Where I've been...

After some months hiatus, I’m back to writing, hopefully for a while at least…

There probably hasn’t been a day in the last several months where I haven’t been engrossed in some activity only to find myself thinking of how I would write about it on my blog, but it never gets done, because I always want to add pictures and I can’t upload on slow speed and I never seem to get to town. So, now or never I’m going to throw away that excuse and begin to write picture free…thanks Beck for the nudge!

I could go way back with stories I want to tell, but then I’d forget the ones that just happened, so I’ll just start with Saturday. It was a fine day, the weather has been so nice for the last week…up until today that is! With highs in the –5 to +5 degree Celsius range, its like springtime in Manitoba! In order to make the most of the beautiful weather, I had to wait for Lorelei to have a nap before I could go outside, so after breakfast, diaper change and some playtime/check email time for mommy, she was off to sleep and I was headed out. First, I had to do my daily chores. With my freshly washed milk pail, half full of hot water, in hand (yup, it’s the same milk pail dad used to milk the cow when we were kids) I joined Sneef on the well packed trail to the barn…it was then that I noted one downfall of the extra nice weather, my trail was beginning to fall apart, and if I wasn’t careful where I stepped, I slid off into the 10-12” of loose snow along the way…all good things come with a price I suppose!

Roy met me inside the door of the barn, as usual, anxious for acess to his mother, who made her usual grunted moo of a greeting from the box stall and waited rather impatiently for me to move her to the milking stall so she could get her oats. First though, I needed to empty the afore mentioned half-full milk pail into the chicken’s waterer, and while I was there, I gathered the eggs, which, for a change, are not frozen! The cold weather really did a number on my eggs, often none made it to the house in one piece and Sneef has enjoyed many an eggsicle this winter! The chickens have outsmarted me again, I find, as they discovered the only spot that I hadn’t looked for eggs, and laid there…a dozen eggs to be exact, and all but two are frozen, and who knows how old! I decided to clean it out later,.

Gathering my buckets I head to the feed room: one slightly larger then a gallon bucket for oats for Daisy, one 3 gallon pail for chicken feed and one slightly smaller than a gallon pail to scoop up the cat food with. When I entered the feed room – which is supposedly cat-proof, I notice several things out of place, most notably, the garbage pail is across the room and the dead chicken I had placed in there the day before is now absent…how?? Didn’t take long to find out! Lickety, the slim and flighty orange barn cat nearly dive-bombed me as he jumped from the hole in the ceiling into the middle of the room – about a 9’ drop! I then see the feet of the bird carcass sticking out of an empty feedbag in the corner of the room and note the cat’s round belly…so much for trying to prevent the cats from eating chicken! I chased Lickety to see if he could get out the way he came, bad idea! It seems his escape route consisted of jumping onto the seat of my saddle and launching himself towards the ceiling in a flying leap, he then caught the beam with one brawny paw and flipped away into the attic. My poor saddle. It is now covered to prevent further injuries, but the leather will never recover from the sharp claws of the hungry cat! I guess he saved me the trouble of hauling the chicken to the burn barrel.

After feeding the cats and hanging the pail of oats within my reach but beyond the reach of Roy, I filled the chicken feeder and returned to tie Roy up while I moved his mother to the milking stall. One time I neglected to do this, and the hungry calf of course made a beeline for his mother’s udder as soon as he could get to it and being the good motherly cow that she is, she wouldn’t move until he was finished…so much for that day’s milking! I sat down at Daisy’s udder while she munched away happily on her oats. I start off milking alone, but when she gets ornery and decides not to let down any more, I let Roy in and we share the udder, which means I have to milk extra fast to try and get all the milk I want before he decides he wants the teats I’m milking! When I got my usual 2.5L I let him have the rest and I went outside to fork some hay out for the cow and calf to eat.

Since it was such a nice day, I took extra time to fork some straw out for fresh bedding. After I let Daisy and Roy out for the day, I decided I should clean some of the manure out of the box stall…that cow can really put out the crap! After a few mishaps with the cheap wheelbarrow tipping over, I finally had 6 loads delivered to the pile in the middle of the barnyard, and I proceeded to bringing in new bedding for the stall and the chicken pen. With my eggs in my pocket (carefully, since I know from experience that they make a real mess when they get broken in my pocket) and my milk pail in hand, I closed up the barn and headed for the house.

Lorelei was still sleeping, so after feeding Sneef, I headed to the shop to see what Trevor was up to. He was engrossed in fixing some leak on “Pinky”, so I wandered into the shop to take a look at our Christmas present from his parents – a combination plunge/fixed router. I read the pitiful operators manual and unwrapped everything. That was all I had planned to do, but with silence still coming over the baby monitor and the allure of trying something new, I set out to figure out the machine. I don’t think I’m ready to do any real work with it yet, but I did manage to edge some boards fairly decently… Really all it did was inspire me to want to use it more and made me covet the router tables I’d seen in magazines! While I was in the middle of trying to get it back apart to fit in the storage case, I heard Lorelei wake up.

