Monday, August 27, 2012

My Critters

The other day, we were going to town, and this is how 2 of our critters looked as we were leaving...



Moses, our dog, and our new kitten, Socks, looked absolutely miserable to see us leave, don'tcha think?  And then, they found solace and comfort in the love of one another.
 
Actually, the second after I took this picture, Moses thought that he was going to get to come with us, so he got up, leaving Socks all alone on the front steps.  Poor little Socks.  Thankfully he's not gotten eaten by coyotes....yet.

Friday, August 24, 2012

The Weekend

The weekend is almost here.  That means later nights, pancake breakfast, sleeping in and being outside.  Friends for dinner, movie night and nachos.  Napping, going to the dump and lounging in pajamas.  Going to church, lunch out and trying to shoot a fox (who's been eating our chickens) with my fierce looking hubby.  That's my kinda weekend. 
 

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Preparation

With it being overcast outside with loads of mosquitoes, I thought today might be a good day to (finally) clean out our school cabinet.  It's something I've been wanting to do since we finished school....in May, but with nice weather and loads of company, it's one of those jobs that kept getting pushed back.  Although I am a fairly organized person, and I TRY to give my Girls tools to help them keep organized, this cabinet has gotten a bit out of control.  I started by having the Girls go through their bins and getting rid of everything from last year.  Then, I dumped everything else on the floor and told the Girls to organize.  This, I know for certain, they are very, very good at.  Especially my oldest...she loves to organize!

 
Here's the finished, organized cabinet.  I am one happy camper!
 
 
 
We've been getting hair cuts, back to school shopping with friends, ordering curriculum...preparing for the next school year.  We still have summer holidays to go on (although it feels more like fall, I'm not gonna lie!), so hopefully, with all this preparation, when we get home from holidays, we'll be all ready to start school.  In theory, that is!
 
 

Monday, August 20, 2012

Red Neck Sleds

We went to Cabela's recently and they had their winter sleds out already.  The Girls loved them....sat in them, layed in them, played in them.  After we left, we talked about how great one would be to pull behind the quad in the winter.  Art often pulls the Girls on a sled, but it's never big enough for all of them, and they end up with face fulls of snow as they bail off of it.  So, we took the plunge. 

We now own a new red neck sled.... I like it!  We got the biggest one, so that they the Girls would all be able to fit in it.  We can also use it for bringing wood up to the house from the back bush, and all other sorts of things.  At least that's how we justified the purchase in our minds!

It seems crazy that we're buying a sled in August, but I'm sure once the snow starts flying, we'll not be able to find another sled like this.  Isn't that how it works, always?  Anyhow, winter is coming....sometime in the (not so) distant future. 

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

14 Years

Today, Art and I celebrate our 14th anniversary.  14 years of wedded bliss.  Okay, well maybe not 14 years of bliss, maybe only 13 yrs. and 8 months of bliss....but nevertheless, it's been pretty great so far!

We've celebrated births together, mourned the loss of loved ones together.  We've ministered together, we've fought together.  We've laughed together, we've cried together.  We've had each others backs, always. 

It's comforting to know that this man of mine, this pillar of strength that stands by my side, will be there with me, through everything life has to throw at us.  This gift of God to me, this man of integrity, will be my soft place to fall.  He laughs at me - and with me, he holds me when I weep, he rejoices in the gifts of our children with me, and he always, always, point me to God. 

For this, I am thankful.

And, I like his butt.  And his arms.  And his eyes.  And his smile.

Here's to my dirty husband....



I pray that our Girls grow up and marry men like their Daddy, who love them as much as their Daddy loves me.  Happy anniversary, honey!

Monday, August 13, 2012

Sunday Afternoons

On Sunday, we took a drive to do one of our most favorite things on a sunny day.  Let's be honest, it doesn't even have to be sunny...we've gone in the pouring rain before too (which is often better, because less people show up!).  We drove about an hour and 15 minutes north east of us to attend a farm auction.  It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the deals were coming my way....

Here are a few shots of our day....

