Papa was home for 3 days and just about ran me into the ground. Man that guy can work. So today I'm taking mostly off. Doing a bit of laundry, dishes and 'have to's' but no projects or anything too ambitious. Good time to sit for a bit and update you all.
J is growing again. Yup he's stretched up again and went from size 13 winter boots to size 3 boys summer shoes!! Eek. Papa and I have given him the laying hens as his daily chore for the summer. Which includes feeding, watering, and collecting eggs every day. There are only 13 hens so we think he can handle it. When they get out of the barn I'll still move the electric netting pens around every few days but he'll do the rest. Papa took him out yesterday and showed him which feed and how much oyster shell to give them as well as how and where to get the water and where to put all this stuff. L is going to help but it will be J's chore. J also recently lost his 3rd tooth! All three on the bottom and has a adult tooth coming in to the empty hole already. He says his top 2 middles are also loose and another one on the bottom side!! He never did do anything half way when it came to teeth. As a 10 month old he got 3 in 4 days and again as a 2 year old with his two year molars. He has always been a great teether though and still is!!
L is growing again as well as is very obvious by his slow thinking and comprehension when we try and get him to do something. He only has 1 speed for anything while his body is busy growing and it is often confused with breathing... yes he's that slow!! (and yes he gets that from me.. I'm Mrs. Swiss Cheese brain during this~Papa says ALL but I don't think so..but not that I remember~ pregnancies.) It's amazing to me how much he puts into his growing. His mind is still constantly working and he comes up with the neatest stuff. Last night he told me the 'creature' in his throat wanted him to cough.. and no mom I'm NOT sick. He also has very thoughtful answers to our 'what are you thankful for' question at our nightly family devo's. His nightly prayers show a lot of thinking as well in the way he thanks God for everything from birthdays to babies to toys and sunshine. Yesterday he informed me that with B&B coming over soon we better put the 'squishes' away (these are those toy lizards and things they have with the beads in them) as Mr. B is very naughty with them!! These toys stretch and snap if used wrongly and REALLY HURT!! LOL. They never stay out for long and this last time within 3 days only 1 of the 4 children were allowed to play with them as the other 3 had used them BADLY and gotten the privilege taken away! Mr. B and the boys have 'wars' with them and I normally hide them before he comes over :) Sorry B!! LOL.
E has hair. I know amazing.. but really last night I braided her hair for the 1st time. Her hair is getting long enough that I'll be able to pull it back and DO things with it now. It is still very thin (Moulder side!! Thanks a bunch!) but at least it is growing. She is now growing out of most of her clothes.. pants and dresses anyway and I'm going to have to bite the bullet and sew some of the larger pants in a bit so she can wear more of what she has. She still loves to wear dresses but has a new need to be outside with the boys. They have a great time. Walking thru puddles in their rubber boots and looking so cute in their little red jackets. We are working on word pronounce-ing with her lately as she is lazy with a lot of her words. That is one area that L has recently bested her at and it's all of a sudden much more noticeable in her. We aren't pushing it yet as we hope she'll out grow it like he did.
R since turning 2 has not become a terror of a two year old but has decided that if she's a 'big girl' we'd better treat her like one!! So there! She gets quite mad if I give everyone else a chore and forget her!! For those of you who know us a bit we toilet train right after they turn 2 and R was more ready then I was. We had 9 'opps' in the 1st week and only 3 this week so far (that's one a day). Today for the 1st time she told me all by herself that she had to pee.. before she peed and then went pee on the toilet!! Way to go R!! She still wears Travel underwear (pull ups) for bed and naps but we'll get to that :) She still prefers to be inside with me and today while I update you she's been reading books, making soup (pretend), talking up a storm and playing with her toys while the other 3 are outside playing with the dog and the trampoline and running off energy!
