One more butchering picture!!

Pig Butchering day.... a bit graphic!!!

The Boys watching Papa give a science lesson. He showed them the intestines, and other organs and gave a little talk about what each one did and why. They loved it. The sled is how we moved the entrails to the lagoon. Yeah we have a lagoon. Papa pulled everything out there to decompose. We also get a lot of birds when we do this. Our compost pile is under a foot or more of snow and frozen so we feed the critters in the winter. Not a bad sized pig. They were July Pigs so they were about 5 months old. These are the biggest two. We had a bit of fun getting just these two into the milking area to shoot them. We had no pigs, then the smallest pigs, then a small one and a big one, then all six, then two middle ones, then finally just the two big ones. Now that these two are gone we feed an entire 5 gallon bucket less of feed!! We have no idea what they weighed as we had no way of weighing them. But you can tell they are a nice size by comparing their size to Papa's. This was our 1st time using the pully system to hang them and we loved it. It works awesome!! And it's really fast.

A Good Week.

We had a great week. Not everything got crossed off the list nor did we have a spectacular moment of excitement, but it was a good, strong, working week. Papa had Monday and Tuesday off and we got two of the pigs killed Monday morning; hanging ready to cut and wrap just 2 hours after death. Monday night was a girls night so I got to take off for a few hours and go out for supper with friends and then we chatted and played games til late. We try and do these girls nights about every 6 weeks, or whenever we can get away with it. They are great fun and we need them to of set the long working days. Papa took all 4 of the kids for the evening and they had fun as well.
Late Monday night Papa hurt his back, bringing in the meat saw, and so Tuesday he went in for a massage. While he was relaxing the kids and I went to town to go grocery shopping. We had a huge cart full and saw lots of people we knew. On the way back to pick up Papa I pulled over to the side of the road to turn around, Papa was walking down the road, and went too far over and got sucked into the snowbank. I didn't even see it coming. But we were very lucky that nothing was broken and it only took us 30 minutes to get out. Papa put chains on and we were about 1/2 out when a little pickup came by and yanked us out. The kids thought it was fun..Momma did not. Thankfully he did not hurt his back again and it's mostly better now. That afternoon when we finally got home, had lunch, put the kids to bed and unloaded the Travelall, we both took 20 minutes to relax before cutting and wrapping our two pigs. Papa cut them in half lenghtwise and then brought in the front shoulders while I got ready inside. I deboned the shoulders; separating out sausage meat ( we froze it to be ground later as our grinder isn't working) and pork stew meat. That is the longest part of the whole cut and wrap process!! After the shoulders were done Papa cut the next section off and brought it in. He took the saw to the ribs (we cut across) and then he took the bacon off the ribs while I took the fat off the chops and, because our meat saw isn't working, I deboned the chops off the backbone and then Papa cut them into chops. Which I packaged and labeled. Ribs as well. Yumm. Then Papa brought in the back legs (hams) and we cut them into roasts and packaged and labeled them as well. It only takes minutes to write about but it takes hours to do. Somewhere in there Papa grabbed the tenderloin from one pig and seasoned it then BBQ'd it. We had tenderloin, rice and corn for supper and then later the kids went to bed. By 11:15 Papa was out milking, the meat was in the freezer and I was washing up, including the floor. I hate waking up to a big mess.
