Spencer, Elizabeth, Meredith and Xavier: Farmer Kohls

My stories...

2009-01-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

I got two more pictures to post, but nothing else...sorry.

Okay, so I'll post one of the stories I wrote on here and the other, there is a link. Both were for contests, which I didn't place in. The second one (posted here) is horrible, but I'll not make excuses. The first one (the link), I thought was quite good. I spent a lot of time working on it, but it seems that I didn't put enough sexual content to win first place (I didn't put any). If I had know they were looking for that kind of stuff I wouldn't have bothered entering. Although the link is to a Harry Potter fanfiction site, so...beware. And I am a converted Severus Snape/Hermione Granger fan, so that's the pairing of the piece. I know it sounds weird, but there really is only 19 years difference between the two...weirder things have happened! The second one had to be Flash Fiction (1000 words or less) and it had to involve a flood (interpreted however I wanted). But most of the review I got on that one said they couldn't understand the story. But it's hard to fit a whole story in under 1000 words! If you'd like to comment, really be honest. Don't worry about my feelings, I'd rather get the bad news now and know what I need to improve upon then get it down the road when it's really crucial.

First story: How Severus Stole Christmas

http://www.thepetulantpoetess.com/viewstory.php?sid=12194

(I don't know enough about HTML tags to make this an actual link...sorry, you'll have to cut and paste)

Second story: Understanding

Dalton tromped through the marshy swale. He dourly scanned his surroundings, focused on his impending fate. He turned his attention to the naked trees surrounding him, arms outstretched toward the heavens praying for the early spring rains to pour upon them, bestowing greenery to their bodies. Dalton too looked up for understanding to rain down and redeem him. Sighing, he continued his search for his unsuspecting victim.

Deep in thought, Dalton unknowingly trudged past the little elf crouching in the tall grass watching with glassy eyes. Perceiving another presence Dalton swung around. Standing at full height, the elf spread his arms up and chanted in foreign tongue. The spell swallowed Dalton. Empowered with the spell’s meaning – he controlled destiny. Despite the motives for his choices, fate would shift to his needs and wants.

Dalton could here a faint grunt followed by a slightly louder thump, the sounds continued to repeat. “Urggg”…Thump! The sky gray with storm and the air full of unease, he silently drew closer. Spying a little cottage, he investigated around back; there was the man he’d been searching for. Unbeknownst to Dalton’s presence, the man continued to chop wood. A leer splayed on Dalton’s face as he relished in the feeling of what he was about to do. Just as the ax swung down Dalton shouted, “General!”

Recognizing the voice the General panicked, the ax veered off course, a sickening thud sounded as it sank into his foot, sticking. Crying out in pain, he tentatively extracted the tool. Blood spilled from the wound and soaked his leather shoe. Slowly spinning on the spot, General Gratin winced and faced his intruder. Even through the evident pain, recognition could be read in his eyes, quickly changing to fear. Gratin composed himself despite the agony.

“So you’ve finally found me. I’ve been expecting this day for sometime,” Gratin said, trying to appear calm. He pushed the wood off and sat down on the chopping stump; grimacing as he gingerly adjusted his wounded foot, blood still seeping out of the gash.

“Are you going to deny me the privilege of a fight, General?” Dalton questioned,

“Like you denied it from me in battle?”

Gratin replied with a smirk.

“If you are here to kill me I will defend myself, but I will not play games.” Gratin’s voice slightly quivered.

The General casually leaned over and picked up the hatchet lying next to the bloodied ax. Leaning over, he pulled out a swatch of fur-covered leather and polished the blade.

“What do you think happened in battle all those years ago? That I betrayed you? I was saving you! I did what had to be done.” Gratin spat.

Lies! It had taken years for Dalton’s memory to recount clearly.

Dalton searching for his fallen weapon, the elf approaching, their eyes locking with understanding. Abruptly General Gratin slashed his sword – the slice sending a shock through Dalton as the elf was struck. Realizing the next blow was for him; lunging forward into Gratin’s torso and the butt of the sword coming down upon his head. Darkness.

Dalton had stood impassively in the same spot the entire time. He’d watched the General pick up the hatchet and knew its purpose. Dalton was unfazed. Fate had bestowed a gift. Destiny would change with his will. His life was law, he could not die or fate would cease to exist.

“You tried to kill me!” Dalton screamed.

“The elf should’ve come to me, not you!” Gratin glowered then flung the hatchet.

Dalton refused to move, fate would provide. The weapon rotated beautifully and sunk into Dalton’s right shoulder. Staggering, he regained his balance and surveyed his injury with a sharp inhale. He delicately extracted the blade from his body, blood freely flowing. Upon inspection he noticed the wound wasn’t extensive. Fortune had smiled upon him; Gratin was powerless before him.

“You can’t kill me, fate and I have united! You may have delayed it Gratin, but destiny was not deterred!” Dalton mocked.

The sharp jabs of pain and rapid swelling drew Dalton’s attention back to his body. This was no ordinary wound.

“Surprised? I didn’t throw it to kill you, just wound you.” Gratin confessed. “I already told you, I’ve been waiting…and preparing. This leather’s laced with the deadly venom of the Hydros snake. You will never find the antidote, your death is imminent.”

Dalton questioned fortune. He had come to avenge not only himself but fate as well; Gratin must pay for the setback.

The pain shifted to a dull wave throbbing through him. Instantaneously, he transformed into an ox. The venom must contain hallucinogens; there was no other explanation. As death approached, he released his bowels. Nothing was making sense. The pain of the venom intensified – confused, he turned in a circle. Stumbling over his many legs, he fell into his steaming dung. Strained breathing, he lay humiliated feeling cursed rather than blessed by destiny.

Gratin staggered over, with fearful eyes.

“No! What are you doing?” Gratin screamed in rage.

The jabbing pains subsided. Immediately Dalton’s strength returned despite his wound. He climbed to his feet, bowed his head and impaled Gratin. The General gargled a moment and then was still.

Rain poured as he ambled lost through the swale, questioning fate for humiliating him instead of rescuing him. Couldn’t fate have just killed Gratin? Why had he transformed. He had hoped it was hallucinogens from the venom, but he was still an ox, wandering lost.

The ground rumbled. Suddenly consumed in a flood of chilly water, Dalton struggling to swim. The current was too fast; he was going to die a bovine. Instantly he transformed into an otter. Comprehension surfaced, fate hadn’t humiliated him. It had redeemed him. The ox dung must have been the cure! And now he was an agile swimmer able to withstand the surging water.

Floating on his back, Dalton searched the skies; thankful they had answered the prayers of the naked trees – sending rain and his needed understanding.

New Year Again!

2009-01-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

Geesh! These years are going by fast. Well, I guess that means I'm busy. I am just going to upload a bunch of pictures and hopefully they will come up. News...well we've added four more goats to our original two, so now we have six! I think that's enough to say we have a herd. We got a wether (castrated) a buck and two females. So sometime this month we should have the girls go into estrus (in heat) and our expensive little buck will do his thing and around May or June we'll have four more baby goats! And milk! Wonderful, free milk. And all the cheese, cream and ice cream you can think of! Our evil plan is working! (name that movie).
Well, we have great news. Spencer got promoted at work, he is now a full time teacher and he gets a lot more money with it. So if we keep living like we're doing, we should pay off our debt really quickly. He is going to do really well as a teacher. The lady they canned was terrible...she just isn't teaching material. So hopefully he can get those kids back on track. I am taking my Orson Scott Card class this sememster...the first class is next week. I am a bit nervous, but I hope it teaches me a lot. I entered two pieces in writing contest the past two months but didn't get anything. One got terrible reviews...I learned so much! And the other piece I got a five star rating, and 18 reviews full of praise and a couple of people marked my story as a favorite on the website. So that was encouraging.
My primary calling at chruch is going well. We have a lot of fun with the kids. Spencer is the Ward Choirister and we had a great Christmas program. He's trying to start a class to teach people music on Wednesdays so that they can learn and maybe join the choir, or just sing better in church.

Meredith is growing so much. She is coloring almost completely in the lines now...I'm not sure when that milestone is supposed to be reached, but Spencer says that she colors better than all the kids in his elementary class, but they are Emotionally Disturbed along with other problems...so I don't know if that's saying much. She was doing really well with her potty training, and then it just went out the window. She refuses to sit on the potty and she goes in her panties. So we went back to diapers for a bit and we'll see if a break helps.
Xavier is a smart little guy. As Gary would say, he's "Jolly". Which he is. He's always so happy, he giggles and laughs, easy to please...unless it's night time and then he turns into the Devil. Sleep? What's that? I'm slowly becoming an insomniac. I guess I'll get some sleep when the kids are married and gone. Right? He is crawling (kind of...more of an army crawl). He can sit up too. He eats non stop and he loves food, any kind, any time, any where. He thinks Meredith is the greatest, and she loves to preform for him too. But she doesn't like to share with him yet. If he crawls into her room she will physically push him out and try to put up the gate to keep him from her toys. She will grit her teeth, run up to him and yank away whatever he is holding that she thinks is hers. But if he's in the crib, she wants to get in. If he's in the playpen then she wants to join. If he is having a bath, she takes her clothes off. She doesn't get jealous but she gets attention hungry.

Well, of course the rest of these pictures will not load. Sorry! One day I'll just put them on facebook...one day. But not today, the beans in the pressure cooker are done. Time to make some chili!

Holiday Rush

2008-12-12T05:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, so as you have all know seen, I am a liar! I said that I would make more regular posts, and here I am a month and a half later, and I'm writing my post. I guess it's just getting to the point where blogging has lost its interest for me. I just don't feel it. Anyway, I know I have tons of you who love it, send me emails wanting more updates, calling, blah, blah, blah...so I will continue to update, but I don't think it will be every week - ever. Sorry folks!
Well, so back at Halloween I went to a Harvest Party at a friend of ours. They have this super nice farm about 45 minutes away and we had a ton of fun. It was a pot luck thing, so I made a spider and eggs out of dinner rolls. It was great. You got to make cold cut sandwiches out of it. They let us milk their cow too. It was awesome! I can't wait until we can milk our own goats. Xavier was a dinasour, it helped keep him warm. It was a bit chilly outside. Meredith didn't dress up, but I don't think she minded. She has more fun with the cow and pigs.
For Thanksgiving we went to a friend's house. It was nice to not have to cook. The food was great, and we met a lot of people too. And we got to play Bachi Ball too! I love that game. Meredith found some kittens on the front porch and fell in love. She wanted to take one home so badly. She cried pretty hard when it was time to let it go. I felt so bad. Miss Sophie wont play with her, and this cat was pretty well tempered. But we don't really have a need for cats. If Meredith made a pet out of it, it wouldn't be a mouser.
One of our hens got all broody and layed a nest of 10 eggs. She dutifully sat on them until they hatched, then left them alone. Out of the 10 only three hatched completely, and only two were ever found. One was found drowned in the water bucket and Julia by chance went outside and almost stepped on the last one. She brought it in and we weren't home. She didn't know what to do with it, so she just held it by the wood stove so it would stay warm. We found a box and a lamp and set it up. But the chick didn't live a week. Meredith played a little too hard with it on the second day and it seemed to recover, but it was lifeless three days later. Spencer went outside and snapped its neck to put it out of its misery. Next time our hen lays all the eggs we will put them in a brooder on our own and hatch them.
So Spencer is done with his semester. He only has three classes left and student teaching. We were praying he'd get the job to teach this spring, but the school he works at doesn't have enough students to need another teacher yet. So in the fall he should get the job. It's a big pay raise, so it would help if he got it soon, but they need 12 more students and I don't see that happening in three weeks time.
Xavier is sitting up for short periods of time, and he's trying to crawl. He gets all all fours and sways back and forth. But he plops back down and then drags himself across the floor army-style. He has his two bottom teeth and it hurts bad when he bites. He loves sweet potatoes, carrots, crackers, applesauce and bananas.Meredith is talking a mile a minute now. She says words I didn't even know she knew. She is doing wonderfully with her potty training. She loves to wear "pampies" and she usually does a great job sitting on her "poppy" when she has to go. But when it's time to poop she usually goes in her pampies. When she goes potty, she throws her hands in the air and yells, "Yeah!! Skikers!" and she gets a couple stickers for going in the potty.I went to the bathroom the other day and she tried to go get me some stickers and reward me. It was so cute. When she goes potty at church while in nursery and we give her stickers, she passes them out to the other kids. It's so nice to see her sharing her reward with others. We didn't even ask her to, she just does it. I entered my first story into a competition last month. It didn't do great, but I got an average rating of 3.17. But I honestly learned a lot. I have another two I'm entering this month. I should be able to get one down a month on average. I find it really difficult to cater to what they are looking for in the story. It's good practice. I am so nervous for this Orson Scott Card class next semester. I am still trying to find a babysitter for Wednesdays so I can go, but I don't want to impose on anyone.
I am really enjoying my Primary calling, but I feel like I am doing Sharing Time every Sunday. I'm not, but it feels like it. I'm not complaining, but I just feel like the kids might get tired of seeing me infront of them every week. Spencer has been called as Music Chairman, Ward Chorister and Choir Director. He really doesn't want to do anything with music, but he is the most qualified in the ward. I think he does a wonderful job though, not that that helps.
Well, as usual, my pictures wont upload. I'll try to get them to go up on facebook and on here later. If you aren't on there, you should join and be my friend! Well, Happy Christmas and Merry New Year!

