It snowed on Tuesday, as I already mentioned. By afternoon, the temperature had fallen enough that it was sticking. We got a decent enough covering for the kids to go out and make some dirty snowballs and require their snow clothes to be washed. Yay, more work!
Speaking of work, as some of you already may know, the principal of the kid's school called me a week ago a wanted to know if I wanted a job. I don't really need another job, but they needed someone and were in a pinch and so, after 10+ years of being out of the outside workforce, I am now a district employee. Strange how that works. I swear, if you want work, come to Kansas. There's jobs (and general work!) here! Shoot, sit at home and they'll call you, apparently!
The school receives grant money for fresh fruit and vegetables. That produce needs to be washed, cut and divvied up between classes ('three-school' (friday's only), pre-K (2 classes, AM & PM), Kind., and 1-6th) and since I do that on a smaller scale at home, they need someone now and I am free (sort of), I figured, why not? So, hi ho hi ho, off to work I go to do what's necessary to calm the fiery dragons keep the kids healthy and fed. Tuesday I counted raspberries....I don't even want to know how many I counted. Yesterday I cut and counted cauliflower and then apples and I did a good 150+ apples- cut, core, slice, divide. I was beat! BUT, the cool news in all of this is, the goats benefit too! Guess who gets all the 'throw away' goodies?
Since there is often much to much for the girls, it's yet another reason to get some pigs! I hadn't even thought of the school cafeteria for excess food. This should work out real well and if we're lucky, these pigs will cost us near nothing and provide a lot of yummy bacon...and imagine this, it may already come pre-apple-seasoned <grin>!
It'll take some time to adjust my schedule and certainly Rachel and her leg has thrown a bit of a monkey wrench in things in that we're taking them and picking them up but on the days I work late enough, I'll just stay and hang out and help in the classrooms until school's out.
They asked me if I wanted to be a back up cafeteria aide (if someone were to call in sick (there's only 2 of them!) and I quickly nixed that, they have to be in at 6:30! Not that 6:30's a problem, goodness knows by the time stamps on some of my posts, but with milking chores (and kidding coming up) and store business and work + general life, there's no way. And to be on call? I just can't (and don't want to) do that. I love being at their school, I wish everyone could attend a school like this but I have to draw the line!
On to snow though, here's some photos of the kids out playing. Yesterday Rachel asked me if people with broken legs can sled. I told her people who sled end up with broken legs. I'm so not fun! Bwaahahahahaha
Note the crawl tracks on the left and the footprints on the right. Oh, and the kitty prints on the far left.
As I am sure you may already know, Rachel has broken her leg. I am sure as time passes this will become less of an issue and more of a plain old inconvenience. For now though, it's an issue. I am sure as time passes Rachel will become more and more adept at using her crutches to get around and I will feel more comfortable letting her but just like it's hard to let a child do things on their own so that they can learn to be independent, sometimes it's just quicker to do it yourself. I fight this urge because she has to learn how to do things herself as she is. I have no idea exactly how long this may take to heal but the latter end of it seems so very far away! When I bounce back to reality it doesn't seem very far at all so I'll hold on to that thought. The dr. said 3-4 weeks, we're planning on 6+. We'll see.
I have to call tomorrow (Tuesday) to make an appointment with the orthopedist on Wednesday. I am hoping a hinged brace can be found (if a small enough one is made for her), otherwise a cast may be necessary. Right now it's covered in gauze, then 2 cast like popsicle stick splints were applied (one on the front of her leg, one on the back molded to the contour of her bent leg once the splints were moistened and dry), then it was wrapped in an ace bandage.
Because it happened over the weekend, a 'real' cast could not be applied. She may not need a real cast either, it all depends on how well she is able to keep her weight off of it. Granted, it's only been 2 days (at the time of writing this) so it still hurts to much to put any weight on it but the more weight she can keep off, the less of a chance for a cast. And not that one would be all that bad, it would definitely have it's pros but it would definitely have it's cons too. The break is on the tibia, just below the 'heart' (as I think of it0 portion of the top of the bone, where the joint it? She probably shouldn't have use of her knee and the hinged brace would probably be stationary anyway but it just would, I feel, make life easier. Maybe I am wrong though.
She was given Tylenol with Codine for a painkiller but yesterday (Sunday) she woke up at 9 AM looking like death and feeling just as bad after taking a whole pill at 4 AM. She had a tangerine and a banana to eat and that didn't stay down at all. We've concluded that she can have half a pill at night with dinner on a full stomach just before bed which should keep her all night and we'll go with Mortin during the day. The Motrin does not last as long (4 hours) and she has to have it on schedule otherwise the pain is too much but this schedule should work and I hope that within a few days she won't need pain killers at all.
In the meantime, I doubt I'll be able to keep enough books around. She read Heidi in one day, off and on.
I am also scrambling to figure out what to do about clothing and dresses seem to be a good compromise. She has so few knit dresses that are easy to put on that I am ordering fabrics and hope to get some made this week and to get a few more knee high socks to keep her 'good leg' warm. Fortunately, the weather has been pretty nice and if it keeps up, a knee high sock may be all that's in order. If not, I'll have to buy some stretch pants and cut off the bandaged leg up to her thigh as pretty much no pants will go over. I could also make some PJ style pants and that may work.
