More of Spring

This video was the very first day of spring & it just keeps getting busier out here. Happily, God has providentially granted us rain almost every other day so we don't have to spend too much time watering the gardens. Victor has a little "guerrila garden" up the hill w/ his special low-acid Mr. Stripey tomatoes & cukes he wants for pickles. It's up on the mountain somewhere secret. I found some potatoes sprouting up from last year & he asked for one. I handed it over & he tucked it in his black Tonka truck w/ shovel & disappeared.



Mike& I are having a "potato-off". I'm trying them in a tire tower & he's built a potato tower out of old shipping crates. We've used these crates for everything.



Who will grow the most? I found spouts coming up in the garden that I missed last harvest & he bought some from Lowes. Stay tuned...



We have at least one rat in the hayloft. I've actually seen it while up there & occasionally we find dead babies in the goat run that V & C like to feed to the chickens. Sometimes it feels like Lord of the Flies around here. In preparation for the goatlings birth Mike gave the goat shed a thorough mucking & found it! He blocked it in w/ cinderblocks & shot I won't say how many times. His trophy that the chickens wouldn't touch:



There's another one at least, I can hear it squeaking in the mornings when I'm doing chicken chores. Mike was getting water & saw a tail disappear over the roof. I saw a ratty whiskery pink nose peeking from the side of the slab in the chicken shed. These rats put me in mind of Garth Williams drawings of Templeton after he'd gorged himself. Salt & Pepper mindlessly leads her 10 babies (1 died) in there & I just know 1 will get taken out by the rat.



Here is Annie, still not having babies. I've just about decided she isn't pregnant. But wait!



Victor & Charlotte have taken them!



No, I found them this morning. Annie looked gaunt & there was a big spread of birth slime on the floor which I tossed w/ the rake & strawed over. It was quiet though so just thought she had lost a freaky mucous plug but there were the 2 little bucklings, one stuck under a pallet. They were shivering & it was fairly cool & overcast so I brought them in for an hour or so until the sun came out. Annie was starving so I took her to the front & fed her a goodly chunk of grain, alfalfa & a box of raisens. Unhappily through my negligence the white goat got a bath.



I had been running back & forth all morning misplacing things trying to figure out how to promote bonding while not dying of chill & running off of 2 cups of coffee w/out breakfast. Mike was at school. Victor was so good about holding the brown goat until his legs & the goat fell asleep so I said he might lay him on the towel in the tub & leave him. I was finishing up clothes & Miranda came out & proudly announced that she had "I shompoo baby doat!" Mike (who was back from school & making us breakfast) exchanged a look & went to see little white goat was covered w/ pink conditioner. I gave it a very warm rinse off in the laundry sink which as a detachable nozzle w/ shower option. He seemed to like it. But whatever special bonding smell that was on him got washed off. Annie shows fairly strong signs of rejecting him. She milks great & I'm getting enough to put in a bottle to feed him so we'll see if he makes it or not. We think it's funny how they're ears are half Nubian half La Mancha.





Well, it's a long day & I'm beat. It looks like we've got unexpected midnight feedings to do. We're thankful for all of the new life, & wisdom we've been given in the first short weeks of the season. Oh yeah, I also made my first batch of saurkraut. I followed Joannes directions implicitly so go check out her blog & pictures on how to make it if you'd like to. I used the rubber handle of a hammer to pound w/.

Our Autumn Wealth

Most of our possessions this last season have been an increase in our knowledge & skill sets but friends & family are always valued too. Here our pastor is helping Mike lay the beams on the cellar after his shift at his shop was over.

Miranda LOVES laundry. She is a persistant, though not a rapid plunger & have you ever seen a baby wash her own diapers so cheerfully?

Victor had done an extra job outside of the usual realm of his chores & was paid accordingly. He then made this entire breakfast of bacon, eggs & toast on his own. He even cracked the eggs, which he hates & sliced the bread, which scared me. This is a man's breakfast, a daddy breakfast, & he is bursting w/ pride in the picture as I bestowed the crowning glory; a tiny cup of coffee.

After watching the block go up by our neighbor & helping where he could, Mike figured he could lay block himself & finished the wall so we could start the back fill.

Charlotte had an entire week w/out a single accident. I proclaimed her potty trained & Mike went & bought a ginormous balloon for her. Thomas lasted one week until everybody decided to take a train ride at once & jumped on him. She happily threw him away which relieved me. We still have shreds of our last balloon that won't be parted w/.