Autumn Activites

2008-10-27T03:39:00.000-07:00

The changing of seasons tends to mean work in our household. We have so much to do to prepare for winter that we find ourselves busy all the time. It happens to be Walnut season, so we spent a few minutes every couple of days picking up the fallen nuts and putting them on a tarp. We then ran them over with the car to open up the fruit, (which resemble in looks and scent that of a lime) and then pulled out the nuts.Then they have to air dry a bit so now they are in our storage room. We did about a five gallon bucket full and that was it. We don't think we'll be able to use all those walnuts anyway. So the rest just go to the chickens. But the fun part of it was while we were opening up all the fruit, sometimes they would be rotten inside and it would be covered in maggots. Meredith took them under wing and adopted all the little maggots. She got a bucket and began to collect them. So would hold them a little too tight and they'd die, unbeknownest to her. She even tried to bring her "pets" into the house. But that is where I drew the line. I remember playing with maggots when I was her age with my cousin Sarah. They were our pets too. But we found ours in a garbage can, not in a walnut.

Meredith has been undergoing potty training. She seems to do well with it when she feels like it. She loves the rewards we give her. Usually it's a sticker to put on her poster and a piece of candy. She is always so proud of herself when she goes, as we are too...usually we're more excited than she is. She has even gone number two in the potty as well. For now I'm letting her run around the house bottomless and when she has to go she runs over to the potty. I keep it upstairs since I doubt a two-year-old bladder will wait until we make it downstairs to the bathroom. I think once we get to the point that she recognizes that she has to go we will move it downstairs and get her going in the bathroom. If we put on panties she just pees them, so it's bottomless for her.But of course we put on a diaper when we have company or when we are going out somewhere. She's too distracted with people to focus right and go in the potty. Once she walked in her room, closed the door, peed on the floor and came back out to tell me what she'd done. I then realized that she had been standing next to the potty when she decided to run to her room and go in there instead...I don't understand what she was thinking. Oh well, accidents are expected.

Xavier is the happiest baby I've ever seen...at least by day. He giggles at Meredith all the time and he loves to play peek-a-boo. This picture is just like the one we took of Meredith when was this age. He couldn't figure out what was on his face.He rolls over both ways, and he can sit up now. He can get his knees under him, but that's it...he's not pushing up on his arms yet though. Meredith calls him Xay-Xay. She just started, before that she called him Bebe. So at least she's trying his name. She is quite the little mother. She "feeds him" by lifting up her shirt and puts his head up to her chest so he can breastfeed. She likes for us to hold him on her shoulders and then she takes him around the house for a walk, it's what Spencer does to her. She feeds him with his spoon, but ends up gagging the little guy. But it's wonderful to see her being so concerned for him and helping me around the house. Her life revolves around herself, but when she looks past it, the first person on her list is Xavier...he's a lucky boy to have her as a sister. At night Xavier seems to think it funny to wake up and cry. I know babies do this, but not every morning at five. I mean, only one hour away from the alarm going off, why...why can't he just sleep one more hour? But it's getting to the point of annoyance.

I've been working on baking as of late. I rather enjoy cooking and think I'm somewhat decent at it. I still seem to stink at anything involving yeast. But I've made a few breakthroughs. I made some croissants which turned out to be better than anything we've ever had...except for those that we ate on our honeymoon in England. They were really easy too...just very time consuming. But the dough freezes well, so we just make a big batch and then freeze it so we can make more later. These have yeast, and yet I did really well with them, maybe because they are a type of pastry, and I love pastries and they love me. Then I made some English Muffins (sorry no pics) and Spencer almost wet himself with delight. He loves English Muffins. They are quite easy to make and don't take too much time for a bread-type food. They tasted better than what you get at the store and they were huge too! Lastly, I made some bagels. These were great, they took the least amount of time to rise and they were fun too. They boil first and then bake. Also, you can put goodies into them and they are best homemade. So now I feel better that my bread loaf never turns out the greatest. I'm glad I've found one of my talents after so long. I find cooking really theraputic and relaxing. If I find myself mad or upset, if I start baking I'll feel better almost immediately.

Well, we are winterizing the house and looking forward to the cooler weather. We're getting twenty-five more female chickens tomorrow because the demand for eggs is so high for us. We're getting four more goats in a few weeks and then going to mate them in late November, early December. We are having fun canning (thanks Gary and MaryAnn for the canner!) My book is constantly expanding and growing. We are really happy with life and hope you all are too. P.S. Don't forget to VOTE...I don't care who you vote for as long as you know the facts and you vote...so many people don't vote and that's stupid...if you don't vote, don't complain! Now I've said my two bits.

And the Beat Goes On...

2008-09-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

My favorite word of the week has got to be: dour. I find it a wonderfully descriptive, and all inclusive adjective. I've found so many situations to fit it into and I'm having fun using around the house. I'm sure Spencer is sick to hear me use it. I can imagine his eyes rolling right now. I'm not saying I'm exhibiting this word, far from it. But I've found a use for it in my book and I'm happy to report that several of my characters will be quite dour indeed. It always make for a good story.

I am so excited! Tonight I get to meet Brandon Mull, the author of the Fablehaven series. He is wonderful. They are somewhat children's books; but I find them interesting since they are fantasy books as well. He is speaking at Southern Virginia University and I was invited by a professor to attend his class. It should be awesome. I'm so nervous.

Spencer is reading a book for one of his classes, it is, "Chasing Vermeer". A wonderful book for children, but it's a mystery. The children use these mathmatical blocks to help them solve the mystery. They are called Pentominoes, it's like saying Domino, but put the word Pent infront of it and take away the D...took me a while to figure it out. Anyway they are super awesome tools for thinking mathmatically, you have to get them to fit together and make a square or rectangle without any gaps or overlapping, there are thousands of solutions depending on how big of a square you make. I am going to the craft store to buy some small blocks, glue them togehter and make the twelve different shapes. They are named after letters of the alphabet, whichever they resemble the closest. I think they will be a great tool in homeschooling.

Meredith has been using the potty. We are so proud of her. She wont tell us when she has to go though, but if we take off her diaper and leave the potty out, she'll run and sit on it when she has to go. If she has a diaper on, she'll just use it. At least we are getting somewhere.

Xavier just went to the doctor and he weighs 15 pounds. He's dropped from the 90% to the 75%! But his height is only in the 50%...I want him to be tall, not short like me. Meredith already got that, so I hope he gets a growth spurt later on.

Meredith ate some poisonous berries yesterday, they are called Poke Berries. They grow on a plant called Pokeweed. I called poison control, and luckily, she'd only eatten a small amount so she was fine. If she'd popped in a few more she would have been puking, and if she'd eatten a whole bunch her respiratory system would have been paralized and she would have died. So we are going to be cutting down all these weeds soon. They are only toxic to mammals, so our goats shouldn't be near them either. But they are great for birds. So we acan just feed them to the chickens. Some people actually eat the leaves and berries in a salad...after they boil out the toxins. Weird! Why not just eat lettuce? Anyway, some websites state that these plants, once mature in late fall will glow in the dark, creepy. They are all over here in Virginia, and I've lived here a while, and I've never seen anything glowing in the dark.

Here it is, by popular demand, a picture of our eggs. The first two are white eggs that come from our leghorns. The first egg has a double yolk. You can tell because it's so much larger than the first. And no, if this egg were to be fertilized, it would not be twins. The yolk is the food for the baby chick, the white is the part that becomes the chicken. This is why chicks can live without food for the first few days and are able to be shipped across the country to farms. Nature did this so that the chick would have food while waiting for the fellow eggs to hatch. The hen doesn't let you out until all or most of the eggs have hatched, so they would starve before getting food if they were the first egg to hatch. The third egg is a brown one from our only female Astro. she is a beautiful hen, and the rooster is beautiful as well. The egg can seem a bit purple, or maroon, but it's supposed to be brown. And the last two are from our Americanas. The fourth egg is green while the last egg is blue. It's hard to tell the difference, but heck, you can at least tell it's not the normal white egg in the grocery store. They are quite mild compared to store brand eggs, the yolks are almost orange. The actually remind me of the color of the yolk in the Cadburry Easter Eggs. We have a few people buying some. I know organic eggs sell for a lot in the store, but our chickens are going to lay eggs whether or not we sell them, so we aren't charging huge amounts. If anyone close by wants eggs let us know, we'll see if we can supply some to you.
Well, it's back to my book. I have to learn how to write imagery, which I apparently stink at.

Also, one last note. I am grateful to all of you who read my blog, and love it. I love each of your blogs as well. And I do read them. I just hate posting things because I have dial-up. IF and WHEN we get high-speed, I will be more faithful in posting comments. It just takes all my patience to make my own blog, as well as pull up everyone elses. So by the time I read your blogs, I find that I cannot stand waiting another ten minutes to say what I wanted to. Beside, by then I've told myself I was going to say something stupid as a comment anyway and you wouldn't want to hear it. I hope you all don't think this blog thing is one sided. Sorry!

