Yard and Bits of Random News :)

We got our yard back today! It's had a huge hole and a trench and then a smaller hole and piles of clay on it since May. The bobcat broke down at a very bad time and Papa got it fixed last night! 

Papa got the bobcat going last night and started filling in the hole! The cats thought it was great fun! 

Curious here was chasing the dirt as Papa pushed it. When I took this picture I wasn't sure that his tail wasn't stuck. It wasn't. 

Oreo watched with me :) He's a bit smarter then his cousin. 

Papa brought a bunch of compost over and spread it around as good as he could with the bobcat. Then he seeded it, raked it and got all the kids to help pick up sticks and weeds out of it. After that it was packing time. 

He got the kids all lined up and got them all stomping and around and around they went! They had a blast! Papa joined in for the last lap and marched them around as good as any general. 

Then we watered it for a couple of hours.  It's late in our season but the grass is still growing on the farm. Hopefully we'll get a start this fall and it will control the mess in the spring. Clay is a pain any time of year but spring is the worst. The driveway is getting a couple of loads of gravel yet which will help a lot in the spring. 

Oh yeah and the bobcat is looking like this 

Again.

Papa got several smaller jobs done with it today and then he said something just wouldn't go. Turns out it needs another $250 part. At least it's happening now and not in the middle of trusses! That's the sliver lining. We must find a silver lining since we've put over two grand into this machine this summer so far and I don't even know how many hours of work! Hopefully it will last a long long time after all these repairs. 

Here are some pictures of the kids enjoying the yard today. 

S loved it! 

These two love the swings. J3 asked me today he if he could go 'wing? Complete with arm movements. They have both learned to 'pump' this summer and other than G needing help getting on they can 'do it ourselves.' One day it was close to two hours they were on the 'wings! 

And one of J showing me just how strong he is! 

That's three 6x6's and his 80lb brother on that wagon!! He pulled it no problem! We took the 6x6's off the yard area..I think we've decided if after two years we still haven't prepped them for sand we really don't want or need them. Sand we will still get, but a nice border to keep it in? Naw! We just aren't that particular ;) and it's so not a priority. Don't worry they won't go to waste! I've got some plans for a set of stairs for the trampoline and we'll need some for the doorways in the house. :) 

Critter Friendship.

Daisy and Chip snoozing on the driveway. 

Fluff Had Kittens!

Above the ceiling in the straw bale house!!  There are at least 3. Two orange and white and one black and white. 

General Update. Nov. 2013

I went on the computer to the blog tonight to make sure I don't forget how to blog. It's been a bit crazy around here you see and I'm still trying to get my feet back under me and remember that there are other things to do besides school, butchering, and housework and parenting.. well when the kids are asleep anyway. SO here you go... general update of our life.. crazy as it is :)

We've had two birthdays, which reminds me I need to change my about me again. E turned 7, and I already blogged about that here. And G turned two and we had her party last week. I'll hopefully post that soon. Other than that fun we've pretty much been busy putting up the animal harvest of the year.

Meatball the 3 year old steer we brought home, hung for two weeks and cut and wrapped and frozen. One simple sentence but a heck of a lot of meat and work since we did the entire thing ourselves. We sure are enjoying having beef again though :) OH and we bought a new meat grinder.. it's amazing!! Gobbles up the meat quick as a wink! Super quiet too.. Papa and I can chat while we work with this grinder.

6 pigs have hit the freezers, some for us, some for others. We have 4 more to do. There is a tote of sausage on the back porch waiting for Papa to smoke from our last butchering marathon. About 130 lbs of it. Pork pepperoni, summer and Mennonite sausage. Tastes great, we tried it all :) At one point we had a production line going. Papa cutting pork chops with the electric meat saw, J bringing them to the butcher table, L, E and R using canning rings to scrape the bone chips off and passing them to me to have the fat trimmed and do the final bagging. 10 chops to a bag. 12.5 bags. 3 pigs worth of chops. I don't see the point in packaging it in small packages.. I'm rarely going to get out just one bag. Normally I do two. Then we have leftovers :) I know.. we like to eat. We like to eat MEAT!!! lol. Papa's got bacon making in the back room and more frozen waiting to be sliced. Slicer is likely next on our to buy list as the place in town were we've always gotten it done can no longer slice it for us. Slicing bacon by hand is HARD WORK!! I don't mind work but 20 sides of bacon is a bit much to hand slice.

