CATCH UP ON OUR LIVES

Well, summer is gone.  Fall is here and soon, so will the snow of winter.  Scott and I continue to work to get this small farm into condition for us or to be ready to sell.

The Tipi is down, the cover repaired and put away for now.  Although I like it more for the winter use than any other time, for this winter we will keep it down.   Perhaps we will use our little cabin this winter-we did not get to use it last winter due to the squirrels got into it and tore it up and we need to get all of that fixed.  Maybe we will get to work on that this winter!

Scott is hoping to get the wood stove into the house soon and that will save us much money.  He has worked on the fencing all summer-but there is still a lot of work on the fence that needs to be done.  Not just upkeep, but more fencing needs to go in.  If he can get some done before the ground freezes, he might try to do just that.

  He has also been able to get a load of silage (for free!) he hand shoveled that into the wagon, then will hand shovel it out into a area that he can control how much the animals eat.  Silage in itself, a lot at a time, is not healthy.  So we do not want our animals to just eat and eat it, so we limit their access to it. 

  He was able to get some hay we will have about 200 bales to put up for the winter, at a dollar a bale, cant go wrong there!.  That was a HUGE blessing!  Now to get it all.  He already picked up about 60 bales, but has more to get.

So this is what he has to do before winter:  

*Go get the rest of the hay (and pay for it yet-and get more if it is available)

* still have hay from the other place on order we have to pay for and pick up too-about 16 round bales

* finish fencing

*finish building the other hay mow (one side is done-the second side needs to get done)

*finish removing the silage from the wagon

*winterize everything around here: windows, doors, garden hoses etc.

*re-stack stones/broken cement we got free from the church when they broke up the old sidewalk and we took the pieces home to use as a filler in the driveway and border wall- along the drive way

*finish siding the barn (we have had that siding for about 16 months, and try to get a piece up now and then...one side is almost done!)  But it HAS to be done before winter.  It will protect the barn.

I have to do the following:

*winterize the garden

*winterize the grand children's play area

*winterize the wood that needs some touch up painting-

*finish cleaning and organizing my old/new office inside 

*sewing stuff (my new work clothes and stuff...)

*the front garden which has not been weeded for 15 months- (it was 'resting') needs to be weeded before winter so the old dry weeds do not re seed-

*and help Scott with the other list.

scott has a few weeks to get his list done...

I have one week.  Sigh.

I was gone last week covering for another midwife-did 5 births in 4 days.  Busy time! 

Here are some photos of the fall views from where I stayed:

Here is a cute little old store in the valley...

here are a few other photos of the area...

 Now I am home for one week then I leave for Virginia, to work with a midwife there for ??? a few weeks or up to about the end of November.  I am not sure I will get everything done I need to do before winter!  If not, then the snow will cover it and let it sleep until next year!

But Scott, who will be here-will work hard to get all of this done.  Maybe it will keep him busy enough to not miss me!

Working on the Play House -again

Well, we finally got the play house stood up. It took some work to prop it, Scott used the tractor and some empty crates, cement blocks and what ever! After propping it up as high as he could, he used the tractor lift to raise the stuff up into the air, and with a rope tied around the structure, and the other end to the truck, I drove the truck pulling the structure into the air and standing! what a job! We hope to finish the project this coming week!
The grand children was our 'cheering' section, and are slightly disappointed that they can not play on it this time, but know they will get to play on it in the future.
They were happy to have pizza, and a treat of pop and ice cream for supper. Lots of sugar (so very very bad for the human body) but fun at grandmothers houses! We did eat well during the day-roasted chicken sandwiches...fresh fruit, and juiced tomatoes...so I guess a supper that is bad for you --was not too bad...one time!
The grand children said that grandpa 'tipped the play house over'.

The family Grand childrens play house

Here is my hubby who is working on the 'play house'. The old one came down a couple of years ago, when we turned that area into more pasture. So now a new one is going up. We have had the materials for many months now, but unfortunately the play house was not the first priority on the farm to be finished. The animals and fencing came first, among other things.

The grand children are here today for a couple of days to visit, and are anxious for 'gramp-pa' to get it finished. They are telling him that they will help him!

Play ground

Well, we are finally working on our grand childrens play house and play area. The merry go round is in, and now we are building a huge play house...with a swing and slide...

More photos coming later!

early morning on the farm

Well I was up early today and watched the sun rise...here are some shots of our farm as the sun came up...
Gotta love this sky...GOD does such a great job -no one can do better!!! HE makes everything so beautiful!!!

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!!!