Exercise in Futility

Tonight my kids were playing out in the 85 degree evening during the sun set and discovered TWO baby birds being carried around by our big cat, Bear. They younger three are 12, 10 and 4 now and they immediately had to rescue the birds...what else could they do?!

They begged me to let them keep them in a box in their room and since I was busy writing a blog post I said, "oh sure, girls, but you know they WILL die...so be prepared". I couldn't stop them from being their little compassionate selves. It's a part of growing up. Trying to save a bird and it dying. Also the 10-year-old is a veracious reader. She remembered the instructions that she read in her "how to take care of your cat" book and remembered how to even care for the birds the cats try killing...so really, who am I to argue?

My husband asked me why I let them, since they will die. I basically said, "I don't know! I couldn't tell them no!" (hands over face and also not mentioning that I wasn't paying super close attention...) He said, "this is an exercise in futility". I love that he says such smart things like this in just regular everyday conversation. He told the girls that he tried doing the same thing as a boy but they must prepare themselves for the death of these birds.

We just went though this ourselves just two months ago. One of our cats had a little of kittens and one of them was stupid and fell out of a tree one evening. Well the darn thing broke it's leg and, as long as we have been married, have always vowed to never spend money on pets/mousers/working animals. But when that darn vet was getting ready to inject him and put him down with out really letting me make the decision, I said, "can I just call my husband first please?!" Hubby and I decided to let the doc amputate the leg which would have been the cheapest option of helping it live but the doctor decided to put a pin in and assured me it wouldn't cost extra. Well after the leg healed a month, there was a major blockage in his little intestine and he couldn't be saved. We finally had to let him go and we buried him in our yard.

In retrospect our case was also an exercise in futility, but what else were we to do?! God has given us the means to pay for a not outrageously expensive little baby cat surgery and God gave us that sweet little baby kitty. Neither one of us felt right about putting him down immediately with out giving him a chance. If we were poor then sure...we shouldn't spend the money. But we're not poor and we decided to try saving the little booger...but it just didn't work out. I cried when I said by to him. I had allowed myself to get attached after we decided to fix his leg. He was going to be our little indoor house cat buddy and my husband and I both loved his temperament. He loved to cuddle with him and me. We both pretended like it was a burden to pay for and keep this silly kitten, but inside we were both looking forward to loving him for a long time. We got one month. So I'm thankful for that. But writing this is making me teary again...but it's probably good to finally have closure.

I didn't want to get attached to animals after I had my kids. They die too fast. It's sad to loose them. I hate the book Old Yeller, who writes these things?! I actually hated the movie and refused to read the book....I talked to the girls about it just today...why read a book so sad? I think I'm extra sensitive, I'm not sure. It's ok though. I tried being tough for a lot of years but that didn't work out well...I'm trying to be who God made me. And that's a sensitive person and that's ok.

I'm sure this won't be the last exercise in futility the girls make, but that's ok too. They're my sweet girls and it's better to be compassionate and hopeful than to immediately write the creatures off as dead and discard them in the woods or let the cat have them for his supper. At least that's what I think.

Baby is coming...

Feeling compelled to write this evening after finding a cool blog by a fellow Orthodox homeschool mama and mother-of-seven. Lovely blog she has.

I have snapped just a few photos recently and wanted to share.

Here's my fridge. I know it's a little barren, but LOOK at how much is homegrown or homeade!!! I'm just really proud of myself. Even the lemonade is organic...hehe.

This building is my midwives birth center. I literally could have my baby in a barn...but we're going to have it at home like the last 3. :) I just love this old Colony barn, it's such a beautiful birth center too.

My precious girls the other night with their papa at Home Depot. Trying to find the playground section. Our 14-yr-old playground died, it's time to replace her. I love how colorful my girls are.

Me!

Our sweet mama kitty had another batch of kittens. Kittens are soooooo fun for the kids (and adults too). Their big sister cat I think wants to eat them, we'll try to keep them safe. That's their mama in the background, she's such a good mama.

Our neighbor's Scottish Highland cow had a cute little calf! It's so fun to be next door to them. The white one is supposed to calf soon too. This was taken around 10:30 in the evening next to our driveway, they were visiting us. Love Alaska summers.