On a more farm-y productive note, Jeremiah and I got into the shop yesterday (Sunday) and you wouldn't believe the transformation in there! We hauled off a huge load of stuff to the Goodwill. I know we sold off and/or donated a lot before we left Ca. and I still can't believe the amount of stuff we hauled out here and then I couldn't believe the amount of stuff we're really NOT going to use and hauled it to donate. Ugh, why all the stuff??? I have yet to to bring in all my deco items though I really should. I should stop saying things like, "One day we're going to remodel." Well yeah, one day we will remodel but in the mean time, I should just go ahead and paint everything anyway instead of waiting for the day we bust out walls, etc. I may never see my deco stuff at that rate!
We are working on taxes too- income, farm and business.Fun stuff! So, in between catering to Rachel, cleaning the shop and life in general, it's busy, as usual.
Halloween came and went. Rachel was a vampire and Drew was Captain America. I made Rachel's costume- a simple black dress with red insert in the skirt- on Saturday. The cape had spider webs on it. She refused to wear the vampire teeth so overall, she new what she was but if you asked a stranger it may have taken them a few guesses. She was happy and that's all that mattered.
Drew's costume ended up being the highlight of my week! I lost a bid on eBay for a Captain America costume because I was running errands. But I stopped at Target for blue pants and a blue hoody, sewed a white star on the front and an 'A' on the hood and he was happy as pig in a wallow! We picked up a white 5 gallon plastic bucket lid from the farm store and I sprayed it and used foam pieces to decorate the rest. Jeremiah pop-riveted a handle on and away we went. Drew refused to wear his normal black gym shoes but opted instead of black loafers. I guess he wanted to be a dressy Captain America, whatever. If he was happy, I was...happy.
Jeremiah was the scariest of all, a welding instructor. I know right?
I spent the afternoon with the kids at school doing crafts and handing out treats. That evening we went to the zoo here in Hutch. It's nice because there's a definite start and a define stop so no whining about not getting enough or wanting to go further and we get to see the animals too. It's not a big zoo but for their age, it's safe (no cars or questionable Reeses Peanut Butter Cups) and perfect really.
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 crapa 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!
I'm sure I've done enough complaining about the weather but there's really not much else to complain about. I was hanging out clothes the other day and decided, this past year in Kansas hasn't impressed me too much. Some say the winter was just mild in comparison. Well, I don't know about anyone else, but negative twenty four is not really mild in my, humble yet persuasive and dramatic, opinion. What do they mean by mild? Do they mean there wasn't a lot of snow? Because I'd say 4 good storms, one of which dumped snow up to my thigh, is not exactly mild. Now, granted, we're not Minnesota or Iowa, it isn't normal to be gassing up the snow plow in August to use in September and putting it away in June for just about a month before pulling it back out again. I wouldn't say it was mild, but maybe there isn't a lot of grey area here. Then, this summer has just been horrid. I don't think it would be too overly dramatic to say it went from thigh high snow one day in February to one hundred and twelve degrees. Okay, maybe that is a bit exaggerated, but not by much!
To be truthful though, I don't think we've had a drop of rain in a month. The temperature dipping into the mid 90's during the peak of the day is a cool down and to hear about a chance on rain from the weather man makes me want to choke him/her! We're being punished, I think. It rains all around us yet there is no rain for Hutch. It's awful. The grass is dead or dying. The pasture looks horrible and one of the perks about leaving California was that it would look like a California spring for much of the summer here in Kansas. Well, that's pretty far from reality.
We begrudgingly pull ourselves out of bed at 6:30 AM to begin work and not that it makes a bit of difference because the minute you step outside the sweat starts to pour from your face. We have managed to complete the perimeter fencing and for that I am overjoyed. We even managed to get about a 300' cross fencing section done which is the new buck pasture although it's not the joyous moment I thought it would be because there isn't much edible grass to speak of. The only saving grace to this lack of rain and abundant heat is that mowing is a thing of the past!
I remember taking photos of Jeremiah last year brush hogging the property of lush green weeds up to my neck! This year, we're lucky if they reach mid-calf and they are a shade of brownish grey that reminds me of California in mid-summer. I was certain we moved ourselves 1600 miles but it sure doesn't look like it!
A few hours in the heat of the morning does us in so we've been doing a lot of inside work too. We bought quite a few new interior doors for the place and Jeremiah has been installing those. The back room in the basement is now officially my sewing room. Last week I moved my sewing table back there. We bought a shelving unit to go onto the wall to hold some of my fabrics. We got a second hand roll around desk and another chair , both of which I painted. Right now my sewing table is home to 3 machines, one of which (Rachel's) is going to go on the roll around desk. The machine actually used to belong to Grandma Hargett, and while it's nothing snazzy, it's a great machine for Rachel.
The front room of the basement will become the new family room. We have 2 couches in the shop that are waiting for their home in the living room upstairs but until the front room of the basement was cleaned of my sewing stuff, there was no room for the futon.
Speaking of the basement, Jeremiah has finally come up with a plan to get the stairwell entrance to the basement fro the hallway (eliminating 1 of EIGHT doors) and into the living room. More on that some other time. We've got big plans...one step at a time though.
