I have published this here before, my family does a lot of this. Frank can be sitting there minding his own business and someone jumps him. It turns out like this. 
   
Admittedly he does sometimes throw a rolled up dirty sock at someone,or throw a small punch/kick in passing. Maybe set the cat on someone.
   
It sometimes looks as though they may win, though everyone knows it wont happen. 
   
I think everyone enjoys it. Sometimes I need headphones, it gets a little boisterous but it really does cause happiness. And that is what we all want for our children, RIGHT???
   
We took the kids, mom and I did, to a local museum. This site has a lot of original buildings from the area that were moved here, I do not know how many were actually on this site at the time the museum was set up. 
   
Mom took pictures of the buildings and their info cards, we couldnt go inside any of them yet. That doesnt open till later in June which was disappointing. 
   
This is the first school in Wasilla, as you will read below the school was build int 1917 and it was used continually even when other schools were built because the schools were overfull!
   
Every one of these buildings were so neat, I know some have been fixed up but it is amazing to me that some of these buildings were built by 1 or 2 people, all alone without the tools that we have now. 
   
This is a beautiful barn! I would like to have one on my property when I retire..um I meant, my husband will retire and continue to keep me in the lifestyle in which I am accustomed too. 
   
And here we have the barn info. 
   
And here is the inside of the museum, Nathalie next to a dog sled, the picture of Tad was not so lovely so wont put it here. Thats it for now!
 

You know what we do not have to buy in Alaska? Sandals. Shorts. Tank tops. You know what we do have to buy (or in my case make) pajama pants (vs shorts) for the summer time nights. Extra long sleeve shirts, and jackets.

My kids grow naturally. And I wear my stuff out, stain, tear etc. So instead of summer clothes, I have to make an extra set of winter clothes! We have had only a few days so far that we have not had to wear wool shirts or a light jacket, long socks and the pajama pants thing. All of my kids have short pj pants. I guess thats my job this wk!

This part of Alaska is never hot, we knew that and are glad for it. However, I expected it to be warm. I had long johns on Saturday while putting in the poles for a barn. The tomato plants that we put out are dying if they are not the Siberian type. We have all of our poles set for the barn and now we can put on the skirt and go from there. The next steps are pretty fast, but there are a lot of them. The biggest hurdle will be the roof as we are doing a gambrel roof and that needs to be built on a flat, cement floor. We do not have a floor that large! It needs to be 6 foot tall and span 24 foot.

The point of the gambrel roof is to give the largest amount of loft space, we intend to build one asap. Using a gambrel roof allows a complete second floor which can double the space. We wont be doubling it, we are using the back 2/3 so in the front you can still see up to the roof, and you can see the half-wall we will build along the loft edge. My kids ARE old and smart, but I want them to use it as their play house freely and be able to run and bounce. We will be using it for some storage, and some hay bales but mostly it will be for resale of the house. I dont have a lot to put up there-it would be a great play-house though right???

More of mom's photos

 
Watering newly potted tomatoes. They are still living in the greenhouse at night so we didnt put them out in the garden this day. We have since planted the entire garden. 
   
Tomato planting, behind me, well to my right is an orange trench shovel-in those beds we planted okra. I love okra and it grew very well in Ks and Sc. Mom said that the okra plants have to have heat for a number of weeks, real heat. The greenhouse will get up to 115 if we leave the door shut and it is 40 deg outside. So I figure it will easily hit 90 with the fan running (yes could be hotter but that would kill things) so the okra can grow. I will use the greenhouse all summer for starting fall plants, and for causing plants such as kale, spinach and lettuce to go to seed. I collect and save them as they are heirloom. 




































This picture looks like winter, what it really is-midnight from moms bedroom window during the night. It doesnt get truly dark at night mom says, from my side of the house it looks pretty dark around 2 a.m. but by 3 a.m., its again light. On mama's side it is lighter all night, probably because of how the windows are.

 
Geese wishing to enter the garden area when it has been planted. They SMELL the lettuce and spinach. 

   
"Hey, I am eating here."
   
"Um, yeah me too. Excuse us!"
   
Nathalie, in flip flops, making snow balls to throw at mom later. See that shirt she is wearing? I made it the spring she was almost 4. She has worn in constantly, year around since then. She will turn 10 in July. It was a dress when I first made it. Up close it is worn and starting to wear through completely around the collar and sleeves, the hem has been redone and now has small holes, the front has small worn spots and holes, and it has stains. 
   
Mom says Mr Babbity is the biggest rabbit she has ever seen! 
   
