R's Special Quilt.

My family started a tradition when my oldest nephew was born where every aunt (there is 6 children in my family and we are all married. ) and Grandma F make a square for a baby quilt. The mother of the child does not have to make a square! It's a great tradition and a lot of fun. We all get together to give them to the child. R got hers just the other day. Here she is crawling on it. She loves it and pulls it over her head to sleep.

A Cool Nest.

We found this great nest while out and about the last few weeks. I think it's either an eagle or osprey nest. It over looks a lake right by a campground so I'm thinking it could be either. It was not in use (that we could tell) when we saw it but we'll have to check on it later and see if we can see anything.

Last Load of Tin.

This afternoon a local store delivered our last 3 lengths of tin for the house. (The side of the trusses, the bottom 2 foot piece that goes between the old and new tin, and the ridge piece.) The driver, a young maybe 20 years old, called ahead and asked if we'd be home. "Yup I'm home all day" I said "but Papa isn't home so you'll have to unload it yourself." Quiet, last time Papa did most of the work and this guy helped. The last load was over 1000 lbs of tin and this one is only 500lbs. I also told him to put the tin lengthwise across the back of the flat bed dump truck. That way he could just back up to the porch and lift his dump bed. Making unloading easy. When he showed up an hour later we all ran to the window and sure enough! Worked great. The ridge piece he unloaded by hand no problems. Then with a bit of hand signals and some talking we got him backed up to the porch and the tin offloaded. I was inside the whole time talking and doing hand signals thru the front window and holding R, who waved at him the whole time. I did wonder if she would confuse him but he seemed alright, she did have a bright yellow toy in her hand. J, L and E were all crowded around watching and asking questions. When the tin slid off with very little effort L says 'He did it!" and E pips up "all by himself!!" A big deal to a small child who's goal in life is to do as little as possible and who hears 'you can do it!" several times a day!! Strange for a 2 year old I know. When he left the kids all waved like crazy he waved and honked his horn. Beep Beep. Here is what the place looked like yesterday. The tin we just got goes on the sides. One long piece goes where you can see the lines of strapping close to the top. One short piece goes on the very bottom and brings it all together. In the front of the picture you can see the boys melting snow fort.

Walk-A-Bout.

Spring has finally hit!! The snow is melting more everyday and the last 2 days it's has rained, either all day or on and off all day. This morning the sun came out for a bit in between rain showers and I put R down for her morning nap, and the children and I went outside. A-Walk-A-Bout. We bought a SLOW!! CHILDREN PLAYING sign awhile ago. I grabbed some nails, found a hammer and we headed down the driveway to nail it up. ( First I added, in permanent marker, PLEASE DRIVE above the SLOW. Papa and a friend of ours get a real kick out of these signs and when I bought it Papa made the crack. "What you think MY children are SLOW??' Chortling away.) After I dealt with business, and the kids stomped about in the puddles and mini rivers, we checked out the 'worm trails' in the mud and puddles. We even found a few 'cool' worms which is a HUGE improvement from last year as worms were 'gross and slimy'. J even picked one up!! We saw a swimming worm, traveling worm and a attacking worm (One of the ones that J picked up wiggled and 'attacked' him :). The we headed across the front of our property marveling at the ditches full of water. Throwing rocks and mud balls in the water and generally having a great time. J has a good arm on him and can really huck those rocks. L threw a few but had more fun watching J and E and keeping his crab toy safe. E throws like a girl but hopeful it's the age. She missed the water as often as she hit it. We found some clover growing and some tiny little somethings growing. We stopped and checked out how deep the water was and saw thousands of tiny black things wiggling and swimming in the water. I suspect they are mosquitoes.. but hoping NOT. We saw a tiny beetle who promptly hid and then scurried and hid again. Then we headed back to the driveway to see the ant hills and bulbs pushing through the soil there and play some more in the puddles and mini rivers. I used my boot heel to open up some of the rivers so the puddles would drain and smiled at E who started dragging her boot heels around in the puddles. By this time I was 'guarding' the crab and L was racing with J. Here and there and everywhere. I think L and I where the only ones with dry boots. We both had rubber boots on and E and J were still in winter boots. Then we picked up the hammer and some garbage we'd found and headed in. I cleared the sandbox cover of water and 3 kids piled in so fast I barely had time to see the sand. I kicked the rest of the snow on the trampoline around and hopefully it will melt off soon.They can already jump on it. I walked over the whole garden patch kicking snow. (it melts faster if you disturb it) The sheep, Forrest and Snowball, got make shift collars on them just to see if they fit and so I can catch them. J wanted to 'go exploring' so we headed off to the back to kick the remaining piles of snow and marvel at the large amounts of clover shooting up where ever the snow is gone. The sheep came with and nibbled on the poplar sprouts and I SMILED (those little trees are why I wanted sheep). Bindy, our cow, called and called to the sheep until they got curious and went over then she threw up her head and chased them away. Crazy beast. She'd better get used to them they're going to be around for a while. The boys found a old haunt of the children's and climbed the hill to go explore it again. E climbed half way up and got her hands dirty and bawled til I got there to wipe them off. Strange behavior for her and I'm hoping it doesn't last long. She also went to pick up a rock, EEEKED, and dropped it screaming "BUG BUG. Tiny little BUG on it!!" Until the boys went to 'go see' and then no one could find it. She is leery of the sheep as well. Which doesn't surprise me at all as they are as big as she is. Forrest might weigh more then E. They jumped on her a few times a couple of weeks ago and that totally put her off. They no longer jump up but she still avoids them. I also headed out to the back shed to find the box of rubber boots. Found it and got everyone in boots. Warm and dry feet here we come. Well maybe.

