suspended from the ceiling . . .

I now have a new fascination with hanging things.  And it all started in the kitchen!

 

I have always liked the look of pots and pans hanging from the ceiling.  And I have some friends that have a rack in their primitive country kitchen that holds theirs.  So, this past few weeks I have been working on putting up a rack for my pans to be suspended from.

 

I decided to use an old ladder that I had in the wood shop for the project.  Two summers ago I used a ladder to suspend my hand tools in the wood shop, so I thought it would work great to use the same structure in the house.  First I cut the ladder to the size of the counter.  I then burnt eye hooks and S hooks, painted them black, and then installed them on the ladder and on the ceiling.  Next, I stained the ladder to somewhat match the cabinets and left room for it to look "farmlike".  I purchased some S hooks, burnt the finish off, and left them charred.  And on the outside of the ladder I added some oil rubbed bronze coat hooks.  And now that it has been up for a few weeks, it seems like it has always been there.

In addition to the ladder in the kitchen, I also installed some laundry lines in the basement and in the family room.  Last summer, when I returned after my "visit away from the farm," I had to institute a new set of chores so that the children were not relying on others to do the work that needed to be done.  And one of the chores was laundry.  It wasn't too much of a mess, but many of the children were complaining that it wasn't getting done in time, and as they have gotten older, they wanted things washed when they wanted them washed.  So, I taught the youngers, minus Gresham, how to wash their own clothes, and showed them how to hang them on the line outside to dry.  In fact, we didn't use the dryer the whole summer!  Since I have done my laundry all my life, and most of that time hung the clothes to dry, I decided to see how long we could go without using the dryer.  The laundry lines are helping.  It has now been been 5 months and we have not used it yet! 

And this is a quick shot of our tree for this year.  (for Sherri:)  I added some galvanized steel buckets to put some of the newspaper wrapped packages in.  Sort of a vintage Christmas look. 



 

cut the pieces . . .

Tonight I had the crazy idea of turning some of our crusty bread into croutons. And since I had the bread, and all of us love croutons, it worked out really well!

 

I had several peices of bread that were REALLY dry and brittle, and some other pieces that were a little SOFT in the middle.  First I cut the peices that were brittle and stored them in a jar.  Meanwhile, Maine was looking up how to make croutons in one of the many cookbooks we have on our kitchen shelves.  Since I had already cut most of the soft bread up, I buttered a pan and filled it with bite-sized cubes.  Maine was helping me and she decided what herbs to use on them.  After preheating the oven, I baked them until they were crisp, and mixed them to the others.

 

Immediately they were used with the salad we had with our spaghetti dinner.  The salad included iceberg lettuce, baby spinach, and some cut apple pieces.  Topped with a little ranch dressing, it was a great addition to the dinner!

Gingerbread...

 

Gingerbread... Yeah! So Miss Leisa comes and bakes us some gingerbread, and ends up constructing an entire gingerbread house with us. I will just let you enjoy the pictures :) 

 

 

 

 

These are just some pictures of the farm that I am actually planning on entering in a contest.

 

I hope you enjoyed looking as much as I did taking :)

 

 

 

Posted by MacyAnne

new experiences...

NEW experiences! Asher goes hunting this morning, and kills two BEAUTIFUL pheasants.

 

 

I cooked them up with potatoes and onions, and also some squash we were given by our SUPER generous neighbors. And it turned out delicious. :)

 

learning a language . . .

Recently the children have been having fun with languages.  More fun than they had been having trying to "study" a foreign language than before.

 

I started them on the Berlitz Method to study French this year.  For years they have been studying French from a book, not enjoying it, and not really learning much at all year to year.  And with my study of language aquisition, and my Master's study of culture, I found that conversational, real life situational learning works best.  Especially when learning a language.  First comes the verbal, then the book-work grammar, structures, and perfection of the language.  And when people study language rearely do they want to understand the sentence structures first . . . they want to SPEAK it.

 

So with the addition of the tape series Berlitz Method, the children have been using the google translate to help them along with the aquisition of the French language.  And that has morphed at times, to just playing around with noises, phrases, and sentences of ALL SORTS of different languages.  It is hilarious to have them play them while we are all sitting around the family room.  And a great way to get exposure to other languages in a fun way.

 

getting used to school...

Okay, so it’s been a really long time since I posted anything, so I will give a splurge on school.

