Cleanup

Our yard cleanup continues. We have started to accumulate quite a pile next to our storage shed / in-law quarters.

Since the garbage is strewn all over the property it takes quite a few trips with the tractor to get it all up to the junk pile. You can only put so much in the bucket at a time, and I don't have a trailer to haul down there, so I was thinking some forks for my tractor would be nice. So, I tried to build some out of pressure treated 2x6 that I had. They work pretty good, and once chained in place don't fall out when I dump the garbage.

I was able to really pile some large stuff on there, and be a little bit more efficient wtih my trips to the jumk pile.

Some day I will have to break down and get a dumpster dropped off for a weekend. I will give you a call when we have the dumpster loading party, scones provided.

Dave

Happy Birthday Ev!

 So we have started having a big January birthday a few years ago for all of the birthday's that we celebrate in January. We have a total of 8 birthday's in January. Instead of being busy every weekend having a party and eating cake we started having a big party for all the birthdays. It has been lots of fun and the month is much more enjoyable and less crazy. So since Ev had a bunch of presents already at the beginning of Jan. from all the rest of family we got him a few presents that he was able to open this morning. Early in the week Dave and I decided to start a tradition that we would take the birthday child out for a special birthday dinner. No siblings. Just him and us. With 4 kids in the house we have little quiet time with one on one. Last night we took Ev to Red Robin's. His choice because he wanted to be sung to and have ice cream.  I have heard about it from a few other people and we both think that it is a wonderful tradition to begin. It was such a fun time seeing him for who he really is. We love Evan. He is always ready to make someone laugh, has a willing heart and attitude, loves camo, a protector of his sister's, a good friend to people, ready to give what he has to other's. Now days you will see him in at least on thing that is camo. He got some birthday money and when he was asked what he wanted to use it for he said more camo clothes. I was all for that since it is hard to get him to put his used camo clothes in the dirty clothes basket. We have another tradition for the birthday person in our house. They get to pick out the menu for the day. So Ev picked out waffles covered in strawberries and whip cream with bacon on the side, and for dinner meatball sub sandwiches. Lunch was Grandpa's smoked fish with cheese and crackers and carrots. On the farm there is always something to do but on their birthday they don't have to do extra chores. He was trying to get out of picking up his clothes and making his bed but that didn't fly past mom. Those things are just part of living. But our road up to our driveway needed to be graveled badly so the 5 of us who live on this road got 6 truck loads of rock and it was dumped this morning. Dave and the kids got out there and talked with our neighbors and helped a bit before we had to leave and take a dinner to some friends who just had a baby last week. The celebrated their 9th baby. What a blessing. It sounds like a lot of work but all the kids don't stay young for ever. The older ones help do chores around the home and that takes some weight off of the mom's shoulders. She is an encourager to me and an inspiration. They live on 10 + acres and have a nut orchard and chickens. Our kids love to go over there and run around with their kids and get dirty and just have fun outside.   The day is closing to an end and our second son is now 7. We will be having ice cream sundae's in a little bit and then watch Davey Crockett for a family movie. He got that for his birthday.  It is hard for me to believe that 7 years have already gone by. WOW! We look forward to what the Lord has for him in the future and to see how He uses Ev for His glory.  

Just for fun

So part of our Homeschool curriculum is learning about the different names of God. A few weeks ago we were learning about Immanuel. Of course we were 2 weeks off from Christmas but we still made a cake for Jesus, Immanuel and celebrated HIM! The kids loved it. They picked out the cake and frosting and did most of it by themselves. It was lots of fun and we enjoyed every bite.

 

Lily Mae

Doesn't she just make you smile. I was playing peek a boo with her around the corner in the kitchen. And she was just laughing hysterically. It was so cute. But that's how our precious baby is, most of the time. Lily is almost 8 months old. She has cut 4 new teeth within 2 weeks. She is a true joy and loves to be around people and cuddles and laughs and is full of smiles. She is just so much fun to have and we thank the Lord for her every day.The kids are always saying how they love having her in our family and we couldn't agree more.  To think that we were "done" having children after Mia just makes me aware of how selfish we can be. We gave our desires, our concerns, and our fears over to the Lord and He blessed us with so much more then we could ever dream of.

Lumberjack

We decided to chop down a couple of small apple trees that were in poor health and kind of falling over.  Evan (aka Lumberjack Ev) took care of the first one.

It took him a while but he never gave up.

Ethan cleaning out the duck house and putting down fresh straw.

