It is 6:47 a.m. and my internet just shut down without my permission, causing the download that I started at 5:30 a.m. to end before finishing. Argh. I wouldn't care so much if it wasn't a program that I really need to finish up some stuff for our business. So, I have started it over, and now have about two hours of time to kill online (if I don't keep doing something the internet times out). Anyway, here I am with plenty of time to blog, and not much to blog about. :)

I guess I'll start with some pictures from our multiple snow storms.

This is from storm #3, looking across the valley at the other farm.

From storm #2, looking out my kitchen window.

This is what our windows looked like most of the mornings after the snow.

Our barn in the snow. If you look at the left hand side of the trail through the snow you can see Dozer (our beagle) plowing (our should I say "dozing" :) his way through about 14'' of snow.

The new addition to the farm. This little lamb was born in the snow and cold. Her owners rescued her, and through a series of people and events, we got her. She is fun and different and we are looking forward to trying our hand at raising a sheep.



Well, that's about it for now. I thought all of the snow that we got was beautiful, and really enjoyed it, but I have to say that a forecast of 60 degree days for the next week or so sounds really, really nice. No more frozen water, stock tanks, eggs, or fingers! And no more spending ten minutes or more getting bundled up to go outside, just open the door and go out!

God Bless,

Rachel

To Much To Say

I am so far behind on blogging about life here, that I am not even going to try to catch up. However, for once it is not my fault. Through many issues, complications, and mistaken quotes, I wound up without internet access for a couple of months. Now I have a new phone, faster internet, and not much to gripe about :)



I don't have a ton of time to write today, but I thought I would at least get things updated a little.



Since February is the purple month, and since we have over 12 inches of snow at my house, I thought this background was just about perfect. The weather is the big news here. Colin got to stay home for THREE whole days this week. It was great. Yesterday we decided it would be nice to be able to leave if we wanted to so we worked on getting the driveway cleared (this after getting two of our vehicles stuck). I never considered our driveway to be especially long before. I have since revised my definition of long. We only cleared enough off of the top of the snow to be able to drive without using the bumper as a snow plow, and it still took us several hours to get it done. The mail person has not come for four days, unless they managed to be here without leaving any tracks in the snow on the unploughed roads.



Well, I have got to go make bread, and maybe a peach cobbler......



I leave you with a picture of the snow here. I will try to get some more up later.



Yep, I'm loven' it! :)

God Bless,

R

The next chapter.....

.......in the snake saga.

We are trying to sell our little Fiat car. Colin opened up the engine area to check on things and found this.

It was a BIG black snake. It took Colin over half and hour to get it out of the car because it turned around and went down in this area that he could not get at very well. It finally came out underneath the car and Colin pulled it out with the rake (after it crawled back up again once) and killed it.

The car is still for sale, if you know anyone that might be interested in it.

We are not responsible for any hitch-hikers that come along with the car.

Rachel

Garden 2010

For those of you that are interested in our gardening adventure, here are some pictures from this year. Things have really gone well, even though we planted the whole garden about a month late.


Plowing up the area. We extended the length of the garden this year

Pictures of the blooms and fruit of the various plants.

We grew our beans, long beans, and some cucumbers on arches this year.

A "volunteer" sunflower that was really beautiful.

That's all for now, God Bless!

Rachel

A Blogging Problem

I have now tried to update my blog several times. It won't work. What I would really like to do is to change my background and layout to something more fallish. In July I wanted to make it more summerish. The problem is that I live far enough out of town that my internet signal is too weak to accommodate the new Blogger Template Designer thingy. I left it sit for 45 minutes one day hoping that it would eventually pull up. No go. So, this note is really for all the people in charge at Blogger.com.

PLEASE remember those of us who are still without uber fast, 2 trillion MB's per second, internet before you make any more "improvements" to the system!!!!

Now I have to go to the library to make any real changes to my blog.

You all know how high on my priority list that sits.

So, until I have a lot of time to kill, please forgive my "springish" layout.



Rachel

My Bolg Is Not Dead!!!!

