So I had to do 2 updates. The first was getting really long, and who wants to read a 4 page paper anyway? So, here is what is going on with our family specifically!
Terence is looking forward to being done with the Army in a little over a year and a half. He is still feeling a strong call to ministry, although we're not really sure where God is pointing us. A walk of faith to be sure! He is going to school online with Liberty University for Christian Studies right now, and we're hoping for a nudge in the right direction from the Holy Spirit when it's time to move on with his schooling. He's also been doing some wood working, which he LOVES, along with all the farm work.
The kids are all doing great, and are all FINALLY on summer break! We look forward to this all year! I know a lot of homeschool families school year round, but it's just NOT for us! We need the break, desperately!!! I think I look forward to it more than the kids! I'm kind of dreading getting back to it, next year we will have 7th, 5th, 3rd, and 1st grade! How did THAT happen?!?!?!
Gavin will be in 7th grade this coming year, which kills me. Seriously, don't blink people! He will be going away on a week long camp this summer, which thrills and terrifies me at the same time! HAHA! He'll do great, and I'll miss him like crazy! He is really intersted in anything having to do with science and art.
Elizabeth truly is my little mama. She loves babies and is really good with them. She literally begs me to let her change diapers, or hold MJ. She's also my go-to-gal for keeping the baby safe if I need to run upstairs or outside for something! She loves to sing, dance, and do anything artistic.
Ryan is my super active kid. He loves everything sports related, or anything competetive. He's a pretty happy, sweet boy. He's also WAY more adventurous than some of the other kids. He would do pretty much anything crazy we challenge him to do, which I love to do with my kids. Since some of them are pretty reserved, I tend to say things like, "Climb that and I'll give you $1." He's usually the first one to take me up on it!
Anna is well, Anna! If you know this funny, crazy little girl, you know what I'm talking about! She is her own person, to be sure! As our preschool ministry leader in Alaska said, "She's going to do SOMETHING when she grows up!" Yep, that about sums it up. We never really know WHAT that kid is going to do. She is awesome, and funny, and vibrant, and probably the most ALIVE person I know! God made her just the way He wanted her, now I just have to figure out how to teach her to harness it! :)
Jeffrey is finally starting to talk! He's still behind, but he is working on it! He was a full year behind in his speech a year ago, and unfortunately he hasn't made a full year's progress, which means he's more than a year behind now. He'll be going in soon for another speech evaluation. A recent primary care visit(to get our new referral for speech) also brought to our attention that he is a little behind in his fine motor skills. He'll go back in, in about 3 months to do a follow up on that. He's a fun kid, and is finally wanting to do some things for himself. He says, "I do it," a lot. He also says hilarious things, like when you ask him a question, he will answer you, "Oh, of course!"
MJ is getting big, and getting herself ready to walk, much to my dismay! She is almost 10 months(again, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!?!) and is a super happy baby! She sleeps all the way throught the night, which makes me SUPER happy! She is already starting to talk, and says mama, dada(at Daddy!), cat, dog, and bath! I think she might out talk Jeffrey soon! HAHA!
I've been working hard at trying to be a good mom, wife, teacher, house cleaner, etc. while getting this business going. It's no easy feat! I have a booth at the local farmers market here, which goes fairly well. Some weeks are definitely better than others! I also joined the women's softball team at church, which is a blast! I love it! I haven't plaid organized sports in FOREVER, but it is SO MUCH FUN!
I swear one day I'll get better at time management and have more time to write, because I truly do enjoy it. It'll probably be when I'm too old to write anything interesting! Util then, I'll continue updating when I remember! :)
Friday, May 25, 2012
Wanna be farm update
So, you all know I'm terrible at keeping up... I'm suprised anyone even reads this. I love love love to write, and I wish I had more time to do so. It's crazy here though, as always, and it really is hard to balance family, farm, and the business! Some days I feel like the cat in the hat when he has all that junk balanced and he's trying to bounce on a ball at the same time. Yep, that's me. I hope I don't sink the ship in the cake!!!
So here's what's going on here...
We ended up with 15 chickens total. We bought them as a straight run, so there is no way to tell how many male or female we have until they are big enough. At almost 3 months now, they are getting pretty big, and a few are definitely getting bigger, and redder combs than the rest. I'm fairly certain we have at least 2 roosters, and I really am hoping that the rest are hens, but only time will tell! They love to run around the yard, eating bugs and being chickens. The kids love to chase them, well because they are kids. This of course is frowned upon, much to the kids dismay!
