Still Here

Another quick post to say we're still here, but I've been a bit too busy to get anything on this blog. My tomatoes are finally canned, my last bit of lard is rendering in the oven, and now it's just onion dehydrating and pumpkins to cook and freeze. Pretty soon I can turn my thoughts to other activities around here -- such as patching jeans.

Our kitten named Henry continues to be a source of entertainment. Our oldest cat named Funny Face lost her kittens, and after a bit of encouragement has attached herself to Henry. She is actually Henry's grandmother, but cheerfully allows him to nurse and spends quite a bit of time cleaning him up. Of course it always goes into a wrestling match.

David has a lot of fun with Henry as well. David is also blessed to sleep on the top bunk. Andrew sleeps on the bottom bunk, and sometimes in the middle of the night is awakened to Henry chewing on his ear or curling himself around his neck. I've experienced it myself, and I'd rather be sleeping!

The days are very nice -- usually in the upper 40's or low 50's -- so Henry is sent outside to check out a larger world. The nights are usually in the 20's and by now Henry is quite spoiled, so he gratefully sleeps inside. I am still hoping someone will decide to take him off our hands, and soon. Jim can tolerate a kitten in the house, but larger cats cause him to wheeze and sneeze. In other words, he is allergic to them. If someone doesn't take him soon he will have to take up residence in the barn. We have someone possibly interested, and will find out over Thanksgiving if they want him.

The sunrises have been beautiful lately. Someone commented yesterday that the sun doesn't show up until at least 8:10 in the morning. The boys and I have to sit on the far side of the kitchen table to avoid having sun in our eyes as they do their school work.

The sunsets aren't bad, either.

Indian Summer

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful fall day ... Lots of dry leaves to crunch under our feet, and plenty of sunshine. And, it was at least 70 degrees! Amazing, considering it wasn't that long ago back in early October when we had 6 inches of snow. This wonderful weather gave us a reprieve, and time to do some last minute things we didn't think we'd get done this fall.

The boys used yesterday afternoon to finish priming and begin the main coat of paint on the barn that was constructed a year ago.
Jonathan's chicks are enjoying the warmth as well. They are replacements for the loss of 40 laying hens at the end of September. That is one item I have wanted to blog about, but just haven't had a lot of extra time lately.

Peter was busy hitting the high spots.

Andrew was up on the ladder, too. You can see the finished product via a video on Andrew's blog .

Jonathan was also on the paint crew.

Sandy the cow is very pregnant, and we estimate her due date to be in the middle of this month. Won't be long before we have our own butter, cream and milk!

Here is one of the kids born last spring. We are trying to decide if we should keep this batch or sell them.

Samson is my buddy, because he knows I will throw things for him to retrieve. This basketball just happened to be handy! As it is, it's full of teeth marks.

I was able to do one of my favorite things yesterday -- hang clothes on my clotheslines!

I have lots to things to write about, but have been concentrating on getting the last of my canning done. At the moment I'm rendering lard and dehydrating onions. Not a very nice smelling combination!

Getting Ready for Winter -- Not Quite There Yet

Our snow a few weeks ago put an end to grazing our animals as they did all summer, so we needed straw to place in the barns. Unfortunately, most of the farmers in the Turtle Mountains had just cut their straw and it was laying in the fields as the snow/rains came. Jim called around to find someone willing to sell us some bales, but at that time there was none to be found.

Thankfully Jim checked with the grain elevator in town, and they recommended a couple of farmers. One farmer was willing to sell some of his bales. Instead of hauling them a few miles to our farm like we did last year, they had to make round trips of a little over 30 miles, only being able to carry 2 bales at a time with the truck and our small trailer.



I would have been interested to see how they managed to get the bales into the truck down in the field where they had been cut and baled.

Getting them out was a lot less of a problem.

Even though the straw bales weighed a lot less than hay bales, it took 3 to maneuver them into the barn.

The guys have also been busy cutting and stacking wood for heating our house. Thankfully we have lots of trees on our land that can be harvested and dry enough so they can be used this winter. Lately we've only been using the stove to take the chill out of the house in the mornings, and then allowing the fire to burn itself out during the day. Having the unfinished house above us is very good insulation.

The unfinished rooms upstairs are also good for drying potatoes. They were pretty wet when dug out of the ground while it was snowing! I'm not sure what the plan is for winter storage of the potatoes.

My tomatoes have been maturing slowly but surely. Yesterday I canned 14 quarts, and will do more again tomorrow. The buckets were formerly used to hold young trees from a nursery.

Once again we have the pleasant aroma of onions drying in the dehydrator. We have it set up in the kitchen area, and at times the scent can be rather overpowering. I would rather have it down here than upstairs, since sometimes the timer doesn't shut off the dehydrator when it's supposed to. We've given it a workout over the years, so I understand why it can be a bit tired.

I must admit I will be very thankful when my canning is over for the season. Then it's on to butchering pigs and deer!

Road Trip

Life has been exceptionally busy lately. Jim and I started out Sept. 23rd for Colorado Springs, Colorado and the Home School Legal Defense Leadership Conference.