Pooped after church on Sunday, so the kittens insisted that I sit down with some coffee and let them nap on me. My sister came over to keep us company for a bit. Rainy afternoons can be so refreshing.

I snapped some of the garden the other day, but haven't uploaded them yet. It's looking lovely and tucked in under a nice layer of mulch.

I doubt I'll blog again 'till after I have this baby. This month is packed. My little brother flew up for his friend's wedding, so tomorrow we get to see him and sister for a little bbq. This will be our first family gathering since my parents moved to Hawaii, that will be strange for them not to be there.  Our two older kids fly to Seattle to attend St. Mary's camp in two days and visit friends in Ellensburg and hopefully squeeze a short trip to the monastery at Goldendale, they will be gone for 10 days. I have to call in for jury duty this whole month. My 20th high school class reunion is literally on my due date. The "fish guy" should call us on Thursday with our fish (salmon) order of the year, so we'll be gutting/cleaning them late into the night. Three of the kids have swimming lessons for the next two weeks, so that means driving to town every day. While daughter is gone I have to get the 10 & 12 year olds to milk the goats, not a fun task. While son is gone I have to get the 10 & 12 year olds to care for the chickens, walk the neighbor's dog and get the neighbor boy to do his church lawn mowing job for him. Our LaMancha goat is due with her baby a week before I am. I still have not "nested" either, so I really need to go through the old baby stuff and pitch half of it and keep just some. I bought 4 flowering trees that I still need to plant, teens are leaving... so I may hire the neighbor boy to help me. Farmers are cutting hay in Palmer, so I have to get hopefully 40-50 bales to last us 'till next summer, since there was a hay shortage last year, I have to get on this quickly before it's gone. I still have to run my business, always very busy during the summer. Thank goodness school is mostly over and what we are still doing is minimal and always excused if we went to town that day or if there was just the need to play instead. Those are just the things I'm remembering about.

I know we can do this, it'll just be crazy busy...Alaska doesn't allow one to sit still during the summer. However, I do plan on doing a lot of sitting, snuggling, resting during August. I'm looking forward to the down time.

Baby is coming. 

Where I have been...

In October 2013 I found out that we were having another baby.

I miscarried three years ago and have not talked about it much. It was hard. This pregancy was much quieter because I learned with my one miscarrage how terrible it is to have someone six months into a supposed pregancy ask you when you are due...then you must tell them you had miscarried. That well-intentioned person will then feel horrible and want to change the subject by talking about how they had a friend who miscarried thinking that that will lighten the mood. It doesn't. After this happens a few times you vow to yourself that you will not tell a single soul that you're pregnant the next go-around.

So, since October I have been gestating a new life...and that's about it. Other than trying to keep myself alive by eating when I don't want to...and trying to keep my business afloat. Basically hubby and the kids have done a lot of fending for themselves and the house has all but gone to pot.

With my first six kids I was full of all sorts of piss and vinegar in my second and third trimesters. I have had amazing pregnancies, thus have six amazing children to show for it and never have felt the need to stop. I had serious motivation, serious creativity, serious crazy ideas (that were good). With this one, I'm older (my youngest daughter will be turning six when this baby's born) and this baby is sucking my brains out of my head and the life out of my body...not that I'm complaining, I know it's all worth it. My second trimester has been very tiring and I have done a lot of resting (thanks to my awesome hubby and kids).

Today something happened. I was standing in church this morning and I wanted to write a blog post. I have thought of a few during the past few months, but the idea of actually concentrating on something for that long seemed very daunting and never actually happened. I thought about what I wanted to write about, I have it all planned out in my head, sort of. It will be titled, "Small children, small problems; Big children, big problems." Based on some great advice I got from a friend about 5 years ago now. Being in church is great, I really should be praying, but the reality is that I don't usually do much of that, but I do think about stuff.

When I got home, guess what happened? I turned into super Nazi mom and started making the kids pick up the nasty house. And vaccum, and CLEAN the stuff that should have been done already. I inspected their rooms, had one clean the school room, I even took a giant pile of paper that was to be burned and shredded the whole thing 'cause I'm tired of it getting scattered around the living room. I moved all the jars and junk that have been collecting dust in the dining room the past 6 months and put stuff away and dusted and made my dining room look nice again. Hubby, who took this week off (Holy Week) asked me if I'd suddnely entered into my third trimester because I was going crazy (the good kind). I realized that if July 27th is my due date, the 3rd trimester is only about a week away.