The goats are getting big too and acting rather, well, goat-ish. If you've never been around goats, this is what they do: eat, jump, yell, head butt. That's about it, the life of a goat. They are related to deer, and it shows. They prance around and jump a lot like a deer. They are hilarious to watch, and watch them you must, because the neighbor dogs would love to eat them for dinner! We are still working on getting our electric fence up, which Terence is hoping will electrecute at least 1 dog before they learn. He's pretty mad that he has had to rescue the goats a few times, and would like to see a little revenge! HAHA!
Our garden is awful. We seriously under estimated the amount of protection that it would need, and the fire ants are AWFUL here! So, everything has helped itself to our produce, and the fire ants have helped themselves to the nice soft dirt that we tilled up! The new game plan is to do raised beds with a "hoop coop" over it, and then cover it with plastic as soon as it starts to get chilly, to create a greenhouse to grow stuff in the rest of the year. Terence is currently 1/2 way done with this project. Many more updates on that to come I'm sure! The one thing that did make it was our peas! They were delicious! We ate them raw with dinner last night, and you never did see a group of kids eat so many peas!
So here's what's going on here...
We ended up with 15 chickens total. We bought them as a straight run, so there is no way to tell how many male or female we have until they are big enough. At almost 3 months now, they are getting pretty big, and a few are definitely getting bigger, and redder combs than the rest. I'm fairly certain we have at least 2 roosters, and I really am hoping that the rest are hens, but only time will tell! They love to run around the yard, eating bugs and being chickens. The kids love to chase them, well because they are kids. This of course is frowned upon, much to the kids dismay!
The goats are getting big too and acting rather, well, goat-ish. If you've never been around goats, this is what they do: eat, jump, yell, head butt. That's about it, the life of a goat. They are related to deer, and it shows. They prance around and jump a lot like a deer. They are hilarious to watch, and watch them you must, because the neighbor dogs would love to eat them for dinner! We are still working on getting our electric fence up, which Terence is hoping will electrecute at least 1 dog before they learn. He's pretty mad that he has had to rescue the goats a few times, and would like to see a little revenge! HAHA!
Our garden is awful. We seriously under estimated the amount of protection that it would need, and the fire ants are AWFUL here! So, everything has helped itself to our produce, and the fire ants have helped themselves to the nice soft dirt that we tilled up! The new game plan is to do raised beds with a "hoop coop" over it, and then cover it with plastic as soon as it starts to get chilly, to create a greenhouse to grow stuff in the rest of the year. Terence is currently 1/2 way done with this project. Many more updates on that to come I'm sure! The one thing that did make it was our peas! They were delicious! We ate them raw with dinner last night, and you never did see a group of kids eat so many peas!
Monday, April 16, 2012
Wanna be farm fun facts
Ok so I thought it would be fun to share with you all some of the little "fun facts" that our family jokes about!
#1 Showering in the morning just doesn't work when you have a wanna be farm. You need to clean your body at night to "get the goat off you"!
#2 If you have chicks inside your house, your house will smell like a barn!
#3 Flip Flops outside the house are NEVER a good idea!
#4 Riding lawn mowers have seat sensors that a child is not heavy enough to activate. You can overcome this by piling more than one child on the lawn mower seat.
#5 Your child might be heavy enough to activate the sensor on the riding lawn mower, but not tall enough to reach the pedals. A long stick to push down the gas pedal is a perfect aid to such a child.
#6 No matter how cute your farm animals are, your neighbor does not agree. Especially if your goats are doing a little jig on the hood of their car or your rooster wakes them up every morning.
#7 If you have farm animals and children, don't expect your children to do anything but hang out with every new animal you bring home for at least 2 weeks after every addition.
#8 Just because a farm animal CAN fit in the back of your suburban, or down by your kids' feet, doesn't mean it should necessarily be transported in this manner.
#9 Chicks won't eat caterpillars.
#10 All of the weird random bugs, amphibians, rodents, and/or mammals that kids find outdoors should NOT be brought indoors to proudly display for their mother, EVER! If they find it outside it should STAY outside. I'll come out to peek at it of its not too creepy... maybe.
#1 Showering in the morning just doesn't work when you have a wanna be farm. You need to clean your body at night to "get the goat off you"!
#2 If you have chicks inside your house, your house will smell like a barn!
#3 Flip Flops outside the house are NEVER a good idea!
#4 Riding lawn mowers have seat sensors that a child is not heavy enough to activate. You can overcome this by piling more than one child on the lawn mower seat.
#5 Your child might be heavy enough to activate the sensor on the riding lawn mower, but not tall enough to reach the pedals. A long stick to push down the gas pedal is a perfect aid to such a child.
#6 No matter how cute your farm animals are, your neighbor does not agree. Especially if your goats are doing a little jig on the hood of their car or your rooster wakes them up every morning.