We bought 3 new mattresses. The kids need a regular size bed now so their tiny beds have been pulled out to accept a regular twin size mattress. I would love to have a murphy bed built for downstairs for the queen mattress that we replaced. It's not bad at all, Jeremiah just said he wanted something different. Project for another time though.
We've hauled 2 loads of hay down for ourselves from 100 miles north, still need at least another 2 and Thursday evening we hauled down a load for our neighbors. Speaking of which, while the west fence was down we had the neighbor's horses over for a visit. I'll post photos later. They were quiet company.
Other than that, it's been work work work. Yesterday we did steal away on our first date since moving here! Our neighbors, who watched the goat's for us while we were gone, have a son and daughter (15 and 17 respectively) who babysat the kids for us so Jeremiah and I could catch a movie. Drew is quite enamored with Joshua and literally cried when we had to go. So far Joshua thinks they are pretty cool but I have to wonder how long that will last. Five and seven year olds are only cool for so long. But, maybe the thought of money is enough incentive =)...bribes, gotta love 'em.
We have company coming in next week. Jeremiah's brother has orders for Scott AFB in Illinois so they are moving. Their stuff has already been picked up from Shepard AFB Wichita Falls, Tx and they are visiting family down there before heading up here for a few days. I hope to make a trip up to one of the lakes further north of here for at least a day. There's been plenty of rain up there!
The goats are handling the heat. Bonnie has come down with pneumonia I think so I've been medicating her the past 2 days. It's not uncommon for it to happen. I think the new buck may have come back with a bit of shipping fever and sniffles, snots and coughs have run throughout the herd. Most of them are over it but Bonnie's not recovering as well as everyone else so she's stuck in the barn with the fan on her. Speaking of which, I have to go out and dose her with some Penicillin.
What a weekend! What a week leading up to this weekend. We are all exhausted, sun burned but exhilarated and proud. Friday night was the youth only show that started strictly with showmanship, which is the judge judging you and not your goat, although you do take a goat into the ring. We left at 1 to get to the fair ground early by 2 to get our pens and get them set up. We only took the truck that night with Cheedoe and Dawn. Saturday was the "open" show where any age can show so the mix of ages was nice.
I started clipping on Wednesday! The temps have been something awful here and I've been show clipping in the early mornings and late evenings partly because of the heat, partly because I have some darker goats and wanted to give them a few days for their hair to grow in just a tiny bit so they didn't look patchy and partly because the clippers get hot and I need the break. Everyone was cranky so short stints made them easier to work with. I was still clipping Saturday morning at 6 AM!
Our first show out as a family and we had quite an assortment of placings. Cheedoe, who is quite a nice junior doe, looked horrible once clipped and I don't mean in confirmation. She has lovely Nubian attributes but her coloring underneath, in my opinion, just made her show awfully. That's it, it's as simple as coloring making her look not as nice as the others, or at least that's my opinion.. It could have been my clip job for sure but she's so many different colors in all the "wrong" spots and had I known, I would have left her un-clipped or left her really long anyway! I almost hated to take her and she showed at the back of her class each time. It's just not her fault.
Rachel made our hearts burst with pride. Jeremiah and I were at opposite sides of the ring and both of us were nearly moved to tears watching her in that show ring like she'd done it a million times before. Every thing we'd worked on she followed to a "t" from the way she payed attention to the judge and moved when the judge moved, walked with confidence and set the goat up. She was just awesome.
Friday night the judge made a mistake in thinking Rachel had gone the wrong way in a showmanship class when she hadn't. She was at the top of her game that night! I cannot tell you the utter disappointment to be called out like that by the judge and I had half a mind to say something, as in interrupting the judge right then and there. While the lesson from the judge to be learned was that you always go in a clockwise rotation around the judge the real lesson that we reminded her of was that people make mistakes and as long as Rachel knew the truth it was okay and she did. It was still a hard pride pill to swallow though for a while when it hadn't been her at all!
I was not showing my best being totally exhausted and a nervous wreck about a late start on Saturday morning, helping the kids get ready and making sure everyone knew which goats we up next. I don't do well in the heat, couple that with a soda I shouldn't have had, not enough sleep, dirt and it makes for a participant who should have handed it over and under the right circumstances, would have gladly.
Saturday brought hot temps, cranky goats and exhausted participants and show goers alike. Rachel showed Dawn for her junior class. Dawn didn't want to walk, wanted to lay down and just quit and did. Rachel, being a bit nervous to begin with and is somewhat of a child who wants to blend in, became overwhelmed when the crowd began laughing (not at her, at the fact that animals are animals and in the middle of the show decided enough was enough, she just wanted to be a goat, lay down and chew her cud). Rachel, partly thinking they were laughing at her and partly just plain frustrated, broke down and began to cry. Daddy and mommy to the rescue with a few encouraging words from us and the judge and she pulled herself up by her boot straps and drove on to come in 2nd in a class of over 20 (where Jeremiah and my juniors placed 5&6th I believe) and went on to show Dawn yet again just a short while later with Apricot (dry (not in milk and not bred) yearling) and I in the class for Grand and Reserve Grand (which we didn't win but still we made it).