As we are butchering there is a lot of hides and innards and things in the lagoon.. which means we are seeing Eagles again. The kids have been taking pictures of them. So far there are only two but we are hoping we get the 8 or so we had last year later on in the season.

Term one of home schooling requirements 'to do' list was saved by a patch of cold weather.. kids couldn't spend much time outside so we actually almost finished the work for Term 1 before the deadline.. I don't feel to bad that we didn't. We only missed one assignment which is awesome work as we got 12 weeks of science and Social Studies work a mere month before the end of term. Some crazy changes to the curriculum in the school we go through. This term we are, hopefully, done with the changes and it will go smoother.

 R is reading and doing so wonderfully. She loves it and has been pecking away at her term 2 work for awhile now as she flew through her reading program. I'm really enjoying J's set up this year and he is too.. his system is a bit different now with his grade 4 teacher and we both like it.

S is doing really well. He's got cheeks :) Loves his jolly jumper. Tried banana's and HATED them. Sleeps long stretches at night, often is only up once around 5 or 6 am. And is in general a very happy smiley giggly little boy. He loves to laugh. If you laugh near him he bursts into giggles. Today I put him on his belly on the floor and he scooted.. later on I did it again and noticed he is bringing his knees up in order to move forward. Crawling is not far off. He has great hand eye coordination and rarely misses when he grabs things or shoves things in his mouth. I was going to wait until 6 months for solids but Papa's work has a Christmas Party that I want to attend so I will try him on cream of wheat soon. Just so I can go to the Party and Grandma will have something to feed him if she needs too. With the other boys I normally started solids at 4 months but S just isn't as hungry as L and J were. He's no where close to the constantly hungry J3 was at this age.. mind you he's only about 14 lbs and J3 was something like 20lbs at this age. S really is a Griggs :) J3 takes a bit more after my side of the family. I tried banana's just to see if he was really interested at all and he really was not. I'll likely wait another week now and try again. If nothing else I'll send it along and Grandma will have it if she needs it. The party will likely only last about 3 hours and we'll be near Grandma's house so I can go nurse him if I need too. And no I won't be leaving him a bottle.. I've not bottle fed the 1st six and I don't plan on starting with the 7th ;)

I realize I'm skipping around from family to farm but this next thing is both :) We got a couple more piglets to raise up on bottles. My uncle's pig had too many again and he brought two little female, gilts, piglets over Monday afternoon. We named them Sausage and Chops. The smaller one is Chops.. she's got attitude! They weighed in at 1.5 lbs and 3 lbs Monday when we got them. We are going to weigh them each week for a while and see how they grow. They are super cute. Sausage does seem to have a problem with her legs but it seems to be getting better as she gains strength. They were a week old when we got them, but very small. I put a glass square pan of milk in their tote tonight and I can hear them drinking it!! The pan is heavy enough they cannot get their little pig noses under it and tip it out!

Umm.. house.. nothing to report.. still there, nothings happening on it.. too BUSY BUSY BUSY putting in the meat harvest :)

Kittens.. seems like Daisy's kittens didn't make it. Never did see them but she's not skinny like she was last time, actually she's in superb shape, which makes me think they didn't survive. She must have abandoned them. Which is sad but there is nothing we can do about it so I'm not letting it get to me. Fluffs kittens are older and fine.. each one has been door trained. Some took longer than others. The little brown female got past J a couple of times but we did eventually teach her not to rush inside the minute a door opens. I won't have them in the house.. there are enough of us in here as it is :) 7 kids, 2 adults and 2 little pigs. Not bad for a two bedroom trailer with a addition!! Anyway now with her 3 kittens we have Daisy, Midnight, Fluff and the kittens are Caramel, Mischief and the so far unnamed orange male. Our last orange male has disappeared and we've not seen him in months. A good reason to keep a breeding female around.. cats don't seem to last long up in the north woods with the coyotes and wolves and eagles.

