Why I Live Here...

A lot of people ask me what brought me to Bluffton, SC from Baltimore, MD.  Bluffton is not your fast paced city.  It is simple, relaxed and easy. Which is exactly how I wanted to live my life.  It is a town that washes away your stress with salt water when you are taking a boat cruise down the May River.  It is a town where everyone waves as you walk by.  In our case, people wave and laugh at us when we walk by because of the four golden's leading the way...

Bluffton is also the type of place you can drive your golf cart down to the river for a spontaneous Thursday evening picnic with your friends.  This picnic was at the Bluffton Oyster Factory, about a 2 minute golf cart ride from our house.  After a crazy/long  day at work Marisa, Ashley and I decided it was a MUST to unwind.  What better way than hanging out by the river!

 So, we loaded up the cheese and crackers and of course the wine and headed to one of my favorite places in this quaint town...I mean just the scenery alone could be a painted piece of artwork. 

This type of evening is something I urge people to do!  Sitting outside in a beautiful, peaceful, and soothing location can take all the stress off of your shoulders.  Having wine also helps calm you too...if you didn't know. 

Just another reason why Bluffton will always be my happy place.  During our picnic no one interrupted us or mocked us.  You can be yourself in this town.  You can sit with your two girlfriends in a "romantic" setting in the middle of a water front park and no one says a thing. How wonderful is that! No judging, no laughing, everyone just going about their evening. 

A little side note: I cannot take credit for this picnic set up at all. Marisa is such the planner of the group and she turned a simple picnic into a mouth watering vision.  If it wasn't for her planning this elegant evening I would be drinking my wine out of a red solo cup.

You will have to ask her what types of cheeses are in this spread and where she got them.  All I know is everything was delicious except the pepperoni....(repping for all the vegetarians out there).

We are lucky enough to call this place home.  

This is a town where people from around the world travel to visit, and we have it in our backyard.  Bluffton, South Carolina is painted with beautiful sunsets and the streets are decorated with oyster shells.  Even the smell of this town makes me happy!  Pluff mud soaking in and calming our minds.  Dolphins dance in the river and birds constantly sing.  Who wouldn't want to live in this town? 

I have lived in Bluffton for about 11 years now and I do not think we are going anywhere.  Bluffton is our home and I will always cherish this blessing of a town. 

Outfit:

Dress: Gigi's Boutique

Earrings: Bella & Bloom  

Life On Our Little Bluffton Farm

Rise and shine mother cluckers, welcome to the mini Bluffton farm we call home. 

This post will showcase what consumes my life....my little farm nestled in Downtown Bluffton. 

This mini farm consists of four dogs, one cat and seven chickens.  Most of the time I refer to it as a zoo instead of a farm, but I recently added a garden so I figured "farm"is a more appropriate term. 

What I love most about this farm is all of my animals get along! We are one big happy family which is something I am so grateful for.  Even the cat gets along with the chickens, which is so surprising since he usual has an attitude! As you can see, Tony just watches over our flock and enjoys the view from above the chicken coop. 

Now onto the chickens...I have seven chickens (three roosters and four hens).  My hens are very sweet and love getting held- that is, when I finally catch them to actually hold them.  The three roosters on the other hand are little rascals.   

Hey Hey (pictured below) is our alpha rooster.  He struts around our yard like he is king of the castle.  I do have to admit he is even alpha to me most of the time!  This is because he sneaks up behind me and attacks the back of my heels! I of course, run away and give him an even bigger power play.  The worst thing to do is give a rooster even more confidence! Now he knows he is the boss and that is a hard concept to overthrow. 

Also, I am sure my neighbors hate Hey Hey because at 6:45am on the dot he is up singing "rise and shine mother cluckers" time to get your butts out of bed!  I am just going to say it now, I am sorry to the neighbors for this early morning wake up call.  

He truly is the attention seeker of the flock, but he really does make me smile.  

He is so bad, yet adorable at the same time....how does that even work?!

Candy Corn (pictures below) is my sweet little hen who loves to cuddle.  She is my favorite out of the flock! She has such a great personality- come on meat eaters, hang out with Candy Corn for an hour and you will turn into a vegetarian! You will fall in love instantly and you will never be able to eat a chicken again :)  

All of our chickens have a distinct personality, which makes owning them an even better experience.  Never in a million years did I think I would love chickens so much.  Every time I walk outside to visit with my chickens I immediately get a huge smile on my face. 

Now, when it comes to my chicken coop, that has been the hardest part of the whole thing!  Finding the correct chicken is very difficult.  Your chicken coop has to:

1. Be big enough for all of your chickens.  My original coop was NOT big enough to hold my chickens when they got bigger.
2. Be safe! There are a lot of predators and chickens are very fragile.  You have to find a coop that will keep them safe.
3. Be easy to clean.  Chickens have to be cleaned out at least every other day.  I clean mine everyday because I do not want my yard smelling like a farm....just looking like one. 
4. Needs to have ventilation.  Most of the coop should be chicken wire to give your chickens fresh air.  Mine spend most of their day as free range in our fenced in yard, but at night I want the coop airy so it doesn't get too hot or suffocating.  

So you see a lot of thought has to go into a coop for the chickens to be safe, healthy and happy.  Like I said, the first coop I purchased was NOT big enough to house my fast growing flock.  But, of course I spent a lot of money on that coop so I did not want to throw it away completely.  Luckily, my dad is an engineer and helped me successfully renovate my chicken coop over the weekend.  We took my too small existing coop and added on a whole other section to the back.  The addition is the tall piece of the coop, which gives my chickens room to stretch their wings.   Like I said before, most of the day my chickens are free range and walk around our fenced in yard looking for bugs or burying themselves in the dirt to stay cool.  But, at night I like that they have room to stretch out and in this summer heat get some fresh night air to cool them down.  I am so grateful my dad helped me with this huge project! It was something that needed to happen to help my chickens be happy.  

Keep in mind if you are going to do something like this it is a two person job! 

I also planted a some flowers around the coop.  Butterfly Bushes on the outside and a Sweet Potato vine on the inside.  I had to research "safe" plants for chickens before I purchased these plants, but these help bring a little freshness to the coop.  The Sweet Potato vine is also something one of my chickens sleeps in (Big Jo just loves her Sweet Potato vine!) 

Some people work out, some like to paint....I on the other hand like to come home, get a glass of wine and sit outside with my mini farm.  It takes a lot of work and a lot of patience to care for this farm, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!  

It may be a mini farm, but it is MY MINI FARM! #farmlifeforever