The Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang

I'm a Country Boy!

2011-05-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Nathan, who is 6 years old, and I went into town to run some errands. We drove past a field that had been recently manured. He took a deep breath and said, "Ahhhh! Mama, do you you like that smell? I love that smell cause I'm a country boy!"

I laughed and laughed! Hope you will too!!

Have a great day!

What happens when..........................

2011-04-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

What happens when you take a very long heavy duty piece of used twine, tie a brick to it and swing it around.........................

It hits you in the HEAD!!

Guess which boy in the Reese House did this just a little while ago?

Caleb!!!

This occurred while I was outside hanging laundry. I lectured the boys on why they shouldn't swing these bricks, rocks, bones, and chains around! Broken windows was my main concern.

A few moments after finishing my lecture Caleb walked away from the house and proceeded to get his twine with a brick on it swinging around his head. It flopped and conked him in the back of the head. Caleb started to wince, cry, took a couple steps forward, did a little loop then landed on the ground... OUT COLD!! Yep... he passed out for about 10-20 seconds.

I got him in to the house and applied ice. He was groggy for about 30 minutes but coherent. Phil checked it out and his pupil dilation was good (he only has one pupil)... so no hospital run for us.

He has a nice bump, a head ache, and probably a mild concussion.

BOYS!!!!!!

Kids............

2011-04-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

A brief recollection of some of the funny moments with the kids lately:

Nathan has Wednesday's off each week. This Wednesday after the snow storm, Nathan decided to head out and play in the snow... a bit confused..... He had rubber boots on instead of snow boots, winter coat, snow pants, and a bad-mitten racket with birdie in his hand. I told him bad-mitten was for spring, not snowy days... he said, "That's alright mommy... it'll be spring soon, I just want to practice!"

Last night on our way to church, just after he ate SIX hot dogs Thomas says: "Mom I'm hungry!" Several of us in the vehicle commented "You are a bottomless pit!" Philip starts crying...... "No, I'm the bottomless pit so he can't be!" Tee Hee!

We were leaving church last night after a LONG choir/Easter program practice when one of the children mentioned that Thomas took Pastors brief case outside. We figured out that Thomas did not take it back into the church. Phil turned around to head back to the church so we could tell Pastor where it was. I commented that it looked as if Pastor was frantically looking for something as we were leaving the building. It turns out Thomas was playing "Padington Bear" with Pastors "suitcase". Thankfully our Pastor has a good sense of humor and understands Thomas's quirky ways! Thomas was yelling out the door to Pastor "Sorry about that!!!" While Phil and I had a good laugh!

Hope those brought a smile to your face!

Spring.... maybe

2011-04-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

Winter is back here and we are ready for Spring. The past month has seen lots of new births: a new heifer calf, 45 layer chicks, 150 Cornish roasters, and 11 turkey chicks. Best of all the "new birth" of Philip and Nathan, both of whom accepted Christ as their personal Savior. What a joy!

Sam is healing well and slowly getting back to a more active life.

More spring chores are getting done as the days wear on, and school work is quickly coming to a close. The garden is started in peat flats, the raspberries, grapes and apple trees are pruned.

Tulips are stretching from the earth and daffodils about to burst into golden smiles. What a perfect time to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord.

We pray you will have a glorious Easter praising God for his promises fulfilled!!

The Sap's a Flowin'

2011-03-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

Why should a family like ours try to raise our own meat, veggies, and sweets (honey & maple syrup)? One reason we want a self-sufficient farm is so that we can teach our children the value in working hard as an individual and as a family. Every once in a while.... they actually get it and participate with enthusiasm. This springs start of our syrup season has been a time when I have been so proud of the kids and how hard they are working WITH us. Phil and the kids have been going out to tap trees over the past few days. All of us have worked on gathering and cleaning over 70 4-5 gallon buckets to catch the sap. Today will start the harvest! I hope to use this time as an example to the kids of how fun it really is to have great attitudes and work together to get the job done!

Sorry, we don't sell our syrup, it is just for our family use. Each year we have people ask if we will sell some but we have never gathered enough for our own use let alone have extra to sell. Hopefully this year we'll get enough for the year for our family! We use about 10 gallons a year. I know that sounds like a lot but we try to avoid using sugar as much as possible, that is why we have honey bees and why we harvest maple sap. Phil and the kids have tapped over 50 trees and hope to have close to 70 tapped by the time they are done.

Today is the first day the sap should really be flowing. So I expect we will be cooking down our first batch tomorrow. I always look forward to the sugaring season and I'm always glad when it is over! :-) Thankfully it usually only lasts a few weeks, so we push though it so we can enjoy our syrup year round!

Possum fun!

2011-03-05T09:11:00.000-08:00

Phil went down to feed Boris on Thursday night and called frantically on his phone: "Shirley get the 22 and some shells and send it down with one of the kids I've caught a possum!" I ran for the gun while Elizabeth and Caleb rushed to get their coats on. Sam and I waited in the house anxiously to hear if daddy shot the animal, hopefully without getting bit by it! He came back up to the house with the large 10+ pound male possum dead. We got to see it through the window. Sam was quite bummed that he missed out on the excitement since he is still confined to a wheel chair for another week.

After Phil disposed of it he came in to tell us that when he got to the stall and looked over the door he saw this huge possum drinking water from the calves bucket! He charged after it. The possum ran for one of the corners of the stall and ended up stuck between the stall wall and the brick outer wall of the barn. Phil grabbed it's tail and the dogs antagonized it's head from the other side of the stall! Phil was determined to show no mercy since we have lost our share of chickens to possums in years past.

Elizabeth told us later that the family she babysits for who lives just a couple miles down the road, lost 5 turkeys and 12 chickens to possums last week. They trapped and killed 3 within just a few days. We are watching our chickens and turkey's closely making sure they are secure as soon as it is dark if not before.

The little boys were disappointed they missed the fun but liked seeing the pictures and hearing the story in the morning.

The good news is the wild animals are coming out of hibernation so spring must be on its way to Wisconsin!!

Boris is Born

2011-03-05T09:02:00.000-08:00

Some folks read my blog to keep up with the family. Some read because they like following our farm and all that we are learning in the making of it. I'll do my best to keep both groups happy.

This blog is about the first "normal" thing that we have had happen on the farm since December. I said I'd write about our cow trauma's and this is it. In December all was going well with the adult herd, with the exception of some mild cases of mastitis (so we thought) until we lost Holly just before Christmas. She was supposed to calf on Christmas and died just a couple days before. She showed no signs of being sick. The day before she died I watched her eating, chewing her cud and got to feel the calf moving. She looked totally healthy. I checked on her last at 10 p.m. and when I went out in the morning she was dead.

In the meanwhile, the yearlings and calves started to have issues. They are kept at what we call "the other farm" or the "lower farm". There is another barn down at the other end of the dead end where our neighbors rent the house and we use the barn and most the land around the house to graze the herds. We started to loose one summer calf every 5-7 days. The first one was because we thought Caleb had thrown a bail of hay on it and killed it. The others, we weren't sure but started to guess that the bull was killing them.

Two weeks after Holly died we lost another one of our best milk cows, Kipp. She too was eating, chewing cud, drinking and had all the happy cow signs then was dead 6 hours later. This death led to us getting 2 different vets out to the farm to look over the herd. We also had all the dairy cows tested and discovered that we had a severe mastitis issue. We knew many of the cows had mastitis, what we didn't know was that it was an incurable type. You see, when our cows get sick we don't usually use antibiotics. We use natural treatments first and medical treatments as a last resort. Both the vets stated that they thought the reason for our losses was too much stress on the herd due to lack of shelter.

This fall we had hoped to get a hoop barn up for the cows. However, time didn't allow and we hoped and thought with the guidance of our landlord that the herd would do fine. We were all sad when the stress led to us loosing 2 to death, 2 others to cull because their udders were useless and probably one other to cull once she calves in April. We still don't think that it was any one thing. We think it must have been a combination of things that for some reason allowed the girls to get sick and not be able to kick it.

This story sounds bad but when I tell you the numbers...... we started with 8 milk cows and ended the winter with 4. We started the winter with 6 calves and ended with 1, and 5 heifers and ended with 4. BIG losses for a little farm.

I must confess that I didn't handle these losses well. I reached a boiling point which caused us to really talk through and evaluate what we needed to change. I told the kids: "We cannot say that we are learning if we do not change anything based on what we have learned." So by mid-January Phil and I took over all the chores and I learned how to milk the cows with Elizabeth.

Since we have made these changes we have slowly worked the kids back into chores with a LOT of supervision and I continue to milk with Elizabeth every day. The health of the animals seems to have stabilized. However, I cannot explain to you in words how anxious we were about Bonita calving. You see, we hadn't had a normal birth since the summer. We prayed and watched Bonita closely as she got closer to calving. Finally on February 24th we woke to find a nice big healthy bull calf that the kids named Boris. Bonita has been giving us a beautiful creamy 4+ gallons of milk a day!

It is hard for me to express all that we have learned this winter. But I do hope we have LEARNED which means that the changes we've made will allow for a successful winter next year.

We have since added another cow and 5 heifers to the herd to try to get our milking numbers back up to where we want them to be. When all the heifers finish calving by December 2011 we will have 13 in the dairy herd. The next cow is due any day and once again we are praying and being vigilant in watching her for any signs of stress.

On a different note... we are trying to get my Boston Terrier to mate with a local stud so we can sell some terrier pups in June. My children don't need the "birds and bee's" talks... they get cows and bulls, chickens and roosters and now boy dog and girl dog training. :-) It is a great way for us to share with them how beautifully God has designed the cycle of life.

Waiting for the Bus

2011-02-02T06:38:00.000-08:00

Tuesday morning the snow was whipping while the three littles: Thomas, Philip, and Nathan, stood waiting for the bus. They waited about 15 minutes when Nathan came back to the house where Phil was shoveling out the drive. Phil encouraged him to go back down to the bus stop when Nathan said, "But daddy, there is a really bad storm over there but not here." He pointed to the mail boxes with great expression while explaining the morning weather to his daddy. Phil laughed and so did I when he told me later that morning. It is much nicer by the house because the house and barn help to block the wind.

Anyway, the boys waited a total of 30 minutes when I called the school. They told me that our bus was running behind about 35 minutes. So I made them stay out there. Another 15 minutes passed, during which time I sent Elizabeth out with a blanket and she huddled about the boys covering them with a blanket.... it was very cute inspite of how horrible it was for them to be waiting in the yucky weather. I called the bus company this time. They said it would be another 15 minutes or so until the bus made it to our place. I called the boys in and gave them hot cocoa. We waited for the bus to top the hill before sending the boys running down to the mailboxes where they catch the bus. The cocoa made the 45 minute chilly wait seem to go away for them. They were so excited they got cocoa and told their teachers so. I don't think they even mentioned that their toes and faces were about frozen off, because the cocoa made it all better. Ahhhh the life of a child! :-)

Milk cow turned Mule

2011-02-02T06:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we shipped off two cows who have been struggling constantly with mastitis which has ruined their udders. Plus we had a steer that needed to be slaughtered. Getting the animals loaded was a 1 1/2 hour challenge. The two cows decided to turn into mules. One who we call Gayle stepped up into the trailer with her front two legs, knelt, plopped her bottom down on the ground and laid her head down refusing to move. Phil and our friend Jake tried pushing her 800 pound back end into the trailer with no success. Sylvia, the other cow tried hurdling two turned over watering troughs covered with snow. Elizabeth was squashed, shoved down, and almost stepped on by one of the cows. She is nursing a sprained knee and some nice bruises as a result.

To get the cows in we finally had to sandwich them with the trailer door by putting a heavy gate on one side and lining a rope from the trailer door to the gate behind them. The gal hauling them and I pushed on the door, smushing the cows while Jake and pushed them from behind and Phil pulled on the halter from inside the trailer. Thankfully it worked. The gal doing the hauling said she has never seen anyone with as much patience as us. I told Phil later she has probably never seen a farmer have so much trouble loading who didn't use a variety of expressions to voice his frustration who instead expressed "Praise the Lord" once we got them into the trailer.

Once the girls were loaded Phil decided to try one more time to load the steer who had previously given he and Jake a cardiac workout around the cow yard. I prayed we could get him in since he was our meat. The cows were going into other peoples freezers not ours. Anyway, the steer cooperated and in a matter of minutes was loaded. We were thankful it was over and quite frozen by the end. The blizzard was starting to roll in by the time we were done loading them.

We have one more cow to cull, but since it didn't have buyers we will keep her until she calves, hopefully, in April. I say hopefully because she does NOT look pregnant. Maybe she is just one of those ladies who hide it well! :-)

I'll update you more on our winter farming adventures as time goes on. Let's just say for now, the cows have been the worst experience of the winter. The cow/steer/calf issues is a LONG sad story!!

On a side note:
We finally have figured out how to raise chickens successfully with very little losses and continuous egg production.

Pinky the family sow finally had a litter of 6 piglets.... all dead. She is scheduled to become sausage next week. We hate to put her down since she is in the friendliest 400 pound sow you'd ever meet. BUT she doesn't like Boars much. It took her 4 months with the boar before she warmed up enough to let him do his job, then her litter didn't survive. Someday, we hope to raise Berkshires again. The feeder pigs have one more month to eat drink and be merry until they will fill the freezer. Loading Pinky next week will be an adventure I'm sure. Thankfully she is a bit tame, so with a bucket of grain she will hopefully follow us like a puppy into the trailer..... if not I'll have another story to print.

Snow Day

2011-02-02T06:07:00.000-08:00

I love Wisconsin weather! The public schools decided to close down for today last night because the blizzard was supposed to be horrible. This morning here is it clear with some wind still, not bad for Wisconsin though. South of us they are still being hammered with snow and high winds, but we will have a pleasant snow day with everyone home.

I'm going to let the home schoolers have a day off too. They have been working really hard lately. Our move last May caused us to end school early and thus not get as much accomplished as I wanted for the year. We finished last years stuff by Christmas and now we are pushing to complete an entire grade in 5 months. The kids are working hard and are doing well. I think for the older children going through the material faster is keeping it fresh in their heads which is making it easier to remember the facts. They complain a lot because they are doing school for 6-8 hours a day (like normal school kids). This time schedule seems strenuous to them since we usually only have to work 4-6 hours a day to get school done. It will be nice to be totally back on track by the end of May. The fast paced way we are moving through the subjects requires a lot more work on my end too. Keeping up with the grading and testing occupies most of my day. So..... a snow day is welcome!!

I'm going to bake cookies with Philip, he is star student this week in his first grade class at school and wants to take a treat to share with his friends. Then we will do some much needed cleaning.

Happy Winter Wonderland to those of you enjoying this Blizzard too!!

Back in the Saddle.... Hopefully!

2011-01-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

Hi All!!

I know it has been FOREVER since I've blogged. I now have internet 24/7 so hope to get back to it. It will take a week or two to get y'all caught up on the happenings of the gang and Promise Land Farm.

For now, we are doing well. Sam is recovering from two hip surgeries that he has had over the past 2 1/2 weeks. I'll do a blog later with the entire Sam hip story. Elizabeth is getting to be quite the pianist and is starting a heritage turkey business. Caleb is a feisty fifth grader and our chief wood splitter. Thomas is progressing in school and enjoys therapy peer plays each week. Philip is learning to read and spell, and is a ball of energy. Nathan is writing very well and getting to be so tall... he's not my baby anymore. :-(

Phil is enjoying his work with Dynamic Campus. The challenge of running the help desk efficiently keeps him on his toes. He is also very busy as a Deacon, sound man, song leader and Sunday school teacher at church.

Me... I've learned to run our milk system and help Elizabeth milk each day now. I enjoy teaching 10 piano students, playing the piano for church and until recently teaching Sunday school. Home schooling Eliza, Sam and Caleb keep my mornings and early afternoons very full. Managing the farm, animals, preparing for the garden, and helping our customers fills the spare minutes of my day.

I look forward to sharing all that has been happening here over the next several days.

Packing and Gardening

2010-04-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

This week we put home school on hold to focus on packing. It has been a busy but productive week. We are organizing everything in the house according to where it will go in the new house. For example: Everything in the current school room will go to the school room or living room at the new house because those rooms are side by side. Everything in Samuels current room will go to the little boys room because his bed will be set up in their room at the new house. So we've put all the books and toys for the little in Sam's current closet. Everything that is in the living room will go into the storage closet in the new house.

We have several friends and at least 4 trucks each with a trailor (we think) to do the moving with. We'll assign a certain "room" to each team of friends. They will move the stuff for that room only on their rig. So there won't be any move it all from one house to the living room of the new house and take a month to find everything. Everything will be moved from room to room so it will be much less chaos during our settling weeks. That is a good thing since we will be having to learn how to milk 10+ Jerseys, while caring for 194 meat chickens, 50 laying hens, 2 sows, 1 boar, 2 bulls, several steers and several young heifers. Oh yea.... and we need to get the garden started.

We are very excited about the move. The kids are bursting with enthusiasm. I think one of their favorite topics of anticipation is the tree house which is nestled in a beautiful huge willow tree! I have a feeling that willow will be their favorite place to play over these next few years! I've always dreamed of living on a farm with a willow tree!! We also have 4 apple trees on the property and a cherry tree. There are red raspberries and rhubarb already established in the garden too! I'll be planting some black raspberries this summer.

This week we also transplanted 150-200 strawberry plants. I just moved them in large clumps to the new strawberry patch which is why I don't exactly know how many I moved. We've been giving away lots of plants too because i have over 1000 in my strawberry patch.... how sad to leave it! Yesterday Elizabeth and I went to the new house and planted 63 early red potato sets. I haven't checked the garden beds that we planted the lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, peas, kale, Swiss chard, beets, and green onions. I'm sure some of it may be peeking out. We are supposed to get rain this weekend so if they haven't sprouted yet, and if the chickens didn't eat all the seeds, we should be seeing our salad garden flourishing soon.

I'll try to blog the week after the move and let you know if my moving system worked! :-)

Spring is Here -- Maybe

2010-04-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a fragmented update of the past couple months.... enjoy!

This morning we woke to a covering of snow. The kids were all disappointed. Thomas was the funniest of them all. He first cried then said, "Is it Christmas again, I need to write a letter." Then he was upset about the snow again and finally while he was waiting for the bus he said, "Mom, I guess this snow isn't so bad." What a kid!

I am excited about starting to plant hopefully this next week at our new house. Our moving date is set for May 1. We will be moving from 3 1/2 acres to 30 acres, 1 cow to 10 + bulls and steers, 1 sow to 2 sows and a boar + feeder pigs of course, 50 meat birds a year to 400 a year, 30 laying hens to 80, etc. It will be a bit of a change from our small hobby farm. We are looking forward to it though! The details seem to be all working out and we are excited about the move.

Our Home school program will go on hold the last week of April until the 2nd week of May for the move. We already have some packing done but will need those weeks to pack and resettle into the new house without trying to do school at the same time. The children in school will stick to their normal routine.

I'm enjoying teaching 7 piano students this year. Our piano will be delivered to the new house the first week of May. Once it arrives I will start to teach Elizabeth, Sam, and Caleb too along with working on trying to brush up on the many musical skills that I've lost since not playing consistently for almost 10 years. On May 27 we will have our annual spring recital. I think Phil is going to post it on our church website, I'll try to remember to link to it once it is loaded so those who may be interested in hearing it can.

It has been so long since I've blogged that I feel a bit fragmented in my thought process. Phil surprised me on my birthday in March with a night away. Elizabeth did a great job taking care of the boys, cooking all the meals, and keeping the house in fairly decent order. Phil and I enjoyed the night away and spent the following day researching washing machines because mine died the end of February. We finally decided on a Maytag front load professional series machine. It works great but my old dryer still cannot keep up. So I'm saving my piano teaching money in order to purchase a new dryer before winter. I like to line dry as much as possibles in up summer so I think I'll be able to keep up until the winter. I'm not as talented as my Amish neighbors when it comes to freeze drying my clothes.

One more nice thing about our upcoming move is that we might have internet access 24 hours a day for a reasonable cost! If so I won't have to wait 4-8 weeks to update everyone. Once we have the good internet access I'll have to post a picture of the new farm and lots of updated photos of the children. They are growing so fast! It is hard to believe that my baby will be 5 in just a couple weeks. When the weather turned nice he received his birthday present a little early... a new bike! He was VERY excited!

I hope you all had wonderful Celebration of Christs Resurrection! Our church choir sang three songs from the newest Hamilton cantata. They were songs that were difficult to sing without getting choked up because of the message of the songs. I was blessed to be able to sing instead of having to play because our Choir director decided to use the orchestrated accompaniment. I am so thankful for our church. Speaking of church, we are moved into our new building! It has been such a blessing to have a church building that meets the need of our congregation so much more efficiently!

Lastly the past couple months have been ones of great gains and losses on the farm. We butchered 5 pigs and 5 goats. Even though we shared the meet with others we have nice full freezers to get us through until the fall butchering season. This is the first time ever that I've had such a wide variety of meat in my freezer: pork, beef, venison, goat, chicken, and turkey. YUMMY!

That's all for now. Check back in May when hopefully my internet access will be more regular!Have a Blessed Spring!

Where has the time gone!

2010-02-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe it has been so many months since I have blogged. I'll try to briefly update you on the last couple months.

In November my Grandpa Mayhew ended up in the hospital. We were afraid that we'd have to have his funeral over the Thanksgiving holiday, but his condition stabilized until the beginning of December, when he passed on. Phil and I traveled to MI with Elizabeth, Sam, and Caleb for Grandpa's funeral. It was sad having to say goodbye. To my knowledge my grandfather never came to know the Lord as his personal Savior which made his death difficult for us to deal with. I am thankful for the great memories I have of times spent fishing and hanging out with grandpa when I was a child and teen. It was nice getting to see family that we haven't seen for several years at the funeral. The highlight of the trip for me was getting to see my little brother. Kirk Spent the afternoon after the funeral visiting with my parents and us at my Aunt Bonnie's house. The boys love Uncle Kirk, he had fun teasing them! We were thankful that some friends from our church were willing to watch the thee little for us during the trip.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were quiet. At least it seemed that way to me. I was missing being with our extended family. Phil had an entire week at home with us because campus is closed between Christmas and New Years. It was nice having him home while the kids were of school.

January brought with it not only the new year but some new of new changes for our family. We will be moving May 1 to a farm 3 miles down the road. Our friends the Turba's are retiring and plan to travel for 2-3 years. We will be renting 30 acres of their 300 acre farm. We will also be renting their herd of dairy cows. I'm excited about raising our own beef, having plenty of milk to share with local friends, raising organic meat birds to sell, as well as selling more eggs and maybe even a few pigs. Our garden plot will expand to 140' X 60' (last year it was 80' X 50'). I'll be transplanting about half of my strawberry plants too. There are already raspberries on the property. We will also be able to still make syrup off the trees on their property. The house/farm is located on a dead end road about 1/2 mile from the county road which will make it a much safer place for the kids to play. The house is a little smaller, but not enough that it will really matter. The kids are all REALLY excited about the move.

Speaking of the kids. They are all doing really well. January marked the end of his intensive therapy he is now receiving about 10 hours a week instead of 35 hours. This means that Thomas is now attending school for the full day then having about 2 1/2 hours of therapy 4 days a week. Philip and Nathan are doing well in school. Elizabeth , Sam, and Caleb are working their way through their curriculum. I'd like to see them almost done for the year by the end of April but we'll see how it goes.

I've spent my winter free time reading lots of books (fiction and biographies about the Amish)and preparing for the move. I also have already ordered the garden seeds and have plotted out my new garden on the computer. We've run out of potatoes, corn and peas, but the rest of the produce still has a while to go before we run out.

A couple weeks ago we butchered a steer with our Amish Neighbors. We were amazed how quickly we got the meat cut off the bone, processed and ready for the freezer. It only took about 3 hours to get everything done, with the exception of shapping meat balls and browning the burger. I've always wanted to process my meat fresh so I could make meatloaf, meatballs, hamburgers, taco meat, etc. before freezing it. It has been so nice having many of my meals partially done because of how we packaged up the meat before freezing.

I'd better end this entry. I'll try to update it sooner next time!

October in Review

2009-10-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

October has been busy with school, preserving the harvest, flu, school, making cheese, flu, school, flu, etc. Yes, we have had the feared H1N1 and survived without difficulty and WITHOUT the vaccination!!

All the children are doing well in school. Thomas had a rough time getting back into the routine after his almost week long bought with H1N1. He is finally starting to get back to normal. He only has 2 months left of his intensive therapy treatment. I'm very thankful for these three years yet I'm looking forward to life no longer revolving around Thomas's therapy schedule!! We are unsure as to what the future will hold for Thomas regarding therapy. Wisconsin passed a law that requires insurance companies to cover therapy for Autism. That sounds GREAT to those who haven't been able to "afford" therapy. However, the hope quickly fizzles when you realize that you still have to pay your deductible and in many cases a co-pay which can easily total $1,600 a month in order to receive 20-30 hours of therapy a week. I'm afraid that we have discovered that our insurance is one that is required to pay which means we are required to use the insurance rather than the Waiver. Depending on how all the details play out we may no longer be able to have therapy for Thomas beginning in Jan 2010. The Lord knows what is best and we are trusting Him for the outcome. I do believe that Thomas needs more therapy, however, we have a large deductible and a 20% co-pay which will most likely mean little to no therapy for Thomas.

Philip's lumpy limphnodes continue to decrease in size very slowly. He goes back to see the Dr. in December. Philip loves school and is really doing well. There are still many days that he wants to stay home with mom and home school. I keep telling him that someday he will be home with mommy for school but for now, he has to go to Mrs. R's class. I love the time of day when he comes off the bus anxious to hug mom and share a bit about his day.

Nathan is enjoying his 4K class. The teachers told me that when he was out with H1N1 the class was quiet and lacked its typical "spark" and "energy". He is starting with two 30 minute sessions of speech therapy. His greatest weakness with speech is clear pronunciation. The Speech Pathologist did four tests with him and he passed all them with flying colors except the one on phonetics and pronunciation. I really like his SP and I know with her help Nathan will make a lot of speech progress this year. I am also excited that I will get to play the piano for Nathan's 4K Christmas program. This will give me a good chance to get to know more of the folks in our school and town.

Eliza, Sam, and Caleb are doing well with their home schooling. They seem to enjoy spelling the most which is really quite funny since Eliza and Sam are really behind and Caleb is advanced. They like the program that we are using though so that is good! Sam and Caleb get to do a lot of experiments in science which makes that subject fun for them and challenging for mom..... I have to have the right stuff on hand for the experiments!! I think a nice science kit is on the Christmas list for this year!

Phil helped his team at work move their data center this month. It went very smoothly which brought on the praise of the WM board and Phil's bosses. I am so thankful for the job that Phil has. He really enjoys it and he is valued for his hard work! He is also putting in a lot of time on the farm getting it ready for winter. He's built a new stall in the barn for the goats, fixed up the cows stall and milking area and is constantly moving fencing so Rose can have fresh pasture. He is a hard working man!! In a couple weeks we'll be butchering a steer with some Amish Neighbors. Phil is excited about learning how to butcher beef! After that experience my hubby will be able to butcher everything we hope to raise on our own someday.

Me, I've been busy trying to keep up with this busy brood and the farm. I am enjoying making lots of food out of our good Jersey milk. We make cheddar cheese, Mozzarella, butter, cream cheese, sour cream, and lots of hot chocolate to name a few things! Elizabeth can now make Farmhouse Cheddar Cheese from start to finish without my assistance. She is a big help in the kitchen! My new hens are starting to lay which has increased our egg production from 8-10 eggs a day to 14-18 eggs a day. I'm able to sell the extra we don't need. We have finally decided to end our Turkey brooding business. Our Tom and the 3 hens will be gracing our table over the next few months. Our Amish neighbors have agreed to help me butcher them the week before Thanksgiving! I'm looking forward to Turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Last year just didn't seem like Thanksgiving without a turkey!