Papa is back to evening shifts. Noon to midnight, Wednesday thru Saturday. Which means I get less sleep then I would if he was on a normal shift but that's ok :) I like to see him at the end of the day and S often isn't in bed for the night until 11 anyway. I am taking my vitamins :) Dr. Nicole :)

Anyway. As always we are busy busy busy with family, farm, work and harvest. Some things get put off for later while we deal with more seasonal things.. for example I normally potty train right after their second birthday.. which G had almost 2 weeks ago now.. and no I'm not potty training her... I'm not going to either until later when butchering is done. It's not fair for any of us to do it now so we won't. It won't hurt her or me none to wait.

So things to look forward to on the farm is the end of pig butchering which should be not this weekend but next weekend. Isabel's calf which is due around the 23rd of December.. She's been AI'd to a Brown Swiss so we are hoping for a heifer. She sure is cranky these days and chasing Milton and Patch around a lot. Patch is still a scrawny little runt of a steer and both Papa and I have wondered if we did ourselves any favors when we got him from the dairy. We actually had him tied under a roof the 1st time it snowed as he was not looking good at all. He recovered well and is in with the cows now. He does have a nose for trouble and got out several times before we realized he could open our man gate by the milking area. Now the gate is bungied shut and he tries and tries but can't wiggle through anymore.

Oh right, the woodshed.. Pretty much done.. we got 6 inches of snow when Papa had two more piece of tin, one on each side, and the ridge cap to put on so neither of those are done but the snows pretty much off the roof now so he might get to that soon. We are loving the extra space and the wood dry and right by the house!!!

Our phone had a problem with our electric fence one morning when we had a dump of fresh snow so it's no longer working and we are phone less. We are looking into a cell phone to replace the home phone and hope to get that all figured out this weekend, but in the mean time are communicating mainly through Imessage and FB.


I have to say though that I LOVE MY LIFE. I'm not complaining as I write this. I'm explaining. I'm not whining. I'm winning my battles that are near to my heart. I'm taking a stand for what I believe to be right and doing it. If I wanted to whine I could tell you that I've been out of my yard 3 times, besides church, in the last 6 weeks and I miss the contact, however small, with the outside world. Another good reason to take my vitamins :) But I don't want to whine. That is not why I blog.

 I blog for my kids. Like a scrapbook. Which reminds me G has been saying some pretty funny stuff lately! I want to remember how Papa and I make pancakes the morning of the first snow, we kick the kids outside and make them pancakes while they play in the snow and then when breakfast is ready they come in and we eat hot pancakes and drink hot chocolate and talk about the wonderful world God made for us. (And yes I know that's a long long crazy sentence but that's me :) Say it really fast and a bit breathless :) )  I also blog for you.. the reader who actually made it to the end of this book. The Aunt Linda's. The family far away and nearby. The Momys Ladies.The random person who found our crazy life by accident and enjoys reading these rambling posts. The old friend. The large family curious person who wonders how we make it work. The odd person we have that random chance encounter with at the store. So thanks for reading and HEY I know your out there so leave me a comment or two and prove it :)  


Well I feel like I've written a book after my recent silence. I hope you enjoyed it. I will try very hard to sit down at the computer more often and keep you lovely people updated.. and post pictures.

Good Night and GOD BLESS!!!!

Meal to Go...Cat Style!!

Fluff and her 3 kittens.

Daisy's Kittens.

Cute aren't they?? There are 3 females, the little gray one in the back right is the male. 

They are living in this trough in the house for now where we can feed them and keep them safe from the dogs. Daisy is very skinny and we don't think she has enough milk for them as she keeps bring them to us. She is leaving them in the trough which is great. 

Surprises On The Front Porch :)

One day last week E came screaming into our room in a most excited manner and woke me up from my nap :) 

Daisy, our not so bright cat, had just lay down on the front porch and given birth to a kitten right before their very eyes. 

They had been on the porch setting up this surprise for me when it happened.

What great kids I have!! 

