Supper tonight: cottage cheese perogies, gravy and bacon, and corn. YUMMM

We had a great supper tonight. I finally was able to make homemade cottage cheese properly this afternoon so I drained it out and added salt and pepper and threw it in the fridge for supper prep. When Papa got home from work we decided to make wareneke. This is a german perogie dish that we eat with cream gravy, sausage (we are out so we did bacon), with or with out jam. Tonight we had corn as well. Very yummy. But it takes a bit of work to make it all from scratch. This is the 1st time I've been able to make a cottage cheese that tastes, feels and looks like cottage cheese. I do make a great simple white cheese, but the taste is different.
The Cottage cheese.
Remember this is a 1st for me so if it doesn't work the 1st time for you.. Try and try again. Here is what I did. I took a whole gallon of milk, cream and all, and set it by the woodstove. It's quite warm there and it separated in about 2 days. We had a fire the whole time. (getting colder here. This morning was -4C) When it separates's, it splits in to 3 different colors. Yellow on top, mine was hard like cheese so I wonder how warm it really got. Whey in the middle, sort of greeny yellow. And white on the bottom. This is called sour milk and if you want it faster put your fresh milk in the old container without washing it. Or so they tell me:) Then you take this whole thing and dump it into a pot big enough to hold 2 times what you put in it. Then you boil roughly the same amount of water as you have sour milk. Pour the boiling water into the sour milk and stir. The whey separates from the cheese and you have cottage cheese. I poured mine thru a strainer with a clean dishcloth in it and squeezed it dry. Then I stirred it up into nice little chunks, use your fingers if you want, then added a bit of salt and pepper. You can take the cream off your milk and then make cottage cheese then re-add the cream to make a moister cottage cheese. I like mine dry (I've never made it before but I've eaten it lots:) so I don't do this.
The Cottage cheese perogies or Glums Wareneki.
Ok take your homemade cottage cheese (mine made 3 cups) and add
3 egg yolks
pinch of salt
dash of pepper
Mix this all together til its sticky.
Then get a larger bowl and mix.
1 cup of milk
3 egg whites
1 tsp of salt.
Then add enough flour to get a workable dough. Roll out your dough to about 1/4 of a inch thick. Now it is the hardest part. Put a large or small, depending on how big you want your perogie, spoon full of the cottage cheese mix about 2 inches away from the edge of the dough. Bring the edge of the dough up and cover the C.C mixture. Use your fingers to seal the edges of the half circle perogie you just made. Sometimes the dough will not stick and then you need to dip your fingers in water and dampen the edges of the perogie. This takes practice so keep at it. Then take a small plate or bowl and using the edge of the plate cut around the perogie. When done all your dough you can re-roll it or just be done. Today it worked perfectly and I rolled it out once and used all my CC mixture. While you are perfecting this art you should have a large pot of water boiling. Slip your perogies into the boiling water a few at a time and let them cook until they are done. They have a built in timer... they float when they are done.
The Gravy.
I rarely eat gravy. This meal is one of the only times I eat it. Normally I totally don't see the point. But with cottage cheese perogies you have to have gravy. Today we made gravy with bacon drippings. We fried up the bacon and then took the bacon out of the pan and then poured off the fat (I keep this in a container in the fridge for bun making) leaving about 1/2 a cup in the pan. We use cast iron frying pans and you have to be careful that you do not burn yourself. Then you take about 3 tablespoons (I rarely measure but that's about right) and while your fat is hot (and you could use anything, butter, sausage drippings, oil) grab a whisk and sprinkle in the flour into the hot fat while you stir madly. This works best if you have more fat then less. It'll go all brown and bubbly and when it is all brown and bubbly and there are no chunks (any chunks you leave will be chunks in your gravy.) left add about 2 cups of cream, or milk if you must. Keep stirring. This stuff thickens pretty fast but will boil over pretty fast as well. Add salt and pepper and keep on stirring until you get it as thick as you like.
The Meal!!
Thank the God that made you for the wonderful thing you are going to eat and for the blessing of food on the table. Then dish yourself up some perogies, pour gravy over them, drip a bit of raspberry or strawberry jam over the top and eat!! If you are like Papa and cannot mix your sweet and savories; skip the jam and eat it with just gravy. Papa just cannot fathom why we would ever wreck the meal by putting jam on top. I can't imagine it without it. I've tried it without it.. and it's just not the same.
Papa figured out that, with the milk we drank at the table, this meal took about 2 gallons of milk with the cream. What a way to live!! Everything in this meal then except the corn (canned and a treat after weeks of other veg's) and the flour, salt, pepper, sugar,pectin, we made, or grew on our 5 acres. The bacon/fat was from last years pigs, the milk/cream/cottage cheese from the cow, the jam from our raspberry patch. God has blessed us more richly then we deserve. What a wonderful God we serve.

