Opps!

Well, sorry if I spammed anyone...
one of the photos gave me trouble...so kept trying, and between dial up and the problem...well, lets just say that was not a great combo!
Here is the photo of our dog that you can not see in the other post!

photos of some of our animals...

Some new photos of our farm...and some of the animals...
our horse-Rose Bud
and 3 of our 5 sheep, you can see 2 of our 4 goats in the back ground.











This is one of our 2 cats, Todd. Todd has his own blog.... http://toddkitty.blogspot.com/

Beginning to farm...our history

Well, I can not blog about our farm with out telling you a story about how we started with farming! Scott and I have this mini farm and had nothing 'growing' on it. My sister's husband suggested we begin to raise our own meat. Although now we do not eat pork, (we now follow the biblical dietary guidelines) at that time we did.
So we got a baby pig. A male. He needed to be fixed. We did not know how to do that, and really did not want to just start cutting on him, so by the time we did the job, he weighed about 50#. We waited too long. (your suppose to do this very early on)
My sister and her husband come over to help; it took her husband and mine to hold the pig. He weighed so much and was very wiggly. He squealed and squealed as my sister and I began to cut very slowly, with a sterile scalpel, it took us about 10 minutes and the pig finally just passed out. After -by the next day, he was bruised (he was a white colored pig) for about a week. When we were finally done, I said-should we suture it closed?

Scott and I learned the hard way to be farmers. We just jumped in with both feet...and met any challenge head on.

Our 'boar', who was our 'daddy' boar, got ill, so we had to give him antibiotic. As we were chased around the pen by a 500# boar that had not moved for 2 days, but suddenly had the energy to chase us down, (if someone would have just videotaped this, we might have won money on the tv show funniest home videos!!!) We finally gave the shot to him in a 'very tender' spot. He had finally went to lay down next to the fence with his back end pushed up into the fence, so we stood on the other side (the safe side of the fence) and gave it to him...in that tender male area... It was the only place that little needle would go into (pig skin is very thick and tough-I learned to get a bigger needle not some little small size that you would use on people)

After all of that, we learned that they make the same antibiotic that you can just put into their food or water. Duh! That would have been a lot easier!

That pig was so big; we actually had to put him on a diet later when he was well. He got too big to move!

I am so glad we no longer eat pork! I am esp glad we no longer raise pork! They are dangerous and messy, very unclean. (is that why GOD never called them food?!)

One of our sows (female pig of child bearing age) that we knew would have babies soon, delivered a week earlier than what we had figured she would. We had not yet moved her to the safe area for birth, so the boar that was still in the same pen, laid down on the babies and killed them. Well, we thought, why move her out now.

A week later, she began to labor again!! What?! Yes, she had another litter!
We figured she must of had a double uterus!
So my hubby began to pick up the babies and RUN! (That is the only way we could get her to move into a safer area with the babies) See, if the baby squeals, then she will notice they are being moved. Scott made it out with the first few, but the last ones, one squealed, and up she came running after him. Pigs CAN run fast when they want to, and they can KILL a person! So there is Scott running across the pasture with baby pigs in his hands, being chased by a huge sow, a huge angry sow, and as he gets to the fence (5 foot high) he jumps over it, landing hard on the other side (thankfully she did not go thru the fence-we have had that happen before). The other scary thing is none of us was out there when he was doing this, so if he had he tripped inside the pasture-well he might not be here! (We have since talked about NOT doing dangerous stuff alone)
He seemed fine all afternoon, but by that evening said his back was hurting more and more. Finally he could not even stand up! I took him to the ER, and after some tests, they said he had a ruptured disk. They gave him a huge amount of pain med, (finally after being there for over an hour) it helped as we were being discharged. It lasted about 1/2 hour, so I knew it had to be really bad if it did not last very long. They suggested we speak with a dr the next day, that would do surgery that week.
That night when we got home I had our second son come and help get Scott into the house. Scott could not stand up at all, but could crawl. So he crawled to the back door, very slowly. As he crawled up the steps, and into the house, our son looked at me and said-"I have never seen dad in this kind of shape-this is bad".
We did talk to a dr the next day that spoke more about our farm animals (he was from a big city-just moved here to 'corn country', after always living in a big town, ) so he was very fascinated about farm animals! I was a little frustrated; would I be charged by the hour here???
He wanted to do surgery right away, that week if possible, but we said why? What would happen if he does? Well he would remove the damaged disk, and fuse together the bones. Ok. What would happen if we do not do surgery? Well the bones would fuse themselves. Ok. Why pay you to do that?
Scott never had surgery, but did do extensive rehab for his back, which helped a lot. He is still going strong today, moves a little slow, and we know that he may have to have surgery in the future, but he would have had to have surgery in the future anyway even if he had surgery way back after the accident! They said they would prob have to repeat it again.
So that is our beginning of farming. We have learned a lot, and now, we are not so 'green'. But I am still so gald that we do not have any pigs anymore!!!

get together

Well. here are some photos of a wonderful afternoon that I spent with some of the families. It was a fun day! We had great food and great fellowship!
I know that this does not have anything to do with our farm...but still had to share these with you because it is such a part of my life...

