Farmers at Heart

April Already!

2011-04-11T09:58:00.002-05:00

Not just April- but almost halfway through! I can't believe it.

Well I haven't blogged in a while, but I'm ready to jump back in. Even if it's just a little blurb a few times a week.

Summary of the past year: Polyface farm internship. Starting in October 2010 we became Polyface contractors, running a 300-acre rental farm. We've got lots of animals right now- 400 head of cattle, 1600 egg-layers, broilers both in the field and in the brooder, turkeys in the brooder, our personal rabbits, and our personal (very small) dairy herd (no one is in milk right now). We love it here.

So today I'm watching my nephew for a few hours, making food, and cleaning. Pretty much my days are filled with cleaning and cooking. But that's fine- I love it here. It's breezy and lovely today, and it's making me happy!

The most exciting thing going on here recently is that our landlord finished closing in the front porch and made it into a room, which I had previously claimed as "my" room. My dad brought my piano down, and it is now in my room. My music and sewing room! I have great plans for this little room, all lined with windows, but for now it's just got a piano and a chair in it, as I have to do a few finishing details (a little sanding and staining of the walls). What a run-on sentence! Anyway, i love it. Here's before and after pictures!

Yes, this is what it looked like when we moved in. Love the yard, eh??

Another of the front of the house

John, our landlord, working on the porch

Revealing the log-cabin under the siding

Finished, with piano! Looking from the window in the kitchen into the music room.

From the outside! I like it plain, but I think John plans to paint it to match the rest of the house. Excuse the construction mess! I can't wait to get some flower beds in :)

Bloggy blog bloggeroozie

2011-03-25T09:09:00.002-05:00

I will begin blogging once a week (saturdays) over at polyfaceyum.blogspot.com as well as trying to blog here again. But of course right now Zeke is screaming and I need to clean up/make lunch, so I'll try again this afternoon!

I love fall!

2010-09-26T09:56:00.006-05:00

Oooh what a lovely morning! It's overcast, drizzly, and 60-something degrees outside! I'm so excited that fall is coming, and that today really feels like fall! I haven't felt fall for 6 years. At least for this year (and probably the next two or three!), it's my very favorite season.

We skipped church today to stay home and rest. Well, for Daniel to rest and for me to tidy up, do laundry, and make some food. A friend is stopping by after church to spend the afternoon with us. We move over to our new farm (rental farm) in 8 or 9 days- I'm so excited!

These pictures are from August. Not quite fall-like, but I had to put something up!

Have a lovely Sunday!

Baby Charlie

2010-09-25T07:37:00.003-05:00

I came across a blog today, and felt the need to share it with all (2) of my readers! Baby Charlie was born 10 weeks early and died after only 3 days. His family is left with the burden of medical bills while trying to deal with the loss. A friend of the family started a donation for them on her blog, and I wanted to share the link with you all. Click here. Then click on the upper right hand "donate" button to send money to the family and help them cover medical and funeral costs.

I don't normally put up stuff like this, but as you all know, Ezekiel was born 13 weeks early. I remember how difficult it was, how many times he nearly died, and I can't imagine his cute little two-year old self not running around the living room making a mess right now! I also can't imagine how difficult it would be to be stressed about money while they are suffering such a great loss. If you feel led, please, donate something to this family. This is the perfect opportunity for the Church to be the Church to someone in need.

summer pictures

2010-09-22T08:08:00.002-05:00

Here are some pictures from our summer...

My love and me

The drive out to Polyface

Zeke and Dad

Zeke playing at the park

Zeke and Sadie in our kitchen (I love this kitchen!)
Today I'm just trying to conquer my boredom with our everyday routine. It seems like all my days run together with Daniel gone so long. The internship is almost done- less than two weeks! I should probably start packing the house since we're moving so soon... but we don't really have too much stuff here, anyway, so it won't take too long to do. Yesterday we went to the local Mennonite-owned garden store and bought some seeds for a fall garden. We then went over to our soon-to-be home and planted them in a free bed in the expansive, jungle-like garden. The land lord just finished painting the house a cheery periwinkle blue and is currently doing some repairs on the front porch. I'm excited to move in!

Malachi is here today (have I mentioned that I've started nannying? 25ish hours a week) and currently napping. Zeke is happily playing with toys and singing. Sadie is cuddled up next to me. I'm cuddled up with the computer. I guess I should start getting something productive done today! I hope you have a good day :)

I'm back!

2010-09-16T08:04:00.003-05:00

It's been a while... but I still love you, blog. It's time to get back into the groove of things!

Lots of news here- first of all, we're staying in Virginia! Starting the first of October Daniel will be running a rental farm for Polyface. We're extremely excited about it! The farm, called Briarmoore, has an old log-cabin house in which we'll be living. We will be moving over there in two or three weeks, once the current tenant moves out. I'm a little concerned about moving in, as when I saw the house this past week it was extremely dirty. Structurally it's fine, and everything works in the house, it just needs a seriously good, deep scrubbing. But we'll get that done, and once that's done everything will be fine. I'll post pictures once we're settled in! Daniel will be taking care of egg laying chickens, pigs, and cows starting in October, and he'll be adding rabbits shortly after that. Next spring we'll have all of the above and add broilers (meat chickens) to the mix. We're very thankful that God sent us to Virginia! We don't have any plans to go back to Kentucky.

So what's been going on the past two months? Well, Zeke turned 2 in August! That was lovely. Then I started babysitting a 4-month old little boy at our church, about 25 hours a week. He and Zeke are both napping right now. Zeke adores Malachi, and Malachi loves watching Zeke play. I'm glad Zeke doesn't seem to be jealous. I've also been doing laundry for the other interns at the farm, so I'm currently making more money than Daniel! I doubt that will ever happen again!

About three weeks ago I had an appointment with a naturopathic doctor/nutritionist named Jane. I was very eager to see her, as I've had on-going health problems for years now, and I was never able to get a conventional doctor (at least in the military system) to take me seriously. I've been absolutely unable to loose weight, constantly tired and moody, and unable to carry pregnancies to full term (Zeke was born at 27 weeks gestation, and I've had multiple miscarriages), horrible joint pain, and other various problems. She was an absolutely amazing doctor! She had a machine which, to the best of my understanding, works like this: you hold two pieces of metal which are attached to a machine by wires- it sends a weak electrical current through your body. Every cell in existence has it's own unique electromagnetic frequency, and this machine records all the frequencies of all the different types of cells in your body and sends them into a software program on a computer. This software then shows the doctor the exact levels of every substance in your body, what you're allergic to, etc, and she is able to analyze the data with the medical and nutritional training she has. She was able to figure out that I have Hypothyroidism (I already knew that, but regular blood tests always showed up negative and so no one would ever give me medicine for it!), Polycystic Ovarian Synrdrom (I suspected this some, and Paige, she said to tell you that you were right!), and Lymes Disease. No wonder I'm ALWAYS tired!! She said that the first two problems are inter-related and mainly caused by an extremely severe iodine deficiency (again, the machine was able to show her how much iodine is in my body). She gave me a list of supplements to order, and drastically restricted my diet: no wheat, oats, red meat, pork, dairy, tomatoes, walnuts, fish. 75% of my daily diet is vegetables and the other 25% is chicken or eggs, rice bread, fruit. I'm still waiting for some of the supplements to come in the mail, but even just with the dietary changes in the last few weeks I feel much better. The only discouraging thing is that I haven't lost any weight yet. I think that will change once my iodine supplement gets here and my thyroid gland is able to function correctly. I've talked to three other people who saw her last week, and in just a week and a half they had lost 5,8, and 10lbs just from the dietary changes. We've already been eating healthy for years and so I guess it will just take my thyroid kicking in for me to start loosing weight. Anyhow, the machine is called Asyra (I'm sure you'll be googling it, Paige!). I was skeptical at first, but the appointment was amazing, and it was such a relief to have someone affirm the fact that I'm not well. I hope to be feeling so much better over the next few months! I have another appointment with Jane in October so I will be re-evaluated then. I'll keep you all updated incase you're curious.

Alright Malachi woke up from his nap and he's crying! I'd better get going! Sorry no pictures :(

To camp!

2010-07-26T08:36:00.002-05:00

Zeke and I are headed off to camp today! Woo hoo! I had planned to leave early this morning, but was in quite a tired funk yesterday and didn't get packed etc, so we'll be leaving post nap-time today. We've got a 7 hour drive ahead of us, not too bad. I just need to get the house in order, make a couple more dishes for Daniel to eat while we're gone, and pack. I can do that in the next couple hours, right?? Right! We'll be back in about 10 days!

I love Virginia

2010-07-19T07:00:00.004-05:00

Virginia is a wonderful place! Can I possibly explain to you how thoroughly happy I am here? I just love it beyond words.

We're well settled-in and we've gotten into a nice routine (which you've surely noticed hardly includes blogging!). Daniel works extremely long hours right now, but he loves the job. I've been learning how to quilt! A friend over at the farm has been teaching me, and she's a great teacher. In exchange I've been teaching her how to knit- oh the crafty fun we've been having! Right now I'm working on a small crib-sized quilt for Zeke's fast approaching second birthday. Previously mentioned friend had extra squares that she had already cut which she gave me! The fabric is all boy-prints- bugs, frogs, pigs, planets, more bugs. It's predominately blue and green. I got a black and white flannel music-note fabric to go on the back and green fabric for the binding. I would put pictures up but our computer has a wee virus on my user, and I can't access my pictures from Daniel's user. Oh well! Anyway, my quilt top is done and i have the three layers pinned together to start the actual quilting. I need to stop at the sewing shop for some supplies today (did I mention there is an absolutely wonderful fabric shop in our little town? And an adorable yarn shop!! Oh sweet little town, I love you!). On Saturday I picked up fabric for my first big quilt project-- a twin sized quilt for me! Our bed is queen sized but I don't feel quite up to such a daunting project just yet. I got 7 different fabrics, all blues and tans and browns, about half some sort of flower print and the other half just various designs. I had such a hard time picking out fabric, and went in with a completely different quilt planned in my mind (namely one with pinks, pale yellows, pale blues, pale greens, and white). For some reason that just wasn't working for me and I gravitated towards all these rich blue colors. I decided to just go with my intuition. I wish I could put up a picture! I'm so excited to start this new quilt, but probably won't start it for a few weeks, as I am planning a trip to Ohio shortly.

Once the computer is fixed I will grace this poor blog with some quilting pictures!

I've also been learning to can. I love canning! And I love quilting. Both these things have been on my "learn how to" list for a very long time. It was amazing to me that as soon as we got here I crossed paths with people who not only know how to do these things but really wanted to teach me how, too! In addition to that, due to the simplicity of life the flood forced on us (aka not having to maintain all our stuff-- less stuff to clean and organize, less laundry to do, etc) I have much more time for learning. It's been such a blessing to me to learn these things! It reminds me that there is a season for everything. Now is my quilting and canning season. :)

Zekeisms

2010-06-21T12:48:00.003-05:00

Poor Zeke, my blog used to be completely centered around him! Now that he's big and healthy I guess I don't think to write about him as much. But my how he has grown! He's a big 21-month old now, his birthday fast approaching. Here are a few new things he's been saying lately:

kakack-- cracker (he says this constantly. He loves crackers)
lady-- Sadie, our dog
poe poe-- poop
diapo-- diaper
baybay-- baby
buddy-- I call him "little buddy" all the time so he started saying it.

Right now he's hiding behind the couch playing with "Lady," who he loves. I'm so thankful she's a gentle, good dog because Zeke sees no problem with poking her face and yanking on her ears and tail. We're constantly saying "gentle Zeke, gentle!!" and he will remember for a while but soon forgets, of course. She has never once nipped or growled at him. The other day I came into the living room to find them both underneath the couch. Zeke just had a hand sticking out. He's in such an exploratory age. I love to watch him play. He looks at books all the time, and is constantly bringing us books to read him. His favorite is "the going to bed book." What would we do without that book?! He also loves carrying around his puppy (which is actually a lion) and hugging it and patting it's back. I mean, how sweet is that??! He's a very sensitive and gentle little guy. He jabbers to himself and to us all the time. I love when he is obviously telling a story or giving us important information in his little language, it melts my heart! He loves his shoes. He loves his bike. When I sit him in time out cries but doesn't even attempt to get up and escape, which I was surprised by and do not understand, but hey it makes my life easier! He loves brushing his teeth. He can play by himself for hours and stay entertained. He can follow lots of simple directions and find objects in other rooms of the house. He loves loves loves his two blankies- he can sleep anywhere if they are with him. He really needs a haircut but I can't bear to do it just yet, and he's too wiggly anyway. He's outgrown all the clothes I never thought he would grow into. Oh my pumpkin, I love you so much!!

Poor neglected blog...

2010-06-10T18:33:00.001-05:00

We are in Virginia now. I know, it's been too long. So sorry blog-land. The picture is the view out our front door!

It's been amazing how God has worked things out for us-- the duplex we were planning to rent fell through because the owner decided to lease it to someone who was signing a year lease instead, so I was scrambling like mad to find somewhere to stay! The whole issue was causing a lot of anxiety for me, seeing as we were just flooded out of our home, and then we're supposed to be moving to Virginia in a week and didn't have anywhere to go!! Well of course God had a plan and he just dropped a lovely place right in our lap, it's perfect for us, and much nicer than I was expecting. I am so thankful! Our landlord is a friend of a friend of a friend of my mothers (got that?!), and he attends the church we are attending. When I spoke with him on the phone I could tell that the house was going to be out of our price range, and it was. When I told him thanks but we couldn't afford it, he so graciously gave us $450 OFF each months rent!! Isn't that amazing?! It's so reassuring to know that there are good, caring people out there. Nearly everywhere we've ever moved we've found good people.

Meanwhile, Daniel had been working at Polyface farm for 2 weeks now, and he is LOVING it (of course!!). I am so happy for him, and proud of him for doing a good job. He leaves at 5am and doesn't get home until at least 9pm-- a couple nights a week he doesn't get home until about 11 or later. He's sporting an awesome farmers tan. He rocks my world.

We're going to a Mennonite church. We aren't Mennonite, but whatever, it's an awesome church. Honestly I wouldn't even know it was Mennonite except for that it says so on the sign out front. The people there have been overwhelmingly kind and helpful. We arrived in Virginia with just our cars and the things in them, no furniture, etc. because of the flood. In less than a week of being here the church community has provided us with: dining room table and chairs, two couches, dishes, misc. kitchen items, bed for zeke, bedroom set for us, lamp, iron & ironing board, sheets, blankets, pillows, and friendship. I can't believe how loving all these people have been, and I'm so thankful. They've made it such an easy transition. In many ways I don't want to leave Virginia-- it's beautiful here, Daniel loves working on the farm (although that's just for the summer), and we already have a community of people here to become friends with. I love being a Christian, I love the community it brings.

My mom is coming down from Ohio for a visit, she will be here in less than an hour, which means i need to go clean the bathroom-- i cut my own hair today, and it's still all over the floor. The hair that's still on my head looks cute, I'm so glad it turned out ok!!!

Rand Paul!

2010-05-18T22:26:00.002-05:00

I am so happy to use my 200th blog post to say that Rand Paul won the republican nomination for Senate in Kentucky today!!!!!

slippers and today

2010-05-17T11:23:00.002-05:00

I finnished these slippers late last night!