Same Old Stuff

2008-08-31T17:22:00.000-07:00

I have been writing my book for the past month and I am really getting some great ideas. I have a book called "Writing Fiction Step by Step" that is helping me some perfect my book. I am really trying to be positive that I can pull of an actual book, and eventually a seven book series. Speaking of books, a friend of ours, Jeff Benedict (also an author of several books) teaches a class at SVU. He is having a guest speaker, Brandon Mull, this semester. He invited me to come to his class that day to listen to him. For those of you who don't know who Brandon Mull is, he is one of my favorite authors; he is currently writing a series called "Fablehaven". It's a children/youth series, but it's fantasy so I have to read it. I am so excited to get to hear him speak at the end of September. I am trying to rub this in Charlie's face since he is a fan of the series as well, (and my mother too!)
We have our goats now too.They are named Cameo and Topaz...they came with the names. They are both does and we are looking to breed them in November. Another friend of ours said he can help us find a buck to sire the kids. So hopefully by February or March we will have our own milk (a goat has to have a kid before it can produce milk...some people don't realize this so I'm answering it before it's asked). Milk is expensive, it costs more for a gallon than gas does - nearly four dollars!
Our chickens are now giving eggs as well. We have some small rose colored ones, and some tan eggs too. Our Americanas are giving us blue and green eggs too! It's really fun to see what Spencer brings in every morning and evening. Our ducks have been laying too, but Ida (our dog) keeps eatting them. We had to build a house that she can't get into so we could keep the eggs for ourselves.Meredith is just the little artist! She loves to draw, paint, create, you name it, she wants to try it out. She can draw animals now...they are somewhat recognizable...her favorite animal to draw is a cow, followed closely by the horse. And she remembers days later what it was suppose to be, so it makes sense to her at least.
We've reached the stage where it's hard to understand what she's trying to say to us. She slurs her words and sometimes they don't seem to make sense. I feel so bad not understanding her, I know she's trying to communicate, but it makes no sense! I would hate to be misunderstood all the time.
Spencer's new job started two weeks ago. But school hasn't offically started yet, not until Tuesday. They have eight students so far for this special needs school. The name of the place is Rivermont. It's small with lots of teachers and councelors to help the kids on a more intimate level. It should be interesting. He is the only guy and there is a lot of drama with all the women. There will be another guy working there, and he and Spencer are friends...we go to church with them, so it should help. Spencer needs other guys there or he might go insane!Meredith loves the animals. We just put her inside the fence and she will play forever. And I don't have to worry about her getting out...it's electric. And trust me she knows better than to touch that fence! We all touched it and she will not soon forget how that feels. It hurts. But she's more interested in herding the goats in and out of the barn, or trying to rake up the straw. She loves to feed them too. She always goes out with Spencer in the afternoons to feed the animals and gather eggs. Today she held about five chickens. She is an animal lover. It's nice to have her with them while you're out in the garden. That way she's not stepping on the tomatoes, or eatting all the raspberries. It's a lot of room for her to play in too.
The goats like to taste us...it feels like they are trying to eat your clothes. They grab a piece of the fabric and start to "chew". But since goats only have teeth on the bottom they obviously can't eat your clothes. They will sit there and gnaw at it, but all it does is accumulate goat spit. They bleat all the time and even headbutt the dog when she nips at them. They are going to take some time getting use to millking...very jumpy when you try to touch their utters. We are planning on getting 2-4 more pretty soon. So we should have some ice cream all the time, as well as fresh butter and heavy whipping cream. For free! All it costs is $13 for the bag of feed and that covers for maybe six months! They just eat the hay in our field, and the leaves off of bushes and trees, the especially love the thorny plants and weeds. Xavier is doing really well. He is such a good baby. I get compliment on him all the time. He is beautiful and chubby. He only wakes up twice a night and he sleeps a lot during the day too. He is just a big eatter. He loves to smile, coo and suck on his fingers. He's drooling a lot, so we think he is beginning to teeth already. He has learned how to roll over from his belly to his back and he always looks so confused and startled as to how he got in that position.
Well, I have about four more pictures, but they are not loading. It's been about fifteen minutes and they will not pop up. I'm sorry I will have to try tomorrow. That's basically it. It's getting late here and I'm falling asleep. I will try to update on a more regular basis from now on.

For the Beauty of the Earth

2008-07-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

So it's been almost a month since I've written on here...wow does time fly! We have been super busy this summer. And we haven't even finished yet! At the beginning of the month we went to VMI for the 4th of July. Meredith had a blast before hand, but got really bored with the fireworks. After the third or fourth one she was done. Then on the 6th we had Xavier's baby blessing. We had a house full that day! It was really nice though and we were able to feed everyone with food mainly from our farm.

Then my two youngest brothers stayed with us for almost two weeks helping us on the farm. We got the bathroom painted, the classroom painted, and the stairwell too. They took care of the animals outside and helped pick vegitables in the garden...as well as eat them too (they weren't too keen on the eating part). They put up the electric fence around the barn for our animals and mowed our huge lawn. They really helped out and we were really grateful to have them over and spend time with us...it was a lot of fun.

While they were here the County Fair took place. Julia entered some Chocolate Chip Mint cookies and won 2nd place! I entered a Chocolate Zucchini Cake and won 3rd place, and also my really good Autumn Apple Pie which won 1st place!!!!! I was so stoked! I have a blue ribbon pie. And I am not modest about it in the least...okay I am. But I'm still really proud. Next year I'm going to enter in some artwork and if I can finish it, some cross stich too. I also want to enter in more baked goods. Spencer is going to enter in some veggies, because when we saw the competition we realized we had produce just as good as theirs. It was so much fun. Meredith loved the animals. We spent most of the time walking up and down the barns looking in the stables at all the 4H and FFA animals. Xavier's favorite exhibit was the quilts. He loved the colors. The third place quilt was his favorite. He was just laughing away at it...or at least the big red ladybug on it.I am told that the colors babies are most receptive to is black, white, and red...well he was very receptive! I guess I love the fair so much because my favorite musical is "State Fair". I am thinking about entering my pie into the state fair in two months, but I'd have to drive up one day to enter it in and then come back in a few days to see what ranking I recieved. And that's a lot of driving just for a pie (the fair is in Richmond). And it costs for admission into that fair as well.
Then to tell the boys "Thank You" for helping us I took them over to the Natural Bridge Cavern...which is the deepest cavern on the East Coast, or so they say. It was nice...but not a very long tour. Which turned out fine for me because Xavier got hungry half way through so I was trying to feed him. And Meredith was a bit scared at the new surroundings and wanted only me to hold her and then got jelous while I was feeding Xavier. And she kept crying "Mommy! Mommy!" so I would hold her and it echoed loudly and made it hard for the others on the tour to hear the tour guide. And she didn't like that the guide kept stopping to explain different rooms in the cavern and she kept trying to wander off in the darkness. Oh it was lovely fun.
I took the boys back up to Ohio, to their new house right outside of Kirtland, OH.So I just had to go see the Mormon Historical Sites. It was really nice. I got to spend time with my family, except Kathryn who lives in AZ. I was there for a few days. We got to go play at Lake Erie. Meredith loved it. She is a collecter of rocks and this beach was nothing but smooth, colorful rocks.

So she tried to take a few home, but luckily got tired of holding them on the way back to the parking lot. It was a nice visit...but very humid being right on the lake. While up there I got to visit the grave of a good friend of Spencer's, John Cutler. Turns out my parents moved into their old ward. They had just moved a few weeks before. It was nice to go pay my respects.Xavier went to the doctor this past Friday and got his first set of shots...he cried but only for a minute. But he weighs a whopping fifteen pounds and he's only two months old. Meredith didn't weigh that much until she was six months old. I have a fat, but healthy baby! I must produce pure fat in my milk!
Now that I'm back at my house I've done nothing but clean. Everything go so behind with projects left and right and not until today did it look somewhat recognizable. Last Saturday we spent most of the morning harvesting crops from the garden. We have so many vegetables that we were somewhat baffled with what to do with them. Gary and MaryAnn had said we could have their canner, but it didn't get down here in time...So we've just been freezing everything. All the corn is picked, shucked, blanched, cut off, bagged and frozen.

We ate the peppers ASAP as well as the carrots that were ready. We discovered that you can freeze tomatoes...so that's what we did...and will have to keep doing. We will have tomaotes coming up for a few more weeks as well. Our squash and zucchini is finished growing for the most part. Our green beans, or pole greens (whichever they are) are done for the season too. We must of had over 12 pounds of green beans alone these past few weeks. The peas never made it to a meal. Turns out they are Meredith's favorite! She also loves the cherry tomatoes a whole bunch and we only got 3/4ths of those into the house.

She was helping us pick them, but just kept eating them. The same thing with the corn. She just kept eating it raw...which is very tasty I might add (but gives you the runs so eat in moderation).

Our potatoes are going to be over 70 pounds when we finish harvesting them. We've been trying to eat those as fast as we can as well because we dug up more than we could handle right now.

Our butternut is looking really good too. The pumpkins are getting huge and I cannot wait for Thanksgiving. The cucumbers have turned out to be a bit of a problem.

We have so many that we honestly don't have room for them. I have never seen such huge cucumbers, some could be mistaken for watermelon (which we've harvested three of at the moment). I've pickled some, made some into salads, we are eating them raw at almost every meal. The chickens are sick and tired of the things too.

If anyone has any good cucumber recipes or preservation methods please let us know! If anyone around this area wants some let me know and I'll bring them to church. We also have some cantaloupe too which I hate but Spencer is enjoying. And last but not least, our ducks have started laying eggs. We are so happy! They are almost a full two months early on when they should be ready to produce eggs, so we weren't really expecting them, but Spencer found them on Saturday. We found another on Sunday morning so we fried it up and tried it out. It tasted awesome. It was so much more than a chicken egg. It was fresh...at most five hours fresh. It wasn't grainy in the yolk like a chicken egg can get, and it had a strong flavor that was very tasty. Hopefully the chickens will start soon too.

We are feeling blessed with the abundance coming from our farm garden this year. What I find amazing it that you can have one little plot of land full of the same kind of nutrients within and plant some seeds that all use those nutrients in their own special way and come up with some wonderful fruits. It's amazing how the Lord has made this world work, all the diversity is just amazing, and a silent testimony and reminder of his hand on this earth. I really love trying to be self-sufficient (except for the bug bites, those I could live without).

Wussat?

2008-06-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

Meredith's new phrase is "Wussat?" I guess instead of "Why?" she asks, "What's that?" If you actually stop and listen, people say that phrase quite a bit I 've noticed. At the top here are the pictures I couldn't get up last time. I have some more pictures to put up today and I had Spence load them at work. I guess it's just because we have dial-up here so it's hard to load. We've been relatively busy these last few weeks. Spencer has taken on another job so he's gone all day Tuesdays and Thursdays. He is working for a friend of ours, Jeff Benedict. He's building a new house on his property and has taken a liking to Spencer and desperately asked for his assistance. Spencer decided that he would. So he's gone from 6:30 am until 9:30 pm on those days. But he's getting good experience with the house building.
For the first day of Summer we celebrated by going on a hike. Spencer had Meredith in a carrier and I had Xavier. It was nice...a little steep, but we ate lunch at a small creek. Spencer found some Bass and some Crawfish.
He pulled out the latter for Meredith to see. She was unsure of how to react. We saw tons of wild blueberries which tasted pretty tart and some lizards to liven up the rugged hike. If we kept going up the trail we would have reached the Appalachian Trail. We'll have to go again.
Spencer was out in the garden the other morning and called me out there. Across the street was a fawn. It had lost it's mother (probably hit by a car). Spencer tried to catch it, but it wouldn't come through the tall grass and finally ran off. He had no chance of catching it.
Yesterday we got a dog. She is an eight week old puppy. Part Chow and part Lab. She is very mellow, and of course very shy at the moment. So here is a way for everyone to vent on names. We honestly don't know what to name her so if you have a suggestion, please post it. Hopefully it will constitute as a form of therapy for those of you who don't like Xavier's name. She takes pretty well to Spencer, but she's taking a bit to warm up to me and Meredith. She is living in the barn getting associated with the ducks at the moment. They really don't like her too much, but then again there is little that they do like other than water and food...and each other.
Meredith is becoming more gentle each day with Xavier. She tries to lie down with him and covers him with blankets when he's sleeping (even if it's over 80 degrees). She is just the perfect little mom. Xavier is coping survival with Meredith constantly poking him in the eye, reassuring him that he is infact "bebe". He's plumped right up. At the doctor's this week he weighed in at 12 lbs, 14 oz. He now has two chins well established, and a roll or two on his upper arms.
Spencer is driving his motorcycle to and from work some days. Hopefully more in the future once he aquires his licence. He is in a Catch 22 at the moment. He needs to drive the bike to gain experience to pass the test for the licence; but he's not allowed to drive it without a licence...so is he breaking the law or not? Hopefully we wont have to find out. He looks so cool on his bike. I love it. I want to see him is some black leather chaps. That would complete the ensemble. He feels like he is in a club...all of you who ride bikes knows what I'm talking about. The "wave". It's more of a peace sign, or sometimes just a one finger point to the side. I have been told from a reliable source that the wave's origins date back to the hippie era and those on bikes would flash the "Biker Peace Sign" as they crossed each other's paths. It has now resorted to a lazy one fingered point. But Spencer, no matter where he is, if he hears a bike will stick out his left hand and produce the appropriate signage. He loves it.I have made a shirt. My first article of clothing that I have produced all by lonesome. It is no where near wearable by myself, but it has, as Spencer puts it, "Chalked up to experience." I, like many others of the female race, have mixed-proportioned bodies.And I, wanting to make my first shirt easy, just picked the size that fit the majority of my body part sizes. So it's way too low in front, too large at the neck, too small in the upper half, too wide in the lower half and too short all around. But I did an amazing job on the sleeves for my first time. (I hear they are a pain and I concure.) But I am proud that I did it. Although very disappointed at the selection of fabric types at Wal-Mart. And being out in the boonies, I have no other selections. Everything is made of cotton. No strechy fabrics like those you find in clothing. But I guess it will do since I am in desparate need of some new shirts. All my old ones have paint on them or words or pictures. Not the appropriate things I would wear to church on Sunday, so I am just rotating through three shirts, that are way too small for my body at this stage of postpartum. Hopefully this week's experience in shirt making will prove more fruitful with a wearable product.