Baby lambs!

Here are 2 of our baby lambs that were born this last late jan. (we had twins from two different mothers.)
They are like kittens and puppies, very cute to watch and deal with when they are little!
We inherited three large sheep for a (partial) exchange for a birth I did for an Amish family, two were going to have babies we were told, but they had no idea of when....January is NOT the time to be lambing!
They both had twins, the problem is we did not know when to expect them, so the very first one that delivered, the first little baby was lost to freezing temperatures. After that, with hair dryers out there to help warm the new little ones until they were well under way...then a heat lamp inside the barn, to have an area of where they could keep warm. This last winter was very very cold!

Sewing!

These are some of the dresses I made for our little girls so many years ago, thought I would show
them just for fun...
Hopefully I can find the time to start sewing again...
The photo on the top is Nalani is a dress I did by hand (no
machine sewing on that one...)


This photo on the Left is Nalani in
a dress I made for her

and the photo on the right is one
of a dress I made for Anastasia

Our family puts the 'fun"into dys'fun'ctional...

well a little about me, I am married to a wonderful man...since 1980. We dated for 5 years before that....so we have been together for a long time.

here are some photos of my family...we have 5 children.



Our oldest is Jason, name meaning healer, he is married to Missy and they have 3 beautiful children...Zachary, Logan, and Adrena. (photos of grand children coming soon)



The next child is Nathan,name meaning prophet, he is married to Kasandra. They have 2 children, Josiah, and Jeremiah. (photos coming soon)



The next child is Anastasia, name meaning of the spring time of the resurrection. She is married to Stephen.



The next child is Nalani, name meaning calmness of the heavens.



The youngest child is Dustin, name meaning warrior and defender for GOD. He is married to Samantha.

Scott and I met because I was friends with his sister. I had just ended a relationship with someone else and a relationship he had been in had just ended, so we started hanging out. At first we would go for drives and just talk. We started noticing that we had a lot in common...
About each weekend we would just talk when I was over to visit his sister. after a few months it turned into a bit more serious dating.
I still remember the spot I was at (in his car while he was driving) and where we were at (in the town of Colon) when I heard the LORD say to me-"this man will be your husband," I can stand on that very spot today.

Scott and I were both believers, but were not really walking with the LORD, so we were not in obedience to HIM at all. That makes for a difficult start in a relationship.

We dated for 5 years and one month before I turned 18, we were married. That was in 1980. I graduated High School one month later also. It was kind of weird to write your own excuse for missing school because of your honeymoon.

2 years later we had our first baby. I was a stay at home mom, by choice. I really believe that is GOD's will for married couples. Today so many 'mom's' work out side the home and the dad stays home, and I am not convinced that is really HIS will. I think it is the enemy's way to try to destroy the marriage. But times are tough I know, we struggle too, and families must pay the bills-so many moms do work.

I am grateful that I was able to stay home as long as I was. I home schooled the children for their younger years. The three oldest, I put into public school after about 3 years of homeschooling. They were in school for about 3 years then we took them back out. We had some trouble in the public school system here locally. One young child even threatened to bring a knife to school to stab my child-(Nathan) and after dealing with some very stupid people in the school system, we finally got it worked out. But it took soooo much effort on our part. The principle just said to me, 'well he (the other child) is just a first grader'...(like he would not do anything because he is young?). Now all these years later, we hear about killings in schools, even young children bringing guns and knives to school...and here was a troubled child who did not get the help he needed! (I knew the family, for awhile the mother baby sat for 3 of our children and she was abusive-so did not baby sit for very long, she even threatened me!)
That was a tough year, we took the kids out after that year.

I had since become a nurse, but at what price? If I could go back and do things different, I would have waited on going back to college myself. That is why I tell everyone now, finish college BEFORE you start a family!

I worked full time, home schooled and kept up a house. That means I gardened, canned (about 300 jars a year) and still sewed the dresses my daughters wore, the shirts my sons and husband wore and also my dresses and shirts. I worked second shift and my husband worked first. Most of the time I actually worked the third shift, so we rarely saw each other. When I got home from work, I would lie down for about 4 hours then get up and start the day. I went years on that kind of rest. But that is just what I did to help our family survive.

The problem? We were not really dependent on GOD, we depended on US. Again, I think if we would have really worked to seek HIS way, (we were believer's, attended church, and had a personal relationship-but) and not try to 'listen' to so many spiritual leaders and other believers that were leading us in the wrong direction. They would say-you gotta do what you have to --to pay your bills....

Where was the teaching about trusting HIS ways?
God in HIS wisdom began to say to me..."hey, listen to me!" As I did, but it was the opposite of what I had been hearing! I was often labeled the rebellious one... well more on that later...I think that this post will be long enough...so stay tuned in to the upcoming part 2 of the dys'fun'ctional family...

beginning to blog-finally

greetings I have finally started to blog! I am learning so much about computers....
This is my husband and I before we were married...
Weren't we just so cute?!

Boy do we look young! (after all it was 30 years ago!)