#7 If you have farm animals and children, don't expect your children to do anything but hang out with every new animal you bring home for at least 2 weeks after every addition.
#8 Just because a farm animal CAN fit in the back of your suburban, or down by your kids' feet, doesn't mean it should necessarily be transported in this manner.
#9 Chicks won't eat caterpillars.
#10 All of the weird random bugs, amphibians, rodents, and/or mammals that kids find outdoors should NOT be brought indoors to proudly display for their mother, EVER! If they find it outside it should STAY outside. I'll come out to peek at it of its not too creepy... maybe.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Chickies and goats!
This is our oldest using a stick to make the riding lawnmower work for him. He was hauling some cinder blocks from the backyard to the goat pen. He's a great helper!
These are our new baby goats! They are only about 4 weeks old, so they are still bottlefeeding 2X's a day, but they are so much fun! When we picked them up they were a little uneasy around us, but now they just love us, and are pretty sure the little kids are part of their "herd". The mostly white one is Cream and the brown one is Sugar. We were initially wanting to make sure that the goats we bought were disbudded, but this ended up not happening. We are feeding them whole cows milk, which is what the breeder bottle feeds her goats, but the hilarious thing is that Sugar refuses to drink the milk from the bottle unless we add SUGAR! This is NOT why we named her this! We named her before making this discovery! Talk about living up to your name! The first day we had them, we put them in the back yard. They jumped the 4' gate in the front and took off. Little Dude walked around for 20 minutes until Daddy came back with them saying, "Bad goats, run away!" Too funny!
Our baby chicks... what a sad story. Never ever ever order day old chicks in the mail in March! They had such a rough shipping that 8 of them died over the first few weeks. They just couldn't fully recover from the trip. As long as we make it with at least a few laying hens, I will never order day old chicks again!!!! The 17 that made it are getting big, and are all super healthy, but we are all super sad that so many of them didn't make it! They are all starting to get "real" feathers, and try to fly out of the box, which is the reason for the plastic netting. Terence is currently sitting next to me planning out our temporary chicken tractor so that they can go OUTSIDE where they belong!!! I have a sneaky suspicion that they are much more hardy than I am giving them credit for, but since so many of them died I'm terrified to lose more! After weeks and weeks of constant chirping, I am so so so ready for them to NOT be in my living room anymore!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
life on a wanna-be farm
Ok, well I know it's been a little while since I blogged(like over a month!), but I really am super busy! We arrived in North Carolina January 31st, spend the night at a friend's house and then headed over to our new house on February 1st! Oh the excitement and joy! :)
We absolutely love our new house and the 5 acres that it sits on. I know a lot of our family and friends were worried about us buying this place sight unseen, but we really felt God's hand in this, and now we are completely certain of it! This is the perfect place for us! We are out in the middle of no where, and loving it!
Since moving in, we've started a TON of projects, and even completed a few of them! The boxes still aren't completely unpacked, but the important stuff is, and the house is functional. We have more important things to do anyway, like homeschool, get our garden going, and raise some animals! I'm going to try to slowly add in posts and pics of all of our projects, but today I'm going to talk about what we got in the mail this morning!
Have you ever received a call from the post office? How about a call from the post office at 6:45 in the morning? We did this morning, it was to tell us that our baby chicks were waiting for us! I have never seen my kids move so fast! We arrived at the post office at 7:10, and it's a 15 minute drive, so you do that math on how long it took 6 kids to get into the car to pick up baby chicks! :)
We decided to order our chicks for a number of reasons. The first being that we really wanted to go with a heritage breed chicken called Delawares. The second is that there is supposed to be less cross contamination of germs from other animals when you order from a hatchery as opposed to a feed or pet store. The only downside in my opinion is that shipping them is hard on them. Really though, where are the feed and pet stores getting their chicks? Chances are they were shipped too.
So we ordered 25 chicks straight run, which means you have no idea if they are boys or girls. We're hoping to end up with at least 12 laying hens, so hopefully 25 chicks will get us those 12. The roosters will be meat chickens, all except the nicest one who we will keep(much to my neighbors' dismay) so that we can have more baby chicks!
When you order baby chicks they stick in what they call an extra, just in case you have a fatality. Unfortunately we did. We did lost 1 chick, so that puts us at the 25 that we ordered. It was sadder than we expected. The poor little baby chick will get a cute little funeral this afternoon. Not sure why it's so sad since we will most likely be eating some of these chicks later on, but it still is!
This is a pic of the box the baby chicks come in. There are 26 little chicks crammed in there, it's a tiny box, b/c they need each other's body warmth to make the trip!
