Somehow I need some sort of a driving force to move me forward lately. It is gray here so often, there is a wonderful library just this side of town full of amazing books. This makes me want to curl up under a blanket and read with my kids. We are all avid readers, the reading bug did not hit Nathalie until this last winter but now we can all be absorbed by books for hours. I read aloud until I develop laryngitis. However, there is a never ending list of tasks to complete. All the regular daily stuff, house cleaning, cooking, laundry, outdoor chores and summer school but also the jobs related to starting over.
I am still waiting on the T posts, as soon as Frank picks up the right size (we bought 6 ft, not tall enough) the kids and I will spend an afternoon laying them out every 10 ft so Frank can place them. We have a few wooden posts to go as well, then we will start fencing at night.
I have to start sewing the children's winter wardrobe, not much else is needed here. Some pants and t shirts are summer clothes, so in winter add many more layers and you are dressed properly. Snow pants, coats, jackets, wool sweaters, long johns, lined pants and hats are all things that I need to sew and knit. Nathalie wants some skirts, so I have selected several nice skirt pieces and will line them fully with a thin, wool jersey and she will wear double layered wool long johns underneath. I will put a pretty print cotton on the outside- no one will see her wools. With knee socks and cute boots, she will be both warm and adorable. however, I have to make the skirts! She wants pockets, and she wants them to be long with open sides at the bottom, and a drawstring/elastic waist to make sure she is comfortable. Tad isnt picky. White t shirts, blue jeans, wool socks and wool long sleeve shirts. Simple every year.
I am trying to start business again, our house is really too small for this so right now we are in the organization and shelving stage. buying and building shelves and setting them up with bins and boxes is the only way I can start. I cannot have a disorganized mess for a business area, I will simply not do the work.
I am not very upbeat about 4h or the fair, it just isnt Abilene Ks here. However, I will work on it with the kids and we will show and have fun, they think it will be fun so it will be. The fair in Abilene was amazing, it wasnt too big, the kids got to run around with their friends, it was full of people that we knew, despite the heat it was one of the best weeks we had all summer. I wish I was looking forward to this one as much, but who knows. Maybe it will be amazing!
Today I have taken a huge load of recycling, worked in the garden, taught French and guitar, cleaned the whole kitchen (includ gas stove top) and made dinner for tonight. The kids have swim lesson tonight, so we will be home from that at 6:45 so dinner needs to be waiting, as we have fence posts to put in tonight.
No photos, just blogging because its my blog and I can, and it makes me feel like accomplishing more to photograph.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Chickens and other stuff
Tad is sewing, yes, I know his shirt is too small. It is also stained and has 2 holes in the front. He likely has not brushed his hair. But he is clean, and hardworking. so that is all that counts!
The barn from afar. You can see the greenhouse and green garden fence, it is just mesh to keep the geese out. Just past the green fence from the left front (if you are standing in front of it facing it your left) the fence will go out to the right of the picture all the way to the woodline, and then continue on in a square to the back right of the barn. That will be the animal yard. Then from the back left (once again facing it) of the barn, we will fence to the greenhouse, then the back corner of the house. Same on the other side, to the corner. So our whole back yard will be fenced, with multiple gates, and the back part will be separated by cross fencing for our animals minus the cat and possibly dog.
We will continue using these even after the barnyard is done. We just completed the center one here, we wanted to have no more than 5 hens per coop. The one on the right here had 3 older hens and Tad's bantam rooster. One hen died yesterday... I do not know why. The far left coop has a rooster, who was sold to us as a hen and we will butcher him soon. In the greenhouse, I have okra and tomatoes. In the garden the spinach, lettuce, cabbage, other greens, peas and onions are doing well. Also some herbs and flowers. The corn is growing too slowly, we are going to make a PVC hoop house for that garden bed, and cover with plastic in our spare time. Next yr will be more successful for gardening, it isnt going badly this yr for being our first yr.
Alaskan clothesline. yes, they use these other places. It is just a little less permanent. More moveable. We wont be here forever, and there are many, many...gray days, often rain comes even on a sunny day. I cannot dry sheets here to my lament. I guess I could hang one sheet over the WHOLE thing but that wont get them dry in a normal period of time. I am thinking of stringing a line between the house and trees for my sheets. I dont mind being country.
This is the King's Castle. Tad and Nathalie often play king or queen, one is the servant and the other royalty. It includes bossing and sometimes pretend mean behavior, I guess this is a relief so that they get a chance to be mean. Just kidding...they have fun with it. Today Nathalie is being the servant.
They have found this old bit of PVC and they talk into it, it amplifies their voice and also makes more official sounding demands. Nathalie and beaver (the stuffed animal) are the servants.
We are on the way to swim lessons. Tad made jello for desert, I made roast with potatoes, carrots, onions and bread for dinner. When we come home from swim lessons, it will be 6:45, time for dinner and then go out to work on the fence.
Today
Sometimes it is hard to feel that we are accomplishing much. I feel like we are running in circles, never getting anywhere. We have so many projects going! In the past, we have tried to complete one thing before moving on, and tried to have a large chunk of time before we started the work. That hasnt been effective here.
