Two Weeks and Running...

The last few weeks have been rainy, rainy, rainy!  Thankfully, the weekends have been nice, which leaves for lots of catchup yard work.  It seems through the week we are in twelve different directions, and thankful that Bill is around to help with all that running.  With Bill & Kristin helping out some friends with babysitting and running kids to & from the charter school, Bill & Kristin are pretty busy without the extra things thrown in!  The leave at 7:30, drop Ryan at school (Who is really thankful, since he gets to sleep in an hour), Bill drops Kristin off, and picks up 3 of the 5 kids, and heads off to their school by 8am.  At 11:45, Bill heads back, picks up the kindergartener and heads back to the school.  Now that Kristin can get the youngest off the bus at 1:30, that saves Bill one trip!  Back at 4 to get 4 of them, and then take them home.  Then Bill & Kristin come home.  It's a full day for Kristin, as she is a sack rat, and loves to sleep in.  She's been napping when the youngest comes home at 1:30, and then is ready to go with the other 4 get home at 4pm!  To add to this chaos, Ryan has started drivers education.  He has about 50 hours with us, and will finish up to get his license.  He goes once a week to class, who we are thankfully trading off rides with my old teaching partner.  I said to her daughter yesterday "It's funny that you & Ryan are having class together on Monday's again"!  For 8 years they attended Monday home school classes together!

The weekend of the 21st, we had Ryan's football oil change fundraiser.  Being that Ryan was away at a youth conference with his youth group, Bill & I ran all three cars into town to have the oil changed.  Bill took the big truck into the tire shop after the oil change, as we had an odd feeling in one of the tires...opposite the one I had to replace last week.  Turns out that tire is bad too.  We think it was a result of the travel time on the chains in the mountains on our last trip.  Regardless, they refunded the fee for the used tire I put on the week before, and gave us $ for the two front tires, and Bill had all four put on. Not what we planned, but what do you do. I finished with the little truck's oil change just about the time Bill was finished at the tire shop, and we headed into the yard. We had a tree that needed some trimming in preparation for a new driveway to the barn, plus  Bill dropped five more trees...some that had some damage, some that had overgrown into other trees, and one that was rotting from the inside out.  I hated to take out the plum tree, because of my fond memories of my grandfather on his several trips to Oregon, always at plum time!  I will forever remember his plum stain on his shirt telling my grandmother "Nope, I haven't had any more plums"...as he & Kristin grinned with purple lips!

After the trees were down, rather than clean them up, we headed to the chicken coop.  Bill can cut up the trees during the week, but I was afraid of having him cut them down while here alone at home during the day.  

Bill's sign from way back...made a nice addition!

NEW FENCING--INCLUDING THE OLD COOP FOR THE LITTLE GIRLS

The chicken coop pen needed enlarged.  We have 16 chickens now, and the run was too small for that many birds.  While we love to let them free range, we have a neighbor dog who likes to chase them, so only when we are home and can leave Chelsea out do we let them out of the pen.  Bill, Kristin & I spent about an hour putting up new fencing, only to change it a few hours later...and a change for the better!  Bill figured out how to put the chicks in a separate pen, next to the 1st batch and the older girls.  It's worked out great! 
 
Here are our new girls outside for the first time....they loved it!

Our Older Girls--and the reason we do this!!

Little Black

Fuzzy Feet...one of our Dark Brahmas

 Fuzzy Feet...one of our Dark Brahmas

As I was out taking pictures...I came across Kristin and her best friend McKenzie.  McKenzie lives in Washington and is not here very often....so the girls spend every waking moment together, and several nights of sleep over time too!  Kristin works school around McKenzie and takes her breaks on the Washington spring break schedule!  McKenzie is home schooled also, so the girls have a lot in common. 
Of course, Kristin's Dog Lexxi is never far....  I was able to sneak up on them for this first shot....just laying in the sun, chatting about "girl things"!!

Of course, no trip is complete without a makeover hairdo!! 

A Very Full Week!

The weekend started out with a trip over to Bend to pick up Charlie. We were blessed to have him home for the weekend. We ran a few errands in Bend, and spent the beautiful day coming back over the pass.

