Sledding

A week or so ago, we had a sledding party of sorts. The older Kinne children, Joshua, Josiah, Mr. Reiche and I all went together to General Squire Hill. The Kinne's had never been there so it was fun to "show them the ropes."

At first they were all content to slide down the hill in the usual manner.

Well, at least, mostly in the usual manner. A few of them "accidentally" flipped around on the way down and went down the rest of the way backwards! =)


So as I said, at first everything was normal, that is until the boys noticed a relatively large bump/ramp that had been built on the other side of the hill. Of course they could not rest until they had tried it out.

When they did, they found themselves flying through the air before landing with a resounding bump!

Here is a video of them all going down one after another. It is quite amusing, I hope you enjoy!

~Chs

Growing Puppies.

The puppies that I told you about in an earlier post are growing up! And they are getting cuter every day!

They all have incredibly different personalities and charming ways.

This little puppy is Maggie, and I think she is the cutest! Though it is very hard to decide because they are all so adorable!

As you can see they still have a lot of skin to grow into;) but they are working hard at it. They eat as much as possible and even try to steal their Mom's and Aunt's and Uncle's food. But they are almost cute enough to get away with anything.

~Chs

Josiah's Birthday

Our family's "baby" turned 16 last week, and no we can't believe it either. Josiah has grown up to be a wonderful young man though. He has the delightful way of making anyone laugh no matter what is their difficulty, yet he can also be perfectly serious and have a intelligent conversation with someone. Some of his interests are: Creation (including AIG ministry), Old America and how they did things at the beginning of our country and of course biking and hiking outdoors.

His birthday started with breakfast in bed, accompanied by some new overalls from Mom and Dad.


Later in the morning Josiah and I experimented with a prickly pear cactus that I had gotten for him and made prickly pear lemonade. It was quite good, though I think we need to perfect our recipe before we bottle and sell it.=)


When lunch was concluded we went out in the weather for a hike at Beaver Lake trails. This had become an annual birthday event for Josiah and as last year, Mr. Reiche accompanied us. This time we headed out onto Beaver Lake since it was completely frozen. It was quite the feeling walking in the middle of a huge lake and knowing that there is water under your feet.


After hiking around all the paths, we made it to the tippy top of Pinnacle Peak. The sight from there is marvelous.


Josiah was sweet enough to pose for me for Birthday shots, some of them with his new grappling hook.


After the shoot was over we descended from the peak and took the shorter loop (which was still quite long). We went past a couple lakes and searched in vain for Winter Green berries.


One of the Lakes had an outlet that trickled across the paths on a little rocky bed, and then flowed into Spring Bank Creek which traverses all over Beaver Lake trail. We finally made our way back to the van and headed home.


As soon as we arrived home, I began my work on Josiah's cake which he wanted 3D. I called in reinforcements, namely Mr. Reiche, who helped me with the roof. Though it was very difficult, Josiah was pleased with it and it tasted good!


Josiah is an avid reader and also extremely talented at putting together puzzles. One of his gifts was a Farm Puzzle and he finished it in one day!
We are very thankful for our youngest and pray that God might bless him in his future years.

~Chs

The long overdue graduation program

Christianna Hope Sauvé, finished her Homeschool-High school education last June but due to many distracting activities in 2010, including Grandma Learned's passing, Joshua's graduation from National Guard training, and John's wedding, we forgot to officially recognize her graduation. Thus, we finally made an effort with family and a few friends to acknowledge her accomplishments via a brief program in mid- January, 2011.

Many of her drawings, school reports, creative writing and pictures of programs she participated in over the years were spread out on the tables for all to enjoy.

After a brief introduction and prayer by Dad, Cathy (Mom) gave an account of Christianna's academic and homemaking achievements, which included reciting poetry, acting in historical plays, making posters and displays for history and science programs, playing the piano and harp, and learning to cook, sew and knit. (The beautiful dress she was wearing was evidence of her sewing skills.)

Christianna shared some of her musical talents. She played "Abide with me" on her harp.

She also performed a piece by Phil Coulter on the piano.

She recited two poems as her audience listened intently; "My Shadow," which she had recited when she was 5, and "The Last Hymn," which was the last poem she learned.

At the end, Dad & Mom presented her with her diploma which said she had officially graduated from the Sauvé Christian Academy.

We then all enjoyed a piece of her graduation cake, ice cream and hot punch.

We are very thankful to God for Christianna, her love for the Lord and for the things He has enabled her to accomplish.

The fun of winter.

This winter God has blessed us with extremely cold weather and just enough snow for unsurpassed fun. We have managed to enjoy the weather more than we have in past years and in this post I will highlight a few of our activities.

Of course, one of the things that cannot be left undone is sledding at Mr. Reiche's famous sled run.