Baby Jesse is still growing inside me and I'm now in the 3rd trimester. He weighs about 2 lbs now and can hear us and open and close his eyes. He is starting to sleep more which is nice as the constant tap tap tap gets old after a while. J, L and E have all felt him move with their hands on my belly which they think is great. Papa has too.. which surprised us both as he normally doesn't until later. E has finally 'gotten' that he's a BOY and his name is Jesse. R could really care less about my growing tummy but loved to see 2 week old Baby Chloe on Sunday and was very concerned when she cried! Coming in to check on her every time she made a peep. So far the kids are 15 months (J and L), 17 months (L and E) and 19 months (E and R) apart so it will be a bit different for us this time with them 28 months apart. We are looking forward to meeting him face to face. Yesterday Papa brought in the newborn boy clothes which I need to wash and they are so cute and so tiny!! It will be wonderful to have a baby in the house again!! Oh I'm feeling pretty good too. I'm getting more active now that it's nice outside and doubt I'll even gain any weight this month.. very normal for me as I'm overweight to begin with. I've gained a total of 7lbs so far which is also fairly normal for me. With each of the girls I only gained 15lbs and lost it all before I left the hospital. I'm hoping to be able to do that again with Jesse. I'm still milking the cow and I'm finding it a bit more comfy now as my belly sits nicely between my legs as I milk.. before it felt like I was going to fall over all the time and now I seem to have found my balance! Not that I want to milk much longer as my hips and shoulders like it less and less.
Papa has only 2 more days of work this week before going to school next Monday. School will last 12 weeks and we have been preparing for this for the last couple months. Our April budget is already done. Praise God! Which is a load off our shoulders. He will be receiving UI but not for the 1st 2 weeks so it's nice to know the months $$ is there for use already!! He has 13 Saturdays off in a row and we are looking forward to every one of them :) This 1st Saturday we are heading to a town about 2.5 hours from us for a conference! Papa apprenticed with Joel Satatin before we were married and he is speaking at this conference this weekend and we are going to hear him speak. The kids are spending the time with Grandpa and Grandma F and are really looking forward to it. I'm really looking forward to it too as I get 'itchy feet' this time of year and I'm sure an 18 hour day will cure it :) I'm also looking forward to meeting Joel as I heard a LOT about him from Papa but I've never met him.
The 1st day of spring was last Saturday and it's actually starting to feel springish! The snow is melting rapidly and we've had a few rain showers which really takes snow away in a hurry. Under the snow is some green grass which is waiting for the ground to thaw so it can start to grow again. The grass is a very soggy place to walk and has puddles all over it. The kids have a great time running around in their rubber boots splashing and generally being kids and having fun. The pussy willows are starting but the poplar trees are still not bringing their sap up yet which is great as we are thinning more of them out and it's nice to have lighter dryer wood to haul as the sap makes them heavy and wet.
Papa has been working after work, and these last few days, cutting down trees and piling and burning the branches while stacking the firewood into piles. I help as much as I can but my energy levels are no wear near his. The boys have been helping too and get a real kick out of throwing branches into the fires. They also help with the little pieces of firewood and are great help moving these around. No particular area is finished per say but trees are down all over and I'd like to say we are over half done thinning the acre behind the house. The orchard area is still covered in snow and while there is only a bit to do there the trees that are down are still frozen in.. so it has to wait. Most of the work we've been doing you can't even see from the house which is disappointing.
Now that we have Chip we decided to fence our 5 acres totally in. Which sounds like a lot of work but isn't really as all but the front and a 1/4 of one side are already fenced. Actually as of last night only the front needs to be fenced. We finished the right side (looking from the road) last night just before it got dark. There was a OLD barbwire fence there that was more on the ground then up which we took out and put up hog wire fencing in instead. When we moved here there was a hog wire fence right behind the house blocking off the house area from the bush which we took down years ago as it was in the way. So we used that wire to fence this side piece. Amazingly we found enough hog wire around the place to fence that whole side and about 20 feet of the front!! Nice!! There are very few posts down this line but the trees are quite thick so we tightened the fence and then tied it to the trees with poly rope. The corner at the front was the only place we had to put in a post (2 actually) and the digging was easy. The holes filled with water really fast as this area is flooding at the moment. Yes I had to wear my rubber boots and later asked Papa if he would buy me new feet. I DISLIKE my rubber boots (They HURT my feet no matter what I do!) and would MUCH rather have cold wet feet then wear them.. but when your walking through about a foot of water.. you wear them. If for no other reason then to set a good example to the little people.
First thing Monday morning I headed to town to get my gestational diabetes test done. They test for this every time and so far I've not had it. With J I was close but I've been told that's very common with a 1st pregnancy. Anyway they test for it as a matter of course up here. This year the doc asked me to fast for the night and do it 1st thing in the morning. No big deal. So I hopped in the car and ran into town. This test is a 2 step thing as you have to drink a nasty sweet drink and then wait for an hour and then get your blood tested. So I drink the nasty stuff and the tec hands me a timer? What? This is new. Turns out they no longer let you leave the hospital for the hour between drinking and testing. SO I spent an hour walking (climbing) the walls of our very small and as it turns out boring hospital. I sure did wish I'd thought to bring my crocheting.I could have gotten tons done!! But it wasn't all bad I got to see and chat with one of my aunts who was waiting for her daughter in x rays and then later for the ER. She's fine.. totalled her car but she has a hard head!! Looked like she'd been in a fist fight with her eye all swollen almost shut and a cut over one eye. Thankfully she was going rather slow when it happened or it could have been much worse. After the timer finally went off and they took several tubes of blood from my arm I jumped in the car and raced to the J&S to feed myself my 1st meal in over 12 hours and finally get a drink of water!! By this time it was 10:30 and I didn't get home til 11!!