It just seems that way. Anytime that I slow way down on posting (or just don't post at all :), it is because my life is too full of other (more important) things, and I just don't have the time to give to blogging. That said, life is very busy at the moment. However, as it is extremely warm outside right now, and most of the "more important" things that I have to do are outdoors, I am taking a break in the much cooler house, and blogging. Now, having bored you to to death so far, I will try to move on to more exciting things. But no promises. Everyday life is usually not all that exciting. Thank goodness, because if it was, we would all be worn to a frazzle very quickly.

Okay, so the news form here. The garden is in, the animals a well and healthy, the dogs are very lazy, the pigs are even lazier, the weather is too hot, the baby goats are all sold (except the two that we are keeping), I am tired of summer already, and Colin cut his finger today and had to get three stitches in it.

One of the less mundane, more exciting events (those that do not occur on a regular basis) is this:

*

A couple of days ago Lizzy was over here to help me with some gardening (and watch a funny movie) and we found a large, gray snake in the yard by the milking shed. She watched the snake while I went for the gun. The 22 was handy, having just been used in defense against some bad birdies that needed to go bye-bye, so I grabbed it. Unfortunately it was jambed, and while I struggled to fix it (Liz hurrying me along), the snake disappeared into the (very) tall grass of the goat pen. At first I was not too bothered. It was a bull snake, not dangerous, and it had headed for the woods. Then I started to remember more about it, thinking about how small the head had looked compared to the body. I told Liz that I though it was full of eggs, and that I was glad it was gone because I did NOT want it to lay them under my stacks of hay in the barn (mentally picturing myself walking in one morning to do the milking and seeing snakes everywhere). Alas! I spoke too soon. Later that evening, Colin and I were down by the pig pen talking, as we headed back up, I wasn't paying much attention to where I stepped. I had just passed the exact spot where the snake had been earlier when Colin says, "oh look, there's the snake again". You can imagine my reaction. Standing on top of a pile of 2x4's I asked him what I could do to help him kill it. We got the gun and shot it (okay, HE shot it and I stood in the 2x4's), but the snake was not about to give up. It disappeared again, and we knew that it was in the milking shed. After examining the blood trail, we discovered it (you will never guess), under the pallets that hold the hay. I won't go into the gory details, but I will say that it was very determined to make it all the way under, and we were very determined not to let it. We won. Half an hour later, it was finished of for good, and the multiple eggs that it was carrying were finished too. After thinking about it for a while, Colin decided that it must have been in the barn for several days, because the cats had refused to sleep in there, and would not even come in at milking time to lick up the extra milk. This did not contribute a good feeling to my already disturbed mind. What did help was seeing the corpse thrown over a cliff, and knowing that snakes do not run (or would it be slither) in pairs. Now the cats are back in the barn, and I am carefully checking the floor over before I enter!

Well, time moves on, and so must I. Check back when you get a chance, my life may slow down a bit and I'll try to get some pictures up.

God Bless,

R.

*No, I did not pause in my snake killing to take a picture. This is just one that I got online, that looks like the one we killed.

My Other Spring Post

Okay, here is my repentance post. As you will see there are many things that I like about spring, and this is just a partial list.

1) Color. Most of you know how much I like colors, all colors. I have never been able to pick a favorite, but all tones of green rate very high on the list. Coming out of the grays, whites, and browns of winter, the greens of Spring fill me with joy everyday.

2) Rain showers. Not storms, but the delightful "spring showers" that clean the pollen off of everything, and make the grass and flowers grow.

3) Baby animals. Need I say more?

4) Starting the garden. I like working in the dirt and watching things grow.

5) Flowers. Gathering up what ever is blooming, and filling a vase.......

6) The smell of newly mowed lawns and hay fields. If the color green had a scent, that's what it would be.

7) Blue skies and puffy white clouds.

8) Hanging clothes out on the line.

9) Having the windows open.

10) Bonfires and starlit nights.

There, now I have everything evened out. However, before I move on to something else I would like to add a P.S. to my last post. Right after posting it (as in only a matter of hours), I had a tick bite me under one of my socks, killed three hornets in my greenhouse, sneezed until I lost count, and saw two snakes. One snake was a copperhead of about 2' or so, which I killed by crushing it with a large rock (I couldn't shoot it because it was curled up on a big bolder). So, my complaints were valid, although it is not everyday that so many of them occur at once!

Now, on to some pictures.

