Well, the big storm the other night claimed a number of my electronic devices.

• 32” LCD TV
• Tivo DVR
• DVD Player
• Digital to Analog Converter Box
• Cordless Phone System
• Wireless Router
• Wireless Internet Antenna

Unfortunately, I think I have a $1000 deductible on my home owners policy, so that won’t be much help. All of the stuff listed above is likely worth less than a thousand dollars. It’s going to be a while before the TV/DVR get replaced, but I hope to get the internet connection back up and running soon.

Don’t even ask me how much time I burned up thinking about this…a total waste of time considering it will be YEARS before we can afford to remodel our kitchen. But, as I am prone to do, I couldn’t help but day dream about possible layouts…here’s one.

Here’s what I hope the basic wall layout will look like…this simply has one wall removed from what is there now. You can see it sketched on the floor…currently it separates the dining area from a small main floor laundry. We’re crammed into the dining area, so I’d like to remove the wall so we can get a bigger table in there, and relocate the laundry elsewhere in the house. All plumbing and window locations stay the same in this design to control costs. You will notice that in the corner of the dining room I’ve added two tall skinny windows…I have no idea how cost prohibitive that might be, but I thought it looked cool so I put them in.

Here’s the layout after I dropped in some cabinets…moved the refrigerator over a smidg, and added a little bit of an island. The dining area I spoke of is to the left. On the other side of the room, past the refrigerator, is our living room. Oh, and the stove/sink wall is south facing, if that helps.

Some close up views of the various sections.

View of the island…ignore the wierd ‘door’ looking thing on the upper cabinet. From the left I have a 30” base, 15”, 15”, and a 24” base. The 24” base would likely be a 3 drawer unit, while the 30” would be a door/drawer unit, probably with rollout shelves in it. The two 15” would be for trash/recycling.

This is the back of the island. I was thinking about using a couple of wall cabinets as 12” deep bookshelves for the back of the island. Here I’ve got a 24” and a 12”.

So, there it is…I think I’ll post these over at Ikeafans.com too and see if I can get a little bit of feedback on this particular design. One final image facing southeast with shadows turned on to show the effect of those corner windows.

I was hoping to share a link this morning to a segment on Fox 17 News that featured the Critter Barn in Zeeland. Emma has been volunteering there for about 4 years, and she was filmed the other day as part of the piece. Unfortunately, the video of her was not used in this mornings segment. Apologies to those who got up at 5am hoping to catch a glimpse of her. They did have two different segments with Mary, the director, live in the studio with some of the animals, so that was pretty cool.

Speaking of Critters, we now have two Pygmy goats residing in our humble barn, along with our two pigs. We’re on our way to creating out own little critter paradise out here in Bentheim. No pictures of the little guys yet, but I did get some videos. I posted two of them on my YouTube Channel. For those that are interested, you can see all of the videos that I’ve posted at…

http://www.youtube.com/urgonnah8this

You can also subscribe to the channel so that you’re notified of updates and that sort of thing.

In the photo above, Grace is showing off one of our chickens…this one happens to be an Isa Brown. All of the chickens are doing great. We haven’t lost a single one so far (Though I don’t want to jinx it!) I STILL haven’t built their nesting boxes, but it is near the top of my to-do list. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with their outside run. I started putting up some fencing, but at the same time I’ve been letting them run wild around the yard. The free range thing has been working pretty well, so now I’m second guessing the need for fencing. One concern that I have is that in the last few days the chickens have become pretty bold…they’re getting closer and closer to the house. The other day I couldn’t get in the garage as the ladies barred my way. Of course, as the birds get closer to the house, so does their poop. As summer draws near, my kids are wearing shoes less and less, so the idea of chicken poop in the grass and on their feet is not so appealing, so I think some degree of fencing may still be necessary, just not a completely contained area.

Will is six weeks old already, and continues to do very well. He’s eating good, and gaining weight. He’s still up a couple of times at night, but we’re working on that now. Now that we’re past his official due date, it’s time for this little guy to start sleeping through the night.

Here are a couple of videos that I posted recently over on YouTube. Enjoy.

The first one is Gracie riding a two wheeler. She picked up really fast, without a whole lot of encouragement from us. She just decided that she wanted to figure it out, and off she went.

This second video shows the enormous hole that the kids dug under our pine tree. It’s mostly filled in now, for safety reasons, and to help the grand parents sleep better at night.

Is there anything else out at the Boss farm that you’d like to see? Let me know in the comments. I think that they’re working again.

A brief update on the state of affairs out on the farm. The family is doing well. Of course things are hectic with the new little one around, but I think everyone is adjusting pretty well. Will is eating and sleeping pretty much as expected. He made it back to his birth weight before his two week checkup, making him the first of our kids to achieve that milestone. He actually weighed in at 8lbs 4oz after a couple of weeks, so we were pleased with that.

The rest of the kids are doing great adjusting to their new little brother. Anna and Jack have probably been the most work. Anna has begun to develop a little bit of an attitude, which we hadn’t seen before, and Jack is probably the biggest threat to Will’s safety at this point. He’s just a rough little guy. He is happiest if he is ramming around outdoors.

Today is my first day back at work after my two week break for Will’s birth. I really appreciate working for a company that offers that sort of benefit. It was a HUGE blessing to be home for that first couple of weeks. We basically gave the kids a break from their schooling while I was home…we all need time to adjust…and homeschooling gives us that flexibility.

The pigs and the chickens are doing good. The pigs appear to be gaining weight, which is basically their job, so they are right on track. The chickens are growing like crazy, and I need to get going building their nesting boxes. I’ll be sure to snap pictures or video of anything interesting.

Here’s Anna and Will getting acquainted.

Here’s Will getting a bath after peeing all over his head.