Wednesday was Bible study and we went. LOL. I told the kids if we had a good Bible study we would head to town to see Papa on his lunch break afterwards. We had a great Bible study so we headed off to town and met Papa just running out the door to bring the bacon to the shop to be cured. So we grabbed the bacon and he drove us out there. When we got there we were in for a shock. They no longer DO farm bacon. The animal has to be butchered by them. SO we tried another place but he never did do bacon and then another place and they didn't do it anymore either. So when I got home that afternoon I looked up bacon curing and we are probably going to do it ourselves. It should be interesting and I'll let you know how it goes.
Thursday was a fun day. Unexpectedly I got a phone call from my aunt offering to babysit my kids (all 4) so that Becca and I could go to the city for the day. Becca and I had made plans to go in either Thursday or Friday to pick up a lens for J's glasses. We were going to take the kids and be gone all day. But then my aunt called and it was heaven sent. LOL. Becca and I headed off in her car and my aunt and the kids had a great time eating Mack and Cheese and watching "Animals are Beautiful People". We flew!! I had forgotten how much you could get done in the city without kids. I got J's lens. He lost one in the snow last week. Good luck finding it!! We looked but there is too much snow and it's GLASS!! LOL. He's wearing his spare pair of glasses until we can get the lens in and the screw locktight. We went out for a leisurely lunch, got some groceries ( I saved $12 on 4 things!!), dropped off her computer, replaced a Christmas gift (it didn't work) and went out for ice cream!! We got back in time to make supper. After supper the kids and I headed to my Mom's to wish her a Happy Birthday. Papa was working late that night and we missed him by minutes at Grandma's house. He got home in time to read to the kids and milk the cow before we all fell into bed exhausted.
Friday I started a week long, or more, project of organizing my house. For the last ten months or so we have been 'making do' way to often and now there is lots of work to be done before my house feels well organized again. I cleaned out my bedroom, part of the kitchen and the entrance all on Friday. With so many of us living here we are running out of room in every room. So I am going through and sorting and chucking and re-packing stuff. Stuff we haven't used in the last year is going OUT!!! We are also making some new shelves for my kitchen and hopefully for books as well. The plan is to buy a bunch of mouse and rat safe totes and put the kid's too small clothes out in the shed. But because of the critters almost all of the clothing we have that any one's ever worn is inside. That is a lot of stuff when you have 4 kids!!! If we were done having kids I would just get rid of all the too small stuff but we are not! So I am keeping it :) And no I'm not pregnant!! :)
Today, Saturday, Papa is working and I'm getting ready for house church. I believe it's my turn to host!! Not that I do much to prepare. Not much anyway that didn't need doing anyway. I cleaned off some surfaces, made butter, vacuumed (with the shop vac but that's another post!) did some laundry, made a big crock pot full of Boston Baked Beans ( or rather the crock pot version), showered all the little Grigglets, put away extra stuff and did some dishes. And it's only 4pm!! :) I still have a little list of stuff to do (fold laundry, finish dyeing my couch cover, finish supper) before Papa gets home but I expect he'll be home a bit late and well and ready to sit down and eat supper together!! Then maybe after supper we'll read or watch one of our new "All Creatures Great and Small" together. Hopefully we'll be in bed before 11pm as tomorrow is another day, and probably a good one!!!