This week I'll be canning carrots, pumpkin, squash, and apples. With the help of my Amish neighbor I'm am slowly becoming more confident about pressure canning. I just don't have the freezer space for everything yet I want the food to last us the year, so pressure canning some of these foods is my only option. The Amish have done it for YEARS and thankfully Sarah is willing to answer all my silly questions!!

In the midst of it all I'm thankful for the beautiful Fall weather. God paints the rolling hill's and the edges of the fields that surround us with the vibrant yellows, red's, and oranges of fall. Most of the leaves have blown off the trees now as we hunker down for the slower, colder days of winter. We've survived out first year trying to be fairly self sustainable with good success. We've learned a lot through the struggles, successes, laughter and tears and we look forward to next year!

Tomatoes & Apples

2009-09-26T20:35:00.001-07:00

This past week has been focused on canning the tomatoes from our garden. Elizabeth, Sam & Caleb have had to help me a lot because my carpel tunnel has gone from bad to severe after having to milk Rose for a couple weeks. Thankfully now our vacuum pump is working so I can give my hands a rest.

Since last Sunday we have made 14 quarts of Spaghetti sauce, 7 pints of pizza sauce, 14 quarts of diced tomatoes, 9 quarts of tomato sauce, 11 pints of BBQ sauce, and 37 pints of salsa. I couldn't have done it without the kids help. My hand goes numb and get very painful after only a couple minutes of holding a knife. We probably have another 150 pounds of tomatoes to pick and process over the next week or so. We'll be making more spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, salsa, and probably more BBQ sauce. I'm already at the point where I dread having to look at tomatoes for another day. I know that I will be glad when we have all this wonderful organic food in the root cellar, but I think I will be more glad when we are DONE canning tomatoes!

Friday we went on a field trip to a local orchard with Nathans 4K class. The kids and I learned a lot about how to care for an apple tree. They are writing a report about what they learned. The woman who gave the tour asked me to mail her the kids reports. She said she wished more older kids came to the orchard because there is so much to learn!

This week we will be busy with school and canning. The week will end with a mini vacation for ME! Yes, I am actually going to leave the premises for 24 hours. I'm going on a ladies retreat with some ladies from my church. I'm very excited about getting a day away for fellowship and spiritual refreshment.... I just hope they don't serve tomatoes! :-)

The Second Week of School

2009-09-11T08:55:00.001-07:00

This week was the first that I allowed the littles to ride the bus to school in the morning. I was concerned that being on the bus for 30-40 minutes in the morning would be a struggle for him. Thankfully, I was wrong. Thomas has done a great job. He even rode all by himself on Wednesday because Philip still wasn't well enough to attend and Nathan doesn't go to school on Wednesday.

Elizabeth, Sam, Caleb and I did home school each day this week. None of them have all their subjects but we consistently worked on the ones they do have. I am really liking Spelling Power. The kids are really having fun with spelling this year and I know this systematic way of doing spelling will help Elizabeth and Sam to catch up to their appropriate grade levels while it is challenging enough for Caleb so he isn't bored.

Elizabeth got to go to a sewing class on Thursday. One of the missionary builders at our church taught all the girls at our church how to do some basic stitches by hand and on the machine. She also gave them a history lesson that included quilting before teaching them how to do a nine patch quilt. Elizabeth really enjoyed the day with her friends from church learning to quilt and sew!

Philip ended up missing two days of school this week because he was still too weak and tired. He still isn't back up to his old energy level. If he hadn't just had a mono test three weeks ago I'd be taking him to the doctor for a mono test. Especially since this is the second time he was sick in 3 weeks.

We are going on our first field trip tomorrow to Ledgeview Nature Center, about 2 miles down the road. They are having a "Health & Harvest Day". It will count as health and probably science for the kids. Plus they were able to color a picture which they will submit for a free ice cream while we are there. Phil will be gone to a men's retreat, so it will just be the kids and I. I'm sure it will be and adventure!

And the Cow Jumped over the Sam

2009-09-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

The past couple mornings Rose has decided that she wants to walk home to her Amish farm. She acts like she is willingly walking to the pen until she gets the pen in site then she turns around and bolts for the road. The first morning we were able to catch her right by the garden. The second morning was much worse. She bolted away from Sam and by the time we caught her she was down the road a ways. We ended up tying her to the hitch on the back of our Minivan and pulling her home. I decided to park in our neighbors drive and walk her to her pen. As soon as we got to the gate she bolted dragging me along behind her. I would've held on longer however.......... my pants were falling down! :-( UGH! When I let go Elizabeth and Samuel caught up to her and were jogging on either side. Sam decided to try to throw all his weight on her to see if it would slow her down. It did only because Samuel slid under her body and the cow tripped over him with her back knee landing fiercely in the middle of Sam's back. Sam stood up, gasping for breath that wouldn't come. His face was beat red while his lips were turning blue. Finally he fell to his knees then passed out. Thankfully he was only unconscious for a couple seconds. When he woke up his breathing was not labored so I was pretty confident that he didn't have a punctured lung.

So I ran for the van and up the road to catch the cow again. This time we backed her right into the pen while she was still attached to the van. We pulled the van out enough to get the gate closed then we finally untied her. By this time Sam was looking much better and able to help us. He was complaining of pain when he breathed deeply. After talking with Phil we decided that he wasn't in any great danger but we wanted him checked out by a doctor that knew the spine. So I took him to our Chiropractor that afternoon. Dr. Nick found that Sam's spine and ribs were sound, no fractures, however, he had 4-6 vertebra's that were severely out of place. He adjusted Sam and thankfully Samuel felt instant relief, being able to breath much easier. We are very thankful that Samuel's first lesson in cow ridding didn't end with any severe injuries.

Yesterday I didn't take a chance and hooked her up to the van and put her in the pen with the aid of the vehicle so I wouldn't have to chase her. This morning Phil was here and she didn't give him any trouble. Hopefully she is starting to realize that this is her new home.

Many people have asked me, "She really wouldn't walk home would she?" I think that because the Millers lead her here by hitching her to the back of their buggy. She really does know the way home. Usually a cow is hauled to a farm in a trailer which means they loose all sense of direction. Rose however, walked here so she thinks she can just walk home!

I still really am enjoying having a Jersey cow and if the Millers offered to sell her to us, I would buy her in a minute. She is very mild mannered which makes her very easy to hand milk. We are really enjoying her creamy milk and the first batch of cheddar cheese curds are almost gone. Today I'm making cheddar cheese curds again, and either a block of cheddar for aging, or some mozzarella so we can have pizza this weekend. Our first batch of butter will be made tonight and I made some mildly tart creamy yogurt a couple days ago too! I love the versatility of cow milk and of course, the flavor!

School Days

2009-09-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

School has begun again. The three littles started at New Holstein Elementary last week and overall had a very good week. Thomas, who is in grade 2, is adjusting well to being in the classroom again and is excited to try ridding the bus this week. We have his IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meeting on Tuesday at school to outline the areas that we will target this year with his behaviors, therapy (speech & Occupational Therapy) and education at school. Philip is in kindergarten and having a great time! Nathan and I went to his class for a shortened day on Thursday, then on Friday he went by himself and rode the bus home. He loved it!! He will be getting evaluated for speech which will allow him to receive speech therapy soon.

The older kids and I took the first week to get used to our new spelling program. We are using Spelling Power which allows each child to be at their own level, while progressing as quickly as they master the current word list. They are all doing great and are really enjoying it! We also did their math testing so I could verify which level each child is at while getting a good picture of their strength and weaknesses in Math. We ended the week by hanging a bulletin board, white board and classroom clock. The kids also wrote a Journal entry about their first week of school. This next week we will add a couple more subjects for each child, depending on what curriculum's have arrived by then. We are still waiting for all our school materials to arrive.

This year they each have their own crates to hold their school materials, and they have their own "space". Elizabeth uses the table, Caleb the school desk, and Sam, the old computer desk. They really like having their own "desks" this year! Within the next couple weeks we will start them on Piano too. I want them each to have a foundation in music and piano is the best way to attain that. Once they each have a good understanding of music theory and the treble and base clef notes then we will look at getting them each an additional instrument to learn.

This year's schooling will be a lot more structured than last year and I am enjoying the change. The kids seem to be really liking having a guided lesson for each subject too. We are using Alpha Omega Life Packs for science, history, and language arts this year. I'm sure it will be another year of learning what works and what doesn't!

Philip

2009-09-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

I think I've posted about some of the health problems that Philip has been having. When we lived in Pembine and he was in 4K he missed one week a month because he'd end up being sick, running a fever, swollen glands and tonsils, and just feeling miserable.

Since moving his boughts with illness had become less and less. He started only getting sick every other month, then every three, etc. He was sick in November then was in very good health until 3 weeks ago. That is why when his neck remained swollen when he wasn't sick we got concerned. Exactly three weeks ago he spiked a fever and was in bed for 2 days. Yesterday it started again. He spiked a fever and spent yesterday in bed and he is already in bed again today, after going out to watching milking and visit the puppy. Thankfully these last two incidences seem to be much shorter than before. They only seem to last a couple days instead of an entire week.

Phil and I are trying to figure out what is lacking in his body that will help his immune system to fight off these little bugs. What is not balanced??

The biopsy of the growth in his neck came back fine, no cancer cells or abnormal cells of any kind. The ultra sound showed several growths between 1 & 2 centimeters in size on his neck. He sees the specialist again on the 28th. Until then we'll just make him comfortable when he runs the fever and pray for wisdom as to how to help this little boy gain full health again!

A Rose Amongst the Thorns!

2009-09-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

This morning was quite the milking adventure with Rose. We had decided to try to use our goat stantion in reverse for Rose. We didn't take into account that the stantion weigh's very little and our 800 pound cow would just jerk it around while trying to get the vegetables and feed we have on the platform for her. So this morning Rose was milked in the barn, in the driveway, and in the front yard! I'm sure all the cars that drove by had a nice laugh, since you don't often see a Jersey Cow in someones front yard with a long haired red head milking her into a 3 gallon bucket! About half way through the milking process when we were chasing Rose down the driveway, Phil said,"Honey, I think your dream come true has turned into a nightmare!" Thankfully we both have a sense of humor and really want our own cow which made the morning very laughable!! After chasing Rose around getting her milked we enjoyed coming into the house to have last nights very whole milk, the jar was almost 1/2 cream, over a bowl of cereal!

We aren't getting as much milk out of her as the Millers were. I think it is because we cannot get her to stand still and relax while I'm milking her. She is also used to being milked with a machine. Rose is actually more difficult to milk than our goats. The goats have a nice firm nipple and they let down their milk well. So far, Rose hasn't been comfortable enough to let her milk down easily and her two back teats are VERY small. Like even smaller than our Brownies teats. Phil is going to work on getting the vacuum pump working so we can use it for Rose. I think once she settles in we will see her milk increase again! So far we've only gotten 2 3/4 gallons out of two milkings. She should be closer to 4 gallons a day.

I must say after chasing Rose around for 1 1/2 hours it was quite relaxing to milk Curley, the goat!

Today Phil will stop at Tractor Supply to get a lead rope and a hook to mount on a beam in the barn so we can tie her up during milking time. He is also going to get a bit of new fencing so we can put her in a pasture area along side the house. She'll be our lawn mower for the fall!

I'm Having a COW!

2009-09-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

No.... Really, I HAVE a COW! Yes, that is right! Today a beautiful Jersey sauntered up the road to her new boarding farm, the Reese Farm. Our Amish Neighbors lead Rose here behind their horse and buggy. She walked 3 miles to get her and arrived at about 5:45 p.m. We introduced her to the barn then milked her for the first time. She did GREAT!! She has been milked with a machine for the past 2 years. For now we will be milking her by hand. Phil hopes to get our vacuum pump working soon so we can milk Rose with our new Serge milker.

I am so excited to finally have a Jersey on the farm. We will board Rose until she needs to be bread again next summer then we'll take her back for a month or two then they will return her here. Our friends are working on building up their dairy herd so they can eventually ship milk. For now though they only have 4 cows that they are milking which isn't enough to ship. They were giving all the extra milk to their pigs. When I told Sarah I was looking for a Jersey she mentioned it to her husband who said we could have Rose until they are ready to start shipping milk, which I think is a couple years away yet. This will give us a chance to try out having a cow without having to spend $1200 on one. What a DEAL!!! I can certainly handle babysitting a cow when we get to use all her wonderful creamy milk!!

We had another addition to the farm today.... a new dog. Well actually she is an almost 6 week old sweet little puppy! Elizabeth bought her from friends of ours. She will be our farm dog. She is going to live in the barn with the animals and hopefully protect the animals and gardens from the varmints that have done so much damage this past year! Elizabeth hasn't named her yet. Sometime over the next couple days I'll have to take pictures of our newest additions.

And we had one subtraction too. Marie our best goat went to her home tonight a couple miles down the road. Now we are down to just milking Curley until the spring when she and the 2 yearlings will freshen. Caleb is very glad that he will still have goat milk from Curley and I am very glad to only have about 1/2 gallon a day of goat milk to use. Caleb drinks about that much in a day, so it will work out GREAT!

Apples

2009-08-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

We've been blessed by friends who have given us apples this month. First our land lord came over with a bushel of apples that made 6 quarts of sauce. Yesterday we received a bunch more from another friend. Today we made 25 quarts of apple sauce from those. Sam and Elizabeth were big helpers today. It took us most of the day to make the sauce and they did most of the quartering of the apples while I was making bread, having Thomas's weekly team meeting, and cooking the apples. It was definitely a team effort!

Caleb had a check up today with his doctor at Children's hospital. The doctor said his eye looks great. He will see Dr. Connor again in a year.

Summer Days

2009-08-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

Since my last entry our lives have been busy working the garden, preparing for school, and enjoying the summer with an occasional chase the pigs and/or goats day. Yes, our fencing issues and naughty livestock still cause trauma at least once a week. We are raising 40 more meat chickens and my new laying hens are growing nicely. They are even starting to make friends with some of my current laying flock.

We've started to sell off our goats. So far we've sold 2 milkers and 1 yearling. We'd like to sell 2-3 more adult goats and the 2 female kids before winter if possible. We only have 2 goats left that we are milking and they are yielding 1 ½ gallons of milk a day. We keep what we use and give the rest to our pigs. We are selling most of the goats because most of us don't like the goat cheese and only 3 in the family like goat milk.

I don't think that I've blogged since we got our 5 feeder pigs. They look like little Wilbers, and they are very naughty! We kept them in the barn at first because they were too little to be out with pinky. After a month of barn life their stall and our barn STUNK. So we decided to try them out in the pig pen, so we could clean out their stall. They did fine for about a week then they got adventurous and decided to start exploring the farm, yard, and road. So, Pork, Chop, Bacon, and Sausage are all in the pen in the barn while Hamy is still living with Pinky. Hamy doesn't try to escape when he is alone, but if we put the others back in the big pen they five of them explore the property.

We may be “renting” a nice jersey cow from our Amish Neighbors starting soon. They have a Jersey that they don't need right now but in the spring they need the milk from it to feed their beef calves. They are just giving all the extra milk to their pigs. I had mentioned to Sarah that I was working on selling the goat herd so I could get a nice Jersey cow. She told me that they might have one they'd sell. However after talking with her husband she told me that they still need the cow in the spring but would let us use her for now so we could have some cow milk. The details have to be worked out and haven't been discussed by the men yet. This may be a great opportunity for us to see if we are ready to get a cow. And mmmmmmm I can just taste the cheese, cream, butter, sour cream, cream cheese, etc that the wonderful milk would make!

Lately I've been shopping for school books for the kids on ebay. So far everything I've gotten adds up to a savings of 50%. I only shop late in the evening so it doesn't cut into my family and farm responsibilities.

Philip celebrated his 6th birthday this past week. We had a fun party just with our family and lots of water balloons. Philip is seeing an ENT for a lump in his neck. He just had a biopsy on Aug 20. We will find out the results next week. The doctor doesn't think it is anything major but will be watching it closely over the next several months even if the biopsy comes back negative.

Thomas, Philip, and Nathan are excited about going to New Holstein School this fall. We are working with the school to get Thomas's special needs cared for properly. Their back packs are loaded with school supplies which they get to drop off at school on the 31st while seeing their classroom and meeting their teachers.

Elizabeth, Samuel, and Caleb are looking forward to another year home schooling and so am I!

The biggest highlight for the kids this past month was the visit from Grandma & Grandpa Conover. We had only a couple short days with them but enjoyed our time immensely. We took a day's vacation away from the farm to swim at Blue Harbor Resort Water Park. My mom loved the slides..... I on the other hand HATED them. The kids were all wrinkles and red eyed after their day in the water. It was so much fun! Thanks Uncle Jack & Aunt Jane for the tickets!!!

To read about the activity in our garden lately please check out our garden blog. I just updated it with several back dated entries.

A Trip

2009-07-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

Phil, Sam, and Caleb leave for Kenora Ontario tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. They will be traveling with 3 others from our church, 2 other men and one other boy. They will be going to the camp that Phil, Elizabeth and I went to a few years ago to help with Girls Camp. This time the men will be helping with a variety of things during the week while the boys will be campers. I'm excited that Phil and the boys have this opportunity and am prayerfully expecting it to be a great week for them all. Please pray for them as they seek to be a blessing to those at the Kenora church and camp ministry.

Elizabeth and I will be left here with the littles to run the "farm". There will be a lot of extra chores to tend too but I think we'll be able to manage ok.

I won't have any internet access while Phil is gone but I'll try to write a few posts to load up when he returns.

The Garden

2009-07-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

This spring has been filled with a lot of outside work. Our front garden is filled with the exception of the sweet potato patch. I'm not sure I'm going to get that in since I haven't ordered the plants yet, I'll decide what to put in that plot this weekend. Our plans for the back garden have hit some snags since it is SOOO full of rocks. We managed to get a 60' X 25' area ready for sweet corn and finally got that planted mid June. Last year we didn't get our sweet corn in until mid June and it did fine so I'm hoping it will do ok this year too. There is a small section of the garden that I was able to fill with 120 raspberry plants and some rhubarb. The rest is almost unworkable. So we are pilling it high with grass clippings and manure, then putting in hills of nicely composted dirt for our squash veggies. Hopefully it will work. We hope to have it all finished over the next few days.

We area already enjoying fresh salad greens and spinach. Our strawberries are ripening and are so sweet and beautiful this year. The peas will be forming pods soon and it looks like there will be lots because there are a ton of flowers!! This will be my first successful pea crop ever! The tomatoes are flowering and we've already hilled 5 rows of potatoes. Elizabeth just thinned our purple, yellow, and green bean rows. The beets, rutabagas and turnips are forming their roots and the carrots are starting to come in nicely. The onions and leeks are growing nicely, if they continue to do well we will have plenty of onions for fall canning and winter use. I love looking out my kitchen window and seeing our rows of veggies soaking in the sun and/or rain. Five years ago I hated the thought of gardening, now.... I'm starting to enjoy it. Well maybe not enjoy it really but I am thankful for the opportunity to grow fresh food for my family and do enjoy watching them grow... if only the weeds would stop growing!! We hope to start apply a grass clippings mulch to each bed once the mower is fixed.

The Pembine House

2009-07-04T20:58:00.000-07:00

After many months of praying through what to do about the Pembine house. Phil and I had decided that we'd look for a renter who'd be willing to work on repairing the house. We are very excited that we have finally found someone who is interested in working off most his rent while living in the apartment. Our new renter has already started repairs on the water system that had many burst pipes after the pipes froze this winter when the heat went out. He will be able to move in soon and will continue to help Phil repair the house so that we can rent out the main house or sell the place. We are so thankful that God has answered our prayers about how to handle the Pembine property!

Visits

2009-07-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

We were very excited to have Phil's parents visit us in the Middle of May for almost one entire week. The kids got to show Grandma and grandpa all their baby animals. They were hear to see some of Elizabeth's first turkey's hatch. They also got to enjoy watching the kids jump on the trampoline they purchased for them for Christmas until a strong wind decided to blow the thing across the yard, over dads car, and into a heap by the lilac bush. Phil has yet to get it resurrected since we've been so busy with other things on the farm since then .

Grandma and Grandpa brought us many new books and toys that they are removing from their home in a effort to downsize. Aunt Beth also sent some surprises as a result of her and Uncle Wes helping his mom to downsize after the recent home going of Wes's dad.

Our family spent Memorial Day visiting with our Pastor, his wife and many others from our church. The men cut down a large boxelder that Pastor wanted removed from his property. The removal of the tree was fairly uneventful until Phil hollered for everyone to stop cutting. He had seen a mama racoon run out of the tree when they were cutting it up after it had felled. He then looked in the trunk and found a nest of baby coons. They still had their eyes closed. My boys got to each hold one before we put them under a bush away from where the men were working. Pastor was planning to kill them that evening but when he went to take care of them, they were gone. Their mama must've come back for them even though they were touched by human hands.

Another special visit we've had recently was when some of our friends from Pembine came down to spend the day with us. Karen and 9 of her 10 children came down to see our “farm” and spend the day “playing”. The kids really enjoyed themselves and I had so much fun catching up with Karen! Their mama cow died shortly after giving birth to her heifer this spring so we sent them home with 3 gallons of fresh Goats milk! It was so much fun getting to spend the day with them!

The Animals

2009-07-02T18:04:00.000-07:00

May began with a visit from the local vet. We were concerned that Marie, our best dairy goat, was going crippled. We had some tests run and were happy to discover that she was disease free. She surprised us on May 4th by delivering two black and white billy kids. Elizabeth went to the barn around noon to check on the goats and found that she had successfully delivered. We had to take the kids away form her immediately because we were still waiting on the lab reports from the vet. The vet had told us to heat her colostrum to a low heat to kill the bad bacteria that may be in it form the illness we thought Marie had. Well..... let me tell you, colostrum turns into a solid mass at about 95 degrees. I was supposed to heat it at 136 for 1 hour... HA!!! We had to run to our Amish neighbor who raises goats to find out what he suggested. Goat kids MUST have colostrum or they will usually die of diarrhea. Thankfully Andy had some colostrum in the freezer that we were able to warm and feed Bill & Max.

That first week of May was a busy one. First Max and Bill joined us, then Curley had her kids, Samantha & Clarence on the 5th followed by Brownie who delivered Samson & Simon on the 6th. So we went from no milk to LOTS of milk in just 3 days! We let Curley and Brownie nurse their kids for their first 24 hours, then we removed them and started bottle feeding them. We decided to remove the kids from their mom's after their first day of colostrum so we could train them to be friendly goats. They are VERY friendly!! The children have really enjoyed having to bottle feed the kids each day. They are almost ready to be weaned so they are down to just one feeding a day now.

Patches waited to have her kids until the 12th when Midnight and Courtney joined the herd. All of our children got to see at least 2 of the kids being born. It was quite an experience!! I thought it was a great way to teach the kids about how God allows the birthing process to take place for goats. They all thought it was pretty cool!!

We are now milking the four does two times a day. At first the milk tasted horrible and I was really worried. We learned that during the beginning of the goats lactation the protein and fat content is very high which gives the milk and off taste. Thankfully that taste went away after about 10 days and now the milk is YUMMY!! The only one that says they don't like it is Elizabeth. WE think it is just in her head!! :-) We are using the milk for drinking and making cheese. I also found a great recipe for making a carmel sauce out of the milk that the kids love with apples. WE hope to try ice cream and a wider variety of cheeses as time goes on. Right now I'm just making Feta and Cheddar from our milk. I still prefer cow milk and the options available when using cow milk like making cream cheese, sour cream and butter. I would gladly sell all my goats in an instant if I could find a nice calm Jersey Cow to add to our farm.

I am the primary milk maid which is causing severe problems with my carpel tunnel. I'm seeing a chiropractor regularly since the tips of my fingers on my right hand are always numb now. We are also looking for an automatic milker. We found the machine we want, a serge milker. The milker is reasonably priced on ebay, however, the vacuum pump needed to make it run is another matter. We are praying for wisdom while we research and shop around. I cannot continue to milk by hand because I'm getting to the point where permanent damage could set in. The chiropractic care and physical therapy will hopefully prevent that until we can get an automatic milker. The children help with the milking too but whenever they milk alone we loose milk due to the bucket getting kicked over by goats. They children aren't as good at removing the bucket quickly when the goats get ornery.

We've decided that we will probably sell the three yearling's and the two does that were born this spring to help pay for the milking equipment. We will keep the 6 boy goats that have already been weathered, to raise for meat. They'll be butchered between 9 – 11 months of age. We plan to try a few different cuts but mostly we'll grind it to be mixed with pork or beef. We'll probably use a lot of it to mix with our pork for summer sausage at the late winter butchering of the pigs.

We have about 20 new hens that will be added to our flock of 19 hens in a couple months. Our 19 full grown hens are producing 14-16 eggs a day. We sell our extra eggs for $2 a dozen. The Amish sell theirs for $1.50 and the two places that raise pastured organic eggs sell theirs for over $3 so we chose to settle for a price in between the other places and don't have a problem selling our extra eggs. We will be butchering our 18 meet birds and 16 roosters at the end of this month. When that happens we will move our 30 turkeys to outside pens so they can be ranging on grass and bugs all summer long. We had originally planed to get more meat birds in July but will raise the turkeys for winter meat instead. The local coons, possums and mink have decimated our flock by about 10 over the past month. We are trying to remodel our outside pens so the birds will be more protected but still easily movable.

We still have Pinky. She will be joined by 5 40-50 pound piglets next week. We will raise the little ones so they can be butchered in December or January. Pinky will meet a new boar in December so we will be able to have a full liter of piglets in the spring. We found a farm just on the other side of Kiel that raises organic Berkshire pigs and they are willing to let us borrow their boar for a few weeks so we can get Pinky pregnant! YEAH!

Intro to May and June Happenings

2009-07-01T20:52:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy spring here on the “farm”. I will provide and update on all that has been happening in several posts that will arrive over the next few days. If I try to put it all in one post it would take way too long to write and read! :-)

This post will focus on the kids.

I'll start with Elizabeth's end of the year science project. She decided to incubate duck, turkey and chick eggs in a real incubator. She had to get up in the night and turn eggs, watch the temperature and moisture levels and record her data. She ended up with over 40 turkey's hatching. No, that is not a typo, we had 40 turkey chicks. We sold 9 of them when they were about 2 weeks old. One was crushed during feeding, the door slammed down on the poor little thing. So we still have 30 turkeys that we will be raising for butchering the end of November. We've decided not to do more meat chickens since we will have plenty of turkey for the freezer this winter and our first batch of meat bird raising hasn't gone that great. I'm sure we will give some of the turkeys away but I plant to keep at least 20 for us.

Elizabeth is enjoying working in the garden, helping me make cheese from our goats milk, and learning to make bread. She is a dreamer and says often how she hopes to have her own “farm” someday with a cow (she doesn't like the goat milk), vegetable and fruit gardens, and fruit trees. A girl after my own heart! :-) Of course we've talked about her being open to where ever and whatever God has for her in the future.

The kids have officially finished school and we are doing some occasional journal entries to practice writing and spelling. I'll probably do a summer review book with each of them starting in July. I need to get back into a schedule that will force the kids to read each day too, but until the gardens are all in we have put those things on hold.

Speaking of gardens. The big kids are putting in anywhere from 1 ½ hours to 3 hours a day Monday through Friday in the garden. They are working on earning a Wii Sport & Fit for their '09 – '10 school year. I work with them usually, some days I have to be in the house doing other chores. They have already put in over 150 hours toward their Wii.