I was a bit anxious, since we took our 22-year-old station wagon and traveled with a top speed of 60 mph -- giving us two full days of travel time. I brought all kinds of reading material, but ended up just being a tourist by soaking in the scenery as we traveled.

Most of the photos I took were through our car windows, so that is the reason for the glare. This is the type of land we traveled by as we made our way through North Dakota and some of South Dakota.

We stopped at a tourist area in Wyoming, where there was the remains of salt mining. The scenery was great! Our first day got us as far as Newcastle, Wyoming.

We actually encountered snow as we neared Colorado Springs, and a 4 car accident on the Interstate almost made us late in getting to the hotel. We managed to check in at at 4:55 p.m., and were informed we needed to be ready to board the busses for the Flying W Ranch at 5:15. And we made it!

One of the featured speakers was Dr. David Noebel of Summit Ministries. Jim and I attended all of his workshops, and he also spoke at one of the luncheons. On Friday afternoon we left a workshop early to drive over to Manitoux Springs to take a tour of the Summit Ministries campus. It is an old remodeled hotel, and the ministry has also purchased surrounding homes for office space as well as living areas for staff. They have a very nice view from over there, but the streets leave something to be desired. It reminded me of the narrow streets of Boston.

My photos are out of sequence, and for some reason I can no longer move the pictures around. Farther down you will see a photo of Summit Ministries' main building.

This is me in front of Focus on the Family headquarters. What a beautiful location! Jim and I drove over there right after a workshop by Dr. Noebel. The tour was at 4:00 p.m. and the buildings closed at 5:00, so we didn't spend a lot of time there. It was a rather chilly day. We spent a bit of time browsing the bookstore until they closed up at 5:30.

Here is Jim in front of their main area. The mountains were so nice to look at from this vantage point. I heard at one time that Dr. James Dobson views Pikes Peak from his office windows.

This is another view of the mountains from the Focus on the Family campus.

I stepped out onto a balcony to take this photo.

At the luncheon on Friday we had Dr. Dobson himself as the featured speaker. Dobsons walked right behind Jim as we were visiting with a couple from Montana just outside the dining room at the hotel conference center, and that was the closest I ever got to him. We sat in the back of the room. They were mobbed afterward with people wanting photos with them.

This is the photo I took of Jim standing across the road from Summit Ministries.

Manitoux Springs is quite the town. There are some very strange looking people walking around the main area, and Dr. Noebel made quite a few wisecracks about its inhabitants. Jim and I walked around a bit, and found a small store that custom made soaps and lotions right on the premises to suit the purchaser.

Not too far away from that store was this Dulcimer Shop. It was getting close to 5:30, but we stopped in for a quick look around. I ended up talking with one of the guys that worked there. When he found out my father-in-law had built me a mountain dulcimer, he told me to choose one of the store's models and play it. I declined, telling him that I have yet to learn how to play it. He pointed to the older man behind the counter, and told me that if I came back the next day (Saturday) I could get a free lesson from the owner of the shop. I guess the owner wrote one of the Mel Bay instruction books for the mountain dulcimer. We knew we wouldn't have time to go back, but it was fun just to think about it.

Afterward, Jim and I found a restaurant that called itself a bistro, and we stopped in there for a quick supper. We discovered after talking with one of the waitresses that it was a Polish restaurant. I've never tasted a hamburger that had the regular toppings along with fried egg and fried pineapple! Jim and I split the burger, and it was very good.

This was the hotel where we stayed, and also where the HSLDA conference was held. If you look at the upper left side of the building you will see some windows. They are located on the 4th floor, and that was where we had morning devotions as well as the keynote session for the day. Those windows were behind the speaker, and the view looked out on the mountains. It was beautiful.

This is another photo taken of the landscaping in front of the hotel.

Well, we headed back home, back through the Black Hills. We didn't go near the Presidents, but the scenery on our road was spectacular. I loved seeing all the Ponderosa Pines. That is one thing I miss about our neck of the woods; back in the Turtle Mountains in the past there had been a fire that wiped out all the evergreens, and Aspens grew up in their place. There's not much to see in the winter, at least in the way of greenery.

Lots of grain fields in North Dakota!

In fact, the grain harvest was so good this year the farmers began stockpiling grain in their fields. That was the first time I had seen this happen. Of course, if they didn't get it up before the rain and snow -- I wonder what would have happened to it.

We drove by a field of wind towers just south of Minot.

We also had 2 trucks with wind turbines pass us on the highway. They certainly are huge things.

Here is a close up of a completed wind tower.

It's good to be home!

Bracing for More Winter Weather

Once again from the Weather Service:

WINTRY MIX OF PRECIPITATION CAN BE EXPECTED TODAY AND TONIGHT ACROSS WEST & CENTRAL NO. DAKOTA.

