We are back!

Ok...ok...we know we have been completely MIA for too long. And there is much to tell.  But the short story is that we have landed back in our old home of San Miguel, CA in the Central Coast region of Cali!!  And we are finally getting all settled in.  We came back to a whirlwind of activity, some wonderful, some sad, all of which has been a lot of hard work.

We were welcomed home with arms wide open, tons of wonderful support. We put the sheep out in their old pasture, this time with the addition of little Champ and Mickey.

We said a very sad goodbye to JB the Wonderdog, whom Ric and I had for almost 16 years.  He lived a long and happy life, traveled more than many people get to (making it across the country twice) and was laid to rest with some old friend's here at the ranch.  Rest in peace, buddy.

We have been reconnecting with old friends, working hard at our jobs and, of course, keeping Fiberton Acres going.  I am quite pleased with the progress we have made in the short 3 months we have been home.

We won't continue to regale you of it all now, but know that we shared some through our podcasts (find those here on Soundcloud or on your fav podcast player!) and we have begun work on our Fiberton Acres book!  It will be a mix of stories, homesteading advice, recipes, patterns and more!

And just a reminder to follow us on social media, like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, and to check out new additions to the online store!

Thanks so much to everyone for the support!  We are so excited for the things the future brings!

- Ash and Ric

Podcast Episode 15 - Big News on the Farm!

Hey folks!  Sorry it has been so long since we have shared a podcast episode with you all!  A LOT has been happening with Fiberton Acres.  We thought what better way to let you know what is happening than to tell you in a new podcast episode!

The spoiler...we are moving!  To learn all the details, click here to listen on Soundcloud or listen on your podcast play of choice!

A few of the other things we reference in this week's podcast:

Fiberton Acres and New Products

Our Instagram (to see Ric dancing while tilling)

Our Patreon Page! (To get exclusives on our travels and more!)

Our Email List!

All the Apparatus, our intro and outro music!

Settling into our new place in OR before we leave for WV

Once set up at our new spot in Eugene, we headed to the farm store to get supplies to make our temporary space feel more like home for our 3 months of Oregon living.

We discovered the poly-wire electric fence, a small white polyester cording with metal strands running through it. We were able to run the fence using 4 T-posts and about 10 plastic fence line holders (only $2.99 each).

Little Pauly nursing.  No wonder she is growing so quick!
(Portable electric fencing in background.)

We let the sheep out in to their new pasture and watched them go crazy eating all the new grass. (Which here in Eugene there is no lack of grass and other greens to eat for the sheep.) However, they began escaping almost immediately, and Rocky was the first walking around the yard.

“Rocky! Go home.” We yelled at him (he’s not a good listener) as we walked toward him he ran back under a high spot in the fence. So we turned off the fence, lowered the high spot, turned the fence back on, and went back inside to keep setting the place up.

Good job herding Rocky back, JB. 

“BBllllaaaaaattttt.” we heard from outside and we saw Pauly walking around outside the fence and eating weeds right outside the door. We walked toward Pauly and she snuck under a different spot in the fence. This would go on the rest of the day as the sheep pointed out all the weak spots in the fence for us.

Look at that cute lil face!

After a nice day of running fence and setting up rabbit hutches, we packed it in at around 8PM and slept for about 13 hours.

The next couple of months would prove to be a similar experience to our first day. Days seem to consist of at least one animal escaping (cats bolting out of the RV, dog figuring out how to escape his first lead setup, Pauly in the driveway yelling at 4am, etc.) To be fair, the rabbits did not escape once.

However, during our first month, we experienced our first loss of an adult animal. One of the younger rabbits, little Edward, fell ill with mucoid enteritis. It is a tough disease for rabbits to recover from, and the antibiotics that you give can often be as tough on the body as the disease. After trying what we could, we decided it was time to try the antibiotics. We knew that they can wreak havoc on the intestinal system, so we gave her yogurt and enzymes to try and offset the antibiotics. Unfortunately, either the antibiotics or the illness got the better of her, and we had to say goodbye.