Thomas has started on supplements again under the direction of Doctor Brown at the ARCH center. We took him for his first appointment in May where the doctor spent three hours with us helping us start setting some goals for his treatment plan. First on the docket is getting him back on the correct dosages of supplements. Thomas is not very excited about this, however, his health is improving even though we only have introduced about 7 of the 20 he'll eventually be on. The biggest improvement is in his bowels. Thomas usually only poops about 2 times a week. We are almost to the point where he is having a stool once a day. The other improvement is that his sleep is improving. He is falling to sleep a little faster and seems to be resting longer. These are some important first steps toward healing his tummy.

Philip is having some problems with an unexplained swollen gland. With chiropractic treatment it is improving. We tried antibiotics and they didn't effect it. Other than that Philip is spending his days playing in the creek looking for frogs. Usually Nathan is tagging along on the frog hunts.

We have just learned that Nathan has an ear that is completely blocked with wax. We will be trying some home wax removal things, if they don't work I'll have to take him to an Ear specialist to get it removed. Nathan is quite delayed with his speech, he is even worse than Philip was. So after doing some research on our local school we have decided to enroll the younger three in New Holstein Elementary for the fall. They seem to be ready to meet Thomas's needs and they have a GREAT speech pathologist!! I am impressed with the school layout and enjoyed meeting with the principle and CESA Autism Specialist.

As for Samuel and Caleb they are trying to learn how to be diligent workers here on the farm while enjoying many hours of building forts, playing in the creek, climbing trees, riding bikes and much more. Pray for us and them as we try to teach them how to be disciplined diligent young men.

Pray for us as we seek to raise these kids to have a heart for the Lord and others!

The Amish

2009-06-30T20:49:00.000-07:00

We've met several of our Amish neighbors over the past few months and are becoming better friends with our closest Amish neighbors. I have had a feeling lately that I am being accepted more into their circle of trust. I think it is because not only do we have a lot of children, but we also have a very large garden, freeze/can our garden produce, and raise a lot of our own meat.

The ladies in the Amish community have been much more talkative with me lately and just yesterday I was invited to shop at their local dry goods store. JACKPOT!! I've been hoping for an invitation to shop at the local Amish store. Today I went “shopping” and was able to buy 2 pounds of pectin for less that $5. The same amount would have been over $50 at WalMart!! They had lots of spices/seasonings for very reasonable prices along with all baking supplies. I had a pleasant conversation with the store owner and found that her husband might have a Jersey Cow for sale. I mentioned it to Phil and am hopeful that we will get an ad in the Wisconsin Farmer soon to sell or Dairy Goats so we can get a Jersey Cow.

I'm enjoying getting to know the folks in the Amish community. Phil and I are praying for opportunities to witness to them. We haven't yet learned if they are Old Order or New Order Amish which could mean the difference between Salvation in Grace alone or works based Salvation.

Birds

2009-06-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

Today is the day of the birds. When I got up this morning I noticed two of our baby turkeys frantically pacing along the front of their cage. I went out to check on them and found our friend the Great Horned Owl in their pen. It killed 26 of our 28 turkeys. So much for filling the freezer with turkeys this fall!

Phil called the DNR who put him in touch with Wildlife Management. Phil told them that he was not turning it loose again like we did last time. This owl has done too much damage on our farm to just let it go free again. They sent out a game warden who we thought would take it away, but instead, he shot the owl. He told us to contact the USDA to file for damages which we did only to discover that since the Great Horned Owl is only protected and not endangered they are not able to give us any type of compensation for the loss of birds. UGH!

On a happier note we butchered our meat birds this morning with some friends of ours. We did 200 birds in 4 hours. Only 23 of the birds were ours. Tonight I put 12 in the freezer and will package up and freeze the other 11 tomorrow afternoon. We'll be ordering more meat birds in a couple weeks to raise for butchering in September.

I'm in a Jam

2009-06-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

Today began Strawberry Jam season. The local Amish are selling wonderful ripe berries. I picked up some today so Elizabeth and I could start making jam. We were able to get 13 pints of Strawberry Rhubarb and 9 ½ pints of Strawberry done when all of a sudden my stove died. AGHH!! Both the stove top and the oven are not working. I checked the fuses in the basement thinking that I had blown a fuse, but they appear to be fine. The clock on my stove still works but none of the burners nor the oven work.

The worst of it is that Phil is out of town. I'm going to try to find a dealer that sells Amana stoves to see if I can get a service guy to take a look at it. I have about 7 gallons of milk that need to be made into cheese in the fridge and more strawberries coming on Thursday and Saturday from our Amish friends. This is NOT a good week for me to be without a stove. Well I cannot think of a week that would be a good one for me not to have a stove, but this one makes life even more challenging!!

UPDATE: Would you believe that the stove was unplugged?? The only portion of the plug that was still in was the part that worked the clock. I'm so thankful that it wasn't a broken stove! We have since canned a total of 66 pints of Strawberry Rhubard and 24 pints of Strawberry. Now we are working on freezing berries whole and crushed. Whole for smoothies and crushed to serve over ice cream and short cake.

April Happenings

2009-04-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

April was a busy month. We finished up our syrup season making just over 6 gallons of syrup. A GREAT first year! That will save us $240 on syrup this year.

We've spent a lot of time working on getting the gardens ready and still have a lot of work to do. You can visit our garden blog to read more about it.

Phil and the kids have been busy mucking out the barn. We welcomed 26 little meat birds mid April. We lost a couple in the first days then 3 more to a rat when we moved them to the barn. So we had to move them into the brooding box in the barn to protect them from our resident Templeton... EWE!!! We hope to have them outside grazing within the next couple weeks so they will have a full month on grass before butchering.

Four of our goats will be kidding any day. Phil is working on getting their new solar powered electric netting up so they can start grazing every day. We tried getting Pinky bread but the boar and his girls didn't like her so we aren't sure if she was actually bread or not since she only made it 5 days with the herd before we had to bring her home. We will butcher her this fall since getting her bread is going to be a challenge each year. We hope to find a few feeder pigs in May to raise for fall butchering too. If she is successfully bread then we will raise her piglets for early spring butchering.

Elizabeth's incubation experiment failed so the pig enjoyed many rotten duck eggs. Elizabeth still wants to incubate so we have borrowed an incubator from a friend and are trying to incubate turkey eggs and more duck eggs. We'll know if any of them were fertile starting May 14th, the date the first tray should be hatching. The kids excitedly told me that we have a chicken that appears to be broody, so they put 6-8 eggs under her. If she stays on them we'll see little chicks peeking out in 21 days. Spring time on the farm is full of fun and new life!

Nathan celebrated his fourth birthday on the 26th. It is hard to believe that my baby is 4 years old already. He was very excited to get a “shoot a bow and arrow” as he calls it for his birthday. The boy seems to always have a gun or bow and arrow in his hand trying to hunt for some exotic animal. :-)

We kicked the cats out of the basement about a week ago and of course I now have mice in my kitchen... YUCK!!!! Speaking of mice I'll end with Thomas's mouse story.

Two weeks ago we got home from church and Thomas saw one of the cats outside. He walked up to it and noticed that it had caught a mouse. He took the mouse..... which was still alive mind you.... away from the cat and brought it inside to show me. He was all excited and wanted to keep the mouse. Of course I bravely yelled for Phil and he guided Thomas outside to free the mouse. Thomas proceeded to talk about the mouse all night saying that he wanted a mouse for a pet. Phil told him he couldn't have a wild mouse but that the pet store had mice. I then said that mice are not ever welcome in this house as pets or not!!! When Phil was tucking Thomas into bed Thomas told Phil and he had KISSED the mouse... EWE!!! I was glad that Thomas hadn't kissed me goodnight!

A Sugar Snow!

2009-03-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

This morning we were so excited to wake up to what Laura Ingalls Wilder calls a "sugar snow" in Little House in the Big Woods. We have not gotten much sap this week because of the very warm temperatures then the very cold. On Thursday I cooked down the 18 gallons we had collected during the week. This second cook down went SOOO much faster. We finished the syrup in less than 8 hours that is a HUGE difference compared to the 18 it took us green horns for the first batch.

Today we gathered almost 25 gallons of sap! YEAH!! We will gather again tomorrow then on Monday another home school family is coming over to learn about the syruping process. They are a family from our church who has 4 girls and 1 boy. Their children's ages match up almost perfectly with our kids, and Eliza loves having them over since the girl count is almost equal to the boys when they are here! :-)

Our First Sugaring Day

2009-03-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a VERY LONG day. Phil started the fire up at 7 to start cooking down the 20 gallons of sap we had collected on Saturday and Sunday. We learned a LOT our first day.

1.Keep the fire REALLY hot. The faster the boil the better quality syrup and the faster it will be done. Our fire was not hot enough most of the day. I was so nervous about the sap boiling over that I didn't let it boil for most of the day. Finally at about 3 in the afternoon when it was going SOOOO slow I decided to stoke up the fire and found that I could allow the sap to boil nicely and it didn't boil over.
2.Keep the sap on the outside fire until there is only between 1 and 1 ½ gallons of sap left. We brought ours in too early which meant we've spent a lot of time finishing it in the house. So much time that it was midnight last night and we still weren't done. We finally went to bed and I finished it this morning.
3.We should have read more about the process so we would be more confident in what we were doing. While we were trying to finish the syrup inside last night we went online and read a lot. It was helpful to know the areas we need to change before we cook down more sap on Wednesday.
4.Spring is beautiful but the mud is a major magnet to little boys!! At one point yesterday three of the boys were covered in mud from head to toe. Because I couldn't leave the fire to give them baths Elizabeth had to bring out several 3 gallon buckets of warm water for me to get off the first layer of mud. We even had to dunk Philip & Nathan's heads into the water because they had mud pies for hair!
5.NOTHING gets accomplished in the house when I'm having to be out by the fire all day. The kids are ok out there monitoring it for a few minutes, but adult supervision is needed with boiling sap.

This morning when I finished our syrup we ended up with 4 full quarts of syrup. So our first day's ratio was 25 gallons of sap to 1 gallon of syrup. When Phil and I were researching last night we found that the sap to syrup ratio ranges from 20-60 gallons of sap to equal 1 gallon of syrup. From what we read the type of tree tapped along with the weather and sap quality can change throughout the syrup run. So we don't expect to get so much syrup each time even though many of the trees we are tapping are sugar maples. Total time for our first gallon of syrup. 18 hours of cook time. Like I stated above I don't think we had our fire hot enough yesterday. Hopefully next time we'll be able to shave off at least 5 hours from our cook time. That is the goal at least!! :-)

Today I have to take Thomas to Green Bay so we are not cooking down the 10 other gallons we collected yesterday. I hope we will get another 10 more today but with it being so warm, I'll be surprised if we do. I'm thinking that for us it might be a good idea to cook down sap every other day just so we can keep a handle on the house chores and laundry, while the sap run lasts that is. I'm concerned that with the weather being so warm the sap might stop running. The good thing is that many of our trees are in the woods where there is still snow cover and it is cooler. We are even thinking about tapping more of the sugar maples in the woods because we found a couple more taps and we have plenty of buckets. Anyway, further thoughts on cooking it down every other day...... by doing it that we it allows us to do school every other day in order to finish off their workbooks for each subject. We do math while making the sap by talking through how many cups are in pints, quarts, gallons, 5 gallons, etc. and have talked about the science of evaporation too.

Update: We only gathered 6 gallons of sap today. :-( Phil talked with one of our friends that has been sugaring for 7 years and he said this year may be a REALLY bad year. In other words, the run might be almost done because of the warm nights last night and tonight.... how sad!! We are still thankful for the little bit we have been able to make.

My Birthday

2009-03-15T20:59:00.000-07:00

Today is my 37th birthday. Yes, I am a woman who just admitted my age! :-) I guess I don't feel 37, except when I'm in the garden all day and can hardly move by the evening. I plan to start walking this week so I can get ready for the heavy garden work this summer. I'm sure hiking in the woods gathering sap each day will help to build some strength too!

We had a lovely day worshiping the Lord this morning at our church First Baptist Church of Kiel. Phil and I are so thankful for the solid Bible teaching and preaching at our church. Our pastor is teaching on the doctrine of man using Ryries Basic Theology book as a guide, and the morning message was from John 9, the first 12 verses. We were reminded that we must not be blind to those around us and miss opportunities to do the work of the Lord. It was a convicting message, especially for a busy mom who is easily distracted by the tasks of a day, and not as sensitive to teachable moments with my kids.

After church we headed for home where I had Venison Stew in the crock pot to be served with the bread I made yesterday. I was surprised when I got home to find out that Phil was taking me out to eat while Elizabeth served the kids stew at home. It is very nice having a child old enough to hold down the fort for a couple hours. Phil and I had a lovely lunch at one of the local restaurants. When we returned home we headed out to check the buckets for sap. It is a beautiful day which made the walk in the wood so pleasant. We gathered a little over 10 gallons of sap today. Which brings our total to a little over 20 gallons of sap. Tomorrow morning I will start to cook down the sap into syrup. If I do it right we should end up with about 2 quarts of syrup.

Kids in the Garden

2009-03-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

I have to post a funny story about two of our children who were trapped in the garden today. Thankfully spring is arriving here in South Eastern Wisconsin which makes for a muddy garden. My youngest two children decided to wander into the garden, I'm not sure why, but they were quickly sucked into the mud! I glanced out my kitchen window to see Nathan (almost 4 years old) trying to take a step. His upper body kept moving while his feet were firmly stuck in the mud. He fell face first and was quite upset. Philip (5 years old) saw his brother in distress and tried using a stick to free his feet. Thankfully, Phil was on his way outside so while I was laughing I asked Phil to go rescue the kids from the garden.. In the meantime the struggle for freedom continued. Philip moved to another part of the garden which caused him to get stuck and step right out of his rubber boot. All the while Nathan was still crying because he couldn't get his feet loose. He'd lean his body forward and spring back because his feet were firmly in the mud. I only wish I would've thought to grab the camera.

The boys came to the house with mud completely covering their rubber boots, the front part of their pants, hands, coats, etc. I only wish the outside hose was thawed so I could've hosed them down before bringing them in for a bath!

I guess my hopes of getting in the garden soon are a little premature... I don't want to get sucked into the mud and I'm quite sure my children wouldn't come to the rescue! :-)

Snow Snow SNOW!

2009-03-09T21:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we were hit with another 5 inches of snow just as we were starting to see beautiful dark rich soil in our gardens. I'm thankful for the good moisture but was a bit daunted in my hopes for spring when the forecast showed a cold next two weeks. However, yesterday when I checked the 2 week forecast on accuweather.com it look much more promising.

We've been tossing around the idea of trying to tap trees for maple syrup and had just about given up on the idea when we learned that a friend at church used to tap trees but hasn't for a couple years. He has all the equipment we would need and is willing to let us use it. Phil is going to talk with him tonight to find out if he would like to join us in maple sugaring along with his two boys. Phil and Rob got to hunt together this past fall and they really enjoy each other’s company. It would be a wonderful time of fellowship for the men and boys, plus it would be GREAT to have someone working with us who has made syrup before. If all works out we will start tapping this week since it is supposed to warm up on Saturday and be perfect sugaring weather thereafter.

Elizabeth's little incubating experiment continues. She has 8 duck eggs that she is incubating. We are also collecting goose eggs and will either try to get the goose to sit on them this weekend when it warms up, or we will try to incubate them too. We are going to be drowning in science experiments over the next couple weeks with the incubation and syrup making projects! How fun!

We are starting a new blog. For a while now we've been contemplating doing a gardening blog and have decided to do it. So for those of you who aren't interested in our gardening adventures you won't have to read about it any longer on this blog. If you want to follow along with our garden journey than you'll want to read Gardening In South Central Wisconsin at reesegardens.blogspot.com

March News

2009-03-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

I'm not doing a very good job blogging in this new year. I've composed many blogs in my head that have never made it onto the computer for various reasons. February flew by with a few colds, more dead chickens, and lots of school. We are pushing to complete the majority of our school work by the end of March because we have gardens to plant and fences to put up. Once that is done we will resume "school" by doing a summer review book for each of the kids.

Our chicken flock has gone from 70 to less than 40. Some of the hens have finally started to lay again and we are averaging 10 eggs a day. We've ordered 25 meat birds which will arrive in April and be butchered in July. Twenty five new hens will also be added to the farm in May.

The goats are looking pregnant which is a good sign. They aren't due until the end of April. A couple of them are getting quite large, so they might be carrying triplets.

Elizabeth has decided to try to incubate duck eggs. We will know in a few days if the eggs are fertile or not. She did the research and has a little home made incubator in her room. We had one female and 2 males survive the dog and mink attacks. We hope that the female will eventually get the motherly urge, so if our attempts to incubate fail, we will still have some little ducklings sometime this spring. We have also discovered that we have one goose. A goose egg was found in the barn two days ago. Only time will tell if we have a pair that will mate or two geese.

Phil and I have been researching Maple Sugaring and will tap 12 trees this weekend to start the process of making our own Maple syrup. This year is supposed to be a good year for the sap run, so we hope to make a gallon or two for our first sugaring season. I'm sure it will be quite an adventure!

We are very excited that over the next 15 days 10 are supposed to be at or above 40 degrees. That is perfect maple sugaring weather.... and it will allow all the snow to melt so we can start to clear the upper garden and plan the lower with some early spring food (spinach, peas, lettuce, kale, etc.). I'll be starting many of my garden plants over the next week in the living room.

The boys have been enjoying "hunting" on these warmer days. They dress up with their swords, archery items, and shields, and head out to walk along the creek in hopes of spotting animals. Nathan and Philip love trotting after Sam on these adventures.

Caleb has new glasses and can now see out of both his eyes, PRAISE THE LORD! Samuel will be getting his new glasses next week and I get to have an appointment for contacts next week too! YEAH!! I haven't had contacts since Phil lost his job at NBBC, over 3 years ago. I'm looking forward to getting to wear sunglasses this summer while I work in the garden.

We hope you are all enjoying the coming of spring in your neck of the woods! For me Spring is a reminder of the New Life we have in Christ. It also causes me to be so thankful that God never gives up on me, He forgives me of my sin when I confess it and allows me to start fresh and clean in my efforts to serve and please Him.

FIRE!

2009-02-07T08:59:00.000-08:00

February 6, 2009
“FIRE!”

Yesterday while sitting in the kitchen I heard Philip screech, “FIRE! Mommy there is a FIRE!” I stood up and looked toward the living room and saw a box of newspapers that had fallen against the wood stove which was in flames. The flames were shooting up a couple feet above the stove. I ran and grabbed the box and shouted to the boys to open the front door. As I was running with the box a clump of flaming papers flew by my head, singing my hair and landed on the hard wood floor. When I exited the front door I threw the box into the snow and ran back into the house to put out the fire by the stove. I beat out all the fire in the house with a cardboard box then went outside to deal with the burning box of papers. There were clumps of fire on the porch against the house and against the railing. I was able to put those out easily, however, the box of papers was burning fiercely and there were several pieces flying off that I had to catch and put out so they wouldn't start a fire somewhere else against the house or in the trees. I shouted for Sam to get me a shovel. With the shovel I was able to throw snow on the fires in the front yard. It probably only took a total of 5-7 minutes for all of this to happen, it was very intense.

I'm so thankful that the kids reacted quickly and obediently to my commands. We had a discussion time when it was all over and I praised the kids for obeying right away and for not trying to handle the fire by themselves. Their quick reactions saved our house, and our potentially our lives. I praise the Lord for the way He gives us strength and the ability to handle emergencies.

So, how did the fire start? We keep a box of newspapers and kindling in the corner by the door in the living room. When I started the fire in the morning I had set the box on the wood pile instead of in the corner. It was a safe distance from the fire, or so I thought. Nathan and Philip had decided to unplug the extension cord for the cordless phone and start swinging it. In their swinging of the chord it pushed the box onto the stove. I had just told them to stop and plug in the phone when the box ignited. It was a good lesson for the kids about how careful they need to be around the wood stove.

More Dead Chickens!

2009-02-04T19:37:00.000-08:00

Today we found 5 chickens dead upon entering the barn. We thought another dog had gotten in, you see a few weeks ago we lost 8 chickens and 2 ducks to the neighbors dog. They then got sick because of getting overly stressed due to the dog attack and we lost another 9 chickens. Well, today's chickens were peculiar because they had bite marks on the back of the neck. We were also missing another duck. I thought that we had a fox or raccoon that had found their way into the chicken pen. The boys went out to clean up the mess and saw a “creature” sniffing at the door of the rabbit pen. They threw a bucket at it, which caused a hiss from the animal and it scurried away. By their first description I thought the animal might have been a muskrat, but then they told me it had a long furry tail. We looked up a mink in our encyclopedia and both the boys confirmed that that was what they saw in the barn.

Discovering a varmint solved another puzzle that presented itself this past Sunday. Sunday morning while doing chores Elizabeth found a barrel that had 17 eggs. All the eggs were frozen, most were cracked and ended up being partially empty when I thawed them. Some of the eggs were cracked in half with exposed frozen egg. Phil thought maybe the chickens were so shook up after the dog incident that they were laying eggs while perched on the barrel. I didn't think that would happen. We've asked a couple locals if a mink would steel eggs, and all have said YES! I guess eggs are a favorite of theirs. Our friend had mink killing his chickens through chicken wire. It would reach through the wire and grab the birds by the neck and kill them but not be able to get them out to eat them.

Our plan is to trap and kill the mink. Thankfully one of our friends has a live trap we are using for tonight. Tomorrow Phil is going to stop at the mink farm that is about 2 miles from here and see if they have any traps and if they'd want the mink (maybe even pay for them) once we catch them. If we are successful you just might notice a lovely mink collar on my coat! :-)

Oh by the way. On a very sad note. We started the winter with 70 chickens and 6 ducks along with our geese and turkeys. One of the geese is still healing from the dog attack, the turkeys are safe and getting nice and big. However, we only have about 40 chickens left and 3 ducks. SOOOOO sad!!

"Breading" Pinky

2009-02-04T19:32:00.000-08:00

I have to tell another story about a conversation that I had with Philip today. This afternoon we went to our Chiropractor. While I was getting adjusted I told Sam to remind me to talk with our friend Mr. Turba about getting Pinky bread to his boar. Our plans were to stop by the Turba's on the way home from town. As we were driving there, Philip, who overheard our conversation said to me, “Mommy, we already ate Stinky Bread and it was good!!” I told him that we ate Stinky ham, pork chops, and sausage but that there wasn't such a thing as “Stinky Bread”. I then explained to him that when we say we are going to get Pinky bread it means that we are going to let Pinky be a mommy. Then he asked me if baby pigs like to eat pig slop. I told him that they only have their mommy pigs milk at first but that they would eventually like pig slop. He said, “Oh, so they get sweet goat milk when they are babies.” I had to try to explain to him that Pinky would have a special piggy milk when the pigs were born and the baby pigs would really like it! He finally seemed satisfied and stopped asking questions. Nothing like teaching the birds and the bees pig style to a 5 year old!

Febraury 3 -- Thomas

2009-02-03T17:58:00.000-08:00

It has been such a blessing to read your comments. Blogging is a fun way of journaling our family happenings and my little hobbies. I'm glad that others enjoy keeping up with our family by reading my entries.

Today I spent the afternoon traveling with Thomas to his bi-monthly Therapy review. I am so thankful that Thomas has been able to receive the Wisconsin Autism Waiver which pays for 35 hours a week of in home one on one therapy. If we had to pay out of pocket for these services it would run us $40,000 - $70,000 per year. God is good!

Thomas has made significant progress in his first two years on the program. Some of his big area's of improvement are: language, social interaction, basic learning skills, reading, writing, emotions, and compliance. He has gone from a 18 month old rating in most of these areas to a 3 1/2 - 5 year old level as of March 2008. I'm guessing that this year he will be between a 5-6 yr old in all areas. Thomas will be 8 in May so he is still behind his peers but he is really improving. Thomas has a lot of "quirks" that are unique to him and the autism disability, but even these have decreased.

The other day Phil and I were at WalMart and I purposely went to the checkout line of a "handicapped" clerk. She is usually very chatty, yet as a mother of a child who is challenged it is very evident to me that she is not what most people would call, "normal". I shared with Phil afterwards that I enjoy going to her isle when I'm at WalMart and talking with her. The average consumer would be irritated with her conversation. I look at her and smile thinking that it would be such a blessing if my Thomas were able to have a job some day. It would be such a blessing if others would accept Thomas for who he is now and when he is grown. It would be a blessing to see him independent and caring for himself. I know that the many hours that Thomas' therapists spend with him weekly are helping him to grow and develop into a functional person.

So, why is Thomas at the forefront of my thoughts today? Well, besides spending 3+ hours alone with him today, I learned that some things with his program might be changing. Pray with us that the transitions will go well and that Thomas will thrive in spite of them. I am still hopeful that they won't make the changes that they are contemplating, but it seems after today that they are inevitable and it is just a matter of time until they occur.

I'll end this blog with a funny scene from our shopping excursion today. Thomas and I went to Woodmans, a large reasonable priced grocery store in Green Bay, before his appointment. I needed to buy honey and while I was trying to compare prices he was trying to stop EVERYONE, quoting lines from the "Bee Movie". He was shouting and grabbing at people quoting the lines from the movie when the bee sees all the honey for sale at the grocery store and is outraged. As I was trying to shush him, I laughed and realized.... who cares what people think! At least he was quoting the movie at an appropriate time and place! :-) If there had been children down the isle they probably would've recognized that he was quoting a movie and smiled at his actions. Adults however, roll their eyes and glare and this mom who cannot handle her "bratty child." Oh well......

February 1, 2009 - Praises

2009-02-02T19:37:00.001-08:00

February 1, 2009
Praises

It has been a couple months since my last post. I'm just curious..... did you miss me? I've often wondered how many friends and family members actually read my blog. If you've missed hearing about our family adventures leave a comment or email me and let me know.

There are many things that need some updating but I thought I'd start the year with some praises.

1.We found out this past week that I do not have a chronic blood clot in my leg any more. We have been praying that the Lord would do a miracle and allow both clots to dissolve and Praise the Lord He chose to heal my leg and remove both clots. I will no longer need to be on rat poison and according to the blood labs I do not have the genetic tendency for clotting. We praise the Lord for these specific answers to prayer!
2.We have a new dog. Some friends of ours needed to find a new home for their year old Great Dane, Nina. Phil and the boys met Nina and we decided to adopt her. She is very BIG and very mild mannered. The previous owners did a WONDERFUL job training her. She is starting to enjoy our family and show signs of settling in. She is black with a little white patch on her chest. Her back is about up to my hips. She looks like a black lab on stilts! :-)
3.We successfully butchered Stinky with the help of some friends just after Christmas. We've been enjoying pork chops, sausage, and ham. When the slicer comes in we will be able to slice the bacon. Our summer sausage is sitting in the freezer for 30 days to make sure all possible bacteria is dead.
4.We are all in good health.
5.School is going well. Elizabeth has become quite independent and usually gets her schoolwork done very quickly, which allows her to fill her “extra” time with reading and art. Caleb is needing some extra challenging, and Samuel is plugging along. Philip is wanting to learn to read and write. Thomas is doing great with his sight words and short vowel phonics words. He will start journaling this week. We are thankful that he is in his third year of ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy. He receives 30-35 hours of one on one instruction from his therapists. Nathan enjoys coloring and cuddling up to Nina.
6.Phil is enjoying his work with Dynamic Campus Solutions. We are thankful that for the time his job is not in any danger of cut backs or lay-offs. I got to meet his co-workers at his companies Christmas party which was held at the Whistling Straights Golf Course Clubhouse. The PGA Championship tournament will be held at this course in 2010, 2015, & 2020.
7.Spring is coming! Yes, I can feel it in my bones! :-) The seeds for the garden have been ordered, potatoes will be ordered in March, and I am anxiously waiting for the snow to soak into the earth so we can begin working on this years planting.
I'll end this post with another of Philip's funny moments. Philip is starting to show more interest in spiritual things. The other night he was having a talk with Phil about Heaven, sin, and hell. He was very curious about why when people are naughty they have to go to the “hotel”. The poor boy must have his ears clogged again... he mistook the word hell for hotel. Out of the mouths of babes! :-) We are so thankful that God's word says, “Suffer the little children to come unto me....” This is our prayer for each of our children that they will come to know the Lord personally and choose to serve Him with their lives.