After lunch, we decided it was too beautiful of a day to work inside, and since the pile was getting low, we headed for the in-law’s farm to get some firewood. Grandma had the weekend off, so Lorelei was happy to spend a couple hours with her while daddy and I did some work. Trevor left with “Pinky” (the bulldozer) to go the 1 ½ miles cross country to the farm, while I bundled up Lorelei and went the 6 miles around by winter passable roads with his truck. I dropped Lolo off at the house and joined Trevor down the hill at a bush pile that had been created a few years earlier to make room for another building in the barnyard. He climbed off the dozer and motioned for me to get up after telling me what I should do. So I got to run Pinky, pulling the logs out of the pile after he put the chains on them, and stirring up the pile with blade. This was only my second time running the dozer, and I’m definitely not a smooth operator, but it was fun! I also ran the chainsaw for a bit, but mostly I just loaded the wood into the truck. It was a beautiful afternoon and the exercise felt wonderful!

We did a bit of a repeat performance after lunch on Sunday, this time I cut about half the load of wood while Trevor loaded, then we switched. On Monday I even took time to split some wood after doing my chores, much to my back’s chagrin, but after the initial complaints from my unused muscles, it felt pretty good, and since the temperature dropped hard over night to –15, the wood split easily, so I was able to feel like I actually accomplished something!

I DO have pictures to prove all this, Trevor always makes sure to photo document when I’m doing “manly” things…then he uses those pictures for his computer background…so far its been riding, grinding parts off of pinky, driving the dozer, sawing wood, oh and there might have been one or two non-manly ones that included Lolo.

I’ve spent the last couple of days perusing seed catalogues when I have a moment to sit down, and I’ve got some big ideas for my summer garden! I can’t wait! I’m also headed back to work at the beginning of February most likely, but only for 2 days a week…although I’m still waiting for final word from my employer on dates and details. I guess its about time to quit writing, get this posted and get outside for my chores…Lorelei is looking like she’s almost ready for her nap…and so the cycle continues…

I AM still alive!

Ah...its been a while, but lots has gone on - and what I really wanted to do was a pictoral guide to my excuses for not blogging...but since I have no patience for uploading on my slow speed 'net and I'm not sure how to link in pictures from any of my online albums, I guess I'll just be writing a bit...
So what HAVE I been doing with all the spare time I must have since I'm not blogging...

-Lorelei...besides the usual, feeding, diapering (and washing diapers) and carrying around - I've been playing piano with her, reading her books, tossing her around (she loves this, I think she's going to be an adrenaline junky!), having tickle time, enjoying bath time, and of course many miscellaneous adventures! She is almost 7 months old now, she can sit, does lots of rolling and wriggling around to get where she wants to go, and I'm sure she'll soon be crawling! She has two teeth now and loves to feed herself mum-mums.

-Garden...Well, truthfully, I haven't spent as much time on the garden as I should have, it ended up with a LOT more weeds in it then I had planned...but it has also produced well, so I can't complain...I have just a few carrots...they didn't germinate well; lots of lettuce and spinach...which I didn't use as much of as I had hoped/planned; a ton of beets...anyone want some? I can't eat THAT many red things!; Quite a fair number of beans...I just pulled out the plants and they're in the truck waiting for their trip to the horse pasture; a few peas...the most inefficient vegetable ever; a nice crop of onions; two very prolific zucchini plants; a very prolific spaghetti squash...it has over a dozen good sized fruit on it; a golden hubbard squash plant...not as prolific; some wonderful cucumbers; and last but not least a few lonely potatoes...I didn't have room for many...my garden was packed and planted too close together as it was! I did attempt to plant some in a strip of broken up ground across the yard, but the cow ate the tops off, and I think the competition from thistles and quack grass did them in. I am stil going to check and see if they happened to produce though!

-Canning & Freezing...Somewhat related to the above, but I have some pleasantly full shelves in the coldroom now and my freezers are filling up! I froze beans, peas, 20+ bags of raspberries, shredded zucchini and applesauce. I canned Apple Juice, apple butter, apple sauce, apple jelly, dill relish, zucchini relish, zucchini dill pickles, cucumber dills, sweet dilled cucumber slices and peach raspberry jam!

-Farm stuff...Milking the cow each morning (I've experimented with making some cheese, yogurt and cooking with lots of cream and milk!), tending to my declining flock of chickens...now down to 14.5 hens, and helping with fencing, checking cows and cleaning the barn.

-Projects...mostly of the sewing type of late...reparing diapers and mending clothes and making gifts.