They were started when we were flooded-in at the neighbor's house a couple weeks ago. I'm not normally a crocheter, but my friend Aimee has been crocheting non-stop, and she inspired me to crochet the one thing I know how to make- granny squares. I even made a special trip to the store to get a crochet hook. The right slipper is made of 6 regular sized granny squares, the left slipper is made of one giant granny square and two regular sized ones-- sooo much less seaming-up work at the end! The two look slightly different- the right slipper has a white square on the toe and heel, whereas the left has only the white square on the toe. I seamed the left one a bit differently on accident (hey, I'm not a crocheter!) so they look a little different... but whatever. No big deal. I like the way the right one looks best, except for the white heel. The left one fits better. Future slippers will match.... and there will be future slippers! If we're pals in real life, I'll probably be making you a pair! Today Daniel and Zeke are headed up to Ohio to visit his mom-- which means I have the whole day to myself! I've just finished about half the cleaning I need to do... now I'm enjoying a cup of coffee, my "farmer's market" yankee candle (it got wet in the flood but it's ok!) and an Edgar Meyer/Bela Fleck CD (also caked in mud... I washed it off, and it just has a few skippy-parts on it so far). I have a lot to get done while they're gone but I couldn't resist the urge to sit down and write about my slippers. After I finish cleaning up around here (dishes, put laundry away, make bed, drink more coffee) I'm headed over to our land to feed the cows and work on cleaning up the mess that is still there.

We're one week out from leaving for Daniel's internship, and we FINALLY found a place to stay... hopefully. We couldn't find anything for four months, so we're signing a 6 month lease on a duplex in town. I'm excited to get there and get settled in. I spoke with the owner on Saturday, and he is e-mailing me the rental application.... so as soon as we finish the paperwork we should be in business...

Daniel and Zeke cuddling yesterday

I already sort of miss them!

Have a good day!

Flood (yes, this is late in coming, I know. We've been busy!)

2010-05-15T09:25:00.000-05:00

So did you hear about all the flooding in Tennessee and Kentucky? We sure did. Our entire property flooded! As in every single field was at least 8 feet under water. It was crazy! Nearly all of our belongings were destroyed, and our travel trailer (aka the bungalow) which we had been living in was filled about 2/3rds with water. Fortunately the bungalow is insured, but nothing else. Good news: we're all ok, the animals are ok (the neighbor cut the fence and let them onto his much more elevated property), the vehicles are ok (sort of- my car needs a little lovin- it's headed to the shop right now actually), and some of our stuff is salvageable. Our lap-top was at Daniel's brother's house, the camera was in my purse. My cello was at my mom's house. In fact, Daniel's grandmother has already washed all of our sopping-wet and muddy stinky clothes. All the instruments we have (excessive amounts, actually!) are ok, except for the violin bows. We had time to grab some things before we left, but I certainly didn't expect the water to get so high. There are a lot of things I would have grabbed had I known what was coming! I guess I should tell the whole story from the beginning.... (and I use too many parenthesis, I think).

So we woke up Sunday morning (May 2nd) to get ready for church. After I showered, I looked outside and saw that water was half way up the field from the creek. Uh-oh. I told Daniel he should probably move his car b/c the water is already lapping against the tires... he gets up, moves the car, moves my car, tries to move my dads truck (he's recently lent us his old truck) and gets it stuck in the mud. Neghbor drives by, stops, and helps us un-stick the truck. Our friend Nathan arrived to check on us and see if we needed any help. Another neighbor stops and says we'd better leave soon before we're flooded in. We should have left right then.... instead we mucked about for a few minutes trying to take care of the animals and generally prepare things for lots of water. We threw a lot of boxes that were outside in the hoop house (aka barn) into the bungalow because we never imagined the water would get that high! I couldn't quite think straight so I didn't accomplish much of anything except for wasting time... which led to me driving my car through water, it dying, me hopping out in water almost up to my knees and pushing the car the rest of the way through the water, arriving safely on the other side, and then a neighbor informing me that there was much worse flooding just a quarter mile down the road and I couldn't get through even if I wanted to. He kindly pulled my car up his driveway with his truck and we watched the water continue to rise. I was now flooded in with Zeke and Sadie (the dog) at said neighbor's house (Danny and Denise- great neighbors! They feel like family now!). Daniel is still over on our property, now completely flooded in. He waded over about 20 minutes after me, leaving his car and our truck parked on the highest spot of the road (thankfully the water didn't make it that high!). We all settled into Danny and Denise's house (the cozy-est cabin-ish house you've ever seen! I could have moved in!), they feed us breakfast, gave us dry clothes, and we watch the weather channel all day and stood on the porch watching the water rise. I knitted and crocheted up a storm! (no pun intended). I was so anxious all day that I couldn't eat and felt horribly sick. The water rose to just a few feet from the side of Danny and Denise's house! The electricity flickered on and off 3 or 4 times- we kept expecting it to stay off, but it always turned back on, thankfully. Finally the rain slowed down. We all stayed up really late to watch the weather channel and see what would happen next. It was one of the most nerve-racking days of my life! Finally, we all went to bed- Daniel, Zeke, and I in the guest room, and Nathan (he got flooded in with us!) on the couch. When we woke up in the morning we were still flooded in (as in we couldn't drive over to stay with family yet), but the water had gone down enough that we could go see our property. Daniel went first to see the damage--- water had filled the bungalow about 2/3rds of the way full. All of our belongings in the hoop house were either washed away down the creek or destroyed by water and mud. It was very sad to see, but I was over my anxiety. I had already resolved in my head that everything was gone, and so when I did find anything that could be salvaged, I was very happy about that. There was one thing I really wanted to find-- a quilt that my Great Aunt Lucy had made. I remember the day she died (I must have been 9 or so) we went to see her, and I was very sad- I loved her. I remember picking up the quilt out of a basket and asking the hospice nurse if I could have it. She was so sweet- she started crying and said, "of course, honey!". This quilt has been one of my most treasured possessions ever, and I was going to be so sad if it had washed away or been ruined. I looked for it the first few days of clean up but couldn't find it. FINALLY I found a box labeled "aunt Lucy's quilt", which was soaking wet, squashed to a pancake, and covered with mud. Well I opened it and found the quilt-- I had packed it in one of those giant zip-lock bags! Amazingly it was completely dry!! See, God is so good to us! He knows we can only handle so much. I would have been so sad if that quilt had been ruined, but He was gracious to me and let me find it in good condition.

Since that day we've been cleaning up the mess. Our bungalow was hauled away to the junk yard. We've filled sooo many contractor garbage bags with stuff to throw away and have slowly been taking it truckload by truckload to a dumpster. Daniel's grandparents are very graciously letting us live in their RV, which is parked at Daniel's parent's house. We will be here another week, at which point we will leave to go to Virginia for the Polyface Farm internship. We've been so busy getting prepared for that and dealing with all the flood drama, so I've felt rather overwhelmed. But we'll get there... we make progress every day. I think the hardest part for me right now is that we are technically homeless- we don't have a place that is our own. It's given me a lot of perspective on the fact that I actually have no home here-- heaven is my home.

Now for pictures...

Daniel and Nathan, trying to decide what to do. You can see the tree line in the background where the creek is supposed to be. The creek is normally down in about a 12 foot trench type thing, so you can understand how much water it took to get to what you see in the picture. This was maybe 45 minutes after we had woken up to get ready for church.
This was taken right before I left to try and go stay with family. It was too late, I was already flooded in, I just didn't know it yet. You can see Nathan's truck in the background-- the battery was dead, so they couldn't move it. I think Nathan was pretty sad about that. Eventually it was entirely under water.

View from the end of the neighbor's drive way an hour or so later. The road I had driven on to get there is now completely immersed. Eventually the fence posts you can see in the foreground of the picture are completely under water, too. If you look closely, right in the center of the picture by the pine tree you can see our vehicles parked on a little hill (kind of behind the tree). Our property is all to the left of that-- it was like a giant lake (except for our big hill, it was fine of course- too bad we hadn't already built a house up there!).
Daniel, a few days later, going through the last of the boxes. We've thrown 90% of our belongings away. My darling husband took a picture of every single book so we can eventually replace them. I can't even tell you how many hundreds and hundreds of books we must have had. You can see our happy pigs in the background :)
So that's what's been going on with us. Sorry I haven't written more lately-- I have lots to write about! But it seems that when my blog would be the most interesting is also when I have the least amount of time to spend on it. I'm sure it's the same for you other bloggers. Anyway, I'll try to write again sometime soon. :)

Today is Friday

2010-04-16T12:04:00.003-05:00

and we are getting ready to go visit daniel's mum (I love the word "mum", and British words and phrases in general.... "Mucking about" is probably my favorite!) in Sidney, OH. She hasn't met Zeke yet, so I know she's excited to see him, and we're excited to see her!

Right now Zeke is napping, Daniel is napping and trying to fight off a migraine, and I'm folding laundry and watching a storm blow in from my mum's kitchen window. Can I just say how much I MISSED Ohio weather? And the big beautiful trees? And all the lush greenery? Everything is blooming and growing right now- the dandy lions and violets are out in the yard, all the flowering trees are in bloom, and all the deciduous trees are sprouting their bright-green baby leaves! The air just smells so good! I love it up here! Sigh!

So I'm thinking about all the things i want to do now that we're actually settling into our home! (ok we won't be back in KY until monday but you get the idea) I believe a list is in order...

-Plant garden!
-Get a bicycle powered washing machine!
-put up a clothes line!
-find a refridgerator!
-sew many things!
-knit many things!
-go swimming in the river!
-build a bridge (that's the men's job- they're starting on Tuesday!)
-visit friends in KY!

Ooooh I know there are many more things to do.... those are just off the top of my head. So many fun weeks coming up! It's just starting to rain!

For Paige

2010-04-15T10:04:00.003-05:00

This blog post is just for you, Paige. :) It's all about our "septic system", or better yet, our lack of one.

As previously mentioned, we have no improvements on our land- no buildings, no water or electricity (although these will be done soon!), and no septic system. So what do we do? How do we "powder our noses"? (Love that euphemism, Tamara!) How do we shower? Here's how it works:

We use a composting toilet. Yes, that's right, a toilet that composts. How do we do that? Well, take a five gallon bucket, stick a toilet seat on top, get some sawdust, and you magically have an ecologically responsible way to take a dump. You see, as long as you get the carbon-nitrogen ratio correct (that is, sawdust-crap ratio), all your excrement will, over time, turn into lovely compost that can be used to fertilize your soil. Not only will we be giving back to the land, we won't be flushing gallons of clean, drinkable water down the toilet every time we powder our noses. After the five gallon bucket is full, we empty it into a special, just-for-the-composting-toilet compost pile (kitchen scraps, etc go into a different compost pile that will later be used for gardens). A composting toilet compost pile needs to age longer than a regular compost pile to make sure all nasty bugs are destroyed, about 2 years (this is variable depending on how you do things). Compost from this compost pile will be used to fertilize trees, flowers, etc, but not the vegetable garden, just to be on the safe side (although many veteran "humanure" composters don't feel the need to differentiate between their two kinds of compost- point being, it's perfectly safe to use on your vegetable garden IF done properly- but that stigma is still there, and guests may not want to eat your salad after they see your powder room and reality hits them!). To sum it up, a composting toilet system is perfectly safe for the environment IF carefully and responsibly handled. It is not only perfectly safe, but it gives back to the environment in fertilizer and also saves many many gallons of clean water from being wasted in the toilet. You get the idea.

Next, the "gray water"- aka, shower water, dish water, etc. We collect all of our gray water in a holding tank and then use it to irrigate. As you can surely understand, our gray water will only be polluted if we put pollutants in it. Sooo, we use all natural and bio-degradable soaps, shampoos, cleaners, etc. We don't pour anything down the sink that we're not comfortable pouring directly onto the soil- no chemicals, no toxins, etc. By doing this we are able to recycle all of our water- it's all used twice, because first we use it to shower, do dishes, etc, and then the same water is used to water the field or trees, etc.

I imagine that there are still plenty of you who are slightly freaked out by this idea, especially if you've never heard of composting toilets before. You may be concerned that we are polluting our land... but let me assure you that no one cares for our 40 acres more than we do, and we want to be as responsible as we can possibly be in every decision about our home. After quite a bit of reading and research we are definitely convinced that composting humanure is the most ecologically responsible thing for us to do.

So there is your answer Paige! To learn more, read this awesome book, "The Humanure Handbook". It has answers to your every question! (About composting toilets, that is ;)

ETA: No, the composting toilet doesn't stink... at all. I promise! Yay carbon-nitrogen fixation!

Visiting Ohio

2010-04-14T11:38:00.002-05:00

Howdy all!

Well we've spent the last week-ish visiting family and friends in Ohio. It's good to be here, and we're having a lot of fun. BUT.... I can't wait to get back to my new little home! It's time to start digging up a garden, and I'm itching to do so.

Daniel has spent the past week in Texas. He went back to pack all of our belongings into a moving truck, but the fun part for him has been visiting all our dear friends down there. He should be getting back to KY on Friday. The moving truck will arrive Monday with all of our belongings. Last week Daniel and his brother Josh put up an electricity pole, so we should have electricity by the end of next week (crossing fingers!). On Tuesday all the men will begin building a bridge over our creek so we have access to the rest of the property. Sounds like a lot of work to me!

We'll be in Ohio a few more days before we head back home. I'm looking forward to seeing my husband!

First Night on Our Farm!

2010-03-30T21:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight is the first night on the farm. I'm sitting in the dark because there's no electricity. The bungalow is also not yet leveled, so we're living on a slope for tonight. There's no running water, we just have a jug of water. But we're here! That's the main thing. I don't even know how long I'll be able to type this because the computer isn't charged up all the way and there's nowhere to plug it in. No cell phone reception. No noisy traffic. It's nice out here! At least for tonight we're totally off grid!
I think Zeke was happy to go to sleep in his own bed again.
Tomorrow Daniel will level the bungalow and get the water running. For now it's kind of like we're camping.
I can't believe we're here! This is kind of amazing! We're on our own land! Well I'm going to bed. I'll keep you all updated!

A good day

2010-03-30T12:42:00.003-05:00

What a fun day I had yesterday! First I got to go visit the Amish to pick up our cow Elsie from the processor... she had slipped on the ice a few weeks ago and broken her leg. It wasn't going to be able to be fixed, so now she is hamburger. She was processed at an Amish slaughter house, and I am very intrigued by the Amish, so I was excited to go pick up our meat. The drive out there was beautiful, and I loved seeing all the Amish homesteads. The man running the place was super friendly (actually the most talkative Amish person I've ever met!) and pleasant. We now have five trash-bags full of frozen 1lb ground beef packages! They are in the freezer of course. Yum! I'm so excited to have our own stash of organic grass-fed beef!

But the MORE exciting part of the day was that our bungalow arrived! Two good men from our church in Texas drove it up for us. They said the trip was totally uneventful until the last two miles- they came from the wrong direction on our road and nearly got stuck on a narrow bridge! Thankfully they made it over. Then they got stuck in the mud just outside the hoop house.

It's all my fault, too, because as they were driving up I waved at Mike (driving the truck) to stop. I asked him if he could move the bungalow a little more to one side, as they were headed directly for the center of the hoop house and i had planned to have it off to the side so we could have more open space. He said he'd try to move it over, and then proceeded to press on the gas. The tires started to spin-- they got stuck in the mud. As you can see, my Amazing Husband was able to push both truck and bungalow out of the mud using only his strong manly muscles.

Just kidding ;) Our friend Nathan used his truck to help pull Mike's truck and the bungalow out of the mud. But my story is better. :)

I think the most exciting part about the bungalow arriving is that two of my Texas friends snuck into the bungalow last week and gave it a makeover! It was totally "blah" before and looked like a bachelor pad. They made curtains and cushion covers and made a kitchen table (when we bought the bungalow it didn't have one) and made me a built-in sewing desk! There are many more details and I will be doing an entire blog about it later once I take pictures. It is so stinkin cute now!!!! I just LOVE it! The most amazing part to me is the fact that I have such loving and amazing friends, first to bring our bungalow up from Texas, and then also to do this. I really miss my Texas buds! We are so deeply and truly blessed to know you all!