Our new baby chickens and turkeys. This was taken several weeks ago, and they are both much bigger, and much uglier now. :)

I have always wanted a dogwood tree in my yard, so you can guess at my excitement when the "mystery tree" in our front lawn bloomed out to be one that first spring! Now it is something that I look forward to each year.

This land is literally covered with redbud trees. They add so much to the woods and riverbanks.

A sampling of the violets that grow all over the yard. I have never seen so many violets before, and I really hate having to mow them down. This year I transplanted some more of them into my herb garden and flower beds where they can bloom without fear. :)

Well, that all for now.

God Bless,

Rachel

My Spring Post

It seams that every blog that I visit (or at least most of them), has some lovely, thoughtful, beautiful post up right now about the wonderful season of Spring. There are pretty pictures, lists of things that are wonderful about spring, and general gushing about how great it is. :)

So, just to be different, I am putting up everything that I hate about Spring.

1) It means that summer is getting even closer. I really don't like summer.

2) The thick green layer of pollen that is on everything.

3) The allergies (coughing, sneezing, itching eyes, can't breath, sleeping for hours and still tired kind) that the a-fore said green pollen causes.

4) The emergence of hornets, wasps, and carpenter bees. All of whom live solely to terrorize me.

5) Wind from the South.

6) Bad storms (do they always have to come in the middle of the night, or when I am home by myself?).

7) Ticks.

8) Snakes.

9) Temperatures over 70.

10) Mold growing on everything, everywhere, and causing even worse allergies than the pollen.


Okay, now that I have had my little rant, I feel better. And a little guilty, after all, who can truly hate Spring? So, next post will be a list of what I like about this season. I am sure that if I think hard enough, I can come up with a few things...... :)

Ta ta for now.

God bless,

Rachel

Two years ago yesterday.......

......on a cold and cloudy evening, we were married (yes, it was an outdoor ceremony) . The wedding was beautiful and perfect in every way.



The two years since then have been wonderful. The Lord has answered so many of our prayers, we have met new people that have been a help and an encouragement to us, and we have grown closer to each other and the Lord.

We look forward to the years ahead and seeing what the Lord has in store for us.

Just a Note.....

......to say that our blog is not dead, and there will be a "good" post soon.

Lately my thoughts have been going in so many directions at once that I don't know which one to fallow through on and post about.

Also, it is very nearly springtime on a farm, meaning that things are very busy here. Our day starts a 5:30 (a.m.) and ends around 9:00 (p.m.) or so right now.

Project(s) report:

Living room~coming right along, slow and steady wins the race.

Goats~milking one right now and making yogurt and cheese. New babies will be arriving in April!

Chickens~we are getting between 11 and 14 eggs a day. Glad they slowed down for the winter! (ha ha)

Cows~ever growing, always eating, and good producers of "garden soil enhancer".

Dogs~I think Ollie has stopped growing taller, but he is still filling out. At the last vet visit he weighed in at 140lbs. His latest achievement was killing a skunk that has been hanging around. He smelled horrible, but we are proud of him. Dozer limps and coughs and tries to get in the house on cold days (or at least get some sympathy for his "aches and pains" :) Gracie just eats and sleeps, except at night when we are trying to sleep, then she barks.

New additions~Rabbits and pigs, both for meat purposes. More on them later.

Garden~I have started the early plants, and they are all up and doing well. We are planning a lot, so we will see what happens!

Well, thats all for now. I need to go start some cookies and then make supper.

God bless,

Rachel

DAT Posting

DAT: Day After Thanksgiving, a crazy day when we get up too early, go like crazy, and stay up too late. What could be better?

My DAT this year. Get up at 4:30a.m. Leave the house at 5:15a.m., arrive at Penney's at 6:00a.m. Meet up with family and friends. Shop for the next 7 or 8 hours.(with a Starbucks break in the middle) Hurry home again around 2:00p.m. Grab a bowl of soup for lunch, change clothes for Frisbee, got to a pawn shop in Ash Grove to look at
22's for a brother. Leave pawn shop and go to Willard for a couple hours of Frisbee, the traditional DAT game in our social circle, or anytime for that matter. Leave Frisbee with everyone else that was there, and go the lucky host for the years house and have supper. After supper a game is suggested. Everyone gets a piece of paper, writes the beginning lines to a story, balls it up, throws it in middle of the room, grabs a different persons ball of paper and continues the story started. This is repeated several times, and then the results are read aloud. Before all of them have been read, parents announce that it is time to leave. Go home, do chores, crash into bed, sleep in the next morning. A great day!