And Daisy?? Well she went on to have 3 more kittens in the old outdated carseat we kept on the dogs crate for the cats to sleep in. One was this little orange kitten who stole all our hearts. That night Papa moved the carseat, kittens and all, into the new house, we couldn't leave them where Tucker could get at them, and found out the next morning that Daisy had some sense after all and moved them out of harms way. Turns out Tuckers figured out how to get into the house. We were a bit worried as we couldn't find them and Daisy seemed to be around a bit too much to have just had kittens, but Saturday morning after chores Papa came bursting into the house to tell us that he saw Daisy go above the ceiling, on the insulation, of the house and he's pretty sure that's where she's hiding her kittens!! YAY!!! 

Ham & Bacon & The 4 boys.

Home sweet home :)

The ladder holds up the heat lamp and makes a good place to store piggy bottles :)  

Getting bigger! They are both doing very well. Ham is still a lot bigger then Bacon but they are both growing. They love to dig around in the shavings and make nests to sleep in. I've mostly got them off the heat lamp for the daytime now. They will be a week old tonight. We are still bottle feeding them every hour or two during the day and they see us walk by and they get all excited :) Neither of them like to be held which is just fine with me. Papa and I want to put them in the chick barn when the chicks go out on grass and they'll be able to clean up the feed mess in there and stay warm and in one place :) Being so little without a mom to keep them in they could be a real problem to fence in so the barn is a good safe place for them until they get a bit bigger. But that's at least 2 weeks away and I have a feeling they will be in this tote until then! 

Our entrance is a busy place these days.. 

These 4 little male cats are Fluffs litter and will be 5 weeks old on Saturday! One fell off the wall where she had them Wednesday night and Papa got the rest off when he got home. They are very tame considering they've not really seen humans before and only hiss a little if you startle them. The kids pick them up and cuddle them and play with them and they are wonderful with them. Papa told me this morning he had at least one of them purring so that's a good start! 

SURPRISE!!!

Papa went out to do morning chores this morning and heard mewing.. 

Apparently Fluff decided to add to the homesteads population over night.

He had to climb up the ladder onto the trailer roof to get a picture! She had them above the wall on the back porch where the cats have been sleeping all winter! There are at least 3 kittens :) 

This, by the way, is a MUCH BETTER surprise then the 13 inches of snow we got last night!! 

General Farm Update.. January 2013

It's been a while since I did a update so here you go.

Maggie is home now and her and Isabel seem quite happy together again. We have not yet had her preg checked but the fact that she's not gone into heat since she's been home and the waddle in her walk makes us think we should have a calf arriving in the next several months. Isabel has also not gone into heat since we had her AI'd and we are hoping she too is bred!! IF Maggie was bred the month she went to the Bull's place we should have a calf in March. If Isabel is bred she should calve in August. Isabel is still giving about 5 or 6 gallons a day. Lucky pigs and chickens.. I just wish I had the energy to make cheese!!! Maybe soon :)

Chip is getting less exercise now that Tucker seems to leave him alone more and is no longer loosing weight.. Papa thinks he is about 120lbs. One bonus from bringing the ski doo home to give the kids rides is that Chip follows it around, Papa is ON IT!!, and gets some exercise. He has made himself a new bed under the floor of the new house and seems to revert to puppy hood with numerous naps and unawareness. He's only 3 so I'm not sure why or even if he's changed or if Tucker is just so much more active that I've actually noticed how inactive Chipper really is.

Waiting for Papa's return one snowy day! 

Tucker has a annoying habit of chewing on bike helmets, gloves, baseball gloves, odd shoes and whatever he can get his mouth on. Other then that he seems to be fitting right in. He's about 5 months old now and quite large. I barely have to bend to pet him. He has learned to stay off the porches and to sit if he wants attention but he still has a ways to go. He tried to follow us out the driveway the other day and Papa had to chase him back a couple of times. He is very bright though and that works in his favor.

Laying hens are laying eggs again!! YAY!! Some days we get a dozen other days only 1 or 2. I'm sure I have an egg eater in there somewhere but finding them is the thing. We've lost a few older hens, as we do every year, which is life. We haven't got a hen under almost 3 so it's no wonder we loose one here and there. Most of them are between 3 and 5.

