and the winners are......

Thank you to all my followers! Welcome to all the new followers! I made it! I've got the minimum requirement met now to polish my writing! Yeah right, I am who I am take it or leave it! And now for the best part! The winners, in case you were wondering, I took all the commenters names and placed them in a bowl and had my son draw them out. Real technical huh? Now on to the winners! Duh da da da daaaaaa.......

Congratulations to: doglady, Sandy and thatlittlehouse!! Please email me at fromthecountryfarm@gmail.com with you address and it'll be sent out shortly.

just a few more hours to enter!!

It's been a week since I asked for your help (and hello where did the time go?!) and for you to enter the contest. I've gotten a few more "official (trackable) followers" but I still need 25!! I'm counting on you guys! And don't forget to leave a comment on the other post to enter the contest, just a few more hours and I'll be announcing the winners!

It was a close race, but the winner is.....

I'm so pleased that you had fun with this and so many of you participated, thank you! I'm pleased to announce that the winner, and rightly so if you know us is......

RAMSEY!

Again, thanks for all the suggestions and votes!

It's time to vote!

Thank you to everybody who entered, there were some very creative names! I've narrowed it to my two favorites and now it's up to you! You may enter more than once! The two names I've selected are....

Ramsey and Spartacus!

I've got my favorite, what's yours?

rename that alpaca!

The name he came with is Monday Morning, he got that name because he was born on a Monday morning. Most people I know are not fans of Monday mornings because it's back to the grind, so I thought about opening it up to you guys! Name that alpaca! To enter, just leave a comment stating what you think he should be called, I'll narrow it down to the top two and you can vote on those two choices. The one with the most votes wins! Alright folks let 'em fly!

and the winner is.........

.......drum roll please............doglady!! Congratulations to you! I'll ship it out to the next time I go into town. It is also my hope that you'll continue to pass the book along in the same manner, though it is not a requirement. Thank you to all who entered, and please accept my apologies for the delay in choosing a winning post, I've quite literally been up to my elbows in tomatoes, pears and apples.

My sister's neighbor gave her about 300 pounds of tomatoes and she had more than she could deal with, so she passed them on to me. For which I am VERY thankful, I've made a triple batch of spaghetti sauce which is now canned and on shelves in my basement and I'm working on simmering down 5 batches of pizza sauce that will eventually be canned and sitting alongside the spaghetti sauce and I'm only half done! The others are in varying stages of ripeness. Then on Saturday I went to pick pears at my Great Aunt and Uncles house and came home with the bed of my truck FULL (I've got pictures to prove it!) quite literally of apples and pears. Faith made a batch of apple muffins, Andrew is working on a pie, and I'm working on pear and apple butters. The critters here on the farm are enjoying the bountiful harvest as well. Even the turkeys and broilers are feasting on apples! (Anything to slow down their grain consumption! 100 pounds in 5 days! Yikes!)

So I chose doglady because having never met me I think she nailed it, one anonymous post was from my mom and seeing as she gave birth to me and all I didn't think it was fair to choose her... :-) and Lisa (MA) was a close second, but we've emailed back and forth a lot.... but it pleases me to know that I've brightened your heart! So I'll keep posting, venting, ranting, and taking great pleasure in the little things, and hope y'all will keep reading. It's been a great first year!

what? a year? already?!

How did that happen?! I've been blogging for a year today! So in honor of that milestone and in the tradition of Harvest Kitchen Sisters I'm celebrating that with a give away! I won this book from the sisters and want to continue passing it along, so here's the deal...
To enter, leave me a comment, let me know what you think of the blog and how well do you know me. My profile quotes a lyric from a favorite song, saying that "You don't have to guess what I'm against if you know what I stand for." So what do I stand for? Against? How well have I articulated my life with out spelling out every detail? I'll pick the most accurate or my favorite comment. I'll announce the winner Sunday night.

There, that's taken care of, now I want to thank you. I'm honored that you read my blog, I really wasn't sure anybody would when I started, but did it anyway, thinking it would be a nice way to keep track of things that happen here or what have you. Those of you who comment regularly seem more like friends, it amazes me to think you can 'get' someone you've never met. To those of you that follow me, thank you. I'm flattered that some of you enjoy reading about my crazy life to tune in regularly. To Lisa, thank you for encouraging me to start this crazy, liberating, venting, honest blog. To Ron, thank you for completing me. And to Faith and Andrew, thank you for choosing me and being such amazing children, and especially for the joy you bring to my life daily.

lookee here at what I won!

I'm so psyched, one of the blogs I read frequently is Harvest Kitchen Sisters and I highly recommend you go check it out, it's great blog and done differently than other blogs I've read. It's written by two sisters, one that lives in the country on a farm and one in the city and they both write about similar experiences but from a different prospective, it's neat. Well, they had a 100th post contest the other day and I entered and won! WOW, that never happens! When I got the mail today it had arrived, I was on my way into town with much to do today, but I desperately wanted to stop and start reading. I flipped through the book and the first section is about turkeys, which just happened to be one of the things I was doing in town today, picking up our day old turkey poults. After dinner tonight and before the barn chores were started I knew I had to check it out. The kids were outside riding their bikes and I headed to the hammock, book in hand. I'd devoured the first chapter and by the time I was done with it Andrew had crawled into the hammock with me and I read it aloud to him. I think he enjoyed it as much as I did.

The authors description of her first turkeys was written well, stating that they were similar to the chicks but seemingly on acid. Our turkeys seem very awkward and lack coordination. Lack fine motor skills, lack something, that's for sure. They are however fun to watch. I understand there is an interesting part about pigs as well which I'm looking forward to reading. Thank you Harvest Kitchen Sisters for the contest and the book!