Her perseverance was testament to the whole weekend, truly. Saturday morning after such a long week for me with the kids home full time from school, trying to get goats clipped along with all the usual chores and regular work and all the work Rachel, Drew and I had done with the goats, I really just wanted to fall back to sleep at 5 AM when the alarm went off. I wanted to call it quits at 6 AM while shaving udders and knowing I'd run out of time before I could get it done. But in my heart, as a mother and teacher and leader, I knew despite my desire to want to give in and give up, it wouldn't be fair to the children nor would it show them what we try to instill in them. And with a grateful heart, it brings me to tears to think of her strength and will in mirroring us as a family all weekend.
After a disappointing morning with our yearling milkers placing at the end of their class, we went out on a high with our juniors doing very well and Moon (our yearling buck we brought from Ca.) taking Reserve Grand Champion behind an 8 year old La Mancha. There was lots of gushing over him by quite a few folks including the judge. I don't take the credit, I give that all to his breeder and Jeremiah did a better job of showing him than I would have. Moon seems to like him better anyway- must be a guy thing- and I was just a wreck at that point anyway- completely overheated and spent. Jeremiah-being the ever patient man he is and probably wondering why on earth he was showing dairy goats of all things instead of 4 wheeling or something more manly- admonished that while they may be dairy goats, it was an event the whole family could participate in and if we weren't at a goat show, we'd be at home working on something around the farm for the goats. So, you see, one may as well have fun with it.
Our yearling milkers had nowhere near the (udder) capacity as every one else. I couldn't believe the size of these yearlings for one and for two the size of their udders. Mine were not full by any stretch. We did not get home until nearly 11 PM and because my kids are dam raised, they had been drinking up until 11 PM Friday night when we got home from the youth show. I don't like to "over udder" anyway but they weren't as full as they should have been and I know that. There's a lot to take into consideration on the milkers for sure and circumstances are circumstances.
We were happy to be home Saturday evening. I was happy to get the goats back home. King, our LGD, was overjoyed to have his goats back home and we were glad to take a shower! I didn't mention yet that King was so upset about us leaving with half the herd he jumped over the back fence and chased us half way down 4th street! I had to run him all the way back home-just another thing that made me want to call it quits.
But anyway, a very good time was had by all despite. Not wanting to forget Drew who, by his own admonition, wasn't ready for showing yet, was as good as gold all weekend. I was expecting him to be bored and cranky and let that be known by acting out but he was just as involved as everyone else minus being in the show ring. The toys and coloring books didn't even make it out of the truck and his "shell" of shyness an unsure-ness has either broken or was temporarily put to the side because he sat and talked with folks he didn't know and chatted and stepped up to the plate and did what was asked of him happily. This goat showing thing, while it may not be Jeremiah's cup of tea, sure did bring a lot of positives to our already close family this weekend.
Sunday will be spent relaxing! We're tired. I'll try to get some photos up.
3 weekends ago (I think it was) we went to the Mennonite Relief Sale here in Hutch. It's basically a big eating/auction/silent bidding/eating/buying/congregating/eating thing. Once a year at the fair grounds people donate tractors, furniture, quilts, etc. and it's all auctioned/sold off for charity.
Good food- we ate apricot, strawberry and peach and cherry pie for breakfast since we missed the "Feeding the Masses" pancake breakfast but all was good because pie is okay in my book for breakfast once in a while! Jeremiah also decided we needed "New Years Cookies" which are more like mutant cake doughnut holes with spices and raisins and other than the coke we used to wash it down, it was a pretty healthy breakfast (bwaaaaahahahah).
We sat and watched the quilt auction for a while- beautiful work! We looked through all the garage sale goodies and found some fabric and embroidered vintage napkins. Rachel found a pink 1950's apron.
It was a lovely spring day. Spring is finally here. We made it through the first winter. Phew!
Just so we're clear, I'd like you to know I braved the elements unhappily to bring you these photos. You're welcome.
I had to coax the goats out of the barn with food. They won't go more than 18 inches away from the opening of the barn. Darn goats. These feeders are portable. I just hook them up wherever I please. In this case, outside the barn in the snow.
Where to start...Thursday the kids were off school. I had a nice visit with each of their teachers. Andrew is doing well in Preschool. I had commented to Jeremiah a week prior about how much he's come out of his shell the past few weeks with going to school and all.
He still clams up, especially about doing certain things independently. Being in his big sister's shadow, and to him apparently she's just about perfect, he out right refuses to do some tasks that are asked of him like writing his name or drawing a self portrait. Miss K. isn't asking for Salvador Dali or Georgia O'Keefe, she's just asking for his rendition. But, after watching Rachel draw so many "good" things in his eyes, and being somewhat of a perfectionist himself, I guess he feels that if it's not going to be perfect, he may as well not try. We'll work on that.
Rachel is in an AR (Accelerated Reading) class and is reading quite well for her age. She loves to read and we encourage that. Of course there are no bad behaviors to report for either of the children and Miss K. even commented that she can always count on Drew to be sitting correctly and quietly and she uses him as an example for the other children that everyone should follow Drew's lead. That may just win him the brown nose award for the year and cause some fights in the hallways. Course, I had to ask how on earth she gets him to do that because he's not, um, exactly, the best behaved child at home. He likes to test his limits, which of course we do our best to correct his behavior, but it's probably because he's still not 100% comfortable at school. He loves it but entrusting yourself to your preschool teacher after just a few weeks isn't something he's going to give up easily. But nonetheless, he's a model student, they both are and are doing quite well.
