I Think She Gets It.

Last night at 4:35 am I heard a sort of funny sound coming out of the bathroom by our room. Funny for 4:35 am anyway. It sounded like R sobbed. Just 2 little sobs and it was just enough to wake me up. VERY STRANGE!! Our bedroom doors where mostly shut like normal and so she wasn't in our room so I got up and took a look in the bathroom. There she was, our little just turned 2 year old, sitting on the toilet!! Her PJ pants were off as well as her pull-up and she'd been there for a little while as she'd finished the job she'd come to do :) So I got her off, wiped her up and told her what a big girl she was!! Then she ran off to bed to get tucked in. I'm still in shock.

R is pretty much toilet trained but she has never gone on her own accord before. Normally I just tell her to go and she does. We've been working on her telling me when she has to go but I think she's happy with the way it is now and sees no reason to tell me. She's only had 2 pairs of wet pants, and one dirty in about 3 weeks. I'm going to have to stop telling her to go and wait and see if she'll catch on to telling me then.

She sure picked an odd time to go to the bathroom totally by herself for the 1st time!! I have NO idea how long she was in there but she sure was quiet! I just hope she wasn't there for hours stuck on the toilet! I don't think so though as she could stand when I got her off and so her little legs couldn't have been too numb. (J had this problem when he was little as he loved to read on the toilet.. 45 minutes later we'd kick him off and he wouldn't be able to walk his legs were so numb!!) She uses a stool to get up there but often pushes it away with her feet once she's there and so she can't get off!! That's what she'd done last night. I love that she went all by herself and knew what to do.. but I'm leery about it becoming a habit in the early hours of the night. Should be an interesting weekend!! LOL!!

Strawberries With Grandma!!

Good to the last drop!! R is licking the table while the other kids look on.

Grandma cutting up strawberries.

R holding a 'big un'

The 4 enjoying the strawberries.. a real treat!!

My folks came over for a hot dog roast recently and brought dessert. It was a bit chilly outside and we moved inside for dessert.. strawberries and chocolate sauce!!

The Finished Front Piece!!

Here you go.. finished picture of the front area we've been working on. Right to left..raised beds, white car that will soon be gone, newly cleared area (smoke is the last fire!!), if you look close you can see 3 piles of pallets and 3 of straw which will be farrowing shelters for the pigs which are in the picture on the far left. There is a fence there but it's hard to see in the picture. The house is just out of the picture to the left.

Well, Papa and I feel like we've accomplished something BIG this spring. What with clearing the trees from the 1/3 acre in the front, moving the shed; trucks and STUFF, cleaning up firewood and burning the junk we're about done in!! But it is finished!! We cut down the last of the trees by the raised beds and cleaned up that mess one day. Moved the firewood, we now have more firewood in our stack then we used last winter :) BONUS!, off the area and stacked some on the edges, got the kids helping to pick up branches (they get paid with freezies :) and burned the LAST pile in the front!! Moved some straw and pallets into the area for our new employees farrowing areas, built a fence around it and moved in the PIGS!! Our 3 gilts are going to farrow in about 3 weeks and we wanted them up front where we could see them. We also LOVE the job they do with tilling the earth and digging up sticks, roots and rocks. Which are then easier to take out.

The pigs were SUPER easy to move and Papa had to move pretty quick to keep in front of them. He had a bucket of slops and they KNEW it and WANTED it. They are so funny!! They have such personalities and we always enjoy their quirks. They've since settled right in and BEG food and drink off anyone who comes on the yard! They remind me of bad mannered dogs at a picnic! But louder. We wanted a fence to keep the piglets in as well as a visual barrier for those people who drive up into the yard so we took one of our big long orange and black electric chicken netting fences and put it around the corner of the pen by the house, 2 wires keep the pigs in around the other 3/4 of the pen as we aren't worried about the piglets going that direction.