Life in the Fast Lane

2008-06-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

There are more pictures I would like to post, but they aren't uploading...I'll try tomorrow. Sorry.

Well it's been three weeks today that I gave birth and I'm doing much better now than I did right after Meredith. Maybe it's because I'm so busy that I have to keep up or all hell will break loose. I haven't had much of the baby blues yet, and hopefully I will be able to keep them at bay for a bit longer. I started exercising this week. I know it's a bit early but I couldn't keep myself away from it. I'd been looking forward to running for a few months now. Don't get me wrong, in all actuality I hate running, or any form of organized exercise. But I want my old body back, or at least as close as possible to its original form. I am taking it slow and I'm getting better everyday. Yes, it's only been three days but I can tell I'm already falling back into the groove of my routine. And to add a bonus to it I found 3-4 cherry trees on my route. Right at the edge of our property...okay so they are right off of our property, but it's the government land that is waiting to become expanded highway. I don't think they are going to eat those cherries. So we are gathering them as the ripen. We are pitting them and then freezing them until we have enough for a pie. They are the sour cherries, which is what you use for baking. Meredith loves them.Our lettuce is starting to go to seed because of the excessive heat so we've picked it and we are in the Ceasar Salad season! We have our Romain Lettuce, our juicy and very flavorful chicken breasts and we are loving our salads. Hopefully by next year we will be able to add our own bacon to the list. We didn't get an opportunity to buy a piglet like we wanted. Money got really tight, and we had nowhere to house the little guy. But we did just buy a Commercial Freezer at a flea market on Saturday. It's a nice new one that only costs $75 a year to run and we bought it for $50. I think that's a pretty good deal. It was used at the Drive-In Theater. They bought a larger one and needed the space so they were selling four of them. So now we have excessive room to put meat. We can now butcher all of our chickens at once and then have room to store them...good for us, bad for the chickens.

It has been very hot here but I'm doing my window tricks and keeping the house decent until around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Some good friends of ours gave us two window unit A/Cs. So we are limiting ourselves to the dining room area for a few hours a day to stay cool while the A/C runs it's little heart out. This gives me a great chance to just sit down and write for my book. Too bad I don't have a laptop to write on. It's a pain to have to hand write it and then transfer it over to the computer. But it's one way to edit I suppose. Meredith gets very creative when I'm breastfeeding Xavier. She makes so many messes. I can't really feed him infront of her because she either gets jealous or she tries to join the crowd and breastfeed as well. So she plays alone. So far she's put on all of my shirts...at once; climbed onto the counter and "made" some food with ALL the rolled oats. She's painted the window panes with her popsicle; autographed Julia's Red Sox blanket with marker; drawn on several walls, herself, her desk, the floor, some books and the couch; and she's "rearranged" all of Spencer's expensive baseball cards. But life doesn't last forever and these are all just tangable things that don't really matter in the long run so I just laugh and try to find the camera to get a good picture.Xavier has really grown. He's put on at least 3 pounds since he's been out of the hospital. He's just like his sister, a good eater and he keeps it on. He'll be a chunker soon enough. Meredith loves to be "mommy" she's tried to breastfeed him herself complete with taking her shirt off. She doesn't care for her baby doll when there is a real one right there! She wants to hold him, lay with him on the bed (usually ends up on top of him), dance with him ( aka jumping on the bed near his head), feed him (sixlets candy fit nicely into his little mouth we've found), dress him and carry him. She makes sure we never forget "bebe" when we're getting into or out of the car either. She really loves him. I was afraid there would be more of a jealousy complex, but nothing much except for a few tears when I start to feed him.

Yesterday when Spencer was mowing the lawn before work we saw Miss Sophie chasing a poor baby rabbit through the yard. She must have found it in the garden trying to eat our vegetables. Spencer set off to catch the poor little thing while I went after the cat. The little thing was scared stiff. Meredith loves rabbits (not bunnies but rabbits) so we let her hold it for a while. She was in heaven! She cried when Spencer set off to release it away from the farm. She wanted to keep it, and Miss Sopie was very upset at us taking her toy away. She would have played with it until it died and then she'd have just left it there for Spencer to find later when he'd mow over it's dead body. That would have been a sight!Xavier sleeps really well most nights, and by sleeping well I mean he sleeps until usually two, or sometimes three in the morning and then wants to eat. And then it's eat every two hours. But he's awake for a good part of the morning and then in the late evening he's awake as well. So it's good. He's started smiling back at you if you smile first. But mostly he has a look of shock on his face or suprise when he's staring around the room. He grunts a lot. I think it's related to his pooping, but he just seems to like to grunt. Especially when I lay him back down in his crib at night. He hates the dark. He wants to see, or be held so you have to accomidate him constantly. But that's what being a mom is all about!

Xavier Jones Kohl and Big Sister, Meredith

2008-05-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

Meredith has been practicing to be a big sister already, and she is excited to get to do it in real life now! I got to come home from the hospital a day early. I was doing really well, and Xavier was great too. I guess it helped since I've already done this before. Well as you've already seen with the title of this blog, we've FINALLY decided on a name... Xavier Jones Kohl. This has nothing to do with Dr. Xavier from X-men or Indian Jones and his new movie.
We named him this because we feel that Xavier is a strong name and it's something he can grow into. Jones was just lucky I thought of it because Spencer doesn't like middle names, and I wanted a last name as a first, but I got it as a middle instead. Well that's his name. I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who don't like the name...so don't post anything negative because frankly we don't care. It was hard enough trying to come up with a name without everyone putting their unneeded two cents in about it. There is more I'd say on the subject, but I want to be nice. So that's all I will say.My mother was here last week hoping to be here for the special event and she missed it. But she got to have some great time with her first born grandchild. Meredith calls my mother "pa paw" but in a whisper. Funny thing is, she calls Gary that too... we're working on it. But she sure had fun with her. We went to a beautiful property called Boxerwood Gardens that has over 30 acres of gardens.You can walk all over it and see the natural beauty of Virginia. They even have a little section for kids to explore and play at. Meredith had so much fun. We will definately be going back soon. It's right up in a neighborhood too. We didn't even know it was there. Meredith seems to be having a good understanding of the whole birth concept. We tried to have her in the room while I gave birth so she could understand, but she was so tired from lack of sleep she wouldn't hold still for the event and had to be taken out.But I think she still grasped the concept when she saw him. She's trying to play with him like a baby doll. She wants to wash his hair, and pull on his ears, and it bothers her that he doesn't open his eyes for her. She wants him to play peek-a-boo too and he can't yet, obviously...but she doesn't understand. We tried to get her to say his name, but all she will say is "X". I guess that's good enough for now. It's hard to say for a two-year-old.
Well I was originally due on May 11th, Mother's Day. Wouldn't it have been nice to of had him on that day...well, things change, and the date was set to May 17th, that following Saturday. He still didn't come. My mother left on the 18th and still nothing close. I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday the 20th (Kathryn's birthday) and we decided to induce since I was already four days overdue if not more by counting the original due date! So they just happened to have Wednesday open. And the only time they do inducing is at six o'clock in the blessed morning. Wonderful. So we hauled our tired butts out of bed at five and rushed over to the hospital to have a baby. I had my water broken close to eight after they'd hooked me up to the dreaded Petosin (awful stuff to make you have contractions). Things were fine until around noon. I couldn't handle the increasing pain, and I began to shake with each contraction, so I asked for a pain killer. They gave me something, that had an effect to make me "drowsy" and cut the pain a bit. Well it did nothing of the sort. It made me practically comatose and I still felt all the pain. I just was so groggy I couldn't get ahold of myself. Then I started to cry and so I got a interthecal (Julia is probably laughing at my spelling) it goes in through a spinal tap. It cuts the pain, but not all of it. So I could bear it. It took the pain from a 12 down to a bearable 5. The pushing hurt, but I could handle that a lot better. I could focus too. I got him out in 3-4 pushes. His cord was kind of crossed over his body, but not around his neck, it flipped over his head front to back, but the doctor fixed that as he was coming out. He weighed more than Meredith did, but he's so much more fragile looking than she was. His measurements were: 21 inches long, 7lb 13oz, with his head measuring 14.5 inches.He was born at 2:16pm on May 21st, 2008. He was circumcised and his first Apgar score was a nine nine. He looks just like his sister, with the dark skin, dark hair and the same button nose. He loves to look around already and he's generally happy. Meredith had fun at the hospital too, we had a little party for her for becoming a big sister...she got some toys and had a positive experience with the whole thing. Well, it's getting close to his feeding time so I will have to go be a mom.

The Calm Before the Storm..

2008-04-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

These are pictures from the last blog, but I couldn't ever get them to post. I still can't get all of them, so these will have to do. Nothing much has been happening since I last wrote. We killed one of our older roosters yesterday. We now have seven left. We'd like to get it down to maybe three to breed with our next set of chickens once they get old enough. But it didn't taste so good. Well the white meat did, but his dark meat was very chewy and strong flavored. We'll see. Our ducks are huge and annoying. They should start laying eggs in two months.
We were able to get a free toddler bed for Meredith off of Freecycle.com. The couple gave us the frame, mattress and several sets of sheets. It was really nice. They are grandparents and the grandkids had outgrown the use of the bed so they didn't need it anymore. And because it was from grandparents the bed was like new, hardly ever used. It is great. Meredith loves it. She won't sleep on it during nap time, but she's good at bedtime. I have to put up the gate at her door and she just plays in her room until she passes out at naptime...usually in a pile of clothes that she's emptied from a drawer. But at bedtime I read Harry Potter to her and she (for the most part) stays on her bed reading books of her own and then falls asleep. I think it's too bright during the day even with the curtains closed to entice her to sleep. I'd put her in her crib (which is still set up for the arrival of her brother) but I don't want her to still have attachments to it. We tried to relate the bed to her birthday so she wouldn't think it was the baby's fault she moved on.
Spencer has his final Practicum for this semester. He is teaching at a middle school. It's really small, but he gets along with the teacher which is nice. Once he's done with that he is finished...for a week or so. Then the May semester starts. Luckily it's all online classes. So if I go into labor he won't be hours away. He got his old job back at Southern Virginia University for the summer. They needed some help and he was willing to shave off his beautiful beard, so he'll start in the beginning of May. They are also going to give him a cell phone to use so if he's out and about and I do start labor, I'll be able to call him. That is very nice.
I am still in a nesting stage. I had a dream that I was cleaning last night. So I guess it's really on my mind. If anything is out of place it really urks me. I hope this passes, or I'll be so flustered that I'll get really stressed after the baby comes. I just hope the house can stay cleaner for a while. It's getting very difficult to get out of bed in the morning or do simple tasks like clipping my toenails. I don't bother with socks anymore because it's too hard. Just flip flops for me. The baby is positioned correctly so that's a relief. I just have to get him out before he's too big. The doctor didn't have any idea of how big the baby is...well she wasn't a doctor, so maybe she didn't know...I'll ask this week. But they say I'm healthy as can be. My blood pressure is perfect, the baby's heart is perfect. My weight gain is normal, nothing but some fatigue and slight welling of the feet if I'm standing too long. I look huge though, and I've even grown more stretch marks than I did with Meredith...I guess because he's been low for a long time. Meredith was up really high then dropped, but he's been slowly sagging my belly down. Oh well, the prices we pay for motherhood. I just hope to make some money someday with my book and get all this excess skin taken off. We'll have to see though won't we. Well have an enjoyable week ya'll.

