To Paradise and beyond.

September 5th marked the 30th anniversary of Paul and Cathy Sauve.  To celebrate this momentous occasion, we, their children, sent them off on an adventuresome journey to the far off lands of the Upper Peninsula.

 Their first stop was Paradise.

Their room looked right out onto Lake Superior; the view was fabulous.

The next day they traveled out to Whitefish point.

The picture above is a ship's rudder, magnificently enormous!!

The wind buffeted the Lake creating spectacular waves,

and the shore was scattered with unique pieces of drift wood.

The next stop was the Tahquamenon falls.

"We were there!"

They visited a number of other smaller falls, one of them being Mother's favorite, the Wagner falls.

When the falls had been exhausted, they took the pictured rocks tour. 

Magnificent cut outs and caves passed their view.

Along the bay stood the old light house, weather beaten yet still standing sentry.

There last stop on the voyage was Mackinac Island, the grand hotel came into view as they took the ferry to the Island.

Mom and Dad were very blessed to be able to abide in the same Inn that they had stayed in 30 years ago on their Honeymoon.

They were served an elegant dinner followed by a exquisitely sumptuous dessert.

Retiring to their room they found it luxurious and...

magnificently decorated.

The last day of their little get away was spent touring the island by bike.

They visited Arch rock,

as well as some other of the historical sights, before turning in their bike and gathering their luggage for the homeward voyage.

God blessed them with beautiful sunny weather their entire stay, while the rest of us down here were enduring cloudy and wet weather.  They were very blessed by the time they were able to spend together, and brought home many pictures and even more memories.
~Chs

Just one normal day. Part One

 Living in the country is not as relaxing and charming as some would have you think.  We have learned that in a big way since we moved "up north" 4 years ago.  It has always been enjoyable, but sometimes in a hectic busy always doing something sort of way.  This year especially we have had a hard time settling down to figuring out what "normal" is.  So I thought I would give you a peek into our real life, with a few real life blow by blow day posts.  This is a summary of one of the more busy "normal" days of butchering season from a couple weeks ago.

The Butchering process always begins in the morning, right after devotions.  We try to start at 9:00, but it never really works that way.

On a normal day, 20 chickens will be dispatched, plucked, and cleaned, in 2-3 hours.

From start to finish, butchering is a family affair, (and as butchering goes, a kind of fun and rather amusing process)  Josiah takes care of the bloody part:) then Mother or I dip the bird in hot water before handing them off to Dad and I to pluck. The last person in the assembly line is Faith.  She takes care of the gutting.

This day, our work switched from animal to vegetable after noon.  Tomatoes were sitting on the porch ripening fast, and if we didn't get to them, the fruit flies would.  First on the agenda were diced tomatoes.

The tomatoes were blanched, then peeled and chopped, while the jars were heated in the steam canner.

Add a little bit of salt, bring to a boil and you're ready to fill the jars and set them canning.

In between times, there was always Beans to snap.  Now they are slowing down, but back then we were picking pounds each day!

Peach season was in full swing, and like most summer fruits, peaches don't wait around for you to have some "spare time" so that to was on our agenda.

Canning peaches has to be one of my favorite occupation, because I get to eat all the broken pieces!:)  We were in the midst of canning peaches, getting dinner, and going out to milk the goat, when the phone rang and upon answering we were greeted by the voice of Mr. Reiche.  Soon it was settled that Mr. Reiche was going to come over  after dinner to show us some pictures etc.  Faith was no sooner off the phone when one of us exclaimed, "Mr. Reiche is coming over, we need to have Elderberry pie!"  Mr. Reiche had first introduced us to Elderberry pie, by informing us that his mother used to make it for him and that it was his favorite.  Now every year we try to remember to make one for him when the Elderberries come on.

All these thoughts quickly passed through our heads, and Josiah was dispatched with a ladder to our bush to acquire the tasty berries.

It was prime picking season, and soon with the help of his height, a ladder, and the golf cart, Josiah managed to get two baskets full.

 

Now came the tedious part of the procedure.  Picking the miniscule berries of their web like stems.

 

Meanwhile the Kitchen was a place of flurried activity, as we tried to clean up from a long day of canning.

 

When all the berries were picked, Faith went at work to make the pies, as only she knew how. (you can find the recipe for Elderberry pie here)

The kitchen was cleared, the pie shoved into the oven...

And the sliced peaches put in the steam canner to can.

 
It was a delightful evening, the pie was succulent, the fellowship sweet, and that nights sleep was the sleep of one who is satisfied with the work that God has allowed him to accomplish.
~Chs

A Step Back in Time

It was the day after we had finished butchering the last of our summer batch of meat chickens. We were rather exhausted, and quite done with the whole process, and so decided to take a holiday.