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Had a lovely visit with family from out of town. Jeremiah's Mom, sister, brother-in-law, their two kids and his niece (who's a few months younger than Drew) came from WV. We had a real lovely time.
Jeremiah was off Friday (as were the kids) because of parent-teacher conferences late into Thursday evening so we had a nice long weekend to spend.
Friday we spent kinda hanging out. Friday evening we drove down to Yoder to meet up with Jeremiah's cousin Kim, her husband an their two kids for pie at the Carriage Crossing. And delicious pie it was!
Saturday we drove back down to Yoder for breakfast and shopping. There are a few real nice shops including a quilt shop, a hardware store (and they do still sell nails by the pound but it wasn't nearly as exciting as people make it out to be), and a few other little home decor stores, etc. Jeremiah took us by the shop for the "grand tour". I've been so it wasn't that exciting but I think the others thought it was neat.
The gals and I left sent the kids home with Jeremiah and Gary and we went on to Hobby Lobby. Believe it or not, it was my first time in there and we've been here for weeks. I know right? A store that sells fabric that I haven't yet to visit? I wasn't real impressed with it either. My fabric options are kinda limited in this town. Oh well.
Saturday afternoon we wandered the property while dinner cooked, took some photos for them to take back and kinda just hung around again. It feels like they were here longer than they actually were as we seemed to pack a lot of things in. I do hope we get more visitors who come our way!
(Rachel and Sarah)
(Thomas and Andrew)
(Nellie-William Isaac's little girl)
___________________________________________________________ Finally sewed the first stitches yesterday in the new (temporary) sewing area in the basement. The back room has yet to be finished but we'll be working on walling off the area with all the mechanical stuff (furnace, water heater, sump pump, etc.) this weekend and drywalling it (and putting in a door of course to access it of course). When that's complete, I can paint it just like I did the front room and move everything back there for good.
Still missing baseboards and casing around the doors but with family coming, we needed to move stuff down there and quite honestly, I am a bit sick of painting.
We near daily talk about how to remodel the place. I think we've decided to go off the back, put a covered porch on the front and bump out the entry way just a bit to give us a more formal foyer/entryway. The back remodel will allow for a more open floor plan with a kitchen/family room. The living room will remain a formal sitting area, and along with the kitchen/family room off the back, a new master bedroom and bathroom are in the plans as well along with a large deck with handicapped accessible ramp to both the family room and the (eventual) guest bedroom (that is right now the master bedroom).
We had talked about going off the front and while we do sit back from the road, I am wanting a much larger kitchen and liking the open floor plan concept, going off the back will give us a much nicer view of the property with the grazing goats, hills, trees, pond, etc. and keep the living portions of the house farther back from the road.
Obviously a lot may and probably will change from our current plans but we'd like to go out 20' from the house to the North by 50 foot wide a. From approximately the location of the wall between the bathroom and laundry, we'll come straight out. We cannot go off any further west where the master bath and bedroom are as our well is right there. But there is enough space to put in a nice deck with a wheelchair ramp along the side of the house which will also connect to the front porch/"wrap around" deck we'll put on. We'll install another window on the west side of the house in the master bedroom and french doors where the current window is now which will access the deck.
Above is the addition. It's a crude mock up. Somewhere in the plan will be a large pantry, a 1/2 bath accessible for the "living" parts of the house, and the laundry will be moved around a bit or made bigger with a door to access it from the deck. The laundry will have a wash area for after chores clean up to include a ground level wash basin for shoes, legs, feet, etc. Little kids with dirty feet should have a place to wash themselves without tracking through the house.
I don't exactly want the master bedroom accessible from right off the living room/kitchen so may work in a hall or something. The east side of the house has a real lovely view though and our (new) bedroom window will look right out onto the pond and pastures.
Anyway, these are future plans, nothings going to happen for a while but it's still nice to play with plans anyway.
"The easiest painting you'll ever do" is becoming my worst nightmare! Painting paneling flat out sucks! Painting in a basement is even worse and I am so sick of painting I think this whole entire place will just stay the color it is. Which, let me tell you, is shades of cream. Didn't know cream had shades? Well, it does. AND it's awful seeing cream and brown and dark cream and mocha and light cream and dark chocolate and every other shade of the cream and brown spectrum. ALL. OVER. EVERYTHING.
The kids want their room painted. I'm of half a mind to hand them a brush and a can of paint and tell them to have at it.
Aside from that, the basement is slowly progressing. I painted all 4 walls today. I put up painters tape on the ceiling because I didn't buy a special cutting in brush and the damn tape took off bits and pieces from the paint on the ceiling. "GREAT!", I think. Instead I said, "Screw it!" Crown molding will be much easier to install and so there it is.
The shade of green I picked out was totally left field from my original pick of, you'll never believe this (!), COUNTRY WHITE! That's funny right? ::Sigh:: What can I say? shades of cream ARE okay but not always paired with shades of brown throughout the entire house!
