Simple Times Farming

On Tuesday, Faith, Christianna, Josiah and I spent the morning hours helping out at the Klaty's farm. They had asked us to help out with separating the goat milk to make butter, so the first couple hours we worked on figuring out the machine which was rather complicated. However, we did finally get it working and from now on it should go a lot easier. Fun Stuff!
Meanwhile, Josiah was 'helping' Chase with chores and enjoying the farm atmosphere, catching chickens and playing with the newborn goat that followed us around.
Today is our second day and along with milk separating, trimming very long over due hooves is on the schedule. We'll see how that goes! =)




Josiah, Spence and the little goat.

Missed...and etc

Just found some missed pictures from the move. I didn't want to waste them so here they are!




For a while there some of us were still living out of suite cases and no our living room did not look like this for long, but it sure was hard that first night to find all of our bedding and things!


The setting up of our long table was most entertaining as about four boys were under it holding it up as one screwed it together!


Resting on the 'sword' and word of God. =)

One of the first flowers to bloom at
our new home!!

Swinging on the tree. Josiah and Josh creatively rigged up a swing by using one of John's old weights!

Sunday evening enjoyment!

We had our friends the Brysons down for fellowship and singing Sunday night! What an enjoyable time! Here the young men are listening to and singing along with parts of Handel's Messiah.


Sitting under the lilac bush.

Young farmer boy! Sorry about the squinting, I think I have a few better pictures on my 35mm camera but their not developed yet.

'waiting for the cows to come in.' =)

...And there's so much more to come!!! Stay tuned! ; )

Mothers day beauty!

Ok, so this is old but I really wanted to share these neat pictures!

Mothers day Sunday our family met over at the Eddys and us young ladies went for a walk on the road and around our friends property. Many of the spring flowers were blooming, sending out their beautiful proclamation of God's glorious creation and design!

For the last several weeks we have been keeping an eye on a feathery family of Killdeers who had made their nest in the Eddy's front flower garden. This particular day mother bird was sitting on the nest and beautifully surrounding her were Johnny-Jump-up! Such a lovely Mothers day gift!

Happy Belated Mothers day!

Adding to the race...A birding adventure!

The weekend before our move, Saturday I think it was, a quiet little visitor came walking down our sidewalk asking for help. We had noticed a lone pigeon wandering around our at a neighbors place and seemingly not afraid of people. We tried to lure it over to us with seeds and it came pretty close, close enough even for us to notice that it had a band on one of its legs.





Faith therefore decided to try to catch it as it didn't seem to be able to fly. With a quick grab we had it and the mystery began.





Several letters, numbers and a phone number were on the tag, but we had no clue what it all meant. Faith tried to call the phone number but no answer.


Finally after searching all over the Internet, first only coming up with information for the phone number, which turned out to be from the Wabash, Indiana area, I was able to solve the mystery surrounding our friendly pigeon!


To our surprise we had in our hands an American Racing Pigeon from the Fort Wayne, Indiana pigeon racing club!!! How exciting!!! The only problem was it was only two days before we started to move and also the next day was Sunday, wherein we would be gone up north all day! Thankfully, even though we were not able to get hold of the owners, we were able to get hold of another club member and he was going to check it out. However, when he called back he said that he could find no record of the bird and that if we just made sure it had food and water for a few days, we could then let it go and hopefully it would find its way home. Monday morning came around and the pigeon was looking like it was ready to fly. Faith climbed out onto the roof and sent it on it's way. We hoped it would find the right flight wave and head back home.







~Researching about the birds I found out that these pigeons are being trained to race up to 200 miles and it seemed to be quite the extensive group/union that was founded back in the 1800's though of course back then they had the homing pigeons which are now extinct.




Anyways, we said goodbye to pigeon, never expecting to see it again on Wednesday when everyone was here helping load the truck and it came walking down the road to the place where it knew it could receive food. Though it seemed like it could fly, the man we had talked to before said that sometimes when they get lost they will just start walking around looking for help! Definitely what this little guy was doing!

After sitting under the front of the truck for a while it finally disappeared, hopefully heading out again to try to find its way home.


What a great experience it was anyways and being able to once again observe so closely one of God's amazing creations!


He[Noah] also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself. And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. Genesis 8:8-11

Days 2 and 3... more miles of driving and the finish line

My days were all messed up and track of time lost so if I miss quote or say the wrong date for when something happened, sorry!


On the way home one of the nights, we stopped at a gas station to fill up and saw this interesting and funny sign. Diesel Sold Here [in this lovely self-serve dispenser! =) ]





We did not take Baby up with us on Wednesday but she made sure we did on Tuesday as she wouldn't let us out of her sight and even tried to help pack!