Pigs.. Well we finally butchered the last two butcher hogs 10 days ago (and had bacon for breakfast YUM!!) and got the sausage done 2 days ago and Papa smoked a side of bacon yesterday to see how it was. It was YUMMY!! Anyway that means we have 8 growers (5 months old) to butcher next year left, two proven sows and one gilt. Papa picked the friendliest gilt and kept her to breed. She is not purebred and is multicolored so it will be neat to see what her babies look like. The pigs just got a new large straw bale in their pen and Papa forked a bunch of it into their barn so they are happy pigs these days with the warm weather and something to play with.

Papa slicing bacon for breakfast! Check out that pan behind him!! 

As for the rest of the place it is surviving winter well. Papa has mornings to clear snow with the bobcat and he's made great big piles of snow every where for the kids. The kids have tunnels and caves and trails and all sorts of fun stuff out there in the snow. The snow on the entrance side of the roof has not come off in almost 2 months.. it's been too cold for it to move. The other side gets more sun and has come off once in the last month. Right now there is A LOT of snow up there and we are awaiting the BOOMING THUNDER OF FALLING SNOW!!! Papa has taken the bobcat and cleaned out the snow on the ground on the entrance side so it won't pile up and make a mess this spring. We thought the snow would fall today as it is 4C/40F here today, I even kept the kids inside because I was that sure, and so far nothing, but it is overcast and normally the snow goes on sunny days. It's already cooling off here so I think if it is still warm tomorrow it might fall then. If not it will wait until our next beautiful sunny day.

The snow by the front door... this actually fell this morning but only the part hanging down. 

Some of this fell but not all of it. Every warm meltly day on the farm we have red patches... butchering spots that show up as the snow melts.. looks terrible but you get used to it. Isabel was waiting to be milked and she was watching me with interest as I took the pictures. 

 As for a house building update.. there isn't really one. Between butchering, holidays, sickness, and work we've not had much time. Papa is waiting on a few quotes for trusses/i beams for the floors between the two additions. 

I almost forgot the cats! They are spoilt as per normal. The two kittens we got this summer have learned how to get up on Midnight's perch above the back porch. There is a bit of a ledge up there and they all 3 fit nicely and make good use of the heat coming through there. Hunter, the orange male, is still giving Tucker a hard time which is good for Tucker. I have no idea where he sleeps but I would guess in the large addition in the spare bales there. His brother showed up 2 nights ago after having been MIA for almost a year. They look a lot more alike then I remembered. The brother (what did we name him? I'll have to look on old blog posts.) is a bit more rough and tumble then Hunter and Papa says his eyes are goopy. If he sticks around we'll have to do something about that. I've only seen him once, that I know of they do look a LOT alike!, and I'll be surprised if he stays. Here is the original post on the two orange cats.. whom we were told were females but both were males. The one that stayed was renamed Hunter.. I wonder if the other just left before we knew they were males?? Anyway the 4 regulars are very friendly to each other and we often see them all 4 on the Travel-all's hood when it's warm. I hope the return of the other male doesn't mess that up! Anyway that's the farm update. Hope you enjoyed hearing about life on our place :) 

Thankful Thursdays. Nov. 8th.

Things I'm thankful for today include;

The way God made our bodies to heal while we sleep. Last night I went to bed bone tired and sore and slept solid and was amazed at the transformed shape I woke up in 7 hours later.

Papa told me last night that he has a long weekend this weekend! He gets Saturday off!

Bread.. I'm making bread today and the dough made an excellent fry bread lunch for the kids and I. With homemade cheese, honey, jam and milk it filled that hollow spot very nicely!

Nap time.. coming up soon and I think I need one :)

Carrion eaters....Bald Eagles and Golden Eagles. Beautiful.


And the odd one.. is CATS. I'm really grateful they eat mice and keep them out of my house.. but do they HAVE to eat off the beef quarters that are hanging in the addition?? IT'S MINE!!! Just kidding.. they, hopefully, are not eating enough to make a difference (they chewed through the plastic bags covering the beef) and there will be lots for our freezer.

Fall Update. 12

Well I realize that other then my Thankful Thursdays post I've not posted very much lately. Partly because we are busy but I'm also working through some things in my life and blogging seems to be more on the bottom of the list then the top. But I've got a bit of time right now so I thought I'd update you all a little. As most of you know I blog for myself and my husband, my family; near and far, and my kids. I blog as a memory keeper. I back it up onto my computer and keep it for later. Sort of an online scrapbook. And bonus the relatives like it too as they can share our days with us :).

