Additions

Here are some pictures of the latest additions to our "farm".

Bella

Maria (the bigger one)

Lena

and Jack

They are Kinder (pronounced with a short "i", not long "i" sound) goats. A breed developed for both milk production and for meat use, Kinders are not big goats, but are high performers, or so our research says. Jack and Lena are Maria's babies. We are milking her a little, and they are still nursing. We plan to fatten Jack up for meat next winter, and raise Lena to be a mama. Bella decided to have her babies a little earlier than they were ready to come, and in the middle of wintriest night so far this year. Needless to say, they did not make it, but we will give her another chance latter this year (when it isn't so cold!).

Below is a picture of Oliver. He is now bigger than our beagle and almost too heavy to pick up. He is 10 weeks old this week and had no idea what to do with the snow at first. Now he loves it and has a lot of fun scattering it around with his ginormous paws.

Well that's all for now, I have cookies to bake and snow to go walking in (finally!).

God Bless

Progress on our house

We have a wonderful landlady who has not only allowed us to fix up (paint, new carpet, new trim, ceiling fans, etc.) the house that we are in, but has even gone so far as to buy the supplies herself and reimburse us for our time. We are so thankful for her and her generosity.
When we moved in every room in the house was painted with one coat of white paint. The walls, the trim, and even the ceiling had a thin layer of high gloss paint on them. We started by scrubbing everything down (thank-you to everyone who helped us!), and have since then been working on repainting one room at a time. Over the past several months it has been the front room and the laundry room. Here are some "before and after" pictures to compare.




Front room before.....





and after.....

before....

and after.

The next set is of the Laundry Room/Back Porch. As there was no outdoor storage for a while, we kept a lot in this room. Please forgive the mess!

A before picture

and after. The door frame is still a mess because it is not the right size, so in the spring it will be taken out and fixed. Meanwhile we will survive with it like this. :)

This is the door to the kitchen before..

and after.

And a window frame

now looking better.



One final picture of the clean new walls. I really like the green color that we got, not too bright, and not too pale, just a lovely green.

Christmas

Well Christmas is over. I hope it was a good one for all of you. We had a great time. We went to Colin's parents for Christmas Eve and had Aunt Susan's traditional gift game. It was lots of fun with lots of good food.
On Christmas day we got up and opened presents and then we packed the car and headed to Ohio. My mom's family all live up there and we stayed with my Grandma and Grandpa for several days. It was really nice to see everyone, and for Colin to get to meet some of our extended family. Here are some pictures form Christmas. Enjoy!



Our first Christmas tree!

Colin and his Christmas present, Oliver

Me with my present, a beautiful black dress coat.

Three of my siblings, Sn, Aj, & Ea, playing and singing for us.

My youngest brother, Al, displaying his present.

Oliver, after a long day. He is Anatolian Shepard, and is going to be very big.

He is only 5 1/2 weeks old in this picture.

Well that is all for now, I hope you all have had a great new year so far.

God Bless,

Rachel