The RAT!!

The other day when Papa and I took the calves to some friends house for the winter we moved a bag of chicken feed. That's when it started. Today it ended. Under the mini bag of feed was a pallet. Under the pallet... Yup you guessed it. A pack rat. I shudder just thinking about it. It had a nest under the pallet and when we moved the pallet it went under the house. So Papa says no big deal we'll just starve the cats for a few days. They'll get him. That was Tuesday last week. The 30th of Sept. Skip to Friday. I open the cupboard under the sink in the kitchen. There is a 3 gallon bucket of soap stuff and on the top of the bucket is a rat poop. Just one. Papa didn't even believe me until I made him come look. So he set up the mouse trap. It can't be THAT big... Right?? Sunday morning Papa was in the bathroom early in the morning, the one beside the kitchen. And he comes out and calmly tells me that the rat has found the pipe line between the kitchen and bathroom. He heard the rat in there while he was on the toliet. Now I understand instantly the smell I've been smelling for the last few days. Rat's stink. They reek of pee. REEEEEEKKK. And here I thought I just really needed to clean my bathroom. With 2 little boys in the house this is a constant job. So nothing happens. It's Sunday we go to home church. Check the trap. Nothing. Don't hear anything. Nothing. Monday comes along and the trap is flipped upsidedown. No Rat. BIG RAT. Papa says it's time to get a bigger trap. Yesterday, Tuesday, we pop into town and while we are there we get a rat trap. A BIG one. Haha now we'll get him. Well we work outside all afternoon. Come in worn out, eat some quick soup, get the kids to bed and Papa gets ready for work. Papa hits the sack early as he's got to get up at 4am. After he's in bed I sneak in to ask about the trap. Leave it out I'll do it in the morning. He says. Where is it?? I ask. (I'm one of those people who trap their own fingers and never do get the thing set up right or I'd have done it myself.) In the Travelall. Well then half a nights not much better then no night. It'll keep til tomorrow. OH BOY. In reflection I should have gone and gotten it and MADE him set it up. A dead rat I can live with for a day til he comes home to clean it up. A live rat in my KITCHEN at 8:45am is a great way to wreck a day.. never mind your nerves.