Happy Birthday 2 Meredith

2008-04-20T15:59:00.000-07:00

Well Meredith had her 2nd birthday on Saturday, April 19th. She had a great time. Juila gave her some great clothes (you can see her in them, the yellow and pink outfits) and we got her the little rainbow pool. I have a bunch of pictures here, but because there are so many, I've just listed them below, they aren't inset into the article as usual. She is such an active little girl. She loves to play with her toy animals and dolls. She loves to hold our ducks and go feed our chickens. She runs around everywhere and she's never still unless a movie is on. Today she made me lay down on the couch, she pulled my shirt back to expose my bulging belly and she got a toy baby bottle and inserted it into my belly button for the baby to drink. We've tried to explain to her that the baby is inside my belly, but we think she just assumes the baby and the belly button are the same thing, because she ran over to Spencer and tried the same thing to his belly button. But it was nice of her to take care of the baby like that. I only have four more weeks to go, and then it's showtime. I had another ultrasound and they did confirm that it is going to be a boy. So we are very excited, of course we would have been just as excited if it had been a girl. Now I just need to get some boy clothes. Someone was going to lend me hers, but she just found out she's having a boy as well (they were expecting a girl) so now I'm clothes-less for my baby. I'll have to search out yard sales everyweek.
I am making my own curtains right now for the house. I bought a huge roll of fabric over a year ago and my nesting is forcing me to make the stupid things. So I spend all my spare time making them. I have 18 windows in the house, and I've cut all the fabric. Only to find that I am 2 windows short. I will have to find a similar fabric or something to go in the bathroom. But I'm very proud that I'm actually getting one of my many house projects off the list. The nesting has become so bad that I've even spent over an hour with a toothbrush cleaning grout in the kitchen counters. Well enough about me.
Spencer is finishing up his 1st semester at Mary Baldwin for his masters. He is taking a summer semester and then he can begin student teaching in the fall. He really enjoys working at the schools in the area; well at least with the students. He doesn't care for the teachers all that much. Turns out some of these people are very rude and impatient with the special ed kids. That's really sad. But I guess it's good he's going into this field so some of them will be able to have an understanding teacher. Spencer is constantly out in our garden pulling weeds or stuborn grass that's wending it's way back into our dirt. He is avid about his garden. He went and picked some baby spinich the other day and had a little itty bitty salad. I love seeing him so energized about something. Meredith feeds off of his energy and she is just like him. They love to go out and play when the weather is nice. I enjoy sitting there watching. I guess it's because I'm this far along in the game, my energy is being sapped out of me. Just walking up the stairs sets my heart racing at times.
Well anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures. I have five more I want to post but it won't let me. I will try later. Sorry some of the pictures are fuzzy, Meredith had put her fingers on the lense and I didn't realize it till a while later.

Easter and Spring

2008-03-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted last. Spencer has had a lot of projects for school and so he's been on the computer a lot. And when he's been off I just haven't had the urge to really get on and blog or do much other than read Dear Abby. But since it's Easter, and we have so wonderful pictures of Meredith I thought I should put them up before it gets too far past the holiday and the pictures are useless. Last week Meredith went to the Lexington Egg Hunt and found some eggs with candy with about 30 other children. Then we went over to the Chocolate shop (which sponsored the whole event) and she got a balloon dog, which she promptly disassembled in ten minutes. But it was fun.Meredith loved the eggs. After we dyed them yesterday, and after finding them today all she wanted to do was just lug them around. She thinks they are play things since they are colored. She pulls on the fridge door crying for them. Although when I crack one open and give it to her she won't eat it. I guess she's not a hard-boiled egg gal. Anyway she loved her chocolate rabbit. I bought it a few weeks ago and put it on the top shelf in the kitchen. And everytime she'd see it she'd reach up for it and call "Abbit! Abbit! Mine!" So she was so relieved when she finally got to open the package and hold the darn thing. Of course she didn't want to eat it just play with it like a toy. Finally Spencer convinced her to eat it but all that she ate were the ears. She refuses to eat anymore of it. She looks so adorable in the purple Easter dress my mother sent me. All the women at church were commenting on how adorable she looked, and how they love those types of dresses. I would love to make some, but someone was telling me you needed a special sewing machine to actually fold the fabric up like that at the neck. So maybe I won't be doing those types of dresses for a while. We bought some ducks and some bantam chickens (mini chickens) I don't know if I posted that last time or not. But we've discovered that ducks stink horribly! We only have three White Pekins but they are messy. They take their food and put it in their water and eat it. Then they poop everywhere and it smells so much worse than a chicken. And then they are really high strung and complain about everything. They don't really "quack" yet, but they rather cheep and it's annoying. Anything can set them off. But we think we have two females and one male. So if that's the case we are going to let them breed and have a flock (?) of ducks. Is it flock for ducks? I know it's gaggle for geese...anyway...So then we can have duck for special occasions. It should be nice. Our broiler chickens are getting so big so fast that they don't have any feathers on their undersides. The skin streched so fast that the body couldn't produce any feathers there...kind of like strech marks on a pregnant woman's belly. Well they should be ready to kill a week or so before my due date. So if we kill them I can cook up some good meals and freeze them so I don't have to worry about cooking after the baby is here.
Meredith loves the ducks. They are her favorite animal right now. I think because they aren't as fragile as the chicks are, and because they are so much bigger. She wants to go out to the barn and chase them everyday. They don't particularly like our company, but they are going to keep getting it so they are use to us. I gave her a little Peep the other day (Spencer got into the Easter candy early) and Meredith refused to eat it. She thought it was one of the little chicks. She kept making her little chicken sound and petting it on the head. Not until I put a piece of it's tail in her mouth did she finally decide chickens were better off eaten than left alive.Our garden is growing wonderfully all thanks to Spencer. He is so dilligent and tedious with his bit of earth. He's out there every chance he gets. I'm beginning to get jealous. He spends more time out there than with me. He's planting, or weeding, or re-tilling dirt, or composting. He's just so excited about it all. So far our garlic is growing at a phenomial rate with the lettuce coming in close behind. Thankfully we've had some pretty nice weather here, and sufficient rain to encourage plants to wake up. We hope to have a much better turnout with veggies this year as opposed to last. We already have some watermelon and cantelope coming up in the little greenhouses too.Well, not much else is going on around here. As of this week I am 33 weeks along in the pregnancy...only 7 more to go! I have so much to still do. I guess there will always be more to do...
Sorry, there were more pictures that I wanted to post but my blog won't upload them. Sorry, I will have to try later, and they were the two really cute ones that I liked.

New Delivery at the Kohl House!!!

2008-03-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

Spencer and I are proud to annouce the arrival of some new family members here at the Kohl Homestead. No it's not our baby...although somedays I wish I was done. It is the arrival of our new baby chickens. The chicks are so tiny and cute. And they are so active. So much more so than our last batch. We have four different breeds this time. Some are hens and some are roosters. We bought some Americana's which lay different colored eggs...like easter eggs. I'll never need to dye an egg again! And then we got some Leghorns..."It's a...it's a...it's a joke son...", and some Black Australorps chickens and some Broilers. The Leghorns are egg layers, up to 300 eggs a year as well as the Australorps who put out basically one egg a day. The broilers are meat chickens; they will not be able to live longer than six to eight weeks because they gain so much weight their little legs would break under the weight. That's the type of chicken you normal folks buy in a grocery store. That's why they are so meaty...they have been genetically selected to just get fat fast then die before they reach the two month old mark. Anyway, they will be tasty, and hopefully have more meat than our Rhode Island Reds do. Meredith loves them. She held one earlier, but when we tried to get a picture she became nervous and dropped the poor thing. Spencer didn't want to risk it again. So she is only allowed to look, and not touch for a while. We also got four quail eggs so we can start breeding them as well. Did you know that a dozen quail eggs sells for around eight dollars! That's crazy money there...you don't even get one whole chicken egg with four of those things. So if we can find a market to sell their eggs around here we'll be making bank, especially since quails are so small and don't eat much. And they are very tender and good meat birds as well since they have to be caged...a little harder to domesticate than a chicken, plus they can fly. Spencer has been using his Spring break to till up the yard for our garden. We are hoping on making some money at a farmer's market this summer. So we started some plants in our green houses several weeks ago. The weather here is relatively warm, so we should be able to plant in a few weeks. There is just such a strong root system with our grass that it's hard for him to till up everything. He's been over the ground at least four times now and he has another three or four times left before it will be really turned up and ready for planting. Someone at church was nice enough to lend us their tiller, and someone offered to pick it up for Spencer as well. The chickens love all the dirt he's turned up...all the poor unsuspecting insects that thought they were still safe beneath the soil...well at least it was a quick way to go. But this should be a decent venture to go into since we had a pretty successful crop last year, and there are two farmer's markets around here each week. We could make a pretty penny. If not, then we just have a ton of salad to eat in a few months. With all the chicken we could do a Chicken Cesar Salad marathon...come on down.

And Then There Were Eight...

2008-02-21T05:46:00.000-08:00

Well last night was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was horrible. We've been having problems with our chickens dying in the night, while asleep in their coop and while in two different rooms in the barn. We just thought they were low on protein and eatting each other in the night. But it turns out that it was a opossum. The first night it happened we had them in the barn on the left, and when Spencer went to feed them in the morning, one was dead...all the entrails eatten as well as the head. So the next night all the chickens, on their own mind you, went to the other room to sleep. It happened again. So on the third night, they all walked down to their old chicken coop and went to sleep in there. It's animal proof. But us being as stupid and inexperienced as we are, just thought they didn't like the smell of the dead chicken lingering in the barn and that's why they moved. Well we had to go to Scouts last night, and it wasn't dark when we left, so they hadn't gathered themselves into the coop yet. So we decided we'd close it when we got home. Well we almost hit the stupid opossum right infront of our house. And I never thought they ate chickens. Although, now that Julia points it out, she did mention it to me a few months ago...but I must have forgot with the pregnancy. Well Spencer went out at ten-ish to close the door and heard the stupid creature in there, eatting one of the chickens. And besides, the rest had all scattered for safety because the door was still open. So he locked the dead chicken and the opossum in the coop and we prepared ourselves to do the killing. Because we then realized it had been him these last few nights killing our animals. And once he's found food, he'll keep coming back. And I guess with the warm bout of weather we've been having he came out of hybernation early and was hungry. We knew that by looking at him he didn't have rabies...but I'd rather not get bitten. Spencer had on steel toed boots, but I don't have any boots so he went in the coop. We rigged up a light, brought down the push broom that was really sturdy, a huge plumbing wrench and the ax. It would have been so much easier if we had a gun! But we didn't. And he was the size of a large cat, but with lots of sharp teeth and a nasty tail and a most wonderful smell that came with him, as well as all the dead chickens' guts. We let the light shine in there for a while because he's nocturnal and we knew it would affect his vision. Then Spencer went in and I held the door closed. He pinned it down with the broom, and then I took over. He was trying to find a good angle to chop it's head off, but it was in the corner and there wasn't enough room in the coop for a good amount of leverage, without hitting me. So we decided to suffocate it with pressure to it's neck. Well those suckers are good at playing dead. He wouldn't breath for a while so we'd let go and then he'd start breathing again. So finally we bashed his skull in with the back of the ax. But he wouldn't die. The poor thing. We really didn't want to hurt him, he just was an enemy and had to go. So we tried so hard to make it quick for him. Finally I just took the ax and kept hitting over and over and over and over in the head until he wasn't there any more. Then Spencer drug him outside by his tail and cut his neck with the ax a couple of times. Still, even though he was dead, he convulsed for a quite a while. It was horrible. I was really shaking bad. Spencer told me to go inside and he cleaned up the mess. So with the preditor gone, he had to find the lost chickens. They had all scattered and he could only account for five when he was done. But this morning they all showed up and were safe. So now we are down to eight chickens. I guess that was one heck of a learning experience.
On a happier note, here are a couple of pictures of Meredith the farm girl. She loves to wear other people's shoes...especially daddy's. And here is our recent translator in case you ever get to talk to her:
Daggy = Daddy
Mooeee = Movie
Mmmm = Me or Mine
Bettle Baah = Peek a Boo
Wa Wa = Water
Pesss = Please
Yank Yee = Thank You
Pop = Popcorn
Bebe = Baby
(Tounge Clicking) = Chicken
Upie = Open
Uuup = Up
Key = Monkey
Judle = Julia
She says plenty of other words, but they are all normal or close enough to the correct pronounciation. Well that's all for now, sorry it's such a morbid post.

Christmas Review and Animal Lover of All Time

2008-02-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

We had these pictures taken at our ward Christmas Party. Sorry they took so long in getting onto the blog. You can't really see my pregnant belly, but you can see all the food that Meredith didn't get into her mouth. But she's still cute when she holds still for pictures.