The second trip on Tuesday was for more stuff and taking the Chinchillas up. It was forcasted storms but it was looking hopefully clear until the last leg of the trip, as we turned the corner to our street and there the storm hit and hard! We had to sit it out in the van before being able to run the little guys in. What a day!!







Billowing up over the house as we pulled up. The picture doesn't show the half of it! The sky was really dark!!



Then Wednesday was here before we could blink (or barely get any sleep) and the race was on! So many people came to help, and we were all packed in record time! Thank you all so very much for the help! We could never have done it all without all those who so willingly helped!





The biggest truck available was unfortunately even too small for all of our stuff! =)






Wow! what an empty house! Back to what it looked like 7 years ago, though its hard to remember and all the memories it's housed! God has been so good!





Yes, even with getting the largest truck, we still had things that would not fit and so it was decided that John would made a trip up with the van to drop things off and come back down to get the remaining things, but God in His wisdom had other plans!





Faith, Theresa and I were going to be taking the car up, BUT John had the keys and had already left before we realized that we could not leave! Mom and dad were going to be taking the big truck so when everything was finalized with the house, they left. Our dear friend Mrs. Mills, who has been such a help to us took us over to her house to stay until the boys got back with the van AND the trailer to get all that was left. Two (or was it three?) hours passed before we were able to head back over the the Fox Glen house to meet the boys who we had heard were getting closer. However as us girls waited at the house, watching the road, the adventure continued as phone call after phone call announced difficulty after difficulty as the boys (John, Josh and Shawn Eddy) had to stop as a friends to drop something off and found one of the tires on the trailer were flat. Ok, so filling it back up should be a quick fix right? Wrong! next call was that there was a large gash in the tire and they were going to try to get some tire slime to close it up. Well, then there was the next call that said that they could not find the stuff and also could not find us! (miscommunication as to whether we were at the Mills still or not!) so they left the trailer and came to rescue the damsels in distress! =)


Ok, so to make this VERY long story shorter here is what happened.... We filled up the van with what ever would fit. Left one thing for the new people and placed two other things in the care of our neighbors until we returned to retrieve them. Then we headed back over to where the trailer was and tried for about half and hour to get it to hold air

Following the boys, us girls were the tire watchers, cringing at the many bumps and ready to call the boys and tell them to pull over.

Finally we just left and taking the slower route headed home. Weary yet surging with adrenaline we drove for about half an hour before having to fill the tire with air.

On and on we drove, stopping 4 or 5 times, a few times having to push it a little farther than wanted because of not being able to find a place that had air!

Eventually we did make it home-3 hours after we had started and were completely ready to collapse into our beds.

Praise God for His mercy shown us and protecting us on our way! His love is Glorious!

The garage was packed full, so finding things was rather difficult, yet adventurous!

First night all in our new home! The boys had to sleep in the living room as their room down stairs was waiting for carpet. Thank God at least for a good nights rest!

Now begins the real adventure... the making of our new HOME!

Stay tuned for more stories and posts as I still have a lot to catch up on (even some things when still at the other house!)

We're praising God from whom all blessings flow!!

~Grace

Day #1 Friends...and a new Home!

The day the papers were signed we met down the street at the Brysons for lunch and then headed down to our soon to be new house for a walk through. From there mom and dad left for the closing and us children went back down to the Brysons to wait for the call that we now were finally *home* .
The Brysons live in an old beautiful farm house with many barns and out buildings surrounding it on ten acres. Attached to the old cow barn is the silo. Upon seeing that you could climb up the inside of this tall pillar Josh quickly ascended and peered out over the top!



Quite the view I'm sure.






All the young people went for a walk around their meadow, enjoying the view and the beauty of God's creation!







This picture of Josiah walking down the road is most puzzling.
Doesn't he look like a giant?!


When we got the call telling us to go over to our new house, the majority of us started on the1/4-1/2 mile walk down the lovely dirt road while Mr. Bryson and Daniel drove their mowers down to help us clean up the long neglected yard! *Thank you Brysons!*






Our new neighbors - A red winged Black bird and a crow greeted us from their perches on our huge play scape!



Our beautiful Lilac bush was in full bloom and gorgeously sending forth it's delightful fragrance. As the cleaning begun some of the girls helped pick bunches of the flowers and placed them in jars and vases and put them all throughout the house!

Unfortunately lilacs are not known to last more than a day, but we sure did enjoy them and the lovely fresh aroma they produced!

~More pictures and posts to come...house cleaning and unpacking comes first around here! Sorry!