I was on the computer writing a friend a note.. And I heard the kitchen cupboard door open and shut. That's weird as all the kids where still in bed!! I glance over and there is a THING on the floor in the kitchen. It had managed to push the door open and find it's way into my kitchen. MINE. Though I must say it looked pretty surprised. The door had shut after it so it couldn't even leave. It was trapped. Now before we go on I have a confession. I HATE MICE, RATS and anything that scurries. Snakes included. I'm shuddering just thinking about it. And I come by it naturally. Out of 5 siblings and 2 parents only one of us does not HATE these things and that is my Dad. Dad is at work. Papa is at work. My neighbor is gone all week. My other neighbor is on vacation. BUT I have a Brother in Law who lives just down the road. But 1st maybe I can get it back in the cupboard. So I go get the broom so that I can open the door from a ways away. I have 3 children sleeping in one room behind me and my baby sleeping in the room in the front. That leaves the enterance addition, kitchen, living area and bathroom. So I really don't want to chase it anywhere. So I go to open the door with the handle of the broom, the rat panics. I panic. The rat climbs into my dishwasher...loaded with clean dishes. GROSSS. I get the door open and chase the rat out of the dishwasher trying to get it back under the cupboard. 1st mistake. I should have closed the dishwasher door and just turned it on. Drowned rat. Didn't even cross my mind. I was thinking 'clean dishes get it out of the dishes.' and 'Gross rat on my dishes.' It goes out of the dishwasher but knocks the door shut in the process. OK. Open the door agian.. rat runs into the dishwasher. 'Shudder'. Chase the rat back out of the dishwasher while holding the door open. No go. The rat cannot find it's way out of the kitchen. OK. Time to call the calvery. KOREY!!! So I called my brother in law. He's home. He's coming. Turn around... just in time to see the rat run to the bedroom. MY BEDROOM. MY BABY IS IN THAT BEDROOM. Take a deep breath. While I was chaseing the rat around the kitchen it jumped up on the sides of the cupboards trying to get on the counter. So I knew this thing could jump. Baby R sleeps in a playpen with a bassenet. So I gingerly opened the bedroom door and grabbed her. LOL. I didn't see the rat. I suspect it was already hiding in the closet. She was awake and happy and fine. By this time it was about 9:30 and the kids where up. So I left the rat to itself and went and got the kids up and dressed and ready to run if needed. About half way thru my dressing the kids Korey shows up. YAHOO Help has arrived. Korey had Papa's hockey stick. We talk for a minute and Korey goes out to get the trap. Baits it with a bit of apple and puts it in the bedroom. We are both hoping the little bugger is starving and will come out and get himself killed. We wait around a bit and don't see anything. Our house is small so we have serious clutter in the closets. We figure he's in the closet. The closet is FULL of stuff. Korey grabs the playpen and puts it on our bed. There now we can see. Nothing. We push the trap farther in the closet. Nothing. We are both super nervous. Turns out Korey hates mice/rat's as much as I do. We decide to leave him for a bit and see what happens. So we close the doors up and stuff towels under them. We don't want him in the rest of the house. We are both praying for that trap to snap. Nothing. I get the kids too the table and mix up some yogurt and jam for breakfast. Cut up the rest of the apple and feed that to the kids. They are excited. Nothing from the bedroom. We make small talk and give nervy glances towards the door. E bangs her heels on the bench and I jump. Nothing. 20 minutes later we decide he's not hungry. We've got to go in there and GET HIM. We open the door and look at the trap. Nothing. We move some more stuff and take the closet doors off. Still nothing. Korey is sweating and shaking and I'm moving in twiches around trying to work off some serious nerves. Nothing. Korey gets his nerve up and starts to pull stuff out of the closet. Nothing. He shines a big flashlight around. Nothing. He's checked out half the closet. I mention that I really hope we get the rat and not have to wonder where it went. Korey stops. "Oh we'll find it alright. If we weren't both terrified of them we probably wouldn't but we will." Right I forgot about Murphy. He is out there. Korey keeps on moving stuff. He moves Papa's amp and jerks back. Both of us are almost to the kitchen before we even realized we moved. Korey is swearing. He really hates rats. But now we know the rat IS in there. When Korey took the amp out, well half out, the rat was sitting there looking at him over the amp. Now he's behind Papa's store of instraments, banjo, fiddle, mandolin. Three cases. A few books around the cases. Trapped. Now what? Now we have to kill him. Rats are horrible creatures. They smell and make a mess. They fight when cornered. They pee on things. They bite.