I also try to be a very positive person so I very rarely post anything negative  I don't want this to be a place to complain. Actually I try to never complain on Facebook or the blog and rarely in person. It's a personal preference of mine. Though I realized the other night my Bible study ladies probably hear more then they'd like. I'm sorry. I'm working on it. God isn't finished with me yet. :) Love you girls!!

Anyway now that I've got that off my chest I'll update you on our life at the moment.

Kids first :)

Baby G is almost 11 months old, she is still nursing several times a day and is so focused while she nurses I wonder how hard she'll be to wean. She is a habits girl and changing her habits is always neat to watch. You can just about see her thinking and readjusting. She is standing up and balancing and cruises on the couches or whatever but has only taken 3 steps. I expect she will be walking soon. She has quite the personality and chatters away at you, cocks her head and waits for you to chatter back. She is learning signs and already does please.

J3 was 2 in July. We were so busy this summer that we waited to potty train him for several months. It took about 6 weeks but he's now mostly trained. He still will not tell us when he has to go but will go several times a day and will stay dry for hours. Good enough! He gets a 'choc bar' (a mini one) if he tells us he has to go so we are working on that slowly. He is talking a lot more and stringing words together nicely. He loves animals and being outside. He gets upset when ever R does school because then she's not playing with him. They are best buddies and play together very nicely. He is learning that soon he will be the 'big kid' in the living room with Baby G and they are working on staying in the living room during school and playing nicely together.


R is 4.5 and loves to do school. I made her a work book with letter printouts and she is learning her letters and how to write them. This will be all the school besides crafts and coloring she will do for awhile as Papa says she is too young to do more. I think she needs to play more as well.  Next year she will be 5 and might do grade 1 then. She is really enjoying the little work books we got her from Walmart that she does dot to dots and colors in. She has a baby doll that she plays with, dresses, naps, etc and I often enjoy hearing her teach her doll things. She has been a great help in toilet training J3 as she would really get excited for him which made him excited too. She loves to snuggle and read books and play all kinds of games. She also enjoys computer games like purple place and jump start preschool.

E is almost 6 and grew like a weed this summer. Both her and R went through 2 sizes in the last 6 months. Mostly they grew taller, though E is almost at 40lbs which makes her excited as she can almost go into a booster seat. She is enjoying school and amazes me with her memory.  They are starting math drills and she did her page in 2 minutes! She really loves science Paces and, I think, she'd finish one a day if I let her. We are working on her writing neatly as she didn't have the control last year but does this year. She enjoys our new puppy Tucker and likes to mother him. She's been experimenting with laughs and is making us all laugh at the same time. She loves to tell stories.

L is 7.5 and loves to draw and do Kung fu. He is a very active child and needs to stay active outside or he drives us all crazy inside :) He is the first in the wrestling match and the last one out. I can always tell when he's walking in the house because that extra bounce in his step makes the trailer floor thump just a little. In the kids games L is often the monster or creatures of terror. He loves it and plays his part really well...too well sometimes and scares us! He is the fastest kid in school and loves his social studies paces the best. He is also the neatest writer of the three. Surprised me!

J is almost 9 and wearing my boots! He's grown 2 sizes this summer as well and I think will soon be wearing his fathers shirts. He can haul totes, 5 gallon buckets half full and 3 gallon buckets mostly full! He and L have been in charge of the laying hen chores and firewood for the last year and it has really beefed them both up. He is finding school a bit long this year as he often works for over 3 hours a day, but he is working on being diligent and working hard to get it done during school hours and not 'free time' hours. :) He loves to read and do crafts and experiments.

As a group the kids are enjoying pretend play, chicken teams (apparently the chickens need teams like `the dirty bum team`and the `commanders`) swinging, playing with Tucker, enjoying home church and their kids church. Singing, jokes, and stories are often heard.