We work on the barn on weekends, because we need a large block of time. Evenings we try to get several posts set in. When all of the wooden posts are set (3 an evening, these are set in concrete) we will move on to T posts. At 10 a night (post pounder) we should be done 5 nights later. Then we start to string the fencing, which we already have. Once again, work evenings. Continue working on the barn on weekends.
That leaves during the day. The kids are doing summer school-both have the last bit of their math book to do and so we work on that daily. We are not going super fast, some days we get only 1 page done. Neither child is behind, but I want these 2 workbooks done before end of August which will be start of 4th and 5th. Nathalie is finishing her 4th grade reading book-we went slowly to work on speed. Tad plays guitar daily, and they both do French. We try to squeeze in a spelling test weekly, and a geography assignment for fun. All of this only takes about 2 hrs, a lot of it is independent.
Friday is deep cleaning day for the whole house, as well as sheet washing. Laundry, dishes and basic clean up is a job for all 3 of us, all week. Chores happen 2x daily, more as needed. The kids work on knitting, sewing and legos for 4h projects to show at the fair in August. This is also independent.
I have been doing some sewing, trying to start up business. This week I need to get started on winter wardrobes for the kids, that is just around the corner for us.
We cook every day, make bread a few times a week as we only buy bread in an emergency IE mama forgot to bake some and now we have none.
We do something in the garden most days, weeding, watering plants that the sprinkler does not reach, planting new seeds. Today we ran the burn pit because we had a chicken die, we have no idea why, and we are burning the carcass. I try not to throw things away that can breed disease in the dump, and we only generate enough true trash for the dump to make a trip once every few months. Sometimes even then our few trash bins are not full. We have to go to the recycle center every 3 wks aprox, and by then the bins are over full.
Our Mrs. Rabbity had kittens, IE baby rabbits. They are 1 wk old on Thursday. When they are 6-8 wks we will eat them and about a wk later, breed Mrs Rabbity again. This weekend we will be putting Miss Babbity in with Mr. Babbity (Rabbity being their last name) because she has grown a lot and is breeding size. 28 days later, she will have her kit. This will soon give us a steady amount of meat and hides. We have one rooster (he was a hen...) that will be butchered. We need to get more butcher roosters-but we were out of space.
We made a 3rd chicken coop, I will photo this later. I need one more large one of a different design to raise butcher roosters. I will be buying a large amount of these in the fall as we will have a huge barn completed!
Ok, so thats some of the stuff I do all day to stay busy. I sometimes visit with my family and friends online, I miss my people. I talk to my best friend in Tn (just moved from Ga) pretty much every other day at the very least, my kids talk to her kids just about as often. We have a nice 4h group here, the kids are about to try out for swim team. Tad's guitar teacher was other than reliable so I am filling that position which is not hard, I can play the guitar. I am just not consistent. Tad is good to remind me so it is working. Tad will be able to meet a local diving coach this fall, he only takes new students in the fall and takes few at that. Tad has a chance, according to the swim coach because she said his diving is phenomenal, amazing and inspiring. Hmm. Wow, he was born able to dive like that. Imagine having a coach!!! Frank and I are taking swim lessons as well right now.
Pictures later, Nathalie is off somewhere with the camera and her dog (AKA Kitten.)
We work on the barn on weekends, because we need a large block of time. Evenings we try to get several posts set in. When all of the wooden posts are set (3 an evening, these are set in concrete) we will move on to T posts. At 10 a night (post pounder) we should be done 5 nights later. Then we start to string the fencing, which we already have. Once again, work evenings. Continue working on the barn on weekends.
That leaves during the day. The kids are doing summer school-both have the last bit of their math book to do and so we work on that daily. We are not going super fast, some days we get only 1 page done. Neither child is behind, but I want these 2 workbooks done before end of August which will be start of 4th and 5th. Nathalie is finishing her 4th grade reading book-we went slowly to work on speed. Tad plays guitar daily, and they both do French. We try to squeeze in a spelling test weekly, and a geography assignment for fun. All of this only takes about 2 hrs, a lot of it is independent.
Friday is deep cleaning day for the whole house, as well as sheet washing. Laundry, dishes and basic clean up is a job for all 3 of us, all week. Chores happen 2x daily, more as needed. The kids work on knitting, sewing and legos for 4h projects to show at the fair in August. This is also independent.
I have been doing some sewing, trying to start up business. This week I need to get started on winter wardrobes for the kids, that is just around the corner for us.
We cook every day, make bread a few times a week as we only buy bread in an emergency IE mama forgot to bake some and now we have none.
We do something in the garden most days, weeding, watering plants that the sprinkler does not reach, planting new seeds. Today we ran the burn pit because we had a chicken die, we have no idea why, and we are burning the carcass. I try not to throw things away that can breed disease in the dump, and we only generate enough true trash for the dump to make a trip once every few months. Sometimes even then our few trash bins are not full. We have to go to the recycle center every 3 wks aprox, and by then the bins are over full.