Nothing much has happened this week. We got some raspberry plants and have already set them in the ground. They wont bear any fruit this year because they are only new growth, but we should have some lovely berries next year. I'd like to get some blackberries, but Spencer isn't so keen on those. Maybe some blueberries. I definately want some strawberries. I would love to have some right now as I'm typing this. These cravings are driving me crazy!

The wind is just blowing outside today. On the way home from church we almost hit a tree that had fallen in the road. And it sounds like our roof is going to be taken off any minute. I hope none of the trees on our property fall, especially on any of the buildings we have, or our car for that matter. We do have quite a few dead trees over on the government's side of the fence boardering the highway.

Meredith keeps changing her favorite toy. First it was the stackable buckets, then the bucket that you put the shape into the coresponding hole. But she gets so frustrated that the squre doesn't fit into the star shape she begins to complain and whine.

We visited the SPCA the other day and Meredith about died. She loves all the dogs in the kennels. She just jumps up and down with excitement because they are all competing for her attention. She loved that even the cats wanted to play with her. She's not use to that with our cat, Miss Sophie. She's such a crusty old woman who would rather not even look at Meredith, let alone play with her. And she obviously can't play with the chickens like a pet...their not smart enough. But she loved the dogs, the bigger the better. They were barking so loud it hurt your head, and you had to scream to talk, but throughout the entire time you could hear her laughing away. She couldn't get enough of them.

Anyway, I need to get the roast out of the oven and get the side dishes going. I hope you all enjoy Meredith's pictures. Maybe next week I'll get a few shots of my swollen abdomen full of baby. It's getting quite difficult to get out of a chair or the bed. They joys of motherhood...

Sunshine, Snow, Life and Death

2008-01-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

Okay so I have lots of pictures of Meredith for you all to see. We've had some adventures the last few days. Meredith is as happy as can be. She is always smiling, and she's even started singing lately too. She's getting into everything, but she's started to help me clean up afterwords, which is a relief to me. She will run and grab the mop or broom and try to use it. She's so sweet. Meredith and I clean the church building every Monday, and she's always so helpful there as well. Except when she discovers a box of tissues. She seems to think they must be emptied tissue by tissue. So she pulls them all out into a pile then plays in them like a pile of leaves. She is learning to eat with utensils, although most of the food goes down her front, instead of into her mouth. She is getting very good with the spoon, but she still struggles with the fork. She is also working on moving from a sippy cup with a straw to a regular cup and straw. Meredith also drinks straight from a cup too, she doesn't over tip the contents when trying to pour it into her mouth. We've been working on it for weeks. She just forgets to hold the cup with two hands at times, and her little fingers can't get a good enough grip around it and she drops it.

She is our little ray of sunshine this cold winter season. She's always doing something that she couldn't before, and she's learning so fast. We have made flash cards with actions written on them, and we're trying to show her what the word looks like, when we are asking her to do that particular verb. For instance, we want her to dance, so we hold up the card, and point at it and ask her to dance. We just started it, so it's hard to say if it is having any affect yet. It's something Spencer learned about in his classes this semester.

Meredith is finally at the stage where she wants to cuddle. I love when she wants to give me a hug, or just hold me for no reason. She also likes to grab your pant leg and drag you to wherever she thinks is a good spot and have you lay down to cuddle with her and a blanket. Then she has to cover you and you lay there. In this photo, we were changing Meredith's clothes for pajamas when she needed a cuddle, so she's still in her tights, and she grabbed Spencer and it was too cute to pass up a photo shoot. I love her chubby cheeks and how they droop when she lays down.

Meredith loves to go explore, whether it be outside, or in her own bedroom. She will make an adventure out of it. It snowed last week, or maybe two weeks ago...Anyway, we suited her up and she and Spencer had a snowball fight with the chickens. She looks so chunky in her snow suit. Can you believe this suit is for a 6-9 month old, and here she is at 21 months and it fits her. The sizes on some of these clothing items are way off at times. Anyway, she didn't want to come in. Sometimes she just wants her snowboots on so she can tromp around the house. She is our little monkey. She is getting extreemly good at climbing everything in the house.

She pulls all her dolls off the hope chest in her room; then she stands on them to get the height she needs and climbs onto the hope chest. Once on there, she pulls everything off the dresser next to it, and clambers on top of that. Spencer caught her in mid-expedition and we had to take some pictures. She found a safe haven inside a little box that held her hair clips and toothbrush, etc. She thought she was so clever. Look at her smug face. The little beast!! Unfortunately, we usually can't contain our grins as we watch her excel, even if she's not supposed to do certain things. So she thinks it's all in good fun. And she trys it again and again. I've decided to just put the box on the floor to keep her from climbing anymore. That way if she wants to crowch in the pink box, she can do so right from the floor, and keep my mind at ease. This seems to have solved the problem. Although, she still likes to climb onto the dining room table. I haven't figured that one out yet.

Meredith loves to color, or at least, look at all the crayons from the pencil box. She loves to spill them all over the floor and unpeel the lables on all of them. Sometimes she's scribble in a book, usually not a coloring book. But at least she's being creative. She would rather draw with pen. I think she likes pen better because she doesn't have to press as hard to get the same results. And she doesn't mind the lack of color with pens either. She's getting better with coloring since they do it in nursery on Sundays. She gets to see the other children coloring and so she trys too.

Meredith's hair is getting to be a bit of a problem. She won't let me keep it anything for long, and her bangs cover her face. Kathryn suggested teaching her hair to part, and so I am trying. It's getting better. If she's watching TV, then we can usually get her hair into pig tails or up with a clip. We think she is so cute. She of course loves the attention.

Well, now for the last part to my title...Sunshine is Meredith, Snow is of course snow, life is what we do from day to day...get by and spend time together as a family and Death...part of life. Now that Spencer is out of work and he has school in the evenings we get to spend lots of time together. Sometimes it feels like too much, but it's nice to be so close. Things will change in the next week though as he has an increasing load of going to schools to observe and prepare for student teaching next semester. So things will change, that's the only constant thing in life I suppose: change. I am currently doing as much research as time allows for my book. I really want to get going on it. And I enjoy the stimulus it gives my brain to work on a plot and make sure all of my fantasy ideas make sense. So we are doing well.
Our chickens on the other hand are not doing so well. We just lost two more chickens today. They both somehow broke their legs. We think they got in a fight and lost, or they were caught on something and it pulled them out of socket. Spencer removed them from the rest of the group to prepare them for slaughter, but only one lived through the night. We didn't think it wise to eat him. But the other, he killed and it's making a chicken soup as I write. Sadly, Spencer discovered during disembowelment that it was a hen that he had killed. So hopefully we have more in our little flock of 12. And the worst death we've had as of late, has been our beloved prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley. I was so upset to hear that he passed away, yet at the same time very relieved since he'd been serving for so long. He was my favorite prophet, (and as Spencer pointed out, the only one I really knew). But he was, to me, a "cool dude". He is at rest now, and I'm sure with is loving wife and I'm glad that he accomplished so much as president of the church. I'm just sorry that Meredith didn't get to grow up knowing him as her head church leader. But that is life. And this is the end of my post.

New Beginnings

2008-01-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

Well it certainly has been a long time since I posted anything. Sorry about that. I guess there was so much going on that I didn't bother to write any of it down. Where to start? Well...how about our farm since we are the "Farmer Kohls". We have lost three chickens to hawks now. It's been pretty bad. I've been able to save one before he was killed, but the other three had their heads ripped off. We can chase the hawk off, but the damage is already done. And they always go for our best chickens. So other than these unexpected killings we haven't put any more down. That's only because we don't have any room in our freezer for more food. Some people from Spencer's work, and from church have given us their surplus meat...which consists of deer and bear. And we've had several meals in both and I honestly have to say that I choose the bear over the deer. It is so good!!! Very fatty, but tasty. We made a roast out of it and it was just falling apart. We even had a dish where we added some apples, and it was really nice. I guess since bears could eat those naturally they would taste good with it. Just like pork tastes well with berries or other fruit. Spencer's parents were down here for two brief visits while traveling back and forth across the country so they helped us with some projects. We got the bathroom floor covered in some self-adhesive tiles until we can afford some real tile. It looks so much nicer. And they helped us with taking down part of the broken fence. We are getting a couple of goats later on in the spring from a friend and so we have to get the fence up before they can come over and be apart of our farm. Well I have almost forgotten the best part of the blog. The sex of the baby! If only I knew...We went in on the day after Christmas and the poor doctor couldn't find out. Our little one was just so uncooperative. And since I'm in the country and we have a low model machine, he couldn't be more specific. He thinks it's a boy...but we told him we wanted one and so he could just be humoring us. So...who knows. They said they'd do another ultrasound at 36 weeks. Well since 38 weeks is technically full term that does me no good! Oh well. I still feel that it's a boy, and I'm carrying him different and I haven't gained nearly as much weight as I did last time. I only weigh now what I did when I first got married. So I think I'm doing pretty well. You can see from the picture above that was only taken last week that I'm not showing that much. I guess going up and down stairs and running after Meredith keeps it all off.

Well, Chirstmas came and went. And Meredith didn't understand it much better than last year. She did like unwrapping things though, but only because she liked the paper. So we let her unwrap everything on Christmas morning. Her favorite gift was of course from Aunty Julia...four barn yard stuffed animals. Not that Meredith needs more stuffed animals, but she sure plays with them alot. She also loves to look at her Dr. Seuss book from her grandparents and she likes to wear her horsey backpack from Mere and Papa. We have so many clothes for her we can't fit them anywhere. It stinks not having closets. But in such an old house they weren't thought of. Someday we'll build them and then I can hang up my skirts and blouses.
Well, not much else has been happening...oh yes. I did get a tad bit close to some Poison Sumac right after Christmas. It was horrible. I'm such a scratcher that it spread over my entire face into my hairline, down to my chest, all over both my forearms and onto my thighs. My right eye was swollen shut before I decided to go to the doctor. He gave me lots of perscriptions and now I've finally gotten off of them two weeks later. I still itch, but I cannot scratch or it will come back. I have little scabs on my arms and neck from scratching in my sleep so much. It was horrible. I will never go near that tree again...and the baby is fine. My OBGYN gave me the meds so they were safe for the baby. Anyway, know your trees before playing with them; you've been warned. And on that happy note...good day!

Dooms Day for Chickens

2007-12-08T11:22:00.000-08:00

Well today was the big day...at least for some of our chickens. We butchered five. It was a little harder than we thought, emotionally, but much easier physically than we anticipated. But the deed is done. It only took an hour and a half to butcher all five, then another hour to clean them up inside before I was satisfied that they were edible. The funny thing is we kept having neighbors drive by real slow, coming back from hunting that morning and waving to us as we were covered in chicken blood. I wouldn't have been suprised if they stopped to talk while we were doing it. That's just how it's done down here I guess. They were almost eight weeks old so they are older than the chickens you buy at the grocery store, but because we didn't pump them full of chemicals, or "special feed" they are considerably smaller. The obvious hard part was the act of killing. I couldn't look. Spencer said it was hard for him too. He said it would have been easier if they weren't looking right at him while he came down with the cleaver. We don't care for chicken skin when we eat chickens, so we didn't have to do the horrible mess of dipping there bodies in hot water to do the plucking. We just cut around the feet and the skin and feathers come off like a sock. Very convenient. These should last us until Christmas, and then we'll kill a few more right before Spencer's parents come, so Mary Ann doesn't have to see them before hand. I'm glad we're not eating them tonight, because I'd have a hard time eating them on the same day, after I picked them up to kill them. Anyway, I've included some pictures of the event. They aren't too gruesome. One might be a little, but Spencer really wants to put it on the blog. So sorry in advance if you don't like it. Just remember that's what you eat too, you just don't see it with the feathers on. And they had really good lives, just not the last minute of their life. Not bad, much better than done in a factory.
Well, now about us...we've been doing great. School gets out with finals this next week, so Julia will be home more often, which will be nice. Spencer is working as hard as ever, and the Vice President of the school (also the Stake President at church) commented on how he is the best worker in his department, and that he's always working and helping others, so nice compliment. Spencer was accepted to Grad school, so he will be attending this spring. He will be going to Mary Baldwin and getting a Master's Degree in Special Education. After just one semester he can start student teaching and 90% of the time those student teachers get hired right after they are done with that semester of student teaching, they don't even have to be done with their Master's program. So it looks as though we only have a year of transition and he'll be doing great. The masters' program usually takes a minimum of 15 months tops so he's going to be taking as many classes a semester as possible so he can get it over with, and move on with life.
We sold Spencer's Jeep and we were able to get a motorcycle instead, because they are much more efficient on gas mileage, and we're going to need it with Spencer going to school 45 minutes away everyday, not to mention work. So we are trying to really get caught up on loose ends to save ourselves some money.