Philip's tooth

2008-12-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

Philip lost his first tooth tonight at dinner. He was eating applesauce and reached in his mouth to pick out what he thought was a piece of food and he pulled out a tooth! He is VERY excited about his "tooth fairy". We tried to explain to him that it is a tooth and that the tooth fairy will visit him tonight and leave him some money. He kept getting confused. He put the tooth under my pillow and checked it frequently, notifying us that it was still there and the tooth fairy hadn't come yet. When he went up to bed he took the tooth with him to put under his pillow. :-)

I'll try adding a picture tomorrow because the internet isn't cooperating right now! :-(

The School Room

2008-12-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging. Many things have been stressing and tiring me out lately and I haven't had the desire to blog most of the time. Today we tackled one of my HUGE stresses.... the school room. Phil's company gave him a nice gift certificate for Christmas and we were able to purchase some book shelves for the school room as well as a couple other needed items.

I've been doing school in the kitchen lately because I do not like the chaos of our school room. We were using cardboard boxes as make shift book shelves, which were becoming more and more bowed. We also had a HUGE pile of “stuff” that hadn't found a home yet since we moved in.

Many of the boxes are filled with books that I hope to get bookshelves for someday, but until then the pile of “stuff” has been relocated to a storage closet off the bathroom. I still have a lot of sewing supplies pilled up near the filing cabinet which I hope to get organized into rubber maid containers before storing it elsewhere.

Here is a shot of the newly organized wall.

Venison for the Freezer!

2008-12-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

December 1, 2008
Phil didn't get a deer this hunting season. However he did enjoy learning how to field dress a deer and a great time of fellowship with men from our church at the hunting cabin. He did see a nice buck opening season but he didn't get a shot at it. He also shot at a nice 7 pointer the last weekend of hunting season but it was too far off and on the run, so he missed. We were very blessed by friends sharing some of their deer with us. We have two small bucks and a really nice doe to cut up next week. We are thankful for the meat!

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-12-05T18:09:00.001-08:00

We had a nice quiet thanksgiving yesterday even if it was a bit lonely. I still miss being with family on the holidays but I know that since we have chosen a life with farm animals we will most likely not get to leave home much.

I was hoping we'd get to eat one of our turkey's for our Thanksgiving dinner but Phil thought ours were still too small so we enjoyed some chicken instead. It was fun and challenging serving a preservative, dye, and “processed” dinner. We had our pastured chicken, stuffing made with properly prepared homemade bread & cornbread flavored with garden veggies and sage, sweet potato souffle, corn, organic cranberry sauce, gravy, homemade bread w/ butter, pumpkin & apple pie served with freshly whipped cream. It was the first thanksgiving ever that I didn't end up with an MSG head ache from the stuffing and other preservative laced foods. We enjoyed all the food that we had grown on our own property.

We spent the week filling up construction paper leaves with things we were thankful for. We tapped the leaves on the window in the kitchen. The rule was that you had to put something totally different down each time and we couldn't repeat anything that had been chosen on a different day. Our window was filled with fun colorful leaves listing over 30 different things that our family was thankful for.

November 9, Venison

2008-11-09T18:21:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that my last several posts have a date listed before the title. I've decided to blog daily on my computer then download those blogs when I have internet access. So you may notice a lapse in blogging then several all at once will be posted. I hope you will enjoy keeping up with things a little more closely than before.

Today we had a deer given to us with the skin still on. My dear family knows that any time an animal was being butchered when I was growing up, I ran and hid. Well our desire to learn how to do our own butchering and processing of food has changed my outlook quite a bit. Last weekend, with the help of our friends I butchered 30 chickens, 15 for us and 15 for them. Tonight Pastor Steve and Bob, friends from church came over to teach Phil and I how to skin, quarter and butcher venison. Ok.... Kirk & Dad you can pick yourself up off the floor and continue reading. :-) Yes, I touched raw bloody meat! Not only did I touch it but I de-boned it cut it into steaks, butterflied the tenderloin, and cut roasts while picking off hair and cutting off the Grissel. The doe was quite small so we only got about 13 meals from her but free meat is free meat!!

Now that Phil and I are trying to learn all this stuff I only wish I had paid more attention when my Dad and brother cut up meat each year. Phil is thinking about taking some butchering classes sometime in the future so we will be able to more confidently process all our own home grown meat.

I'm very thankful to have chicken and venison in the freezer along with a little Lamb and Elk that we received from friends this past week too. We might get to eat meat every night this week what a treat that will be!! We've also been blessed with more carrots, beets, and cabbage. MMMMM!

Phil will be hunting with a bunch of men from our church opening weekend. If he doesn't get a dear there is a very good chance that there will be "extra" deer shot that others won't want for their families. Very soon our freezer will be full of venison, pork, and beefalo! I'm exciting about being able to have a menu centered around meat rather than beans BUT ....... I think we will need another freezer next year!! I already have my chest freezer almost full with lamb, chicken, and veggies from the garden. I'll have to do some shuffling to fit in all the meat we have coming, but it will be worth it!

Oh and for those of you who care..... we got 9 eggs today! :-)

November 8, Let it Snow!

2008-11-09T18:19:00.001-08:00

Yes, that is right we are in one of the many areas across the US that are receiving a bit of snow. I laugh as I think about us have 70 degree weather on Mon & Tuesday and an inch of snow today. Only in the Mid-West!
It is a perfect start to the day since we are heading out at 10 to go to the church for Christmas Program practice. Samuel has one of the lead roles in the play. Elizabeth, Caleb, Philip, and I all have small parts. Yesterday I was approached by the program leader and asked to play the piano for the program because the woman who was lined up to play is no longer able to. I'm so excited! It has been so much fun getting back to the piano after 8 years of hardly touching the keyboard. Yesterday before our chiropractor appointment Sam & I stopped by the church so I could practice for an hour. I probably could've sat there for three hours if I had the time. I'm trying to prepare some simple offertories for when I'm scheduled to play for church services while reviewing some scales, chords, and technique books that I used years ago in an effort to get my hands to start working properly again. I'm also reviewing a classical book that I started in College to help build my skills further.

I am loving teaching piano again and am praying that the Lord would provide a piano for our family so that I can not only teach our children but be able to offer lessons, a couple each day, to those in the community. My three students seem to really be enjoying lessons more and more as I discover their true level of play and am able to get them into books that are appropriate for them. Two of my students have had 4 years of lessons but only went through the primer level then jumped to books that are really really hard. We have decided to scale them back into a “normal” level and start a strong emphasis on theory, note, chord, and scale studies. The girls seem to be really excited about it and so am I! I'm anxious to get Elizabeth going again so she can also catch up for two years of stagnancy in her playing. Our greatest challenge is finding time to get to the church to practice since we don't have a piano of our own.

When I began piano at the age of 6 I had the best piano teacher. Mrs. Irene Lowe was my teacher all the way through 6th grade. I know that Mrs. Lowe always wanted to see me teaching piano some day. She was an amazingly talented musician who taught such a well rounded piano program. It is my desire to follow her style of teaching with my children and with all of my students. Because of the way she taught I was able to learn a wood wind and brass instrument in high school along with playing various percussion instruments. I'm not sure if Mrs. Lowe is still alive, but I am thankful for her godly example as a teacher and mother. She taught piano in her home because she has a son with Downs Syndrome. I know my mom saw her a few years ago at Shepherds Home in WI. When he moved into Shepherds they moved to Wisconsin to live in the same area in order to stay close to him. If I remember correctly, even those in her lessons who were not “church goers” had to learn how to hymn play as a part of their lesson. I see that as a great way to share the gospel with others. I pray that I will faithfully use what Mrs. Lowe taught me to help prepare others for church ministry, as well as to simply share her love for piano.

November 7, Attitudes, Chores and MORE EGGS!

2008-11-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

We have changed our focus, attitudes, tones and expectations for our home a lot these past two weeks. The Lord brought me to a point of deep conviction about how I was talking to (yelling at), training (scolding), and dealing harshly with the kids on a daily basis about their laziness and disobedience. Through a situation in our church and listening to a friends abuse story I realized how horrible I was being and how miserable our family was. I confessed my sin and asked God to change me and make me a peaceful, loving, encouraging mom.

The next day I sat down with the kids and shared with them what the Lord had done in my heart. I asked their forgiveness and told them that God wants to see our home be a peaceful loving home. I also shared with them that I saw how much my anger had effected them because of the anger in their lives and how they dealt with conflict between siblings. We talked about how in the Bible Jesus only got angry and frustrated with the Pharisees and Sadducees who were being “fake” Christians. Jesus always taught people with patience and love. I have not been doing that but want God to change me and pray that God will change the kids too.

The past two weeks have been very different. Got has given me the ability to view the kids through His eyes and as a result I haven't “yelled” at the kids one time. We are working together more peacefully and have a family goal of making our family peaceful and loving. Our chores have really changed from a frustrating time to a time of each of us working together to get things done. The kids are having better attitudes and are learning how to prayerfully change their hearts of anger into hearts of love. We are studying anger in Proverbs and this weeks spelling verses are Proverbs 14:17 and 29:22.

This week has been fun gathering eggs. Elizabeth is trying to convince the boys that gathering eggs is a girls job! :-) Tuesday we got 4 eggs, Wednesday 5, Thursday 5, and today 8! We are at the point where I won't have to buy eggs anymore! YEAH! This morning we had veggie loaded omelets with our beautiful deep orange yolked eggs. We had green peppers from our garden, onions & chard from friends gardens a piece of bacon each, topped with some wonderful sharp cheddar cheese. YUMMY! It is very exciting for me to see the kids enjoying more fresh foods.

Tonight we will be enjoying elk meat balls, mashed winter potatoes, and cheesy broccoli. And for dessert we are having Chocolate Cream Shakes: 3 cups cream, 1 tablespoon cocoa powder or carob powder, a drizzle of real maple syrup or agave nectar, 1-3 farm fresh egg yolk, and about 4 ice cubes. . Put all ingredients in a blender and give it a whirl. Taste to see if it needs a bit more sweetener. The kids loved it and I loved giving them a healthy “snack” before bed.

November 6, What's in the Garden?

2008-11-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

I am shocked and pleased to report that our garden is still producing some beautiful food. We have Romaine, Butter crunch, and Black Simpson lettuces, two types of spinach, celery, leeks and the Brussels sprouts are loosing their leaves while revealing a stalk filled with lovely mini cabbages! Today we will be liming the garden and hope to finish laying a very thin layer of straw before we do the last tilling of the season. The strawberry plants might need a little more straw over them. We've had so much wind that a lot of it has blown off. I still have beets to preserve, and some carrots to dig up and prepare for winter storage. I'm going to preserve some of the beets without pickling so we can use them in our Valentine soup and for Balsamic Beets. I have three 5 gallon buckets FILLED with beets to cook up and preserve. I also have some other root veggies that I'm going to experiment with storage techniques to see how the foods will last the longest in our root cellar. I cannot believe that I'm still harvesting food and it is November.

We have a lot of work to do in the new garden plot before the ground freezes. The pigs have rooted up a lot of rocks that need to be removed. I hope that the kids and I can get all the rocks out, get some lime sprinkled on it and get it tilled before the ground freezes. Even if we can only get half of it ready that will be extremely helpful for our spring planting. A lot of what we will be planting in the back garden won't go into the ground until late May/early June.

November 5, Which came first? Chicken or Egg?

2008-11-09T18:15:00.002-08:00

Raising animals is another great prof for God's miraculous seven day creation. When you want eggs from chickens you have to have hens that are at least 5 months old. This week our hens reach their 5 month birthday and it has been so fun seeing the beautiful new eggs they are laying each day. According to our calculations only about 6 of the 23 hens are laying. Some hens take 6 months before laying so we aren't expecting them all to be producing until sometime in December. Our hens are laying beautiful eggs, some are a light tan/beige, some are orangish brown, others are brown with white speckles and brown with red speckles. It makes a beautiful carton of eggs! The next time we are able to fill up a carton I'll try to remember to take a picture. We tend to eat them about as fast as they are coming into the house most of the time.

November 4, Is this REALLY November?

2008-11-09T18:15:00.001-08:00

The weather has been amazing these past few days. Today we put aside the school books for some practical learning in organization and farm management. We spent the day enjoying the 70 degree weather while cleaning the barn, organizing the feed, mixing chicken feed, and doing more preparatory work for the winter housing of the animals. It is a very nice feeling to see the barn looking more like a barn and to hear the happy thankful responses from the animals who are living in it. We still have to build a few stalls but thankfully the work we did will make the building project much easier!

November 3, The Birthday Boy

2008-11-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

Today my third born celebrates his 9th birthday. He spent the day helping daddy paint our old house up north and came home with “grey” hair and absolutely exhausted.

Caleb has accepted Christ as his Savior but struggles, as we all do, to understand the magnitude of God's sovereignty. Caleb is our family clown, he enjoys being silly and making his little brothers laugh. He is a very special big brother. Each night Caleb reads books to his little brothers before bed time. They ask for Caleb to read to them almost every night and miss it when he doesn't. Caleb is very intelligent and an avid reader. He is currently doing 3rd & 4th grade school work even though he is technically only in 3rd grade. I am proud of Caleb for his heart of love and leadership toward his little brothers.

Getting Back to Normal

2008-10-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

We spent this past week getting back into a "normal" routine. The week before was so busy with Sunny's departure, Elizabeth's birthday, and the Youth Group activity that our week was just CRAZY! This week we focused on getting back into a good school routine and enjoyed stopping by the library to refresh our supply of books and audio learning cd's. We have a great library only 10 miles from our house. The head of the children's dept loves home schooling families and it shows. She is very helpful and loves working with kids!! We checked out a cd on Squanto that is produced by Focus on the Family. It is excellent, I would highly recommend that you try to borrow or buy it for your family if you have children.

Phil finished up the chicken room all but the laying boxes. For now we put some crates filled with straw up on top of their tall feeder lid. Our new hens will hopefully start laying eggs any day.... we anxiously await the day when we no longer need to buy eggs from the store or others.

Phil also made a stall in the barn for the goats so we could get them out of their summer area and into a place where it is much warmer. He plans on building them a larger winter stall in the middle of the barn but the one he finished was already partially started and easier to complete. Plus it leads to the outside which he can fence in with some electric fencing to allow the goats to have some free choice grazing on the "warmer" days.

Pinky and Stinky have been reduced to the upper left hand corner of their pasture area and are enjoying more feed these days while we fatten them up for butchering and wintering. Phil will be working on a stall for Pinky over these next couple of weeks so that when we haul off Stinky for butchering we will be able to move her into her winter stall.

Our first Youth activity was the evening of Elizabeth's birthday Party. Our activity for the night was entitled "chicken run"! We divided the youth and our boys into two teams which had to catch all the roosters (18) and put them into the chicken tractors for fattening before we butcher them. Would you believe I forgot to take pictures!!! It was quite fun watching the girls, Pastor Steve, Phil, Caleb & Sam chasing the roosters. We enjoyed a toasty campfire which we used for hot dogs and s'mores. The girls also practiced for their Bible quizzing in which they tied for First Place this past weekend at our regional Youth Meeting. Elizabeth was very nervous about the quizzing but did manage to answer one question to help her team gain their victory.

The boys and I spent Saturday getting the garden ready for its wintery rest. We pulled up the trellises, ripped out all the dead plants, buried the strawberry plants under straw, and started the process of spreading a thin layer of straw over the entire garden. Our soil is solid clay. I hope that by adding the straw and rabbit manure it will start the process of getting the soil more peat like and workable. I will do a shallow 3 inch tilling of the straw this week after I sprinkle on some lime. Next fall I will have some nicely composted goat, pig, and chicken poop to spread throughout the garden, that will be just lovely!! :-) We will also be picking rocks in the new garden plot and ripping up any weeds that Stinky & Pinky decided not to eat this summer. My last garden project for this year will be to transplant some raspberry plants from a friend into the new garden plot. We are still enjoying lettuce, spinach, leeks, celery, and brussels sprouts but that will probably come to an end soon since the temperatures are dropping and I don't have these foods in winter boxes.

The only other new event in our lives is that I am a piano teacher again! I was approached by a family in our church and asked to teach their three daughters. I was planning on teaching Elizabeth this year and decided it would be fun to get back to teaching a couple other students. It has challenged me to get back to the piano, and I now spend many days wishing I had a piano here at the house to practice. Since we don't have a piano I teach at our church and practice at our church. I hope that this week Eliza and I will be able to start practicing 4-5 days a week at the church. Thankfully our church is only 10 minutes away, but it is more convenient to practice when the boys can stay here, so Phil and I are trying to figure out when we can work piano practice into our daily schedule.

Well, that concludes the latest info on the Reese's Pieces gang.... enjoy a week filled with God's beautiful creation during this wonderful fall season!

Three Posts

2008-10-15T19:49:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This was supposed to be posted last night, Oct 14 but the internet died before I finished posting our events from Oct 13 & 14, so read it as if it was posted yesterday, not today.

Much has happened in the past 24 hours which would make for one long post. Instead I will be writing 3 posts about things that have occurred here in the Reese house: Elizabeth's Birthday, Sunny's Departure, and The Great Horned Owl.

One story that really doesn't fit in any of the above posts is about Philip and our cat Nibbles. Yesterday Nibbles caught a mouse. We found the mouse out on the lawn. When Sam went to move it Nibbles was upset, snatched it up and ran off to eat her catch. Philip then caught Nibbles and brought her into the house excitedly telling me: “Look Mommy, Nibbles is eating the mouse!” I chased him and the cat with half the mouse sticking out of her mouth out of the house. I guess that I can find comfort in the fact that Philip wasn't touching the mouse, he was only carrying the cat who was trying to eat the mouse into my house! :-)

Elizabeth's Birthday

2008-10-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This was supposed to be posted yesterday, Oct 14 but the internet stopped working after the owl & sunny posts were posted. Eliza's birthday was Oct 13.

Yesterday my baby girl turned 12. I am so thankful that the Lord choose to bless us with Elizabeth. She entered the world so tiny and frail at a whopping 5 pounds 1 ounce. Now she is turning into a beautiful young woman with a sweet spirit and tender heart. She is learning how to cope with 5 younger brothers while taking on the challenge of helping her mom and dad learn how to be “farmers”. She loves gathering eggs and is quite the pro at milking the goats. Elizabeth is very talented in the area of music and art and is looking forward to having piano lessons this year.

Now..... if I could only figure out a way to get her to shower more than once every 12 days. I keep telling her that I could grease my frying pan with her head! :-) Oh well.... soon enough I probably won't be able to keep her out of the bathroom if she is anything like her mother was as a teenager.

We didn't have a birthday party for her yesterday. However, we did have some yummy gluten free chocolate chip zucchini cake with ice cream and she opened her birthday cards from her grandparents. This Thursday she is having some friends spend the night and on Friday we will have her actual birthday party just before her first youth group activity, which we are hosting.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth! May God bless you and guide you as you seek to honor him!

Sunny's Departure

2008-10-14T18:58:00.003-07:00

Last night Samuel, Philip, and Phil were throwing some wood into the basement wood room when Philip started to scream: “Sunny's dead, Sunny's dead!” At that time Sam joined in the chorus and Phil and I went running for the front of the house.

Our dear sweet Sunny dog decided to take on a Combine and lost the battle. We are very thankful that he didn't suffer, his death was very quick and painless. The next several hours were quite difficult for us all. We all shed many tears as we tried to encourage the kids to be thankful that we were able to enjoy Sunny for the past year and a half.

Phil came up to me after all the kids were finally down for the night and held me so that I could cry. Sunny was my dog. Phil got him for me last summer. Phil knew the moment he saw Sunny that I would want him. He was part pure bread golden Retriever and part pure bread German Wirehair, but he looked like a rolly polly lab pup. He grew up to have the look of a lean hunting lab. This past year when Phil was gone from us for most of each week Sunny was my evening buddy and our protector. I never had to worry about him with the kids. He protected our family not only from strangers but from Phil's old dog Bandit who often turned on the kids. Sunny would jump between Bandit and the child in danger and keep Bandit from hurting anyone.

Sunny will be a dog that will be hard to forget. He was a wonderful companion, a playful dog, extremely smart and very cuddly. He was constantly curled up with one of the kids on the couch or in one of their beds. The silly dog thought that he was a chicken herder, chased bikers, stole sticks of butter, and ate lawn ornaments, but he was always there when we needed him either for work on the farm or to lick up the soup that I just spilled on the floor.

This morning we buried our sweet Sunny Dog and will soon start on a quest for another family dog. I pray that we will be able to find another dog that will fit as perfectly with our family as Sunny did.

The Great Horned Owl

2008-10-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

This morning we were greeted by a Great Horned Owl in the Turkey Tractor. Elizabeth was the one who noticed that all the turkey's were out. When she went to look for the one white turkey that was missing she saw a really odd looking “hen”, and the remains of the missing white turkey. When the “hen” turned it's head she realized it was an owl! She went running and yelling for daddy after closing the top of the pen. The owl was calmly perched on the stairway perch above the dead turkey, in the pen looking and hissing at us. Phil called the DNR to find out if they wanted to tag it or if we should just turn it loose. They told him we could just turn it loose. So all the kids and I headed into the house and Phil went out armed with my long thick oven mitts and a baseball bat to try to get the owl out of the Turkey tractor. He tried to turn it over and it wouldn't budge. He eventually had to nudge it with the baseball bat until it came off the perch, then he moved the pen off the top of it so he could fly away.

Now, thanks to this beautiful but fierce owl we only have 6 turkeys.

The Gardens Bounty

2008-10-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

I promised to report our gardens totals for the summer. Here is my best estimate which does not include all the salads, fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, potatoes, onions, leeks, carrots, celery, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, green peppers, tomato sauce, pasta sauce, BBQ sauce, and diced tomatoes, corn, etc. that we have enjoyed eating throughout the season. It also doesn't include the lettuce, spinach, celery, leeks, brussels sprouts, carrots, broccoli (if the goats leave my plants alone) and cabbage that we still have coming in from the garden.

Total expenses: about $700, this is how it breaks down: seeds, sets, and plants -- $200, Fencing $400 (biggest expense for this year), gas for tiller – about $10, I also purchased freezer baggies and jar seals throughout the year spending about $50, extra onions, peppers, and spices for pickling $40. If we hadn't fenced in the garden our expenses would have been about $300. I didn't factor in the amount spent on electricity since I won't be sure about that until we get a bill in a month where I'm no longer canning.

40 # Sweet potatoes (stored in a box with straw/potato layers)
13 spaghetti squash – these will not last all winter, we will try to use them up ASAP
19 Butternut Squash
CANNED GOODS
Tomato:
Sauce 24 quarts, 3 pints
Salsa 7 pints 14 half pints
BBQ sauce 11 pints
Soup 15 quarts
Pasta Sauce 13 quarts
pizza sauce 7 pints
diced 14 quarts

Jam: 15 pints (we started with 32 pints)
Apple Sauce: 13 quarts 1 pints (We started with 16 quarts)

Pickles:
Squash 7 pints 1 half pint
Zucchini 3 pints
Cucumber Sandwich 3 pints
Cucumber Chips 1 quart 6 pints
Bread & Butter 12 quarts
Fermented Cucumber Chunks 3 quarts
Dill spears 5 quarts, 3 pints
Dill Hamburger Slices 7 pints
Fermented Dill Spears 6 quarts 1 pint

Relish:
Cucumber (sweet) 6 pints
Dill 12 pints 1 half pint
Beet 3 pints

FREEZER
Cole Slaw 10 - 2 cup bags
Corn 14 quarts
Rhubarb 7 – 3 cup bags and 6 – 2 cup bags
Zucchini Grated 11- 2 cup bags 5 – 4 cup bags
Beans Green 14 quarts, 2 pints
Yellow 1 quart, 7 pints
Broccoli 5 quarts
Zucchini Crisp – 5
Strawberries – 5 gallons
Roma Tomatoes – 4 – 4 pound bags
Blueberries – LOTS (given to us for FREE)
Spinach – a 10 oz bag and a 5 oz bag, I hope to freeze more of this from our fall plants.
Sweet potatoes – 3 quarts, 1 – 2 cup bag
Celery (I diced and put into small baggies for soup stew and bone broth) 2 cup bags – 11, 3 gallons filled with 1 cup baggies.
Green Peppers (diced) 1 gallon filled with ½ cup baggies, and 1 gallon filled with 1 cup baggies
Carrots – (sliced and blanched) 9 – 2 cup baggies

So, in total we have over 88 GALLONS of food preserved by freezing or canning, plus the potatoes and squash. We ate a lot of our veggies fresh throughout the season too. I'm sure I can easily say that we got 120 gallons of food plus all the root veggies and squash. So that means that each gallon of ORGANIC food cost us about $5.83 cents. If we hadn't fenced in the garden our cost per gallon would have been $2.50. Either way you figure it I feel that we have saved a TON of money by growing our own organic vegetables. Organic canned goods are increasing in price just like every other item in the grocery store. I'm now curious to see how long our preserved items will last us throughout the year.

We have also lost a few things. I lost over 20 pounds having to work in the garden and preserve all the garden foods. We've also lost a large portion of our lazy bones because we have each had to learn how to be diligent workers of our “field” in order to reap the harvest.

Do I want to do a garden next year? YES!! Next year we will have the 80 X 50 plot that we used this year PLUS a new 84 X 84 plot that the pigs have been preparing for us. We want to do some different veggies and a lot more of many of the veggies that we grew this year. I'm already excitedly planning for it. The kids are going to have some crops that they will be responsible for. Next years expenses might be similar because we are considering fencing in the second plot because of our farm animals that free range or continuously get out of their pens! The third year our expenses will drop dramatically since everything will be fenced in. If we ever get to move to our own place in the country we will be able to pull up the fencing and move it with us.

A Fun Giveaway

2008-10-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

Today I found Eclectic Culture Farms blog. I was encouraged to find another busy mom doing things the "old fashioned" way. Go visit her blog and enter her drawing!

It's Fall

2008-10-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

Autumn has finally arrived to New Holstein Wisconsin! The days are cooler, the crops slowing down and/or being harvested, the tree's turning their beautiful warm colors, and the smell of wood burning stoves fill the air. I apologize for my lack of blogging this past month. I've been a bit overwhelmed with everything from my blod clot to school, preserving, and trying to develop a good daily schedule with the children.

So here is a quick run down on what we have been doing:
1. Home schooling -- Our school year is going great so far. The kids are enjoying the routine and I am enjoying seeing them be successful while having fun learning. We are doing a very intensive health unit right now where the kids are learning the importance of a clean room, clean bathroom, and hand cleanliness (especially after being outside holding chickens and petting goats).

2. Gardening -- We are still canning tomatoes and freezing zucchini. Usually only 1 day a week is consumed with preserving the garden produce. We are enjoying our fall lettuce bed and have tried a couple yummy Butternut Squash! Soon I will be harvesting some brussels sprouts and the sweet potatoes. We will also be working on the new 84 X 84 garden plot that Stinky and Pinky have been weeding, fertilizing, and picking rocks in.