And now a few pics from the week:

Here's Zeke and his cousin Hudson playing on the land while the daddies finish the hoop house. This one's from last week-ish.
This picture is from Sunday at Daniel's uncle's house. Josh, Jamie, Hudson and Archer on the left, Daniel, Zeke and I in the middle, and Mark, Caitlin and London on the right. Josh and Mark are Daniel's brothers.

Today I'm packing up all our stuff to move back into our bungalow. Daniel is getting the water hooked up. We're excited to have our home back!

bump conquered!

2010-03-25T11:29:00.002-05:00

Daniel just called me to say that we will be allowed to run electricity to our hoop house without moving it! Thank God! He spoke to the vice president of the company who turned out to be a very kind and reasonable man. He told Daniel that they normally require a 25 foot distance, but that the code is actually 10 feet. He personally approved our request, so now there should be no more delays!

Daniel and I prayed before he left this morning that things would work out well, and of course God came through for us! Thank you Lord!

The first bump...

2010-03-25T11:00:00.003-05:00

The hoop house is nearly set up, the electricity was supposed to be run yesterday. The electrician went out there to run the line but called us to say that he couldn't do it because the hoop house is too close to the power line. It's 10 feet away which is the county policy, but the electrician told us that the electrical company's policy is 25 feet. So today Daniel has gone to the electric company office to see if he can get them to be leniant about the policy. HOPEFULLY they will be kind... otherwise we will either have to disassemble the hoop house and move it over 15 feet, pay to have the power line moved (thousands of dollars!), or possibly get a hydro-electric generator (my favorite option as I would love to be off-grid anyway). We'll see what happens! My husband is very charismatic and reasonable, I imagine they won't be able to resist his charm ;)

I'll let you know the next turn of events! Meanwhile our bungalow (aka travel trailer) will be arriving on Monday or Tuesday. I can't wait to have my home back!

Hello Kentucky!

2010-03-21T21:40:00.005-05:00

We're home!!

We've been home a few days now, and I love it here. Our trip was long and thankfully uneventful. Zeke was great for the car trip. We've been staying with Daniel's brother and his wife while we wait for a friend from our church in Texas to pull our bungalow up here. I'm looking forward to my little home arriving, I miss it!

I got to visit our 40 acres for the first time a couple days ago. It is beautiful! I can't even tell you. It was so exciting to drive out there! The road to our land doesn't even have lines! Here is Daniel sitting on our hill, holding Zeke and enjoying the view.
I promise you, this picture doesn't do the place justice. It is so lovely out there!

We have one big hill and three fairly flat fields, and a river and a stream. It is all so beautiful and perfect and it feels like home. I've always wanted to live in the country and now we will be!

Daniel, his friend Nathan, and his brother Josh have been working on building a 30x60 foot hoop house. We'll be parking our bungalow in there for a while until we have money to start building our permanent home (planning on a yurt!). Of course we still have the four month internship at polyface farms this summer, so we still have one more stint away from home. But after that we can really put roots down. I want to plant a bunch of wildflowers on our property and put a garden in and go swimming in our river.

Daniel and Nathan planning stuff. Notice the awesome Texan hat my husband is sporting :)

Daniel and Josh holding up the first hoop. Nathan's checking to see if it's too close to the power line.
Here's a picture of where our river and stream meet-- the stream is off to the right. You know you want to come visit!
We have a lot of work ahead of us since our land has no improvements (as in buildings, water and electric, etc. for all you city slickers out there) but we're enjoying the work and we're up for the challenge. It also helps to have multiple families involved... many hands make light work :)

Good bye, Texas!

2010-03-15T21:34:00.001-05:00

It's raining tonight, our last night in Texas. We've said our goodbyes. Daniel began his leave today... we've waited 5 years for this! It's amazing that it's all over, just memories now. Mostly fond memories, especially of the last two years. I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with my friends down here- you all are such a huge treasure to me! The goodbye's are hard... we have so many people here to love! Somehow it seems unreal that we're really leaving our community... but we are. We're setting off on our next adventure. Tomorrow.
I have a lot of work to do tomorrow-- finish all the packing, pack up the car, last grocery trip to get car-trip food, I need to mow our little "yard" that has weeds up to my knees. I should go to bed right now.
I don't think it's hit us yet that we're free to do as we please... Daniel hasn't shaved in 5 days... and somehow that's ok! Wow! He needs a haircut.... but I'm not going to give him one (yet)! I think we're really going to enjoy the next two months of relaxing and visiting family.
Some things in life are just hard... Thanks to all of you who have been praying that God would give me the fortitude to move away from our home down here in Texas. I didn't think I could do it without my heart being ripped out... but i think that the more you love, the bigger your heart gets...
Well I will definitely be documenting this next stage of our life very well, so check back often to see what's going on with us. Once we make it up to our new home and rest up for a day or two, I will start blogging again.

I knit a sock and 47 days left

2010-01-27T09:44:00.000-06:00

I've just started to realize how soon we're leaving Texas. A dear friend told me yesterday that we only have 48 days left.... today it's 47. I have very mixed feelings- on the one hand I'm so excited to move home and start our next phase of life. On the other I just hate the thought of leaving all our friends here. I don't think I've ever been surrounded by so many good people that I just plain like, and deeply love. We've been blessed with many wonderful friendships and a strong sense of community here, and I'm sad to leave these people behind. I feel like I need to squeeze in as much time with everyone as possible before we go. I so highly value all these good people in my life! God is so good to us that he gives us each other to love.

One thing I will miss about Texas is the lovely winter weather. Except for a couple weeks of weather in the 30's, we've enjoyed a very mild winter this year (and every year, really)- most days it's in the 50's or 60's, which is perfect for life in the bungalow. The windows are almost always open, and we can spend time outside.

Today I'm finishing a batch of chicken stock. I need to finish the dishes. Zeke should be napping but instead he's crying in protest, even though he can barely keep his eyes open. A big Rottweiler keeps coming around our yard because our dog Sadie is in heat. I keep running outside with a big stick to chase him off. He seems like a nice enough dog I suppose, but I am seriously ready to shoot him. I'm supposed to be visiting my darling friend Natasha right now but Zeke's car seat is in Daniel's car. I've got a mild caffeine headache. Been listening to the Beatles lately... haven't gotten those cd's out in years. It just started raining! It smells like chicken soup and rainy weather today.

I've got a huge itch to start sewing again... but my sewing machine is still broken. Daniel said he wants to get an ipod touch and I told him that's fine with me if he gets my sewing machine fixed. I'll let you know if he goes for it!

For the knitters out there: Here's my sock!
Overall I am utterly pleased with how this turned out, especially since I learned from a book which is always more difficult than having someone show me. My only disappointments are:

-There is a small hole where I joined the heel back to the main sock. The book said this would happen, and to knit in the back of the stitch to avoid it. I thought i did so-- apparently I did something wrong because it's still there.
-The book didn't give any instructions for the bind off at the toe-- so I used a three needle bind off. I realized afterwards that I should have turned it inside out and then bound off-- so the bind off seam kind of sticks out on the toe instead of being on the inside where it should be.
-I made a few small mistakes (like decreasing in the wrong spot for the toe, and dropping a stitch then proceeding to pick it back up backwards) that i typically don't make, but decided not to fix them. It somehow seems more romantic that my first ever sock should have a couple flaws. In my opinion they add to the character of the thing :)
I used "Knitting Without Tears" by Elizabeth Zimmerman to learn how to make this sock. This is just a wonderful book on knitting and if you are often a frustrated knitter you must add it to your collection.
Oh I failed to mention that during this sock-knitting escapade I broke one of my lovely rosewood double point needles! It was so sad!!! Those suckers were $22 for a set of 5! And I'm not the type to spend that much on needles... but I totally splurged one day in my excitement to make socks. It appears that it could possibly be repaired-- I think Daniel could glue it back together and sand it down a bit for me. We'll see.
Future sock knitting goals: I used the german heel, but I really want to learn to do short-row heels- I think they look so much nicer. I want to make a pair of lace socks, or cabled, or whatever. Just something more fun than stockinette stitch. I want to make some knee-high socks. I want to make toe-less, flip-flop socks. I want to make everyone a pair of socks for Christmas next year. I have lots of sock goals. I think I like socks.

Saturday at the park

2010-01-23T10:50:00.003-06:00

Today the weather is beautiful and Ezekiel and I spend the morning at the park with some dear friends. Zeke got to try the swing for the first time and he loved it! We also went down the slide together and played by a stream. It's so nice outside- one of those days where you just can't be in a bad mood. Unfortunately for Daniel, he had a migraine today. He and Zeke are napping right now

I previously mentioned my friend Kennedy and her adopted daughters in Haiti; well they made it onto CNN when they got home! Here's the link to watch it (excuse the random guys exclamations- I guess one of Justin's friends recorded the clip on his cell phone). Here are a couple other links-- their interview on Fox news, and then the article from a local paper. It really is an exciting story, and I'm so glad the girls made it here safely. God really has done all sorts of amazing things lately! (By the way, these are the people who are renting our house.)

I finnished knitting my first SOCK!! Yes, a SOCK!!! I am so excited about it! It isn't perfect (unfortunately) and I am sort of a type-A knitter (although not much of a type-A anything else) but I am pleased none the less. Now time for sock number two.

This is a picture Daniel's Aunt Jacque took of our family when we visited her for New Years. Daniel is so handsome!

Funny video and other stuff

2010-01-11T17:32:00.003-06:00

Well here I am, writing for my blog again. At first I was daunted by the idea of catching you all up on the last few months, but I decided to skip ahead to now and write about any significant events from the past months as I think of them. I am no longer daunted, and ready to start writing again. I have never really enjoyed writing until I started a blog- I definitely don't consider myself any sort of writer. But I like keeping a general record of my life, and since I hate scrapbooking this is a great option for me!

Today Ezekiel and I are both sick. Actually I've been sick since Sunday, and he since Tuesday. It appears that we have RSV which is a pretty nasty thing to have. Fortunately Ezekiel has not needed to be hospitalized despite his prematurity. He had a doctors appointment yesterday and he has another one today just to make sure he's still doing ok. He's a tough little guy, and I think he'll get through it unscathed.

Today I am collecting money and supplies for a friend from Haiti. She lives here (actually she and her husband are renting our house) but has family still in Haiti. She and 3 others are getting ready to go back there tomorrow and stay for 10 days to help her town recover from the earthquake. Tonight I am going shopping with all the money I collect to get her as much stuff as I can-- first aid stuff, candles, matches, tents, blankets, etc. I have a few girl friends going with me and I think we'll have fun. So far we have $300 but I have a feeling we'll end up with a lot more. I am really excited to be able to help directly-- it is much more gratifying to help her than to just give some money to the red cross. I feel very blessed to be able to help in some small way!

Today it is raining and Zeke is crawling around the bungalow playing with the dogs. Snot running down his face, of course. This is his new favorite thing to do- he came up with it on his own, and as you can see he thinks it's hilarious. He's feeding raisins to the dogs.

I forgot to mention the main reason I started keeping a blog again! We got a laptop!! Woo hoo! A friend found us a good deal on craigslist, so we paid a little over $300 for a $600+ computer. I am so excited- been trying to convice Daniel to get one for months. I guess he finally caved (but I swear I'm not a nagging wife!) So although we still don't have internet in the bungalow, we can obviously now use wireless networks which will be nice. Our church's school has a wireless network, so we can just go sit on the playground and use it (it doesn't quite reach to the bungalow).

So the lack of internet the last few months was rough at first. I really like googling things that I'm curious about, and I like facebook, and I like blogs, I like checking the weather forecast. But in reality, once I was unaddicted, life was much nicer. Very slow-paced (especially when we only had one cell phone for a stint) and relaxed. I knitted up a massive storm of things--- the last few months have probably been my most productive knitting months ever! I learned to knit socks from a book (knitting without tears by elizabeth zimmerman- a great book!) and I made various things for people. I've read piles and piles of books. I've kept my house much more tidy and organized. I feel a strong sense of inner calm and stillness and quiet in my soul which I know has everything to do with our new simpler, "unplugged" lifestyle. (Zeke just knocked over the trash.) I just love it. I have more energy for important things and more time for people. I no longer have crabby days because I know I wasted too many hours doing nothing on the internet. So I am grateful that we don't have internet in our house, and I'm not sure I ever want it in my house again. At least if I do have it again someday I plan to strictly enforce time limits and have internet "vacations" where we just turn the stinky computer off for a couple months at a time. I know they say technology is supposed to make life so much better, but at least in my experience, it seemed to numb a part of my soul. What do you think? What have you experienced?? (said one internet junkie to another internet junkie!)

Daniel was accepted for the Polyface farm 4-month internship! We leave for that in May. Meanwhile we will live in Texas until March 15th, at which point we will move home to Kentucky. So the time line is: 2 more months in Texas, then about 6 weeks in Kentucky, then four months in Virginia at Polyface, then the rest of our lives back in Kentucky! It's gonna be awesome.

I love this song

2009-12-21T17:19:00.002-06:00

I guess I'm posting about once a month now... no more pictures for a while because Sadie our newer dog chewed up our flash drive. It was sad.

But I am LOVING this song so much. Just heard it the other day on the radio. You really must listen, it's beautiful!

just some pictures

2009-11-24T12:56:00.004-06:00

As you can see from the first picture, we found another dog. Her name is Sadie, and she's a doll. Life in the bungalow is going very well! Plenty to adjust to, but we're really enjoying it. I have a lot more free time on my hands with such a small house to clean and NO INTERNET!! (still missing it, I have to say!) Hopefully soon we'll be back online...

Daniel leaves next week for his tryout at the Salatin's farm... I will miss him, but we're both really excited about it.

Alright I would love to write more but I'm mooching off a friend's internet... talk to you all later!!

Life in the Bungalow

2009-10-04T15:17:00.003-05:00

Oh my blog, I miss you! I'm so glad to be writing right now!

We've fully transitioned from suburbanites to urban homesteaders of sorts.... and we're loving it so far. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that we bought a 1984 travel trailer to live in for a while for many various reasons. Well we're now renting out our 1600sq.ft. house to some friends and living in our travel trailer in our church parking lot. We've named the travel trailer "the Bungalow". And life there is good. So much less space= so much less cleaning= more time for knitting/reading/family time/various projects/time with friends. There have been some challenges, including the air conditioner going out, the gray water tank leaking, a pipe bursting at one point, and no internet (yet), but my brave and ingenuitive husband has fixed all problems that have arisen. I'm getting used to cooking in a smaller kitchen, and actually enjoying it. We only took 4 cups, 4 plates, 4 sets of silverware, 2 bowls and 3 mugs.... so we hardly have any dishes. They can all be dirty at the same time and still fit in the sink! (Amazing for me, who isn't a huge fan of dishes). Honestly I don't even miss my dishwasher. I've been more creative with the crock-pot, for which I am imensely grateful. I do kind of miss the "mud room" entryway in our house where dirty muddy shoes can be left... but we're working out a good shoe system in the Bungalow, so I think I won't even miss that very soon. Our church has quite a few (completely paid-for) buildings which include a large nursery, a school, and a kitchen-- and they've given us keys to all these buildings. When we're feeling a little closterphobic in the bungalow and it's too hot to go outside, we go play in the nursery. We're also able to use the refridgerator in the kitchen (the bungalow fridge doesn't keep the milk cold enough and it spoils before we can pick up more from our co-op). Some of the ladies at the church have even started excercizing every morning in the nursery building which is literally 20 feet from the Bungalow, so I've been joining them and I'm happy about that-- I have no excuse not to be there! We've been spending a LOT of time outdoors. Zeke and Tula (our puppy) really enjoy that, and so do I. A few of my friends have children that attend the church's school, and so they stop by every once in a while to visit when they drop off/pick up their kids for school. Life is fun there! Living on the church grounds is really the PERFECT transition from suburban life to off-grid homesteading, farming life. We're currently living some sort of peculiar half-homesteading, half-normal life. And learning how to live in the bungalow with so much support from our church has made the transition so much easier. I can't even imagine moving straight from my nice big house in Texas to an off-grid travel trailer in rural Kentucky---I'm sure that would have been quite a shock. But the Lord has been gracious to us and has provided this smooth transition, the perfect time for learning and growing and preparing for the next phase of our life.