Birthday Bash.

It's hard to believe but our oldest son J turned 5 recently. We don't do big birthdays but they do get cake and ice cream, normally with Grandma and Grandpa F and maybe one or 2 other couples. The birthday person gets to pick what they want for supper on their birthday. J wanted waffles. So I made him waffles with blackberry sauce and whipped cream. Yum. He sure can pick them. J wanted an owl cake and I had several hours of 'how on earth can a make an owl on a cake' worries before I just jumped in and did it. And it turned out rather well considering I had really no plans before starting. He was outside playing when I decorated it and when I was done I called him in to see. His eyes lit right up and he said. "It's beautiful." That was music to my ears!! I was so worried it wouldn't/ didn't look anything like an owl!! But he loved it and could hardly take his eyes off it. He had a great Birthday Bash with his owl cake and Oreo ice cream and balloons and spider man face masks. We let the kids pick their own paper cups, napkins and plates and one special thing for their birthdays (normally at the $$ store). J's was spider man masks. He didn't really have a lot to choose from but he really likes his masks. He pretty much made his own cake. I did the eggs and some fine measuring, but he did the rest. What a little man we have!!

Snow throw!!

The weather has been nice and warm, considering, for the last 2 weeks and the trailer roof was getting very iced up. When that happens Papa gets up on the roof and shovels off the edges of the roof just to give it more room to melt and get some of the snow out of the way. So he and the boys went outside and Papa monkeys his way onto the roof and starts shoveling. E and Baby R and I went to the door to see what all the fuss was about. We stood in the doorway and watched him shovel. Every load he would pick up and throw off E would giggle. It was really funny. Throwing it off the roof morphed into throwing partial loads at J who was beside the Travelall. Then before we knew it Papa was throwing snow at US in the doorway. His 1st, 2ND, and 3 shots I wasn't too worried as he had lousy aim, but the 4Th was getting closer and I told E to move out of the door way so I could shut the door but she was too slow and having too much fun. The 5 shot got us. Me, Baby R, L and E. Poor E was COVERED in snow. She was horrified. Truly. Her mouth opened and nothing came out for a long few seconds and then she SCREAMED (by this time she was well away from the door, she can really move if she wants too) . It was terribly funny. Mostly she got it on her head and shirt. But it must have been a direct hit because L, Baby R and I only got barely dusted. Baby R actually liked it. She giggled. It took E a minute to realize that she wasn't hurt, only surprised and then she calmed down right away and just looked like a mini snowman. He got 2 more hits in the door, surprising all of us while this was all happening. Snow everywhere!! I wiped it off E as best as I could, swept it to the door and L grabbed it in his mittens and threw it outside. Then E and I shut the door and left the troublemakers outside. :)
Later while he was shoveling the back half of the trailer the boys were standing at the end watching and all of a sudden the ground trembled and then 15 feet of roof snow (our trailer has 70 foot roofs on either side for the time being) from the wing roof went BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM off the roof. Wave after wave after wave of snow fell off the roof and crashed on the ground. Both boys were totally wide eyed with wonder!! So much snow fell off the roof (probably had about a foot over the whole thing) that Papa had to shovel a path through for Bindy so she could get to the milking area!! Is it any wonder I made sure they did NOT play on the snow piles under the roof line!!!

A visit with the calves.

We went out to my Aunt and Uncles place one Sunday for home church and to get some more hay. While the guys were loading up the hay I trekked out though the knee deep snow to visit with the boys. Both calves are looking well and have grown considerably. I was amazed to find that Billy's (the black one and half Holstein) back was chest high on me!! Bobby, being red welsh, is still the 11 inches shorter but just as heavily bodied as Billy. My cousin Glen was out with me and telling me that the calves were really friendly. After I left he managed to get Billy to come right too him!! But they both have forgotten me and neither would come close. Billy has no fear of the tractor at all and when it came past him he simply moved his head out of the way but did not move his body at all. The tractor was so close that it would have hit his head had he not moved it. I asked my uncle if he was a pain to work with but he just shrugged and said No. That's good anyway. I'm very glad to see they are behaving themselves, though my uncle did tell me Billy was 'stealing' from another cow until they took the calves out, and that they are quite tame and calm. We are not sure if we are going to bring them home in the spring or finish them out at my Aunt and Uncle's place. If they come home they will have to be teatherable again which is part of the reason I'm so happy to see them so calm.

Eating the house...

The Gingerbread house. J tried to hit it hard enough to get the chimney off but the house was too tough for him. Papa took the chance to show off his stuff (the picture explains it all) but it didn't break. The icing was TOUGH!! LOL. Papa finally did break it by hitting it with the palm of his hand on the side of the roof!! Poor Baby R was in the firing distance and got sprayed with tiny chunks of icing..as did the table, floor and the 3 other kids. He didn't think it would shatter like it did. I think Papa really surprised her because she cried!! But Papa gave her a little candy and she forgave him. :) All and all a good tradition!!

SNOW<><><><><>

In the last 2 weeks or so we have gotten about 18+ inches of snow. One morning it was 8 inches at a time. I had to walk out to a truck yesterday to get something I've been storing in it and the snow was to my knees, and that was on a path that had been used before. When I opened the truck door the door pushed snow as I opened it. This morning I went and fed my chickens with a 5 gallon bucket and the bucket dragged through the snow, PUSHING snow, the whole way. And the amazing thing about that is that Papa already plowed there once this year. The boys went out side yesterday to play in the deep snow and loved it. They both said deep snow was hard work. I believe it. On them the snow is past waist deep and they are light enough to walk on one layer and play on the other. I think if they were to fall through the bottom layers they'd be to their eyeballs. :) They had a great time though and no one sunk. E would be to her eyeballs in the top layer which is why she is staying inside.