We think for a bit. Korey tells me if I ever have another rat; don't call him. He's only half kidding. Korey still has the hockey stick. I get a sharp knife. And the duct tape. Korey tapes the knife to the stick. This will work. The rat is sitting right there between the two smallest cases. Korey is just going to stab him with the knife. We wait. He just can't. I don't blame him at all. This is a bad idea. What if it doesn't die? What if we if injure it? What if it, like Korey said, comes out an runs over his foot. That would be terrible. That would be the worst. Korey askes if we have a pellet gun. We have a BB gun. Korey takes it outside and shoots it. Too wimpy. Won't kill a rat. Korey is thinking hard. The rat tries to get out. We yell at it. STAY PUT RAT. We are both shaking. We are wimps... but we really hate rats. Korey has a great idea. ERIC!! Eric can help. Eric has the day off. Eric is not so scared of rats. Eric is Koreys little brother. And Eric can bring a pellet gun. He calls. He weedles. Eric will come!! And Eric can bring a pellet gun. Wahoo. The rat will die. But Eric doesn't know where we live. He's going to call back and Korey will guide him. He calls back a minute later. There is no ammo for the pellet gun. Korey shakes his head. HE has a pellet gun. Why the heck didn't he think to go get his. He gives me the flashlight we are using to keep the rat in the closet. You guard the rat until I get back he tells me. OK I can do this. The kids are in their bedroom, playing nicely. Korey lives 5 minutes away. It's a long 10 minutes. I guard the rat. It tries to get away. I yell at it and it stays put. Korey drives up. But he leaves his car at the end of the driveway so Eric can see it. He has his pellet gun. He loads and shoots a few times. I think this is a good idea. We don't want to miss. The rat moves. I yell somemore. I hate rats. Korey comes in a we find a shot. He shoots!! We find ourselves almost to the kitchen again. We go back. The rat is not dead. We can hear it and see it move. Korey pokes it with the knife/stick/spear. It moves. Korey shoots agian. Head shot. Eric is here. It moves again. I can see it breathing. Korey shoots it again. These rats are tough. Eric comes in and we all take another look. Eric is not as scared of rats. He moves a book. The rat moves again. I'm holding the flashlight and Korey has the pellet gun. I shine. Korey shoots!!! WAP!! Blood flies. The rat is dead. Korey and I back up. Eric gets some gloves on and he takes the rat outside. It's a good sized rat. Korey and I think it's huge. Eric is not as impressed. He's seen bigger. We take pictures. The Rat is dead. We all take a deep breath. I hope to never have to do that again. I ask Korey. "If I ever have another rat can I call you??" He laughs "Sure if you ever have other rat." All is well that ends well.

Thank you ever so much Korey and Eric for running to my rescue. This would happen on a day Papa is at work. Just my luck. You guys are awesome. I owe you one!!

And now I must go. The bedroom is in shambles and I have a ton of laundry to do. Who knows what that rat touched. Hopefully it was a he rat and not a she rat.... one rat is quite enough.

Fall Projects and Misc Fun.

We had a great weekend. We went to our nearest 'big city' and got J his new glasses and some perscription swimming goggles. Of course we had to go try them out!! So we grabbed kids and headed to our favorite pool. Everybody had a great time. J could finally see in the pool and had a blast. He stared around a lot just looking at things and got a real kick out of the guy that was jumping off the diving boards.J also learned how to hold his breath and stick his head underwater then look around. A huge milestone for him. Little miss E and I had a blast in the kid pool. She would stand on my hands and then I would lift her way up in the air then DROP her suddenly into the water. Catching her just at the last minute. She loved it. (I tried this with J and L but J is scared of heights and would really rather NOT but L managed to get about 1/2 way up, giggling away.) She also loves 'jumping' off the side. Except she can't jump. So she walks off. J, L, and E got to go down the waterslide with Papa which is also a treat. Baby R has this round floaty thing that she sits in and she floated around contently the entire time. L really likes the hottub. And that makes me wonder if he is often too cold in the other part of the pool as he is very much his fathers son when it comes to being cold all the time. I got out of there without having to nurse Baby R in the pool area. That's a first for her. I normally nurse her once sitting in a quiet spot, if I can find one, or by the hottub.


Papa has a few days off again this week. Pretty normal around here for fall. Comes in very handy with all the fall chores and cleanup that always needs doing. We started the 'wall of firewood' yesterday which is great and hopefully we'll get more of it done today. The wall is stacked wood between the poles of our addition all the way down the 70 feet of trailer. One area between poles lasts us about a month. There are about 6 months worth of wood when we are done, as we have to leave some open areas for walking and getting the cow thru. We got 2 pretty much full yesterday. One of nice burning stuff (Dry pine and black spruce) and one of poorer burning stuff, poplar. The poplar is mostly from our clearing project this spring. So its cut into the right size and the side split down the middle with the chain saw to let the moisture out. This works well to season them and we have already burnt some and it actually isn't too bad. Good for warmer days. We have a LOT of this poplar, enough for several more years. All stacked up between trees in the back. So we are just moving it in. The pine and blackspruce are standing dead from the front 2 acres and Papa is cutting them down as we go. We have a little International pickup bed trailer that we pull behind our family rig, a 1972 International Travelall. We take this around and stack the trailer full before driving back to the house to unload. It took Papa and I about an hour yesterday to load, Papa mostly cut while I loaded, and unload (stack) the trailer full.