Here are a few of the stories, for your reading enjoyment. Please keep in mind that they were written by multiple, overtired people, and that I have copied them without any editing :)


Political:

Once upon a time there was a frog. This frog’s name was Bob, and Bob had a problem. He had no lilypad on which to live. So Bob went on a quest to find a home. First he went to a pig. Now this was a very stupid pig, and when Bob asked him what to do, he answered, “well just get a big new yard and be happy”. “But,” Bob said, “that would be a suboptimal solution to my present quandary, so I muct eliminate that as a possible option. Do you have any others at the top of your head?” “No.” the pig said. So Bob went along on his own merry way until he encountered another frog, who happened to be his great aunt Agetha. Aunt Agethea agreed to buy him a brand new, multi-million dollar home, with money barrowed from the government. So Bob lived happily ever after. The End

Once there was a bird. It was a short fat bird that couldn’t fly. He had really low self esteem. There lived in a house next door, a very skiny cat, who had a hard time finding something to eat, and it did not have a tree to swing in. So the cat asked the bird to help him hang a swing, in order to raise the bird’s self esteem and the swing. But really, the cat was a democrat who just wanted to have state health insurance, so he ate the bird and used the case as evidence to support his cause. Being a democrat, he got away with it. The end.

Love and Marriage:

At one time there was a dude and he liked to say “yo”. One day he got a snowboard, but he couldn’t use it on the beach where he lived. And he was mad. So he decided to move to Alaska, where there was much snow. When he got there he discovered a copiois number of blueberries, which he proceeded to demolish with great rapidity. This beong done, he got so sick, he never wanted to snowboard again. So he sold the board and moved back to the beach. So on the beach he met this pretty girl. She happened to be playing tennis (his favorite sport). Eventually they ended up talking under a tall palm tree......about growning cabbages. It was both of their favorite vegetable! Wonder of wonders! They decided to get married in a cabbage plantation, and lived there happily ever after, growing cabbage. THE END.

Rain pounded the raod making Ellen slow her car to a mear crawl. It had already been a wretched day and she was hoping to make it home before the storm hit. What a day it had been. She had forgotten to re-stock the cabbage at the grocery store where she worked. Then on her way home she wrecked her car, which is why she had not been abole to beat the storm home. Beating her head against the stearing wheel, Ellen whished to be whisked away to a far away land. How wonderful that would be. As if her wish was granted, the rain ceased, the sun came out, and a man came up to her car door. Opening the door he bowed low, offered his hand, and said "We were ment for eachother love!" With this said, they got married and lived happily ever after. The End.

There will be more of these as I get them typed up.

That's all for now!

God Bless,

R

As Usual......

It has been too long since I posted.

I have a million reasons for this, but not enough time to go through them all.

Our life is busy and full of interesting things, but now that I sit down to write about them, I can’t remember half of what I wanted to say.

Oh well, I will give it a go anyway.

Our summer was great. Colin was working part time, so we had a lot of time together, as well as time to get some things done around here. The garden did good, especially considering the tremendous amount of rain we had this year. Everything is done now, excepting a few fall crops, and even those will be finished soon.

In goat news, things have been kind of up and down. In the spring the goat that we were raising for meat died, and then in September our buck, Leeper, died as well. But in good news, we had the fist baby goat born here on October 5. Her name is Luka, and she is so much fun and really cute!!!

We have also added cows to our animal inventory. Cinnamon is a really sweet heifer that we are keeping to provide us with calves later down the road. The other one we call “dinner” and try not to become too friendly with him.

On the house we are still working on the living room, but it is coming along great. We are almost ready to put in the insulation and then the drywall can go up! I will put up a “beginning to end’ post with pictures when we are done.

Right after we started tearing the living room apart, Colin got a new, full time job at Webco in Springfield. This has been a blessing for us, and we are very thankful for the job. He has gone back to doing electrical stuff which is nice for him, and is also getting a chance to learn some new things. Please keep him in your prayers, as most of the guys he works with and around have very messed up lives. This gives him a chance to be a witness for Christ, but also makes the work environment hard to be in.

Well, that is all for now. I will get some pictures up as soon as I can.