We thank God for allowing us more wisdom & control, & hope that these new skills will be a blessing to others as He leads.

Just a Little Victor Post

Victor is an odd child. I think all 3 of them are but he is the oldest & certainly the leader. His oddness is filtered down through the girls & changes into something nicer. Charlotte was telling me the prettiest story about finding a baby Pegasus under a leaf up on top of the hill where the rope was & how she had brought it home in her pocket & it was now sitting by me on the ledge of the bathtub.

I mentioned it casually to Victor & he assented but the baby Pegasus was being protected by a Pegasus army led by the daddy Pegasus & they were all war Pegusi (sp?) & had unicorn horns that could breathe out fire. You know how that goes.

One morning he bounce out of his room & asked if I could put wings on his stuffed snake, Squirm. I was taken aback & immediately enchanted though I had never considered adding such a task to my to-do list. I drew out a pattern, selected fabric that he approved of & a week later he had a Wyvern. I keep calling him Squirvern though that infuriates him, though I don't mean to. I do it rather thoughtlessly.

We are only on lesson 38 of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" but he's a good reader & occasionally uses expression in his reading voice after going over the story a couple of times. I have him read to me in the kitchen as I'm prepping meals & sometimes he'll volunteer to read to the girls. He really does too, library books.

I was coming out of the bathroom today & he yells out, "Mumma, I know how soldiers say "Z""

As he is always rearranging words into how he thinks soldiers say something I was prepared for something out there & wacky, but he triumphantly said, "Zulu!"

I was floored! That is how you say Z in soldier talk when relaying a transmission. The radio was off & there was no movie on. I walked out of the bedroom & he is stretched out in front of the book case reading an old copy of the Soldiers Manual of Common Tasks. I didn't know we still had one, much less on on our book case.

"I'm going to look at bombs next."

I'm really not sure what we're raising. He loves his Bible stories & is always bringing me his theological questions & observations which are usually astute. But his overriding passion & the theme & source of all of his games are war & soldiering & getting to be a grown up as fast as he can.

Gifts Galore

This fall has been so much fun & very busy. We had lots of family visit us throughout the week & as usual we got to go out & see new stuff in our area. We're not usually proactive in our sightseeing & almost never knowledgeable in where we take our guests. We go & explore along w/ them, which it probably oughtn't to be like that, but it is. Here's from a walk we took my mother in law dragged us on. It was beautiful! But Miranda is officially too heavy for me to climb mountains w/ her on my back, this was her last long trip in her carrier.It's another reason I'm grateful that we can homeschhool. On our mountain walk Victor kept running ahead & I threatened to put him in a kindergarten classroom on a Tuesday morning instead.

"Ahhhh! You'll never do it, I won't let you!" he screamed diving up a side trail that I couldn't climb w/ Miranda on my back. We all laughed & Mike followed him up.



This is from my father in law from the local brewery. He gave me a "growler" (Half gallon) of pumpkin ale. It was SO GOOD! I drank 3 pints after a heavy meal which in hindsight is gluttony & 1 pint too many for a sitting for me. So I drank & blogged. I'm a much freer talker w/ a drink in me. You take the jug back & they'll refill it for $10.00.
This is from my aunt though she mightn't have known it. She gave us some money to fix or get a new washer as ours just completely flooded the house twice for 2 different reasons. Mike matched her & I got my wringer. English people call it a mangle, which I like better. It puts a wonderful crease in diapers, cloths & towels & is a wrist saver.

This was from Mike. He got tired of seeing me carry buckets of stuff everywhere & waited until he could afford steel handles (he accidently snapped the wooded ones off of our last one) & a run flat tire. The goat shed got a very thorough mucking, the gardens have been amended & it's also served as a cement hod for the root cellar.

Apple sauce from deer apples. It's a little more work but much cheaper & maybe you can't tell but Mike got me some Tattlers. They work great!

My kitchen is prettier thanks to mom & her friend Bill. They brought me her old buffet & I'm using it as a sideboard. Or a credenza. What is the difference? I don't know, but now I've a proper place for table linens, aprons, napkins & miscellaney. The only bad part was when I cut off a head of garlic & dirt would fall into the tea cups. The garlic is mostly in the ground now.

Isn't it a pretty piece? I have been so blessed this season by neighbors & family. The visits were the most wonderful, especially since there were years between them. It's been a very whirlwind season & I'm afraid winter following will be dull.

