Where Has Time Went?

Wow, just realized it's been over a week since my last post!
Where does time go anyway?

Well here is some of what has happened around here in the last week:

We got our machine shop cemented 

(Yeah for that being done and yeah for all the helpers....it was a big job!)

We celebrated our grandson, Andy's 2nd birthday. 2 years ago from now we were wondering what his future would be like. Being born 10 weeks early, plus being diagnosed with 22q deletion syndrome a little while later was all something we were not prepared for. But God in His mercy has brought this little man so far! He is growing, walking and I'm sure it won't be long until he is talking! All glory to God for this precious little guy!!! We love him to bits!!!!

We welcomed a new little niece to our family. My brother Jeremy and his wife Laura waited 6 long years for Elyana to be born! What an amazing answer to prayer! We went to visit her yesterday, and she is truly a little sweetie!!! I had fun making this little hat for her :)

We got the last of the cows home. And everything went great! We chose to chase the herd home again this year. We had 3 vehicles, a four-wheeler, and a tractor with a bale of hay on the back. Last year it didn't go so well....this year....IT WENT GREAT!!!! So much easier than hauling them all, as long as it goes well! So all the cows are safely home and munching happily on hay :)

We started a parenting class. We are excited once again to be able to mentor young families in raising their families according to God's Word. We always come away from teaching these classes feeling like we received more than we gave. What a blessing to be able to do this!

We butchered the last of our chickens. This was a job that I was not looking forward to, but on Saturday we were motivated by the forecast (SNOW!) and figured we better get it done. As usual the thought was worse than the actual doing it. So glad they are now in the freezer :)

First snowfall happened on Sunday. We are thankful the weather has stayed so nice this long. But looking outside I am thinking winter might be here to stay!!!

Rebecca's due date was yesterday and we are still waiting to meet our 2nd grandchild! Looking so forward to another little one to love on! Please keep them in your prayers!

-My pregnancy is going well. Baby is growing and moving lots! I am feeling very well. So far my blood pressure is behaving itself. I am trying to walk 2.5 miles every morning and I am hoping and praying the exercise will help me stay healthy.

-Tomorrow we are going into the city with a group from our church to record a few songs. I am most excited to see how a recording actually takes place. The girls and I have wanted to record a cd for many years now but have never known quite where to start. I am hoping tomorrow we will find out if this is something we really want to pursue!

So that is our life in a very quick nut shell this past week. Of course there was the regular every day life that we lived besides this, making life go by very fast! But it's better to be busy than to be sitting around twiddling your thumbs wondering what to do with yourself :) I don't see those kind of days being in our future any time soon .....and I am glad :)

We're Stumped!!!

Last week went by like a blur as we were busy getting ready for winter.

We have 2 wood stoves to heat our home and so lots and lots and LOTS of wood is needed to be gathered.

I think this "wood" probably be one of our favorite work projects together as a family!

We get to enjoy the great outdoors, everyone can pitch in...even the toddler :)

It's kind of like were on an adventure!

And what a great sense of accomplishment when we see all the wood we have gathered, split and stacked.

Below is a photo journey of what we did most of last week.

Here's Mark our main chain saw guy. He had to work fast to keep us all busy!

Josh was our second chain saw guy and helped out when he could....bless his heart :)

 For some loads we brought the log splitter right to the bush and split them before loading them on the truck.

We used to split our logs the old fashioned way, with an axe! But a couple of years ago we purchased this wood splitter which makes the splitting a LOT easier!!!

The reason we split the logs is to make them small enough to fit in the wood stove.

Also when the logs are split they burn a lot easier and start a fire better.

Jen was our bush log splitter.

Here is everyone carrying logs.

It didn't matter your age or size, if you could carry one log or 6....

whatever you could do was a BIG help!

Mikaya was a trooper and spent a lot of time out there with us.

Brooke...don't let her size fool you!

By the end she was showing up some of her older brothers pretty good!

We probably went through a lot more food this week with all the big appetites we had!

Talking about food,

Kerri was the one who stayed home and took care of the littles and kept us all very well fed!

