Proof

 

This blog post is proof that I generally look homeless. Tad says this is because, "Mama, I think you go into your closet, look for the crappiest jeans you  own, any worn out shirt that has holes or stains and that is what you get dressed in for the day." I dont think he is correct necessarily, its just that-in my closet, there are clothes that fit his description, more clothes that fit that description and a few items that I would rather NOT fit that description.

The work that we do most days, will not lend a nice look to any of the clothes not yet fitting of that description. but also, my hair always looks unbrushed. I shower every night, and about half the time in the morning also (chlorine hair) but I sleep on wet hair. My family brushes my hair, nightly. Then I sleep on it and leave it that way all day! We are actually building a stand, table, something for the little babbity rabbities here. Mitering the 2x4s first.

"Make them go together flush at your side."

"What? Why? Nevermind...ok." See this is my maturity issue. I sometimes do not listen.

We made a similar table for the big rabbities cages, but the little rabbities still live in a 4x8 ft roving coop. It is easier than making more individual cages, we are going to eat them in a couple of wks anyway. So we put the roving coop in the corner of the barn and naturally our goats are asshats and jumped all over it.

"What trash bag are you talkin' about? Was it my job to carry it out? Wow. That got past me. I am drinking hot chocolate though right now. Oh. Right now? Ugh."

What we need is a large working table. We needed the same in Ks, somehow we never got around to it. Not like we would have it now though right?

Putting in the first screw

See? homeless person hair. The boards are not staying together well.

Enter rachet straps, Frank used these to make the shed doors as we were gone to swim team and he had no extra hands.

It only takes a couple of minutes to set up, and then your rectangle is set up perfect with no one holding your miters straight at the corners.

You have to have 3 rachet straps for anything larger than 4x8-if using these small straps.

See? Ingenuity at its best.

I admit, she asked me not to publish this. But she was laughing when she said it, so she wasnt serious right??? This is her saying hi to our friend Eric. Her left eye can cross alone, Frank said blog it for posterity. I am thinking, blog it to make sure it cannot be deleted so that it can be used as ammo towards a boy we do not like.

I think this is his Gollum (sp-Lord of the Rings creepy little slimy "precious" guy) look. except he is smiling.

As usual, where we all are, so are Nathalie's little junk heap toys.

wire for the table, it is 1"x1/2" which is good for rabbit cage floors, their potty falls through this size and rabbity feet and bodies should never, ever, sit in potty. Very bad for their quality of life. Oh, and Tad is rolling up the rachet straps because I said so because it is good for tempers (later use of straps in a hurry) and also quality of the straps over time. Eric said.

See the tiny staple in my fingers? No? That is because its really tiny. See the tiny red wire dikes? They actually can pinch when someone takes the staple from your fingers. Wear gloves, you say? What a splendid idea. Then you cannot grab the staple though, and furthermore your glove gets caught in the dikes.

It is still the best way to hold the staple. It allows you to hit the staple several times with the hammer, if you do not use these, sometimes the staple turns sideways and after enough of that, the person doing the hammering is total pissed off.

This is our table top now. The rabbity roving coop can sit right on top and the goats will have less access to the rabbity roving coop wire.

It looks like it would be heavy, but really it isnt. We used the little wire clamps in the middle to hold the 2 pieces of wire together. We dont have 4 ft wide wire-it is 30" wide in this size per roll.

Naturally, we had to have some breaks from work.

"Daddy, I need a seat for my wagon. For my people. Can you cut it for me?" Sure baby.

"Look babies! You have a nice seat now!"

This is actually a little wagon made by Schleich. The kids saved up and bought it themselves, and it is the transport for all of Nathalie's junk heap babies.

Tad admits to playing with the junk heap toys sometimes, though mostly he is pretending to blow up their towns.

A nearly finished table.

Final screws. Because someone kicked the leg and then it broke so had to add some more support. It shouldnt have broken so easily, just from someone kicking it with their big boot, right??? I didnt take pictures of it in the barn yet, we moved it down there last night and spent 20 minutes repairing damage done but butthead goats before we could set it up. I will have more pictures of the set up, the new wiring and lights etc later.

LEGO men drink beer

LEGOs need beer too apparently. At the end of a hard day, when you have been built of hard plastic-it is good to have a beer. The kids made this guy, his name is Sergei, as a tree-topper. We like odd Christmas decorations, they will make a cone for him to sit on the top. He has a beer in one hand, see there is no cap on it? He is drinking it. There is an additional beer now, on his stand, this is to share with daddy or have another himself.

Doing school work, see this fire place behind him? That is a pansy fireplace. That is a gas fireplace which is not very purposeful. It saves no money and if your electricity is out it does absolutely no good.

This is a nice outfit. She thinks it is, I made the pants and skirt to go with different clothing but she likes this together. The dress/shirt, is a dress I made when she was 4 years old. She was my fat little baby then! Now she is 6 inches shorter than I be. She says she will never stop wearing the dress. Her swim coach solidified her belief that this is a good looking outfit by telling her she liked it, and would wear it herself.

More past

It is a hard thing to resist, a boy with a baby. I just cant help thinking they are just adorable. This was a Ks friend's little one and Tad truly loved her. She had several babies, and he loved all of them.