Bad Words & Victor Gets THE Talk

I found this post from back in May & I never finished it. There's a bit more that I can add to now.

This has been a week of suprises concerning the younger set. Miranda has decided to walk. She took her first steps 3 weeks ago & quit. She took 2 more at the library on Wed. The radio was playing a weird hillbilly version of the Macarena & the children saw that I was excited. The original song came out during my freshman year, the first year of school dances for me. Mike was less excited as he was remembering just finishing basic training & being stationed in Germany the same year. I couldn't remember all of the steps so we just did a silly dance, Miranda included. It wasn't enough for her to hold onto the table & bob side to side, she just loves the banjo. She would get up on her knees, one foot on the ground & throw herself, tummy first onto the floor, over & over like a broken frog.
Being Baby Kong.

She started up again last night, this time w/out the music, playing a game w/ Charlotte & just decided it was easier to walk, walked the whole length of the office to daddy! He was so pleased, as was I. Unlike the other 2, I didn't get a picture. I knew when they were going to, Mike swears Miranda has been walking in secret for a month now. She is my latest walker but has the best form initially, starting out.

Charlotte likes the "Bananna Fanna" song. We were doing the girls bath & naming random things.

"Daddy, daddy, bo baddy, bananna fanna fo faddy, me my mo maddy. Daddy!"

"We shouldn't sing that song, it's disrespectful." chimes in Victor walking by.

"There are things to sing about that aren't disrespectful." I said. "Let's sing about trees".

"Oak, oak, ba boke, bannana fanna fa foke, me my ma moke। Oak!"

"Maple!" I call out। "Maple, maple, bo baple bannanna fanna fo faple, me my mo maple. Maple!"

"Yucca!" sings Charlotte, very pleased w/ her knowledge of plant identification. "Yucca, yucca, bo bucca, bananna fanna..." my voice trailed off. Charlotte finished off loudly herself & looked apprehensivly at me.

"Lets sing about little teapots!"

Victor has been having some man-to-man talks w/ daddy, trying to persuade him to have another baby. Victor just loves babies, though he still doesn't have a concrete idea about where they come from. Mike told him when he (Victor) can start taking over my chores he would consider it, maybe when he's 8. (For some reason, 8 is a magical number for Victor. He was so upset when we got to it in our workbooks & he found out he had a hard time writing it.) We are in a busy season right now w/ lots of manual labor & I'm glad to be able to do it; Mike wasn't put out on a medical discharge for nothing. If he puts in a full or even a hard half day, he needs 4 days to recover.
All right, fast forward 5 months to the present. I think Victor actually knows where babies come from & I had to explain precious little. He just got the idea watching the roosters do their thing w/ the hens & if you've ever seen poultry love you'll know it's rarely consensual. He asked me "Why do the roosters do that to the hens so often?"

Now, I've explained the chickens using a King Solomon analogy, that they feel they need a lot of wives, but this was more pointed.

"The rooster is planting his seed into the egg so a baby chick can grow." I explained, holding my breath in dreaded anticipation of the next question. Sure enough.

"How does he get his seed into the hen?"

You might be as shocked & amazed as I was this year to learn that the mighty cock of the barnyard actually lacks a penis in any shape or form; he has a single multi-purpose vent just like the hen, just a different purpose.

"They match up vents." I answered as nonchalantly as I could.

"Oh."
And that was it! I don't know when he'll make the association to humans. I'm hoping he'll be talking to Mike then but I am glad that he can learn it in such a natural way.

Humor in the Holler w/ a Tailypo

Just some fun things that are going on around here. Can you guess what these are? They have given us HOURS of entertainment.

We decorated our favorite library book w/ them. Seriously, we must have checked this book out 12 or 16 times but I know if we bought it they would never want to read it again.

The Tailypo!

Every page that could be done, we did it. Can you guess what they are?

Here's a hint.

They get dropped into my lap when I'm least expecting it, the cat hasn't grown tired of them after about 4 weeks & they're still not falling apart. They've been antlers & boot tails & I don't know what all else.

Here are V & C promoting the book w/ a cool cover. They watched this one on Netflix as I couldn't find a War of the Worlds set in the time the book was written. We are actually reading War of the Worlds at Victor's request & are halfway through it. He doesn't understand a word I'm saying through it so I ask him questions & explain it & new words every 2 paragraphs or so. He's into it.

Here they are being ninjas.