The house is now clean, and here I sit, writing a blog post. Crazy for sure. Perhaps I'm not destined to be unmotivated for this whole pregnancy after all...

Even if I am, that's ok. At least we got a lot done today and I'm happy about that. I can actually have company on Saturday with a bit more confidence in my ability at being a homemaker.

Baby bump as of now.

 

Glamping, being tourists and having some fun.

Last fall my husband visited friends of ours in PA and convinced them to fly up their son for a couple weeks to spend some time here. Joey is 14 this summer and our godson. We had a blast! We played "tourist" and did some mini adventures. I took pics of most things and for some reason didn't take one photo at the Matanuska Glacier where I took the kids one day. Stupid!

Here's a photo of where we were hiking, taken by someone at "Over Yonderlust". We were able to walk out onto the glacier on this section. There aren't many glaciers that you can access and actually walk on. It was a little creepy but very cool. Take a jacket even if it's 80 degrees in the parking lot...

We climbed "the Butte" in Palmer. That's the Knik glacier behind the kids. It was a fantastic hike and so warm.

Hubby agreed to take two days off of work so we could go "camping" and yes that's in quotation marks because "real" Alaskan's don't go in campers and motorhomes. Someone called it glamping but I refuse to use that word... I managed to find a lady with a motorhome with 9 seatbelts in town to rent from. We didn't have room for us all in our van to go anywhere, so this was our one family trip. We headed down to Seward for 2 nights.

Here is a shot in the motor-home.

Little miss "fluffernutter" having some quiet time with the books she brought in her neat and tidy suitcase.

The handsome men-folk and bonus baby.

Very nice camping spot on the end and with the tent spot we got a bona-fied firepit.

We were fortunate enough to have my sister and her hubby decide to join us last minute. They have 4 boys. Despite the fender crusher bender on the way down and the 2-year-old who was potty training and the colicy baby, they had a great time too.

Time for another change of clothes!

We had our fair share of hiccups as well:

The day we got to the campground we turned on the water pump in the motorhome. Unbeknownst to me someone had tried using the sink in the bathroom and left the water faucet on and the sink plugged. My 5-year-old nephew said to me, "your motorhome is leaking" and pointed under the rig. Then Joey stepped into the hallway and his socks were immediately drenched. The whole motorhome was carpeted, including the bathroom, argh. We had to keep drying it out the whole time we were there, fortunately we brought lots of towels!

We also had another big and nasty "incident" but I think I have filled my blogging-about-poop-quota for the year already, so I'll spare you.You should say, "thank you" now. I'm serious.

We stayed at "Stony Creek Campground" and by stony creek, they weren't kidding. Very silty glacier creek with a cell tower was what it was, but the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves, that's what counts.

The cell reception there was amazing and they even had Wi-Fi...I could have done with out those, we could have even hooked up to cable!!! What? We jokingly took many photos of each other facebooking on our phones around the campfire and uploaded them to facebook where we were fiercely ridiculed as we should have been...

Not right camping.

While in Seward we visited the Alaska Sealife Center.

And my girlfriend showed us all her's and her dad's fishing boat.

On the way home we stopped at the Wildlife Conservation Center. We saw brown and black bears, wood bison, muskox, eagle, porcupine, owl, arctic fox, moose, caribou, white tailed deer, elk and many other cool creatures you find in Alaska. It's a really fantastic park and if you're headed down to the Keani Pinnunsula, I highly recommend it. The prices are affordable and you can drive around there if you don't feel like walking.

Farmer feeding his woodland bison which were thought to be extinct.That is the coolest job.

Hugo the bear, she can even do some tricks.

They have an amazing walk way right up near the black bears. So cool.

After we got home I took the kids up to Independence Mine located in beautiful Hatcher Pass. It was another amazing and warm day and they have added many paths I didn't know were up there. They have a nice little free museum, pictures, and they have been cleaning up the old fallen buildings and restoring some of them.

View of half of the restored and fallen buildings below us.

Behind us is the small train track they used to cart the ore out of the mine.