I had a flash back this morning watching Papa try and get out of the driveway. :) Flashed back to living on Jackknife Mountain where we often got a foot of snow at a time, over night, and rarely got our driveway plowed out. I remember many mornings where I would stand at the window and watch Papa go back and forwards, back and forwards and gain some ground. Then our little Toyota would rock again until he'd gain some more ground. When he stopped moving I'd pull on some boots and a coat and gloves and go stand on the bumper and push in turns until we got the car all the way out the driveway and on to the plowed main road. We lived on a bus run so the road was always plowed before he went to work. Only twice do I remember it wasn't plowed, but then it was all downhill so Papa (before he was a Papa:) would just ride in someones tracks as best he could all the way down the mountain. I never envied him these trips. That road scared me in summer, winter was horrible!!! The only difference this morning was that our Betsy car was red and this Toyota, Annabell, is white. When he came home at night I could here him rev it up all the way up the last 1/4 mile and then pull the brake and HIT the driveway with as much speed as he could and in this way he could make it too the house without help. After a few days of this he had a nice set of tire tracks to follow and could make it out on his own until the next snow. We lived there 3 winters and we never got less then 6 feet of snow. We did enjoy living there and I often miss the stove in the living room on cold winter nights (and I'm planning on in our house). But I don't miss that road at all.

Yesterday after Papa had put a bunch of 50lb bags of feed in the backseat of the car and did his back and forth thing all the way out of the driveway I went out and took some pictures. The car is so low that he PUSHES snow with it all the way down the driveway (which thankfully is shorter then our driveway on the mountain.) In the snow you can see his wheel tracks, and drag marks where stuff under the car is making it's own marks as he pushes the car through the deep snow. Last night when he came home he had to back and forth it a bit to get in (hard to get up a run where we live now) and every time he backed he'd leave a pile of snow where the bumper stopped. Then he'd have to push through that pile and plow it and the rest of the snow forwards until he wasn't moving or was where he wanted to be. Why?, your probably thinking, doesn't he take the 4x4 Travelall to work?? That wonderfully high heavy 4x4?? That moves through snow like it's not even there??? Because it's an 37 year old rig and last Saturday on our way to the "CITY" we realized that the U-joints in the front are going, going, pretty much gone and Papa is waiting for parts so he can fix it. The parts should be here today and he'll hopefully take it to work tomorrow and then we will be a 2 car family again. He doesn't want to drive it, unless it's to work to get fixed, because the U joints could go gone and then we'd have a mess. :) I guess that's what we get for driving such a old rig... but I'd rather have the odd fix-it every once and a while then a car payment every month.

Reading to Baby R

J turned 5 on Monday (his party is on Saturday) and seems to have taken a bit more responsibility since then. He has always enjoyed helping me with everything but now is doing even more in small ways like this. He was showing her all the animals and their tracks and telling her what they said or did or whatever. They both had a great time. He got this book from Grandma and Grandpa F and loves it. He has all the animal names memorized and can tell you a lot about them as well as recognize their tracks. Baby R is trying hard to walk and just as I was typing this she was walking around an empty laundry tote and it fell over and she bumped (a tiny bump and mostly scared herself) into my trunk. Now she keeps looking at the tote like it's going to get her. LOL. She probably would walk already if we encouraged her, but we are not. We are not discouraging her either just letting her go at her own pace. She is finally in 12 months clothing and they fit her wonderfully.

Being Joshua...

I got these neat hair things awhile ago and this morning we found a new use for them. J took one look at himself in the mirror and proclaimed himself Joshua. As in Joshua who lead the battle on Jericho in the Bible. So I had 3 little 'Joshua's' running around here this morning!!!

Then again....

Really...

What else is new?? :)