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Merry Christmas

First of all let us wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!!!  This week and month has been a roller coaster in many ways.  Spent most of last weekend working with headquarters to get the kids here for their school leave for the holidays. We finally got them here last Sunday.  Was a very busy week at work, just so much going on in country along with the normal business of the holidays and VIP Visitors.  We had the Army Chief of Staff and Sergeant Major of the Army visit this past week,  It is really nice having the kids back for the holidays this year.  We are really looking forward to being able to celebrate Christmas once we get to Mn, it has been so long since we have had a big Christmas.  Here is our version of the family Christmas picture, yes, everyone is still in PJs!!



We had an offer on the house in Colorado a couple weeks ago, after some going back and forth we came to an agreement, not for as much as we would have liked but it was something we could live with, then this week the buyer backed out.  Used the loan stipulation to back out without having to give up their earnest money.  In effect it took the house off the marker for a couple weeks and now getting it put back on in the middle of the holidays which is not the best time.  At the end of the day we will probably lose 3 weeks of it being on the market.  Of course we woke up to that news on the 23rd right before Christmas!  We were really hoping to have that house sold by the end of January.  Does not look very likely at this point!  That said, we are very firm believers in everything happens for a reason, we just need to wait and see what the reason was!!

Terri has applied for an accounting job less then 10 miles from the farm, she maybe a little over qualified for it but with the locality it may work if she can get it.  If she does she may have to go back to Mn in the February time frame, which is earlier then we would really like but you kind of have to go with the job! Would help us get more firmly established for retirement, so we would go for it as long as they did not get crazy with too low of an offer.   Next week we will be one year away from leaving Jordan, and basically 14 months from terminal leave, that is when time will start to really fly.  If Terri goes back in February she has decided that while as a whole she is leaving the farming portion to me, she would not mind chickens.

That means when I do go home in May for my leave I will have to work on getting the chicken coop into shape.  Long term I want the mobile chicken coop but for now I guess I can work on just getting that one in shape.  I am going to have to get the nesting boxes and roosts properly set up, the way it is set up now just has just the nesting boxes so the chickens are likely to roost in them which means chicken poop on the eggs unless I set up the roosts!  The run will have to be completely cleaned up as well in addition to a lot of the fencing will have to be replaced.

During that trip I will also have to check up on the trees planted last spring, the winter so far has been pretty cold with -40 wind chills so I am hoping I do not have alot of winter kill.  If I do will have to get some trees replaced.  I already am going to have to replace a couple of spalta cherry trees that did not take last year, looks like the grafting may not have taken, they had dog wood growing from the base below the graft but nothing from the tree itself.

In addition in order to be able to get my farm number I need to have crops in the ground, so I will have to get the ground tilled up and at least alfalfa planted, which I wanted to do anyway as that will get my pastures started, the alfalfa will get my protein count up for the foraging for the pigs, as well as the goats.  It may also let me get a little hay put away for early spring 2018 when I pick up the pigs and goats.  If time allows I may also get some sun flowers planted with the intention of being able to harvest some for seed for the following year and some for winter snacks for the chickens in order to lower winter feed bills for them that first year.

As it gets closer it is time to start getting more serious about the preparation for the farm and retirement.  So much we want to do but nothing we can do until we get there.  These next year will go both so fast and so slow!  If Terri does go back in the Feb/March time frame it will make that last year here just drag on forever!!

Well that is all for now, hopefully will get more writing done this next year!  We are planning a trip next week to Jerusalem so hopefully will be writing about that next week!



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