His wife, Mrs Babbity. We are hoping for baby babbities soon in order to have dinner. 
   
They are wishing they were eating. Finally these chickens have learned to eat leftovers, at first they would only eat chicken food so we had to kinda hold off on their meal times for a couple of hrs, and then give the leftovers first. We want to feed them on meal worms, fish and garden foods/seeds/grains and so we dont want them to be hooked completely on processed feeds. 
   
Letting in the sun and air, when it is sunny we take full advantage. This does not happen very often. 
   
   
A farm photo. We are really getting a barn put up, we just have to have a few hrs to get the posts started. Once the 11 posts are set in we can start framing and from there it will go pretty fast. We also have to get the barn yard fence set in, which will take time. Everything takes time so right now our back yard is the farm scene. 
   
Nathalie and mom have snow balls freezing solid and they will attack each other with them. There are still piles of dirty snow about for the using. Yes, this picture is also of Frank's vodka but that was not the point of the photo. 
   
This is my hammock mom says. It is also the children's rickshaw. They want Frank to buy a new one though because now this one has been used for manure. He doesnt see the issue. Nathalie says, lets hose it out and Tad says No Thanks. 
   
Lastly a photo from Home Depot. I drove up there on purpose to show mom how lovely it is on the Home Depot hill. They have the best view in all of Wasilla.

Thats it for now. Off to sew, farm, garden, educate.

Mama's photos

 
Mama arrived Sat night and has taken a number of good pictures. They are not all on the computer yet, but these are from Sunday. Frank and I were finishing the holes with the bobcat for our fence and barn, mama and the kids took pictures of that as well as our little farm and woods. These are, of course, YardGuard. 
   
Mr. Kitten Britches, that name has stuck though Frank says No Self-Respecting man ever had a cat (male cat no less) named Mr Kitten Britches. Frank calls him Diablo. 
   
Tad and me watching the auger, I cleaned the frozen mud and large rocks off of the bit pretty regular. We have to go 4 ft, and the first 2 are dirt followed by rocks ranging from quite small to the size of my head. 
   
Cleaning the bit. My hands get pretty cold, but after a few times I dont feel any more. I use gloves, but they are not water or cold proof. It isnt very cold here, I think at this time it was 34 degrees. Weather.com said that it was "warm and sunny" but it was gray and drizzling rain. 
   
Sometimes the huge rocks fall back off of the bit into the hole. They make it hard to keep digging, so if it isnt too deep yet I can often reach the huge rocks. 
   
Watching from a stump. Each hole takes quite a few minutes what with the cleaning off and rock hauling. 
   
Nathalie not doing any work except for looking cute. 
   
Mama and Tad, this picture is a little off as Nathalie isnt great at centering her photos yet but its a good one anyway. Tad has the warmest blood of us all, often he sheds the jacket and wears just a t shirt and worn out jeans in 30 deg weather. Mama came sans coat on purpose, easier to travel with less and we have extra coats and boots. 
   
Tad took this one, they went on a walk-about through our woods, and probably the neighbors woods as well. None of it is fenced. 
   
They not only saw moose (too far, and in between trees so no pics this time) but they found evidence of moose. Tad says, several day old evidence. Only my mother would photograph moose poop.
   
Mom laughing from the stump as Frank dropped the kids down into the holes to retrieve more rocks. 
   
Frank telling Nathalie how all of these controls work. 
   
Nathalie using the lesson wisely, she didnt even run into anything. That has never happened. She has driven a barbie car (into a garage wall), a lawnmower, with me on it and thus we evaded the trees and fence but otherwise...lord help us, and a dirt bike. The dirt bike-she revved up and drove straight for a neighbors garage yelling HELP ME ERIC and didnt let up on the gas for a second! Eric ran down the bike, and using his weight and strength-this included sitting down while lifting/holding back the bike, stopped her from death. ok fine she wouldnt have died... I calmly watched from the sidelines thinking-yeah she will never get a license. However, she drove this beast just fine. 
   
You want me to make the front end do what again?
   
But you didnt tell me to stop!!!
   
Tad politely listening to the lesson while thinking, daddy I can drive a truck and a tractor. Both manual. This piece of work is an automatic, I cannot go wrong. 
   
Sure enough, no problems. He can drive pretty much anything, though we all agree bobcats are better in tracked vs wheeled when the ground is still wet. It did some damage to our pitiful yard. 
   