We stopped at the Little Su River for a photo op of everyone. Sus is simply trying to keep her eyes open, the sun was bright. :-/

We had so much fun with Joey and last night I took him to the airport where I escorted him through security to his gate and I got to get a pat down on the way there...grr. We were so happy that we got to play tourist and be forced to get out and see more of this amazing place. It's so easy to get caught up in the needs of the home, especially for me, and I forget to go out and play.

Much adoo about poop. You heard me, poop.

Where shall I begin, really it wasn't all that wacky of a day on the wacky scale of things; but for nostalgia sake and for the fact that my memory sucks, here's a blog post on last Friday. I started it Friday and finished it today, it's been a busy week.

My daughter is almost 15 and today I got her a new kitty. I also brought home a new goat. It was sunny and a perfect; 70 degrees all day.

I was at my friend, Karlene's house, and she was showing me her pigs, chickens, turkey, geese, cow and of course, her goats. Her barnyard is looking so picturesque. She told me that her husband had bought her a new kitten for Mother's day (because that's what every mother-of-seven and a ginormous heard of goats wants for mother's day, donchyaknow?).

I told her how the week prior I'd given our kittens (Archer and Bumpkin, two that Karlene had given me) to my sister who discovered a large mouse infestation in her chicken house. She had already lost 4 kitties due to mean woodland creatures as she lives in the woods, but with the mice, finally agreed to try it again. It was good timing because the combination of our 4 cats were decimating our new bird population that had just moved in for the next few months to hatch out their babies. They were catching about 5 birds a day, and we had had it with their mad catching skilz. Besides, only our house cat, Oreo, was catching actual mice, she had to go far to find them too, we haven't had mice since we got her last year. Well after I gave those 2 cats to my sister, our other outdoor cat, Fred, decided to get lost, perhaps he was looking for his buddies or maybe a dog ate him, I really don't know, but we were sad he left, he was a sweetie. Then 2 days later Oreo disappeared, she was my son's cat, she was fixed, not very cuddly but a great mouser. That was pretty upsetting, but we have owned 7 cats in the past 18 months and now we have none...

our 3 barn kitties 2 weeks ago

Karlene, being the saint that she is, gladly gave me her long time barn kitty, Yoshi. She is snuggly and a moucer. What a sweetie.

One of the reasons I made the trek up to Karlene's was to get our new little goat, Belka (daughter of Elka) disbuded. Her horns had grown a lot in five weeks and I was behind the 8 ball getting her poor little head burned. Karlene is my goat mentor and she still does all sorts of uncomfortable goat farmer duties I haven't learned yet. She burned large circles around her horns while the goat screamed her little heart out. The smell is awful and there is a LOT of smoke, burning flesh and hair, that smell.

The other reason I was there was to take my friend, Amber's, buck that she was renting from Karlene back to Karlene. Karlene is an hour away. I was also taking our goat, Lady to get bred and in the meantime she would send me home with a goat in milk since hubby is annoyed at feeding animals that aren't producing. So, the new goat I brought home is, Elaine. A sweet Nubian who looks just like my other giant Nubian, Amelia but she's only a yearling first freshener and much smaller. We may end up buying her, not sure yet.

Typically when I load up goats to go to Karlene's I put down a tarp in the back of my trusty eight passenger 2003 Chevy Venture, roll up the edges a bit, and they may poo or pee one time each. Zero times, if I'm lucky and I have been lucky. Well on Friday I learned a lot more about bucks behavior. It's one thing to know about buck smell, but it's another thing to "know" about buck smell. You see, bucks pee on themselves to make them more handsome and attractive to female goats. Their wiener even has a little spinney end on it so that when they pee it is not straight down but in a whirl y-gig fashion. I am so thankful this buck's whirl y-gig was either broken off, or non-functional. They also pee a lot more around girl goats, the smell is attractive to them. And apparently poop much, much, much more than girls do. That stupid buck peed at least 8 times in that hour drive, and I mean PEED! A lot. He also pooped a lot. Probably another 8 times on that count too. So by the time we got to Karlene's the tarp was full of "mud". Nice huh? Unfortunately my doe was not impressed, there was no "van-a-rockin" from their hanky panky that day. Darn.