Speaking of the next phase of life, Daniel applied for a four month internship at Polyface Farms, the Salatin family's amazing sustainable farm. The internship would be starting in June 2010. Daniel made it through the first essay screening and has been invited to come to a two day "tryout" where he will be competing with other applicants for the few prized internship spots. We're hoping of course that he will get the internship! It looks like he will be going for the tryout in January, but we're not certain about that yet. I will let you all know what happens! :)

As we do not yet have internet in the Bungalow, I am writing this at a friend's house (actually at our house, as in the one we own-- our renters are out of town and we are cat-sitting). BUT my darling husband bought me something I've been wanting for a long time-- a flash drive!! So my plan is to write blog posts on our desktop in the bungalow, save the posts & pictures on the flash drive, and then upload my posts whenever we have internet access. That's the plan. I want to be diligent about this because I know in 20 years we will treasure all the memories and crazy stories from this time in our life. I have a really bad memory and if I don't write stuff down I just don't remember it later.

Did I ever mention that Daniel caught the kids who had been vandalizing our farm & garden project at the church?!! He DID!! It's a crazy story!!!! I'll let him tell you sometime. Since he caught them and they received a citation from the police we have had no more problems, which is a huge burden off our backs.

Speaking of the farm & garden project, it is going well. Now that the vandalism is stopped, we can start making progress again instead of just repairing all the damage that was done. We are providing eggs for a few families in the church, and we have a new batch of broilers that will be going out on the field this coming weekend. We're planning a work day to put in some winter gardens (I do love that you can garden all year in TX!), and quite a few families are contributing all their kitchen scraps to the compost pile. There seems to be a giant mountain of work in front of us, but I'm really excited to leave a "mini" sustainable farm on the church grounds for other people to benefit from when we leave.

What else is going on with us?? Zeke is doing great! He's huge, he's handsome, he's smart. I imagine he will be walking soon. He just started waving bye-bye this week! It's too cute.

Well I need to go give Daniel a haircut-- I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday afternoon!

The Bungalow

2009-09-21T12:30:00.002-05:00

We are officially moved into our travel trailer, which I have named "the Bungalow"! We do not yet have internet there, so I am updating this from a friend's house. Once we're back online I will update this blog more regularly. Our renters moved into our house this past weekend. everything is going well! Our home phone is of course disconnected, so you'll have to reach us on our cell. E-mail me if you don't have that number!

Spider bite update

2009-08-20T21:00:00.002-05:00

I went to the ER this morning, waited for a few hours, and saw a super nice doctor who cut open the bite and drained it out. He said it's a good thing that i came in, and that the wound should heal up just fine. He said there is no way to know what kind of spider bite it was without having actually caught the spider. I was in a lot of pain this afternoon after the anesthetic wore off, but I'm feeling ok now. I bet I'll feel a lot better in the morning! Thanks for your prayers and concern guys :)

Crazy spider bite... I'm a bit worried....

2009-08-20T03:08:00.004-05:00

Guys, I think I have a brown recluse bite. I put my pajamas on the other day, and then shortly realized that something had bit me. Well I go to take a look, and there were 4 bug bites on my rear (sorry to talk about my rear on my blog). I didn't think too much of it at the time, but they were kind of itchy like a mosquito bite. Anyway, it's about two days later(I think), and three of the bites are just teeny little spots, but one (I'm assuming the initial one b/c it would have got the most venom?) has gotten bigger. After doing some research I suspect a brown recluse bite...? It's bigger than a quarter, swolen, sore, and feels hardish to the touch with a scab in the center (ok sorry too much detail!). It's 3AM and I can't sleep because it hurts and I guess I'm worried about it. I think I'm mostly upset because we're very busy this week and I really don't want to go to the hospital tomorrow, but I probably should. And I think I will. Grrr.

I absolutely HATE HATE HATE spiders (and hospitals). A couple times a year I will fly out of bed from a deep sleep because I had a dream a spider was in the bed. I have to turn on all the lights and shake out all the blankets before I'll go back to sleep. Poor Daniel. I'm not so bad with spiders I can see-- I don't mind squishing them too much anymore (even squashed a very tiny one with my bare finger the other day!). It's those spiders that you can't see-- the ones in your shoe, your pajamas, your bedsheets--- that seriously freak me out.

update tomorrow.... please pray for me!

Stake-out and renters

2009-08-18T21:06:00.003-05:00

We've had a rough week with all this vandalism. But it looks like we're making progress with it-- we figured out they're coming some time between 11am-3pm. Daniel rigged up a walkie-talkie and I stayed in our travel trailer today (which is in the church parking lot.... which is fairly close to our chickens) listening for a ruckus. Shortly after noon I had a hunch that I should go out to check on things, and I sat there for not even 15 minutes when I saw someone off in the far corner of the field behind a tree. I got out of the car and yelled at them (it was pretty far, I don't know if they heard me or not) then called Daniel at work and he rushed over to try and find the guys. By the time he got there they were gone, BUT he did find a spot in the woods that looked like a teenage-hangout spot. So we know what time they come, and we know where they hang out. And no chickens were killed today and nothing was broken or damaged. Hopefully we can get this stopped soon. I'm really hoping that if Daniel gets his hands on them he'll beat the crap out of them and then give them a good talking to. Just like in that movie "second hand lion".

In other news, we've found renters for our house!!!! I am soooo excited/relieved/thankful. God is so good to us! We will be renting to some friends of ours, and we will be using our own garage for storage instead of having to get a storage unit. That will make moving so, sooo much easier!! It really will be a great situation, and I'm so glad to have it worked out. I was concerned that we might not be able to find anyone.

Alright I'm exausted, so I'm going to go now. :)

Why do people do these things?

2009-08-13T20:43:00.003-05:00

Someone has started vandalizing our farm & garden project. We're really discouraged and frustrated. They broke all the poles holding up the electric netting around our egg layers (they've done this twice now) and smashed all our portable broiler shelters (many salvageable pieces, though-- only one or two are completely ruined). They also killed a rooster. Poor rooster. Also had an electric fence charger and a car battery stolen.

I know vandalism happens, but I've never really had it happen to me before. It's especially frustrating because we're trying to do something good for the local community. But how can we do it if someone destroys everything?? It really bothers me, too, to see all the hard work my husband has done destroyed. And now instead of being able to work on new projects he's had to spend his time repairing everything. Sigh. We know that God told us to start this project, so we'll keep on keepin' on. We need to figure out a solution. We're thinking....

On a more positive note, we can literally see how we've been able to improve soil fertility in our field-- the grass is coming in nice and green where we ran the chickens. Everywhere else it's brown.

Goodnight!

We're progressing!

2009-08-10T23:21:00.002-05:00

Today we moved our 5th wheel into our church parking lot. We found out that there is an RV hookup there, so we asked permission to park our new home there for the next 6 months until we move up to Kentucky.... and our pastor and elders said yes! We go to the most awesomest church ever, people. Really. I love our church.

This whole situation is exciting for many reasons.... one, we will be close by to devote lots of time and energy to our church farm & garden project. It is going splendidly so far, and we want to make sure that when we move everything is running smoothly so that someone else can take over and keep providing organic local healthy food for the church, and eventually the local community. Two, we will be able to save a lot of money by renting out our house to pay the mortgage instead of paying it out of pocket every month (we decided not to sell right now cause the market's not so good and there are like 6 houses for sale in our neighborhood already). Three, we will be learning how to live in a 5th wheel while Daniel still has a steady income. We will also have the encouragement of many loving friends who think we're cool for doing not-so-normal things (like living in your church's parking lot in a 25-year-old travel trailer). So we're really excited about the whole situation. I think it works out well for our church too, because we will be there almost all the time to help out with whatever comes up.

Anyway, the plan is that we will get our new home (it needs a cool name... I'm open to suggestions) squeaky-clean this week and move in this weekend. Then we will spend the next couple weeks packing up our house, having a yard sale, and getting it rent-ready. Hopefully by September we will be fully transitioned out of our house-house and into our house-on-wheels. We're going to be so busy. But a good busy. I'm really excited about our new lifestyle. I think we'll spend a lot more time outside.

In other news, we had a fun birthday party for Ezekiel on Saturday. He enjoyed eating his (super healthy) cupcake. It was too cute. He was very serious about it. Actually he seems to be very serious about many things in a cute, kid-like way. He's growing so big. I can tell by the look on his face that there are things he wants to be able to say, but he can't do it yet. I'm looking forward to when he can talk, but I'm also loving the stage he's in right now. He's such a wonderful blessing, I love him so much!

Goodnight!

Happy Birthday!

2009-08-06T10:15:00.002-05:00

Has it really been a year?

2009-08-05T22:11:00.003-05:00

I can't believe that tomorrow is Ezekiel's first birthday. It's gone so fast! Ok, the first 4 months were super slow. In some ways I'm sad... I don't feel like I have a little baby anymore. He said "dada" today for the first time! He said it about 5 or 6 times, it was so cute.

These pictures make me sad, for a few reasons. First, obviously, he was born too early and spent way too long in the hospital. Second, we didn't really get any good pictures of his first day of life. I think we were just so flustered, and I remember not feeling like I could ask to have his isolette opened up so I could get clear pictures. It didn't feel like we were allowed to act like he was ours because we weren't allowed to touch him or hold him. Nearly all the pictures are blurry and hard to see, or bad angles. We also didn't get any good "comparison" pictures, like of Ezekiel next to someone's hand, or with Daniel's wedding ring around his arm, etc. You know, normal preemie stuff. But I don't mean to complain. These pictures are from his first few hours. Daniel took them-- by the time I got to go see Zeke he was in his isolette.

Giggles

2009-07-31T17:10:00.002-05:00

Oh yeah, and those things, too....

2009-07-28T09:50:00.003-05:00

I forgot to mention last week that it was my birthday. And our 5th anniversary. Happy Birthday to me, Happy Anniversary to us! I love you Daniel!

Getting to know you

2009-07-22T14:55:00.006-05:00

Oh my goodness! What is this I see?

It looks like a puppy!

It's nice to meet you!

Oh my, you have such lovely toys...

...do you share?

I think it's lunch time.

Let's be pals, ok? Ok.

~Welcome home, Tula!~

It's monday... again.

2009-07-13T10:10:00.004-05:00

It seems like the summer has been flying by. I can't believe it's the middle of July! I think that rhymed, oh my oh my. :)

We had a wonderfully busy weekend. It was the big chicken processing weekend. Friday Daniel and I processed 16 ourselves to make sure we'd be ahead of the game on Saturday. Friday night some friends from church took us out for dinner and coffee, and we had a ton of fun. I didn't want to come home, but alas Saturday was destined to be very busy so we needed some good sleep (which I didn't get, of course). Saturday morning we went to church and got everything set up for processing, and around 10am we started. We had about 10-15 other people to help, about 8 of whom stayed the entire time. Amazingly we were able to process 53 chickens in about 4 hours. That's pretty good considering no one but Daniel and I knew much about what they were doing! We were exhausted, came home, rented a movie, and went to bed. Sunday after church we spent the rest of the day with some other friends- we went with them to their gym to swim- it was Zeke's first time in the pool! At first he wasn't too sure about things and cried, but he eventually became very curious about the whole situation, and ended up having a splendid time. I'm so glad he liked it! I think we may get him one of those little plastic pools for the yard- how fun would that be? :) Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures! I'm so sad about that- he was super cute in his little swimming trunks. He still smells like sunscreen. Speaking of Zeke, he's crawling everywhere and has started pulling up on things to stand. I can't believe it! His birthday is only a few weeks away. *tear* What a big, big boy!

This week my brother and his band will be touring in San Antonio, and so they will be staying with us for a couple days. I'm looking forward to that!

I'm sorry about the acute lack of pictures lately. I will put some more up soon. I know it's gotten kind of boring around here. We've just been so busy all the time! I'm sure you understand. :)

Coming soon: a new member of the family!

2009-07-02T12:25:00.003-05:00

Here she is. And you thought I was talking about a baby! Our friend's dog had a puppy, and so here we are about to be dog-owners (in a few weeks when she is weaned, anyway). I was fairly apprehensive at fist, but I'm getting excited. Especially since Ezekiel is almost a year old... little boys who don't have siblings need a puppy to pal around with! Our friend's kids named her "Tulip". I think that name is adorable, but since she will *technically* be Daniel's dog, he may pick a different name for her. We'll see. I'll let you all know.

The garden

2009-06-29T12:19:00.002-05:00

Three plants have entirely disappeared from our garden, except for a few inches of stem sticking out of the ground. One was missing last week, and then today when I went out to check on things, two more. One tomato plant, two pepper plants. I suspect deer, I don't know what else would eat leafy green plants in their entirety. A rabbit couldn't do that, I don't think. Maybe a very large hare? Anyway, we need to figure out a way to protect the 5 or 6 remaining plants. Apparently here in Texas the best time to garden is in the fall, so we will really kick off all the gardening in a few months.

The chickens are doing very well. We've lost quite a few to heat, mostly all in one day when their automatic waterer broke. They were fine at noon, and when we checked on them again at 5pm their water was all dried up and 17 were dead. That's been the worst thing that's happened so far, and honestly that's not so bad considering that we've had a solid week of 103 degree heat. The head index is more like 107-110. I mean it's boiling here. Blah. Anyhoo, this weekend we will be teaching people how to process chickens, and then next weekend will be the big chicken-processing party. Amazingly, there are a lot of people interested who want to know how to do this. You gotta love a church like ours :)

I've had a very miserable pms-y weekend that's unfortunately spilled over into my Monday. I was hoping I would feel all better today but I still have yucky cramps. Not so bad that I'm confined to bed but bad enough that I don't feel like doing much of anything. Oh well. What can you do.

Found, and cake.

2009-06-27T12:19:00.004-05:00

Daniel found my keys... in the middle of the kitchen floor. I mean seriously, I looked ALL day long and suffered much anxiety over it all. He walked into the house and found them in less than 20 seconds. Really. Fortunately the chickens were ok.

Today we are headed up to Austin to pick up milk for Ezekiel. I've been transitioning him to cows milk, and he's doing well with that so far. I make his bottles half breast/half cows milk, and I'm so glad he'll drink it because I don't know how much longer we will be able to get breast milk, so I want him to be prepared. He'll eat some solids but he's not a huge fan, he just sort of tolerates it and won't eat too much. I suppose maybe he's just not interested yet, and I don't want to push the issue because I don't want to turn him into a picky eater.

I've been CRAVING chocolate cake for like a solid week straight. Pure PMS, it's true. As a rule we don't keep any junk food in the house, so all week i've been snacking on rasins to try and satisfy my craving for sweet stuff. Finally last night I was going to make a delish cake from scratch, and Daniel requested one without icing because he doesn't like icing. Sooo when I went to buy my cake ingredients I got him a box cake, because my yummy homemade chocolate cake needed to be dripping in chocolate-mint icing. Made the box cake, and then I was too tired/lazy to make my homemade cake, and we were going to watch a movie, so I just had a piece of his cake, and it was kind of gross and not at all what I wanted, and it COMPLETELY ruined my chocolate cake craving. I mean I don't want cake at ALL anymore. I'm so disappointed I ruined my yummy homemade cake expectations with a nasty box cake. But there's no point in making a good cake now because I don't want it. Sigh. Lesson learned, don't buy box cakes. Ever!