I like the green anyway. It's called pale spruce or some fancy crap. It looks nice but painting in those craters on the paneling is awful and NOT easy and time consuming. I didn't get the closet painted. The ceiling is finished but my can of paint ran dry, I was high again on fumes, the kids were almost home and I hadn't started dinner. Heck, I didn't even know if the fricken chicken I had set in the fridge the night before had defrosted for my baked chicken dinner. Today is not a good day and tomorrow doesn't look good either...just so you're forewarned.
Anyway, Jeremiah will be home a bit late from work. He's making a picket pounder. That'll save us about $30. Tomorrow we're borrowing a trailer to go get the supplies for our barn project.
Oh, and I have something else to talk about. For weeks now when we go into town there are live traps set out in all the open areas along the road. They are actually in town and not on the way to town but anyway...so, before the traps were even out there we'd always talk about the cute little prairie dogs that live in the open areas along the road while we were stopped at red lights. They really are adorable and abundant. For about a week not the traps have been out and I didn't put two and two together until a couple days ago when I saw a new sign directing people towards the fair grounds.
The Fair-it's such a big thing here I thought it should be capitalized- is almost here and no wonder why all the lives traps are out. They want to beautify the place so people don't think that this town is trashy or anything. WE may be trashy, but our town? Nope, it's not trashy or overrun with prairie dogs. The funny thing is, there is a live trap by every single hole and honestly if they caught 3 of thousands I would be surprised. We'd always cheer for the prairie dogs, though I don't think they needed our support. Most were smart enough to know not to go in.
For a while there was nothing to entice them into the trap. I guess the city just thought they'd willingly wander in. Yeah, right. So, then they started bating them with water melon rinds. I'd like to know A. Who paid for all the watermelon and B. Why weren't we invited to THAT party.
Anyway, in the end, though I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure it was Prairie Dogs: 4 million City of Hutchinson: 3.
But speaking of The Fair, it starts tomorrow and goes to the 19th. We're going on the 19th because that's when the dairy goat show is. Ha. Is that selfish?
Would love to have gone Tuesday evening. The Oakridge Boys are playing but we don't know of anyone to watch the kids I don't know anyone I trust to watch the kids and plus too, it's a school nice. Maybe next year.
Now to figure out something for dinner. I don't feel like cooking. I mean...the chicken didn't defrost in time.
Met the neighbors today. You know, the ones whose horse we've been taking care of now for, 1, 2, 3, 4...17 days now.
Funny thing though, they didn't mention the horse, but I did.
I am being a bit overly dramatic about the horse. Quite honestly it's not been a bother. It's not like I've been feeding it, because I wouldn't. We did realize Sunday though she was back on her own property and neither of us put her there. She'd need to be taken through the goat's pasture to access it so we figured someone finally came and got her. She's not too happy about being there. I never did call them, figured eventually someone would come and call on her or we'd sell her and say we didn't know a thing about any horse. We financed cats, not a horse!
Speaking of cats, I've seen them a total of probably 5 times. They come around for sure, their food bowls is emptied. Suppose it could be wild critters but I doubt these cats are ever going to come around.
Guess what? Remember how I said the school bus picks the children up on the road? Well, get this, she's now driving up in the driveway and dropping them off (and picking Rachel up) practically at the door step! Mrs. B. was having quite a hard time from the looks of it backing in every morning and every afternoon.
I had been working in the basement, came up stairs thinking the children should be home soon. Hadn't heard the bus back up beeping so decided to go out front and wait for them when I opened the front door and there was a big yellow bus in the wraparound drive! How's that for door to door service?
We'll see how that goes this winter. She said she doesn't like to pull into people's drive because it can make ruts. Our driveway seems to drain just fine (the whole property does in fact) so hopefully it'll be fine for her to just pull around twice a day for the entire year. It seems kinda funny to have a big yellow school bus pulling around our driveway!
Jeremiah says the kids are being a pain in the rear end this evening. I told him I'm taking the night off meaning he gets the bathing and teeth duty.
I wrote a list today of all the things I'd like to get accomplished. Sad to say most of them are household duties! I marvel at the fact that anything around the house gets done with both Mom and Dad work. I just don't see how!
I made a super easy, super delicious homemade bread today. Jo (my friend) has been following the recipes from Artisan Breads In 5 Minutes A Day for a while now. I've known about the book and technique for some time, just haven't gotten around to doing it. I changed my recipe from their master recipe a bit but overall it's the same basic principle. It has yeast, so it isn't a quick bread BUT it doesn't require kneading. There is logic behind why it doesn't need it (no pun intended), and I can't remember exactly why, but if I remember right it had something to do with the fact that the dough is much wetter than a traditional kneaded dough.
I made enough for 4 loaves and really, it was just so quick and easy. NO KNEADING REQUIRED. I baked 2 and I'll be honest with you. I ate practically a whole fricken loaf all by myself almost as soon as it came out of the oven. The whole reason I made the bread in the first place is because I ran out of bread for lunches and here I was eating what was supposed to be for dinner and lunch tomorrow! Oops. I say that like it was an accident, it wasn't, not at all.