LOW PRESSURE MOVING INTO SO. DAKOTA WILL SPREAD A WINTRY MIX OF FREEZING RAIN, SLEET & SNOW ACROSS WESTERN & CENTRAL ND TODAY & TONIGHT. ACCUMULATING SNOWFALL IS FORECAST ACROSS NW & CENTRAL NO. DAKOTA THROUGH THURSDAY MORNING, WITH THE LARGEST POTENTIAL FOR ACCUMULATING SNOWFALL OVER THE SO. CENTRAL & JAMES RIVER BASIN, WHERE 2 TO 4 INCHES IS POSSIBLE. THERE IS STILL SOME UNCERTAINTY AS TO HOW FAR NORTH HIGHER SNOWFALL AMOUNTS WILL EXTEND.

IN ADDITION, A MIX OF PATCHY FREEZING DRIZZLE & LIGHT SNOW CONTINUES ACROSS SOUTHWEST ND, WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR THIS AREA TO SPREAD NORTH AND EAST THIS MORNING. FREEZING RAIN WILL REMAIN A THREAT ACROSS THE WEST INTO THE AFTERNOON & EVENING HRS TONIGHT.

THOSE PLANNING TRAVEL TODAY & TONIGHT ACROSS WEST & CENTRAL ND CAN EXPECT VERY HAZARDOUS ROADWAY CONDITIONS. ONLY LIGHT FREEZING RAIN AMOUNTS ARE NEEDED TO CREATE ICY ROADWAYS. IN ADDITION, LESS THAN AN INCH OF SNOW FALLING ONTO WARM ROAD SURFACES WILL PRODUCE SNOW & ICE COVERED ROADWAYS AS THE SNOW MELTS & QUICKLY REFREEZES, ESPECIALLY OVER BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES.

And winter hasn't even started yet ...

You Never Know What Will Come Walking Up Your Driveway

The guys were out digging potatoes again, when someone noticed something coming up the driveway. Andrew came running in to the house where I was working, asking for the camera. It was a pelican!

It looks like the poor thing can't fly, but instead took to walking.

Now, what to do with this bird? Most birds took off when the weather turned cold.

We'll see if we can figure out what to do with him.

Feeling Better

Thankfully David is feeling better today. Cold symptoms remain, but he is definitely more perky.

David's friend is Lena; she is one of our barn cats. We think it was about a month ago when Lena birthed two kittens. This is her first time being a mama, and she definitely didn't know what she was doing. She used to haul her kittens all over the place, and I can't remember how many times the boys had to take them out of the pick-up truck (there are so many holes in the body of the truck that almost anything could crawl in there!).

We knew for certain that one of her kittens had died, and since we hadn't seen the other one around we thought it had died as well. The boys were very surprised the day the snow came, as when they tried to move the truck they discovered a kitten underneath. We knew Funny Face had her kittens, but this one was too large to be one of hers. So, it had to be Lena's. (If you look hard you will see the little black kitten by Lena.)

Jonathan brought the kitten inside since Lena was nowhere to be found. Poor thing, he was wet and shivering. We warmed him up and waited for Lena to show up.

Lena seemed thankful to find her baby, and nursed him right away. We allowed her to stay in a box with the kitten for the night. But now we had a problem.

This barn cat liked a nice warm house, with plenty of available food that wasn't up for grabs with the other cats. I caught her on the kitchen table, and promptly threw her out. We tried teaching the kitten how to drink goat milk from a saucer, but he is too young, so we had to bring Lena back in. It's a mistake to try to teach manners to a barn cat!

I know this is a lot of hoopla for a barn kitty, but we all have soft spots for cats. We have resorted to letting Lena in, give her something to eat, and then she will settle down and allow the kitten to nurse. When the kitten is satisfied we put Lena outside. We may just try to feed the kitten with an eye dropper, but so far the arrangement is working well. We may be in for trouble when the kitten decides he loves it too much in the house to even consider going outside. We'll try to find a home for him when he is old enough.

Harvesting in the Snow

Yesterday wasn't a very nice day outside, due to a lot of blowing snow and occasional blizzard conditions. Then all of a sudden the winds would calm down and the sun would come out. Then it would turn again to blizzard conditions.

We were caught off guard with our carrots and potatoes still in the ground, so blizzard or not, they had to come out. It was a cold, wet, muddy job, but the guys did a good job. Hopefully the carrots will stay nice the entire winter. They were very firm and sweet this year.

The guys had an active audience as well!

Andrew looked like he was having a nice time, in spite of the turn in weather.

Then today it was time to dig potatoes.

David and I had a very active night, as he experienced a lot of nausea and vomiting. I don't think either one of us had much sleep. We stayed in the house and kept busy with games and other diversions while the rest dug potatoes.

David's cat Funny Face tried her best to keep him comforted during our game of Mexican Train. Funny Face had kittens a couple of weeks ago but has them hidden under our semi trailer. She still comes in to eat and then goes back outside to check on her bunch.

Here is one of the potato men. One boy commented that if Jim had on a different pair of glasses he would look just like Grandpa Bartlett in this photo!

Jonathan and Peter are digging in and getting those potatoes! They are very firm and nice this year. We had mashed potatoes for supper -- our favorite way to serve them.

Kind of a gloomy photo of the house. Hopefully the sun will shine again soon.

Here is what's left of my flowers. I didn't even get seeds from them this year.