Wednesday dawned cloudy and cool as the Sauve family loaded into faithful Ginger (our van:) and headed out to Crossroads village.  Faith and I had been once before to this quaint little "village" that is set back in the late 1800's, and had always wanted to take the family for a field trip.

For those of you that are familiar with Greenfield village/Henry Ford, Crossroads Village is a bit of a miniature Greenfield village with some parts that, in my opinion, exceed Greenfield village in enjoyment.  One of these is the historic/antique running train.  We took tickets for the 12:00 train, and then went to walk through as much as the village as possible before our departure.

 

Our first stop was the General Store/gift shop. The front part was full of old fashioned candy, and decor...

and the back of the store, had more homey craft like items, including a rocking chair which Grandpa sat down to rest in.

 

 One of the only original onsite buildings is the house of Doctor J.E Bartour and that is where our feet took us next.  It was filled with all sorts of miscellaneous medical curiosities.

 

 There was an old wicker wheelchair, and all styles and sizes of eye glasses, as well as a case full of surgical implements, including the tonsil guillotine!

 
 One case was full of tiny little bottles of pills and prescriptions.  We left the Doctors house, and after perusing his herbal garden, continued down the street.

We passed the Meeting Hall, which unfortunately was locked for the day, and then went into the Broom Barn.  A young lady there was kind enough to explain about the building, and then show the different straws used to make brooms.

When the subject of brooms had been exhausted, we crossed the street to a house with its adorable little gardens behind it.

The house had quite a lot of the original furniture, and some of the herbs from the garden were dried and hung about.  The time for our train departure was creeping up on us, and we still had to eat our lunch, so we cut across the back of the houses and were hurrying to main street, when we were stopped dead in our tracks by the sight of the Toy Barn.

The sweet little blue building beckoned us inwards, and so we stepped into a world of little wooden toys, and their Toy Maker.

Everywhere you turned there was a different toy to try out, spin, flick, toss, or whirl.  There was little merry go round like figures that you wound up and then let go, whirling up and down.  There were little punching boxers and pecking chickens.  Puzzles and push toys.  Everything hand made there at the toy barn.

 

The Toy Maker, showed us his Velocipede scroll saw, (something very hard to explain, that Josiah is very jealous of!) and made us a little puzzle piece out of scrap piece of wood.  We finally tore ourselves away, and rushed up main street to find a place to eat our lunch.

We passed Neil Woodward the local musician picking away at his banjo on the porch, before hustling along to the train station.

We gave one of the conductors (who by the way all seemed to have curly mustaches!;) our ticket, and found our way onto one of the antique, 1890 circa carriages.

The train slowly began to steam and groan, and then after a few air (and ear) splitting whistles, the engine slowly chugged down the track, towing all of us behind her.

A man back in the caboose gave us a running commentary of the passing view, through speakers set at the front of each car.  We went passed Mott lake, through woods, and across a major street in the real city.

When we went round the large loop at the end of our journey to head back "homeward" I was able to get some nice shots of the cute little red caboose tagging along at the end of the line.  We reached "the end of the line" (right back where we started) and hopped off the train to continue our perusal of the village.

One of the things that I had really wanted to do on this trip to Crossroads village, was to ride the "Superior Wheel" housed down by the dock, along with the Parker Carousel.

The Superior Wheel was built in 1910, and is still in running condition.  Or should I say flying condition?

I had never been on a Ferris Wheel before, but the ones I had seen were much much bigger, and as I discovered after I got on the Superior Wheel, much much slower.  What the Superior wheel lacked in size, it made up for in speed, as we flew round and round, catching a glimpse of Mott Lake at the top before plunging down the other side, earth bound.  If you never have ridden on the Superior Wheel, and would like a good healthy laugh while you're at it, just try to hold a conversation with the people in the cage behind you as they come into view for a max of three seconds at the top and at the bottom. Laughter was plentiful!

We made our way off the Superior wheel (once it had stopped of course;) and took slightly tottering steps to the Carousel house where we watched them spin around dizzingly, before heading off to the last section of our tour.

One small cabin next to the blacksmith shop had a manual pump behind it, where Josiah washed off his hands before we headed over to the animal enclosure right next to the cabin.

Dad quickly made friends with the little goat, until he read the sign which said "no feeding animals".  Whooops!:)

We left the cute little goats and walked towards the very back of the village where a beautiful cow and her bull calf lived. 

The cow loved Josiah and insisted on giving him kisses, while the calf was in heaven with Faith scratching it's neck.  Faith and I would have loved to stay there with the cattle, or at least take the baby calf home with us, but as neither were possible we begrudgingly left the winsome creatures for a last stop at the general store, and then homeward.

Grandpa relaxed in the rocking chairs out front while we purchased some of the sweet wares, and then we all headed out from the quaint village.

It was an immensely enjoyable and educational day, and Josiah and Faith and I, at least, cannot wait to once again take a step back in time into Crossroads Village.

~Chs