Advent Season

Here we are the first day of December.  My wife has been listening to Christmas music for three weeks now,  mainly after she found out I had a Christmas Music station on our Pandora account.  We pulled all the decorations down from the barn earlier in the week, and the house is mostly done.  Often this time of the year gets so packed with activities that it becomes somewhat stressful, but for some reason our calendar appears delightfully open.  To start our first day of December off the boys woke up early to make a surprise breakfast, which they had apparently been planning for a couple of days.  We awoke to some clanking of dishes, and whispering coming from the kitchen area.  After awhile we could hear someone cracking eggs, and we finally decided to get up and see what all the commotion was about.  The boys had got up, made their beds, got dressed and then Ethan started making scrambled eggs and Evan set the table.  It was a fun surprise and we had to wake the girls up, otherwise they would have missed breakfast.  The weather looked pretty decent so we decided to go Christmas Tree hunting before the next storm came in.  We found a nice little Christmas tree lot close to my parents house, with very friendly people and good prices.  Much to our surprise we found our tree very quickly.

 

 The Family in front of the tree

This year we are locating the tree in the taller side of the living room, so we went with a tall skinny one.

I started cutting the tree but the boys always want to use saws.  They ended up working together and it went much better than one person.  Meanwhile I stood there and pulled on the tree to keep it from pinching the blade.

The girls hung out and took pictures.

Mia took this picture, and it turned out really well.

Mia loves her Owl hat that Mommy made.

We also ran across some cool looking mushrooms, not too often that you see these.

After visiting with some country friends near the tree farm we headed home to get things done around the house.  We needed to add the pipe to the outside wall for the combustion air on the wood stove.  So the boys took turns helping me with that.  It is best to have a small kid available to get behind the wood stove and cut the hole in the drywall.  That is Evan you see peeking around.

Before it got too stormy we got some of the Christmas lights up on the house today, but had to stick the tree in a bucket of water since we ran out of time in the day.

Advent Activities

Here are some of the things we do during the season to focus on the true meaning of Christmas.  We have an advent calendar, which is a little wood house with doors for each day.  Behind each door is a Bible passage that we read from "The Jesus Storybook Bible", aimed more at our younger children and then an activity, or candy, or craft etc.  Today's was watching "The Nativity Story".  We also have another little fun advent calender type thing that we have done for quite a few years, it is called the Noel Calendar, by Noel Piper.  Unfortunately it appears that it is not available any more, but it looks like this.

Each day of the month you read a little bit more of the Christmas story and slowly put the scene together.  

And of course tomorrow night we will start our advent wreath, where we read some scripture, and sing some songs.

Finally, last year we read for the first time "Jothams Journey" and the kids loved it.  In looking it up we just realized that the author has two more books that tie into Jothams adventures.  We might have to look into getting a different one for next year.

Warm heat

For some time we have talked about wanting to get a wood stove, but financially have never been able to quite get there.  God is good, and we were recently blessed with the opportunity to purchase a wood stove. After much deliberation we bought a Quadra-Fire 3100 that was on sale at Coastal Farm.  We have had the corner of our living room picked out for some time and after making the purchase we taped out the required hearth size on the floor.

 

I figured I could build my own hearth, but after reading up on it I was not so sure.  To get the required thermal rating you could end up putting quite a few layers on there plus possibly using metal studs underneath instead of wood etc.  As it turns out Coastal had a discontinued hearth pad that we got a pretty deal on, and it met the required thermal ratings.

We did bring two samples home to check out the colors, and decided on the one at the bottom of the picture.

We picked up the wood stove on a dry Saturday and with the boys help and a piano dolly we got it into the house.

The hearth pad slid in between the van seats nicely, but we need the piano dolly for it as well.

As for installation, I was a little concerned about cutting a hole in my perfectly waterproof roof, so we decided to pay a professional to do the install.  The double wall piping is probably 3/4 of the total installation cost, it is expensive stuff.  Below Ethan is helping Mr. Ryan with the installation.  

Ethan was very excited to help out.

Finished product installed, with a fire in it.

We had some wood here, but none of it was seasoned, so we found some on Craigslist, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out the that the price included delivery.  We had them unload it in the barn so that it will stay dry.  

Wood heat is different than our furnace heat, it feels warmer.  You can really get warmed up good sitting next to the wood stove and it will be nice to still be able to heat the house in a power outage.

We are very excited about it!

October happenings

October found us cutting some wood on a cool weekend.  Evan is still working on getting more comfortable at driving little red.  The hardest part for him is to get the pedal all the way in, before putting it in drive.  In the picture below he is headed out with the chainsaw and Mia so that we can cut some wood.

Since we moved in this tree has been laying on its side, someone had cut most of it up but there was still a 20' section of the trunk that was not cut.  So we cut it up and moved it into the barn for splitting.

The boys were really excited to use the splitting wedge even though they had a hard time lifting it.  We will see how long the eagerness lasts  :-)

Evan taking a swing at it.

Grace smiling!