Me, well since I sat down to start this blog post I've; sat in the bedroom with J3 until he fell asleep as he's not been napping well, given out school assignments to J (x2) and L and E, sent L and E out to get a garbage can of sticks for kindling and 5 pieces of firewood, helped R with her 'school' assignments, checked out a cool home school newsletter and got some ideas for fall leaf projects, wiped a bum, turned the oven on to bake my bread, gotten J3 up from his nap and fed him his treat and put him on the potty, helped J with his assignment, drank a little bit of coffee until I saw that a bug had committed suicide in it, switched to the computer for faster typing :) Today I've managed to get Baby G's new size clothing sorted out and put away, putting some aside for a friends much rounder baby girl, made two meals and what I call directed traffic.. in other words.. boss people around :) I THINK I know what supper will be ( movie night as Papa is gone to the city for a course. So leftover chicken breast, crackers, apples, carrots and popcorn.) My kitchen is mostly clean and my fire is still going :) BONUS!!! lol fall is always a remembering time for me.. I MUST remember to keep wood on the fire! And I have made some plans for tomorrow.

Papa is busy these days too. Between work, sleep, farm and family he keeps pretty busy! Never mind the house and keeping our car and Travelall in great working order. This weekend he has a course in the city Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I may have to brave church alone.. with 6 kids. ( Church itself isn`t the problem. It`s getting the cows milked, chores down, kids ready and breakfast ready and eaten that is making me rethink my Sunday plans. Normally Papa does chores and cows and helps with kids ready when he`s done. I think I can do it alone.. I just have to get up really early! :) ) Anyway, Papa`s back is doing really well and he is normal again.. as much as ever anyway.

House building is coming along. Papa was sick last weekend which set us back a little. I`ll post some pictures soon.

Farm. Cows. Norma Jean goes home next week and after that we are planning on bringing Maggie and the two steers that are at the neighbors home for the winter. Well the biggest steer will go into the freezer :) We`ve made a deal with a friend of ours for the AIing of Isabel. Star has learned some cow manners from the two milk cows but is still very tame and easy to handle.. perfect!! She is still getting some milk every day but that will stop with Norma Jean going home.

Pigs. Well... we butchered the biggest pig in the back group and we are really enjoying the pork on the table!! We also sold 9 weaner piglets so far and 6 more are going early next week. We have 9 more 200 to 300 pound pigs in the back to butcher. Two are sold and whatever we don`t sell will go in the freezer. YUM!! We hope to only keep 10ish weaner piglets and the two purebred sows over the winter.

Layers. The hens are molting and nit picking and generally doing everything but laying eggs, though we did get 12 yesterday and 5 today! so hopefully soon we`ll be enjoying eggs in great number again.

Dogs. Chip is now 3 years old and I don`t know if it`s the puppy or what but he has taken a great disliking to a particular van and it`s people who come twice a week. Papa actually met them on the road the other day on their way here and hopped in the van with them to `deal with`Chip as Chip had growled and snapped at the man the last time he`d come. Chip behaved and has done much better since! He likes to play with Tucker and the two of them are often seen rolling around chewing on each other. Tucker is fitting in well and the kids enjoy taking him for walks and feeding him. Now that it`s colder at night he has a blanket that goes over his crate on the front porch and gets a warm breakfast :) He`s gonna be a big dog!!

Cats. The two kittens we got this summer have made themselves right at home and seem to be a great addition to the place. They are both about the same in friendliness now and we are enjoying seeing them playing and goofing off at all hours. They will wrestle with Tucker which is super cute! Hunter, our oldest cat, the orange tabby is semi friendly and is a very good mouser. He sits on the raised beds and waits.. and gets quite a few mice! Midnight, the about 1 year old black male which someone dropped off here last spring, is the strangest cat ever.. he lets those kittens suck on his belly fur like they are nursing.. and yes we checked.. he`s a full male!! He takes care of those two like they are his own. I often see the cats and the puppy playing tag in the dark. Hunter really likes to attack Tuckers leash if he`s got it dragging behind him :)

Well that`s life here on the Griggs Family Homestead. Well no not really.. homesteading wasn`t talked about.. we still do quite a bit of that in our daily life. My breads ready to come out of the oven. Papa has bacon curing, the kids recently made sauerkraut and there is normally some kind of milk product in the fridge. Papa`s beer fridge is freezing at night now but it`s still got home brew in it. Apparently it needs a place inside.. or a system like the milk fridge. We still eat what we raise and can make for ourselves as a large part of our diet. We are getting into winter mode and staying home more, doing school daily and having a lot of fun together doing projects like our recent Great Clothes Swap! or our Get the toys in the bus so they don`t get buried in snow  project. Or our Canning adventures, De-cluttering 101, The Great Surprise Puzzle,Move The Baby Day and many many more. 