Keys

2009-06-26T15:43:00.002-05:00

I cannot, cannot, cannot find my keys. I've looked everywhere, all day long. I'm very sad. Plus Daniel has to work late today, and I usually go over around noon to check on our chickens, but wasn't able to do so today, and won't be able to do it until he gets home which will be I don't know when. The chickens really don't do well in the heat (hello 103 degrees!), so if they run out of water, boom, they die in like an hour. I have to admit I'm a little worried about them. But what can I do? It's not far away and I could walk, but I can't take Ezekiel out in this heat. Hmmph. I guess I can pray that they will be alright.

We really need to make an extra set of keys for the car. Sooo should have done that a long time ago.

Hi I sooo should be cleaning my house

2009-06-16T10:59:00.002-05:00

But here I am dilly-dallying around on the computer. I might as well say hello to you all out there in blog land, since I've been slacking lately.

News going on here: Dad (my dad) came and visited this past weekend. We had fun :)

Our church farm and garden project is going splendidly. Anyone have any ideas of what we can call this thing? I liked "gateway garden of eatin'" but apparently "garden of eatin" is an actual brand name so I don't want to mooch. We need a better name. The chickens (about 130) are doing splendidly, we planted a small garden, hoping to plant a small orchard this weekend. Lots of people are involved, community is building, it's been fun so far. I'm getting a splendid tan from going out there every afternoon. Oh did I mention it's been above 100 degrees like every single day? I've gone out there dehydrated a few times, and literally after being out there for like 5 minutes I think I'm going to throw up.... needness to say, I am much more careful now and drink lots o water.

So I decided i need to learn how to fiddle... we've got a violin, so I attempted to change the strings and knocked over the sound post. Had to take that in to get repaired- Dad and i did that on Saturday while he was here. We found this cool eccentric little old couple to fix it who have like 5 grand steinways in their house, the walls are covered with violins, guitars, there were 6 cellos lying around. Turns out they both (this couple must be in their late 70's) went to Julliard, are both music teachers, and the hubby studied cello under Leonard Rose (if you haven't heard of him, he was one of the best cellists ever and also yoyo ma's teacher!). They were really sweet, and I decided that I am going to take cello lessons from this guy. How cool is that- I'm so excited!! He only charges $18 a lesson, which is dirt cheap, especially considering how good of a musician he is (or at least should be... I have to admit that I didn't actually hear him play). Oh for those of you who don't know, I have a B.A. in music, and my main instrument in college was cello. But I'm quite rusty now and I think I could use a few good lessons. Anyhoo I'm very excited!!

Oooh what else. Ezekiel is officially crawling, fairly efficiently. He sat up on his own the other day. He's huge. He's cute. He's over 10 months old now!

We are going to come to camp this year. I'm excited-- but also nervous about the 25 hour drive with Ezekiel. Hmmm...

Oh and I am soooo going to get my hair cut. It's all the way down to the small of my back at the moment... and I think I want a bob. No, I KNOW I want a bob. Something really short and cute and cool (as in temperature wise) for summer. I will do before and after pictures for you all.

Ok Zeke woke up from his name and I sooo didn't clean while he was asleep like I was supposed to.

I hope you all are doing well out there!

And the award goes to....

2009-06-01T10:08:00.006-05:00

Daniel! For finally starting his own blog! You all should pop on over there and leave him lots of comments so that he will keep writing-- he is full of interesting things to say. :)

We had a busy weekend. Friday night our dear friends Terry and Natasha came over for dinner and an evening of playing Settlers, our favorite board game. Saturday morning we went over to help them work on their 1976 airstream-- yup, they bought a travel trailer, too! They will be moving to KY with us next year. We (as in Daniel Terry & Natasha... I just watched Zeke) worked on the trailer until about noon when it got too hot and the kids all got sleepy, then I headed home with Ezekiel and Daniel went with Terry to go work on our farming/gardening project behind the church. He was gone all day.

While we were working on the trailer, Zeke was in his pack n' play and Maya, T&N's 2 year old daughter, kept walking around Zeke and saying "hi handsome!" She recently declared that she loves Ezekiel more than daddy and that she is going to marry him. :)

The picture below is their travel trailer-- it's parked in a storage area while they work on it, and ours is parked right across the way.

Too cute to not put up!
Here is Ezekiel *almost* crawling!

Visitors and deodorant

2009-05-28T10:00:00.002-05:00

Howdy howdy. Well we've got visitors for a few days from Ohio-- friends from camp sychar, where Daniel and I met as kids. Their son is graduating from Air Force basic training this weekend, and so instead of getting a hotel we asked them to stay with us. I love having people over, so this is fun for me. Last night all us girls went out to this fun place for dinner and tea-- definitely somewhere to which I will be going back. Ezekiel just loves having all these new people around to play with him!

So I've stopped using deodorant. It's great-- because I've been using the "all natural" stuff for years now but it's never really worked, so I always smelled like, oh, stinky peaches, stinky lavender, whatever. But NOW I'm just using baking soda, and it's the best deodorant I've ever used! I mean it works for like 2 days with no problems at all. And i've given it a few tests, like hours of yard work in the Texas heat, walking a few miles (still in the texas heat), etc. And it has yet to fail me! I'm so excited because it's soooo dirt cheap and it works so sooo good. Here's what you do: just keep a small bowl of baking soda in your bathroom, wet the tips of your fingers, stick wet fingers in baking soda, and then rub whatever is stuck on your fingers into your pits. Tada, you will be stink-free for 2 days! Try it and let me know what you think!

Ok I think I'm off to be productive, as Ezekiel is taking a nap.

Home sweet home

2009-05-26T13:39:00.004-05:00

Here it is-- our new home! Can you believe we bought it?? I still can't! But here we are, soon to be moving out of our 1600 sq ft house into a 36' fifth wheel. Wow! What an adventure!

Here is the kitchen/living room. There's a giant tv and a broken futon that we need to throw out. Natasha's washing her face (we bought the thing in Austin this past Thursday, and a few girls and I had a girls weekend planned in Austin this past weekend, so we stayed in it!)

The kitchen

The bedroom/bathroom area. Obviously the green carpet and 80's curtains are going to have to go. But overall the place is in good shape. There's a shower to the left. The whole thing will need a very good scrubbing before I'm comfortable living in it with Ezekiel, but overall it's clean. There's a brand new hot water heater and a large refridgerator. It's really not too bad in there. Very do-able!

And so begins our homesteading adventure!! Wish us luck!

And we're off

2009-05-22T01:11:00.002-05:00

We soooo just bought a 1980-something travel trailer for $3000. I can't believe we did it! Forgot to take pictures cause Zeke was crying... I'll get some soon.

On the one hand I am sooo excited to be mortgage-free (shortly... as soon as the house is sold). On the other hand... oh my gosh. This is crazy! But we're really excited.

Ok it's one in the morning and I have to be up early tomorrow. Two dear friends and I are going to Austin for a girls getaway weekend! We're so excited. But I can't sleep because I keep thinking about what I can and can't fit in a travel trailer (for those of you who don't know, it's like an RV but you pull it with a pickup truck instead of driving it. You've seen them before I'm sure). But we're leaving early so I really need sleep cause it's going to be a long (fun) day. But our house is boiling hot. I just turned on the AC but it's not cool yet. And my throat is really scratchy. Ok going to bed now. Wish us luck in our new adventure! :)

It's almost time...

2009-05-18T15:54:00.011-05:00

...for many things. Ezekiel's about to crawl. He said "mama" on mother's day morning! He can sit on his own. It's almost his birthday!

It's also almost time for us to move. Just nine more months here! I can't believe it. We called a realtor last friday and hopefully next week our house will be on the market. I'm obsessively checking craigslist for travel trailers- we hope to buy one soon and once our house is sold, move into it. I'm actually really really excited about downsizing- I really can't wait. There will be so much less stuff to clean! We will have so much more money! Daniel promised to buy me a laptop! I think it's going to be good. You know how you can take a month long trip with one suitcase, then come home and realize that you have so much crap you can live without? It really is a relief to be able to live with less stuff. I'm excited. :)

It's almost time for our "garden of eatin'" to take off-- 130 baby chicks arrived this morning. You should have seen me carrying 2 giant chirping boxes and Ezekiel in his sling out of the post office today!

I have 12 lillies blooming today. They are so beautiful!

Happy Monday to you all!

Team Pike: 2 Texas: 0

2009-05-17T15:51:00.003-05:00

This is the second snake Daniel has killed in our back yard. Right next to our back door, actually. The first one was a 4 foot rattle snake. This one was a 5.5 foot rat snake. It decided to eat our pet rat, blue, who had been living outside in his little home. It crawled in through a slot in the door, ate him (hence the lump in the middle of the snake. poor blue!!), and couldn't get out because he was too fat. I'm too lazy to type out the whole snake-killing story, but the craziest part was when Daniel had the snake by the head with the weed clippers.... he wasn't dead, and he was wiggling all around and he actually wrapped himself around the weed clippers and up daniels arms! You should have seen it... it was crazy!! I was inside freaking out, and of course the camera battery was dead. What a shame! Anyhoo, so he starts yelling "go get an ax!!" which we don't have, so I grab Ezekiel and run next door, casually asking the neighbor if I could borrow his ax. Run back home, leave Ezekiel inside, go outside, Daniel has the snake by the neck, I wack at him with the ax to no avail, so Daniel and I switch places and I hold him while Daniel tries to chop his head off. Still no luck so he gets a knife and cuts off the head. Oh man, it was horrible. After he was dead I think I started having a panic attack because I could barely breathe and I was sobbing and shaking. It was scary! We had no idea if it was poisonous or not at the time, ya know? We now know that he wasn't poisonous, and honestly I feel a little bad for him. I mean he was just looking for food and happened to get stuck in our yard. But still, he was right by the back door!

This was our first lilly to bloom this year. Many more to come! Today there are about 6.

Last week, my mom and my grandpa came to visit. We had a whole lot of fun! This is the first time Ezekiel got to meet his great grandpa!

Our church farming project is finally taking off- our baby chickens arrive tomorrow or tuesday! We ordered 125. In three weeks they will be big enough to go out on pasture and then we will really be rolling. How exciting! Speaking of this sort of thing, there is a new documentary out that is really exciting... I will just let you watch the trailer... I don't want to spoil it!

Edit: I like my text to be left-alligned but my pictures to be centered. I can't get my pictures to be centered when i upload them directly from picassa. Anyone know how to fix that??

Happy Birthday

2009-05-07T11:44:00.002-05:00

Someone learned how to "log roll", as my mother-in-law Teresa described it. He can now roll continuously to get to wherever he's going. When he runs into something, he starts going back the other way. He's also sitting up in the tripod position, where he props himself up on his hands. What a big, big boy! We took these photos yesterday to celebrate Grandma's birthday. Happy Birthday mom! And happy 9 month birthday Ezekiel!

Accepted!

2009-05-04T09:20:00.001-05:00

Our offer on the 39 previously mentioned acres was accepted!! Woo hoo!! We are so excited. What an adventure!

Experimenting

2009-04-24T10:40:00.003-05:00

I just "made" my own lotion! Sort of... I took a bottle of Aveeno unscented lotion, dumped it all out in a bowl (easier said than done), added orange and pachouli essential oils, mixed, and put the lotion back in the bottle. In the process I got rather messy and now I am totally covered from head to toe in my new lotion so as to not waste the bits I couldn't get back into the bottle. I smell wonderful! I just put a little of the essential oils in, so it's really just a light fragrance- hopefully not overkill. Anyhow, yum. I just wanted to share.

We made an offer on our 39 acres yesterday... we should hear back within the next 5 days. I will let you all know what happens!

I don't remember if I put this picture up before. I don't think I did. It's from a month or so ago, but it's just too cute to not share. :)

Daniel's home!

2009-04-19T18:57:00.000-05:00

Yay Daniel is home! I missed him so much! :)

Excitement is in the air!

2009-04-17T13:42:00.005-05:00

I hope I'm not writing about this prematurely... but I am just so excited I don't want to wait.

I may have mentioned that Daniel took a trip with our friend Terry up to Kentucky this past week. Well they are still there, and they spent a few days looking around for land because there are 5 families including us that have this crazy dream of living together. We all have a desire to live simply, on land that will provide our own food, where we can school our children together, and just be cool like that. ;) You could sum it up pretty well by saying that we all think the Amish are pretty darn awesome (minus some religion issues, but you get the idea).

Anyhoo..... after 4 of the 5 husbands (#5 is still down here in TX making sure all the women and children are ok!) looked at quite a few properties in central and eastern KY, they found this one.... and I believe Aimee and Nathan will be making an offer on it in the next few days (you can read about their adventures with this on their blogs)!! Wooo hoo!! The asking price is 75,900 but they plan to offer 70k. Divided up between five families means that each family pays around 12k, maybe a little more if they don't accept our initial offer. Isn't that awesome? Land is so expensive if you want to buy it alone, but in a group it's actually affordable! We could have it payed off in just a couple of years. Very exciting. :) :) Of course I'm trying not to be too excited since we haven't officially made an offer yet... so we will see. I will keep you all updated.

This is really amazing to me because we've talked about doing something like this for at least 2 years now. Daniel is constantly searching the internet for land and ideas. I never thought we would ever be able to do this, but it has been very clear that this is the direction God is taking not only Daniel and I, but other families as well. We are so excited! You can certainly pray for God's direction for us as we start to actually live out this dream. We would greatly appreciate it!

Have any of you ever wanted to do something like this?? What are your ideas, plans, insights??

In other news, Jenny blogged about guerilla gardening yesterday, and I really like this video clip. It's such a good idea to just take over little neglected plots of land to make them beautiful and productive again. This video makes me love people, too, because it takes a cool person to go sneak out in the middle of the night to plant a garden!

Oh and one last thing... Daniel is eating dinner tonight with Joel Salatin! More on that later. :)

Per request of Michelle

2009-04-11T12:22:00.003-05:00

Here is a video for you all. I promise Daniel isn't naked! :)

We've had a busy and fun week here. Tuesday a friend came over to knit, Wednesday some friends from Kentucky stopped by to visit since they were in town, Thursday we had a Sater (spelling?) dinner at our church for holy week, and then yesterday we went to a birthday party at the park for our friend (little) Terry. He turned 6. Daniel also left with our friend (big) Terry to go to Kentucky to visit family and look for land! :) :) :) I miss him already. I know he will have a wonderful time seeing his new niece and nephew!!

I have a cool story to tell you all. So we had no crib for Ezekiel, and we've started to need one because he's outgrown his little moses basket. He's been sleeing on a blanket on the floor for a week or so, which is totally fine with me, but now he's starting to scoot and roll everywhere, so he needs to be contained! Normally I don't even think to pray for stuff like this, but since we're trying to save money, I prayed that God would provide a crib or a pack n' play, something along those lines. Well Thursday night our neighbor showed up at our door with a pack n' play! She gave it to us, and continued to tell me that they had a whole bedroom set of baby furniture they don't need any more and asked if we would like to have it! A (practically new, matching) crib, changing table, and dresser! Isn't that amazing? It's always so cool when God provides for our needs. And he didn't just send us the bare minimum-- he overabundantly gave us more than I had asked for! What a vivid reminder that God loves us and wants to bless us!

Happy 8 month Birthday!

2009-04-06T12:42:00.006-05:00

Ezekiel is 8 months old today! That means he has now been home as long as he was in the hospital. I am so glad to reach this point-- kind of like we've "undone" some of the hospital experience somehow.