Lily is always looking to wear someone else's boots.

We were also able to make it over to visit Grandma Johnson on a Sunday afternoon.  The kids always look forward to her cupcakes.

Grace doing what she does best, sleeping.

Mia is learning to braid.

The kiddo's.

Chickens hanging out on our deck railing.

Craft Sale in Newberg

If you have time on Nov. 24th you should swing by this craft sale.  There will be lots of wonderful handmade items.

Yummm...

If you happen to get a beautiful Saturday morning like this, it is time to make pancakes.

We love our cast iron skillet, and are getting better at using it.  Anything cooked on it just tastes better, but it could also be the fact that we use bacon grease to season it.

Here is a triple batch of pancake batter ready to go, along with my coffee!

When Jennie was in the hospital with Grace you get odd looking meals like this one.  I took some of the blue potatoes we grew and cooked them up and then added scrambled eggs to make a kind of skillet meal.  Unfortunately the blue potatoes make it look funny, but it was still yummy. 

With the long summer we actually had some of tomatoes ripen in time to be eaten.  One of my favorite sandwich's is tomato and cheese.  Here we have Jennie's homemade bread with a liberal helping of homemade mayo, fresh homegrown tomato and cheese from Costco.  So close to being a 100% homemade/homegrown sandwich.

This is making me hungry, I better go....

Sept on the Homestead

Once again, we are trying to get caught up on the blog.  

Here Ethan is doing some weed-wacking where we should have had green beans in our garden.

Lily was excited to help dig up the potatoes.  You can see some Yukon Gold peeking out of the dirt right by her hand.

Mia was raking the dirt back into the ditch where we dug out the potatoes.  It is always good to have your trusting pink shooter around when working outside.

The chickens snuck into the garden again.  They love to tear up our neatly placed newspaper with straw.

Couple of zucchi's and a turnip.

We pulled a few more stray fence posts, here Evan is wrapping the chain around the post and then we hook it onto the tractor bucket and pop it out of the ground.  At least most of the time, unless it has concrete around the base, then it is more work.

We also got a few posts in the ground for the new fence, but the ground was rock hard and it took me several hours just to dig two fence post holes.  In the fall and spring the ground was soft enough that the boys could even dig them.  Here we are mixing concrete to put around the post.  We don't concrete all of them, just the ones that might support a gate, or take more pressure from the fence.  The others I typically fill with gravel and compact.

Homemade Pickles, almost

For two years now I have planted cucumbers for making dill pickles and they have completely failed both times.  Even though mine failed I was able to buy a 20 lb box of pickle cucumbers from Wilco late in the summer when they had them for sale.  This was just something I wanted to try.

It was quite an operation to get 20 lb washed and cut up.  Evan and Mia were washing them, while Ethan and Momma were slicing and dicing.

I think Lily was just in charge of looking cute, or she might have been transporting pickles over to Momma.

I learned that you want to fit the pickles into the jars tightly so that you don't have to use too much pickling mix.

We successfully canned some, and then others were just put right into the fridge.  We have tried the ones in the fridge and much to my surprise they turned out great, and have a nice crunch.

Family Picnic

Early in the summer we got an invite to a family picnic out in Birkenfeld, which is just NW of Mist, if you know where that is.  It looked like it would be a fun time, and get us out of our comfort zone a little bit, and possibly meet some new people.  Another bonus to the picnic was that they were going to have a speaker, SM Davis.  We initially heard him speak on some CD's that we purchased from Vision Forum, but you can also learn about him at his website http://www.solvefamilyproblems.com/.   The farm that hosted the picnic was tucked back in the forest off a gravel road, with a rustic cabin/house and small fenced pastures.  It was beautiful and very remote.

Here is the parking situation, cars lining the gravel road, and young men directing you to your spot.

Everything started with a potluck lunch, and there was plenty of great food.

We ran into a few families that we know from Alert Cadets, a couple from church, and Jennie's crochet/sewing teacher (Katie Organ) from grade school.

After lunch the had SM Davis speak, and his topic was on the Influence of Older children on younger children.  I kept checking to see if Ethan was listening ;-) 

Oh, before the speaker there was some music, and this old hay wagon was the stage, and we all sat under the tree's on hay bales or in camp chairs.

This couple did a short kids program, and had all the kids come up front for it.

SM Davis speaking.  Sometimes in gatherings like this someone will accent a point with an "Amen", but SM Davis got a "Moooo" from the calf in the pasture next to the stage.  SM Davis was pretty sure that had never happened to him before in all his years of speaking.

After the first speaking session these guys set up a volleyball net, and they had a few organized kids games.

Kids playing games in the field.

Lily starting to wind down after not getting a nap.

Listening to the speaker.

It was beautiful setting.

There was a drawing for a gift basket, and we actually won.  In the basket was a nice rug, some homemade soap and lotion, a crocheted dishrag, and a gift card to Shari's.  

We ended up getting home around 10:30 that night, but it was a lot of fun, and we did meet some new people and refresh an old relationship.