Thanks Ker.


Nathan....probably is wondering about now when lunch is!!!

Jesse reminded me of an ant in the amount of logs he could carry!

This guy carried lots and lots of logs!

I would load him up and he would just stand there and give me that look of....

more please!!!

So I would give him more!

I think my little boy is turning into a man!!!

My job was to keep the crew going! I would follow Mark around with the chain saw and load the kids up with logs. I also inspected the wood to make sure it was good. When a tree has been dead for too long it gets too rotten and is not worth taking up space. These logs burn too quickly and are often soggy. So we try to find the most solid logs that are worth taking up space! Logs can be so deceiving. They can look great on the outside, but a rotten in the inside. I'm sure there's an object lesson in there somewhere!!!

Here's yours truly carrying a tremendous amount of logs!!! Meg sure knows how to capture me working :)

Here we are back at home splitting and stacking the wood. Again, every hand was well appreciated!

Even Josiah was carrying logs!

Nathan or Jesse brought the logs to the back of the truck.

I sorted out the ones that needed to be split and the ones that were small enough to be stacked.

Jen and Josh would split them.

Mark would load up the kids.

The kids would bring the logs to the wood room.

Megan would stack.

And here's our stacker herself!

She would stack the trucks at the bush and then when we got home

she would stack the wood in the wood room.

She had to be pretty quick with all those wood carriers!!

And once 13 loads of wood were cut, split and stacked, this is about how happy we were :)

Muck and Mire

We figured before the cows disappeared in the mud in the corrals, that it would be about time to move them to the pasture :)

Truthfully we move them to pasture around this time every year!!! But I thought that was a more exciting way to start a post!!!!

We are very, very muddy here though. Ever since spring began it is a rare treat to see the sun shining for more than a couple of days in a row and the rain just keeps coming!!!! Mark and I purposed years ago to never complain about rain. When it rain as least some things grow, if there is a drought...things don't grow. But we are praying that the land will dry so that we, and many, many other farmers, can get back into the fields. A kind of silly phrase has been running through my head every time I see rain in the forecast, "Some may trust in the forecast, some may trust in the weather man, But we will trust in the name of our God" :) So thankful that God is in control!

Anyway, back to the subject at hand....cows. This is what has been happening around here lately. Early in the morning, the first thing I hear is one cow or another bellaring and bellaring and bellaring....you get the picture. Either her calf is on the outside of the fence where it's drier and she wants her udder emptied, or her calf is on the other side of a mud puddle that she simply doesn't want to walk through. Now when I say mud puddle, you have to understand that I don't simply mean just a little puddle, I mean more like a swamp up to their bellies! So I get woken up way to early and have to try to go back to sleep being serenaded by a cow relentlessly calling to her calf!

All that to say, I am happy for them  for me that on Wednesday they got to go to the pasture! Because this means the yard will be quiet again...quiet from bellaring cows I mean!!!

MY SWEET, SWEET COWBOY

(It was so muddy that you just had to concentrate at putting one foot in front of the other.....plus chase cows! It was amazing that not one of us lost our boots :)

OUR COWGIRL PICKING OUT THE COW/CALF PAIRS

(We haul the cows to two pastures, so we have to be sure to match up the mama's with their babies, or one of the ain't gonna be too happy!!!

5 COWS AND 5 CALVES ALL PENNED UP READY TO LOAD 

( We took a grand total of 7 trips to the pastures)

 TIME TO LOAD 'ER UP

(imagine here a bunch of hoop'in and hollar'in)

BACKING UP TO THE PASTURE

(My husband is the best trailer backer upper there is out there....just say'in :)

ALMOST THERE

(Insert excited mooing of cows. It's amazing how they remember the pasture from other years!)

HELLO GRASS!

(insert the very loud sniff of a bull :)

DOESN'T SHE LOOK SO EXCITED!!!

(pretty much the first thing they do after you let them out of the trailer is look for the herd. It took these a few seconds to spot them. After a couple bites of grass they were off to join the rest)

AND HERE'S MISTER BULL HIMSELF!!! 