Oddly enough Ezekiel is extra fussy today. He must not know what a special day it is. :)

Edit: Has anyone noticed it's already APRIL???! Oh my goodness gracious. (If I were actually talking I think I would say "holy crap" but somehow it feels wrong to type that. Goodness gracious is much nicer in print.) Daniel has LESS THAN one year until he starts terminal leave. As in we only have LESS THAN ONE YEAR left in Texas. I can't believe it!!!! OK anyway I'm headed to bed now. I love you all! Goodnight!

My studious little reader

2009-04-04T12:09:00.003-05:00

My goodness, what an awful lot of work. I'm worn out!

It's noon and...

2009-03-31T12:02:00.004-05:00

I'm just now having my morning coffee. My house is explodingly messy. I'm feeling a bit discouraged about that.

Edit: Daniel is home from work and I am going by myself to hobby lobby! Yay! For some reason Ezekiel has been super clingy/fussy all day and I need a break.

Coffee and rambling

2009-03-30T11:08:00.004-05:00

I had to make a coffee run this morning. Oh house-wife that I am, I just needed out PLUS we were OUT of (fresh) coffee (I still have 3 bags of coffee from when I worked at starbucks like over a year ago... and they expired, oh I don't know, sometime last year. One expired sometime in 2007. They're really gross now). So out I run with soaking wet hair and no makeup, looking pretty frumpy and mom-like. But that's ok. I got my tall-no-room-raw-sugar-americano and a bag of Pike's place (the best name for coffee ever). And I feel better now. Mmmm coffee. And now Ezekiel is taking a nap and laundry has LITERALLY taken OVER our house. I mean it's reallllly bad. So you can guess what I will be doing today...

We're getting really excited about our "joseph garden" idea that's been brewing in our brains. My friend Natasha suggested calling it "Gateway's Garden of Eatin" and I love that name! Our church has quite a few acres behind the building/school, and we have a vision of turning it into a community garden type thing to provide produce, chicken, eggs, and milk for our congregation/church & school staff/or the community (obviously we won't be able to do ALL that right away). We've talked to the pastor and he said to write up our plans for the elders to read and approve, so Daniel's been working on that this week. Writing isn't one of his favorite things to do, and last night Natasha offered to type everything up for him, so he's just going to dictate it into a voice recorder and she's going to do the typing! How very sweet of her! I love how in the body of Christ everyone's talents fill a need and work together. Anyway, we're really excited. Daniel looked up some of the codes and it's actually legal for us to have a cow back there!!! Wooo hoo! Yay milk! We don't have any experience with milking a cow, but I imagine that SOMEONE in our congregation does. Building community with this project is one of the things I'm really excited about.... Daniel and I know how to do everything chicken related, but we don't know squat about gardening or milk cows (ok we have book/head knowledge... but we don't have much experience). But I KNOW there are people in the church who do know how to do this stuff. Which is so cool. I'm hoping everyone will pitch in their knowledge and ability and that we can have a really awesome thing going on back there... I'm also hoping it will be a teaching/learning experience for all of us as we share our skills and abilities. I would love to see everyone at church keep a few chickens and a small garden in their own yard, and one of the points of this project is to teach the Church that they are able to do this! Anyway, I am just rambling now. I probably should make paragraphs or something. I'm really excited. In my head it's super cool... I really hope we can make it that way. :) :) :)

In other news, my brother David is going to be in Wichita Falls on Wednesday touring with his band, The Crimson Armada. That's only about 6 hours from us, but I don't think I can go. I'm really sad, I would love to see him. Here's a video of their music (caution: very loud and scary-sounding). Totally not my style, lover of all classical music that I am, but I do love my brother. He's the drummer. The music actually starts at 16 seconds if you wanna skip the yelling people.

I <3 failblog

2009-03-27T13:55:00.001-05:00

see more pwn and owned pictures

The new gals

2009-03-26T10:26:00.002-05:00

Let's hope they're gals, anyway. I really don't want to eat them.

This is the little girl our neighbors brought over to us! Isn't she too cute? If I stick my hand in her box she runs over and jumps into my palm. She's a sweetie.

This is our second chick from our friends the Turners. They "accidentally" came home with 6 little guys from their trip to tractor supply, and I asked if we could have one to keep our little girl company. Notice she has feathers on her feet!!

Here they are together on the kitchen counter (I couldn't get a good picture of them in their box!). They are just so fun and cute!

I think the first one is a rhode island red, but I'm really not sure. The second is some sort of bantam, I think, with the feathers on her feet. I really don't know though... we'll see when they grow up! If you know what they are, please let me know!

Today is just lovely-- it's misty and cloudy, and it's thundering! I think we're in for a storm... the perfect day for lounging around in jammies, drinking tea, reading books, cuddling Ezekiel, and folding laundry....

Finally some pictures!

2009-03-25T16:37:00.004-05:00

Those two of Zeke are from today. My little pumpkin is 7 & 1/2 months old! Last week at the doctor's he weighed 13.5 lbs! Oh my goodness, what a big boy. I can't believe how huge he is. Today when his occupational therapist was here, we fed him banana for the first time, and he liked it! She said he ate well and she doesn't think he will have any problems eating.

Yesterday Jessy came over and we made soap! We made a batch of lavender for her, and after she left I made a batch of jasmine-orange. I wasn't sure if the combination would turn out well, but let me tell you, it is scrumptious. Mmmmmm! It's prodominately orange smelling, with jasmine undertones. I could just eat it. :) It's all sliced up and sitting on a window sill to dry out. And we had a lovely time, Jessy and I. (I'm so glad you came over!)
Nothing much else is going on... just ho-humming along here in Pikeville. I feel like there was something else I was supposed to write about, but I don't remember what it was. Oh well.

Edit: I DO remember! Our neighbor showed up at our door Monday night with a baby chick! She didn't know what to do with it so she gave it to us. So we have a sweet little baby chicken now. I haven't taken a picture yet, but I will put one up later. She's a sweetie pie, I think she's lonely with no chicken-friends. :(

Dancing!

2009-03-21T19:39:00.004-05:00

I just got home from the women's retreat (to an empty house... Daniel and Ezekiel went hiking without me!) and I had a very relaxing time. I just love spending time with women- we had lots of fun! I think the best part, though, was that I spoke with a lovely woman at our church named Laura... and she told me that she is going to a park downtown tomorrow to attend a country english dance!! She invited us to come, too, and so I think we're going to go!! OOOoohh I am so excited, for many reasons.

1) If we're going to be homesteaders we're going to have to have barn dances... right? So we need to learn how to dance!

2) A long time ago, when I did not yet have a crush on my dear husband, he took me to a barn dance. That's when I started falling in love with him. :) I think it was mutual.

3) It will just be so much fun!

I am really excited. I will let you all know how it goes!!

Oh and I would like to officially welcome Spring to our neck of the woods, since the bluebonnets have started popping up. I'm glad you made it here, Spring! I love you!

All better!

2009-03-20T13:39:00.004-05:00

I feel absolutely better today. Thanks for your prayers and love guys! I actually felt all better late last night, but decided not to make it official until after a good night's rest. And Ezekiel has had NO fever and doesn't seem to be sick, which is wonderful- I am so thankful. I would hate for him to get sick. I know it's inevitable, but I would like to hold it off for as long as possible. :)

Daniel has been gone since eeaarrly thursday morning, and he will be back tonight. I am also leaving to go on a women's retreat tonight, so today is all about making food for Daniel's weekend all alone (ok, I get back Saturday night... but still!). On the list is pizza for dinner tonight, stir fry & lasagna. And I got him frozen waffles for breakfast which he loves. There is also plenty of fruit around and some triscuts, so he will not starve at all. I'm sure he's ravishingly hungry from only eating MRE's the last few days (that's military lingo for crappy nasty dried something-or-another that is supposed to be edible). So I want to make sure he has yummy food to come home to. He's supposed to be home at 6, and I have to leave at 6:30 for the women's retreat. :( I miss him!

Alright I'd better go get started on all my cooking/cleaning. The house exploded the last few days while I was sick, and the cleaning fairies didn't come last night. We must have forgotten to stick their check in the mail.

Oh and can I say how much I just LOVE having my volvo running well again? I seriously haven't driven it more than 3 or 4 miles at a time in like 8 or 9 months. It's such a great car!

the flu

2009-03-18T18:27:00.002-05:00

I AM sick! I have a fever (101.5) and everything. Chills, headache, achey body, listlesness. Sigh. I am really nervous about Ezekiel because Daniel is going out of town early in the morning and I will be all by myself. I don't know what to do! Should I take Ezekiel to the doctors to get started on antivirals so he doesn't get sick?? I don't know. :( Suggestions please!!! Thanks guys.

Just another Wednesday...

2009-03-18T11:28:00.002-05:00

I've done nothing productive today... and it's nearly noon. I woke up feeling horrible for some reason (nauseated, achey, headache... not pregnant for sure!!). I'm a little worried I may be getting sick. Anyhow I haven't been able to snap out of it yet... normally coffee does the trick.

My little volvo is in the shop today getting fixed. We weren't sure we would fix it because it's old and needs a lot of work. But you know, volvos are supposed to run forever and mine only has 193k miles so far! We decided to fix it and I'm excited to get it back today. I'm also excited because we have spent 2 texas summers with the volvo withOUT air conditioning... black leather seats... oh my goodness, there were some awful times in that poor car. But no AC is not an option any more with our little guy. So I am thankful for that!

So I hosted our church's supper club last saturday, and everything went well. I met a sweet old widow named Barbara who is going to teach me how to sew! I'm "sew" excited!! :) I think she is too, as she lives all alone and seems a little lonely.

Alright baby's crying. Gotta go! :)

Oh the joy

2009-03-14T15:28:00.005-05:00

Last night I had the privilege of spending HOURS on end with these two lovely ladies...

Rachel & Natasha

I can't even begin to tell you how much fun we had!! They both have 3 little ones at home, and rarely get to have a girls night. Oh my goodness... it was just wonderful!! FIRST we went to a lovely yarn store, then to a used book store, then to a yummy restaurant with a real, live harpist!! We asked to be seated right next to him, and the music was so relaxing and beautiful! We had so much fun together. I spent more money than I probably needed to on yarn and a book, but that's ok. Daniel wasn't mad at me ;)

Let's do it again soon ladies!!

This morning I went to Melissa's baby shower to celebrate the soon-to-arrive baby sprocket. It was just lovely to see you two weekends in a row, Melissa! I then rushed home to clean my house because I am hosting our church's supper club tonight! It's just a ladies potluck our church has once a month at different people's houses. I'm excited- I love having people over. And my house was mostly clean from last weeks birthday party, so as long as no one wants to go upstairs, I'm ok. (The upstairs is so rarely clean. But I'm ok with that.)

Alright I have to go get started on my spinach mushroom pizza for supper club! I hope you all are doing well out in blogger land. :)

Rain rain, don't go away!!

2009-03-12T08:50:00.002-05:00

It's rainy and cold and dreary and windy here... almost blustery.... (anyone remember winnie the pooh and the blustery day? One of my favorites! I love the word blustery, too). It's the PERFECT day for warm jamies, fuzzy socks, hot cups of coffee, and stacks of books. Yay!! I don't think I have to tell you what I will be doing all day...

Happy B-day party!

2009-03-11T11:30:00.010-05:00

We had so much fun Saturday at Daniel's birthday barbque! I just loved it. Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures.... I was very busy enjoying all our wonderful friends. I am still just amazed at the wonderful people God has brought into our lives. I am so thankful for sincere, caring, thinking, loving friends. We had such a good time... I think I need to throw a party every weekend. :) Thanks to everyone who came and made our time together so joyful and happy!!

Abby and Anna watching the chickens at the party! The kids (all 14? of them) loved the chickens.

Natasha, Lexi, and Jessy (visit Jessy's blog to see this picture of Zeke and her husband, Greg!)

Ezekiel and our new garden! It's still unplanted, but I'm glad that we haven't planted it yet because today is really cold (lows in the 40s) and wet and windy. Blah. We were going to do a wooden border, but we already had all these bricks so we used them instead. My only concern is the bricks falling over... Daniel says we can stick a rod or something (through the holes in the bricks) into the ground to keep everything in place.

Just as I was writing all this, I heard my chickens squabbling very loudly outside... I could tell something was wrong! I ran downstairs and out into the backyard, only to see a hawk trying to get into my chicken coop! If you don't keep chickens then you probably think it would be pretty cool to see a hawk in your yard... but hawks EAT chickens... he was down on the ground trying to figure out how to get in and have a nice afternoon snack. Luckily I scared him away and my little babies are all ok, but I imagine this hawk will be back... I will be really really upset if he gets one of my little girls.

Oh what do you all think of the yellow background? Does it hurt your eyes? I keep trying different colors and can't decide what I want...

Banana bliss

2009-03-06T13:06:00.004-06:00

Have I mentioned my love for the game Banana Grams before? It's just lovely. Sometimes I play by myself, and this...

... is what happens. Bliss for me is curled up around a cup of coffee in a clean house in my jammies with banana grams. If I could knit at the same time I don't know what would happen! *sigh!*

So I am busy getting ready for Daniel's party tomorrow. I still need to: mop the kitchen & entryway, clean the downstairs bathroom, and vaccume the stairs. THEN I need to go to the grocery store. I'm going to try to get as much food as possible prepared tonight so that tomorrow I am totally NOT stressed. The only thing I plan to do tomorrow is lay out the food, and in the morning I'm going to bake the cake (yum!). That's all. We still need to finnish mowing/weedwacking the yard, but that won't take too long, either, and we'll do that tonight. Oh and I need to start marinating the chicken sometime today. Ok now that my mental to-do list is all typed up for you to read....

We have discovered that Ezekiel loves the saxaphone! There is a sax player at church, and whenever he plays Ezekiel just smiles and waves his arms... when he stops, Zeke stops. I love it! I hope he wants to play when he's older. He already has to take piano lessons (from his momma) but he's allowed to choose his second, third, and fourth instruments. ;) Man I cannot wait to start lessons for him! It will be great. I love him so much.

Alllright I'd better go start mopping and such.... Hmm... I wonder how fast I can get all that done....

Geodome fun!

2009-03-05T11:09:00.002-06:00

Happy Birthday Daniel!

2009-03-04T13:10:00.002-06:00

Today is Daniel's 24th Birthday! Happy Birthday Darling!!!

I hope he is enjoying his day today. He got the day off work, we slept in late, got up, I gave him his presents (3 books- what else would my husband want?), made a cake, it overflowed in the oven (so we ended up eating a half-baked gooey cake! Yum!!), I made him steak and potatoes for brunch (while he read out loud from one of his new books to me and Ezekiel), and now he's off to get a massage with the gift certificate I gave him LAST valentine's day. I hope he enjoys that- he needs to relax! When he gets home we plan to do some yard work together and FINALLY start our garden. Daniel and a couple friends went on Monday to go get dirt for all our different gardens, so we have a lovely mound on our back patio waiting to become useful.

Since it is my husband's birthday, I thought I would write a list of a few of the reasons I love him! Here it goes...

He loves God with all his heart.

He is sincere.

He is very relaxed. He stays calm and collected no matter what.

He loves to learn.

He loves to apply what he learns.

He is intelligent and wise.

He isn't caught up in wasteful activities- he spends his time well.

He is handsome.

He is frugal.

He values simplicity.

He is a wonderful father.

He overlooks my faults.

He's honest.

He works very hard to provide for our family.

He's funny.

He has goals in life.

He loves people well. He's a good friend.

He's fun to be around!

There are a million more reasons...

I am so blessed to have a wonderful husband! Happy Birthday Daniel! I love you so much!

No garden yet...

2009-03-02T10:21:00.003-06:00

We did NOT put a garden in this weekend... I'm disappointed. It was super, super windy on Saturday, our planned garden day, so we decided to wait lest our dirt blow away and our tender little plants break. Sunday we ended up being busy (ehem... with Sunday afternoon naps, knitting, and taking food to friends in the hospital) so we didn't do it then either. But I still consider Sunday a very productive day regardless. You're supposed to rest one day a week anyway! I THINK today Daniel and our friend Terry may go get dirt. If they don't do it today, they're doing it Thursday. Either way, hopefully a garden sometime this week will be started in our yard.

