Good friends and good neighbors

There seems to be a lot of country know how in these parts, most our neighbors have been living the country life style for years.  I believe we stick out terribly as the "don't know hows".  Good thing they all are mostly retired and very generous with their knowledge, experience and produce.  

This basket was left on our door step this morning.  The kids took to it like a plate of cookies eating a nice dent into the fresh green beans.

Another neighbor handed over a bag of green peppers, cucumbers and zuchinnis while another walked me around our new home and told me what was a weed and what wasn't (I really don't know how).  She also urged me to prune the over grown fruit trees, pick off all the beetles from the grapes by hand and possibly transplant a peach tree.  This was all finished with a reminder not to get overwhelmed and realize we'll never be "done".

Paul was visited today by a "new friend" who offered to walk us through our first hay cutting.  We may need to find some more "friends" to help us bale it.

Another surprise this morning was our first FedEx package, the remote driver drove a big white van just like ours and handed over this gift from a friend across the country.

This book has been in my amazon basket for weeks along with all sorts of other farm help books that I never got around to ordering.  We are facing a huge learning curve.  I spent hours last night reading about chickens and browsing online hatcheries just like I use to browse fabric and shoes.  The Encyclopedia of Country Living is going to be a great resource and has already been passed around today from kids to me to Paul.  This information in this book is as informative as it is overwhelming. 

Time for us to clean the chicken coop and decide if we want to order a box of chicks to raise or trust Craigslist or an auction for pullets.......maybe I should call a good neighbor for advice.