Rachel

Goose-ber-ry, Ber-ry-goose, Jel-lo, Blue.

This title must be read to the rhythm of 1-&-a, 2-e-&, 3-&, 4, and will probably only be understood by those in orchestra, but it is stuck in my head and kind of goes with what I have been doing lately, so I will use it. Besides, it saves me sitting here for the next half hour trying to come up with a clever and witty title.

Well life moves on, and much faster than seems possible. My mind tells me that we are in the month of May, while the calendar proudly displays an arrangement of bright, hot colors, and letters forming the word “JULY”.

We did finally get the garden planted. Now it looks really good, and we are starting to enjoy to fresh produce that it supplies. Although it is not in “full swing” production, we have had broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, radishes, turnips, spinach, and some peppers. I confess that I am most eager for the tomatoes to be ready, but so far they are all still green.

The gooseberries (hence part of the post title*) and mulberries are also ripe right now, and we have been taking advantage of the many bushes and trees that are on this property. So far I have done some jam of each kind, and am working on a batch of Mul-Goose jelly. We’ll see how that one works out.......

We have also been doing some fishing in our river this year. Last time we went, Andrew caught two nice sized bass. Unfortunately, he also caught himself, so the trip was cut short as we hurried home to try and get two thirds of a treble hook out of his hand. It was quite the ordeal (both parts of the hook where in past the barb), and we were all very thankful when it was over. (There is no picture of this event because we were all upset to think about taking one, sorry)

On the house we are working on finishing up the laundry room floor, getting the well fixed, and some other things, and then it is one to the living room. We are both eager to have the whole house finished and looking nice, but there is only so much time in a day......

And before I close, the ever popular Ollie update.

Yes, he is huge. There is no trickery in this picture, he really is that big.

Well I think that is about it for this time. As usual I will try not to let it be so long between posts next time.

God bless,

Rachel

*An explanation on the rest of the title. We have been eating a lot of jello lately. It is very refreshing, and if you buy the plain kind you can put in what ever you want for flavoring and sweetening, then you know what you are eating. I don’t really have anything for the “blue” part, except that it is a cold color which is nice in the summer. It is also just what comes at the end of the pattern so I had to use it. I think ten years of orchestra is affecting my brain.

I'm Back

Hi,

This is just a note to let everyone know that our blog is not dead, there will be a new post soon, and my time on the library computer is at 3 minutes so I have to go!

Thanks for reading what I never have time to post! :)

God Bless,

Rachel

5-6-09

Well as usual life has been so crazy that I have not had time to sit down and blog, and when I finally find the time, there doesn't seem to be anything to blog about!

Basically things are normal for late spring/early summer on a farm. There are way too many things to get done, not enough time to do them, and it has rained so much that I can't remember what the sun looks like. No, wait, it just came out for about three seconds between cloud banks, I guess it really does exist! Anyway, with all of the rain the garden is one big mud puddle and I have no hope of planting anything without several days of hot, sunny weather to dry the ground out. I keep reminding myself that God's timing is perfect, so I don't need to worry about being so far behind in the planting season. If He wants me to have a garden, it will happen.

As most of you know, Colin lost his job at Muller a couple of weeks ago. While we had kind of been expecting this to happen, it was still a little hard to take. The enemy loves to use such times to double up on his attacks, and it is hard not to get fearful. Our God however, is greater than any attack or fear, and this was a time of learning to lean on Him more, and not rely on our own strength. Last week the Lord brought a job opportunity to us, and on Monday Colin started his new job. He gets to work with Owen, and gets to be outside more, and can still go part time when he needs to so that he can also continue working on our house. Question: Why do we ever doubt God?

I also wanted to update everyone on my grandpa in Ohio. His heart surgery has been postponed for a couple of weeks because he is sick right now. My mom has come home for now but will be returning to Ohio for the surgery. Sam is still there and will be until Grandpa is able to take over running the business again. Please continue to keep all of them in your prayers.

Finally Back

Okay, I started this post with the intent of putting up some pictures from our life, but blogger won't let me do it right now so I will try again later. I would also like to see if anyone out there still reads this or not, before I spend a lot of time on it. So, leave a comment if you can, and I will go at it some other time, when things are working better.
Have a good and Blessed holiday season and a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

R