Sunday we were blessed with another beautiful day as we headed to church. After church, Bill & Charlie headed to Salem to pick up Aaron so he could spend the day with us. We enjoyed our first real smoked ham. With Kristin & Bill's sugar allergies, we had a half pig cut as usual, but not cured in hams. It was not the traditional ham flavor, but it was very good. More practice and it will be perfect! We enjoyed a great day visiting with friends, playing WII and great food.
SEE MORE PICTURES HERE


Wednesday was a big day for Kristin. She cut off her hair!! She has been growing it for about 3 1/2 years, and finally decided to get the locks cut off. We scheduled with our good friend Kellie Kem and headed to her new shop here in town. We thought it was about thirteen inches, but we measured the braid tonight, and it's almost 13 inches braided...so we are guessing it was actually about 15". Way to go Kristin! We are very proud of you. About a year ago, Kristin started straightening her hair, then stopped because she didn't want to damage her hair, so that someone who didn't have hair could enjoy hers. SEE MORE PICTURES HERE: She looks so much older! Thanks Kellie for a great cut on a big day!

Friday we enjoyed our Pastor's 50th birthday party. It was Hawaiian style, and lots of great folks came. We had a late night, as after we headed for dinner, and a few late night errands. It was nice to come home and know that we could all sleep late in the morning.SEE MORE PICTURES HERE

Late was 7:30...even our sack rat Kristin was up at 9:30. She takes after her Big Papa and loves to sleep in! We headed outside as it was a beautiful day. The tree that came down in the snow storm needed to be tackled. Bill cut, Ryan & I moved limbs, started the burn pile and moved cut logs.




Kristin was down at our neighbor Carol's as she was "working" today. Work for her is brushing 5 horses, playing around with goats, and learning farm chores! she feels bad getting paid for doing something she loves. I told her a job that she loves is a blessing everyone wants!



While we stopped for lunch, I took three more chicks to the new pen. They were scared, and hung out on my legs for awhile, but seemed to fit in pretty well. They are all growing so fast. I love the silver laced Wyandottes, they are beautiful....but also our most shy birds. Fat Louise, our lone buff orpington, is still one of my favorites, as are "fuzzy feets", our two dark brahma's. The three that came out today are the 2 new Rhode Island Reds and the lone black sexlink. Sadly, Chickadee didn't make it, and we said goodbye last week. Kristin was relieved because she passed on her own, and she didn't need to decide if she was doing the right thing.


After lunch, Bill & I hit the tree again. HALF of it is down, cut up, limbs and brush burned, along with a few of the hazelnut trees that have just sprouted out there. It was a blessed day!! Even more special, Bill ran the chainsaw across his leg on accident....ripped his pants, cut through his undies not a SCRATCH on him. Praise God!



We wrapped things up about 7pm...the yard is looking great after a cut, some grooming and all that is left, is the other half of the tree! SEE MORE PICTURES HERE Time for dinner and a shower....and good intentions for blogging, but WAY too tired! Off to bed, and boy was it a good night sleep!

Here's to a great Sunday--the sun is peeking over mountains, and it's going to be a great day!

Chick Release Day

Today, we brought 6 of 7 of the first batch of chicks outside. The 'one' that didn't come outside is "chickadee". She has a splayed leg, and does the splits all the time. Her one leg is not very functional, and every web site we looked at said there is no cure and the most humane thing to do is put her down. Well, if you know my daughter, that isn't really an option. Her feeling was, if she's eating, pooping, growing and happy, she is staying. Well, she is doing all those things and Kristin feels that God gave her this bird, because it's a little like her with her CP. Chickadee is always happy to cuddle with Kristin, and we realize she can probably not be integrated with the bigger chickens. She is doing great with the new chicks we got a few weeks ago, and so we keep her with them. Maybe they will be fine at a later time to be integrated in together. Until then, she will be inside with the other 7. Three are about 3 weeks from going out, and the remaining 4, minus chickadee, have about another 6 weeks.

The sun was so beautiful today, Kristin brought out our two bravest and most social first....Speckled Red and Fat Louise. They took right to the grass and were happy to peck around. The next two were "Fuzzy feet"--we call them both the same...totally feathered even to their feet!! So cute. They did pretty well. A little apprehensive, but did well. The last two, were Happy Feet and Hawk.....they were nervous but did OK. Kristin sat with them all, and Chelsea made sure no one escaped. It is funny how she knows her job so well when there are new ones around. She is even cool with giving rides!!

We got them into the old chicken coop, and put them inside the pen. (Ryan even helped...he claims not to like them!) This way, keeping them close, old and new can hang out safely, with no pecking going on. Long Comb, our first chick, was not a happy camper today!! She did a lot of squawking!!
Even after we moved the chicks to the pen/chick coop, she laid right outside....she was with them the rest of the day, until it got dark and they went in the loft.
It should be interesting when no one can free range tomorrow, and they are all in the pen (of course the little ones are in the old fenced coop.)
After everyone was settled in their place...Kristin brought Chikadee out to enjoy some sunshine...we think she liked it.