Now on to the fun! They are so stinkin' adorable! Little yellow fluff balls hopping around and chirping! They are inside for now, in a giant cardboard box with a heat lamp. The kids are so excited and love to listen to them chirp and watch them hop around. They all took to food and water right away, so I'm hopeful that they will all make it!
This is a pic of our 25 chicks that made it in their new temporary home! They are currently happily chirping and hopping around! :)
We absolutely love our new house and the 5 acres that it sits on. I know a lot of our family and friends were worried about us buying this place sight unseen, but we really felt God's hand in this, and now we are completely certain of it! This is the perfect place for us! We are out in the middle of no where, and loving it!
Since moving in, we've started a TON of projects, and even completed a few of them! The boxes still aren't completely unpacked, but the important stuff is, and the house is functional. We have more important things to do anyway, like homeschool, get our garden going, and raise some animals! I'm going to try to slowly add in posts and pics of all of our projects, but today I'm going to talk about what we got in the mail this morning!
Have you ever received a call from the post office? How about a call from the post office at 6:45 in the morning? We did this morning, it was to tell us that our baby chicks were waiting for us! I have never seen my kids move so fast! We arrived at the post office at 7:10, and it's a 15 minute drive, so you do that math on how long it took 6 kids to get into the car to pick up baby chicks! :)
We decided to order our chicks for a number of reasons. The first being that we really wanted to go with a heritage breed chicken called Delawares. The second is that there is supposed to be less cross contamination of germs from other animals when you order from a hatchery as opposed to a feed or pet store. The only downside in my opinion is that shipping them is hard on them. Really though, where are the feed and pet stores getting their chicks? Chances are they were shipped too.
So we ordered 25 chicks straight run, which means you have no idea if they are boys or girls. We're hoping to end up with at least 12 laying hens, so hopefully 25 chicks will get us those 12. The roosters will be meat chickens, all except the nicest one who we will keep(much to my neighbors' dismay) so that we can have more baby chicks!
When you order baby chicks they stick in what they call an extra, just in case you have a fatality. Unfortunately we did. We did lost 1 chick, so that puts us at the 25 that we ordered. It was sadder than we expected. The poor little baby chick will get a cute little funeral this afternoon. Not sure why it's so sad since we will most likely be eating some of these chicks later on, but it still is!
Now on to the fun! They are so stinkin' adorable! Little yellow fluff balls hopping around and chirping! They are inside for now, in a giant cardboard box with a heat lamp. The kids are so excited and love to listen to them chirp and watch them hop around. They all took to food and water right away, so I'm hopeful that they will all make it!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Amish sweet bread
Ok so I have had this recipe so long I really don't even remember where I got it from. Let me apologize in advance to whomever it originally belonged to for butchering it! :)
Makes 2 loaves
2 cups warm water(110 degrees)
2/3 cup white sugar
1 &1/2 TBS active dry yeast
1 &1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil(or butter)
6 cups flour(unbleached white is fine, I've never tried it with whole wheat but I will be soon!)
In a large bowl dissolve the sugar in warm water and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof(sit and make sure the yeast is good) for 10 minutes. You should see some creamy looking foam.
Mix salt and oil into yeast. Mix in flour 1 cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. OR dump all the rest of the ingredients into a kitchen mixer and use dough hook attachment. Place in a well oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes and divide in half. Shape into loaves and place in 2 well oiled loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until dough has risen 1" above pans,.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
Makes 2 loaves
2 cups warm water(110 degrees)
2/3 cup white sugar
1 &1/2 TBS active dry yeast
1 &1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil(or butter)
6 cups flour(unbleached white is fine, I've never tried it with whole wheat but I will be soon!)
In a large bowl dissolve the sugar in warm water and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof(sit and make sure the yeast is good) for 10 minutes. You should see some creamy looking foam.
Mix salt and oil into yeast. Mix in flour 1 cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. OR dump all the rest of the ingredients into a kitchen mixer and use dough hook attachment. Place in a well oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes and divide in half. Shape into loaves and place in 2 well oiled loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until dough has risen 1" above pans,.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Day 26
Today was our final day of travel! We made the 620 mile trip from Columbus AFB to our friend's house in Sanford, NC. What a trip! All together this trip has been over 5,000 miles, not including the plane ride from Alaska to WA. The last leg was rough! Everyone was tired of being in the car and it showed! The kids fought, I yelled, even the dog was restless. Things you shouldn't have to say to your children got said. Such as, " Do not throw that water bottle over the baby!" They were playing "keep away" from the baby with a water bottle. Also, "Do not paint your legs with yogurt!" The important part is we made it all the way, and tomorrow we get the keys to our very first house EVER! We even stopped by Sears and bought a washer and dryer that will be delivered tomorrow! Yay for finally being "home"! :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)