The Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

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!

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?

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.

My cheese tasted very good as salted curds. I put some on our salads at lunch. The rest of it is pressing in the cheese press until tomorrow morning. Then it will have to cure and age. I was quite concerned about my first batch of cheese but I think it turned out quite well.

On Saturday Phil, Sam, Caleb & I went down to New Holstein to spend a day at the new house working in the garden and seeing the house. While the boys were working in the garden raking out the sod the current renters dog trampled several of my plants. Phil had decided NOT to put up a fence and use flowers and other means of keeping out the deer and rabbits However, after the dog killed some of the plants he decided it would be best to fence in the garden. Fencing it in will also allow us to free range our chickens more since they won't be able to get into the garden. This week he will finish the fence THEN plant the onions, leeks, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, and spinach. He is also hoping to start a few small rows of carrots, more lettuce & spinach, as well as get all our potatoes, red onion sets and the raspberry plants in the ground when they come.

I didn't spend much time in the garden but I did get to see the house and find out the phone numbers for the local co-op's, organic raw dairy farm, home schooling groups, and more. I enjoyed my time with the mom of 9 who is currently renting the house. She is a seasoned home schooler and was such a blessing to talk with.

So, are you wondering if I like the house? Yes, I do like the layout. I don't like the flooring nor the fact that there is lead based paint throughout. We will be talking with the landlord about ripping up the carpet and just having the nice hard wood floors (refinished or not they'll be better than the carpet) and giving everything a fresh coat of paint in order to seal the lead based paint. Painting isn't a permanent solution, but it will help it to be much less toxic while we are in the house. There is a nice root cellar with a real old fashioned potato box that I'll be able to divide for my potatoes & onions. There are also many canning jars that the current renter will be leaving for me because she doesn't have enough space in their moving truck. I've been "collecting" canning jars over the past two summers and hope that I won't have to purchase any thanks to so many freebies that I've found. I will only have to purchase lids & seals which are much cheaper than having to get the jars too. She might also be leaving their BEAUTIFUL piano which would be such a huge blessing! I've been wanting to get a new piano or keyboard for Elizabeth and myself. I'm hoping that since we are going to a smaller church when we move that I'll be able to get more heavily involved in the music ministry at the church. The piano is in very good shape and is just in need of tuning. Her husband doesn't want to move the piano to Virginia and they don't think it will fit it on the truck with the rest of their stuff.

Phil and I will have the main floor bedroom which has a door to the bathroom (almost like a Master Bedroom w/ bath). The kitchen is a nice big country kitchen with some nice pantry cupboards in the laundry room. PLUS, in the Laundry room there is space for my upright freezer. It will be nice to have one of my freezers right near the kitchen. The other freezer(s) will be in the garage. The four rooms upstairs will be for the kids. We aren't sure yet if our table will fit in the kitchen or not. If it will then we will put it in the kitchen and make the "dinning room" into a living room and the "living room" will be the school room. There is a very cute porch on the front of the house that is off the living room. For mothers day the kids & Phil got me two hanging potted Impatience plants that will look really pretty on my brass hooks, one on each side of the steps. There is also a little round flour bed in the front that I'm going to plant some colorful flowers in. I'm going to use the flower bed along the south side of the house for my herbs.

I love the fact that I can see the garden from the window right above the sink in the kitchen. I'll be able to see the cows grazing from the other window in the kitchen. The property will work very nicely for a few cows if we rotate their pastures. There are plenty of fence posts in the barn that the landlord said we could use to fence in the property for the animals. We are contemplating getting a couple goats and sheep to get the pastured area around the barn in shape. it is too uneven to mow and it too overgrown for the cow.

So, our little "farm" is in need of some TLC, animals, and the Reese boys running along the creek catching crayfish. :-) We still do not know when we will be able to get into the house but hope that Phil will be able to get in as soon as the current family moves out so he can manage the garden better and get the chicken coop & yard, and the pasture area ready for us to animal shop in Mid-June. We hope to have the kids rooms painted before we move in too so that there will not be as much opportunity for lead exposure.

We have learned that at the auctions here in WI beef and dairy calves are going VERY cheep. So we plan to get a couple beef calves and possibly another one for dairy. The diary cows are also very reasonably priced if you aren't getting an entire herd and if you don't want a cow that is giving 60-90 pounds of milk a day. Plus, the cows that didn't calf in March or April but are calving in June/July are also a very good price. The serious farmers don't want those cows that are off schedule. We will have a new neighbor at the farm that can help us to get a cow that was on a dairy back to good health through natural means. Now we just need to find a cattle or horse trailer to borrow so we can hit an auction after we go to family camp.

So, over all I am very excited about the rental house in New Holstein. I'm even more excited about the opportunity to become part of the natural homestead movement by becoming more and more self sustainable!

We have 28 baby chicks peeping away in the apartment eating, drinking and fluffing their wings. We ordered an assortment of "heavy" males for butchering. I've really missed chicken since deciding to no longer purchase mass raised unhealthy chicken. The company I wanted to order my egg & butchering chickens from has all their egg layers on back order until late June. So I ordered my roosters and will be getting my egg layers from our local feed mill in a couple weeks.



The chicks are safe in a box under lock and key. The kids are enjoying watching them and I am glad to know that our meat is safe from the kids! :-)

I am also working on my first batch of cheese today. I'm making Farmhouse Cheddar. Currently my pot is sitting at 90 degrees allowing the curd to separate from the whey. Off I go to finish our first batch of cheese. Later I'll post about our visit to the farm house this past weekend.