3. Health -- I met with my doctor today and he is sending me to a podiatrist for my foot. He is wondering if my blod clot may have been a result of the injury to my foot. I still have many times where I experience a lot of pain in my foot, so we are going to try to find out what it wrong with my foot. I see my family doctor again the beginning of December at which time I will probably be able to go off the blood thinner. I have his permission to start walking for exercise to help the blood flow as well as to hopefully help my Blood pressure to go down.

4. Animals -- The goose is getting fat, the ducks are almost ready to be butchered, Stinky is looking more pork choppish, and I butchered our first chicken last week! Yep, you read correctly, I, Me who HATES blood & guts butchered a chicken! One of our roosters got hit by a car but was still warm. I was determined to NOT miss out on the meat so I quickly put a pot of water on to boil, and got a knife while Sam was tying it up by the feet to the tree, and slit the throat (after about 7 tries, and a run into the house for a large serving fork to hold the head still). I am afraid that after digging out the guts and going through an anatomy session with the kids pointing out the various organs, I simply couldn't handle separating out all the gizzards for cooking later. We ate the bird for dinner even though he was still quite small. Phil butchered another one that evening that had been attacked by Sunny and had a injured leg. After eating these two small birds we've decided they need another month or so and need to be confined so they can put on a bit of weight.

5. Family -- We were so blessed to have Mom & Dad Reese with us for about 10 days while I was on couch potato rest. We also had a fun surprise visit from Phil's Uncle Jack and his wife Auntie Jane. They came all the way from Colorado to bring us yards and yards of material and a beautiful electronic sewing machine. I'm so excited!! I've had 3 other machines given to me and none of them worked. This machine is oiled adjusted and ready for action. The first two things on our winter sewing project list are winter jammies for everyone and window coverings for each of the rooms. I hope that I'll be able to remember what to do after not sewing for 13 years. Elizabeth really wants to learn to sew and I'm sure she will have a talent for it!

6. Church -- We love our little church! I got to attend a ladies sleepover with a few other ladies from the church. It was so much fun getting to know the ladies that were at the sleep over. We had fun chatting, eating, and playing games. Samuel has one of the lead roles in our Christmas program this year. He plays the role of a little boy who is ALWAYS eating, while going on an adventure with another little boy as they seek to help a needy family in their community. Sam is learning his lines and is very excited about it.

That's about it for now! I'll try not to have such a huge gap in my blogs this month.

Saturday's Harvest

2008-09-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very busy day! Phil and the kids harvested about 40 pounds of tomatoes, 15 pounds of pickling cucumbers, 10 pounds of regular cucumbers, several HUGE zucchini, onions, beans, and the tender thinnings of our fall lettuce bed (which we used for our salad at dinner last night).

Elizabeth, Caleb and Phil helped me to make a few types of pickles, relish, grated zucchini and tomato sauce. I tried to sit with my leg up as much as possible throughout the day of processing food. It will be much easier to get things accomplished when I don't have to sit with my leg up all the time!! I have learned that it is much easier to cook down tomato sauce in a Nesco type of cooker than it is in a pot on the stove. The sauce cooks down faster and doesn't burn!!

Tonight I made a list of all the foods we've processed from our garden so far. We have canned: diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, strawberry jam, brined dill pickles (still fermenting), cucumber chunks, cucumber sandwich pickles, sauerkraut (still fermenting), bread & butter pickles, dill pickles, hamburger dill pickles, beet relish, cucumber relish, dill relish, zucchini relish, zucchini pickles, summer squash pickles, and applesauce. A dear friend of mine told me that she used to love canning because her pantry looked so pretty with all those different jars of produce. I thought when she wrote that to me that the thought of my pantry looking pretty was silly. However, she is totally right!!! My root cellar looks so pretty with all the different colors from the various canned goods!

I still have a LOT of tomatoes ripening in the garden. I'm hoping for another 2-3 hundred pounds. We also have to pick more apples from our tree. Our pickles and cucumbers are both still producing a lot too. We have lots of celery to chop and freeze some nice leeks that need to be blanched again, a few more onions, a few cabbages, 6-7 heads of cauliflower still forming, some new broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts plants just starting, Brussels sprouts to finish from the spring planting, and our lovely butternut & spaghetti squash are getting bigger and riper. Our fall pea plants are close to 1 foot long now and ready to attach themselves to the fence so they can climb and grow this fall. Our third planting of beans is going well and should start flowering in a couple weeks hopefully before it frosts. I'm not sure how frost hardy bean plants are, I guess we will find out!

We have put grated zucchini, zucchini crisp in a bag, freezer slaw, green beans, broccoli, and yellow wax beans in our freezer. We will soon be adding apple pie in a bag and apple crisp in a bag and we continue to add more beans to our freezer each week.

Over the next couple of weeks I hope we will have the chance to make apple preserves, more applesauce, seasoned tomato sauce, BBQ sauce, sweet pickle relish, cucumber chips, ketchup, and dilly beans.

I really underestimated the amount of onions I should have planted. Next year I will plant 3 – 20' X 3' beds with onions (red & yellow) that I will start from seed. I will definitely do as many tomatoes as I did this year if not more and I will do a LOT more pepper plants!! I've had to buy onions and peppers for the pickles and relish we're making rather than being able to just pull them from the garden. It has been fun using our fresh dill for the dill pickles, but I will grow more next year.

Our house is a wreck with me being off my feet for a week now. I'm looking forward to a bit more help this week from Phil's folks. Phil is also looking forward to getting back to a regular work week. We plan to start our school program this week. This weeks focus will be establishing a chore and school routine that works smoothly. The kids have to milk goats and feed the animals before we are able to eat breakfast. Then we have breakfast clean up and lunch prep before starting our school day. My goal is to get our school day started by 9 a.m. which will require the kids to get up early for chores.

So now I'm off to finalize the school lesson plans for tomorrow and fold some more clothes.

I'm at 2.1!

2008-09-05T11:09:00.001-07:00

I wrote this blog on Friday but was having problems with the internet connection so it didn't post. So read it as if it was written on Friday.

This mornings blood work shows that I'm at 2.1 so I did not have to get a Lovanex shot today!! My tummy is so relieved and so am I! The hospital said that I should get a break from daily blood work and shots at least until we get the results of the blood work on Monday. Thank you for praying!!

My doctors appointment yesterday was also encouraging. Our new family doctor said that sometime between 3-6 months we will stop the oral medication. Then after a couple months they will run a test to see if I have a clotting disorder. If I do not they will not "require" me to stay on thinners. I explained to the doctor that I wanted off the thinners as soon as it was safe. I also talked with him about my desire to continue to loose weight through proper diet and exercise rather than being put back on BP medicines and he agreed that my plan was a reasonable one. I see the doctor again in a month and will still be monitored Mon - Fri by the Anti Coagulation clinic until they feel my levels are at a point when I can spread the testing to 1 time a week then eventually 1 time a month.

I'm using my resting time to read everything I can about raising the animals we have and the proper harvest and storage of our garden veggies. We registered at our local library yesterday and took the opportunity to check out more books on farming and in particular raising goats.

Periodically we have been blessed by a friend bringing over a meal. That is a huge help since Phil is trying to work, manage our unruly animals, and keep up with the house. Last night a friend who also practices the Nourishing Traditions way of eating brought over a WONDERFUL Lamb Coconut Curry stew. It was so good, the kids practically licked their bowls!! Thomas wouldn't eat the meat since it was "green". It is often very discouraging dealing with his sensory issues along with his food allergies. But such is life!!

The kids are enjoying their first research/reading/science unit: GOATS! They are reading about how to care for goats while we are developing a charting system to keep track of when they are in heat (so we can breed them), how much feed they are getting, how much milk they are giving, what minerals & supplements they are on (this will happen when they are closer to kidding), and eventually when they are due to kid. It is really amazing how much graphing, charting, and math skills are used in raising healthy animals.

I'm really excited about starting the kids nutrition unit. The older three children will be learning how to prepare about 10 healthy lunch meals. Once they are comfortable making these dishes they will be on a rotation system of having to plan a week of lunch meals. They will be learning how to make nourishing soups, stews, sandwiches, salads, and whole grain pasta dishes.

Time to check the weather and pick a day sometime over the next couple of weeks when we can harvest our potatoes! Phil and Elizabeth are going to be making Cultured Salsa today too. That should be interesting! :-) Phil whipped up a batch of his first soaked whole grain pizza crust this morning too! What a guy!!

Lovenox is NOT fun!!

2008-09-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

For those of you wondering how I am dealing with all these needles, it is tough. I am not a fan of any type of shot, IV, or blood draw needles. Today was the most painful of all the days so far which makes me dread tomorrow. I'm not sure if my skin is more sensitive due to the blood thinners or if my ability to deal with being a human pin cushion is just fading away. This morning the blood draw hurt more and the Lovenox shot REALLY hurt. I have a bruise that is about 4 inches in diameter and am swollen and sore from this mornings Lovenox shot. Thankfully since I found a new family doctor the Coagulation clinic will be monitoring my daily blood levels and adjusting my oral pill so that I will hopefully be off the stomach shots soon!!

Please pray with me that my blood thinning levels will reach between 2 & 3 very soon. On Monday my level was a 1 and today it only increased to 1.1. UGHH!

Today was a difficult day since Phil was not able to be home to take me to the hospital or to help with the kids. Thankfully he is able to adjust his schedule for the rest of the week and we have some family coming to help next week. Today I had two short periods of being on my feet for about 1 hour each time and saw my leg start to swell each time. So I will continue to be a couch potato. I've been enjoying reading and researching more about how to care for the animals we have on our little homestead. Tomorrow Phil and I will stop by the Kiel Library to get our library cards and get some books on goats for the kids first research assignment of the school year. Elizabeth got about 3 pints of milk out of our does today. She was quite excited and is becoming a good milker. I look forward to them getting a proper milking station so there isn't so much hay and stuff in the milk.... yuck. I'm sure the pigs are enjoying it though! :-)

Phil harvested close to 40 pounds of tomatoes, lots of zucchini, cucumbers and pickling cucumbers tonight. Tomorrow the kids will learn how to make tomato sauce and pickles for their morning school lessons. There will be lessons in fractions, weight, cups, pints, quarts, and gallons, and science. How fun!

Family Fun!

2008-09-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

Life on the "Reese Ranch" is never dull!! We are still having pig problems. Pinky & Stinky enjoy early morning romps around the property dumping the dog food bin and eating their fill and digging up holes along the house looking for roots, and all the other things pigs like to eat. Phil is working on tweaking the electric fencing so hopefully their wandering days will come to an end soon. Stinky may meet an early demise if they continue to get out because she is the biggest of the two and the one leading the way of escape. We are considering wintering Pinky and breeding her so that we will have a pig to butcher every couple of months instead of just 2 a year. We're still trying to find out what our breeding options are and considering if this is the route we want to take with our little porker.

On Saturday we added 6 dairy goats to our list of animals. We got one goat on Thursday from the place that we got the two baby goats that died. They gave us a yearling as a replacement for the two that died. She was quite skidish being all alone, since she is used to being in a herd. We found a local family that wanted to sell 6 dairy goats that have been raised free range and un-medicated. One goat is 3 yrs old, 2 are 1 yr old and have had their first kids, and 3 are still kids. Phil is trying to keep the older 3 and the one we got from the other farm milking but it has been challenging without a proper milking station. Today Phil and Sam are working on building them a stall in the barn and fencing in a pasture area. They will also work on a milking station as soon as their living area is ready. Our children are loving having the goats!! The older three are enjoying learning how to milk them and everyone loves the taste of the goat milk. Thankfully the 6 new goats are very friendly and love the kids. We hope that they will help the other one to adjust better to our family. We look forward to breeding the 4 older goats in October and the 3 kids in January. When all of them have had their kids and the kids are weened we should get close to 2 gallons a day of goat milk. This is the perfect amount for our family!

We are working on fattening up our roosters for butchering in October and November. Phil is trying to cover their fenced in area so they don't fly out and wander all over the property. The 5 in the chicken tractor are putting on weight much nicer than the ones that are running all over the property. It will be fun to have a few chicken dinners soon since we will butcher the 5 in the tractor the first week of October.

The geese, ducks and turkeys are all growing very nicely. It is amazing to see almost the daily growth in the geese and ducks!! They are so fun to watch as they play in their little pool.

As for the 2 legged human animals, I mean my lovely children, :-) every day seems to be filled with new adventures. On Thursday when the kids were on pig patrol they decided to play with the briers. They were chasing each other trying to throw them into each others hair. Sam thought it would be fun to load his head with the briers even though I told him he'd never get them all out, and he was warned by Thomas' therapists too. About an hour later after their fun had ended Sam walked out to the garden to greet me with a hair doo that resembled that of a cancer patient loosing their hair rather than my adorable curly topped boy. We made him walk around until Saturday with his butched hair doo, then we had to shave him almost completely bald. I'll try to post pictures sometime when the internet is working better.

Elizabeth's injured wrist is healing well. She is also the one that has really taken to the goats and loves milking them and caring for them. Caleb is looking forward to getting glasses soon to correct his vision. When he went to see the doctor at Children's Hospital to get the contact prescription they found that his other eye needs correction too. So he will be getting glasses as soon as we can find an eye care place in our area that accepts our insurance. Thomas has a new therapist since one of his had to quit for the school year because of her teaching hours. Philip & Nathan just romp around all day as boys should catching bugs, collecting rocks, and making "swords" and "guns" out of every stick they find.

Samuel helped all the kids to make their own "work bench" in the garage. Phil has provided them with their own tools and has shown them where their "wood supply" is so that they can be creative. They spend hours a day hammering out there. When school starts they will be having shop class with Phil as they build all the stalls in the barn for wintering our animals. The boys are very excited about the barn project!

I am adjusting to my new daily routine of blood draws, shots and limited activity. Some times it just seems like a nasty night mare. Phil and I were discussing it last night and were talking about how it is a comfort to know that God has a purpose and a plan for allowing this in our lives right now. I'm excited that through my research I've found some natural remedies for blood thinning which I will be starting this week. Two of which include high doses of garlic and cayenne pepper. I will be trying to find a new family doctor tomorrow and pray that I will pick one that will be understanding about my desire to get off the medications as soon as it is safe to do so. I realize that it may be many months until the clot has dissolved and it is safe to get off the thinners, but refuse to stay on a controlled dose of rat poison (which is what my medication is) for my entire life. For now I just pray that the shots and blood work will end soon and that God will allow the clot to dissolve quickly and safely.

We are enjoying preserving and freezing our garden produce. Pickles of various types, zucchini, and tomatoes continue to be our daily projects. We've harvested a bunch of carrots and some of our cabbage too. I tried a wonderful freezer coleslaw that was AMAZING!! I know it will be such a treat to pull it out of the freezer in the winter when veggies are so expensive! I plant to put up several more 2 cup servings of the coleslaw for Phil and I. The kids don't really eat coleslaw yet so the smaller servings work well for now. It is fun watching our root cellar fill up with jars of food for the winter.

That should catch you up on all the Adventures of the Reese's Pieces for now. Have a blessed day!

Pray for us

2008-08-30T16:52:00.000-07:00

Many of you may know about the trouble I've been having with my foot. We hoped that it would get better but due to my high activity level it continues to be a problem. On Thursday I re injured it working in the garden. Phil and I had decided that he would take me to the hospital for x-rays Friday night. We put the kids in front of a movie (a big treat for them) and drove 8 miles down the road to the hospital. The doctor who saw me thought that I had a stress fracture so he ordered x-rays. Dr. Cotton was also concerned about the swelling in my leg and the pain I was having in my calf muscle so he ordered an ultra-sound of my leg to rule out a blood clot. The x-rays of the foot didn't show a fracture. I felt pretty stupid and was frustrated because I was so swollen and in pain. After waiting 2 hours the ultra-sound tech still hadn't arrived. We didn't know when the test was ordered that the guy had to come all the way from Green Bay. Anyway, we were about to leave and not get the US when they told us that he had just gotten into town and it would only be a few minutes more until he arrived. The US tech was a wonderful Christian man who I was enjoying fellowshipping with when suddenly he said, "Uh oh, you have a blood clot right behind your knee." Shortly after when he was continuing all the needed tests around the clot my doctor walked in wondering what was taking so long. The tech told him that I had a clot that was about 1 inch. The clot is not fully blocking my vein, but is large enough to cause concern. I actually have two types of clots. I have a chronic clot that has probably been in my leg since I was on bed rest with Nathans pregnancy. Sometime over the past month or so another clot has formed over the chronic clot. At least I'm assuming it formed over the past few weeks because that is when I started to have pain in my calf muscle and swelling on and off which are both symptoms of a blood clot.

The treatment protocol requires that I have daily blood thinner shots in my stomach until the blood thinner cumadin that I've been prescribed thins my blood enough to allow the clot to start to dissolve. Dr. Cotton said that for the next 2 weeks I cannot stand for long periods of time. I can walk, which is difficult with my hurt foot, sit with my leg elevated or lay down with my leg elevated. I also have to wear those lovely tight thigh high stockings all day which help the blood flow in my legs. Starting on Monday I will have to get blood drawn daily and my blood thinner medications adjusted according to the test results. I've been told that it can take months to get the medication regulated properly, and it may be several months before I will be out of danger of the complications that can occur if the clot breaks up and shoots to my lungs. We will be finding a new family doctor this week to oversee my case and may have to see a vascular surgeon. Dr. Cotton said that because I have a chronic clot I may have to be on blood thinners for life, and option that Phil and I are not comfortable with because of the side effects of the blood thinner meds. The doctor said that I may be a candidate for surgery to remove the chronic clot but it is a risky surgery and it may be hard to find a vascular surgeon in the area that will do the surgery. You all know that I am not a person who enjoys needles nor the thought of surgery, but we will start to explore the options that are out there for treatment. I am also going to be researching natural, dietary, and other types of treatments that may help the correct the clot problem.

Please pray with us about the following:
1. That we can adjust our family routines to allow me to have my leg elevated for as much as possible for the next couple weeks.
2. That I will not experience any injuries that will cause me to bleed since I will no longer have the ability to clot, and that I won't get any uncontrolled nose bleeds which can be common with the medicines I'm on.
3. That the new clot will dissolve quickly.
4. That the Lord would preform a miracle and the chronic clot will dissolve so that I won't have to be on blood thinners for an extended period of time.

We praise the Lord that the pain in my foot caused me to go to the hospital so this blood clot could be discovered before it gets worse or before it was so bad that it took my life. We are so thankful that the Lord prompted Dr. Cotton to run the test to look for a clot that he really didn't think would even be there, yet it was. God is good! We are resting in His divine wisdom in allowing this to happen in our lives.

Thank you for your prayers!

August happenings

2008-08-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I've posted. We have been enjoying beautiful weather as summer winds to a close. Friday through Tuesday we were able to enjoy a wonderful visit with Phil's parents. The visit was short but was such a nice change to our days. The fellowship was sweet and the kids enjoyed some great grandparent time!

Philip

Our garden continues to kick out produce and we try to figure out what to do with it! :-) So far we've canned 14 quarts of applesauce from the tree in our yard, zucchini relish, zucchini pickles, squash pickles, and bread & butter pickles. We also made up 5 bags of zucchini crisp filling for the freezer, I'll let you know if it works just as well as apple crisp/pie stored in the freezer. The tomatoes are starting to ripen a bit faster. I'm anxious to try some tomato sauce and my canning recipe calls for 45 pounds of tomatoes. Today I brought in 12 pounds. Maybe by the middle of next week I'll have enough to try my first batch of tomato sauce. I canned my first two quarts of diced tomatoes this past weekend.

Today we harvested our first two spaghetti squash. It looks like I'll have a ton of pickling cucumbers ready next week. most are about as big as my pinky right now, so by next week they should be a nice size.

The vine bore has finally killed my last two pumpkin plants and is starting to move to my butternut squash. This makes me very sad!!! I have a ton of butternut squash forming so hopefully they won't progress fast enough to ruin the entire crop. I dream of having enough butternut squash to last the winter but we'll have to see if the bore destroys those dreams as he has my dreams of pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin soup made right in the pumpkin.

We have some watermelons that are about the size of a basket ball. I hope that it stays warm for a few more weeks so they can finish growing.

We lost about 8 of our cauliflower heads to the heat of the sun. I didn't know until too late that you have to keep the cauliflower covered while the flowerettes are forming. The pigs are enjoying the bitter cauliflower. We have 8 plants left that have just started to form their cauliflower heads so I tied the leaves up around them today hoping that we will be able to harvest some nice cauliflower in a couple weeks.

Our fall lettuce, spinach, pea and bean plants are starting to grow. The fall broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage haven't sprouted yet. It has been so hot and dry! We are watering the garden so that each section gets watered at least every other day, but it might not be enough to get the plants to start. We will just wait and see.

We are gearing up for school. Our school supplies have been purchased. I was given free English/language arts books for the older three, math for the older two, and science & social studies/history for all the kids. I found some great math books for Thomas. We are working on his blends in phonics and will be starting to do a review of his sight words next week. While shopping the other day I found the perfect kindergarten work book for Philip! Elizabeth and Caleb are reading books like crazy lately which is fun! Phil is reading the kids The Hobbit for literature. I am working on lesson plans for the month of September. I yet have to purchase the spelling books for the older three and Thomas's reading curriculum but other than that we have everything needed to start our school year! I'm excited about our character study that we will be doing called Proverbs for People by Rick & Marilyn Boyer. The first lesson is exactly what we need right now, Slothful vs. Diligence. The kids still have not adjusted to the needs of our farmette country life. It amazes me how lazy we are allowing our kids to be raised and I always thought my kids weren't that bad until moving here. The typical American child is EXTREMELY lazy and selfish. Yes I realize we all struggle with laziness and selfishness. BUT, that isn't how it should be. Somehow my generation and this next one (I believe) are missing the discipline gene that our WWII grandparents had. Phil and I pray that with lots of patience and consistency that we will have a changed heart and that we will be able to help to shape young men and a young women that will have great work ethics.

Zucchini

2008-08-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

How many creative and yummy ways can you use zucchini? This is the time of year that zucchini and summer squash are producing mass amounts in the home garden. You can also find them for a very reasonable cost at the grocery store and farmers markets. These two types of squash can usually be used interchangeably in all recipes that call for zucchini.

Phil and I decided a couple months ago that we were going to need to live as if our family was in a depression financially. With the expense of running two houses until our Pembine house is rented our finances are very tight. My grocery budget has been cut $500 dollars, some months even more..... that is a lot especially when you consider my grocery budget covers not only food but all other living needs, clothing, feed for the animals, purchase of animals, paper products, etc. I am not writing this blog to complain nor to have others feel sorry for us. EVERYONE that drives a car and shops at a local grocery store is feeling financially strained right now!! I am writing this to try to encourage others to think outside of the box by cooking healthy meals using what you have available in your kitchen/pantry.

Our tight budget has caused me to try to get really creative with the abundant food that the Lord has provided for us. We decided back in March to use part of our stimulus check for dry beans, rice, and grains that would store for a long time and yield a lot of food and nutrition for our family. Usually we have a lot of beef and pork in our freezer too but right now I'm down to less than 10 pounds of meat in the freezer. This October/November we will start to butcher our roosters, one of the pigs and hopefully Phil will get some Venison for us. For now, beans, rice, milk, grains, nut butters, a little frozen fruit, honey, organic sugars, agave nectar, maple syrup, some eggs and veggies are what I have to work with.

To be honest I was getting really discouraged trying to come up with food that would satisfy this crowd and be prepared quickly with all the time needed in the garden. The past two days I took time off from the garden to sit down and look through some of my favorite cookbooks for creative ways to use the veggies, beans, and rice that I have in abundance. I also have to note before sharing some of the great recipes I found, that I am blessed to have a husband that is extremely supportive. He usually raves over whatever food is put on our table which encourages the kids to accept just about everything. Plus, when what you serve is all you have.... the kids learn to eat what is in front of them or go hungry. Another trick I've learned is to make a “healthy” dessert on evenings that I know the kids will not want to eat parts of the meal. The rule is always they must eat a little of everything if they want dessert.

So, what have we already made these past few days? Egg Zucchini & Onion casserole, Egg Vegetable Strata (layers of torn whole wheat English muffin bread, sauteed veggies, and eggs with just a sprinkle of cheese for flavor, made the night before and baked in the morning at 350 for 50-60 minutes), Baked Oatmeal, Veggie loaded Omelets, (every time you see veggie I am always using zucchini and other veggies from the garden or our CSA), Vegetable Rice Medley, PBJ, & PB Honey Sandwiches, Biscuits, Bread, Garden Vegetable Enthusiasm Soup, Valentine Soup, Balsamic Beets, Zucchini Coffee Cake, fresh salads, Creamy Cucumber Salad, Cole Slaw, Strawberry Kefir Smoothies, Kombucha, popcorn (made with Coconut Oil & sea salt) and probably more that I cannot remember right now. That doesn't sound all that much like a starvation diet does it??

Over the next few days we will be trying: Chocolate Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake (without icing), Navy Bean Soup, Hearty Minestrone Soup, Zucchini Crisp (just like apple crisp except use 8 cups of cubed peeled zucchini), Zucchini Pie, Cabbage Sloppy Joes, Cucumber Salsa, Cabbage with herb butter, Corn & Bean Soup, Marinated Cucumbers, Lentil Vegetable Soup, Kimchi, cucumber and red onion salad, and Garden Vegetable Pizza.

I do want to take a minute to stress that if you are limiting your diet to veggies, beans, and grains it is SO important that these foods be prepared properly. Many people start making their own bread but don't realize that if the grains are not pre soaked you actually miss out on 50-70% of the nutrient content. This is the same for beans and rice. We are not really choosing to not eat meat right now, it just isn't in the budget. That is why we use lots of raw whole or partially skimmed milk, butter (made from the raw cream skimmed off), coconut oil, olive oil, and flax oil/meal. It is SO important to have good fats in your diet especially for the little ones. Fat is brain food for our kids if it is the right fat!

So what cookbooks and other sources am I using for these recipes? Bean Cuisine by Janet Horsley, Bean Lovers Cookbook by Golden West Publishers, Taste of Home Annual Recipes 2000 & 2001 (Thanks Kristin), Quick Cooking annual Recipes 2003, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book, and Pillsbury The Complete Book of Baking. I also refer to the following blogs: The Nourishing Gourmet, Passionate Homemaking, and Keeper of the Home for wonderful nutrient dense recipes that follow the Nourishing Traditions guidelines. If you do not have a lot of cookbooks (which I doubt) then use your Internet to search for recipes that use the ingredients you have on hand. Just type in the ingredient into your search engine and you'll be shocked to find out how many recipes are floating our there in cyberspace. You can also go to your local library and spend time looking through the cookbooks there.

So, here is my challenge to you. Take some time to look through a few cookbooks and prepare food with the resources that are in your house. If you don't have a well stocked pantry and a garden you might find it more challenging to cook a variety of healthy filling meals. I am so thankful that we decided to do a large garden this year and stock up on dry foods that store well. It was a very worth while investment since it will see us through many months of lean times ahead. God is good!!

Ok, here are the Zucchini bars I made yesterday, my Garden Vegetable Enthusiasm Soup, and a Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake made the nourishing way! I did cheat on the zucchini bars recipe and NOT soak it because the kids were very hungry and I wanted a somewhat healthy snack for the afternoon and to use for dessert to make them eat their Garlic Buttered Swiss Chard and salad. :-) Once I work with the recipe more and soak the grains successfully and reduce the sugar or use a sugar replacement like Agave, or maple syrup, I'll re-post it as a nourishing recipe.

Whole Wheat Zucchini Bars

Combine 3 eggs, 1 ½ cups sugar (organic Cane or Rapidura preferred), and 1 cup oil. Blend Well.