While we had the bobcat here this weekend Papa burnt our old fallen down picnic table that collapsed last chicken butchering day, moved the smoke teepee out of my yard! and off the garden area, moved the 3 compost piles that were also in the garden area next to the house, moved a TON of firewood, stirred the compost into the peat moss/manure mixer beside the driveway and filled my raised beds the rest of the way!! Papa also moved Jake (a yellow IHC flatbed) out of the old pig pen behind the barn and into a hole in the trees in the new area. Jake got tucked into the spot where we took out a couple of dead pine several years ago and beside the last adult living pine tree on our place. We like our neighbors but we don't need to see them and I'm pretty sure they feel the same way! It is amazing how different the whole place looks now!! It looks like it's had a major face lift!! Neither Papa or I can believe how much BIGGER this new area makes our place feel. It's only 1/3 of an acre but the difference is huge. When you only have 5 acres 1/3 of an acre is noticeable.

Earlier this spring Papa and I measured out our 5 acres with a really long measuring tape we use for building and found the 'acre' marks. So we know that from the front road to about where the barrels of sand used to be (or right at the corner of the driveway) is an acre. Then from there to the back of the chicken barn is an acre, then from the back of the chicken barn to the front of the lagoon is an acre. Then the front of the lagoon to the cross road is another acre and the rest is an acre and a bit. SO that means that with a few exceptions we are FINISHED cutting down trees in the first 3 acres of our 5 acre place. We got Bindy, our 1st cow in October 2008. We started clearing trees that next spring. Which means in 2 years we have cleared 3 acres pretty much by hand!! We did use the bobcat to haul 5 meter chunks of firewood beside the firewood stack and to pile some junk to burn in the front area.

We are not quite finished clearing. There is both sides of the lagoon to clean up and we are planning on clearing up the pond area completely. We plan on leaving a band of black spruce between the lagoon and the pond for wind reasons but it will need a bit of ground clean up as the black spruce does fall over quite a bit and the pigs have been through it a couple of times. But these projects can wait. The pond area will be the easiest part as it is all small poplar trees and just needs to be cut and burned, and we may get to that this year yet.. but right now there are other things that need doing :) Like hutches for the pigs to farrow in and our new milking set up which both need to be DONE by mid May.

We have a bit of raking, seeding and watering to do in the front which is next on the list. But as I told Papa I have lifted my LAST piece of firewood, unless it's nicely dried for the inside fire, until little Mr. Jesse makes his appearance!! I'd heard that you could pull a groin muscle easily during pregnancy but I'd never actually pulled one before.. NOT fun!! Papa agreed that this was probably a good idea. Another bonus of the spring work is that I've gained very little weight this pregnancy even these last few weeks when many people gain a lot!! I'm just hoping I can keep it up for these last 8 weeks :) Now if only I could get Papa to milk for me full time and not just the weekends.. though I'll take the weekend and be happy.. for now :)

Moving The Shed.. FINISHED!!! :)

Where the shed USED to be. Note moving the IHC's went really well, but I got NO pictures as I'm grunt driver; none of them have steering unless moving and my arms got a work out driving them over and trying to BACK them in to the bush, and I had to be IN them for him to move them. Actually he moved Clifford all by himself but it was so fast I didn't get a picture. FINISHED. Looks great hey!! We can still see the IHC but we don't have too if we don't want too. Heehee. Papa did point one thing out though and he's right. Before we could ignore the shed as it was in a bad place to be usable but now it appears to be staring us in the face and begging us to clean it out and USE it. Oh my.. that will be quite the project. We'll have lived here for 5 years in June and when we MOVED IN we filled the shed and have just continued to do so. Yeah. It's a MESS!!

Moving The Shed. Part 5.

It seems that no matter how I do it the pictures always get in the wrong order!! :) This is the shed in it's new spot. Papa is squaring it to the house in the picture. Here he is turning it to face the house. The back of the shed is about 12 feet from our property line. I'm planning on moving my raspberry canes behind this shed along the fence.

Here is the shed ALMOST there. It tipped horribly at times thru out the move because the different sizes of logs under it. All and all it went really well.