And can you believe it. I forgot my camera and didn't take a single picture of my kids in matching hats and red coats playing in the spring sunshine. Oh well there is always next time.

Spring Run Off

Here are some neat pictures I took when the rivers and rivers of water was pouring off the driveway through the snow. Looks almost life size hey?

This last one looks like it's taken of earth from an airplane.

These were taken about 2.5 weeks ago.

I'm catching up :)

Bragging Rights!!!

Isn't he the sweetest thing!!! Ruger John was recently added to our extended family. 7lbs 8oz of pure cute baby!! His Momma and Daddy are very proud of their new addition and so is big sister K!!! He is my younger sisters child and is so far the only niece or nephew we have that looked like our children did when they were born except his hair which he gets from his Daddy.

We went for a drive and what did we see.

THE BIRDS ARE BACK. In the spring we get tons of Canadian Geese, swans and several kinds of ducks. The fields are mostly bare and where ever people have been feeding cows this winter the birds go and 'clean up'.

Swans flying. BEAUTIFUL!! They are very graceful and their loud honking noise gives them away often before you can see them.

A pair of ducks. Mallards I think. The pond was FULL of ducks but they all took off before I could get a picture!! The robins are back as well. One morning I got a picture of 5 robins in 1 tree right over our front lawn. These geese are standing on 1 leg resting and warming their feet.

A goose close up. Can you tell we LOVE our new camera?? LOL.

We also saw some deer on the side of the road and TONS of hawks. No one counted but we think we saw about 20 hawks. They are incredibly hard to take pictures of but a young friend of ours who was with us got this great picture of one hawk sitting on top of another. It was only standing on the others back for about 30 seconds but she snapped a fast picture of it.

Trusses

The trusses are UP on the roof!! Here is the roof before.

Here is the place the morning of the truss lifting. Note the trusses on the ground. They are squared out in 2 sets of 4 for each end of the roof.

The 1st 4 trusses up on the roof. We rented a crane truck for a few hours to lift them on to the roof.

Here are some 2x4's heading up to the trailer roof to become strapping for the tin and braces for the trusses. Beside the trailer is the piles of trusses that we moved up. I now can see out of the windows on that side of the trailer. Very nice!! We had a beautiful day for it!! It rained a tiny bit that morning but the sun shone all afternoon!! Snow melted!!

My Dad, who wanted to keep his feet on solid roof, up in the trusses.. a job that he just took and wouldn't let anyone else do!! My dad and T a friend of ours helped Papa put up the trusses. T is several of the pictures. Papa was hiding!!