And this is Billy. If you have never seen a billy goat, you have not known fine entertainment. There is no mating in this video so rest easy. Our very obliging neighbor up the hill is letting us keep him for a month.

The Newest Addition...

...is not a baby.
Victor is asking for a new baby already, Mike told him that when he was able to take over all of my chores & Miranda was a bit bigger, he would pray a special prayer to make that come about, but really, we need physical labor done around here right now & he won't let me work if I'm carrying.

We were listening to Michael Bunkers new radio show & he was reading a chapter out of his new book, Modern Religious Idols. I think it was chapter 8, The Idol of Feminization. Mike had never heard a Bunker rant before & it got him pumped up & mannish feeling; he declared he was going to dig a hole tomorrow! And he did. So I present: our root cellar.

When I say "our root cellar" I mean the very beginnings, I'll update as allowed, DV. Here Mike & Victor are breaking ground on site. It's right above my summer kitchen & all of my fruit bushes are down to the left. Though it does face south there is a mountain directly in front of it to block all of the afternoon sun, besides a bunch of shady trees.
Now, I have not dug a hole since digging my hasty fighting position during basic training in Ft. Sill. I was 18 then & had only a small utility shovel. I think it was early October, & I'd been there since the beginning of Aug., long enough for me to decide to never live in Ok. (Sorry Okies.) I've mentioned our special dirt before & it is just clay all of the way down so far, which is fine except we've had a very wet spring. Man , it's a workout.

Mike & I were in a digging mood about a week before this, w/ a conversation that went something like this: "Hey, how deep did you want the ditch in the goat shed?" "6 inches."

I started digging around the concrete pad & he jumped up to help & then recruited Victor to start filling buckets of gravel from the drive. Something he did NOT want to do. So I offered to pay him as it was above & beyond his regular chores. He consented warily & then Mike told him that if he spent his earnings on tools then he would match him in price. We had a french drain in about 2 hours.

Mike & Victor went to Ace a few days later & returned w/ a real untility shovel; $7.00 for Victor & the root cellar commenced. I get to swing the pick ax; I do shovel but I prefer the pick ax for its more immediate result. Here is about 3 days worth of work. It is not 3 consecutive days, or even one 12 hour day, but here & there between storms w/ a day or 2 to dry out & lighten up. Neither of us want an injury & his back goes out for the seemingly smallest reasons.

I had some fun which I probably ought not to have had. To pass the digging time I told V & C that there was a monster egg down below ready to wreak havoc on our county & it was up to us to dig down fast enough & far enough to reach it & save the town. There was so much speculation & older B horror movies are a regular thing at our house; they got into it much more than I thought they would & Charlotte had a nightmare, so I gave them an ending.
Victor has conjectured that a baby dragon hatched out of its egg during a storm & was crushed by a river of dirt wherewith our present day hill formed over it. Charlotte finds it plausible & I'm hoping the whole thing will just die. Our other between semesters project is (are?) chickens.

Mommy's Newest Helper

Miranda is getting big, she's about 14 months now (10 or 11 months in this picture) & I'm certain that she is my sweetest baby yet. Helping is her passion; she loves to be in on the action. I remember that Victor was the same, Charlotte, not so much. Another fabulous use for the corner sink (I love my sink!) is to have baby do dishes w/ me. Up until now I would just hold her on my hip & wash w/ the other hand, but she is just getting too heavy. Here she can sit w/out my worrying about her falling, I just have to keep her out of the cat food. Buck is less pleased about her doing dishes in her space.

She is also my climber & always wants to be as high as she can. She's gotten so that she's able to get her feet on the first rung of Victor's ladder, but then she's stuck & cries piteously until she's rescued. As you see, the vacuum is a favorite mode of transport for her, she just climbs on & straddles it waiting for a ride. She's been crawling for about 4 months now & in that time her legs have gotten too long for the usual on-your-knees crawl. She's graduated to bear crawling everywhere since it's faster for her, but again, her legs are lengthening too fast for what is easy & she's beginning to do a weird scoot-on-your-bottom-dragging-a-leg-behind-you crawl. That's the only kind of crawl Charlotte ever did & only for 1 month when she started walking at 10 months. I hope it's soon, I can feel the strain on my shoulder sockets carrying her everywhere.

Though this picture indicates otherwise, she does enjoy sorting & organizing. She's the baby who picks up whatever she sees & then drops it in the nearest open container, clapping in the pleasure of her accomplishment. 8 times out of 10 this is very sweet to see & I'm glad to applaud w/ her. When the open container is the toilet or diaper pail we need some re-directing.