God blessed us today with sunshine from the time we started working to 30 minutes after we came in....Thank you Lord for that gift!

What a great day!

Lots of catching up

WOW...I can't believe it's been a MONTH!! My favorite, most relaxing thing I do (besides sleep) is BLOG and it's been so long. Guess that goes to show how busy we've been!



Backing up to FEBRUARY--We headed to Canby on the 25th, to watch our favorite basketball star Jason. We were VERY impressed at how good these kids are!! We expected a comedy of sorts, but what we saw, was a bunch of very serious, but having fun 1st through 3rd graders, out there moving the ball, working on plays, and making it a fun event for those of us in the stands. Jason, we are so proud of you!!


We spent Sunday night and Monday night hanging with Charlie and the Teen Challenge guys.


Charlie was in Lebanon for a seminar, and we were able to see him for a few short hours while he was here. The bonus was Ty & Jason were with him, so we got a nice visit with them too.

Early March brought Kristin's best friend from Washington to Grandma's (who is our neighbor). The sad part is, it was only as they passed through from a church conference on their way home, so was only from 8pm to 11 am the next day. We allowed the girls to camp out in the living room, and since Ryan was gone to Youth camp, it was perfect. They giggled most of the night, we shut our door, and let them have some teenage girl time, as their time together was so limited...but to them, such a blessing.

Last weekend, Bill & the kids surprised me with a trip for the day to the coast. Ryan was off on Thursday & Friday, so they spent all day Friday, catching up on chores, so that we could spend the day as a family on the coast Saturday. It turned out to be a beautiful day....a bit windy, but beautiful just the same.


We had a great day, and rounded out the evening with a trip to Rogue Brewery downtown Newport for dinner.





Tuesday evening (March 21st--also our 19th Anniversary of living in Oregon), we went to bed, it was raining, but what we woke to was about 6" of snow at 4:30 AM. By 5:30, it was pretty evident that I was not going to work, as it was so white, you could hardly see our barn! 6AM and the power went out. By 7:30 there was about 10"....to which both kids were up and outside blowing up inner tubes. The sad part was, with no electricity, no air compressor...they were blowing them up themselves--now that's determination!

It wasn't long until we were hearing a lot of falling trees. Several at our neighbors to the North of us, along with a big cherry tree in our field. Ironically, it fell right onto the wood pile! No moving necessary after cutting!



Around 9:30, Bill & I headed in for a nap....we'd been up early, and it was snowing, the electricity was out, and it seemed like a good idea. So we stoked the wood stove, and headed to bed. When we woke around 10:30 the snow had slowed down, but we couldn't see where the kids had played...I'm pretty sure we topped out at about 12". The awning over the chicken coop/yard had fallen, cracking a 2x6 in half. The chickens never even poked their heads out of their coop all day! It was about noon when the rain started. We lost about 6" of snow to the rain, before it started snowing again, dumping another 4" overnight. I wasn't sure that I would get out of the driveway for work, and thought I'd be home on another "snow day", but Bill cleaned off the car, shoveled some, and with 4wd and a prayer, it headed to work on Thursday...late, but to work! Bill finished shoveling the entire drive with a coal shovel (we've needed a snow shovel twice in 19 years here...it always melts in a day or so), and thankfully he did, because everything turned to ice that night. By Friday, I was beginning to stress about the freezer full of beef & pork, that we just filled this last few months....and I mean FULL! Bill was blessed with an offer of a generator, and just as he was loading it in the truck, the electricity popped back on. Praise God!! When I got home from work a few hours later, I checked the freezer that I had been afraid to even open to check and everything was still ROCK solid! Phew. We lost a few things in the fridge, nothing major, mostly things that should have been tossed a long time ago. Thankfully, it was cold enough that we used the back porch as a fridge, placing most things but the milk inside the grill! It worked perfect!



It's been a wild kind of week, and so thankful for all the blessings...even though it was a different week, we were still warm, safe, and enjoyed some extra time together.






Bill headed to a conference in John Day this weekend with 4 other guys from church. They had a great overnighter. The kids and I rented a few good movies....The Help...I would recommend that to everyone, and of course Puss in Boots! It was a fun evening for just the three of us...followed by heading to Eugene on Saturday, for me to work, and the kids to bum around while I worked, then we all headed to do some fun shopping. Bill arrived home safe around 11, and we enjoyed a nice Sunday at church, complete with breakfast bbq followed by a nice afternoon nap.


Enjoy all the pictures of the snow...we had fun--despite the power loss!