The trusses all up on the roof!! WOW looks great hey?? They are up and braced. Papa and T are going to spend some time strapping and hopefully tin on the top two parts. If the tin comes in on time.

On another note the snow is melting like crazy!! We have mud and drying dirt everywhere. In 4 days we lost almost 1/2 our snow!! And it is still melting!! Water is running, puddles are numerous, mud is boggy and we are excited about SPRING!!! The kids snow fort is so melted it has a skylight! Oh and HAPPY EASTER!! HE IS RISEN!!! CHRIST IS LORD!!

FUN in the mud!!

L LOVES to be dirty. Water and clay means MUD and MUD is FUN!!! This is under the side roof which is why there is no snow. Just water from the melting snow above. This puddle is pretty much gone as I dug a trench and drained it... for putting trusses up. (pictures to follow)
Painting the 'new to us' car.

PORK.

We recently turned this

into......

THIS!!!

Looks great hey?? We made 8 different kinds of sausage alone with chops, bacon, ribs and roasts. This sausage is a theringer which we all really like.

Here are 5 of the 8 mixed sausage recipes we used. We mixed them all in bowls (only one was a premix) and then weighed the meat and mixed each one separately. We got most of the recipes off line and liked all of them. Some better then others. We had a premix bought from a local store for Pepperoni. The others were Theringer, another pepperoni, 3 kinds of hot dogs (one hot), summer sausage and a garlic sausage. Here is a picture of our new saw and the meat grinder that came with it. It works great and we love being able to completely (except bacon which we need a smoke house for) process our pigs. Start to finish.

We went to look at our newest pigs today. They are pure bred Berkshires and we are quite excited about them. We called the breeders about 2 months ago and ordered 6 wiener pigs for this spring and they called the other day and told us our pigs had been born. So we headed out to take a look this morning. They were born on the 25th of March and we won't bring them home until mid May. These are the only people in our area who breed Berkshires. They trade boars with another person who lives 3 hours away because there is no one closer.

Cute aren't they??

We plan on keeping 2 to breed next year. One of them has a stick person with out arms or legs in white on it's side. They all have white feet and are very active and healthy. Some of them are losing their tails but the breeders aren't sure why and several of their adult pigs did not have tails.

Here they are with their Momma. She came right up to the fence and let us pet her. That thing in the corner is her house. The black thing is the door. She pushes it in and walks inside. Keeps those babies nice and warm.

Climber Chick...

R has decided the view from the floor leaves A LOT wanting. So she's recently learned how to climb on to the couch and chair and L's dump truck... where she gets stuck and Momma takes pictures of her. Here she is 'chilling' Oh and did you know that you can see A LOT from the table in the living room?? I found her sitting on top of the table (couch to table) 3 times in the last week. Sitting quite happily under our new cream separator!! Pulling tissues from the box. Having a grand 'ol time. Stuck in the dump truck... just can't get out of this thing Mom!!!

Just yesterday she learned how to get off the couch as well. Handy thing that. She still can't get off the kid chairs and sits in them for HOURS quite contentedly. I guess the view makes up for the lack of movement????

More Eagle Pictures.

Here is the pair in the top of the neighbors spruce tree. This is the 1st time I have ever seen them in it together. Mating time I think. They are very lovey dovey. They sing a lot and don't seem to be far from each other for very long.

This next picture is really cool. The mating pair are the two with the white heads. The bottom bird is an immature eagle. Probably one of the mating pairs children. Eagles I'm told only get their white heads around 7 years of age. They are then old enough to mate. I at first thought it was a raven or crow but was shocked at it's size. They after I took the pictures I saw that it was an immature eagle. You can see the talons and beak and the shape of it's head better in the next picture. Another reason I wasn't sure what it was is that I have NEVER seen a eagle share a tree with another bird that's not an eagle. They just don't.

I scared him off. They were both on this tree when I went to get firewood and the other one flew away as soon as it saw me but I managed to get the camera and take a few shots before this one followed it's mate to another tree.

Perched to fly.

They watch me the whole time I'm out there. They never take their eyes off me. Kinda un-nerving when you see it in the pictures. When I'm out there all I can see is his head moving.