As of this morning she's pulled those q-tips out for the 3rd time; I'm considering them a total loss & relegating them to the firearms cleaning section.

And here's the long awaited 14 month picture for my mom. Portraits are out for us right now so I improvised & I think it turned out very nice w/out the headache that the dirty Wal-Mart (or other, cleaner) portrait studios create.

My Pretty Pearl

Miranda is my nursling & is just shy of her first birthday. As such her post will probably not be as long as V & C. Her collection of pictures is certainly smaller, she is the least photogenic of the 3 & is only recently turning pretty.

This is her typical picture face.

One in 3 pregnancies are unplanned & in Miranda's case this is true. After our initial panic was over (Mike had received his retirement orders only 2 weeks before & our house was on the market w/ us planning on living in an RV.) we accepted God's planning instead, forged ahead & were continuously amazed at His plans for us. It is largely due to my carrying her that spurned us to bid on the house when & where we did.

For all of her differences from the other two, Miranda is by far the most content, happiest, well behaved baby yet. I am very glad for this so Mike can see. He missed Victors first year due to deployment & Charlotte was...not. Whereas Miranda can sprout a mouthful of teeth like a shark & play happy games, every bit of tooth sprout for Charlotte was pure misery for her. And Mike, ha ha.

She loves Victor & Charlotte equally but Victor is the main reciprocator of her affections. As soon as I began showing he began to talk to my belly & she recognized him at their first meeting turning her head & squinting. It was so neat & he was very very gratified. I think she looks more like Victor than anyone else. She hangs out w/ him as much as possible, Charlotte is still jealous. The fight for my lap is ongoing every story time. At times I feel like the old woman who lived in the shoe.


Things that she really enjoys are dancing, being outside, 4 legged critters, baths & I'm not sure, but eating. Meal time is the only time she is seemingly not happy & well behaved, she becomes a demanding, screaming harpy. Since we don't buy baby food & I don't have a food processor I mama bird feed her but I can't chew fast enough to suit her. Feeding solids is when I take a noticeable loss of baby weight. The nursing does help but chewing more thoroughly for her & getting 1 swallow to every 2 of hers makes me feel full faster. A week until her 1st birthday & I'm between 135 & 140lbs. I've not seen those numbers since 8th grade! My average highschool weight was 145 & 155 while in the army. I guess I didn't need all of that muscle, thank you baby. :)

This is her "snow chores" suit. She gets excited since she knows she'll be in the sling for a couple of hours to shovel snow or haul wood.

Miranda is my "signing" baby. We used babysigns w/ Charlotte too but Miranda uses more of them. She thumps her chest when she wants to nurse, pats her hip & says "Psss, pssss" when she needs a new diaper, waves her hand in the air for a bite & touches her mouth when she wants to drink. All of the sippy cups when Victor was a baby drove me nuts w/ their clutter so I boxed them up & took the girls straight to a shot glass for its small circumferance.

I'm not sure if she's toilet trained or not. We've certainly got a little EC (elimination communication) in place. I started sitting her on a little pedastel bowl when she was about 2 months & ran some water down her leg w/ the pss pss sound. Her bottom is getting too big for it now but if I sit her on it or the toilet she will pee on demand w/ the pss pss sound & then claps her hands delightedly if only a few dribbles.

Not this exact bowl, but the pedastal style is very useful so you can grip it between your knees if baby is kicky & has made a deposit.

I love her bottom! It is so round, she was born w/ loads of muscle. Victors was too, Charlottes was so flat it creeped me out for the first 6 months as her tailbone was so prominent. Miranda is like a skinny little spider monkey, she just won't fatten up. She's not yet walking but is pulling herself up & has filled out considerably these past 2 months. I can't hold her & do everything anymore & have to set her down frequently. She's even growing out of her sling. She's growing as fast as Victor did/ is.

She has tiny biceps!

Other training we've done is woodstove/hot training. Since the stove is on a tile floor the line of differentiation is prettty clear it's easy for her to recognize "no" land. It was helpful when we were recently at a doctor's appointment for Mike. She would crawl over the carpeted waiting area but recognized that the shiny linoleum was off limits at our "no". We did the same for Victor when we lived on a street & were teaching Victor the "no" line between the drive & street. I realize I compare the 3 alot but that is one of the funnest things about having children. They're so different & so are their strengths & weaknesses. We're so blessed!