Baby goats, these girls are not named. Nor am I attached to them for some reason, maybe I attach best to my milkers because I spend realistic time with them. I try to spend time with these girls, but they were not "my" baby goats, not born to my girls, and not my babies when they were born. Their horns bother me, I didnt know they had horns when I agreed to buy them. This was my mistake. We will keep and breed them, their mothers were very nicely built with great udders so I can sell these girls in milk, as well as sell/eat their offspring. We will be looking for de-horned milkers as soon as mama has gone home. I dont want to be milking while she is here visiting because we want to go on some weekend trips. 
   
Another picture of a baby goat, these are sweet girls and the kids enjoy playing with them. They missed having goats. 

   
View from our driveway end, and Nathalie playing in the road naturally. 
   
Another view, there are mountains everywhere you look here. They are truly breathtaking!

Today mom is resting, she threw out her back yesterday, same day of the week and same way I did exactly one wk before. I was a little better by day 3 so she is resting today, hoping for a better tomorrow. If not, we will find a chiropractor. I hate for her visit to have such misery! The kids are finishing their class, I am sewing and doing laundry and the day is lovely (about 45 and sunny...for once!) so Tad and I will likely get the T posts put in for the garden fence. It is just 6 ft mesh, nothing to hold out much but it will be a secondary deterrent for moose, goats and geese. These will all eat up my garden if given the chance.

On our to do list is a clothes line, a temporary goose house (I need my greenhouse back-we will make a single cattle panel barn covered with 6 mil plastic for their home tonight), fencing for the garden, re-covering the greenhouse, and getting the poles set for the barn. Once the poles are set we do the skirting, stringers, siding, roof framing and roof. Then we can do the immediate barn fence (this will be within the complete yard fence) and move the goats, rabbits and geese to the barn. We will buy a couple of milkers and continue to work on the barn dividing it for chickens, rabbits and goats. The chickens will have a wired off area so they can be "in" the barn but not in the goats area because this would allow them to escape to the barnyard. Instead they will have a large fenced in covered yard to go to from their barn section, we cannot lose them to predators. The goats will have the whole rest of the barn save the corner where the raised rabbit hutches will be.  

The chickens will stay in roving coops (we are building a 3rd so that the 10 pullets will be divided. No more than 6 chickens fit comfortably in a 4x8 roving coop) until it is cold. I think free range is healthier, but I cannot keep them safe even in a fenced yard with clipped wings. Things from above will pick them off during the day, and anything will pick them off at night as much can jump a fence. During the cold months they will have an insulated barn room and a covered yard that is open day time only. It is cold enough here that if we let them wander out at will, they can freeze at night. We plan on finishing the inside of the barn, insulating the walls and ceiling and possibly putting in a small wood burning stove. Even if it burns out on the colder nights by 3 a.m., it will remain warmer than the outside. I know there are people here who do not heat their barns, but if we have baby rabbits being born, baby chicks at any time (its cold here SO much we are likely to have goslings, chicks, baby rabbits or young goats)

Because we are building a pole barn, we are spending less time and money up front but we want a real floor, insulation as previously described (yes under the floor too or its nearly useless to insulate walls/roof) both for a more habitable barn and better resale. We will also build a loft, we are doing a gambrel roof so that we will have maximum loft. It will be aprox 7 ft high (I think) allowing pretty much any normal human to stand. It will be the back 2/3rds of the barn allowing for a stairway. We can just build a heavy duty rail or half wall, and store hay and other farm stuff up there. So, the construction will be quick and usable at first, and have plenty of work to do further for our dream barn to be complete. We wont stay here more than a few years, so we are hoping to do this work quickly in order to enjoy it for the whole time we are here. I want it to be insulated and floored by this winter, with a warm milking room in place. I do enjoy winter, but do not enjoy being uncomfortable. This is our first opportunity to build something how we want it, how we see it as most useful and useable for both us and our animals.

Bedtime

 
This is what happens at night. I say, "Its bedtime." And then they attack daddy. Nathalie was at the book case choosing a book to go to bed with and turned around to jump on him, landing on his chest with her knees.
   
While he says they cant hurt him, I guess he doesnt enjoy getting karate chopped in the jaw. 
   
Of course he wont REALLY break Tad's elbow here but he will lead him to believe he will. 
  
He should pay more attention to what Nathalie is planning. 
   
That way when she grabs his hand...
   
He will know to start bending her fingers back...
  
Before she returns the favor.  This ends at some point after he has tucked them in. Which includes shaking them, lifting them up in the air (they try to be limp and heavy) and making it out of the room without them attached to him. That last bit can take up to 30 min. Then it ends because mama says, OK seriously, bedtime!