Moving the Shed. Part 4. Day 2. :)

Papa moving some peices of poplar for the shed to roll on! Boy that bobcat comes in handy!! :) Thanks C & R for the use of it!! The shed on the move!! YEAH!!! Here it is about half way there!! I got a neat video of it and I might try and post it yet. He just pushed from behind and it ROOOLLLEEDD on the logs and TA DA!! :) I'm pretty excited to have it moved :) Can't ya tell?? LOL.

Moving the Shed. Part 3. Attempt #1 and #2 :)

Ok the top one is actually attempt #2 And the shed has moved about 20 feet already. The Travelall is pulling it and I was in the bobcat giving it a little shove to get it going. The pallet leaning against the shed is what Papa put on the bobcat forks so it wouldn't damage the shed. Worked great!! Ok this is attempt #1. See the logs under the shed? The shed is going to roll on them but to break it loose was a bit too much for the bobcat so Papa tried the Travelall. It would have worked but the support in the middle broke and it was getting to late to do keep going. So we started again the next morning.

Moving The Shed. Part 2.

Chip is watching Papa lift the shed with the bobcat so he can put poplar poles under it for skids and rolling power.
Ok now you can REALLY see it. We started 2 years ago and took about a 8th of the trees out starting by the raised beds. Then last fall and this spring we really went at it and it's mostly finished behind the shed. This sounds easy but mostly it was black spruce with a bit of white spruce and poplar mixed in. Black spruce is the WORST tree on the place we've had to deal with yet. They grow tall and spindly with lots of branches and very close together and the wood is pretty useless if it's small. We took all the black spruce out first and then took a good look at was was left and decided to take them all out! This spring we decided to MOVE the shed and are VERY happy with it so far. As you can see we left a 20 foot buffer of trees between us and the neighbor and about 30 feet between us and the road. Our 5 acres is very long and narrow.. the shed you see above the trailer in the picture is the neighbors.

A Better Picture. :) Stil Shed Moving BEFORE Pictures.

Ok mostly what you see is the inside of our covered parking area and two little boys getting firewood. BUT if you look behind them you can see from right to left. The driveway, the trees over my raised bed area, a break in the trees that we did years ago for the log truck driveway, , the ambulance, scout, and pickup, and then more trees behind the IHC's. The shed is just out of the picture surrounded by even more trees.

Ok now that we know the area I'm talking about ON WITH THE SHOW!! LOL :)

Raised beds.. connected too but not part of Moving The Shed :)

Ok so here is a picture of the raised beds before they got filled up. If you look at the picture below and find the yellow travelall in it, I was standing where the travelall was parked to take this picture. Confused yet? Don't worry it will make sense in a bit :) Our house is off down to the right.

**Disclaimer.. I am not crazy :) It is VERY hard to take pictures of this area we've been working on before as it was tree covered.

Moving The Shed.. Part One!

Do you see a shed? LOL. This is a LOUSY picture but it's the best I could find as we did not take before pictures. Ok BEHIND the trailer Papa is pulling with the bobcat is a shed. It was there when we moved there. Who ever built it buit it crooked to the land, house and road. It was an eyesore! It's sort of a 'everything' shed at the moment but will hopefully be cleaned out soon. Beside the shed in the trees you can see a brown and white camper. We moved that last fall to beside the driveway by the pile of shavings and peat moss. Right between the bucket and the body of the bobcat you can see a black and white thing. That is the front of Papa's 'tool truck' Clifford. He does not run and is used for storage. Right behind the body of the bobcat you can see the front of the ambulance we got a couple of years ago for when we outgrow the travelall. Then you see a green spot between the bobcat and the travelall which is parked behind the small set of trees that has my raised beds under them. Got it? LOL. (Just so you know those little white things under the travelall in the picture are our broiler birds out on pasture.) You can't see it in the picture but there was an brown and white scout between Clifford and the ambulance. (His name is Scotty and he's my favorite IHC) Yes I know that's a LOT to see in a picture of a bobcat pulling a trailer :) Sorry.