So the first two weeks I didn’t think I was going to make it through the day, let alone a whole YEAR, I was totally freaked out, about nothing and everything. (We also have to use computers a lot and I don’t like them, they keep doing things like their alive or something.) I also felt like everyone was inwardly laughing at my stupidity in all the things that were so normal to them. About the first time I was asked to put an MLA heading on a paper, or even getting an assigned a paper to write, I was completely at sea. After I got over myself and realized that the work was really easy, the teachers weren't going to eat me if I did something differently, and I was actually really cool because I lived in LA, and now lived on a farm, I started to enjoy school a little more. Now that I know some kids my own age, and it doesn't scare me when people talk to me, I'm ALL HAPPY now :)

 

( and it's BEAUTIFUL outside )

 

 

posted by Macy

 

 

 



tuck it under . . .

Last weekend Asher and I finally did some electrical work that I had wanted to get done since we moved here.  I wanted to put in a motion sensored spotlight by the garage so that when we drove up, it would turn on.  And another great feature of the light would be that we could play basketball at night!

 

About a year ago I dug a fairly deep hole and put this rusty post down in it.  I found the pole in the woods and planned to re-purpose it.  I had Asher take the pole out and dig the hole down 24 inches.

The next step was to run the wire down the pole and then put it back in the hole.  I opted not to drill a hole through a 1/2" thick metal, so the wire just came out of the top and bottom of the pole.  After putting a little clay/dirt in the hole at a time, Asher tapped it down so the post would sit solidly in the ground.

We finished the post part by adding the dirt around the post, and running the wire over to the edge of the concrete where we tucked it under the grass.  I used outdoor gray wire that will not compost even after a LONG time under ground.

I finished the wire up to the garage and used some old pvc piping to attach it to the outside wall.  I started to feel like a real elctrician.

 

Usually I work with electricity "hot" because I don't want to take the time to turn the main line on and off while I work, and most of the time I need the electricity to run a tool that I am using for the job.  But, since I was teaching Asher how to do it, the right way, I worked with the electricity off.  It is far safer and easier to work with wires when there is no chance of getting a jolt.  :)

And Macy came around a few times to let us know what she thought about our electrical work on the light pole.

And the photos . . . Maine is now our resident photographer.  She took all the photos for us on this activity.  I am extremely pleased at her photographer's eye.

the second batch . . .

For such a long time we have been getting tons of milk.  Since Janey has come fresh, it has been anywhere from 4 to 6 gallons of milk a day.  With so much milk, we have been able to have as much as we want, feed the new calf, feed all the dogs and cats, and give some away for other families to enjoy.  And even though the milk has stretched that far, we are still having to pour some out on a regular basis.

 

Two weeks ago I started making yogurt out of the extra milk.  And it has been a fun process to learn.  First I added about two gallons of milk to a large pot.  The cream had already been taken off to make butter.

 I then heated the milk up to 110 degrees.

 Next I added some of the previous batch of yogurt I had made.  It had live active cultures in it which makes the yogurt "yogurt."

 Then Gresham adds a lid, slightly tightening it, and puts it in the oven.  We leave in in there overnight with the pilot light on to culture.

The next day we tighten the lid and put it in the refridgerator.  Presto, we have yogurt!  Since we have been buying some yogurt from the store, we add the one from the store, with all the fruit in it, to ours to make the Fruit on the Bottom yogurt last a LONG TIME.  Yum!

surprise, surprise, surprise . . .

So I was walking in the barn pasture fixing some of the fence wires that came out of the posts, and Maine yells at me from the woods pasture "Hey dad, there's a baby lamb!"  She had been in the woods, and on her way out, she stopped by the pasture to get a look at what was following Clover around.  I walked over to where she was, and sure enough, Clover had a lamb RIGHT NEXT TO HER!  WOW, what a surprise.  We did not even know that she was bred!

 

Not know she was bred?  How could you not know?  Well, first off, she did not LOOK bred, and secondly, we kept the rams away from the ewes EXCEPT for a couple of times they all got mixed up together.  :)  Since we are not all that experienced with handling sheep, those types of things are bound to happen.

 

This is Clover with her new lamb Clementine.  As Maine has named her.

And last week we added a parakeet to the inside RAT that Asher has in his room.  I don't know what I am thinking letting the children keep pets in the house.  Have I gone mad?