The second tree was larger so it took all three of us working on it, and the third one was small (and I was tired) so I pushed it over with the tractor.

Beekeeping: Some Assembly Required

One of the items on my Christmas and Birthday list was money towards my beehive. And thankfully some of our family members helped me in the right direction. After making my list of parts and pieces I headed over to the local bee store to purchase the remainder of my hive parts. Then I set up shop in our living room on a folding table to assembly them. It is a lot warmer in there than in the barn, and the kids were able to help out some as well. My wife has been very tolerant of my workspace (mess) and loud noises (hammering).

My first Deep Hive body and Frame assembled:

Luckily my Appointed Apiary Mentor (AAM from here on), better known as Mark mentioned he used his brad nailer to assemble the frames. WOW that was a huge time saver!
Lots of deep and honey super frames:

Hive Construction Complete:

I will now move it to the barn for exterior staining to help preserve the wood. I also need to finialize a location on the property and prep it. And then wait until the magical date of April 15th. when my nuc should be ready. I am little nervous about interacting with the bees and you can be praying that I don't just totally freak out and get stung. Reading about them has been fascinating and I am excited to see them in action. The bees are a great testament to God's intricate design in nature.
Dave

Good Clean Fun, with Potatoes

Some time ago I saw a book on the Vision Forum (http://www.visionforum.com/) website called Backyard Ballistics.  Just the title sounds cool!  We managed to find it at our local library and were able to build one project from the book while we had it and that was the Potato Cannon.  The book is very good at walking you through the construction process as well as explaining what is happening and providing many, many safety tips.  The book called for PVC, but I could not find the correct reducers in PVC but HD did have all the parts in ABS, so we went with that.  The most expensive part was the replacement BBQ igniter, at around $10.  You can tell my priorities are a little out of whack when I won't buy one of these igniters for my BBQ, but I will splurge when it comes to anything with "Cannon" in the name.  Once it was all assembled and had an adequate amount of time to dry we decided to try it out.  It was raining the day we were ready to fire it, but you can not wait around for it to stop raining here in Oregon, or we may never get to fire it.  Luckily our barn has a covered area on the end (Loafing shed) to fire it from.  The whole family came out for the event.  Here are a couple of videos.

And another:

We did find out that it is really hard to get it to fire when you have close to freezing temperatures.  I had to click the igniter a bunch of times and when it finally went off I was not expecting it.  Yikes!

Working indoors

Every once in a while Jennie threatens to start hammering nails in walls to hang pictures etc, and that is normally my clue that I need to spend some time in the house completing honey-do's.  She actually does a very good job!  When it comes to heavier items that require anchors and or finding a stud that is normally left up to me.  Unfortunately in these double-wides they use studs very sparingly, and they never put them where they would be helpful for a shelf or heavy decor item.  I do love those plastic screw in drywall anchors that are good for 50 lbs, they are a life-saver and we probably have used close to 75 in this house.  On this particular day I had a helper with me when installing this hook in our bathroom.  We don't typically install hooks this low to the ground but this one was to support the dirty cloth diaper bag, that has been hanging on our doorknob for ever.  My helper pulled the trigger to drill the holes and put the screws in as well.

Man shall not live on bread alone

But boy, does it sure smell so good and taste delicious when it comes right from the oven. I have been baking whole wheat bread now for, oh, I think about over a year now. I have gone through a few different recipes that I have found off of some blogs that I follow, but I have ended up with the one that I actually began with.  It is from Crystal Miller's blog, http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/. I love that I can make 6 loaves at a time. I used to make it about 2x's a month. But since our kids are growing and consuming more calories, especially when they work hard all day long on the farm, I am starting to make it closer to once a week.  Now ever since I started getting my organic flour from Azure Standard, a natural foods company online, our bread has tasted better and looks prettier. We use our bread for a lot of things. From the original P.B. and J, cheese and tomoato sandwhiches, to using it with soups or having toast for breakfast. I also have been starting to use the heels, even though our boys like them, for making bread crumbs and freezing them until we need them.  I love fresh bread crumbs. Crystal Miller  also uses her bread recipe for also making hamburger and hot dog buns and other pastries. I haven't tried the buns yet but I am eager to. We have gone back to buying bread a few times when life was just to busy, moving, during the sick part of pregnancies, or right after having a baby. But the first time after a break from bread baking I just soak in the smell while it bakes in the oven. It smells so good and we all enjoy the taste of fresh bread once again.