Wednesday is Daniel's Birthday! There have been many a year where I've forgotten his birthday until the day before and had rather lame plans. But not this year! I started planning like 2 weeks ago, and I've already gotten him a couple gifts and invited people over for a barbecue on Saturday. I hope he feels very loved and special this week. I do love him very much.

Well since we're having people over this weekend, I am extra motivated to clean... I think I am actually going to get all the laundry done, mop the kitchen floor, clean out my pantry, vacuum the stairs, you know, all the stuff that generally gets neglected to do other more important things like cuddling with my baby, knitting, reading, cooking.... Daniel's extra happy about the planned "week of cleaning" because he REALLY wants to call a realtor and get our house on the market, which we still haven't done. Selling our house is the biggest piece of our "leaving the military" puzzle... We're planning to call the realtor NEXT WEEK while our house is still super clean from our party. I think this is a good plan.

So Ezekiel has gotten big enough for a jonny-jump-up. You know those hanging chairs on springs that you put in the door frame? Someone gave us one, and he loves it! He doesn't do any jumping yet, but he does bounce a bit on his feet, and he likes turning around to look at different things. Basically he likes being in a vertical position. I've been able to get a lot more done lately because he is so content in that thing. He's in it right now! :)

Ok I'd better go be productive!

Lungs and Gardens

2009-02-27T13:36:00.005-06:00

Today we went to see the Pulmonologist (lung doctor). I am happy to report that he thinks Ezekiel is doing very well! He was a very nice person- I am so thankful to have such great doctors for my little man. I had slowly weaned Ezekiel off of his diuretics (he was given those meds to keep fluid off of his lungs so he would be able to breathe well) and I was a little concerned that the doctor would be upset with me for doing so without actually asking (even though I carefully monitored his breathing and oxygen saturation and saw no change).... But he seemed very glad that Zeke is doing perfectly fine without them! Apparently the dosage had been way too high before anyhow (3.3ml instead of .3ml-- a typo maybe??), so it turned out to be very good that I had weaned him off. I think I use parenthesis way too often. Anyhow, end of story is that it was a wonderful appointment. We also saw 4(!) people we knew from the NICU by the elevator, and they were all happy to see Ezekiel doing so well.

Our dear friends Kyle and Sarah had to take their baby girl Aleah to the hospital this week. She ended up being admitted on Wednesday and it looks like she will still be there through the weekend. She is sick with some sort of viral bronchitis. Poor little baby girl- she's on oxygen and she's not sleeping well, full of mucus, etc. I am so sad for them. If you're a prayer, please pray for a quick recovery and for Kyle and Sarah to not get sick (nor us! Daniel works with Kyle). Thanks!

I am getting a horrible gardening itch. We've never really successfully gardened but I do want to try again this year. We've made 2 meager attempts, the first in San Angelo, Texas in an abandoned lot behind our apartment complex. That darling little garden started out ok, and it looked super-cute. But after a few weeks of BLAZING heat it just withered up and died. It was really sad. We worked so hard on it at first. The soil was so poor and there was no way to get water out there other than hauling in in buckets. Not to mention Daniel's insane schedule, so between all that it got neglected and died. Our second attempt was Summer2007 (wow it was that long ago!). We managed to get a few meager tomatoes and a couple very very small turnips (we don't even eat turnips. Why did we plant them? I don't know). This year I want to try again. I'm planning to try to get started this weekend, but I haven't checked with Daniel on that yet, so I will see if he is up for it...

What should we plant? I really don't know anything about what to plant and when to plant it. We are in south Texas so I need to figure that all out. And then I almost feel like it's pointless to learn how to garden here because I imagine gardening in Kentucky will be very different. But I'm sure there is still much valuable experience to be gained by starting now. Especially if we really want to be homesteaders! :) Which we do!

Alright I realllly need to go make another cup of coffee. I'm dragging today. Oh apparently in the previous post with the picture of the cloth diaper, I had the diaper on backwards. Hmmm...

If you read all of this you're a trooper! :)

Diapers

2009-02-25T11:59:00.003-06:00

Last night we officially ran out of disposable diapers. We'd been given so many I thought we we never ever make it through them all, but we did. I was going to run to the grocery and buy more, but I remembered we have quite a few cloth diapers which I had vowed to use once Ezekiel was off oxygen (which he has been for well over a month now). So wanting to be responsible, here we are trying them out for a day to see how they do. So far he has peed through once and required a change of clothes... hmm... I guess you have to be quite diligent about changing frequently? We normally only change his diaper every 3 or 4 hours (or if he poops, which, may I add, is just once a week! Yes, just once a week! Every Tuesday. It's like clockwork. This seems to be his "normal" so we aren't too concerned but if you have suggestions for helping him poop more I am looking for ideas. He never seems constipated- it's always soft and runny so I don't think that's the problem. And he's growing so I believe he's eating enough). Anyhoo, my only complaint with these "g" diapers is that the liner is disposable, therefore you have to buy more. I don't like that. If I'm going to be using cloth diapers, the main point is to be saving money, therefore I don't want to buy liners (although they are supposed to be flushable/compostable but alas our compost pile is gone now). I'm thinking about cutting pieces of towels or burp-rag-diapers to the right size and using those for liners. Any suggestions? We don't really have the money to go and buy a different kind of cloth diapers, so this is what we will be using for now.

In other news, I've started exercising again. I've deemed this year the "year of getting back into shape" (and unfortunately it will probably take all year!) and the "year of getting ready to separate from the military and transition to our homesteading lifestyle". I'm excited about all of it!! I guess I should have been thinking about all this in January, you know, when the new year began, but here I am finally thinking about it in almost March. That's ok. I'm glad to have some very concrete goals to work towards this year. Can you believe there is only one year and two months left of our 5 year military commitment?!!! It feels like tomorrow we'll be done and back home in Kentucky. Of course there are a lot of mixed feelings because we have so many dear friends who we will be leaving behind (unless of course you all come and homestead with us!! Hint Hint!!!). But we are getting really really excited about it. Ok anyway Ezekiel is crying and Daniel will be home for lunch soon so I'd better go!

A Fail and a Win

2009-02-23T21:45:00.003-06:00

I couldn't decide which one I liked best, so I put them both up. The second one took me a second... I said to Daniel, I know this should be really funny but I'm not getting it. He informed me it's the giant cool-aid pitcher. Remember those commercials? Somehow explaining all that may have taken the funny-ness out of it.... hmm.... Anyhoo enjoy!

see more pwn and owned pictures

Sunday Morning Poem

2009-02-22T09:03:00.003-06:00

The Calf Path

One day, through the primeval wood,

A calf walked home, as good calves should;

But made a trail all bent askew,

A crook trail, as all calves do.

Since then 300 years have fled,

And, I infer, the calf is dead.

But still he left behind his trail,

And therby hangs my moral tail.

The trail was taken up next day

By a lone dog that passed that way;

And then a wise bell-weather sheep

Persued the trail o'er vale and steep,

And drew the flock behind him, too,

As good bell-weathers always do.

And from that day, o'er hill and glade,

Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out,

And dodged, and turned, and bent about

And uttered words of righteous wrath,

Because 'twas such a crooked path.

But still they followed-- do not laugh--

The first migrations of that calf,

And through this winding wood-way stalked,

Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,

That bent, and turned, and turned again;

This crooked lane became a road,

Where many a poor horse with his load

Toiled on beneath the burning sun,

And traveled some three miles in one.

And thus a century and a half

They trode the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,

The road became a village street;

And this, before men were aware,

A city's crowded thoroughfare;

And soon the central street was this

Of a renowned metropolis;

And men two centuries and a half

Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout

Followed the zigzag calf about;

And o'er his crooked journey went

The traffic of a continent.

A hundred thousand men were led

By one calf near three centuries dead.

They followed still his crooked way,

And lost one hundred years a day;

For thus such reverence is lent

To well-established president.

A moral lesson this might teach,

Were I ordained and called to preach;

For men are prone to go it blind

Along the calf-paths of the mind,

And work away from sun to sun

To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track,

And out and in, and forth and back,

And still their devious course persue,

To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,

Along which all their lives they move.

But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,

Who saw the first primeval calf!

Ah! Many things this tale might teach--

But I am not ordained to preach.

-Sam Walter Foss

2009-02-19T12:18:00.003-06:00

You just gotta love those lips!

Here we are at the Chinese/Japanese tea garden last week when Dad was here. I mean Grandpa. And no, I'm not trying to insult either China or Japan-- the tea garden was labled in one place as "chinese" and in another as "japanese". So which is it? I don't know. Good job at insulting two countries, San Antonio!

And now for the Brazilian Black Bean Stew recipe! Seriously, is there any way to go wrong with these ingredients??? Mmmmm!

Brazilian Black Bean Stew

1Tbsp Olive Oil

1/4lb Sausage

13/lb cooked ham, chopped (we used neither sausage nor ham-- we used pulled chicken. You can use whatever meat you want or have on hand).

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves minced garlic (we used 4)

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

1 large red bell pepper, diced (we used one red, one yellow, one green)

2 (14.5oz) cans diced tomato with juice

1 small hot green chili pepper, diced

1 1/2 C. water (we used 2 cups chicken broth)

2 (16oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained (we used bagged beans since they are so cheap)

1 mango, peeled seeded and diced

Fresh chopped cilantro to taste

salt to taste

Directions:

1. Heat oil in large pot over medium heat. Cook onions until soft. Add garlic, cook until soft. Mix in sweet potatoes, bell peppers, tomatoes with juice, chili pepper, water (or stock), and meat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until sweet potatoes are tender.

2. Stir beans into the pot, cook uncovered until heated through. Mix in mango and cilantro, season with salt. Eat! Yum!!

We eat ours plain or serve it over quinoa (although you can also serve with rice). It's a good idea to mix a bit of some sort of fat (coconut oil, butter, sour cream) into the stew when served to make sure your body can absorb all those fat-soluable vitamins! Enjoy!!

Ezekiel's new favorite thing to do is sit on the couch :)

Use that yard!!

2009-02-17T00:34:00.004-06:00

Oh man, this video brought joy and elation to my heart. And can't you just hear the guys at the Wall Street Journal talking amongst themselves..... "Hmmm.. farming, gardening, coutry-folk, I think we need some BANJO music in the background!" "Yeah Bill, that's perfect! Right on!"

I seriously can't stop smiling I love this video so much. Do you have any idea how many times Daniel has said to me, "Geeze, I wish we could ask the neighbors if we could use their yard, too." And these people are actually doing it! It's great! Daniel's working tonight but I cannot wait to show him this video tomorrow. :)

Chicken Tortilla Soup

2009-02-14T19:53:00.005-06:00

I recieved 2 requests for our chicken tortilla soup recipe, so here it is! I guess it's not actually ours, although we did modify it a little bit....

1-- we added a bag of frozen corn

2-- we left out the flour mixture since we try not to eat white flour. The flour thickens the soup up a bit, but it's still delicious without it.

3-- I don't add the sour cream until the soup served. The cultures in sour cream help your body digest food, but if they are over-heated then they are killed and do no good.

4--we use our own homemade chicken broth (which is easy to make!). Here is more info about chicken stock then I bet you ever knew!!

5-- we did not use boneless-skinless chicken breasts. We used pulled chicken from one of our backyard intensively-grazed, grass-fed chickens :) :)

Speaking of nutrition, I found this blog, and I thought I would share. Good info there!! The Weston A. Price foundation has such a vast, vast wealth of nutritional information. I love it!

If you took time to look at all those links, you rock!

Coming soon.... Brazilian Black Bean Stew!!

Grandpa and his guitar

2009-02-10T09:53:00.003-06:00

Yesterday Dad and I decided to make chicken tortilla soup for dinner, so we went to the grocery store. Dad had gotten a bag of nuts from the bulk bins but forgot to get the plu number, so he had to run back to get it. I thought, "oh the poor lady behind us in line, she's gonna have to wait and she has a bunch of kids. Hmm..... she looks kind of like Jessy, my blogger friend who I have never met.... Is that her? I think it's her! Those look like her kids!" So I said "Hi, Jessy??" and it WAS her!! (It was so fun to see you Jessy!) How random that we met at the grocery store! :) What a great story! Who knew that there are real people behind all these blogs ;) Oh, and the soup was delicious!!

Grandpa's here!

2009-02-09T08:12:00.008-06:00

Grandpa (my dad) is here, and Ezekiel loves him. He brought his mandolin and Zeke thinks that is just so darn cool- he just stares and listens. I will put a video up later :) :) Here they are reading Dr. Seuss.

In other news, we have a new nephew!!! Welcome home Hudson Alexander Pike!! We are so happy you're here and can't wait to meet you!!!! I know your mommy and daddy are so proud of you!!

Happy 6th month Birthday Ezekiel!!

2009-02-06T23:15:00.004-06:00

Happy 6 month birthday Ezekiel! We love you so much!

August

September

October

November

December

January

February

Oh Ellen! Oh Gladys!

2009-02-05T10:15:00.001-06:00

You have to watch this! :) :) I love Ellen!

3:30am

2009-02-03T15:00:00.004-06:00

We have been blessed the past 3-ish weeks with a son who sleeps from 9pm until 5:30am EVERY night. YAY! But the last two nights he's woken up at 3:30 and just will not go back to sleep. So I get him a bottle, feed him, and off to bed he goes again. Then he will gladly sleep until 8am. The problem is that I am sooo not happy with this schedule. I loved the get-up-at-5:30 schedule. It was perfect. I want to try and get him back on that-- here is my plan--

1. No early-evening naps (I think he would sleep almost all day if I let him. We have mandatory awake time so he isn't awake all night).

2. Bottle at 7,8, & 9pm to make sure his tummy is super full so he doesn't wake up hungry

3. Any sugestions?!

I am wondering if his new milk is causing the change- we found out Julie's milk is 19/20 calories per ouce, whereas my milk was 22/23 calories per ouce. Maybe upping the volume before bed will be the trick.

I know babies change their schedules as they grow. I just love my sleep and hate to drag my butt out of bed in the middle of the night. More than once I've almost fallen down the stairs because I'm still half asleep (not with zeke though, thankfully!). Anyhow, if this is an inevitable change, I will accept it. But if I can make it better, I want to. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am soliciting your advice!

In other news, we are trying to get the house spotless so we can call a realtor and get it on the market! I cannot wait to get our house sold. For many reasons- one- it is very spacious and therefore requires a lot of cleaning which I don't want to do. I mean, I am grateful for having plenty of room and a lovely house to live in- I really am. It's especially nice when we have guests because there is plenty of room for everyone to stay comfortably. But honestly we just don't need the space, and I am getting totally spoiled living in such a nice house. Two- once we sell the house we will be able to save up a lot more money/finnish paying off student loans. Three- Our house is the only thing keeping us in Texas. As soon as Daniel is out of the military (may 10 2010!!) we want to go HOME. HOME HOME HOME!! I miss it up there! Granted, we don't exactly know where home IS yet, but we want to be there. Daniel spends hours looking online for acerage under $80,000. He calls Josh (his brother in KY) and asks him to drive out to such and such a place to look at random farms. Most of you know that our goal in life is to raise good, Godly children on a sustainable farm- to live on and love one place. If anyone else has this vision or has ever even thought it sounded nice, I TOTALLY reccomend my FAVORITE book, "The Unsettling of America" by Wendell Berry. It's a good one! ANYHOO... yes, selling the house- the point was that we don't want to be stuck here when Daniel's enlistment is up just because our house hasn't sold... that would mean Daniel would have to get a high-enough paying job to pay the mortgage, etc. And that is just not what we want to do. People give us funny looks when we say that we want to farm because Daniel has such a marketable set of skills from all his training. He could get a $100,000+ job no problem. But that is just not where his heart is- we have no desire at all to live that sort of life. We want to actually BOTH raise our children and live in a way that doesn't harm God's creation. We want to be in the country and do things like raise our own animals, have a garden, and so much more. We can't wait to get there!