In a separate bowl combine: 2 cups whole wheat flour (I used Prairie Gold), 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp sea salt, and 1 tsp cinnamon. Mix with a spoon.

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix well. Stir in 2 cups shredded Zucchini or summer squash.

Spread into a 13 X 9 baking dish. Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Variations: Leave out the cinnamon and sprinkle on ½ cup of carob or chocolate chips. Add 1 cup or dried currants or raisins. Add 1 cup chopped nuts.

Garden Vegetable Enthusiasm Soup

1-2 Leeks or 1 red onion, chopped
½ green pepper, chopped
3 celery ribs with greens, chopped
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 Freshly pressed garlic cloves
1 small head of cabbage, sliced thin or shredded
1 yellow summer squash, cut into chunks
1 zucchini, cut into chunks
4-8 cups chicken broth (depending on the amount of veggies in your pot)
2 large freshly picked tomatoes, diced
a handful of fresh basil chopped

Heat a large stock pot. Drizzle with olive oil. Add leeks, green pepper, & celery and saute until translucent. Add freshly pressed garlic and saute for about 1 minute stiring constantly so the garlic doesn't burn. Pour over sauted veggies 4 cups of broth. Add the cabbage. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until the cabbage is crisp tender. Add summer squash & zucchini and simmer for an additional 5-10 minutes just until the squash is crisp tender. You may need to add additional broth at this point. Make sure the veggies are all covered by the broth. Just before serving add the fresh tomatoes and basil. Only cook the soup for an additional minute or two with the tomatos & herbs. Salt and pepper as needed and serve with fresh bread or biscuits.

Variations: Add carrots and potatoes to the original veggie saute. I believe that parsnips or turnips would be a nice addition too but haven't tried them yet.

Whole Wheat Nourishing Zucchini Cake

Soak 12-24 hours at room temperature in a covered bowl:
2 ½ cups soft white wheat (pastry flour), spelt or kamut.
½ cup buttermilk
¼ cup oil
½ cup melted butter

When you are ready to prepare the cake preheat the oven to 350, and butter a 13 X 9 cake pan.

Add to soaked mixture:
1 ½ cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa or carob powder
1 tsp baking soda

Mix well.

Add 2 cups shredded zucchini and ½ – 1 cups carob or chocolate chips and ½ cup chopped nuts.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. The original recipe called for frosting but I omitted it because we don't need the extra sugar.

Does anybody have any great beet recipes?? I have another 2 meals worth of beets to use. I think I'll try basic buttered beets for one but would like something new to try for the other meal. Please leave a comment with you favorite cucumber, zucchini, or beet recipes or link to your blog if you've posted a recipe there that uses one or more of these foods!

Valentine Soup

2008-08-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

Today we did a lot of planting in our garden. All of our beds are full of veggies or seeds now, YEAH! The kids helped me plant the snow peas, shelling peas, and 2 types of green beans. Then I planted broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts, monnopa spinach, giant winter spinach, Romaine lettuce, buttercrunch lettuce, and black simpson lettuce. I will also try to plant more leeks this week for fall and winter use.

We spent the afternoon blanching and freezing 5 more quarts of beans (green, purple, white with purple speckles, and yellow) and 1 quart of broccoli. The purple and white with purple speckle beans were part of our weekly veggie share from our local CSA. What is a CSA you ask? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. In many communities you are able to find a CSA where several farmers work together to provide chemical free or organic food to local consumers. The consumer pays a fee for a ½ or full share and receives a box or bag(s) full of food anywhere from once a week to once a month. I was so excited to find a CSA only 3 miles from our new house! It is run by a young couple who have a sweet little 2 yr old boy. They are currently the only farmer contributing to their CSA. They grow over 35 types of veggies and often more than one variety of each type of veggie. I was able to join their CSA even though 2 months are already gone for an adjusted rate. So far we have had the opportunity to try: candy cane beets, purple potatoes, red & yellow onions, leeks, fennel, basil, green zucchini, yellow summer squash, cucumbers, red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, red potatoes, purple beans, white with purple speckle beans, green onions, and swiss chard! It is really fun going to pick up our bag of produce each week then coming home and unloading it with the kids. We also receive recipes! I'm so excited about being able to buy organic chemical free food that is VERY local, so FRESH, and very reasonably priced!!

This evening I decided to make creamy broccoli soup with another quart of broccoli that I didn't freeze. Often I'll add potatoes to the creamy broccoli soup since the recipe is actually a Potato soup recipe that I converted to a broccoli soup because the kids like the Potato soup so much. I decided not to use potatoes so was looking for another root veggie to add to the soup. I have so many lovely veggies in my fridge right now but beets are the only root veggies that I have in excess right now. I was hoping to disguise the beets in the soup so the kids wouldn't realize they were eating beets. I boiled them, deskinned , cubed and added them right at the end of the cooking time. As I stirred the soup it started to turn a very nice creamy shade of pink. :-) Each of the kids started to come in asking what was for dinner and I told them, “This soup is a gourmet variety only sold in the best restaurants, it is called, Valentine Soup! It tastes a lot like my potato soup but has a secret ingredient!” After our Bible and prayer time I served this lovely pink soup to the kids. We were all totally shocked to absolutely LOVE the soup!! The beets were VERY sweet and added a really nice flavor to the soup. Each bite was a bit different because sometimes you'd get a beet which was very sweet, others a bit of broccoli or some freshly cut celery, which was also very sweet. I went out and cut the celery right before making the soup and used all the beautiful green leaves in the soup. I have never tasted such a sweet full flavored celery as the celery cut from our garden. The kids and Phil just raved over the soup the entire meal!! I've been making a wide variety of “enthusiasm soups” lately because I want to use all the fresh veggies in a variety of ways: breakfast egg soufflés, soups, side dishes, grilled, etc. I was very thankful that my beet experiment ended a little better than another great chef who once tried liver in her enthusiasm soup.

The Woodchuck and the Garden

2008-08-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

For those of you expecting a story about how a local woodchuck is eating our garden you will be pleasantly surprised to find a saga about a woodchuck in our BASEMENT instead!

I wrote the following entry last Sunday evening while Phil was out of town but didn't have internet access to post it. Before I post the story I will update you on the happenings of our week. This past week the kids and I worked in the garden rescuing it from the weeds and preparing many empty beds for our fall planting which will be done tomorrow. We will be planting two types of peas, 3 types of lettuce, 2 types of spinach, more brussels sprouts & cabbage, carrots, beans, and possibly more broccoli & cauliflower.

We are starting to harvest zucchini, leeks, beans (almost done harvesting the first planting & the second planting will be starting to harvest by the end of next week), tomatoes (slow so far but once they start turning I'm sure we'll be canning daily), and a few peas from our early planting. We found all the strawberry plants and to our pleasant surprise many of them are sending out new plant shoots! Plus I just had a friend offer me a bunch of strawberry plants. I expect to see our strawberry patch triple in size by spring.

A little kitty wandered into our yard last Sunday, she has been affectionately named "Nibbles" and has been claimed by Elizabeth. Our landlord dropped off a black male on Tuesday who is almost a year old and is named "Midnight" who has been claimed by Caleb. Then on Saturday a friend dropped off a male kitty who has been named "Tiger" and claimed by Samuel. We hope to have some kitty's this spring to help keep the mouse, mole, & chipmunk populations from taking over the place! All three of our new additions will be barn cats. Nibbles is really trying to weasel her way into the house. I've consented to her being a basement cat at the very most. I refuse to have a cat in my main house ever again! We've had to many weird cats who pee & poop everywhere and I won't put up with it again!

I've been reading "Bringing up Boys" by Dr. James Dobson this past week and am convinced that if I am still sane by the time the boys are in their 20's it will be a miracle!! Nathan decided to test his fate with a gallon size ziplock bag on Saturday. I saw him with the bag and thought, "Naw, he won't try to put that over his head." A few minutes later we heard a very weird cry from Nathan then a thud onto the floor. I went into the living room to see the ziplock bag fully over his face, his face turning bluish purple and him screaming, gasping for air. I started to scream his name over and over while trying to get the very tight fitting bag off his head. It wouldn't rip and it was on him so tight that it was very hard to get a good hold of it while Nathan was flailing. I got it off right before he passed out. He was quite lethargic for a few minutes then perked up. We told him that is was a BIG "NO NO" to put a bag over his head! Tonight Philip found a small baggie on the floor (which had early housed some raisins for Thomas) and said, "Mom, Nathan won't put this on his head right?" I convinced him that it was too small but we should throw it away just in case he were to try.

Today we had the opportunity to fellowship with a family in our church for the afternoon. Then during the evening service Phil, Elizabeth, Samuel, Caleb and I shared our testimonies with the church and were voted into the membership. It is so much fun being in a small church again! We are looking forward to ministering in our church as time goes on. Our church requires that a person be a member for six months before teaching or taking on a leadership position. I think that is a great idea! It will allow us to minister in small ways (music, nursery, etc.) while getting to know the folks and the needs of the church so we might know how the Lord can best use us in the ministries of the church. So far we have been blessed by the preaching & teaching of the Word while enjoying wonderful fellowship with the members. We praise the Lord for His leading us to this community and our new church!

So, that is a brief summary of our weeks excitement, all but the woodchuck story which I hope you will enjoy reading: (Remember this happened last Sunday)

The Woodchuck

We had quite the adventure on Sunday August 3rd. Phil left for Kentucky at about 2:30 p.m. At around 5 I was in the Kitchen and heard Sunny barking in the basement and a very weird squeaking then clicking almost like a rattling sound. I went down and saw that Sunny had some sort of animal cornered behind a pile of wood. Our landlord had decided to open up two of the windows in the basement in hopes of drying the basement. I figured that a squirrel had wandered into the house so I was planning to take enough wood off to allow Sunny to catch and kill it. I got enough wood off the pile using a long stick and Sunny started to fight with the animal. He came out with a very nice sized animal that at first I was afraid was a raccoon. Since I know coons can be VERY mean I screamed, then yelled, “No Sunny DROP!” He tried to drop the animal but it turned and bit him in the mouth. Sam started to swing a board at the dog & animal hitting them both a couple times until finally the animal let go of Sunny and Ran into the main room then up the stairs and behind the water tank. Of course there was a ton of commotion as I was screaming, Sam was yelling and Sunny was yipping. For those of you who are wondering Sunny just got his rabbis shot the beginning of June, so I know he is going to be fine!

We ran past the tank and up into the house and shut the kitchen door. I then called the landlord who wasn't home. I figured out that the little “squirrel” was actually a woodchuck or a ground hog and it was a nice sized one. When we got to church we shared with our church friends our little adventure and some of the men from church volunteered to come over and kill what they said was a woodchuck based on my description. They were actually having fun discussing what type of a gun they should use and where the animal should be shot.......... while I'm just worried that Nathan, Philip or Thomas will try to pet the thing and get hurt!

So when we got home and I still couldn't get a hold of my landlord I called Pastor Steve our associate pastor who is also a taxidermist. He brought his twin 10 yr old boys and his 4 yr old son and they along with Sam and Caleb went down to the basement to take care of the woodchuck. It was funny peeking down the steps at all those boys on the stairs watching Pastor Steve try to get the woodchuck out from behind the tank. He was hoping it would run out so he could shoot it. But the woodchuck was too smart and was trying to hide. Eventually Pastor Steve had to pull it out with a pitchfork and hit him on the head. They put the woodchuck in the bucket and took it out to dump behind the barn. On their way out Pastor Steve's 4 yr old said, “Daddy can we take it home?” I laughed!

I was shocked that Samuel was able to watch Pastor Steve kill the woodchuck. He is usually the one with the weakest stomach who gags & pukes quite easily. He was quite manly though throughout the entire process. :-)

At 9:30 p.m. Phil called and heard the entire story from Samuel & Caleb! He said, “Sure I leave then you guys have all the fun!” :-) I will be calling the landlord in the morning asking him to put those windows on, dry basement or not!!

NOTE: Our landlord did put the windows back on until he was able to make screens for the windows! He buried the woodchuck and said it was a young one. I'm thankful that it wasn't a full grown woodchuck or our story might have been much scarier!

Family Update

2008-08-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Life has been very full these past couple weeks. We found out that we are not able to get Internet access, so my time on the computer is very limited so I apologize or the lack of blogging.

The kids are enjoying periodic "adventures" where they fill up their backpacks with books and snacks and head out to the creek or under the apple tree for "hiking". Usually they aren't gone that long because the mosquitoes attack them!

We are still trying to find a new normal with the responsibilities of the garden and animals. Philip had a run in with a nail when the house was being re-roofed last week. His foot was a bit infected and he woke the morning after he got the nail in his foot with a fever which was the start of another episode of tonsillitis. It seems anytime Philip gets exposed to a cold/flu bug and this time it seems and infection in his foot, it triggers a nasty few days of fever, swollen tonsils & adenoids. I'm so thankful that a couple weeks ago I read a GREAT article from the Weston Price Newsletter that talked about how good it is for kids to run a fever and how best to deal with it. We pray that this time since we didn't give him any Ibuprofen or Tylenol that next time he won't get as sick when his tonsils flare. It is comforting to know that God designed a fever to fight the bad bugs and it is totally ok to let kids have fevers!! If we curb the fever by trying to bring it down they body cannot fight the illness or disease that is causing the fever. Allowing kids to run a fever is the best thing which goes so much against what we are taught from modern medicine which is quick to drug rather than really heal. Ok..... I'll get off this soap box now! :-)

I've been struggling with a foot injury that we are trying to decide how to deal with it. I hurt is back in May and it is not healing. We aren't sure if it is a break or if I have tendon/ligament damage. If it is still bothering a lot by the time Phil returns from his trip we will probably have to get it checked out. There are many things I'd rather spend the money on than x-rays and doctors, so I keep on hoping it will stop bothering me. Last weekend when Phil went up north with the kids to clean out the Pembine house I re-injured it chasing chickens out of the pig area and was on crutches all day Saturday. I'm using a surgical shoe for the next couple weeks to see if keeping it immobile will help it to heal.

We have been blessed to find a local farm only 3 miles from our home that provides organic, chemical free veggies for a reasonable rate. We are joining their CSA for the remainder of the season (through Nov.) where we will receive a nice assortment of veggies each week. This past week we tried Purple potatoes and beets for the first time. I made the beets in a balsamic vinegar brown sugar (sucanat) glaze. Most of us really liked it!

Our chicks (50), turkeys (7), ducks (6), and geese (2) arrived this past Friday. The roosters we got in May are getting big and starting to look more and more like roosters. The two hens we have are laying eggs somewhere on the property. Phil just finished one of the chicken tractors. We are going to put the two hens and some of the roosters in the first tractor. That way we will be able to find the eggs each day!! The pigs now have a large area to root up and fertilize that is lined with electrical fencing so they will stay put and get my new garden patch ready. Once they are done with their work we will pick rocks and till the area to prepare it for over 100 raspberry plants I'm getting this fall and the corn & potatoes, and maybe a pumpkin patch in the spring.

Our Garden is doing great! WE may have lost some of our corn to the last thunderstorm. The winds were very strong and some of our stalks are leaning quite badly. We hope to pack more dirt around them on Monday. My foot and the building of the chicken tractor has prevented us from getting out there these past two days. We are harvesting green beans, yellow beans, and continue to harvest broccoli. Elizabeth & Caleb helped me to blanch and freeze 2 1/2 quarts of green beans, 2 quarts of yellow and 2 quarts of broccoli. I'm still waiting to sink my teeth into the first juicy tomato. We have 1000's of them forming and hope they will start to turn red soon.

This morning as we were leaving for church a mangy little grey kitty wandered into our lives. We were hoping it will stick around and help manage the little squeaky creatures that like to live in the barn and basement (in the winter).

We met with our church pastor and deacons today and shared out testimonies. Next Sunday night we hope to be voted into membership at our new church.

That's about it for now! I won't have Internet access until Phil returns from his trip later this week.

Have a great week everyone!

Many Pig & Chicken Adventures these days!

2008-07-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

Our pig adventures began on Monday when the pigs decided they'd like to become "free range" pigs! :-) Thursday was the worst day yet. I woke at 6:50 hearing a noisy commotion in the entry way. It sounded like Sunny was famished and eating fiercely. Then I heard the dog bark, he was standing in the driveway looking into the entrance barking. When I peeked out my kitchen window I discovered two pigs eating all Sunny's dog food! That was the first of many pig chasing episodes for the morning. At one point the pigs had wandered into the creek, which is beyond the barbwire fencing. I was walking through the corn field on the other side of the creek and trudging through the creek trying to stir them back into the pasture. Finally we were able to spot them, so I put the kids on watch while I went in to make some lunch, it was already 11:30. Yes, you read it correctly we had been chasing pigs off and on for 4 1/2 hours. Ugh!!! Finally around noon Sam jumped into the creek and chased them back into the field where Sunny & Elizabeth successfully chased them back into their pen. We tried to block every exit point they had created in the pen and then set the kids up on a rotation watch of the pigs until Daddy came home.

Thursday evening Phil started building a new coop and fenced in area for the chickens. We ran out of feed and they are not getting enough grass in their current pen. We HATE giving them grain and have no money to buy more so fencing in a grass pasture area was the only and best solution. By Friday he had it finished so we spent the morning chasing chickens and putting them in their new fenced in area. We caught all but 13 who were caught in the evening once they were in to roost for the night. The picture I have posted is of the pen before Phil built the roof. Now it has a peeked roof with a laying box way up high. The 2 full size hens showed their appreciation for the grass and laying box by giving us two fresh eggs last night! Earlier in the week Elizabeth found a nest in the hay loft with 18 eggs in it. We tested them all in the water test and they were all good. They've already all been eaten and were still fresh and wonderful!

I have to tell you that I was so exhausted by Thursday night after chasing pigs for so many hours that I literally cried tears of relief when I realized that Phil would be home all Day Friday to help us keep the pigs in their pen. And wouldn't you know, they didn't try to escape ONE TIME on Friday.

Today was a different story though. They got out several times before Phil finally corralled them into the old Chicken pen. Phil and Sam are expanding the pigs fencing and electrifying it so our little porkettes will stay put (hopefully)!

The kids love having the chickens in the yard. Phil and I laugh every time they pull out the camp chairs and sit around the pen "chick" watching!! :-) Today they caught a big beetle and enjoyed watching the chickens play "beetle football"! I love looking out one kitchen window and seeing our garden and the other window to see our meat & egg sources for the winter. It is GREAT getting to raise/grow our own food, but it is a lot of work!! The weeds are winning in the garden right now because it has been far to hot to be in the garden during the day and we've been getting a lot of rain. Both the veggies and the weeds like these growing conditions, which is causing us to loose the battle to the weeds for this week at least.

Phil has decided to build chicken tractors and is trying to decide on a design that will be economical and easy to move. We figure we will need a few of them. He wants to try to design chicken tractors that will hold 25 birds each. Right now we have 28 hens and 25 roosters. We have 50 more chicks arriving next Monday. It is a straight run so I'm not sure how many of each sex we will have. We'd like to start pasturing them within a couple weeks since August is very warm here in WI and having the grass will give them a strong healthy start!! Plus, they will outgrow the room we have set up for them in the barn. We also have 6 turkeys that will need their own tractor. I think the 6 ducks and 2 geese will also need their own tractor. So That means Phil needs to build at least 6 bird tractors. WE have PLENTY of Lawn for the birds. We are determined to use this useless grass to help our food supply instead of use energy we need to spend elsewhere. It takes Phil about 7-8 hours a WEEK to mow the lawn with our push mower. I'd rather spend the money on building the tractors so that our meat and egg birds will be healthier than on a riding mower.

I'm sure the next few weeks will be filled with building lessons as Phil and the kids finish the pig fencing and start making the bird tractors. There is never a dull moment!

Kids and Pigs

2008-07-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

Today our 80+ pound Berkshire piglets arrived. Thomas is having a hard time accepting that we will eat the pigs. He wants them to be Wilbur! :-) Tonight when Thomas was talking on the phone with Grandma Conover he told her that he didn't want Mom and Dad to Bake the pigs. His next comment was, "They'll be under arrest!" I think Thomas wants to have us arrested for butchering the pigs. :-)

I'm very happy to get some of my freezer space back! I've been saving food scraps for the pigs since we found out we'd be able to buy some. I had the entire freezer in one of the refrigerators FULL with slop for the pigs.

Today while I was working in the garden Philip was telling me that he wanted a pet. I told him we had a pet, Sunny our dog. He said that he wanted a different pet. I asked him what kind of a pet he wanted, his reply, “ A Elephant!” As we held hands walking up to the house I told him that I didn't think we had enough food to feed an elephant. I then said, “ Philip, what would you feed the Elephant?” His reply, “Chick starter”. Then he told me that he wanted to use his “dollar” (which is actually a $5 bill he earned for helping with chores) to buy his elephant. I love the way four almost five year olds think!

Tonight I sent out an email to family and friends whose email address I have. This email contained our new address and phone number. If you didn't receive it and would like to please email me and I would love to pass our contact info on to you! I do apologize if I missed anyone. It is very likely that I don't have everyone's current email address.

Garden & Yummy Whole Wheat Donut Recipe

2008-07-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

It has been a few days since posting. Nothing major has been happening here. I organized my canning jars and unpacked most of my stoneware yesterday. We've been trying to keep up with the garden, laundry (hang drying everything since we don't have a dryer yet) and keeping the house in order. It is amazing how much easier it is when there are no distractions... like Internet or TV. Mind you the house isn't immaculate, but it is usually company ready and pretty clean (my mom would be proud of me).

So, is anyone wondering about how the garden is going?

This is what I see when I walk through the gate into our garden. Can you see all the beautiful green plants? For those of you who have seen or heard of our failed attempts the past two years, you'll be SHOCKED to hear me say that our garden is beautiful and about 85% weed free. In a garden as large as ours it is almost impossible to keep it completely weed free. The interesting thing is that this years garden is about 3 times larger than last years. The big difference is that we have a desire to really work at it and we have researched out how to do it. Over the past couple days I rescued the strawberry plants from the weeds. About 40 of the 50 we planted have survived. The few berries we have gotten have been so sweet, more like candy than fruit! We've already started to cut broccoli. For some reason our broccoli is flowering instead of making large heads, I'm not sure why. If any of you know please leave a comment and share what I should be doing or not doing to get nice big heads of broccoli. Some of the broccoli plants are about mid thigh on me, so the plants are definitely large enough. All have some broccoli forming. We now have enough broccoli to have a meal with cheesy broccoli once a week plus have broccoli on salads a couple times a week. YUM!

Elizabeth took this picture of me standing in the middle of the garden so you could get a bit of an idea as to how large it is! This is the view I see of the garden from my kitchen window.
This is the view of the garden from the road. You'll notice there appears to be several straw piles in my garden. These are my potatoes. I was told by a friend that instead of using soil to cover my potatoes I should use straw. I guess the straw makes it easier to harvest and gives a good yield. It will also be great to till into the garden this fall to add to the health of the garden soil. That same friend told me to put straw around all my plants. She said that the straw would help to keep back the weeds as well as to keep the soil moist around the plants. Since it has been a VERY warm lately I have put straw around everything except the corn, onions, garlic, and the new squash & cucumbers that are emerging. Our squash veggies (butternut, spaghetti, cucumber, pickling cucumbers, yellow & green zucchini) went in a little over a week ago along with more bush beans and they are coming up nicely.

I have two beds of red onions. One is almost ready to harvest, these are the ones I started from seed and I think there are only about 16 onions, though I haven't counted. We will start using them once I use up the organic ones I have in the pantry. The onions that I started from seed are doing better than the ones from sets. Next year I will do a LOT more from seed and will succession start them indoors. The green bush beans & peas are both flowering. I'm not sure which pea I have that is doing well, a rabbit mowed down about ½ the pea plants. I plan to plant a lot more peas in August for fall harvesting since I only have about 5 plants that are doing well. Many of the tomato plants have flowers and a few have fruit forming finally!! We are still planting carrots. I planted some a few days ago and will do more today or tomorrow. From now through August I plan to plant about 6 rows of carrots every 5-7 days. My rows are three feet long and spaced about 3 inches apart. I also have more beans to plant. Since the ones I planted a week ago are all up I plan to do about 30 more plants today. We never seem to have enough green beans to last the year. This year I'm doing succession planting and hope to have my freezer full of beautiful green beans. August will start a time of even more planting as we prepare the fall crops and winter boxes.

My dear hubby knows that I really want to keep up with the garden. He also knows that I HATE getting up early. Today he woke me with a sweet kiss and breakfast in bed. He served me a yummy omelet with some green grapes and coffee with fresh cream. He knows that I don't like mornings yet he also knows that I love getting up to kisses and food! :-) I got up, had some Bible and prayer time, made the kids donuts (the recipes is below), and headed out to work in the garden for the next 2 ½ hours. Nathan came out at some point half naked, so I had to head up to the house in my mud moon boots to get his clothes. The soil was very wet because of last nights rain so it clumped badly on my shoes adding about 2 inches of mud and a couple pounds of weight to each shoe. Last week when Caleb had his surgery and I worked in the garden early in the day, Nathan came out with two shirts on, one where it was supposed to be and the other around his waist. :-)

It has been a while since I posted a recipe. Todays recipe is Whole Wheat Soaked Donuts! My children LOVED them!

Whole Wheat Cake Donuts

3 ¼ cups whole wheat pastry flour or freshly ground flour of your choice

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ nutmeg (I left this out because I don't have any right now)

2/3 cup kefir or milk (I used kefir)

¼ cup butter melted

2 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

oil for frying (I used safflower, I'd like to try them in coconut oil but cannot afford to this month)

Powdered sugar, granulated sugar, or an icing or glaze of your choice.

Combine flour, baking powder, spices and ¼ tsp sea salt in a bowl.
In a different bowl beat eggs, sugar and vanilla until thick.
Combine melted butter and milk in a separate bowl.
Add flour and milk mixtures to egg mixture alternately beating well after each addition.
Cover and let set at room temperature over night.
Refrigerate for 1-2 hours in the morning.
Roll out on a lightly floured surface ½ inch thick. Use a cup to cut 2 – 2 ½ inch circles or a donut cutter. Use a corer to get a middle circle and donut hole if you don't have a donut cutter.
Fry for 1 minute or until golden brown, then flip with tongs or slotted spoon and cook for another minute.
Cool slightly on a rack then sprinkle with powdered sugar (if you have a sugar shaker) or put sugar in a baggie and shake donuts to get them covered.

COOKS NOTE: If you have a large family you will need to double this recipe. This made 12 donuts and donut holes. If I was making these again I'd double it because Phil and I didn't even get to try them!

Tonight at dinner Caleb was giving us a digestive tract lesson. He didn't care for the veggies served (garlic Parmesan grilled zucchini & baked potatoes) with dinner so he only ate his grilled pork chop then he said he was full. We were questioning him as to whether or not he was REALLY full. Phil said something about Vanilla Ice Cream to see if he'd all of a sudden have room in his tummy. He said he'd have room for Ice Cream because only the food side of his tummy was full. He had room on the desert side of his tummy! We enjoyed the mini lesson that followed talking about how his tube divides so food goes down one side and dessert down the other then they come together at the bottom until they go all the way through and eventually come out the front or back! :-) My comment: “I sense the need to do a unit on the digestive system this year in school!” :-)

If the Internet is cooperating tonight I'll try to post a couple pictures of the garden. If not I'll at least load up the one that Elizabeth took so you can see how large it is. I wish I could post more pictures of the garden showing off each individual veggie. I am so thankful and in awe each time I walk through. God is so good to provide all this wonderful food for our nourishment and enjoyment. Today as I was sweating while working on weeding the leaks, beans, yellow beans, red onions, and planting more beans & carrots I was struck with how it must have been difficult for Adam to have to work hard after having things “spoon fed” to him in the Garden of Eden. Phil and I have talked much about how “lazy” we've been over the past 13 years of our marriage. This little homestead farm is forcing us to get a small picture of what hard work really is when it comes to providing good food for our family. I say only a small picture since we aren't farming the land while trying to raise animals and work a garden. Our dream is to some day be able to grow our own crops for our livestock both the four legged and the two legged kind! :-) God has seen fit to only give us what we can handle as we learn how to do more for our family and I'm thankful that He is taking us through this journey one step at a time!