So far we have been there only twice but we hope to return many more times before the weather warms up.


The best time to go is at night when Mr. Reiche has the run all lit up, but it is still a blast any time of the day and Mr. Reiche will always have the fire lit and roaring.


Josiah and I were able to go with the Bryson family a couple weeks ago and had a wonderful time going down and up and sledding back down, and then climbing back up. One of the unrivaled aspects of Mr. Reiche's run is that you do not get tired climbing back up the slope because it is so gentle, and yet, it is just as thrilling a ride down as any steep hill.


Dad always makes amazing snow animals in the winter. So far this winter he has made an alligator, Squealer our guinea pig, and an unknown wolf like creature.


Josiah's second annual snow ball fight was held a couple weeks ago, and some of the boys younger siblings stayed for a little while and played with Faith and I. I don't know but if we had as much fun as the boys.


We had our own sort of snow ball fight. A very gentle sort of one.


Some of us went sledding, over and over and over again.

And most of us helped build a family of snowmen. Meet Papa, Mama, and baby Frigid.

Out front, the boys were participating in a much more serious snow ball fight with balls whizzing around at alarming speeds and numbers.

The rules for the game were loosely base on Capture the Flag. One side had an American flag while the other proudly flew a Mexican flag. The fighting was fierce and hot and many men were hit on both sides, but after a few rounds the two opposing sides made a mutual agreement to halt and fast became friends again around cookies and hot chocolate.
I hope you have enjoyed a brief peek at our activities of this winter and I am sure there will be many more to come, before the warm weather descends.

~Chs

Processing Turkeys.

This post is not for the faint of heart. It includes graphic details that young children should see only with parental supervision=) Please do not continue reading if you have trouble hearing about People Eating Tasty Animals.
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We were very blessed a couple weeks ago to be able to purchase two naturally raised turkeys..... Live.
Yes, we had to butcher them ourselves, but that would be no problem!! We had butchered chickens, turkeys shouldn't be too different, right?


Well, to begin with these two birds had gone quite a few weeks past their butchering date and therefore were huge!! They were very hard to pick up, not only because of their weight but they also both were proud possessors of two extremely powerful wings.


We finally were able to hook them up, but the bungee cords stretched and left the Turkeys nearly touching the ground. Which turned out to be a problem during their last death throws (I believe that the details are not necessary at this point, use your imagination:)


So once they were really dead, we cut off their heads, plucked off the feathers and then...


cleaned them out. Everything went just as planned, though Faith said that just as the turkey was five times larger than a chicken, it also smelled five times worse.

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Next came the extremely fun part.... Processing the Turkey!!!!!! The first Turkey we chopped up and froze.

One of the breasts weighed 3 1/2 pounds, and this was the smaller Turkey!!!
Then....

I brined the other Turkey, and the remaining parts of the first Turkey over night. One of the Breasts we chopped off to make into Turkey Sausage. The rest we stuffed and cooked in the oven for supper.


These two massive legs completely filled a 9 x 13 pan!


We ground up the turkey breast with a nice heavy duty meat grinder Faith had found at our thrift store!!! It worked wonderful!


After the turkey was ground Faith combined three different recipes and a dash of her own whimsy, to make turkey sausage.


Some of which we made into patties and froze.


Last of all for dinner we made one of the most delicious casseroles in the world! We call it leftover Thanksgiving Casserole. Layers of potatoes, Turkey, stuffing and gravy make up this wondrous dish, add a side of home made cranberry sauce and you have perfection!

~Chs

How to take a bath in the winter time.

The first things you must have (as a duck) to get warm bath water, is a adorable green head, a sweet quack and charming ways.
The second is a Human who is absolutely devoted to your happiness. For ultimate success, it helps to have a partner in crime. They don't even have to be highly intelligent, just cute. A large, loud Rouen Drake, for example, will do quite well.
Now when your human comes to let you out in the morning, make sure after quacking a greeting that you wiggle your adorable tail, and make pitiful attempts at taking a bath on the hard snow. It also helps if you get your pal to go and walk/sit on the empty or icy pool in your yard, all the time quacking as loud as he can. By this time you have done all you can to soften the hard heart of your human, the next step is to wait patiently.
As soon as can be expected you should see her come laboring back toward you with two buckets of steaming water. Now, quack as much as possible to encourage her, and to tell her to get over here as soon as possible! Side step and murmur suspiciously as she enters your yard and begins to pour the water into your pool. As soon as she turns around dive in and enjoy!!

Ahh the joys of warm water, and humans who serve you wholeheartedly is wondrous.

Make the most of your water, for despite your protests, you might not get water every day.

I do hope these tips have been more than helpful to all you ducks out there, I must now return to the full time job of making my girl think that I love her with my whole heart, and that I will die without warm bath water.
Sincerely Mr. Dick, esq.