Papa wanted to bring the bull home Monday morning so when I finally did get home I headed out to milk Maggie while he took the fence down and grabbed a bucket of sweet mix to lure the bull home. Bindy was locked up by the milking area with her own sweet mix and neither of them moved a muscle when Brutus the bull finally left our small 5 acres. (It's truly amazing how much smaller 1 bull can make an already small area!!) Brutus lives behind our lease and his owner Jim had plowed a road from his place into the lease so Papa could bring him home easier. As Brutus is an absolute PIG for sweet mix this worked great. And Papa said he was off our piece in less then 5 minutes!! The whole move took almost 2 hours as Papa had a ways to go before he could find a gate and get the bull in with Jim's cows. Then on his way back he paced off some of the lease and revamped our map when he got home. Brutus the Bull behaved rather well the whole time he was here only giving Papa a head shake and jump at once but I guess he got a bit worked up on the way home and Papa said he was snorting and cavorting for a while. Thankfully he has enough respect for humans and loves his bucket too much to do any damage. One thing we didn't expect is for him to wreck the barn. It turns out a 2000lb bull can push over a large square bale if he really wants too. Thankfully of the 2 he pushed over only one was actually helping to hold the trusses up and they tipped a little but are still up. Papa is sure he can fix it in minutes the next time he brings the bobcat home. Oh the surprises animals love to bestow on us. :)
Papa did chores for Jim recently while they were gone on a trip and on their return Jim stopped in and brought us a block of cheese. Not just any cheese mind you!! Tillamook cheese from the states!! YUMMO!! Cheese were we are is 3rd rate at best and any 'real' cheese we get is a real treat! Jim remembers this almost every year on their trip and brings us a block. What a sweetheart!! He also was quite concerned about Bindy as it was his bummer bull last year and he is really determined she WILL calve this year. He walked out to her and checked her out. He thinks she could be bagging up and says we should be able to tell in the next month or so if she is. I've been watching her and I think he's right. But what do I know. I was convinced last year that she was going to calve!! I'm leaving all 'breeding issues' to others this year and hopefully many more to come :) On that same note.. it looks like Maggie will calve in Oct which will give us a nice stretch between Bindy and Maggie for freshening purposes and it's still early winter and not too cold for calving.
Well since I've been typing this up the kids have come inside for lunch and then they are all headed to bed. I think I'm going to have some lunch myself and then I might go play in the puddles outside, in my shoes :), and see if I can't get some of them to drain off. Oh and I'm expecting a movie in the mail so I'll check that too.
~The sun is shining, the snow is melting, the water is running and we are all healthy and blessed!~
Until next time; May God Bless you and keep you in the safety of His hand!!!
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 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. 
Mr. B, Chip, R, E Mrs. B, L and J (with their fire) and Papa. 
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.
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. 
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.
The Cake!
The happy Birthday girl. She got to pick her dress. It's actually E's dress but she REALLY wanted to wear it and it fit long but nice on top.
Blowing out the candles. She blew out the 1st one but the 2nd one was taking FOREVER and Papa blew with her and made sure to blow it out. 
Pretty in Pink. She's getting ready to open gifts.
The 1st gift was a real HIT. See how she tucks her legs under her dress. She sat like that for most of the gift opening. What a little princess. 
After the cake! She had 2 cupcakes and a scoop of home made ice cream and loved every bite on her princess plate! Oh and 'pink' pop in her princess cup!! 
One of my winter projects was to use up some the dried beans I have stored in buckets. These are just small red beans great for chili or re fried beans or things of that sort. Canning them makes them a LOT easier to use up as I can never remember to soak them the night before. All in all canning beans is very simple and quick. I used the salt only recipe in the Ball canning book for these. I want to do more yet but as spring appears to be on it's way it likely won't happen unless we get another cold spell. Even then I've several other unfinished projects that need doing as well.