-The Usual...of course there is the never-ending tasks such as laundry, cleaning, lawn mowing, dishes, cooking, grocery shopping and so on...but we find ways to make them at least bearable!

So, I guess thats my update for now, since LoLo is fussing and needs to have a nap! I'll be back...no telling when!

Life goes on!!

Yes, life goes on and it doesn't pause long enough for a person to blog about it sometimes...I just said to Trevor last night that I wish there were a couple more hours in the day for me to blog about my life...I'm constantly thinking of how I would write about the happenings of each day, from getting up in the morning to milk my cow and gather the eggs, putting in the garden, chasing cows, and of course, all of Lorelei's little antics. She is so big now - she'll be 4 months on friday, wow, how time flies!! She wants to sit and stand in our laps now, rather then being mostly in a laying down position, and when she's on the floor she wiggles herself around in circles and giggles and squeals in delight while pulling on the toys on her play-gym thing. She loves to crane her neck to see what is behind her and her other favorite game is looking in the mirror and laughing at our reflections. She is a menace in the bathtub now, kicking and splashing like a little duck! But, life doesn't leave me time to write about all the little things...I'll try to do better, but I'm not sure how that will work, especially since I plan to add "Trainig my 3 year old mare" to the list of daily tasks now that we have the round pen set up again! LoLo is fussing, saying its time for her nap, so I have to quit writing, I hope to go till my mother in law's garden while LoLo is sleeping this morning (yes I'm taking her with, don't worry :) It will be a nice surprise if I can get it done before my MIL gets home from town :) I hope you all are enjoying the begining of summer - its been so cold and wet here that I'm still waiting for my lilacs and irises to bloom - my peonies just started to bloom yesterday...ahh beautiful summer!

Long time Gone...

Its been a long time since I posted - and while I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, a lot has happened in the last few months!
The blessing of our daughter came into our life on the 19th of February at 12:40AM she weighed 8lbs 8ozs and it was a fairly easy and quick labour. I was induced, but everything went pretty well - I ended up taking an epidural because my blood pressure was going up too high with the pain. It was an amazing experience, but nothing prepared me for the changes in my life over the following few weeks. It really has been a difficult couple of months and we have had lots of growing and changing to do to keep up with the challenges.

It is very tempting to just put on a strong face and tell everyone that I'm doing wonderful and everything is great every day, but if I'm being truely honest I have definitely had some major struggles and am very thankful for the help that family and friends have extended to me. I have been learning many things about myself, about life and mostly about the Lord and His true care for me. The Lord is true to His word - "These things I have spoken unto you that in me ye might have a peace. In the wolrd ye SHALL have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33

The Lord created us and gave us free will to make the decisions that we want to make- but He also provided us with a way of salvation because of His great Love by sending us His Son to die as a sacrifice for our sins. Even though we may take the free gift of salvation that He has provided for us - He still promises that we will have trouble - this is because of the evil that is in the world and the sin that is in each of us. Even though we have been saved from the eternal consequences of sin, we still must deal with it in our day to day lives because we are not yet perfected, but merely sinners who have been saved by grace. We look forward to the day when we will be perfected and will spend eternity with and like our Lord, but on this earth we must still face day to day life. We have a major advantage over those who have rejected or not yet accepted the truth of the Lord - we have His power in our lives to overcome the hardships day to day, we have the hope of His promises for eternal life and blessing and we have His presence and covering power available to us every day- "God is our refuce and strength, a very present help in trouble" Psalm 46:1

Even though I know the truth and the promises and wonderful Love that the Lord has for me - the sinner within me is easily distracted by the cares of this world, and I have to admit that I have definitely been dealing with the effects of this more since the birth of my daughter - it has made me more aware of the trouble that is present in this world, and unfortunately I have allowed myself to dwell too much on those things sometimes instead of looking at the hope the Lord has provided me. I am very thankful for His Word - I have often neglected the reading of my bible daily, but this is something that has been a very big encouragement to me in the last while.

I know that there is a reason for each thing that we go through, but it is hard to see that when we are going through the trouble - but I trust that the Lord will use this in my life, maybe it is my chance to be an encouragement to others who are going through this same difficulty someday or maybe it is just to teach me how to be a stronger person and encourage me to grow closer to the Lord.

I'm not saying that I've figured everything out and I'm on easy street now, but I feel like I have come a long way towards a better understanding and greater confidence in the Hope that He has given.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation: whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life: of whome shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart will not fear, though war should rise against me, in this will I have confidence." Psalm 27:1-3

I am so thankful for the all-powerful and all-loving God who is my creator and my strength each day - I don't know how I could continue each day without Him.

I ask that you pray for me if you will and want you to know that I pray for as many of you as I know and remember each day - another privilege that we have - to support each other not only physically but also in prayer.

Lorelei Virginia - April 9, 2009