Our Mrs. Rabbity had kittens, IE baby rabbits. They are 1 wk old on Thursday. When they are 6-8 wks we will eat them and about a wk later, breed Mrs Rabbity again. This weekend we will be putting Miss Babbity in with Mr. Babbity (Rabbity being their last name) because she has grown a lot and is breeding size. 28 days later, she will have her kit. This will soon give us a steady amount of meat and hides. We have one rooster (he was a hen...) that will be butchered. We need to get more butcher roosters-but we were out of space.
We made a 3rd chicken coop, I will photo this later. I need one more large one of a different design to raise butcher roosters. I will be buying a large amount of these in the fall as we will have a huge barn completed!
Ok, so thats some of the stuff I do all day to stay busy. I sometimes visit with my family and friends online, I miss my people. I talk to my best friend in Tn (just moved from Ga) pretty much every other day at the very least, my kids talk to her kids just about as often. We have a nice 4h group here, the kids are about to try out for swim team. Tad's guitar teacher was other than reliable so I am filling that position which is not hard, I can play the guitar. I am just not consistent. Tad is good to remind me so it is working. Tad will be able to meet a local diving coach this fall, he only takes new students in the fall and takes few at that. Tad has a chance, according to the swim coach because she said his diving is phenomenal, amazing and inspiring. Hmm. Wow, he was born able to dive like that. Imagine having a coach!!! Frank and I are taking swim lessons as well right now.
Pictures later, Nathalie is off somewhere with the camera and her dog (AKA Kitten.)
Barn story
So blogger once again is not working the way I feel it should. I am adding this post to go along with the previous pictures-of which there were a lot. Yes, there is a weird picture of Tad taking a photo of his own face upside down.
The kids were never in any danger... personally it looked crazy to me, but the trusses cannot fall of. Right side up, or upside down which is how we flip them to scoot them along the header, at which point a kid pulls the strap to pull it upright while Frank pushes it up with 2x4 and I steady it until he can nail it. The hard heavy work is Frank's who has to climb up and attach the strap and manhandle the truss in place initially.
I didnt see this at first, but because of the overhang, they truly cannot fall off. If we didnt have any braces in front and back-then yes those could fall of front/back but we did. So it was a safe, albeit rather tough operation. It would have been easier with another big person, and one more large, sturdy ladder. We have 2 really great ladders. I was wishing my friend Eric was here. He helped us the last time we put up trusses, as did his son Jeff. Tad is now old enough to play Jeff's role, but I am no Eric. Frank had to do a lot of the heavier stuff alone.
We have learned a lot and have a lot of learning to go, the next step I believe will be harder than the trusses. We have to get 7/16 sheets of particle board up there and screwed or nailed into place. I think I will tie myself off to the roof trusses... I am NOT afraid of heights, never have been, but do not like the way it feels to be totally and completely busted rots so I would rather not. I am not very good at this barn building, but I wish I was. Maybe I will get better with time!
The kids were never in any danger... personally it looked crazy to me, but the trusses cannot fall of. Right side up, or upside down which is how we flip them to scoot them along the header, at which point a kid pulls the strap to pull it upright while Frank pushes it up with 2x4 and I steady it until he can nail it. The hard heavy work is Frank's who has to climb up and attach the strap and manhandle the truss in place initially.
I didnt see this at first, but because of the overhang, they truly cannot fall off. If we didnt have any braces in front and back-then yes those could fall of front/back but we did. So it was a safe, albeit rather tough operation. It would have been easier with another big person, and one more large, sturdy ladder. We have 2 really great ladders. I was wishing my friend Eric was here. He helped us the last time we put up trusses, as did his son Jeff. Tad is now old enough to play Jeff's role, but I am no Eric. Frank had to do a lot of the heavier stuff alone.
We have learned a lot and have a lot of learning to go, the next step I believe will be harder than the trusses. We have to get 7/16 sheets of particle board up there and screwed or nailed into place. I think I will tie myself off to the roof trusses... I am NOT afraid of heights, never have been, but do not like the way it feels to be totally and completely busted rots so I would rather not. I am not very good at this barn building, but I wish I was. Maybe I will get better with time!
Sunday, June 24, 2012
barn again
Blogger has this thing, or maybe its my photobucket, or me... I cannot easily put spacing between pictures. So for now, you just get pictures. Nathalie took these-in her fancy dress up outfit. She did help us some as well but then there was no one to tell pictures, that is the drawback to being the photographer. Tad can do things that she isnt able physically so he cannot stop to take photos.
These are the trusses that we had delivered, they were not easy or fun to move into place. There were some very nerve wracking moments but once we had it figured out, we were able to move faster. It took about 3.5 hrs to put up 5 of them, it wont take us that long to do the next 6.
Sorry about the photos, N thought she should zoom in on everything. Today she will back up a bit when I show her what we want from the photos. We have a lot more work to go, this is one of the hard parts. The next hard part will be roofing. I do not fear heights but I do have limits, which of course my husband does not... We will figure it out. For now, I have to go get a new ace bandage as yesterday I had to pay a visit to the ER for AGAIN busting my ankle. It is swollen and bruised, but not broken. It healed pretty fast last time, and it isnt as bad as it was before.
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