounted across the door opening. Tomorrow we will hang the front rail and start the construction of the entry doors which will close off the bottom of the barn like it should be. Today we hung the rail, installed the two final loft windows and the office window. We placed the rail boards around the loft stairs and it looks pretty darned good. Once we finish the lower doors and move to the double, upper doors on each end and complete them, we will be ready to build in the upstairs wall that will separate the office from the hay loft. The frame work studs and door frame are already there, but we need to install the plywood and door to the office yet. We have all the 2x6’s for the feed room floor and ceiling out in the wood pile at Fort Apache. They are the rafters we reclaimed from the upstairs expansion project last year. We will have a solid plywood room with a tight door on it so no little rodents can help their selves to any of the feed stored there. We will place the refrigerator some where near this or in the feed room to keep the eggs out there so we don’t have a million eggs in our refrigerator in the house. We are now playing Mozart on a radio for the chickens in the new barn. (trying to increase their cultural menu a little to stimulate egg production by giving them a happy, safe and pleasant atmosphere. Perhaps next week we will take them to the Opera.)
Good Morning all. As you all know, we were bitten with the Anti-Virus 2008 bug which crashes your hard drive and takes possession of your files. They're still there, but you cannot access them except through "safe mode" start-up of your computer and it takes forever to get it to come up in safe mode. 
We made monumental headway today with the barn after returning from therapy and lunch at Ichiban Restaurant. We stopped off at the town hall to see if we could find out what we needed to do to obtain farm status and what was required of us to start the Hospice House as our next project after the barn. Of course, no one was in the offices except for a book keeper lady who told us to stop and see the town clerk. (Seems like the book keeper lady and town clerk lady are the only ones that come to work on Mondays) Anyway, we will stop to see Ronnie some day later on. We’ve been to her house to get dog licenses, get permits and other misc. items we’ve needed before. 