 

In fact, it has shocked the children a bit that I have been letting them get and keep household pets.  And it is shocking me as well!  I guess in my older age things aren't as they were when I was younger.  I figure that a few little animals aren't going to hurt me.

 

I purchased this cage years ago (when Pottery Barn had no idea that bird cages were cool) and have only used it for decoration.  Now it was time to put it to use.  And since the bird has been here, only for a few days, it has gotten out of the cage twice.  What fun it is to try to catch a flying bird in the house.  :)

non-traditional . . .

Lately I have been working on a ton of chalkboard orders for menu boards.  It seems they are starting to pick up just as much as the little 3 x 4's have.  And I have also been changing the look of some of them, like the one pictured, to non-traditional black to some other colored boards that you can use ChalkInk markers on.  This one was for a farm down in North Carolina and I used a darker brown as the chalkboard writing surface.  The logo is displayed on both sides.

taking a book look . . .

Stopped by a used book store the other day that my neighbor owns.  The girls wanted to see if he had anything they wanted.  Come to find out, he is closing the store.  :(  However, he has opened a website to buy from.  Check it out here BOOKSBYTHEBUNCH.COM

big barn party . . .

Since I was gone during the month of March, the children decided to celebrate their birthdays when I returned.  And for the celebration of their birthdays, Macy organized a Big Barn Party!  She made a huge batch of chili and cornbread, and a couple of large, chocolate sheet cakes. We cleaned and decorated the Big Barn, and she invited several people to help celebrate the birthdays.  During the day several people came to wish them well.  It was great to be home celebrating my children's birthdays, and have people over as well.

The farm back is back in order now.  Mowing is done. The house, barns, and garage are cleaned out.  And now we are enjoying the later part of the summer.  Yesterday we went swimming in the pond, and since grandma came over, we went to town and all got slushies from the local ice cream shop.  I have a couple of weeks left before school starts, and a little bit of work to do before then.  WOW this summer has gone fast!

now the full story . . .

I'll just jump right in.

Several months ago, February 20th, Gresham and I had been having a little misunderstanding as to whether he had to tell me the truth or not, and that when I asked him a question, whether or not he had to answer it.  On that day, it was a question of where he had gotten a paint brush from in order to paint.

The situation warranted a spanking and I was careful to spank him over his pants, and pause between spankings to give him an opportunity to come clean by asking him where he had gotten it.  He refused to tell me, and even when faced with the consequence of another spanking, he held to his resolve not to.  He acceded to the discipline of being spanked, and I ended up giving him several spankings, one after another, with pauses and questions, thinking at one point he would give in and tell me the truth.  That is when the sheriff was called.

Two sheriff arrived and asked questions concerning me spanking my son.  I told them everything I had done, and they also talked with Gresham.  In addition, they talked with Macy who had witnessed part of the event.  After a little discussion, they asked if I would be willing to go to the sheriff's office to talk and I agreed. While there, I talked with a Child Protective Services worker and then spent the next hour or two waiting for them to decide my fate.  According to the report, I had violated Gresham and was charged with Domestic Violence and taken to jail.  The fact that I used a paint stir stick constituted domestic violence because it was considered a weapon to inflict pain.

I spent the night in jail, and was released the next day on my own recognizance; which meant that I signed that I would show up for a later court appearance, and promised not to do anything else illegal during that time.  With a sheriff escort, I was given twenty minutes to collect whatever clothing I would need, stopped by the farm, got some clothing, and left the property due to a Temporary Protection Order on Gresham.  And, I was not to return to the property until the matter was settled.  The matter was settled July 10th.

I spent 139 days away from the farm, and away from my family.  I did not speak, write to, or receive any correspondance from Gresham the entire time.  I was though able to contact the other children.  I spent the time staying with my mother in her apartment waiting desparately for the case to be dropped.  I missed the end of winter, all of spring, and the first of the summer here on the farm.  And then, like a light being turned on, July 10th the case was dropped!  I was able to come home.  Gresham was with another family for the night so I was unable to see him that day.  But, the following evening, he came home.  He had grown so much, had lost and gained new teeth, and used a whole new slew of vocabulary words!  WOW, was it ever great to be home again.

Tomorrow is the three week mark of my return.  The children have almost forgotten that I had been away for so long, and we are back in the routine of summer here on the farm.  I have a few more weeks before school starts to finish the work around here to get the place back up to speed.