(his "job" this summer is to breed the 16 cows in this pasture. 

We have another bull with the 13 other cows in the other pasture...same job!!!)

MY SWEET HUBBY  (AKA...CHEIF CATTLE RANCHER)

He is the one who keeps everything moving. He knows how a cow thinks and has trained us over the years the proper way to chase cows. It's not as easy as you think :) 

OUR OLDEST DAUGHTER, JENNIFER (AKA...MIDWIFE JEN)

(Jennifer did almost all of the calving herself this year. She knows all of the cows by name and which calves belong to which cow. 

She did an excellent job this year of helping all these mamas have healthy babies.

Midwife Jen takes her job very seriously and it shows!!

Oh, BTW, the look on her face is sheer exhaustion and the spots...well lets just say it's not makeup!!!)

OUR OLDEST SON JOSHUA (AKA...RIGHT HAND MAN)

(Joshua has never really liked to work with cattle. But he works hard all winter long feeding and bedding them. We appreciate all the work he does on the family farm. 

Oh, BTW, the look on his face is "Yes!!! No more cattle chores until fall!" 

Having the cows out in the pasture is a lot less work. We still have to check on them throughout the summer, make sure they are healthy and that they haven't broken out of the fence. 

Still, a lot less work!

Oh, and since it's a cow day...here's a joke for you!

WHAT DO YOU CALL A COW 
THAT JUST GAVE BIRTH TO A CALF?
DECAFEINATED!!!!

A Peeping Day

A few weeks ago we picked up an incubator and instead of buying chicks to raise we decided to hatch our own. The boys and I did a lot of research and learned all what to do and not to do. Our first hatch was a success with 28 out of 42 eggs hatching. We now are on our second batch of chicks. This morning they started to hatch....so far 6 have escaped their crowded quarters and are enjoying being free!!!

Here are some of the things we have learned about hatching chicks.

1. When choosing your eggs to hatch, it is best to choose ones that are clean. If they are a little dirty it is important not to wash the eggs because eggs are porous you bacteria could be transferred into the egg and cause illness or defects.  Also don't choose eggs with cracks, unusually shaped eggs, or  too big or too small eggs.

2. You can store fertilized eggs for up to 7 days before placing in incubator. Any longer than that reduces likelihood of eggs hatching.

3.  You need to keep the temperature between 99.5 - 100.5 F A little fluctuation is OK, but nothing too drastic.

4. At around (and after)  5 or 6 days you can candle an egg to see if embryo is growing.

5. It takes 21 days for a chick to hatch, no less, no more (if temps have been kept right).

6. A chick has an egg tooth to help it peck holes in the egg. A few days after it hatched the egg tooth falls off. 

7. It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 12 hours after the chick's first 'hole' in the egg before it is completely hatched. 

8. It takes them quite a few hours to dry off completely and look like a soft, fluff chicken!!!

9. Watching chicks hatch never gets old!

Megan put together this little video of a couple of the chicks hatching this morning (this is for you Young family :) She sped up a few parts so the video would't be too long!

LIFE ON THE FUNNY FARM

Around here you never know what you're going to find out in the barn.

Today Zachary went out to do his daily job of picking the eggs.

We have 2 hens running loose outside the chicken pen.

They like to lay eggs randomly around the barn, so Zachary was trying to find them.

Then he found one of the hens, herself, in chicken (well it's not in person :).
But when he went to move her, to see if there were eggs under her, she started pecking at him. 

Because this is what hens tend to do when they are hiding eggs under them, 
Zachary was sure there was something under her worth getting.
So he persisted.

And when he moved her off her nest, he found out he was right! 
But rather than finding an egg  or two like he had expected...he found A BABY KITTEN!!! 
This kitten belonged to a cat that had a batch of kittens a few weeks ago.

 I guess this hen figured she would like to be a mama too!!!! 
And the kitten, who was all snuggly and warm under there, didn't seem to mind it at all. 
I'm not sure what the chicken would have done when the kitten decided it was hungry?!?!?!

Anyway, that's life on our funny farm!!!!