We had a big wind storm Saturday and now most of the leaves are down on the ground. We have often used leaves as bedding in the chicken barn for the winter. If we can get the lawn mower working we want to do it again this year. Our poor lawn mower has not been used all year. Between the cow, calves and chickens every blade is consumed. Hopefully Papa will have some time to fiddle with it. But then again it's suppose to snow... tomorrow or the next day. Need to get those hoses and toys put up. The snow normally does not stay until after the last day of October. Hopefully it will wait a while to stick so we can be ready. The year E was born, 2 years ago, we got 2 feet on the 27th. And it never did go away. The power went out for 3 days but we were toasty and warm with our wood stove and propane range. It pays to be prepared. Anyway the Baby needs nursing and I'd better get going on my day. Have a great one!!

A word about the Breadmaker.

We love homemade bread. In fact we very rarely buy bread of any kind. Very rarely. I enjoy making bread and buns for my family. But I like to do it FAST. We eat an amazing amount of buns around here. Papa takes bags and bags of them to work and I have to work very hard to keep up with his intake. LOL. He eats them all day long. They make up about 1/2 of his lunch and breakfast for work. Needless to say I bake a lot. A lot of buns anyway. Sometimes I get tired of buns and make bread for a while but it's all the same recipe. I just shape it differently or add more whole wheat flour. The way I do it is very simple. I let my breadmachine do all the work. Well most of the work. I spend very little time on it. I put my breadmaker on dough you see and just put everything in the breadmachine bucket and push a button. Then 2 hours later when the lid of my machine is lifting from the risen bread dough I grab it. Shape it and let it rise in a nice warm spot. Beside the wood stove, in the sunshine or on the working dryer. Then when it's more then double it's size I turn the oven on and bake it. One batch makes 4 small loaves or 24 buns or 2 loaves and 12 buns. My recipe is very simple.
2 cups warm water
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp yeast
2 tsps salt
& about 1/2 cup butter, bacon fat or oil, depending on the day.
Then I let that sit for a few minutes while my yeast works, butter melts. When it's nice and puffy I add flour. Mostly I do 3 cups of white flour and 3 cups of whole wheat flour. Unless I'm making bread (2 white, 4 whole wheat) or hotdog/hamburger buns (4 white, 2 whole wheat). If I make cin. rolls with the dough I add more sugar. But I rarely add eggs, you could if you like, because I find that it moulds faster if I do. Not that there is much left to mould after Papa gets ahold of them. I bake the buns for about 15 minutes at 350F and the bread about 30 minutes. Cin. Rolls just until they brown nicely. About 20 minutes and then ice them while they are still a bit warm. We often make frybread on days that I've got a batch going. Fry bread is easy and my kids love it. Just take a ball of your risen in the breadmaker dough and pull gently at the sides until it is fairly flat. Then fry it in butter on a medium hot pan (if your using cast iron like I am watch it doesn't get too hot as it can very quickly) until it's browned on both sides. We eat these with jam and cheese and some times sausage. My sister in law introduced these to me years ago and for a while it almost became a staple in our diet.

Momma's Maids.

I love my maids. They work hard. They wash dishes, make bread, cook supper and keep our clothes nice and clean! One makes butter, another dry's fruit, yet another keeps the kids entertained while I milk the cow. Some days they all work together and other days none of them work. They all work hard to keep us tidy, well fed and looking nice. There was a time I would have had to pay them but these days it's a one shot deal. They eat very little and I rarely have to supervise them. I find them at yard sales or Walmart, 5 came with the trailer we live in. Live in Maids. Very cool. Some days I try and see if I can get them all working at once. They are quiet and normally well behaved. Every once and a while one quits or breaks down and we have to replace it. They never sleep and work even when I'm asleep. They are the only way I can keep up around the house. I love my maids. Just think there was a time when we did not have washers and dryers. Dishwashers and toasters. Breadmakers and electric butter churns. Stoves and fridges. Freezers and dehyrators. Mircowaves and computers. Furnaces and fans. Hot water tanks and electric fences. I'm very thankful for my wonderful maids. And I bet you are thankful for yours:) If your not you should be!!

