August 1. We're coming close to marking a year's worth of life in Kansas, in this house. How it has flown! Just yesterday I could have sworn I was taking photos of Jeremiah on the tractor cutting the brush down in the pastures readying it for the goats. Just yesterday I could have sworn I was sending the children off the bus for school. Just yesterday I could have sworn I was making Halloween costumes, baking pie for Thanksgiving and decorating the Christmas tree, passing out Valentine's pencils at school, making sure the kids were wearing green on March 17th, attending preschool graduation and looking forward to summer vacation, finally, and warm weather.
And now here we are, nearing the end of summer vacation sweating and wishing for this horrid heat and drought to end and wondering what on earth this winter could possibly have in store for us. I almost feel jipped, though those cold stormy winter nights will have us wishing for 110 degrees once again.
There is still lots to do before winter. We haven't gathered a stick of firewood, although what we have accomplished has been great! Both basement rooms are, for the most part, complete. Both rooms are lacking baseboards and molding but the back storage room is now a lovely sewing room, cozy and quaint. The front room is now the family room but in the near future we'd like to take out the staircase and reconfigure it so access to the basement is from the living room and not the door laden hallway. The concrete floor is painted, I did that last summer when we moved in but after a cold winter, we've decided that concrete is not the way to go. We bought laminate flooring that we did install in the sewing room and once we have redone the staircase, we'll lay the flooring there.
Both of the kid's bedrooms have been painted and one of these days I'll get around to making curtains. My living room is finally less cluttered and it makes for a wonderful respite away from the noise of the TV and children for the adults. We had company for the past week and a half and boy was it nice to be able to retire and talk at a normal level. Jeremiah scraped the ceiling about 2 weeks ago but I ran out of time so the paint was put on hold. The work on the house seems slow in ways but I do believe we've made great strides.
Jeremiah has installed quite a few new doors throughout the house. The previous owners really REALLY liked dark wood and flat cream walls. To be perfectly honest with you, I hate it! We are replacing all the doors in the house with 6 panel "off the shelf" doors. The dark wood doors took paint fine but after seeing what the hallway
could look like with new doors, we decided against any more door priming and painting! Boy do the new doors really make it look completely different!
Jeremiah wanted to do some demo over Thanksgiving, mainly the kitchen, but we're excited about company coming to visit and demolition of the kitchen is now on hold. I'd love to rip the bathrooms apart, but all in due time.
We put up a pool a couple of weeks ago just so the kids would have more to do than sitting inside. It's heck when the inside is all there is because it's so hot out! While the cousins were here, we had all 5 kids remove the bricks from along side the outside perimeter of the shop. They were allowing water to flow underneath the sill and eventually it would have rotted it out. Jeremiah needs to get up on the roof of the shop with someone (who, I don't know because I am deathly afraid of heights and so was his brother who was just here). There are opaque center panels that allow light to shine in but they were installed incorrectly and the roof is leaking. They need to be removed, cleaned of the silicone caulking and reinstalled correctly then re-rivited. I am hoping the offer of a good free meal will get someone over here to help out.
We're finished with the fencing, did I tell you? When we arrived home from Ca. we finished up the 770' west stretch and, minus a gate in the NW corner where we own a 30' easement to Willison Rd., we're done! Even managed to get some cross fencing up for the buck's pasture. Although, it won't do a bit of good because there isn't
crap a scrap out there to eat! It's all dead. Maybe next year they'll get to use it!
I am planning for November breeding of the goats for April babies. I learned my lesson and will NOT be kidding anywhere near February or March if I can at all help it! There are a few goats who will go off to auction in a couple of weeks. The price of beef is falling because of the lack of summer grass to feed them and the certain lack of hay available this winter. It's more cost effective for us to buy half a cow to stick in the deep freeze right now.
Can I tell you how many loads of hay we've gone and gotten? Do let me tell you. Load 1 and 2 consisted of large round bales of alfalfa and grass hay. Three of them are in the barn, 3 of them are outside. The round bales, if set correctly, normally shed water and snow pretty well. There is an outside layer of about an inch that is usually no good but it protects the inner hay quite well. There is also a netting they use to keep it all tight (baling netting) that also helps shed moisture. Load 3 of 100 bales of grass hay went to the neighbors. We bucked all that by hand. Load 4 of 100 bales of grass hay was delivered on our way back down from picking it up to some people east by about half an hour, we bucked that by hand too. Load 5 and 6 consisted of 100 bales of the finest alfalfa Kansas has to offer-every bit of that went into our barn- and 120 bales of grass hay of which 58 went into our barn, 60 was delivered right down the road and 2 went to someone using it just for their county fair heifer and steer project.
I still do not feel we have enough stored as of right now. The last thing I want is to get the goats through and run out at the last minute. If I am hoarding, so be it. We have plans to make another trip up for hay at the end of the week, all of which is being delivered down the road to the same person who bought half of the last load of grass hay. I have 280 bales on hold with the grass hay grower and 100 bales of alfalfa on hold with the alfalfa grower of his 4th cutting this year. I am to call him back towards the end of August. Of those 280 bales of grass hay alone, 140 bales are spoken by the guy down the road and then the rest are mine.
With, let's see...140 grass hay, 200 alfalfa, 58 bales of grass hay already in the barn and 6 round bales, I'd say we're probably good!
This may all sound pretty boring I suppose, but it's our life. We look forward to kidding next year, though many of the does will be bred to Andy, our spotted buck, as the economy is still bad and spots sell. He's nothing to scoff at for sure but now that I have the breeding stock I want, I can focus on building up the herd and that will mean cuts next year. I can only hope we get the rain necessary to keep the pasture green and growing! That seems like such a long way off and to be perfectly honest, after this horrible summer we've had, looking ahead to another winter is not really something that brings warm fuzzies to mind!
Another year older and Another year wiser though and it should be a bit easier on us!
Jeremiah has gone back to work. He was supposed to be in Kansas City this week for the annual teacher's conference but was able to forgo that to take another class putting him one step closer to a pay raise and his Masters. I too have thought about going back to school now that the kids will be in school full time but I think I will ride out the Fall semester and perhaps apply in the Spring. Business is going great guns and with as busy as we've been this summer, I'd really like to get better organized before taking on one more thing.
We've put off Jeremiah taking the classes for his CWI (Certified Welding Inspectors license).
Someday...just not
today. That seems to be the motto
these days. We'll get there. We're forever reminding ourselves that Rome wasn't built in a day.
At any rate, I suppose I've gone on long enough. All I ever seem to have time for anymore is updates. I have photos of the 4H show over the weekend that I promise to post. 4H was another stressful venture that I think we'll have a better understanding of this coming year!
A cool breezy start to Tuesday morning. We had a nice storm blow though last night which dumped some rain which was badly needed. Rachel was invited to a sleep over last Friday which we were getting ready to take her to before 6 when the clouds rolled in, the thunder and lightening started. I raced to get the clothes in off the line and not a minute too soon because the sky opened up and then we lost power. I had intended to make nachos for dinner but that was out of the question so Drew, Jeremiah and I headed to town to grab a bite. We got back just before 8 and later I found out exactly what happened but not knowing at the time, it looked like all hell broke loose. It's odd how storms can be so strong in one area and non-existent a few miles away. Not 5 miles north after dropped Rachel off there was barely a sprinkle, at our house though and further south, 70 MPH straight line winds snapped power poles along highway 50 which is what knocked out our power, took down a tree in the front yard smashing a metal trellis and plastering the south side of the house with debris.