Ok this blog was just a random rant, and if you made it all the way through, thanks for reading!

Facebook

2009-02-02T11:49:00.003-06:00

Oh no I'm afraid I got sucked into facebook..... I'm scared! I'm wasting so much time! I'm getting off the computer RIGHT NOW!!

AND my sweater was not done on friday... it still needs one more sleeve, a collar, button placket, and buttons.... :(

OK I'm going to clean my house right now!!

Milk

2009-01-30T12:12:00.004-06:00

We are so excited about our new milk mommy, Julie! I mentioned previously ( insert the Lost announcer guy's voice: "previously, on kristin's blog!") the milk share website and how we were hopeful to find someone to give us milk for Ezekiel. Well we found someone, and her name is Julie. She was a surrogate mother to twins who were born about a month and a half ago. She has been giving her milk to the milk bank, but decided she would rather give it to someone "for free" instead. (did I mention it costs $3.50 an OUNCE to buy milk from the bank? And the donors do just that- donate- they don't get paid.) We drove up to Austin yesterday to meet her and see if we would like to get milk from her. We decided that this was a perfect opportunity, as she has been fully screened for any diseases/problems by both the surrogacy program AND by the milk bank- so we know that her milk is uncontaminated. I am so thankful. I can't even put it into words. She is making 400 ounces a week! Ezekiel takes less than 200 a week! Julie sent us home with 300+ ounces which will last us for quite a while. I am so so happy!

I think I need to start actually writing about our farming endeavors again on this blog. That's what it was originally intended for... of course we no longer have an awesome backyard farm. But we do still want to farm and plan to do so in.... 1 year and 4 months. We can't wait :) :)

Have I mentioned that I hurt my tail bone? I don't know what I did, but it happened around the time Ezekiel came home, and since then I haven't been able to sit/stand/sleep/go down the steps without a lot of pain. It's getting really old. I don't know what exactly is wrong, but my legs are always stiff/falling asleep now, and I hobble like an old lady. I mean going down the stairs is torture (up is ok). :( I think maybe I should go to the doctor. I know there's not much they can do... it almost feels like if I could just crack my back that low, it would feel better. Anyone else ever had this problem? What did you do? I already have a blow-up doughnut :)

May I say something about the new picture at the top of my blog? (Yes, I may!) This picture was the background on our computer for a long time. One day, I got on the computer and it was gone, replaced by a still lovely picture, but not my picture (I took this picture a few years ago driving to California). I asked Daniel why he had moved it- and he said, "Because it's just a picture of some powerlines. Why would you want that picture up?" I had to laugh... my husband is so good at having different perspectives. I, of course, see it as a lovely sunset.

We need to go do something fun and interesting this weekend so I have something to blog about! :) I hope you all have a great weekend!

LOST!!!!

2009-01-28T14:37:00.002-06:00

I am sooo about to watch the first episode of the new season of Lost! I am sooo excited! It started over a week ago, but we haven't had time to watch it yet. Daniel has to work all night and I will be all by myself today, so I think I will watch one hour now and one hour tonight when I am all super lonely. I feel so LOST deprived after months and months and months of no Lost. For those of you who DON'T watch this exciting, engrossing, exhilarating show, you can watch every single season for free on ABC.com!! YAY LOST!

Skip the first paragraph if talking about breast milk makes you queasy.

2009-01-27T16:21:00.005-06:00

I warned you....

I found this today, and I am so excited. I wonder if it will work for us. I've been pumping since Ezekiel was born, and for a while I was getting a lot of milk and storing it up in the freezer. Now I only make a few ounces a day (today was 3) AND our freezer-stash is almost completely gone. I've been so sooo sad about this, but what can I do? I've tried EVERYTHING to get my milk supply up, to little avail (so far). We've only got maybe a weeks worth of milk left in the freezer. If you want to buy it from a milk bank, it is a WHOPPING $3.50 PER OUNCE!! Incredulous!! Who can afford that??! Not us. So I am fairly hopeful about this new milk exchange thing. Of course, you have to be careful, but I think the website does a good job explaining about making sure you get good milk. The next time I have a baby I would love to be able to donate milk for someone else- what a blessing!

I've been "tagged" by Nathan to make a bucket list. The things I want to do before I die... well, off of the top of my head I want to.....

be a conductor of a wonderful orchestra

swim in lakes without fear/paranoia of giant fish biting my legs

knit a lot of awesome things

be an awesome mom/grandma/great-grandma

I'm going to write a good blog today

2009-01-26T14:41:00.010-06:00

OK Ezekiel is taking a nap, family is all gone (tear & sniffle), and I decided that today is just a knit/pump/take-care-of-zeke day, so I am going to write a good blog finally! With lots of pictures! Yay!

First of all, we had a great time with family. Lots of fun, lots of bananagrams, lots of yahtzee, unfortunately no scrabble, though. Lots of cheesecake (oops), lots of laughing, lots of love. My mom was here last week until thursday, and then Daniel's family was here Thursday until this morning.

Here is Ezekiel with his Grandma Luanne!

Mom started this quilt when she was pregnant with me. She finnished the cross-stitching for Ezekiel, and then I sewed it together (this is before it's finnished). It is so cuddley and nice! I love it!Here is Ezekiel with Obama! I must say, although I am not thrilled about Obama's plans for our country, it is very exciting to have the first black president. What a momentous occasion!Mom worked on our wedding scrapbook while she was here, too. Then Daniel's family came. Here is Ezekiel with his Grandma Teresa and his Aunt Jasmine. Daniel, Jasmine, Grandpa Winston, and Ezekiel.

This is our new little sister, Sophia. She joined the family in July from Khazakstan. Why is this underlined?? We were so glad to finally meet you, Sophie!

Here is Ezekiel with his Aunt Martina. This is the first time she's ever fed a baby!We had a wonderful time with all the family! We miss you all! Come back again soon!

And finally, of course, this is my current knitting project. The sweater with the flowers is the one that babies keep outgrowing (it's now for Mercy, although I forgot to send it back to KY with the family). The one on the needles is London's new sweater. I think it's going to turn out super cute! I plan to have it done this week. THIS WEEK, darn it. And mailed by FRIDAY!!

Alright that's all for today!

He really wants to crawl

2009-01-23T22:27:00.003-06:00

Why oh why do I take so long to post?? I seriously form all these cool blogs in my head, thinking, "oh I can write about such and such or this and that..." and I think about what pictures I will put up, and how I should link to whatever random page. And then I don't do it. By the time I DO blog, I forget all my cool ideas and feel like I have nothing to say. It's so sad!

We have Daniel's family here now, and we're having a lot of fun. My mom flew back to Ohio Thursday, and then just a few hours later his family pulled in with their giant RV which is now parked in front of our house. They are so happy to see their first grandson!!

So I made this adorable sweater for my friend Sarah's new baby, Aleah... when she was born, it was all finnished except for the buttons weren't sewn on. Then we were sent to Houston with Ezekiel, and by the time we got back she was already 10lbs-ish and was too big for the sweater! "That's OK," I said to myself, "my brother-in-law and his wife are having a little girl (London) in a few weeks, I will give it to her." I then made Aleah a sling instead of the sweater. Meanwhile, I complete the buttoning of the sweater. But I don't take it to the post office and send it... and now she's outgrown it, too! Come on Kristin!! It is still ok, though, because our friends Kim and Jordan just had a little girl, Mercy (Ezekiel's future wife?). Now it's Mercy's sweater. And it WILL get to her on time because I'm sending it back to KY with Daniel's family. Meanwhile, I am casting on for the same sweater in a bigger size for London. This is such a great example of ways I can learn to be more responsible! ;)

Have I mentioned that I am sitting on my knees in front of the computer? The chair is downstairs. I had no intention of actually writing a blog right now, but upon seeing how desperately I needed to do so, I plopped down to say a quick hello, and now this video is taking FOREVER to upload so I keep writing... Ok w'ere finally done!!!

Happy January 16th!

2009-01-16T14:35:00.001-06:00

Is it really already halfway through January!? Wow!

I miss blogging. I haven't been very consistent lately, sorry guys. But we are all doing well. We had a great week with Aimee and Nathan- lots of games and talking and cooking and making things. We made 2 successful batches of soap- one unscented, one cinnamon & patchouli. I was happy with the way this new scented batch turned out, as the last scented batch I made (vanilla) was kind of stinky and smelled like play dough. Anyhoo, yes, we had a wonderful time, and now I am lonely without visitors. But not for long- my mom is flying in today! Just a few more hours, actually. I still need to wash the sheets for her bed.

Ezekiel is doing wonderfully, of course! Today his physical therapist said he should be the poster-child for the NICU because he is developing right on target. She was very pleased with his progress in head control, visual tracking, and flexibility. We're pleased, too.

Alright I always just stop writing, I never feel like I really finnish a blog- I get distracted, and then just publish it.

All is quiet on the Pike front

2009-01-04T22:45:00.003-06:00

I haven't blogged in a while because we have friends visiting! Aimee and Nathan! We are having a blast. I just love having people over. I really think I am about 99% extroverted... I never thought I was, but I am learning that I was wrong. I love being around people almost allllll the time. Anyhoo, they are here for a week, and we are doing all sorts of fun things. First of all, Aimee already made us homemade bread AND she is going to make a bunch of casseroles tomorrow to stick in our freezer!! Awesome!! I am so excited to not cook for a while. She is also going to make me homemade laundry soap, and I am thrilled! Apparently this recipe makes 5 gallons at a time-- that's like 150 loads or something-- this stuff will last forever! I am soo excited! We are also planning to make homemade soap. Daniel and I normally make it, but we've been out of it for a while so I'm glad to have it again soon-- it's the best soap I've ever used. I love it. We wrote out a whole giant list of things to do-- they have to go to the river walk, and they are going to go over to Corpus Cristi sometime, and other things. Lots of fun things. Yay!

After they visit, Daniel's Dad and Teresa are coming down. Thanks for all the awesome delicious organic pasture-raised chicken, beef and pork you sent down with Aimee and Nathan! Our deep freezer is almost completely FULL now!! THANK YOU!!

In other news, Daniel is completely back to work now, and a little sad. He hasn't been on a proper schedule since May. Yes, May. In May/June he was in Peru for 6 weeks (for the military), and then in July he took a few weeks off so we could go to Kentucky/Ohio to visit family and go to camp (where we met as kids!). Then BOOM right after we got back home (2 days) I went into early labor and had Ezekiel. Well he had quite a few weeks off when Ezekiel was first born, and then was back to work half time until we brought Ezekiel home on December 5th, at which point he took more vacation days, leading up to Christmastime where he had MORE time off, and then now it's 2009. I must say, though, for all the time off he had this year, he has waaay more than made up for it in previous years. The military works you hard!

Ezekiel is doing really really well. Last week at the doctor's he was 9lbs 6oz, so he's probably close to 10lbs now! He's off of his oxygen almost all the time. He's cooing and grabbing at things, and he's started holding his own hands. He can push himself up when he's on his tummy, he has good head control, and he can scoot all over the place (but not crawl). He tries really really hard to roll over but hasn't really made it yet. He is so sweet, and we love him. He sleeps well. He's a little doll! I'm crazy about him! I have a lot of pictures that I need to upload from the camera. I will have to put some more up soon. Today is his "two month" birthday, as it is two months past his due date. Tuesday will be his "five month" birthday, as he will actually be 5 months old. He's so wonderful and I am so thrilled to have him!!

Happy New Year everyone!!!

Daniel would sooo do this.

2008-12-29T16:26:00.005-06:00

see more pwn and owned pictures

I admire this guy's creativity. I say this is a creative-WINboat. Oh, and I don't know why the picture is hanging off the side of my blog. Oh well.

Another little video

2008-12-24T12:25:00.002-06:00

This is Ezekiel with his girlfriend, Aleah. This is from last week-ish. They had fun :)

A little video

2008-12-24T10:34:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas Eve Ezekiel!

No longer Backyard Farmers! :( :( :( :(

2008-12-20T20:43:00.007-06:00

Look at that handsome little man! There is no denying that he looks some like me. I'm the third picture.

He's waving at you!

We will no longer be "backyard farmers." It's so sad. We sold our cute little goats and bunnies (except for Hunza, of course) this week because we are starting to get ready to sell our house. You can't very well sell a suburban house with a backyard full of.... 5 chickens, 3 rabbits, 2 goats, and 2 ducks. It just doesn't fly. So I finally put an ad up on Craigslist and got quite a few responses. The first guy to respond was super cool-- he lives in a sustainable intentional community and has his PhD in sustainable agriculture or something like that! We were sooo excited- he does all sorts of cool things (like living in a house made of shipping containers and going on humanitarian missions teaching people how to make windmills and organic farming and everything!!) and was really really nice. He was great with the animals (he bought the two rabbits and the goats) and I felt very satisfied for them to go to a GOOD new home. He told us we were welcome to come out to the farm anytime and see things. They even teach classes at their farm about everything they do, and he writes papers about all of it. So cool!! Here is their community farm, although their website needs a little love. Click here to see what they are all about!

Since Daniel took down the rabbit housing, Hunza is hanging out on the ground until we come up with a new plan for him (he's been banished to the great outdoors since Ezekiel has come home). The chickens come to check things out. This was too funny- they were so curious. At least Hunza didn't seem to mind.

We're keeping the chickens until we actually put the house on the market and get ready to move, since they are such good layers and they are so easy to take care of. At least we will still have them.... the backyard is so boring now! I will have to change the title of my blog.

I guess the plus out of all this is that we got $140 for selling the animals, which we decided to use for Christmas money. We weren't going to get eachother anything, but now we each get $70... we're waiting until after Christmas to get all the after Christmas sales and we are exchanging gifts on New Years. It will be fun.

5lbs potatoes + 3lbs rice = 8lbs Ezekiel

2008-12-14T14:35:00.006-06:00

I finnished my sling!! Before I actually put Ezekiel in it, I wore it around with a bag of potatoes and a bag of rice to get used to the way it feels. Let me just tell you.....

Zeke LOVES this thing!!

I'm happy with the way it turned out, especially for my first try. I ordered 5 more sets of rings because I know about a katrillion pregnant people who will be wanting baby gifts, and I want a second.. third.... fourth one for myself. I think I will have to order more rings.

This one is made of two layers of plain old cotton. It is in theory reversable, although I think I prefer the brown being on the outside (except the brown tends to gather lint). I made it 30" wide by 2.5 yards long, which was the largest size according to the directions. I think for the next one I will make it 26" wide, as the pleated area is so large it either inhibits the use of my left arm or cuts into my neck, depending on how it's worn. I am happy with the length, though-- I like the long tail. I think I will also make future slings with just one layer of heavier material instead of two layers of medium weight material-- this one is a little bulky (although it's getting broken in).

Ezekiel does not want to be put down. He wants to be in this thing all the time-- I'm wearing him right now as I type! And he's sleeping! We tend to get a little sweaty in the sling, so he's just in his diaper. I'm a little worried that he will sleep all day and then be up all night- as it is, he likes to be awake from about 3-5am. I'm glad he's so happy in this thing, because (at least the last few days) he seems to be kind of a fussy baby. He's rarely content to just hang out with himself. Now he can hang out with me! We're totally portable! Well, within the 25 feet of his oxygen tube, that is. :) Here is an awesome website about baby wearing!

Alright he's getting hungry- bye!