The Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang

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!!

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!!

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.

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! :-)

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!

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 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!

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! :-)

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.