First Hot Dog Roast of the Year!!

Mr. B, Chip, R, E Mrs. B, L and J (with their fire) and Papa.

This wasn't just the first hot dog roast of the year but also Chips first ever hot dog roast. I was hoping he would not be a problem but threatened both the B's and the kids not to "feed him anything!" Or else LOL. As it was I needed have bothered as both of them wouldn't have anyway.. but I didn't want him to get the idea that this was good snatching food time from the kids. He was great. He did sniff every chair thoroughly after anyone got up and when we left for good he spent about 30 minutes sniffing ever inch of the place which is fine with me. But for the most part he lay there and looked interested but stayed put!!

E looking like she's freezing. She wasn't she just always looks that way. She loves that chair :)

R loving it!! She was 'helping' throw sticks in the fire but she's DANGEROUS still and I plunked her in the stroller for some peace of mind. She can only throw something about 2 feet and when your fire is 4 feet across.... 2 feet is WAY TO CLOSE!! She didn't mind and had a great time goofing off in the stroller.


The 2 fires from a different angle.

J and L with their little fire. J really likes to make his own fires this year and after they had enough sticks we put a pile of dry leaves under it and got a lit stick from the big fire to lite it. Well we were getting smoke and not much else when the Papa and Mr. B came alone and before you could say learning experience they had taken a LOG out of the main fire and put it under the boys sticks and instant fire :)

All those pieces of firewood in the background were cleaned up before the night was done. Papa and Mr. B threw them into trailers and stacked them on piles and it didn't take long at all!! This by the way was March 28th. Now this piece is green with new grass.

Smoke Teepee :)

The finished bacon!! YUMM!! It tastes just like the bacon we had professionally done last year. When Papa brought me a piece to try I ate it then asked him 'where did you get the bacon?' He laughed and said 'I made it!!' VERY COOL!!
Rubbing the cure on the meat. He rubbed it in really good then put the meat in a very clean 5 food grade 5 gallon bucket to cure. When it was done curing he took it out and washed it off and trimmed it of a bit of mould (it had NO mould on it until it got left in too warm of a spot for the last 24 hours. So we are going to be VERY careful of that next time) and smoked it in the teepee.

He's done several different smoking's in the teepee. He started out with a couple of cement blocks with my old canner on top. Fire between the brinks and soaked wood chips (hickory, ect) in the pot. Then he tried just dry willow wood and wet chips right in the fire so it smothered and smoked really well and this last time he did the same thing just using wet willow wood instead of wood chips which are pricey!! Every time he does it the meat is WONDERFUL and I think we are no longer going to be buying chips but using what we have here. This is only a cold smoke and the meat is cooked on the BBQ after smoking. We don't put a single spice on it and WOW good stuff!! :)

Some chickens Papa smoked in the smoke house. They taste AWESOME!!! He has them hanging from the ropes tied across the top of the teepee with bent clothes hangers. Works great. For the roasts and bacon he uses meat hooks.

Papa told the boys he'd give them 50c if they could.....

Climb to the top of the smokehouse teepee and touch the top of the poles :) L half way up with J looking on.
J touching the poles.. for someone who thinks he's scared of heights he didn't have a problem up or down :)

L as far as he got. I don't think he actually touched the poles.

E really wanted to try it but was inside when the boys did it and when Papa was home and then when she was outside I told her she'd have to wait til Papa was home to see and it never came up again :) Thankfully I don't think I want her climbing everything in sight yet.. she is my climber so far and she needs some more thinking skills before she gets too brave!!

~A 5 year old Birthday~

L had a great birthday!! He loved it. Homemade strawberry ice cream (I even got it PINK this time :). STORE bought CARS cake which he totally fell in love with at W.M!! The 1st kids birthday cake I've NOT made and no I don't mind!! We had a great night and L finally had a birthday where something did not go wrong. LOL. Hopefully we can make this the new pattern for birthdays for him. Wow they grow up so fast!!