 This is just a typical farm yard.  I love the older man sitting underneath the Canada flag in front of the barn.  (He's sitting on some painted wooden trunks that I bought, by the way!)
 Art's been dying to buy an old truck for the yard.  I keep telling him that he has to wait until we buy more land, because I don't want to move something like that twice!  It would look great with flowers growing out of the box of it, don'tcha think?
 Here are my Girls and my nephew, sitting in front of the summer kitchen, just hanging out and messing around.  This was his first farm auction, and I'm thinking he might just be hooked!

Here are one of the treasures we brought home.  They are hand carved, primitively painted duck decoys.  Art especially loved them, so here they sit! 

I'll be posting some pictures of our other finds once I get them all cleaned up.... if I remember. :-)

There are a few pieces that I'm very excited about and a few pieces that I have no idea what I'm going to do with, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.



Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Recovering from the Looong Weekend

This long weekend turned out different than we had planned, but it was good.  Friday night we relaxed and hung out, and Saturday morning at 6 am, my nephew and his girlfriend showed up on our doorstep from BC.  It was an unexpected surprise, but fun to visit with them for the weekend.

They came to hang out with my other nephew who has moved here and is living with us, so it was good for brothers to be together!

They spent some time at the mall on Saturday since we had previous plans, and when we came home Saturday night, we arrived home to no power.  It had been knocked out by a huge storm we had.  Not such a big deal, but when our power is out, our garage door doesn`t open, and since we have no house key, it can be kind of a big deal.  Thankfully, I`d left a door unlocked (phew!), so we were able to get in the house!

The next morning, the power STILL wasn`t on, so we ended up going into town for breakfast, and then took our nephew to the new Cabela`s in the city, which they enjoyed.  When we arrived home, just after lunch, the power had finally come on.  Thank goodness!  The great thing about living in the country is that when you have no power, you have no water.  Very fun with a house full of people.  The other nice thing about no power is that your sump pump doesn`t work, and when your sump pump doesn`t work, and you get inches of rain, you have to go and manually empty out where your sump pump is, every few hours.  All.  night.  long.  The last great thing about having no power is that your very full fridge(s) and freezer(s) don`t work, and you lay awake all night hoping that you`re not going to lose the hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of meat you have sitting in your said appliances.  Thankfully, they were so full that everything stayed cold as it should!

After all was said and done, we were without power for about 15 hrs.  Not so fun, but boy was I thankful for it when it came back on!

Sunday afternoon, we took my nephews to shoot gophers and ride horses, which they quite enjoyed, and then headed back home for the evening.

Monday morning, we woke up, once again, to NO POWER!  I could`ve screamed!  So, instead of making a big breakfast for them before they headed out, they headed for home.  Just after they left, the power came on, but we were without for another 5 hrs.  My goodness!  This summer has been full of many, many storms and rain for us!

Monday afternoon, my parents arrived here for the evening, and headed out first thing this morning for home.  Thankfully, we had power though!

Hopefully your weekend went a little smoother than ours...!

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Chicken Farmers, Extraordinaire!

Last week, we took our meat chickens into a poultry processing facility to be processed. 

Originally, we started off with 20 chickens.  When all was said and done, we had 14.  14 large, supple chickens (the processing facility guy's words, not mine!) 

I left at 5:30 am to drive these bad boys, all alive, and in the box of the truck, to their place of death.  I unloaded them and drove the hour and a half home.  Later that afternoon, we headed back to go and pick up our flock, now wrapped and chilled. 

When we picked them up, we were talking to the owner of the facility, and he was quite impressed with our birds.  They actually had some problems bagging them because they didn't fit in the chicken bags, and were too small for the turkey bags.  He told us that he's never seen chickens this big, and normally, with big chickens, they're quite tough, but these chicken's meat was nice and supple.  Hooray for us!  When Art told him this was our first time raising meat chickens, he couldn't believe it!  He asked us what we did....and he told them....Put them in the chicken mansion and feed them!

I think it was the mansion.... they really liked the mansion.  They had a high quality of life in the mansion....

All of our chickens were 10-12 lbs. once they were processed, so I think they will serve our family well. I have yet to roast one of these bad boys, but I'm going to next week, when we have some company to help us eat this big boy!
The funnest thing about the whole experience (other than being rid of those ugly birds) was that you get to choose what you have put on the label.  Here's what ours said: 



I think that we need to change our occupation, because frankly, I feel like a Chicken Farmer, Extraordinaire!