A couple of things we will be working on in the next few weeks are
*Getting the rest of the firewood to the winter pile.
*Winterizing the trailer and animal areas.
*Getting the kids 1st term supplemental work done.
*Shelves in the dining room area for the school stuff.. to the ceiling.
*Shelves in the entrance area for shoes and boots as we outgrew ours.
*and many many more..

I`ll try and blog a bit more of our adventures but for right now I`m outta here.. time to go try out that great looking bread on the oven top.. hmm.. movie night.. ah.. yup!

Kittens :)

We recently went out to a friends place and picked up these two very cute little sister kitties :) 

I think we've decided on naming them Fluff and Daisy. Daisy is the short haired sister that L is holding in the picture below. The kids love them and you can often see J3 packing Daisy around. He is super gentle and she just lets him pack her around. Fluff is a bit wilder but is taming down nicely. J can catch her now and I've heard her purr. They came from a farm with lots of big dogs and after the first little introductory spat they are getting along great with Chip.

The kittens first day was spent hiding in the engine compartment of the Travelall! So we lured them out with a bit of milk. That night when Papa got home he opened the hood and fished them out and put them in a animal case over night so he could take the truck to work the next day. The second day they spent under the house but by evening they were playing on the front steps and exploring the whole area around the house. They did not like chickens and they are still scared of them. Our other two cats Midnight and Hunter, both males, seem to have adjusted nicely to the kittens. Hunter has already accepted Midnight so we didn't expect him to have any problems. Midnight was TERRIFIED of them for the 1st day and would run away at the sight of them. By the second day he was just curious but didn't want to get too close, just in case! A few days later and they are all best friends. Midnight washes the kittens and snuggles with them and generally seems to be parenting them. 

I never seem to have my camera handy when I see J3 packing a kitten but I WILL get a picture of it yet :) 

This picture was taken 2 seconds after I saw these little cuties spooning... Fluff was still a little wilder then she is now and wasn't too sure about my stopping to take a picture! 

New Kitten!

She is a cute little fur ball that showed up next door one day about two months or so ago. She moved to our house about a week later and still goes over to visit next door fairly often.  She was a kids kitten. They pick her up any which way and run, ride, jump and she takes it. She didn't much care for Chip at first but has learned to love him and they are often seen sniffing each other or sitting together in the sun. J was carrying her when she 1st came and Chip came over to see her and she ran right up his face and sat on his head!! Jumped off his head and poor Chip really didn't know what he'd done!! He is such a softy. Papa has dubbed her midnight and we are hoping she stays around long enough to give us a batch of kittens or two :)

Update on Cats.

We finally named our kittens we got this summer.. Tabitha and Daisy! We wanted them to have different 1st letters in their names because they are both females and if we keep any kittens they will be named with the same 1st letter. The same as we do for the cows. Here they are on their favorite chair. They are quite spoiled and sleep with the milking machine under the heat lamp! Chip puts up with them and every once and a while we see him with one by the scruff of the neck packing it around. I figure if they let him they must not mind too much! Crazy kitties. They love to 'pat' at me when I'm in the outside fridge and the other day one attacked my bare toes while I was standing on the porch. They love the other couches that are still on the floor. There is also a garbage can of bones up there and one or possibly both of them (They are quite hard to tell apart from a distance) have gotten chick-a-dee's by hiding between the cans. Our other 2 cats come home every once and a while but mostly live in the bush or at the neighbors. We've had Chip for over a year now and they still can't seem to get along! Joey our old Was. State cat is still alive and well and we hear his Siamese yowl regularly. 

Close up of, I think Daisy?? 

Tabitha. One is lighter in color and Daisy has more white (Barely!) on her face!