A new home! We moved into our new home on New Year ’s Day! (Of course, it was snowing like crazy!) We are so thankful for good friends who helped us move. It’s an old cattle farm in a valley called “Shipman’s Hollow” with a good mix of pasture, hay, and timber. The land had been unfarmed for about 12 years, so there is much work to be done. This is the view from our upper field down onto our barn and house.

Isaiah Joseph Anderson ~ March 26, 2010 ~ 6lb 11 oz
We thank the Lord for our baby boy, Isaiah Joseph! Isaiah was born on March 26, 2010 at 10:11 pm. He weighed 6lb 11oz and was19.5” long and is a blonde like his mommy. He started rolling over in August at 4.5 months, cut his first tooth in October at 7 months, and started sitting up in November at 8 months. He is growing so fast, although is a bit little for his age. We call him “peanut”!

James turned 5 just before Isaiah was born. He started first grade this fall and is already writing in cursive! He is learning to read and doing such a great job! He enjoys working with Dad around the farm. It is his job to collect the eggs and check on the goats each day. He is quite the little farmer.

Laura turned 3 in January. It is hard to believe that she will be turning 4 next month. She has grown so much this year and has become quite the little lady. She enjoys playing with her baby dolls and carrying around the cats. June marked the three-year anniversary of Laura's shunt surgery. She has done remarkably well. We continue to pray for continued health for her and that the shunt continues to do its job!

Justin’s Dad In July we got the phone call that you always dread getting. Justin’s dad, Wayne, had a cardiac arrest and was in intensive care 8 hours away. Justin and his brother ,Chris, headed to Maine and spent the next week in the hospital with Mom and Dad. It was a week of miracles to say the least! On Sunday when we got the phone call he was unresponsive and in a coma. By Wednesday he was eating ice cream. The entire event displayed God’s awesome power and how He is in control of everything and we nothing. The dog he is holding is Muffin. He was the one who alerted Mary that something was wrong.


Maple Syrup We tapped a few maple trees this past spring. It was our first harvest and a great learning experience. Unseasonably warm weather in March cut production short, so we are looking forward to what this year has to offer.


Windy Acres Farm We named our farm “Windy Acres” because there isn’t a day goes by that the wind isn’t whipping on our farm! Our lack of farm knowledge prompted us to begin our venture with courses at Cornell University’s local cooperative extension. Justin took classes in chicken basics, raising small ruminants, and poultry processing. We have been busy planning and planting our garden, building chicken coops, repairing the barn, digging ditches for fences, and so much more. There has been so much work to do on our little farm!
This spring we added baby chicks to our farm just after Isaiah was born. We now have 14 hens and 1 rooster. We get about 8 eggs per day or about 4 dozen eggs a week. We have been selling a few and eating the rest. We have found that we need more chickens already to support egg sales. We raised 18 meat chickens this summer and plan to raise hundreds this coming summer. We even butchered a few ourselves (and took the rest to someone else until we get the proper equipment.) They were the best tasting chickens we have ever eaten. They did not last long in our freezer and now we wish we had raised more!
In April we got 4 Nubian Goats. We each named one of them. James named his goat “Glazey” because he knew he wanted a goat that was the color of a glazed donut and that is exactly what his goat looks like! Justin named his goat Brownie, Laura’s is named Oreo, and Jaime’s goat is named Cocoa. We plan on breeding them so that we can have goat milk in the spring, If the breeding goes well, we should have eight or more new “kids” in June and plenty of goat milk! We added a Nubian Buck named Buckwheat to our farm in late November as well as a Nubian whether named Holstein (because he has the coloring of a Holstein cow.) We also got 2 kittens in the spring, Tiger and Titus. One was supposed to be a boy (Titus) and one a girl (Tiger), but they are definitely both girls!

It has been a year of tremendous blessing for us. We are so thankful for all that God has given us. Family, friends, a warm house, a good job, food in abundance, a great church family, and so much more. Most of all at Christmastime and all year through we are thankful for Jesus. We are thankful that He was born so that He could die for us. His death makes our lives worth living, for without Him there is no hope. With Him there is hope of eternal life for all that believe in Him!

Our first death on the farm. :(

One of the little chickens died. :( We had purchased 8 hens about 8 weeks after we purchased our first batch because we didn't think we had got enough the first time. These chickens (the 2nd batch) have been a pain since the get go. They run away from you every time you get near them and they are fast! We have put them in the coop many times and every time they would fly out. One time one of them stayed. She stayed in along with the "free" ornamental chick they sent us. The free one has been able to stand her ground with the older chickens, but the little one has struggled from the beginning. One day she was all bloody, but she managed to stay in there and be fine. Then we added another one of the 5 that were left outside the coop. Both little ones would fly in and out of the coop at will. We thought they were fine, but the day before yesterday I saw the newest little one in there and her comb was all bloody. I said to James that we should take her out and put her with her old friends, but we decided to wait until daddy got home. We told him about the blood, but we didn't end up taking her out of the coop. I thought if she wanted to get out she would, but maybe she was injured enough that she couldn't fly out. Last night when they went out to shut the coop up for the night, they found her out in the chicken yard dead. :( I was so sad. I feel like it is my fault! Stinkin chickens. I am beginning not to really like them. They are fun to watch at times, but the pecking order thing just drives me crazy and makes me sad.