The rest of the dough will sit raw in the fridge. It should pick up a bit of a sourdough-y zing. I'll bake those tomorrow into loaves or maybe turn them into pizza dough for dinner. Wish I had tried this technique long ago. I put eggs and a bit of sugar into my dough, something the recipe didn't call for. It turned out a bit like brioche (a french buttery eggy bread). After I we got a hold of it for dinner, there is just enough left for tomorrow's lunch. Phew!
I didn't get as far on my "to do" list as I would have liked today. I did manage to finish getting the popcorn crap off the basement ceiling yesterday. I tried to start priming it today but I should have wiped it down with a wet cloth to remove all the dust because the primer isn't wanting to stick. I'm just making a mess of it so stopped 1/4 of the way through and will pick it up again tomorrow.
I did start tearing off the paneling on the walls though today. Fortunately for me it's just nailed and not glued. I had thought about just priming and painting it but hell, if I am going to do it, I may as well do it right. Oye, why do projects always turn into something so much bigger than they originally start out as!? Now I am thinking of faux painting the concrete floor to look like tile. I don't know how ambitious I'll be about that by the time I get done with the ceilings and walls.
Jeremiah is doing well. Coming along with a totally unique, totally personalized lesson plan has been a bit challenging. I know there's so much I should catch you all up on in regards to that but I'm not real sure exactly how to explain it.
Long story short is that his entire morning from about 8 AM to 10:30 is taken up by a single class with a short break. He has those same students all morning. They are a mixture of totally green to welding to 2nd year students. It came as a total shock to him! He is working with someone who specialized in lesson planning (I think that's her job) and they've devised a way to teach to such a wide variety of levels without talking over anyone's head or boring any one else.
Jeremiah's spent a lot of time putting this together and I am sure after this year it will be a lot easier for him. I am also sure that as time progresses he'll revise it, add to it, take away, etc. The first year is the hardest.
We just realized the phone we plugged in over the weekend had the ringer turned off! God, I swear I feel like such an idiot! The school nurse called my cell phone today and left a voicemail. For those of you who don't know, our cell gets horrible reception at the house. So I called her back and left her a message to call me at the house and that I would be in all afternoon. I had wondered why she had called the cell when she had the number to the house. Well, gee wiz, NO WONDER!! I think the people at the school from the school bus driver to the school nurse thinks I am an idiot because it appears that I haven't got a clue on the phone issue!
The weekend was pretty uneventful by all accounts. Saturday Jeremiah spent a good portion mowing, got about 1/3 of the property done. Amazing really that he spent a good 6 hours and only did about 1/3 of it. That's 5 acres. Now that I think about it though, Tex mowed Rick's 5 acres on Dawn Lane in 6 hours, so I guess it's about average.
I picked up a lot of the cut haylage and fed it to the girls. They want so badly to get out but I'm a little afraid to with the property fencing only being 3 strand twisted wire. Plus too, we still have the resident horse and while I doubt she'd hurt them, she seems pretty uninterested in them for the most part, I'd rather not take the chance. It's a real shame because there is so much good forage out there.
I could let just 1 or 2 out at a time but then they probably wouldn't eat and pine for the others on the other side of the fence. Except PJ, I'm sure she wouldn't give a crap about the other and just feed her face. Being the herd queen, the others tend to follow her so my theory is that if I led her around they'd follow, but again, I am just not ready to take that chance. They'd have to go a pretty long way to get into any real trouble to be quite honest and if I stayed out there with them it would be fine but who has time for that!? Anyway, enough about that. Maybe one day I'll work up the nerve to let 'em out and say have at it.
We still haven't decided for sure what to do about property fencing. We've gone back and forth on cattle panels vs. field fencing. For those of you who don't know the difference, here's a short explanation: Cattle panels are about 16 foot long, 4 foot 2 inches high made from 4 gauge (pretty thick) steel rods welded at the seams with horizontal and vertical "rods", for lack of a better term.
(Cattle paneling)
They come in all sort of different combinations as far as horizontal stays but more often than not they are close together at the bottom, say 1 inches apart for about 4-6 inches then gradually increase in space until at the top the openings are like 4"x6" or 6"x6". There are also other panels (hog panels are about 3 foot tall) and Horse panels which was about 5 foot tall with 4x4 spacing top to bottom.
Field fencing comes in a roll, we're looking at field fencing that is about 4 foot high and the rolls are 330' long. The downfalls to this are 1. It's heavy! 2. you MUST have anchored posts (i.e. wooden or metal posts set in the ground (3 to a corner normally) and then spaced about every 50 feet with t posts set every 8 foot apart) and that requires digging or auguring holes. In order to last any good length of time it requires setting said poles in concrete. Most of the posts around the property are still good (not set in concrete but our soil is loamy and it drains well not allowing moisture build up on the wood per say making them last longer but technically you could just use t posts pound into the ground to hold up cattle panels and forgo the anchor posts. The reason it would be okay is because they are stiff and unlike the field fencing can stand up on their own with little a little bit of vertical support from a less sturdy post like one really set in. Wooden or metal posts anchored into the ground every 50 or so feet with 8 posts at every 8-10 foot intervals is ideal, but if we're talking about finances and needing/wanting a temporary/permanent solution to letting the goats graze, t-posts would do it) 3. you have to stretch field fencing with a tractor, vehicle or come-a-long. We don't have a tractor to lift it right now or to stretch it. I WILL NOT stretch 15 acres worth of fencing with a come-a-long and so pretty much if we plan to field fencing it may be years before it gets done and quite honestly, come next Spring I'd like to have the goats out on pasture at least 10 hours a day.