Thanks to all who have prayed for us in this situation.  It has been a rough time, and God has been gracious again. :)

new life...

New life excites me. Just the wonderfull miracle of things being born, whether it be a baby or in our case PUPPIES!. Yes Floppy had yet another litter of puppies :) And here are just some random pictures :)

 Some turtle eggs Asher found...

 An older kitten of ours...

HOMEMADE marshmallows..

Just a wonderful photo of Maines...

Some of our gorgeous farm...

And the newest kittens...

Hope you enjoy these photos :)

Post by macyanne

Prom...

So Dad has informed me to relate some of my recent adventures in the prom department, so here it goes: I was asked about prom by several girls that I knew but was not really sure about what my views were about it so I said no to the first couple of them. But then I was talking to a girl that I know and she was saying how she had a friend that wanted to go but hadn’t been asked out by anyone and was to shy to ask someone out herself, and she asked if I would go with her. My first thought was that I at least wanted to meet the girl first, and so we went out and got ice cream (of course!) the three of us and Anna and I met each other and talked for the first time and she seemed really nice, so I asked her to go to prom with me and she said yes. (Please remember that this was a week before prom night.) So then I rushed and got everything set up which is really not the best way to do it but that seems to be the way it works for me. So prom day rolled around and we took pictures at a friend’s house, then we went out to eat at Stella Blue in Archibald, not the best place in the world, but it was nice to eat out and feel fancy in a tux. After that we went back to Defiance and Anna and I went and did a carriage ride around Defiance for awhile and then went into prom. We then stayed at prom till around eleven thirty, luckily for me Anna had the same views on dancing that I did so we definitely stood out when we were ballroom dancing to Nikki Minaj and Justin Beiber. After prom we went and got changed and went to “after prom,” Where since I have mad farm skills I set the record for the mechanical bull riding and since I come from California I also set the record on the mechanical surfboard. So we stayed there until around three-three thirty, we then went to a friend’s house and hung out till around six in the morning. So then we split ways and I got Anna home around seven and got home myself around seven thirty. I had a blast going and was so glad that I decided to, I met a lot of new people, and it was a great experience for my first social gathering with young adults my age.

Post by, thehorsaholic

we are glass . . .

It has been an interesting journey this past several months for me and my family.  I have not been home (on the farm) and I am finding more than ever before that I a grateful for the family that God has given me.  Including the good and the bad.  The lyrics of this Thompson Square song is somewhat of a summary of the types of feelings that I have had for the last little while . . .

Tryin' to live and love
With a heart that can't be broken
Is like tryin' to see the light
With eyes that can't be opened

Yeah, we both carry baggage
We picked up on our way
So if you love me, do it gently
And I will do the same

We may shine, we may shatter
We may be pickin' up the pieces here on after
We are fragile, we are human
We are shaped by the light we let through us
But we break fast 'cause we are glass
'Cause we are glass

I'll let you look inside me
Through the stains and through the cracks
And in the darkness of this moment
You see the good in that

But try not to judge me
'Cause we've walked down different paths
But it brought us here together
So I won't take that back

We may shine, we may shatter
We may be pickin' up the pieces here on after
We are fragile, we are human
We are shaped by the light we let through us
But we break fast 'cause we are glass

We might be all in water
This could be a big mistake
We might burn like gasoline and fire
It's a chance we'll have to take

We may shine, we may shatter
We may be pickin' up the pieces here on after
We are fragile, we are human
And we are shaped by the light we let through us
But we break fast 'cause we are glass
We are glass

The reality of our lives is that whether it is good or bad, whether we are happy or sad, that we do spend our lives trying to live and love.  Trying to see the good through all the darkness.  And while we are living, try to love gently, and have others do the same.  Thank God that He loves us gently and gives us the grace to do the same.

baby pictures...

We just unearthed some baby photos of us older three.

It was like the first time I had seen a baby picture of me.

                                    

Here's one of me a couple months ago...

 Any difference?? :)

Post by MacyAnne

spearing fish...

Spearing fish?? Who on earth spears fish, you may ask. Can you even spear them?
Asher burst that bubble a couple days ago. I will let the photos speak for themselves...

Post by MacyAnne

going to prom . . .

Nolan went to PROM!  What?  Prom you ask?  Yes. Prom.  I'll let him tell you in his own words what happened.