Blessings among the Wipes... nose wipes that is.

It started with R and a runny nose and fever and ended up with each of the 6 of us being sick at some time in the next week. E had croup and was up half of a night but we cooled their room off at night and she hasn't had it since just a runny nose and fever. Papa got it really bad one day and spent most of the day in bed!! Thankfully he slept it off and went to work the next day. L and J have mostly just had a runny nose and a grumpy disposition. R never really got more then her runny nose and cranky attitude. E and Papa got the worse of it and I got it late and it wiped me out for, well I'm still getting over it. Over 24 hours now. I am feeling much better as long as I don't do much. Because we were all sick our weekend was completely canceled. We missed 3 dinners and my grandfathers 80th Birthday party. One of those dinners was Canadian Thanksgiving (being that we are a split country couple we celebrate both Canadian and American Thanksgiving) which really disappointing as I had made 6 pies for it. (we ate some and froze some).

BUT there are blessings in the time of storm!! My washing machine froze when it was so cold over the weekend (We had temps of 5F at night.) and has since thawed (Papa found a plug was unplug ed) so I can do mountains of laundry!

A friend dropped off another box of clothes for E and she is SET for clothes for a long time or until she sprouts up again. They fit PERFECTLY or just a little too big which is great! Also in the box where 7 pairs of shoes, including black dress shoes which E loves. In the last batch was snow jacket and pants that fit E perfectly!! I also found and washed and sorted and fit winter clothes for all the kids and AMAZINGLY I don't have to buy anything!! Boots, jackets, snow pants, hats, and gloves!! Some of this is hand me downs that I got last year and some was stuff we had!! J will probably need new boots before the end of winter but he can wear his last years ones for a bit.

My cousins who guide hunts up Farther North (B&B among them!) made it back safe and sound and we get to see them tomorrow night for supper!! They are treating us to a homemade supper right here in our own house!! Bringing Sheep steaks and everything!! Yumm!! Spoiling us!!! 2 of my male cousins were stranded up north for a day or so as the lake that the planes land on had turned to ice!!! I still don't know how they got back but they did and I'm thankful!! There was talk of a helicopter or just hoping and praying for warm weather!

B, of B&B, called me today and told me he had a 1/4 of a moose for me. He told me yesterday that he had a 'hunk of meat' for me which I thought was a roast or something so today when he called I didn't connect the two at all. I thought he and Papa had made some kind of deal to use our freezer until they could cut it up! After a few minutes of confusion we got it straight. The 1/4 of the moose was for us to keep!! B an his brother S dropped it off a bit later and put it whole into one of our freezers!! We are SO blessed!! When I told the kids, they napped during the call and visit, J was in AWE (Now we have fish, our neighbor gave him and Papa some the other day, MOOSE, chickens, pork!! WOW) and it made me remember how very blessed we are. We are planning on butchering Bobby, our red calf that was given to us as a baby, on Monday so we will leave the 1/4 frozen til we cut him up in roughly 2 weeks and do it all together. At least that is my plan Papa doesn't even know we have it!! Bobby looks great from what we've heard (Bobby and Billy are still out at Millers, but Billy being half dairy will not be finished til late spring. ) and we are looking forward to having our very own 1st finished steer in the freezer. Don't get me wrong we have raised lots of beef but never solely our own and the one that was we ended up butchering early just to keep it HOME!! LOL. What a time we had with him!! The dairy steer from H***!! And another we started and ending up selling as a yearling to move up North. So this little, I should really say BIG but I've seen him since this spring and he's still little in my mind. Papa says he's HUGE, guy is the 1st we've raised from a calf and butchered finished.

We have also been blessed by firewood. The wood that we cut up over the last two years and stacked here and there on the place is perfectly seasoned and burns wonderfully!! Last year a lot of it was still too wet and we had a TIME keeping the fire going!!

Another blessing is Maggie who is turning in to a GREAT cow and her milk is filling holes in our diet that we'd forgotten were even there. Milk, butter, yogurt, and cheese: Cheddar, cottage, ricotta, and mozzarella! Never mind butter milk (makes AWESOME biscuits) and whey (pigs and chickens love it.) I love it that going grocery shopping is an option not a necessity!! With the meat from the freezer, milk from the cow, fruit that I got or put up this summer, and a few baking necessities we have been pretty much living out of our house. Oh and the potatoes a couple of people gave us.

So we are warm, well fed, well dressed, Papa loves his job, I love mine and the children are growing and learning more and more every day. We have people who loves us and friends to share times with!! God is GOOD!! Blessed be the name of the LORD!!

Chip the newest addition...

to our already crazy house. We went for a drive last weekend and pickup up our new puppy. He's 7 weeks old now and so far is a pretty good dog. He's about as heavy as R and we can just about see him grow. We are crate training him and he's doing really well. He spends the night in the crate and we've only had to get up once a night to take him out. He did bark, howl and whine a lot the 1st night but the second night Papa stood beside the crate with a chunk of newspaper and hit the outside of the crate with it and said NO when he was loud. He got the hint really fast and the next night he slept from 11 pm to 7 am!! Chip seems to be super smart and already knows his name and NO and how to sit. We are working on come but because we couldn't find a collar small enough, that wasn't too small, we have to wait for real come training til he grows into it a bit. Right now his collar just comes off. Today, with the sun shining, Chip has decided he's a outside dog. I think it's just too warm in here for him. Besides that he nips at the kids and gets in trouble while he's inside. He did chase our chickens a few times before he got 'nailed' by the hot fence and I've not seen him do it since. He's really good about potty training which is really nice. Chip and Maggie get along great. Papa said there was a dog at the dairy and she seems to like Chip which is nice. I have a feeling Bindy will not be so kind. Speaking of Bindy. We went out to the field the other day and saw her. I actually spotted her from quite a way away and when Papa went out to take a good look at her she got up and put her head up and buggered off.. luckily towards the other cows and the Travelall so I got some pictures of her. All in all she seems to be in good condition but shocked us at the size of her udder!! One quarter is HUGE and we think a calf (or cow?) has been nursing off her! It looks terrible but she should dry up (again) when we bring her home. She sure looks different without a halter on!!

Anyway Chip seems to be a great dog so far. His full sister is a great dog and will pull sleds, chase sticks, ski-jore, and just about anything else. So we are hoping Chip will be a great mix of the black lab Papa grew up with and the huskies we had for years. So far he's much smarter then the huskies (though I swear those two used to gang up on me.) and has much better fur then the lab!!