Well, for not having much to post about I've sure managed to kick out a VERY long post once again. I hope it was enjoyable!

It's Strawberry Season in Wisconsin!

2008-07-03T21:48:00.000-07:00

OK.... it is 1:12 a.m. and I've been trying to download pictures for over an hour. I can hardly wait until we get our high speed internet!!! I'll try to ad more pictures to this post tomorrow, so check back to see the picture of the kids with the pot of berries.....

Today was a busy but fun day! We are so blessed to have many Amish farms in our area that sell GREAT produce! I purchased $75 of Strawberries and a large bundle of Rhubarb. While I was chopping up the 36 cups of Rhubarb Caleb & Elizabeth de-hulled all the Strawberries. You'll see my largest blue speckled pan filled with de-hulled berries on the chair. After shaping our bread loaves and setting them in a warm spot to rise we started the process of making Jam. I have never made real jam before and it has been about 10 years since the last time I made freezer jam. We made a total of 35 pints of Jam and still have about 12 Cups of fresh strawberries left. It was such an enjoyable process with all the help from Caleb & Elizabeth! Tomorrow I'm making a fresh strawberry rhubarb pie and a rhubarb cream meringue pie, both at the request of my dear hubby.

Phil and Samuel drove up to Pembine to get another load of stuff from our house. Somehow we forgot the vacuum on the first two trips. We also needed to check our mail and pick up canning jars. Soon after they got home our new Pastor came over for our first new member meeting. We had a great time sharing our testimonies and going over a portion of the churches constitution.

This evening was spent finishing up Jam while making Tapioca (Phil's Favorite) pudding. Yes, the picture with Elizabeth stirring berries & Tapioca at the same time was posed. She did help quite a bit with the entire jam making process and I think she enjoyed it! She is starting to show more interest in learning how to cook and bake. I'm enjoying teaching her little things here and there as we prepare our meals. When the kitchen was cleaned up we headed outside for a garbage bonfire and some firecrackers that Phil picked up for the kids. :-)

While at the bonfire Thomas said, “Mom I'm hungry for something.” I asked him what he was hungry for and he said, “Some Marshmallows!” He didn't know that I actually had some in the cupboard and I didn't tell him since we are saving them for our 4th of July bonfire.

I'm sad to report that we lost poor little Elizabeth the goat a couple days ago. We are still going to try to get some goats but will get adult goats NOT little kids. Before getting more goats we need to get our pig pen finished so we can get our pigs. I've been saving scraps and freezing them to pull out for the pigs when we get them. I just hate to throw away food and love the idea of giving the things that are leftover to the pigs rather than just throwing it away. My freezer is getting quite full! Phil went to get some ice cubes tonight and made the comment “We really need to get those pigs!!”

Caleb's Surgery

2008-07-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

Praise the Lord, Caleb's surgery went well. The doctor said everything went as planned during the 2 hour surgery. We were told that in a couple of months Caleb will be able to get his contact.

Caleb is resting comfortably on the front couch. We praise God that the trip home from the hospital was much shorter this time and that Caleb was able to tolerate being in the car. He is on bed rest until he sees the doctor tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.

Please pray for our Caleb

2008-06-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

Tuesday July 1st at 8 a.m. Caleb will undergo eye surgery again. This time they will be removing the oil that has served as a splint for the detached side wall of his retina. They will put natural fluids back into his eye which will allow the eye pressure to function as normal. When he heals from this surgery he will be fitted for a contact that will allow him to see close up again. He can see things far away but they are a bit blurry. I think it is totally amazing that he can see at all without a lens in his eye.

Phil, Caleb, & Sam (who wanted to be with his brother at the surgery), are leaving at 4:30 a.m. to get to the hospital. Please pray with us that the surgery will go well and that Caleb will have a smooth recovery. I'm excited for him that he has his own bedroom to rest in this time.

I'll try to update my blog tomorrow night to let everyone know how the surgery went.

Todays Happenings

2008-06-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Each morning I wake up and thank the Lord that we are together as a family again. It is so wonderful to see Phil each day! Philip asked me this past Thursday, “Mommy, is daddy coming home this week?” I smiled and said “Yes Philip Daddy will be home tonight!” Philip's eye's got wide and he exclaimed, “Oh boy!!” The little ones still haven't caught on to the fact that because we moved we get to see Daddy every day now. It is so nice to greet Phil at the door each night and sit down together as a family for Bible time and dinner.

Today we worked hard on the farm again. Phil helped me till up the flower bed along the South side of the house. After tilling and raking out the weeds and crab grass we spread a layer of compost then tilled it in. I planted almost all of the herbs in the flower bed. I still have about 2 dozen parsley plants which I am going to plant with flowers along the front edge of the bed next week. I've always wanted a flower bed and an herb garden and now I have both! YEAH! If all my herb plants grow well we will probably have enough fresh herbs to feed the county. :-)

Samuel enjoyed tinkering with an old riding lawn mower that we found in the barn. The landlord said we could have it if we could get it started. Phil and Sam worked on it today but couldn't get it working. It was so fun to see Sam so excitedly working with Phil on the mower. Sam is still hoping that he and daddy will succeed at getting it to work.

Phil and the boys also worked on the fencing for our pig pen. We hope to finish it up early in the week so our little Berkshire piglets can join our farm. God is so good to give us the desires of our heart when we least expect it! Pigs have been hard to find this year up north so I was expecting to have a hard time once we moved down here. Our new neighbors, that we buy our milk from, have a sow that gave birth to 12 piglets this spring, 10 survived. They are a bit bigger than the normal feeder piglet, almost twice the size actually so we are paying twice the price. BUT the really neat thing is that they are Berkshire pigs. Berkshire pigs are the bread that I had decided through my research that I would some day want to have a sow and bore of. They are wonderful pigs for pasture feeding AND they are the gourmet choice of pork. I'm so thankful that we found these pigs and for such a reasonable price. We will raise these two for butchering this year. Eventually we will try to get a sow for breeding.

Our laying hens graduated from their one room heated establishment to the chicken coop today! The only difficulty we are having is that the roosters are trying to eat their feed and are chasing the chicks away, those naughty boys!! Phil rigged up a heat lamp for the chicks since they are only 4 weeks old and it is supposed to be in the high 50's tonight. He put the food very close to the heat lamps in hopes that the roosters won't like the heat and will stay away. We'll see if the plan works.

Elizabeth the Goat has been enjoying some freedom these past couple days. While we are out in the yard during the day we let her out of the chicken pen and into the yard with us. Thomas is trying to make her a house goat, YUCK! She enjoys laying on the cool concrete in the entry way of the house and has left a couple deposits that mom hasn't been too thrilled with. I'm hoping we will get more goats this week or I'm afraid Elizabeth the Goat is going to start to think she really is a Reese kid!

LONG Family, Move, Farm, Garden update!

2008-06-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

It has been so long since I've been able to blog that I don't know where to begin. So I'll go back a couple weeks and try to get you caught up on our family happenings. I hope you will sit back, pour yourself a cup of something cold to drink and enjoy catching up on us!

When we got back from camp we were sad to find one of our little rabbits dead. The next morning the other female was found dead too. Now we have one white male. We hope to find more rabbits to bread with it once we get proper cages built.

Fathers Day was a nice day at church celebrating the dad's and saying farewell to our dear friends. Sunday afternoon U Hall called about our truck telling us that we had to travel about 45 miles one way to pick up the truck, and it wasn't available until 10:30 Monday morning. We were bummed to have to wait until after noon to start loading. My wonderful organized planning all went down the drain as the loading process began. I stepped back and let the men do the work while I continued to pack up things throughout the house. Loading the moving truck and trailer took about 8 hours. Finally at about 8 pm we headed for New Holstein.

We arrived very tired to find that the kitchen floor had been lacquered late in the evening and was still wet. We did our best to lay down boxes and rugs so we wouldn't step on the wet floors while we brought in enough blankets for the kids. They were exhausted so we bunked them all down together in Samuel's new room. By midnight we realized that we were never going to find blankets for Phil and I. That is when he remembered the blankets he had been using were located in the van at the auto shop only a few miles down the road. He drove there got our blankets and we were able to head to bed.

I received one VERY BIG surprise when we arrived at the New Holstein house. Phil had purchased a new bed & dresser set with a nice new mattress. YEAH!!! Our nights sleep only lasted until 6 am when the landlord showed up to do more work on the house, but it was the first nights sleep I've had in years where I didn't wake up with a back ache.

In the morning we found out that some folks from our new church would be coming at 9 to help us unload. The unloading process went very quickly (thanks to all my labeling) and by the early evening almost the entire kitchen was organized, plus a couple of the older kids had “settled” into their rooms.

On Wednesday we continued to settle in. One of the ladies from church who has 5 children around the same ages as ours came over after lunch with her kids for the kids to play while we worked on getting Thomas, Philip, & Nathan's room unpacked and organized. It only took us a couple hours to get the room ready for the boys. That evening Phil & I set up the beds while the kids were at their first night of VBS at our new church.

By Friday we were pretty much settled in with the exception of the school room. I have to get bookshelves for the school room before I start to unpack. Phil has to put my desk together too. Elizabeth is not quite settled yet in her room and my need some “help” from mom to get it finished.

I absolutely love this house!! If it came with a few more acres and wasn't quite so old I'd be chomping a the bit to buy it. I'm so thankful that we will be able to live here while we get our finances more stable without the pressure of another mortgage. I'll have to take some pictures to post once we get our Internet. Right now we are trying to use the Internet off of Phil's blackberry, which means it is quite slow. Phil is working on getting us phone and Internet.

The children are really enjoying our little country life. We aren't in a good routine yet but Elizabeth is faithfully caring for the laying hen chicks and the boys are getting a bit better about caring for the rabbit. There is a rope swing here on one of the large maple trees which the kids spend HOURS swinging on . This yard is so wonderful for kids!! There are trees to climb, a sand box, and the rope swing. Once the animals chew down the pasture they will be able to access the creek easier and hunt for crayfish.

This past Saturday we added another animal to the Reese Farm. Goats! Phil drove out to a nearby farm and purchased two does that were about 2 months old. The kids named them Mary & Elizabeth because they are cousins. We lost one yesterday, Mary. The move upset their system a bit causing them to have diarrhea. Elizabeth, the goat, is still with us. If she survives until next week we will work on finding 2 other goats to put with her. From what we've read, goats are best in small herds. We have a very nice Amish family down the road who keeps goats that is willing to allow us to use their Billy in January so the girls can have spring kids.

Our garden is growing well.... and so are the weeds. After 3 weeks of very little care the weeds have become quite happy amongst the vegetables. We are slowly beating them back!! Our vegetables are doing really well considering their lack of care throughout this move. The broccoli is huge and forming their first broccoli heads. The cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage all look great too! Both the red onion sets and the ones I started from seed are doing GREAT, plus we even have some garlic growing thanks to the cool spring! We have a few short rows of carrots, two types of green beans, yellow wax beans, some pumpkin & watermelon plants, only 5 red potato plants (out of 30 sets, GRRR), 10 Yukon gold potato plants (out of 30 sets), and I think close to 20 Georgia sweet potato plants (out of 50) and a nice start on the corn. The corn won't be knee high by the 4^th because we didn't get it into the ground until last week, but it has sprouted and is growing every day! I'm really disappointed with the potato plants, but am not surprised since we had flooding rains just after planting them. Over the next couple of days we will continue to battle the weeds while getting our squash, cuc's and zucchini in.

UPDATE: I wrote this entry of events a couple days ago. Today I worked in the garden for 6 hours, Phil and the kids helped put in some time too. Our garden looks WONDERFUL now!!! I planted Summer Squash (yellow zucchini), green zucchini, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, slicing cucumbers, and picking cucumbers. Caleb helped me with all the planting which was fun! We also planted more beans. The beans Phil and the kids planted a couple weeks ago are doing well and should start flowering soon. Phil took the tiller to all the rows and all the empty beds so we could plant and get the weeds under control. We also put some nice composted manure we found in the barn on the potato plants. Every bed was weeded today. There are only a few veggies that need some fine tooth weeding. It is so nice to look out my kitchen window at the thriving garden and know that we'll be feeding our family great food this year!

Tonight we also spent some time with some of our new neighbors. They are the family that we purchase our raw milk from. It was so fun getting to chat with them for a couple hours. They are Nourishing traditions/raw milk/organic/whole foods people too. It was fun comparing “notes” on what I am learning since they have been living a Nourishing lifestyle much longer than we have. They are also on the same page as us with their research into economics and investing. It was such a fun evening which I believe will lead to a nice friendship. The kids had a great time too. They have 3 children still at home ages 18 (girl), 14 & 10 (boys) and are a home schooling family.

Oh and for those of you who are wondering Elizabeth the Goat is still with us. She is still very skinny and sickly. We hope that when we get a couple more goats this week it will help her to bounce back. This time we are getting adults instead of kids in hopes that they will adjust better to their new home.

By the end of the week we should have 2 feeder pigs too! YEAH!! I've been saving scraps and throwing them in the freezer in anticipation of our little piggy's! Phil and the boys will fence in the area for them early next week so we can have them delivered.

I'm off to bed.... if I can sleep without bothering my sunburned shoulders much!

Northland Mission Camp

2008-06-11T16:29:00.001-07:00

Our first couple of days at camp have been very fun! We haven't been that great at taking pictures but will try really hard to make up for it over the next couple of days. I ran home this evening to do some laundry because Nathan puked all over me at dinner tonight. He vomited the first night when we got back to the cabin too. We cannot figure out if he is actually sick, which doesn't seem likely since he acts totally fine, or if he just isn't used to the food. We've been cooking so clean and most of the time Nathan eats Thomas's GF/CF foods, we are thinking it may be possible that he just cannot handle the processed foods or all the gluten. If this keeps up all week then he is totally fine next week eating mom's cooking, it may be possible that he just couldn't handle the change in diet.

Here is a little recap of the past couple days for you:

Monday: A dear friend in town here helped us pack and get all our things out to camp. She sacrificed 2 hours to help us make trips to camp, helped me do some dishes and was simply a HUGE blessing to our family! The first evening Thomas really had a hard time in the children's groups. Many of you know that PHil and I have worked at NMC in several positions and usually the staff NEVER gets a parent out of the service. They are so well trained and so extremely patient and caring that most kids can get over their crying and start having fun. The change in routine and the number of kids in the 1-3rd grade group was so extremely overwhelming for him. Finally Phil and the couple in charge of the children's groups decided to move Thomas down with the 4 yr - kindergarten group. He has done much better in that group! We are so thankful for the staff at NMC!! They've handled him very well.

Tuesday: Phil and I enjoyed a morning of teaching sessions along with some quiet time for us to talk and pray together. The kids got to have game time, craft time, bible story time, and over all a TON of fun! After lunch Phil and I hung out with Nathan, Philip, Eliza & Caleb enjoying time playing basketball, watching some other activities, and talking with friends. Sam hung around with some new friends spending the day going on the water slides & swimming. At about 3 the littles and I headed back to the cabin for a nap while Phil and the other kids went to the fishing derby. Sam came in second place with a 1 1/2 pound bass. I'll ad a picture to this blog later showing off his catch! The evening included another preaching session for us, children's groups, and family fun.

We have been very blessed that we are able to have one of Thomas's Therapists come to camp to work with him from 12:30 - 3:30 each afternoon. They are playing with another autistic child & therapists working on having the boys take turns choosing activities, taking turns in those activities, working on manners and generalizing other things they boys have learned through therapy. Thomas's favorite activity this week has been mini golf! He also loves the boats and has decided today that he wants to try to zip line tomorrow.

Wednesday: We got to sleep in a little this morning which was refreshing. Then we had one morning session before brunch and family field games. The kids enjoyed sack races, egg toss, water balloon toss and more! Nathan and I had a quicky nap after the games. Phil and PHilip fished for about 2 hours and caught lots of fish. Eliza, Sam & Caleb enjoyed the two water slides, swimming, and playing carpet ball. We ended the afternoon with a Reeces Artic Dream and a Cappuccino (Philip's favorite drink). You've already heard that Nathan puked on me, so we are here doing some laundry while Phil and the kids are in sessions. We will head back in a few minutes for funny time, date night (where the kids will have sitters and Phil & I will get 1 hour alone), and star gazing for the older three.

Off I goooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Praising God for Safety

2008-06-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

Two Trials in Two Days = Praising God for Safety

Yesterday I got a call from Phil stating that the tire just fell off the van. He had driven to one of our new neighbors homes to pick up milk before heading home when the tie rod fell apart as he turned into their driveway. We are so thankful that this didn't happen when he was driving 65 on the highway! Phil said the tie rod broke (I think). God is so good!

Phil is going to have it towed to an auto shop in Kiel, a few miles from our new house where we will find out how much it will cost to fix it and we will go from there. We have decided that we will pray about fixing the van depending on the cost or just selling the van for parts and buying a new van. We have needed a new van for over a year. This past winter we had no heat which makes even a short 10 mile trip VERY cold when the weather is 40 below zero. We will see what our options are and prayerfully take the next step.

A friend of ours is graciously driving down to Kiel to pick up Phil since I cannot fit all the kids in Phil's car to go get him myself. We are so blessed to have such a great community of friends up here and we will really miss them!!

Today we were showing a friend who lives a couple blocks away how to care for our animals. I was a bit reluctant about having our friend feed and care for the dogs because Bandit is VERY moody. He has bit more than one child and is simply not predictable. Phil was hopeful that he could train his moodiness out of him once we moved. I'm sorry to have to report that Bandit bit our friend AND Phil. Phil had to get two stitches and both men had to get a Tetanus shot and antibiotics. Bandit will be entering doggy heaven within the next 24 hours.

We are very thankful that the injuries were not more severe and that we learned of the dogs limits before someone got hurt badly. We are also very glad that we do have a nice house dog, Sunny, to help the kids deal with the loss of Bandit.

Grocery Shopping & Oils

2008-06-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

Two of my favorite blogs have some GREAT posts today that I just have to share!!

If you have ever wondered about which oils really are the best oils you have to read Lindsay's post on oils over at Passionate Homemaking.

Stephanie at Keeper of the Home has a GREAT post on Frugal Food Shopping due to the rising costs we are all encountering each time we go to the grocery store.

I hope you will find these posts to be a blessing to you as you seek to shop wisely and add more healthy foods to your families menu!

Praises and Pictures

2008-06-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

These are the pictures of the kids celebrating their first nice day of summer vacation! The kids are outside playing with the roosters & rabbits, ridding bikes, golfing in the football field & overall enjoying the beautiful day!

I'm not sure if you can tell how many boxes we added yesterday, but it is very exciting to me to see this pile of boxes grow as area's of the house empty out. I have another 10 boxes that were finished yesterday that are still in the basement. When Thomas is done with therapy today we will haul them up along with all the therapy items.

Today we have an answer to prayer to share: Phil was able to find some folks who work at LTC to carpool with! The carpool is about 3 miles from our Irish Road House. There are already 3 in the carpool, with Phil joining they will each only have to drive every fourth week. What a huge savings on gas that will be!!

We are very thankful for the good rain that we have had this week. Now that we are gardeners the rain is such an answer to prayer since it allows our soil to remain moist and fertile! Phil said we have beans coming up and the broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts & cabbage are doing GREAT! Phil was able to get my largest tomato plants into the ground yesterday even though the dirt was quite mucky. He planted my Cosmont Volkov & Beeser (cherry) Tomatoes. These plants were each over 1 foot tall already so he buried them a good 4 inches to help make the plants stronger. Today he hopes to get the rest of the tomatoes in, if the weather cooperates.

Today I'm going to get some baking done for Thomas for camp: a quadrouple batch of waffles & some cookies. Then will use up all the rest of the boxes I have packing up the rest of the office & hopefully Phil's office in the basement. I'm in the home stretch with the list getting smaller and smaller but yet there is still so much left to do. I'm thankful that yesterday and today I feel really good. The cold I had last week really wiped me out and early this week I was simply exhausted still.

I end with some simple praises and thanksgiving to the Lord:
~Thank you Lord for the Rain!
~Thank you Lord for daily strength!
~ We praise you for providing a carpool for Phil!
~ We praise you for a good church body at our new house!
~ Thank you for a good nights sleep (and for getting to sleep in a little)!
~ Thank you for a beautiful day!

Ps. 89:5 The Heavens shall praise they wonders, O Lord: thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints!

What are you praising and thanking God for Today?

The Countdown

2008-06-05T14:41:00.000-07:00

School is over and the countdown has begun for vacation & moving day!

Just 4 more days until Family Camp!
Only 11 days until we Move!

Today we've been packing! It is a perfect day for packing since it is rainy and dreary out. I am almost out of boxes again. :-) Hopefully by the end of the day we'll have all the kids packed for camp and all extra clothes boxed up for the move.

Phil signed the contract for our Irish Road rental yesterday. YEAH!! We officially have a place to live within 20 minutes of Phil's work. This week it has been raining every day so Phil hasn't been able to plant anything. We are thankful for the rain as it has revealed that the roof has NOT been fixed at the rental. We are very blessed with good landlords who will be fixing the roof, putting new carpet in our bed room, and painting the entire house before we move in on the 16th. The only thing we might have to do is replace the upstairs banister which is only 2 feet high and quite wobbly.

Phil will probably stay until Saturday so he can put our 75 tomato plants, 6 pumpkin plants, 6 watermellon plants, and the about 16 pepper plants in the ground. We were hoping to plant a little more spinach & lettuce and the corn but it is way to wet. Phil will be harvesting our first lettuce to bring home for our fathers day salad.

Our roosters are getting big! We got our first 25 laying hens this week. They are cute little orange/brown fur balls! I will hopefully be getting 1-1 1/2 dozen eggs a day starting sometime in October. I ordered another 50 chickens, they will be a mix of breeds and sexes, which will be arriving the week after July 28th along with 2 geese, 6 ducklings, & 6 turkeys! How fun!! I am so excited about getting to eat chicken again!! We will butcher one of the turkeys for thanksgiving even though he may only be 10-15 pounds by then. It will be really neat getting to eat a bird we raised from a hatchling, no mystery injections, fillers, fattening on GMO corn & soy, and knowing our bird had the opportunity to live a happy turkey life in a pasture eating bugs & grass!

We have another new animal addition to our "farm". Rabbits! Sam went with some friends last weekend to a local animal swap. They were able to find us 2 girl rabbits the gray & white lion hair, and the cute little orange one, and a white daddy. We will breed the rabbits for meat. When we move we will have to find another male so we have two males in order to insure we aren't breading the kids with dad. Yes, I know what you are thinking.... who will kill them? Phil says he doesn't think he will have a problem doing it, so we are going to give it a go. They are another cheap animal to feed! During the summer they will eat grass, clover, and dandelions.

For those of you who know Phil you will be pleased to know that Phase One of the Robot Factory has finally been started! He has planted his carrots and purchased the rabbits! If there are any interested in investing in Reese Robotics while the company is young, please let us know! :-) For those of you who have never heard of Phil's childhood plans to build a robot factory, some day I'll have to share the entire story with you.

Enjoy the pictures!

I'd better get back to packing!

God is ALWAYS Good!

2008-06-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

Today I am thankful that I can rest secure in the face that God is ALWAYS good! We received some disappointing news, we no longer have renters for our Pembine House. Once again we lean on God for understanding and grace. He knows the strain that two house payments will be on our family and delights in meeting the need for a renter/buyer in His time. We know that He wants to strengthen our faith and teach us more about trusting.

In the midst of this disappointment we:
~are very thankful that we KNOW that He has a plan and will work it out in His timing.
~are thankful for the extra margin this will ad to our lives. Phil will not need to take a week off work the week after we move to come up here and refinish the floors along with all the other projects.
~are glad that we can now re-evaluate what are the essential things that need to be done before renting/selling and can focus on those. This will probably save us a significant amount of money!
~are very glad that we will have a couple months to do the work on the Pembine house.
~are so thankful that we will be able to pray with our children about the need for a renter/buyer for the house. This will allow them to see God answer the prayer and help to increase their faith.
~won't have to have the house completely emptied out this month, so if we need to we can leave things here that will not fit in the moving truck.
~will be able to spend time focusing on settling into the new house and settling into a new family routine without the pressure of having to get this house done NOW!
~I should say, I am very thankful for a husband who is calm, levelheaded, wise, and a godly leader in our home. This would have rattled most men, but Phil has remained very calm and god-minded through this time. Thanks honey!!

Please pray with us that God will provide a renter for the house and for the apartment, or a buyer for the entire house.

Our lives are a bit topsy turvey currently!

2008-06-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

You know you are officially moving when

~packing overtakes your life.
~The kids say, "Mom, where is the _________" and for once you know where it is: "It's packed!"
~every pair of pants you put on have sharpie markers in the pocket.
~you dream of organizing your new home, with a fervent passion for no cluter and a place for everything or IT ISN'T COMING OUT OF THE BOX!
~you are determined to only make useful purchases FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!
~you serve hot dogs to your family three times in one week.... so much for healthy eating. :-)
~you are 16 loads behind on laundry, cannot see the laundry room floor and you are encouraging your children to run through the neighbor hood with bare feet (because there aren't any clean socks).

Yes, our lives are quite hectic right now. The living room is about 1/3 full of boxes, not clear up to the ceiling, but high enough that we have to watch the little boys who think a cool square jungle gym has just been constructed for their use! I finished all the upstairs closets last week each of which are 5 X 8. Everything is packed and labeled from those areas and I'm almost totally done with the upper level of the house. I only have to help Eliza & the littles pack for the next 2 weeks then box up the rest.

My greatest challenge currently is finding enough boxes to fill. We were shocked to discover this week that WalMart will no longer give boxes out to people. Last week I picked up 2 carts that were full of boxes and this weekend when Phil went they wouldn't let him have any because they get paid to recycle the cardboard. Now I'm on a fervent search for boxes to finish up. If I cannot find boxes I'll resort to buying storage bins which I can use in organization, but really don't want to spend the money on right now.

We have changed our plans to go down to the house for this weekend. After working very hard these past several days packing Phil & I decided that he'd go down for work this week, stay at the new house, work in the garden in the evenings, and come home Fri evening or Sat once all the gardening is done. This will allow me to have a couple extra days to prepare for camp which will allow for a more relaxing vacation at Northland Family Camp. The kids were a bit bummed but I think they are excited for a couple extra days to play with their friends before we move.

Our landlord will be painting the house. If they are able to get the bedrooms, living & dinning room done, they will also strip the wallpaper off the kitchen and paint it too. I requested that they get the rest of the house done first and that if needed I'll do the kitchen this summer.

Today we did take a day of rest..... well can you call washing and folding 10+ loads of laundry rest?!? So maybe we just took a rest from packing. :-) We did enjoy a wonderful morning in church as a family with hopes of seeing Caleb & Sam Baptized. Plans changed when Pastor went to get into the baptismal after the service to find it EMPTY. :-) We all had a good laugh and are thankful that we'll be here for 2 more Sunday's. Hopefully next week will be their baptismal. Philip wasn't feeling good but we made him go this morning so we could all be there for the service to see Sam & Caleb Baptized. Philip was so sick that he slept and SNORED through the entire message. I tried plugging his nose, shifting him, covering his mouth, etc and no matter what I did he still snored the entire time. His tonsils are huge and he is congested so it is no wonder, but it was quite funny. A friend of mine sitting 4 rows in front of us could even hear him. He is taking another nap right now, poor kid!