Edward and I in the Cali sun before the move. 

It is crazy to think that we have already spent almost 4 months here in Eugene.  We have been working, taking care of our crazy critters, and preparing for the big move in the beginning of August to our new home on the border of Ohio and WV!

More on that move soon...

-Ric and Ash

Final day on the road to Oregon

We rolled into Weed, CA around 8:00 at night and proceeded to Friendly RV Park for the night.

A man met us out front and explained that they only take cash or check. We, being good 21st century folks, had neither. I had to drive the Kia over to the Pilot gas station hit up the ATM for $30 (that the ATM charged $2 and my bank charged another $3). We paid the guy and prepared for the night. The heater in the RV kicks out a lot of heat but is also roughly as loud as a small jet aircraft at takeoff so we couldn’t use it, luckily we had about 1 million blankets to keep us warm.

In the morning, as we were doing the feedings, the couple from the camper next to us came over to say hello. They were an older couple and had both grown up on farms up in Canada. After talking to them for a while we found out he fought in WWII for the Canadian Army and was 88 years old! They like to drive all over and they visit family on their trips. We decided we want to be just like them when we’re 88.

Silly Rocky was not super thrilled to be in the small space.  

Adrian and little baby Pauly seemed just fine in their stall.

After saying our goodbyes to them we hit the road again. This time the RV was squeaking quite loudly for a few minutes causing Ashley a little bit of a panic. “Is it going to explode?” she asked over the walkie talkies we had in each car. “Maybe… but I bet not. It is cold so it should stop once it warms up.” I tried to reassure her. After about 10 minutes of RV squeaking, cats meowing, and Ashley panicking the noise quieted down as the RV motor warmed up.  

After a few uneventful hours on the road we entered into Oregon and then all the way up to Eugene! We exited the highway and navigated some back roads to avoid city driving, and made it to our new place well before nightfall (easily an hour before hehe).  It’s a nice little place with plenty of room for the animals to stretch their legs finally, including our 4 day old lamb, who had spent the majority of her little life in the back of a trailer.

The family enjoying some luscious Oregon grass and stretching their legs! 

Overall, the travel went pretty well for how quickly we had to hit the road and go.  It was a great way for us to do a trial run for the big move to WV later this summer!

-Ric

Part two of Big BIG changes for Fiberton...

A baby lamb is a tiny bundle of cute that is constantly trying to escape or run around like a crazy person leaping off everything in sight as well as trying to climb on Adrian, our ewe.

Pauly was born on Easter some time late at night. We didn't notice until around noon on Monday. We saw a fluffball running around the field when we were coming home from buying moving supplies.

Little Pauly, our Easter baby

“Uuum, what is that?” Asked Ashley. “Is that a baby?”

“No, not everything is a baby.” I said snarkily, mostly because this was the 5th “Is that a baby?” in the past 3 months.

“Then why is it running around?” she continued.

“Balls! That’s a baby!” I exclaimed while jumping out of the slowly moving car.

Normally a successful baby lamb would be just another day on the ranch, but being that we were embarking on a three-day move up to Oregon the next day, it was causing a little stress (understatement).

“Should we call Christy?” Ashley asked, only slightly panicked. Before I could even say “Yes,” she was already on the phone. Christy and Mike were there within an hour, with oats, vitamins, and inoculations in hand.

After they gave us the ok to move her we went back to packing, we were leaving in less than 24 hours after all.

So little and cute! 

Our Friendlord came over to help us finish cleaning and packing for the move so it would look good when she came over to inspect it later (she’s cool like that.)

Pulling out of that driveway was hard, not only because we had a horse trailer being pulled by 26 foot Winnebago, but because we were already missing all the amazing people that we knew there.

JB loaded in the car watching Ash in the Winnebago in front of us

Leaving the driveway of our awesome little farm in San Miguel.
We were super lucky to have such a great place, with such wonderful Friendlords and
friends in the area.  Thank you all for everything!  

Part three with the road trip will come along soon....