Papa's Schooling.

Well it's official. Papa will be starting his 1st year of school for his apprenticeship starting March 29th. First year runs for 6 weeks. He'll be taking the car (good on gas) to 'the city' every morning and coming home every afternoon 5 days a week. It's about a 50 minute drive to the college. He has book work type stuff in the mornings and actual mechanical stuff in the afternoon. One of his bosses thinks he will be bored out of his mind the entire schooling time. Not just this this 6 weeks but ALL 4 six week programs he has to do to finish his apprenticeship. Papa's 2nd 6 weeks (for his 2nd year) of school is right after the 1st years. So it will be 12 weeks total that he'll be in school and we will be without a paycheck. Eek!! So far his schooling has cost us about $550.00 and we are expecting to cost us about $1,500.00 total with with books and everything. Fuel is extra! Thankfully he will be able to receive UI for 10 of the 12 weeks and we have been saving up for spring things like chicks and feed and other costs. Our fuel bill will go UP but it hopefully will not be too bad as city prices are often MUCH better then our small town prices. Papa's bosses have also told him that if he gets more then a certain % they will pay for all his schooling costs which is wonderful!! His last day of school is the 18th of June and our new baby is due on the 22nd of June :) Thankfully the last 3 babies have been 10 days late so if this one follows suit he/she should be born the 2nd of July. Or around there. Who knows with babies :) One really nice thing about his schooling (besides the fact that he will be half done!!) is that he'll have Saturdays off and should be home by 6ish every night. That will work perfectly for our spring farming and clearing up the rest of the trees that we've fallen and will fall again this spring as we can work 30 to 60 minutes, or more, each evening and get a LOT done. By then it will be light enough too!!

Longer Days and Shorter Nights :)

The days are getting noticeably longer now. We now have light until after 5 pm. In the heart of winter it would get dark before 4pm and light around 6:30ish am. Now we have light til almost 5:20pm. I'm not sure what time it gets light in the mornings as I'm well tucked into my nice warm bed and really don't care too much. I do know it is still dark at 4;30am as I was up then last night and it was dark. I've already taken advantage of the extra light to send the boys outside more and more as we have some nice weather. They have been playing 'pirates' on a lump of snow which covers some old boards that serves as their 'boat.' They have TONS of adventures sailing here and there and looking for treasure. As they get older they can spend more time out of doors then they could before as they can come inside when they are cold and 'warm up' and I don't have to worry about them so much. They also bring firewood to the porch and soon I will have them running up and down the driveway again running off some of that energy that little boys seem to never run out of. For myself the longer days mean more time to remember that we have a farm and to get my brain ready for spring and the total lack of ice, snow and cold weather. One thing about living this far north that unless you go to a gym there really isn't any way to get exercise with out equipment during the winter.. the days are too short or too cold, or it's much too icy. So we end up living inside during the winter and outside in the summer. We don't get green grass here until the end of May and often it's only days between snow and ice and green grass and mud. Days between sleds and bikes. By May it'll be dark around 10pm and light as early as 4:30am. Boy am I looking forward to that!! But this is nice too and I always have some inside projects to be done. I better get going and get some more finished as I've only got 3 months til May and spring work and baby piglets :)