The Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang

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! :-)

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

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

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!

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 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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Whole Wheat Cake Donuts

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

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp cinnamon

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

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

¼ cup butter melted

2 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

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

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

1. Combine flour, baking powder, spices and ¼ tsp sea salt in a bowl.

2. In a different bowl beat eggs, sugar and vanilla until thick.

3. Combine melted butter and milk in a separate bowl.

4. Add flour and milk mixtures to egg mixture alternately beating well after each addition.

5. Cover and let set at room temperature over night.

6. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours in the morning.

7. Roll out on a lightly floured surface ½ inch thick. Use a cup to cut 2 – 2 ½ inch circles or a donut cutter. Use a corer to get a middle circle and donut hole if you don't have a donut cutter.

8. Fry for 1 minute or until golden brown, then flip with tongs or slotted spoon and cook for another minute.

9. Cool slightly on a rack then sprinkle with powdered sugar (if you have a sugar shaker) or put sugar in a baggie and shake donuts to get them covered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!