He spent so much time snuggling with these babies. He didnt get much time with this last one, she moved away. He was so sad! This was last summer, his hair was not so long. Of course now, he has no hair...

Lady Antebellum

Me: Tad can you play this song?
Tad: Mama, this is the 3rd song you have asked me about today. Why dont you play them?
Me: I don't want to play the guitar, I want to hear you play. I will sing and dance. What about this one?
Tad: (chirp chirp)
Me: Things like this always happen to me. I think it is because I am not mature. Oh well. I always have dancing.

Blast from the past

 Remember this??? She was not supposed to be sucking her thumb at this age... she had turned 6.

 Turning away so I couldnt see her sucking her thumb, as I asked her to stop... I actually remember this.

 Lovely face! Wow...

I took some serious flack for this outfit... I thought it was awesome and cute! She loved red boots, and camo was awesome. Who can do without argyle! And the blue shirt, well that was a wool shirt I made yrs before and they both wore it.They wore it until it was no longer any good even as a shop rag.

Bonopoly

Just a cute, simple pair of leggings right?

Oh but no... These are Alaskan leggings! They are lined fully with a soft, washable wool. She will wear these with a thin wool petticoat and a skirt.

This is a game of Bonopoly or, Monopoly.When the kids were small, they called this game bonopoly. Frank plays this with them almost nightly. It helps their adding skills immensely. Nathalie was out first last night, bankrupt, and chose a good spot to view the game. This was during Tad's turn.

Now we have Daddy's turn. These are out of order, again, blogger is kicking my butt. The next photo is his role. Its cute how she held on as he leaned forward, and he aided her in not falling into the game by hanging onto her foot.

I love pictures like this. I have so many random pictures of them wrestling with him, climbing him, sitting with him, holding his hand. I didnt grow up with someone like him. Which was ok, I had a wonderful mom that made up for any lack in father that I may have suffered. But how wonderful it is to have the rounded family! It is neat to see my children with their daddy. such an important relationship, I think it will make a difference in their adult awareness. They wont have to learn a lot of the things I had to learn, they will be innate. Tonight, we are missing Bonopoly for a Taboo which is a game the children have not played yet. We try to play a game every night, sometimes its a running about game, hide and seek, 4 man baseball. Other nights it is Bonopoly, which mama wont play so I sew, or cook dinner. I like this reprieve... I dont mind playing games for sure, but I dont LIKE Monopoly and it gives me some alone time.

Barn Doors

Chickens moved into the barn, they are tilling the floor for us. Which we did not want. Everyone has moved in there now, initially we wanted to leave everyone in roving coops until it was below freezing full time. We were hanging heat lamps in the interim on cold nights. however, after 7 days of pouring rain, 2 days of no rain and then 10 more of rain-we moved them out of the pond to the barn. Thankfully we thought ahead, really concerning snow melt, and the barn is on high ground. So it is not only dry inside, it isnt pooling around the direct area around the barn.

Basket o' eggs

Barn door latch, this is how we will keep this one open.

Latches, we initially used a bungee cord which is not optimal but works ok. We use it in so many applications here, we are running low. Left is chicken room, right is my door that goes from feed room to barn.

Full view of chicken door, the bins on the left here are now on the opposite side on a nice shelving unit that Tad and Frank built.

What the...what is he doing. why would anyone take that picture? oh because its my camera, my blog. You know.

Temporary trailer sides. We did a big dump run, took the metal and other recyclables. This made it simpler to haul, now they can be taken off if need be.

Shed loft

Shed loft with stuff, there are two halves, each one is 8 ft deep with a large open section between.

A new game, something about drawing a town on the white boards, and using markers and cuisinaire rods as people and other needed town things. Math is required.

Cast of Characters for a favorite winter dinner: Chicken pot pie needs rabbit! This is a stewed rabbit. Home grown, organic, rabbit.

Most of this was grown at home also! Even the onions.

Winter organization. Whatever is on the ground will be under snow for a minimum of 7 months starting..oh I dont know when. One lady told me late sept it may snow, but here we are and it has not yet. I expect it mid oct but who knows? We organized the yard and barn area, the back and front porches.

I has big paws, I has big claws.

I is a kitty scarf!

"Mama my dog has ALL of his claws out! This could turn out badly!"

Nathalie shelling our garden peas. I know I need to grow more pea plants next yr. Nikki says 1000 for a family of 6, but I think I will plant more so I can have extra pea pods for the babbities. They ate all of the shells and any extra pods that had no peas in them.

Putting in wire around the inside of the chicken coop floor.

This is in the wrong order, this was the frame for the chicken room door which I already showed a photo of.

Inside barn door, you can see how it is held shut. We can hold it open in the same way.

Front picture of the barn doors. They are too short, I know. That is because the doors are 8 ft tall. That is how tall the siding is, so that is what we have. we want to do a floor next yr and that will bring it up about 6" so it will work well then. In the meantime, we have some scrap siding to screw on a step-down. It will be attached to the bottom of the door so I wont have to step over. We still have a few more working things to do before snow flies, we have spent a lot of time playing games, swimming, organizing and playing school. That is, doing our schoolwork in a fun way.