We have our wood heater going nice and toasty in the dining room so we stay warm. We have plenty of dead wood from some trees we cut down in the summer, and so we are able to heat ourselves basically free this winter.

I pulled out the sewing machine, and I've made a crude stocking for Meredith for Christmas, as well as a gift for Spencer...can't say what it is cause he will read this blog later. I am trying to do projects that don't require much time, so I can focus on Meredith. With her growing so fast, she is just all over the place. Today for a nap, Julia was watching her while we were tending to the chickens and Meredith pulled off all her blankes, sheets, and even socks before she went to sleep. She just has so much energy. She's really getting into movies too. Any that have animals, usually Disney. But she runs around while it's going and I can't turn my back for a minute, or she's feeding the cat her toast or on the table dancing to the music, or pulling books off the shelf. Anything that's destructive or a "no no" she loves to do. I'm getting plenty of exercise just going around behind her and cleaning up in her wake. And I'm having another one! I must be crazy. Oh well, at least this one will not move much for a few months so I can get control of my first child.

I guess that's about everything. Nothing else is going on. We got our first snowfall this past Wednesday. It snowed about two inches, but started melting that afternoon. Hopefully winter will come back. Almost all the snow is gone, and Meredith didn't even get to go play in it. Well don't worry I will take pictures if she goes out in the snow, and post them up here.

Thanksgiving, my favorite day ever!!

2007-11-23T13:25:00.000-08:00

We had a very nice Thanksgiving. I've been looking forward to that day for weeks, if not months now. And now it is gone. I made so much food and I ate so much food, and I can't believe I still have so much food left to eat! We had a friend of Spencer's come over for dinner, he is from China and so this was his first Thanksgiving in America. It was nice to have him over, I'd spell his name, but he never showed me how, so I'm not going to even attempt it. We had our Thanksgiving on Wednesday because Julia had to work on Thursday, so it was nice to have us all together. We had some friends of ours invite us over for dinner on Thanksgiving, so we went over to their house, and I didn't have to cook, serve, or clean up! So nice.

Today Spencer decided to let me have a little mini vacation so he took Meredith to the Zoo and I got to stay home and work on my Hutch without interuption. I should be done in a day or two with it. And then I can put up all my China and fagile things that Meredith isn't suppose to get into. I have some pictures of her at the zoo. I don't know the name of one of these guys, and it's not a great picture of him so it's hard to tell. Spencer said that she tried to make the noise of the animals when she got to them, and she was kissed by a baby camel. Cute...I guess. And now she's saying "Monkey"...or something almost close to that.

She loves animals. Her favorite movie is "The Adventures of Milo and Otis"...and I mean favorite, we watch it on an average of two times a day. She likes cats especially, but ever since we had the bear walk through our yard she's been imitating a bear. She tries to say "Roar", but it comes out "Woar". It's so cute.
Our chickens are getting pretty big. They will be ready to eat in about a week and a half, maybe two weeks. They are starting to get out of the fencing so we had to make it higher. One got loose and ran down past the fence for the highway, but Spencer got it back safe and sound before it got anywhere near the road and caused an accident. We found out our exotic chicken is a female, so she should start laying some pretty cool eggs in about a month and a half. I won't have to dye any eggs at Easter...sweet!
We are looking forward to my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Bud to come down and see us next week. They are going to be lots of fun. We saw them over on the Vineyard a few weeks ago and it will be nice to have such close visits. I guess that means I need to clean up a bit.
Anyway, it's count down to Christmas time, and I am so excited. We are so totally ready for the winter now. Spencer got the wood heater hooked up and can that think heat!! I mean it's really hot. And we have tons of coal out in the barn to use as well, and that stuff burns for a long time. So we are nice and toasty. It makes it feel more farmy to have a wood burning stove as well. It will make the holidays more fun too I suspect. Well, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and you didn't spend too much money today!

Winter is coming quick

2007-11-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

Well today was the big day for our little chickens and they have offically moved out, flown the coop, hit the road...they moved out of our storage room into their own little chicken coop outside. It's a little cold, but as we speak, or rather, as I type he is running an extention cord out there to give them the heat lamp. They were a little confused as to why they were being moved, but they keep fighting because space in their brooder was too small...again. So they are out there and getting along. We've taged the best grown guys so we will keep them for the hens. We'll keep around five and then butcher the rest. They are about 7-8 inches tall and they have some attitude. You can tell who the leader is, he has his head the highest, and he watches you when you are feeding them or cleaning out their poop. If there were females he would be even more protective. But it will be nice to have them out. Their cheeping at all hours of the night was beginning to get a little annoying.

We are trying to winterize the house ASAP, but it's hard when you husband works all the time. I am trying to make little booties or wool socks out of yarn for Meredith, but I'm not very good at knitting. And I have no pattern for socks. If anyone has any tips or hints, they are welcome.

The baby and I are doing great. It's already beginning to get uncomfortable to lay on my back. All I can do is my sides, again. The sad thing is I use to be a tummy sleeper, but I haven't been able to do that since before Meredith. I miss it, it's just not as comfortable as it use to be. Oh well...

News on the Farm

2007-11-05T08:54:00.000-08:00

Well, there has been a lot going on the past few weeks so that's why it's been a while to update the blog. Well first off we have big news. If you haven't heard yet, Spencer and I are expecting again. I am three months pregnant and I am due on or around Mother's Day - May 11th. They keep changing the due date on me with every appointment. I have been really sick the first few months, I've been extreemly tired too. Much more than with Meredith, so I think it's a boy this time. I don't have a scanner so I can't put any sonograms online, sorry. But when I went in last week the doctor was scanning the baby and he was just jumping all around inside. He would take his little legs and push off the side of the uterus and zoom through the fluid like a little frog. He did it for quite a few minutes. We had to wait until the baby stopped moving for him to measure the little guy. We were all laughing till we cried. The doctor said he'd never seen anything like that in his life. I guess that tells me this little guy is going to be a handful and then some. Spencer had a big business trip last week so we were gone for about six days. We went up to the New England area and we drove forever from place to place. We would have loved to have stopped and visited family but we were so scheduled with appointments that we didn't get to see everyone we would have liked to and didn't get to see people for very long. But it was a productive trip. Spencer thinks that most if not all the students he met with will attend SVU. He works very hard at his job so it's nice to see some results from that labor. UPDATE: I've just got the pictures on, but I wanted to tell you all that we just had a huge black bear...okay, not huge, only around 300 pounds come tromping through my yard. Meredith just started pointing at the window saying "Meow, meow, meow!" She thought it was a cat, so I turned and there he was! Running through my yard. My neighbor down the street called to warn me and I told her I already saw the guy, and her husband advised NOT to go outside. Now I'm a little apprehensive to go out and play. I had no idea that I lived in bear country, I thought they were in higher altitudes. Guess he's hungry. But it's just crazy that I have cars in my back yard to show civilization and bears to show that I'm still in the country. Sorry no picture, he went by too quickly.

Food, Fun and Farm Animals

2007-10-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

Meredith decided to help me make biscuits and she ended up eatting the flour instead. I have been trying to perfect Biscuits and Gravy for a while now, and I think we are on the right track. They are great with a side of homemade onion rings. I guess there should be a veggie in there somewhere besides the onions...but I like it just the same. She also wanted to eat a dried kidney bean, so that's what's in her mouth. We have the strangest child on the planet. She loves to eat, or watch you eat, or sit with the cat while she eats, and show her what food is, as if a cat doesn't know food!
Did I ever mention that we got a free Piano on Freecycle. It was free. From 1903, all we had to do was pick it up. It's very pretty, but needs a tuning. Meredith loves to pound on the keys and the cat likes to walk on them as well. It's really great that I didn't pay more than $25 for a trailer rental and got a piano. Also we've found the joy of Auctions. We got a sewing machine and it's table, along with drawers and a container full of sewing supplies, laces and elastics. And I bought the whole thing for $2. I got some cute little decoration shelves for .50 cents a piece and some really nice china that I will not mention the price of. We went to the auction to buy a tiller, but it sold for over $300...so we didn't bid for long on it. But it was worth going.
We've finally got the rain to fall today. And we needed it. We haven't had some for a while. I was hoping the leaves would change more colors, but they are all falling and you can see the cars on the highway from the house now. But you can smell the changes in the air, I love it.

So we've had a busy week. We had my Uncle Bud, aka Budman come over for a few days and help Spencer work on the old farmhouse. Since he has tools up the wazoo it's helped a bunch. He put in a wall in the bathroom so there's a hallway now to get to our bedroom. It's wonderful. He also put in shelves in the kitchen. It's the first set of shelves this house has. Since the house was build as a grocery store, it's been hard to adjust it to a functional house. But now we are getting on the right track.

We also got the chickens yesterday...finally. They were supposed to give us 25+1 exotic one, but they gave us 27 total instead. So no complaining there. They are really cute and cuddly. But germy. And they poop a lot. Meredith loves them, she wants to hold them and squeeze them and kill them. Like Elmira from Tiny Toons (if anyone remembers that show). But we make sure we wash her hands with soap if she's touched them. Someone told us we would get annoyed with their constant cheeping at night, and really we haven't had a problem. They are in the room next to our bedroom and I can hardly hear them. I think they are tired, and finally getting some sleep since they've been traveling from the day they were born. They are only 3-4 days old. Spencer is so excited. He just sits there and watches them. He had to teach them to drink, which consisted of pushing their heads into the water pan and letting them realize they can eat stuff. Then we had to do it for food too. And you have to discourage them from eatting their droppings. They can't tell the difference when they first start eatting. They have already started a pecking order so we should see some loss, about 10% by the second week and the order and ranks will be established...men and their power struggles. So we will be having chicken dinner in a few months. Basically if we were to kill them all we'd have enough chickens to have one a week for a half year basically. But we want to see if they accidentally threw in some females and then we can get going with the eggs too. They are only 90% accurate on sexing the little guys. I mean, the couldn't even count right, so what are the odds that they sexed them right? Only time will tell.

Autumn is Finally Here

2007-10-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

Meredith and I decided to have a little photo shoot outside with the Maple tree and it's falling leaves. But she became interested in the cat instead. She ignored me and went straight for the cat. The cat does not like attention from Meredith, but she put up with it for a good half hour. We had fun outside, it was actually warmer outside than inside today, even with the slight breeze. It was very beautiful with the thick, dark clouds overcasting the sky, and the occasional burst of rays that fought it's way through to the ground. The trees are dropping their leaves before you can blink. I am still waiting for the colors to change, looks like the trees are going to multitask this year.

We have noticed a rise in residency at our little farm house, now that the weather has turned cooler. We caught three mice within a 24 hour period and I've heard them in the walls when the house is quiet. They are pretty well established and I can only set so many traps a night. They love chunky peanut butter. Poor little things are so darn cute. When they aren't stiff and frozen to the mousetrap that is. But they've got to go! We are expecting our first order of chickens to arrive any day now. Apparantly the most common way to get chickens is through the good old Postal Service. So we ordered 25 Rhode Island Red Roosters and they threw in a free exotic one as well. As Spencer likes to say "Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh!" Well, I want brown eggs, and he's the one who suggested his home state bird. They are very beautiful, at least in pictures. Ours will come between Saturday and Wednesday. We have the brooder all set up (brooder is to incubator as chick is to egg). We have it set up in our storage room because we have to keep a very steady temperature. And we don't want any mice taking up residency with our little chicks. So we will be working on illegal rodent immigration on Saturday. I will post pictures of our little babies when we get them. And we got roosters because they were cheaper to start with and we wanted to make cheap mistakes. FYI...These guys are going to be food, so no names will be given, unless it's to the exotic one, who we might keep when we get the hens in the spring. But we are going to have a nice, fat, plump, chicken dinner on Christmas. And it will be home grown.
Speaking of home grown...our garden is still going strong. We have two heads of cabbage left. We ate two already, very tasty...and our Peppers are still spitting out produce like crazy. I just pulled off ten peppers today, and we got ten last week as well. Fall is a great time to get some last minute harvesting done. We just ate our last radish as well, and our lettuce is comming in beautifully. I just hope the carrots speed things up or we will have to say goodbye before they're past their baby stage.