Yogurt; How to make it the easy way.

I have a couple of hot/cold packs for a zippered pan traveling kit. Comes in very handy for housechurch potlucks. Anyway. I also have a small cooler. And the other day when I wanted to make yogurt agian I realized that the hot pack in the bottom of the cooler would keep them the perfect temp to make yogurt. And it does. I heat my hot pack in the mircowave for 4 minutes. While this is heating I take 4 quart jars and put about a tablespoon of yogurt starter (I buy yogurt that says 'live cultures' on it and use it as my starter) in the jars. Then fill with fresh milk that has not been cooled. Ididn't even have to stir it this way as the milk pouring in stirs it. Then I put the hot pack in the bottom of the cooler (heat rises), put my 4 quart jars of whole milk on top. I do put plastic wrap on the top of the jars. Then I pack towels in around and above the jars and close the lid. The next morning I take my cold pack which I keep in the freezer and I put it on top of the jars. That will cool the jars off enough that they will set. The nice thing about the cold pack (which I have to admit I did not think of. It was Papa) is that you don't have to move the jars at all which gives you a better consistancy of yogurt. Then I took the jars out that night, should have probably done it in the afternoon as the cold pack was barely cool, and put them in the fridge. YUMMMM. We add homemade jam to taste or strain it overnight to get a thicker greek style yogurt and then add jam or syrup to taste and dip fruit or what have you in it. Very good.

Bringing home the Bull

and other fall prep work.
Papa had two days off this week and we made our 'To do' list and went at it. The potatoes got dug up and are drying on the trampoline, the calves went visiting for the winter at a friends house, pretty much all the winter fencing is done, the feeding area is figured and fenced, both the pigs and chickens got moved to new areas (the chickens are cleaning up after the cow). And we brought home the neighbors bull. He's a beaut!! A smaller red bull that may have been Bobbies papa last year. Looking forward to seeing what the will calf look like. I'm kinda hoping for a heifer as we would love to raise our next milk cow from the ground up. The neighbor had him penned when we got there and it was no big deal to get him into our borrowed horse trailer and drive the 5 minutes to our house. But I'm a bit scared/leery of bulls and of course I was the one who had to keep Bindy close to the unloading spot so that our borrowed bull wouldn't head for the hills thinking he was all alone. Oh joy. We had strung up a two strand electric fence so we just pushed the insulators down and backed in the trailer over it. When the bull came out I was suppose to stay in there until he saw Bindy and she saw him. Which made me very nervous. Then I was suppose to hop out and run turn the fence on. Well for all my fears it happened just the way it was suppose to. Bindy took one look at him and rushed him. Which was fine because he was rushing her. They met in the middle and I was already over the fence, pushing up insulators then bolting for the fencer. Papa ran to move the trailer forward and push the insulators back up. Then we stood there and grinned at each other for a moment. LOL. Then we loaded up the calves that we had locked away in the milking area and headed out again. Well no. We stood there and watched the bull, whom so far we are calling Buddy, and made sure he was going to stay put. He does know electric fence a bit and he was very leery of it and is behaving himself nicely. He is people shy so he and I stay away from each other. Which suits us both just fine.