We'll I'd better get back to the laundry..................................

Kids!

2008-05-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke after a very short night to rise and shine get ready for the day and spend some time with the Lord. While I was having my devotions Philip came down. We were chatting a bit and for some reason Philip asked, "Mom are you 60 like daddy?" I laughed thinking.... Ok, I may feel like I'm 60 today but hopefully I don't look like it! I responded "Honey, Daddy and I are 36." My dear Philip who I think has clogged ears again due to excessive wax says, "Oh your 56?!" So I repeated very slowly and loudly, "NO, THIRTY SIX!"He looked at me sweetly smiled, gave me a squeeze and said, "Oh Firty six" and went back to his eating. I laughed and went back to my bible reading thinking about the fact that I am so blessed to be a mommy, even if I am accused of being 60 years old!

Sorry for the old picture. This was from this past Christmas. I thought it showed Philip's glowing mischievous smile well!!

Reducing your expenses Part 2

2008-05-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more tips for reducing your expenses during this uncertain economic time.

1. STOP SAVING CASH! Ok, now you think I've flipped right? Take some time to research out what top economists are saying about the dollar. One of my favorite investors has coined the phrase: "Cash is TRASH!" The dollar value is crashing so what good is your hundreds or thousands of dollars in savings really going to be worth when the dollar value is ZERO. If you have a savings you really have three choices for your money. 1. Invest it into consumable goods for your family: ie FOOD, Livestock (if you are in the country). 2. Invest it in hard cash, meaning gold coins or silver coins. You can purchase small lots of 90% silver on ebay, and through many silver brokers and banks. Your silver, & gold will increase in value as the dollar decreases. Be careful though. If you invest in silver from a large broker your silver may be traceable. You don't necessarily want people to know you have gold & silver hiding some where. BUT you do want to have it. Some top economists are saying that silver may reach as high as $100 per ounce! One I was listening too stated that if you own $9000 in silver you may be able to purchase a home when the economy fully crashes because that silver will be worth a LOT more! Even IF gold and silver do not sky rocket even if it doubles in value you have invested wisely. How long will it take your money to double at a 2%-3% interest rate in your savings? I rest my case! 3. Keep your money watch your investment go negative while inflation increases! Meaning, there is less pull for your dollar every day.

2. Stop using paper products. Ok I know there is no replacement for toilet tissue & even writing paper for our children. However, we can greatly reduce the use of other paper products. Instead of paper towel use microfiber towels and/or rags for cleaning. Replace your paper napkins with cloth. Use the same cloth napkin for each person for all meals in a day, just make sure to save your messiest meal for dinner! :-) Start using hankies instead of kleenex (or if you are a kleenex lover buy lots over the next few months before the prices get too unreasonable).

3. Hang your clothes outside to dry. I am NOT a fan of underwear and socks on the clothes line, however, if all I'm drying is one load of underwear and socks a week rather than drying 4-5 loads a DAY I can really save a LOT of energy and reduce my electric bill. I don't have a clothes line right now and can hardly wait to have one again at the new house!

4. Wear your clothes more than once. Ok, I'm meddling now right?? No, most people can wear pants/skirts 2-3 times before they really need to be laundered. I know what you are going to say next, "MY kids cannot keep clothes clean for 3 minutes let alone 3 days!" I have five boys and believe me they get dirty in the summer. However, I find that usually their pants & shorts can still be worn more than one day, especially if they are just playing outside. I do change their shirts every day. Once they get a nice tan I don't even encourage them to wear shirts in the summer. It saves me laundry and boys love running around without a shirt on! Teach your kids how to judge whether it is really clean or dirty before they throw their clothes in the wash. Reducing your laundry as much as possible will reduce your expenses in soap & electricity.

5. Don't shower/bathe daily. EWE! No really now, only if you have a very physical job will you stink after one days work. So space your bathing to every other day or every third day is possible. Stop making your kids bathe every day! Teach them to shower or bathe when they stink, if they don't sink have the wash their hands and face before/after meals and their feet before bed (so you don't have black stains on the sheet when they play outside all day in their bare feet/sandals). I promise you that they won't grow weeds behind their ears if they only have 1 or 2 baths a week. Really!!! :-)

6. Interview your grandparents or parents and find out how they made it through the last depression our nation had. Take notes and make some changes that will help your family to survive through our tremulous times.

When I think of more expense reducers I'll post again! Do you have any input?

Summer is coming.... REALLY it is!

2008-05-27T19:05:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of families who are concerned about the bug sprays they use on their children. However, many do not take the time to consider how many toxic chemicals they are slathering on their bodies to protect themselves from the supposed harmful ray's of the sun. A blogging friend of mine Stephanie wrote up a two part post on sunscreens. She has some GREAT information to consider when shopping for your families sunscreen this year. Click on her name and it will take you to her blog then look for her posts: "My thoughts on sunscreen. " Dr. Mercola also has some great information on sunscreen and bug spray.

I try to use very little sunscreen on the kids. Instead I limit their time in the sun during the hottest parts of the day and/or make sure they are clothed in such a way to minimize skin exposure. This year Nathan, Philip & Thomas already have nice little "tan's" from exposure to the sun in the later afternoons. I'm glad that on the "farm" there are wooded areas that I can encourage the kids to play in during the heat of the day.

What are you doing to help you and your family handle the sun without toxic sunscreen?

Reducing your expenses Part 1

2008-05-26T11:11:00.001-07:00

In today's economy it seems impossible to reduce your expenses. Phil and I watched a video on utube about the "Energy NON Crisis". If you are concerned about the current oil crisis and the dollar value you should look up this video or get the book and start doing your own research. It is a bit disconcerting to realize that our nation is headed for such a huge financial crisis if not a full blown depression. We have been discussing how we as a family are going to be wise stewards of what God has provided for us. We do not have to fear what is to come because we are able to Trust that the Lord is in control. However, we do believe that God wants us to be wise & prudent as we approach the uncertain economic crisis of our age. If you are not preparing for the rising gas & food prices you need to start NOW! I thought I'd share some of the things we are doing or plan to do that you might find helpful!

1. Have a garden this summer. Even if your yard is small consider a small garden box with some of the veggies that your family uses the most. Find a book on Square Foot Gardening at your local library or do research on the web. Seeds are very inexpensive and yield much more than the $1 you pay for them. It is not too late to start a garden.

2. Reduce the number of times you shop each month. If you usually usually shop one time a week, start by shopping every other week, then every third until you reach the point where you are only traveling to the store 1 time every month or better yet, every other month. We usually shop one time a month with the exception of milk & eggs which we try to get within 5 miles from home from local farmers. Our garden will soon reach the point where we will be able to provide all our own fresh veggies. Until then I have Phil pick up what I need on his way home from work so that I'm not having to waste gas to get to the store and back.

3. Car pool. Find someone to car pool with for work so that you are spending 1/2 or less than you typically would on gas each month by splitting it 1to 4 ways with others in your local area. Our new home will be 20 miles from Phil's work. He is trying to find people to carpool with so that he can share the gas expenses. If he cannot we are considering a motorcycle for the warmer months of the year since they are much cheaper on gas.

4. Find a local food club in your area where you can purchase bulk beans, grains, rice, flour, sugar, etc. Some in the Mid-West US are Natural Farms, Country Life, and United Prairie. These stores on wheels carry many food items that are both organic and non-organic. You can contact these companies and see who runs the local "clubs" in your area. You can often find out about these groups by asking church organizations, and health food store owners. If you are wondering what to do with 50# of flour, sugar, beans, rice, etc. When you do go shopping stop at every store that you can along the way that has a bakery. The bakeries use 5 gallon tubs of icing, fillings, etc and often will sell you their empty buckets for between 50 cents and $1. You can then put your bulk grains into these buckets (after cleaning them good) and they will stay fresh for YEARS!

5. Buy in bulk. Many large grocery stores or even Sam's/Cosco sell items in bulk. Plan your budget so that you can start buying things in bulk. Focus on one food that you use the most each time you shop. There is no way you can stock up on everything all at once (unless you use your stimulus check, which would be a wise investment), so make a plan to start stocking up on the basic food items so that when flour is tripple the price it is now, you won't have to buy it because you have plenty stored away.

6. Start cooking some vegetarian meals. Find 2 vegetarian meals your family enjoys and make them each week. By not purchasing as much meat you will save a lot of money. Maybe fix homemade pancakes, spaghetti with tomato sauce (no meat), beans and rice flavored with Taco seasoning, popcorn with peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, grilled cheese with tomato soup, veggie stir fry with rice, etc.

7. Stop eating out! Make a sack lunch or supper when you need to be on the road or at work. You will save several dollars a day by making homemade lunches rather than going to a restaurant's. Kids LOVE picnics! Making a sandwich to take along rather than stopping at McDonald's will not only be healthier but will be just as easy as you travel.

8. Water. If you typically purchase bottled water look into getting a water filter. I've been researching the Berkey Water filter systems. The water at the farm we are moving to is not drinkable unless it is filtered. Buying a water filter will save us having to buy bottled water for our family of 8.

9. Shop locally. Find farmers markets, and local farmers that have eggs, milk, syrup, etc for sale or trade. If you have a farmers market only 10-15 miles from your home you will be paying less for the food and support our economy so much better. For more info on why shopping locally is very economically smart read the book: Animal Vegetable Miracle. You can find a lot of info on-line about shopping locally too.

10. Start reducing your food portions. We have decided that I'm gong to start cooking less so that we are getting our nutrient needs met while reducing my grocery needs. We in the US really do eat way too much food. We can live on much less and we may be forced to live on much less in the near future. When you have to pay $5-$7 a gallon for gas you will have to reduce your food budget. By reducing your food portions and making sure you are cooking healthy meals that will meet your families nutrient needs you will end up saving money at each meal.

11. Reduce your home energy use. Make sure you are conserving water by taking shorter showers, economizing your water use while doing dishes, and catching rain water for watering your lawn and gardens. We set a timer for the kids when they are in the shower so that they don't take long showers. We fill a sink with hot water to rinse all the dishes in then empty it and fill it again with soapy water to wash them and we are starting to fill up the other side of the sink with hot clean water for rinsing rather than running the water through the entire rinse process. Often I only use 4 gallons of water to do my dishes. If you have a dishwasher be sure to use the shortest cycle possible with the NO HEAT drying cycle. Turn your heat down this winter. For each degree you turn down your heat in the winter you can save up to 3% of your heat expense. We usually keep our house between 62 & 64 degrees all winter long. If you have the option of heating with wood DO! If you have a wood stove that will also allow you to cook on it. DO IT! Many soups, stews, chili's, hot cereals, pot roasts, roast chicken, etc can all be cooked very easily if set on top of a wood burning stove in the winter. Check out new appliances like Solar Ovens, hand crank food mills/grinders, outdoor bread ovens, and wood grills. You can build a nice outdoor cooking grill by using cinder blocks.

12. Start making your own cleaning products. The basic ingredients needed for almost all your cleaning needs are vinegar, baking soda, washing soda, and borax. These ingredients are not only cheap but they are also NOT toxic. You can find many recipes online for dish soap, dish washer soap, laundry soap, all purpose cleaning, window cleaning, etc.

Ok, I'll stop there. I'm off to make bread and do my dishes. I have promised my kids that we'd fly a kite sometime today and of course I need to pack. If you are doing something to prepare your family for the rising gas and food prices please post a comment sharing your tips!!

Happy Birthday Thomas!

2008-05-24T16:11:00.001-07:00

Today our Thomas is 7 years old! Thomas we are so proud of you! You are learning to overcome so many of the challenges you face as a special needs boy. It thrills our hearts to see how the Lord is allowing you to grow in knowledge and understanding. It is our prayer that soon you will be able to understand God's love for you! Happy Birthday Thomas! We love you!

We hope you will enjoy watching Thomas as we sing to him, and as he receives his birthday present. His scooter from Grandma & Grandpa Reese! The video will be added as soon as Phil can compress it for me.

I've had this post written since the 24th and also want to ad that Thomas was so excited about his scooter that he went door to door in town here telling all our neighbors about his scooter and his 7 candles on his birthday cake! Just when we think Thomas is learning his boundaries well we realize once again that Autistic children don't comprehend boundaries, danger, or proper social behavior. We had to take the scooter away a couple times because of his going too far away from home on the scooter. Thomas definitely likes his new scooter. He has been sleeping with it and carrying it with him all day everywhere he goes!

This past week

2008-05-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

Tidbits from this past week:

Elizabeth had her final band concert. Phil stayed so that he could attend while I was home with the three littles. Elizabeth has learned to play the Baritone and did a very good job at the concert. She is blessed with an ability in music that we hope to encourage as we home school through various music lessons. Phil was very impressed with not only the high school band, but also the elementary. Mrs. Rice does a GREAT job teaching music at all levels. I'm very thankful that our children have had the opportunity to be in her music classes these past couple years.

Thomas has been on a knight kick. This past week his therapist helped make him a night costume during one of his sessions. You'll see Sarah, one of our favorite therapists pictured with Thomas. I wish I could take Sarah along with us when we move. She has been wonderful with Thomas and has a real desire to work with Autistic kids. Thanks Sarah.... we'll miss you!!

Today our little chicks graduated from their first brooding box to a larger one that will accommodate them until our move on the 16th. You'll see one close up picture of one of our Turkens. We have 3 Turkens and they are one of our favorite breeds that we received in our heavy mix of roosters. They are so ugly they are CUTE! :-) Phil has done a wonderful job building these homes for our birds. Our first 25 egg layers are arriving on June 3rd. We've decided that when we get to the farm we will order a straight run (which means a mix of males & females) of 50 more heavies so we'll have plenty of egg layers and hopefully at least 50 roosters for butchering. A couple weeks ago I was visiting a friends homestead in our town and she has ducks, turkey's and geese. We've decided to also order a barnyard mix which will give us 2 geese, 6 ducks and 6 turkey's. We'll have 1 turkey for Thanksgiving, and 1 duck for Christmas then save the rest for breeding in the spring. If we end up with 2 boy geese one will probably be used for a winter holiday meal too. Ducks usually are really good setters so even if I cannot get my chickens to sit I might be able to get the duck to sit on chicken eggs. :-)

The boys all got summer hair cuts this week. Nathan's ended up shorter than I had intended because Friday morning he decided to cut the top of his hair in three places which led to me having to give him a buzz. Now I can officially say that ALL of my children have cut their own hair before the age of 4! Nathan's big phrase this week is, "No mamma, I not da baby, I your boy!" That is the phrase he heard over and over as we went through the time where we took away his bottle.

Phil has been working really hard in the garden. It is nice to see many more crops being planted each week. Next week he will be spending Memorial Day in the garden then flying to Florida for a business trip Tues - Thurs. We all hope to spend a few days at the new house June 4-8 to finish the garden, plant the herb garden, and do any final painting & clean up work on the house.

Today we are celebrating our Memorial day with Sloppy Joes, Thomas's birthday party (I'll post pictures later), and a bonfire with s'mores. And I'm taking a break from major packing since my allergies have led to a nice cold and I'm beat from our busy week.

Granola AND Granola Bars - Recipes

2008-05-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

One challenge I have found during our transition to a nourishing lifestyle is that of having snacks on hand for the kids to grab quick. Fruit is GREAT! However, my kids go through it faster than I am able to shop. Today I'm sharing a couple recipes that don't necessarily meat the qualifications of the Nourishing Traditions style of cooking but they are a much better snack than what you get buying granola bars from the store. I found this recipe when I was on a quest for a healthy granola bar for my children that did NOT have High Fructose Corn Syrup. I make these 2 times a month and we've taken them to "pot luck" type activities where they have been a huge hit! They are GREAT for camping, hiking, and sack lunches. Enjoy!

Homemade Granola

4 cups oats NOT quick. Use old fashioned, rolled or thick cut oats.
2 cups nuts (I use a combination of raw almond-sliced or chopped, pecan, peanut, cashew, etc.)
1/4 cup sesame
1 c non sweetened coconut flakes
1/4 c wheat germ (I use 1/4 cup of my freshly ground flour)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup Virgin Coconut Oil (you can use sunflower or safflower if you are not yet a convert to Nourishing oils. Do NOT use olive oil, it has too strong of a flavor)
1 cup Honey (you can add a little mor honey if you like it a bit sweeter)
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup other dried fruit

Cooks note: In my opinion this recipe needs a little cinnamon. However, my family are not real cinnamon fans so I haven't added it yet. If you enjoy cinnamon and plan to add dried apples, you'd want to add 1 tsp cinnamon to the granola mix before baking.

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl until mixed well. Divide the mixture between 2 Large Stoneware Bar Pans or Jelly Roll Pans. Cook in a 300 degree oven for 30 minutes. Be sure to stir the granola every 10 minutes in order to allow for even browning. Remove from the oven and pour onto parchment or wax paper. Add raisins and other dry fruit if you want to. Allow to cool completely then break it up and store it in an air tight container. We love sprinkling a tablespoon or 2 onto our yogurt or yogurt/fruit bowls.

Chewy Granola Bars
Recipe courtesy Family Circle Magazine
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed light-brown sugar (I use sucanat)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 cups granola (see recipe above)
1/2 cup coconut (the recipe calls for sweetened, I use unsweetened and works great)
1/2 cup golden or regular raising (I leave these out because my family does not like raisins, instead I'll add another 1/2 cup of raw nuts: pecans, peanuts, or cashews)
3/4 cup chocolate chips or carob chips
1/2 cup slivered or sliced almonds

1. Combine sugar, honey, vanilla and butter in a medium-size saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower the heat and let it simmer for 2 minutes or until the sugar is dissolved. Allow mixture to cool for a couple minutes.

2. Meanwhile combine granola, coconut, raisins, 1/2 cup chocolate chips and almonds in a large bowl.

3. Stir brown sugar mixture into the granola mixture. Spread into a 13 X 9 baking pan. Press the remaining chocolate chips into the top. Refrigerate 2 hours or until completely cooled. Allow to sit at room temp for 15 minutes before cutting into bars.

Cooks note: If you double the recipe you can spread it into a Stoneware Bar Pan or Jelly Roll Pan.

Blessings

2008-05-18T17:11:00.000-07:00

Today I want to focus on many blessings that the Lord has been showering upon our family and me personally. I'll start with some general blessings then expound on some spiritual blessings and lessons that the Lord has been teaching me.

On Saturday, I was able to pick up a little over 6 gallons of raw milk and 1 1/2 gallons of cream from pastured cows. My picture today is of the final stages of the butter making process. We allow the cream to sit out for most the day then we take turns shaking it until the butter separates from the buttermilk. In this picture you'll see my almost gallon of buttermilk which will be used for biscuits, pancakes, and bread this week, two 1/2 cup portions of butter, and the blob of butter that needed to be put into 1/2 cup servings. I use my Measure-All cup to pack the butter into while squeezing out as much buttermilk as I can. I then wrap my 1/2 cup blob's in saran wrap, write the date on them with a sharpie marker, then put them into a zipper type freezer bag. These last months in the freezer. I pull them out for fresh use or for baking. This blob of butter ended up giving me 6 cups of organic raw butter. That is equal to about $13-21 dollars since most organic butter sells for $5-$7 per pound. The milk and butter are a huge blessing! Plus I had the opportunity to spend a couple hours visiting with my friend who milks the cows!

When we left the "farm" with our car loaded with milk & cream we headed to another friends house who had some canning jars for me. As we brought the cases down from her attic I was overwhelmed with excitement to find that she was giving me 14 cases of jars, most of them 2 qt PLUS a box of lids and seals! A brand new case of jars runs for around $15. Once again the Lord showered us with goods that will meet our families needs!

I've also been blessed with fresh farm eggs for FREE the past few weeks which has been wonderful! My friend with the chickens also has ducks, geese & turkey's. She has given us goose eggs on more than one occassion which are Samuels favorite eggs to use for his omelet!

A few days ago I was able to meet my new pastors wife via email. We've been corresponding about the move, the church, and other things. I found out that the week we will be moving to New Holstein is the week of our new churches Vacation Bible School. I'm so excited that the kids will be able to get to know the children from our new church right away! God is so good!!

Yesterday Elizabeth and I went to our churches Mother Daughter Brunch. My heart was blessed by the message which I will write more about at the end of this post. Then we went into "town" for our trip to get the milk, canning jars, groceries, and lumber for another chicken pen. While we were shopping I decided to look at some tops and skirts. I desperately needed some clothes that weren't too tight or too big. I've only lost about 28 pounds so many of my shirts are still snug. I know tight fitting shirts are the "popular" style. However, I do NOT feel that they are modest nor do they honor the Lord or my husband. So as Elizabeth and I were looking at shirts I noticed a clearance rack. I usually NEVER find clothes for myself on a clearance rack. There were some REALLY cute reversible skirts that I decided to try on. Not only did they fit but I was also able to find a top to match each on. Because the skirts are reversible I got 6 new church outfits for just $42. It was so nice to wear something that wasn't horribly baggie and frumpy to church today. PLUS I found new tops to wear with my favorite Capri's. Now I'm all set as far as my wardrobe goes for Camp and the summer in general.

The Lord has been teaching me a lot this week about my attitudes regarding my home, packing, scheduling my days, and discipling the children. Yesterday at the ladies brunch one of my dear friends spoke on the impact studying Mary & Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, has impacted her life over this past year and a half. I found her challenge to be very applicable and convicting to the internal struggles I find myself facing these days. I have a tendency to be very "Martha" with my days, I'm often in a rush going from this to that, praying on a whim, reading scripture rushed, listening to the Christian radio with only a portion of my attention, all of which tends to leave me feeling frustrated and STRESSED! The speaker pointed out that it wasn't what Martha was doing that was wrong but that she was "cumbered about" or consumed with and stressed about so many things that she wasn't willing to listen to or be taught by Christ. That little statement hit me between the eye's like the rock that struck Goliath. I realized that I have been cumbered about rather than casting all my cares upon Him who cares for me. I have been doing the good things rather than seeking to live for the Greatest Master. I had to ask God to forgive me once again for my selfishness and lack of willingness to just trust God with each day and all that it entails.

I can honestly say that after yielding my fears and expectations about these next few weeks to the Lord that I am at peace about everything that needs to be done. I have renewed my commitment to seek to walk faithfully, communing daily with the Lord and teaching my children how to walk in His grace day by day. I pray that our busy weeks will be a time that we will reflect back on and be able to see many things that God taught us and ways in which He was magnified through this time of pressure.

Packing!

2008-05-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

Today it hit me that I have just 19 days left to get this entire house packed up. AHHHH!! We aren't moving until June 16 BUT my last day to pack is June 4th. We leave for the new house on June 5th to paint and work in the garden through the 8th. After going to our new church in Kiel that morning we will head back up here to do laundry and pack for Northland Mission Camp's Family Camp. We register for Camp Monday afternoon and will be there through Saturday morning. Then back to the Pembine house for laundry and the final preparations for the move on Monday the 16th. In all reality I only see about 12 days that I will be able to be busy packing because of various events: school, Thomas's Birthday, Thomas's WEAP appt in Green Bay, and weekends with the Family. This Saturday is the Mother Daughter Banquet at our church, next Saturday it Thomas's birthday for which we have planned on going to a hotel to swim for a few hours then have a picnic party. Yikes, I was stressed when I figured out that I only had 19 days, now after thinking through the schedule I'm REALLY STRESSED!!! Anyone wanna come help?! I know the Lord will give me the strength to get it all done!

Today I packed 10 boxes up from my office , organized & labeled all the boxes I packed this past summer and packed up all the canning jars that have been given to me. Now that I have the garage organized I feel very free to continue packing and just move the boxes out there so we can still have somewhat of an orderly home during the packing process. This picture shows all the boxes that needed to be labeled so they'll make it to the correct room at the new house, plus the 10 boxes I packed today.

I had one VERY gross find for the day. While packing my canning jars into boxes with lids I found a jar that had what I thought was a mouse nest. In the same box there was a jar with some icky smelling water. When I dumped the jar I noticed the partially decomposed body of a little mouse. YUCK!! I quickly covered up then had to explain to Philip why the mouse was dead and why he couldn't touch it. EWWWW!

After working from 9-5 on packing I came in to clean up the "packing" mess in the kitchen. You know the leftover stuff from the sorting, organizing, pitching process. Then finished off my pizza crust and made our pizza for tonight. I used Lindsay's recipe from Passionate Homemaking which was posted on Nourishing Gormet. It is a soaked pizza crust recipe and it smells and looks WONDERFUL! I didn't finish this post before the pizza was done, so we have sampled the crust now and it tastes GREAT!! Much better than my attempt at a soaked crust the past 4 weeks. Here is the link for the recipe: Lindsay's Pizza Crust Recipe

Phil has been working hard this week fencing in the garden and planting the broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, red onions, Brussels sprout and butter crunch lettuce all from plants that we started inside in late March/early April. I'm so thankful that he has been willing to work so hard to get our garden ready and planted. It has been a LOT of work, especially since he is putting in a full day of work then driving 20 minutes to get there so he can work until dark each night. I'll have to see if I can get him to take a camera down next week and take a picture of our garden so I can show it to you. You've probably noticed that I've finally learned how to post pictures! :-) I haven't figured out how to post more than one picture and have it look right but I'm learning!

Well, I'm off to clean up the kitchen, clean up our room and get beautiful because my sweet hubby is coming home tonight! :-)

A SALE at The Learning Parent

2008-05-15T17:02:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite home school resources are having a SALE until May 20. I purchased their Busy Bible for Nathan for his 3rd birthday. He is only allowed to "read" it during church services. It is absolutely wonderful, handcrafted and worth the expense! I also bought him their alphabet chart that has a stuffed animal for each letter of the alphabet. We'll be using it for the home school room next year. Their proverbs series is VERY good!

Take advantage of this sale and have some fun shopping for the summer or next school year! Below I pasted part of the email I received about the sale.

Visit: https://www.thelearningparent.com/default.asp

Welcome to the Learning Parent
"Create Your Own" Clearance Sale!

Take 25% Off Everything on Our Website!

(Applies to orders of $50 or more – until May 20, 2008. Use Code SALE.)

Exciting things are happening at The Learning Parent!
We're in the process of creating some awesome teaching materials that will make your home schooling much easier and enrich the lives of your children.

In addition, we're discovering more and more wonderful resources for our children and we want to share them with you! In order to make room for these great new products, we simply must clear some shelves!

So ... until May 20th, 2008, we are giving you the chance to create your own clearance sale! That's right, take a whopping 25% off the price of any product or products on our website on your order of $50 or more! Save big on everything! Following are samples of our inventory of hundreds of items.

13 Years

2008-05-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

Thirteen years ago today I walked down the isle nervous yet anxiously anticipating what it would be like to be Mrs. Philip Reese. These past years have exceeded my expectations and have been a dream come true. Phil, thank you for 13 wonderful years! You are still the love of my life and my very best earthly friend. Thank you for loving me so patiently and faithfully. You are a wonderful father. I enjoy watching you play with our children while constantly seeking to point them to Christ and His ability to meet every need they have. Thank you for taking such good care of me and the kids, for not only meeting our physical needs but for consistently guiding our family spiritually. I am so thankful that the Lord has given you to me. Your passion for Christ overflows in the way you daily express your love to me and the children. I'm so thankful that you love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind and seek to serve him daily. I look forward to many more years by your side learning how to best meet your needs. I love you!

Since we are not able to be together today I wanted everyone to know how blessed I am to have you for my husband.

Happy Anniversary My Love!