Field fencing is meant to give when weight is placed on it. The seams where the verticals and horizontals touch are wrapped in wire. This allows the fence to give if livestock rubs up against it. BUT, if the fence is low enough for a horse or cow (or goat) to place the weight of its head and neck on it, it starts to lean over and stretch out on top.
I am fairly sure, providing the goats have plenty to eat in any one given pasture they are in, they will have no need to climb on the fencing. HOWEVER, at least for the pasture up front or any pasture where they will have human interaction, cattle panels will be the ONLY way to go. But again, if we're talking about putting up pasture/perimeter fencing right away, I just don't see us living to finish field fencing!
Pros to cattle panels is that they are indestructible, nearly anyway. They hold up MUCH better to goats, especially, than ANY other fencing. They can be replaced much easier than any stretched fencing. If a tree falls on a section or two, you remove that section and replace it and you're done. In terms of something happening to field fencing, not so with field fencing. Cattle panels can be bought sections at a time and can be taken down, moved around, etc. Buy them as we get the money basically, a few a month. Yes, it may take a while but with it kinda being "pieced together" you just keep adding on.
Downfalls are that it can be much more costly to use them than field fencing to the tune of about twice as much. BUT considering the work saved both installing and repairing is made up for that and its longevity is unmatched.
While I will admit that field fencing is much more attractive (personal opinion). Cattle panels, if done right, can look just as nice though.
Anyway, enough about fencing. I tire of thinking about it. For all I care we could put up 4-5 strands of electric fencing. Jeremiah thinks it's double the work and it is...sort of. Anyway...
At any rate, Labor Day is coming up and I am hoping Lowes, Tractor or Orshelns has a sale on cattle panels. Lowes, at full price, has been the cheapest of all three and Jeremiah gets a military discount there. It would be just grand if they had a tax free weekend. That along with his 10% discount would be fantastic! We'll see...
I would like to buy 10-20 and make a pasture for the girls just so they have something to nibble on until the grass starts to die back. $5+ a day is getting expensive to keep them around which is what we are spending on feed and grain! Multiply that by the rest of winter and you can see that it'll be quite a bite out of the pocket book until next Spring when I finally get some milk coming in again.
If anyone asks what we want for Christmas, we want cattle panels. We're easy to please like that. You have no idea how indispensable these things are! I made a feeder out of one last week. They can be made into gates, they can be made into pens, and as I have proven, you can even make them into clothes lines.
There was some excitement yesterday evening. Jeremiah and I were in the bucks pen lowering the gates. There are 2 metal lean-to structures split in half, so technically there are 4 pens that utilize 2 shelters. That's besides the point but I was inside one of the shelters watching the boys as they ate and Price Charming was looking at something curiously. I turn around and there is a huge snake slithering across the pen! I am fairly sure the words I used were not suitable to repeat. Jeremiah jumped up and probably said some choice words too. He wasn't nearly as close to it as I was. He asked me what I wanted to do. I am fairly sure it was a gopher snake but I told him I didn't care if it was poisonous or not, NO SNAKE THAT BIG WILL BE ALLOWED ON THIS PROPERTY so Jeremiah threw a cinder block at it. I think it landed on top of it but didn't kill it. I ran to get a shovel and it slithered off to the other side of the fence. Jeremiah went after it and between the two of us we killed it.
I really do kinda feel somewhat badly about killing it. It measured in at 4 foot 6 though anyway, it's gone.
To date we've seen 4 snakes and quite frankly, that's 4 snakes too many. Reason #1 for keeping the place mowed or grazed down. I really have to start reading up on the snakes around here.
The neighbor said the previous owner did kill a rattler many many years ago. They are supposed to be rare though. Our real estate agent told Jeremiah Kansas doesn't have snakes when Jeremiah asked a few months back. When someone tells you that, take it like you would when the government tell you they are there to help you.
At any rate, I've got to get on getting the Explorer registered here in Kansas. I went to Walmart today and bought Kilz primer and concrete primer to paint the paneling downstairs in the basement. I'd prefer to take the paneling off but I assumed it was glued and nailed and quite frankly I just need to do something quick down there so I can get back to work. I also started removing the popcorn ceiling after lunch and it's coming off so nicely. I asked the inspector when he was out inspecting the house if he thought the ceiling had asbestos in it and he said there was none. Now granted, he could be wrong, but I'm going with that. There was small bit of paneling I started removing just to see if it was glued and it was just nailed so I am hoping it's all like that and I can just take it all down and paint!
The floor is concrete. Yesterday I used a stain remover and etcher. We're going to paint the concrete. I'll let you know how that turns out but I am pretty confident it will be just lovely. We were visiting friends a couple weekends ago and they had a painted concrete floor and it was just gorgeous! They were no experts so I figure if they can do it, so can I.
Anyhoo, that's all for now. The kid's school bus should be here soon and I want to get back to this crappy ceiling.