We have started to milk Bindy 2x a day, starting this weekend. Sunday Papa milked almost 8 gallons. I still can hardly believe it. Hopefully Papa will no longer be in camp so we can each milk once a day. Now with the calves gone I will have no backup milkers. This morning I got about 3 gallons. Which is more or less what we thought she would do. My hands must be getting stronger as I only had to stretch them out 3 times this morning. I enjoy having the extra milk as now I can make soft cheeses and yogurt when ever I want. I made yogurt Sunday night and finally found a great way to make it without a lot of hassle. We had yogurt and Basberry Jam this morning. Yum. Basberry, raspberry/blackberry jam is wonderful and I think the new favorite. Even Baby R had some and loved it. Thanks Grandma Griggs!! It's amazing we go thru about a quart per breakfast. The older kids drink it straight from their new cups: spiderman and princess that they got from M's birthday party. J wanted the princess one but E, being a girl got 1st dibs. We are giving any extra milk to the pigs and they love it. They are growing like crazy on milk and whole wheat. They also get garden/house leftovers and weeds. Lucky piggies. This morning I milked straight into a pig bucket as both fridges are full. This afternoon I'll have to go out and empty some jars and feed them as well.


The only big thing left on the list is firewood and that is more of a haul from here and there to bring to the house as we did a lot of that this sping when we cleared two acres. We do want to cut some more dead stuff, pine and spruce, down from the front 2 acres for a better burning wood but that won't take long and will hopefully get done in the next few weekends. Oh and we have to get hay but that we're going to do on Sundays when we housechurch at Millers. We'll just pull our little trailer with us, get loaded up, and unload it during the week. We only need 6 bales and we are at Millers every couple of weekends so it should work. Besides I have a feeling we'll be there more then just Sundays when B&B return:) 15 days to B&B. :):):)

Fridays.

Fridays are big days in the Griggs household in the summer/Fall time. Papa comes home on Fridays. The event we all count down to all week long. Papa has been in camp most of the summer now so we all know the drill. Mondays are hard. Everyone has to 'try' something. Tuesdays are better but also normally 'town' days so exhasting. Stuff starts getting done by Wedensday and we are back on track and well tuned. Thursday we seem to get tons done and have a great time doing it. Then comes Friday and we are super excited all day. Finishing weekday projects, making a big supper, getting ready to welcome him home. Saturday we spend together working as a family to get things ready for the next week. Firewood, Bindy's ration/hay, and this summer 5 weddings and a funeral. It's really no wonder we've gotten very little done on the house this summer. Sundays are a day off. We housechurch with 3 other families and potluck afterwards. Then we come home and nap; all 6 of us. Papa to get ready for a new week of working at 4am. We often have a family movie night/snack night Sunday as we are still full from potluck. Or we may go visiting. Then Monday comes and the count down starts again... Til Friday comes around again and the Griggs Family is whole once more. Soon it will be winter and then Papa will change jobs within his job and we will be together again.. even if it's only for a little while.

Sweet Words

Our daughter E is sick and we are had an early nap. The 3 oldest kids had a quick lunch and after I washed her I picked her up and held her for a minute. She looks at me very seriously and says "I". I'm blank. What? "I" she says again smiling. Then it hits me. Every day before bed I tell E to say "I" say "love" say "you". Waiting in between words so she can mimic me. I tell E "I" She looks at me and smiles. "Say I" she says again. "I" I say. "uve" says my almost 2 year old. "Love" says a very blessed Momma. "You" she finishes. "You" I say. Then she giggles and snuggles for a minute. Then it's off to bed. What a blessing children are.

Ice Cream

The kids and I made homemade ice cream tonight. A sweet dessert to use up the extra cream and give us all a treat. They all love it with chocolate and strawberry syrup. YUM. I always seem to get it a bit on the soft side so they finish it by drinking out of their bowls. E uses a straw and sucks the bowl dry. Now they are 'dancing' by turning in circles for as long as they can before they fall over. J is awesome at this and can do it for hours. Or at least I think he could if I let him. I do not. I get dizzy just watching him. He does not even walk funny after. E on the other hand goes around a few times and goes slower and slower until she's stopped. Then she either falls over giggling, stands still waiting for the world to right it's self, or walks sideways and staggers and giggles until she falls over. They have a blast. L does it a few times then gets bored and goes to find his trucks. Baby R of course loves to watch them from her spot on the floor. She sits there and laughs at them. I love it that my children can play together and enjoy eachothers company with out argueing or complaining. I wonder often if people who refuse to parent their children have moments like these or if their children are always as we see them. Hard to please. Always wanting more and more and more. Always taking but rarely giving. How sad for them if they do not. We are truly blessed to such wonderful children.