Well, my hands are freezing from typing...they always do that. There will be more shortly, with baby chick pictures. Hope you all enjoy Meredith's pictures in the leaves.

Hot Again?!?!

2007-09-26T08:55:00.001-07:00

Well I thought the cool weather was here to stay, but nope. It's up in the 80s and I am already wishing for the cool winds to come back. We've been trying to become more organized at home in order to save money. So I've compiled my days into certain categories. I go shopping on Monday and work on the household bills. Then I bake and cook all day Tuesday...very hot and tiring. I clean all day Wednesday (notice it's Wednesday now and I'm not cleaning...I hate cleaning). Thursdays are Canning Day. I've decided to start some food storage. Friday is Activity Day, to just get me out of the house. And Saturday is Project Day, Spencer and I usually get up pretty early and work on some farm projects while Meredith is still asleep. Sunday is of course Relax and Refresh day. We tend to take naps or play a game. Although now that Julia has TV I find Spencer sneaking into her room more often to catch a show or game. He can't resist. Funny thing is I'm home all day every day I don't have the time to go in and watch anything. Nor the desire. I really don't care much for TV...except for The Office. The greatest show in the world. We'll see what I do tomorrow night.
I don't have any pictures this blog, sorry. My camera's pictures died again and I need to charge them up. We've decided to get two pigs. Spencer's mother suggested it and we looked into it and she's right. Pigs do better when there's more than one. The true pig comes out in them. If one is eatting, the other will too, he doesn't want to be left behind. And they are healthier as well. We finally got the floor in the coop put down. And the roof is in need of some shingles and some finishing touches and we're on our way to putting up the nesting areas. We've found a lot of support for goats in this area. We found a lady at chruch who raises Alpacas and on the side they purchased some goats, and they are planning on getting more. So we have someone to go to with questions. We are looking forward to having them in a few years.
I got into this site online called Freecycle.com, it's great. I've already got some great stuff off of there. If you have something to get rid of you just post it and people will take it if they want it. Or if you need something and somebody needs to make space they can give it to you too. We went to a lady's house to pick up some stuff we got from her and she was showing us the stuff she got. She got a three-wheeler for free. All they needed to do was clean the carborator out. Free! She got a crib for her twins, two sets of swing sets, beds, tables. Anything you want. It's all done by local chapters across the country, there are three chapters I could join to get my odds up of getting something I really want. You just have to usually go pick it up if you want it. But if it's a big item then it's cheaper to drive out there then buy a new or used one. It's great.
Anyway, that's enough blabbing. I'll think of some more interesting things to say next blog. Until then...

Fun in the Sun

2007-09-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

We had a fun little weekend. Spencer and I decided to go fishing. We have a hiking backpack that carries Meredith so she got to see all the fun upclose. We caught a total of six fish, but unfortunatly we forgot the camera in the car. We even caught a fish and we couldn't identify it. I say it was an over grown Sardine, at least that's what it looked like to me. Meredith decided she wanted out of the backpack for a bit and was walking around the bank of the creek and fell in. And then couldn't get out. She kept falling in deeper and deeper. The poor thing was crying so hard. She was really scared. I was right there next to her, but she started to freak out. Luckly once I calmed her down we saw she was just wet, and that's all.
But it was fun. I found some really nice Sea Glass, but I guess this would be Creek Glass. I'm going to use it as a decoration. I even found a cell phone in the water too. It did not work. Today I started a retaining wall project. And without a wheelbarrow it's very slow moving. I've moved 1/3 of the rocks by hand, but we will see how long I can keep it up. Since we live on a hill, I want a flat area for outside eatting. With a picnic table and an outside BBQ, or stove. So we have to make some flat land; and I'd rather build up, than dig down since you can only dig for about a foot and you run into the rock layer. They don't call this Rockbridge County for nothing. With the weather so perfect I feel like I could do all the projects and not tire of them. When it was hot it was a pain to work because of the sweat. But now it's just so nice I want to be outside all the time. It's usually in the fiftys or sixties until two or three in the afternoon, and then it finally hits seventy. We have another wave of peppers growing on the plants outside and our basil and chives are popping up. It's so nice that we can still grow veggies in September.
I don't remember if I mentioned the pig. We've decided to get a pig and are going to start working on that fencing area right away. It's much easier to make housing for chickens and pigs than for goats. So if we can get started on those two animals in the spring we will get the goats by 2009. It's a long way away, but there's still so much to be done on the barn and the fencing for the goats. Plus we need a tractor for them as well with all the land they are going to be on. But this is the country and things move slow here. Anyway, that's about it from us. Nothing else. I'll keep posting away as things happen.

Just chillin'

2007-09-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

Hello One and All!!
We are just moving right along with life. We were finally able to save up to buy a used washing machine, so now Julia and I don't have to wash all the clothes in the bath tub for hours on end!! We don't have a dryer but we are just hanging them the old fashioned way. It saves on energy too. Spencer had a friend come over yesterday and help clean up the barn to get it ready for the goats. Although we won't have them for a while yet. He took three loads to the dump there was so much junk in there. He even found a jaw bone to some cat-like creature with a very large canine tooth!
Yesterday morning I was out for my jog and I couldn't help taking this great picture of the farm across the street.

Can you believe that's what we get to look at everyday, it's just beautiful!! We really like our farm it very cute and three seasons out of four we have leaves growing all over the trees to cover up the highway behind us. And the bugs in those trees drowned out the noise with there incessant chirping, humming, buzzing and singing. In the evening the star show is breathtaking and if you look out at twilight you can see all the bats from the caverns come out and eat the bugs. We have so much wildlife right in our yard. You can see groundhogs in their burrows (in the barn!), or deer in our field. We even have rabbits, racoons, and a variety of snakes. It's always an adventure. We are really loving it here. The chickens are coming in the spring, and hopefully the goats will come within a year from now. We just have to fix the fence first and it covers two acres, so that's a bit of fencing to replace. But it's so much fun to see the labors of your own hands, and can say, "I did that!"

Meredith had her shots the other day, so she's a bit fussy this week. Her nose has been running too. And with this cold that's set in the past week, she's been bundled up to keep warm. In the morning you can see your breath, but in the afternoon you take refuge with a fan on you.
The leaves down by our creek are starting to change slowly too. But Meredith still loves her daily walks up and down our private road. Sometimes we go and pick wild flowers, or other days we play with the cat in the grass. She loves it here.
Spencer has another student to teach private lessons to as well. So now he's teaching a Bassoon lesson as well as an Oboe lesson this semester at the University. There are several other students who play Bassoon, so they might take lessons next semester. Spencer and I just got callings at church to teach the 10 year old scouts, the Webelos, that will be fun. There are three of them and they have a lot to catch up on. And that means so do I, I have no clue what to do, so it's off to the official website for Boy Scouts of America! But it sounds like fun. And life is fun! Catch ya all later!!

Summer at a close

2007-09-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

I know that Autumn doesn't really start until the end of the month, but I just can't help feeling that cool nights and warm days are ahead. I love autumn and I'm so looking forward to it. Meredith and I have been cleaning the house and moving things around. I am baking a lot of food because I'm in the spirit of "harvesting". We've had some of the food from our garden this week. I made a Radish Top Soup. I didn't know that the leaves of a radish were edible, but now I do. They remind me of strong spinich, but a little spikey. Our chicken coop will be finished this week. We are having a friend come over and help Spencer finish the roof and coops inside. We also have to put up the chicken wire around the building. When it's done I'll upload a picture. Meredith loves to play chase and or as we call it, preditor and prey!! LOL. I'm almost finished with refinishing the old Hutch we found. I finished the bottom, I just have to do the top half now. It takes a long time to remove four layers of paint, then fill in holes, sand and repaint. But it's going to be beautiful when I'm done. It's going to hold all my china and sliver. I am very proud of it. Too bad I didn't take a before and after picture. But when it's done I'll post that too.

We go for an evening walk down our private road every day and noticed we have three fruit trees on the edge of our property. Well finally they've started to grow fruit. I looked them up in a book that Pepere gave us about N. American trees. Well we have three Persimmon trees and they bear fruit in the fall. So we are going to buy a tree ladder and harvest them as well as our many Black Walnut trees, our Chestnut tree, and our Sugar Maple (this one might be a little difficult since it might not be cold enough in the winter to harvest the sap).

Anyway, enough posting for now. This has been a production of Masterpiece Theatre, tune in next week for "The Creature from the Black Lagoon."

The main attraction: Meredith

2007-08-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

Meredith and I have a lot of time to just hang out everyday of the week, so we've taken a few classic pictures to pass the time, that I'm sure you all will enjoy. She loves having her picture taken I found out. She is learning her body parts, she sticks her finger up her nose or sticks out her tounge. She even sticks her finger in her belly button to show where that is. Just be warned that if you ask her where your belly button is be prepared for a lifting of your shirt and a finger poke in belly button. She loves to find it!! She loves to eat (did her cheeks give it away?) and so I got a few clips of her covered in sauce from lunch yesterday. She has fun sucking up the noodles and leaving the sauce on her face.

I made a scrapbook for Meredith to look at whenever she wants. It's about herself, so she has all these pictures of her at different stages in life, and making different faces. She loves it. She calles all of them "Da da" which means "What's that?" She hasn't been speaking much, just a few basic words: Dida=daddy; ti ti=kitty; Mmmeeee=Moo (for a cow); Mmmmeee=Maaa (for a goat): yes they are both the same sound, but if you listen carefully there's a slight difference. Oh, and she says Ma=Mommy. She use to day Na Na for Auntie Julia, but she hasn't said it lately.

Meredith is (hopefully) going through an anxiety phase. If a loud truck drives by she cries and runs to me. If the phone rings, she's in tears and screaming for me to comfort her. Sometimes she just gets scared that I'm across the room and colapses into a ball of fear until I come and pick her up. I don't know why, but I feel so bad for her, but my back is killing me from carrying her so much lately. But as all things, this too will pass.
Enjoy the pictures.

My first blog...

2007-08-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!!
I decided to go ahead and make a family blog. Now everyone can see what's going on, and now that I am a stay at home mom, I have time to jump on a few days a week. So you should be able to keep in contact with us. Well, we are living in Glasgow, VA and have a nice little farm. We still have so much to do on the house, and the property, but everything costs money, and we are tight, so projects are at a stand still. It's been unbearable with the heat, and no air conditioner. Julia can attest to that, we've been plopped out on the couch in front of the fan for days. Well, now she has a job and I'm sure it's air conditioned, so Meredith and I swelter in the heat and humidity. The house is 80 years old and there is absolutely no insulation in the walls or ceiling. Winter will be fun! But it's a farm house, so it is meant to be hard living.
This past weekend we gutted the old outhouse (a two-seater!!) and are going to turn it into a chicken coop. It's the right size and all that's left of it are the four walls and two doors. We are planning on buying some chickens in the spring. We've also started our garden a few weeks back and our main cash crop seems to be Radishes. We bought some cabbage too and they are beautiful. I can't wait to eat them. We also have discovered that we have around 15 Black Walnut trees on our property so we are full of nuts, they should be ready to harvest by the end of September, so if anybody wants some let us know!! And the Chestnut tree will be ready to harvest in early November...I think. So if you stop by for Christmas we'll have some roasting on a fire. (LOL) Anyway, we're still busy arranging and rearranging the house, and building shelves and closets and all manner of storage for our unequipped house. When our house was build in 1927 it was originally a grocery store, and then converted into a house. The bathroom is the same size as our bedroom, and the kitchen is small and long, and under the stairs. But it's, what's the word...unique. We really like it. Once I find the battery charger and charge the batteries for the camera, I'll post some pictures. Audios!