The other thing my daughter noticed before we left was that Belka had the runs. Meaning she wasn't feeling well. Karlene is basically my vet too so I knew taking her out there would get her help as well as a burned head. So off we went... I put a blanket on my daughter's lap, buckled in my 4-year-old and we were off! Already late as usual, I didn't really consider what we would use to clean up any gooey droppings from Belka. Huge oversight.

We got 45 minutes out, almost there. "Mama! Can you please pull over right now! She pooped in my hand!" Gross. I pulled over as soon as I could but not quite soon enough. She had to put Belka on the floor and she dribbled more poopy on my daughter's "Alaska Grown" hoodie. She asked her 4-year-old sister to unbuckle her (her hand was still full) and so the 4-year-old, who by that point had taken her mud boots off, stepped right into the dribble glob. When I told her to be careful because I could see she might step in it, she had already done so but quickly jumped back into her booster seat, well, yes, spreading it all over her seat. She promptly sat down (in it) and took her socks off, as if that would help at this point. After my older daughter jumped out of the car with the loose psyco baby goat, it was my job to catch then hold the goat from running wild while my daughter wiped poo from her hand on the alder filled tundra-ish ditch area. After she got a make-shift halter around her I was able to look for some baby wipes, because I never leave home without baby wipes...except on Friday. My youngest child is now 4 and apparently I have not made sure we have a good baby wipe stash in a while...not a good time to find this out. Paper towels? No. Napkins? I always have napkins! Oh, look, there's one. One napkin. A little chincy "they are trying to save money at that cheap drive through" sort of napkin. I wiped the poop off of my wedding ring and fingers; and that was all. I resigned myself to doing a load of laundry when we got home. I saw the buck peeing, saw that he wasn't stopping, contemplated letting him outside but thought better of it, told him to stop, he didn't, so I grabbed his face and looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Stop peeing!" and he stopped. Oh, right, and when I was looking for wipes on the driver side of the van and shut the door behind me, the awesome automatic door that sometimes acts like a jerk decided not to shut and to re-open. Lady decided to make her grand escape and jumped onto my oldest daughter's seat and jump out on the road side of the van. Yay! So the oldest threw the halter/leash at the 4-year-old and yelled, "hold her" as she ran off to catch Lady. But the 4-year-old didn't actually have a grip before it was let go of, so off went Belka. We caught her. I rushed around to shut the door before the buck decided to escape as well, I used my daughter's poopy socks to wipe off the "mud" that Lady had gotten all over my other daughter's seat now. We finally got all three goats back into the van, the hoodie now acting as the dribble catcher on the floor in front of my daughters and both girl's seats slightly marred with goat "mud". Time to GO!!! We got there as fast as possible and I pulled the full tarp out of the van to let it drip dry while I enjoyed my visit. I fetched all of the extra goat droppings that had escaped the tarp, there are always some of those. Fortunately I had a pair of work gloves in the van that I wore the rest of that day 'till I got to Taco Bell on our way home to order us some dinner.

I always wonder what the Taco Bell employees think when I go through their drive through with goats in my car. That's how we roll.

Yoshi, Elaine and Belka on the ride home.

Youngest was woken from her nap by kitty snuggles.

Sneak Peak

I'm not sure how much I have talked about the "new girls room" on here. I haven't had my phone now for three weeks now (aka my camera, that's another long story about the repair shop being sold to a Russian man named Egor all while my phone was there being held hostage as I'd already paid half for the special order part that didn't end up getting shipped...doesn't really boost the confidence in the repair of said phone). During that first week of no camera is also when my builder friend had two days worth of time to dedicate to building us some built in beds in the little girls room. It just happened to coincide with the goat giving birth, the chicks coming and the bees arrival. Needless to say, that week was insanity.

I, like so many pintrest nuts out there, have been wanting built-in-bunks for a while now. I, not like so many others, have a really good excuse to build them (yay for having 6 kids, sometimes you get cool stuff). I have three girls crammed in one bedroom. They have been sharing two twin beds for the last two years. I have been saving up for this and finally hubby and I had had enough of the fighting and crying at bedtime. Something had to be done. This room is the largest kid bedroom but has weird quirks. There's the giant 5'x8' window on the north wall. It also has a basement bump out wall on two sides of the room. And the south wall has the closet all the way at one end and the door all the way at the other, thus eliminating the ability to put bunks on the door end. Ugh, I have thought long and hard about how to solve this room dilemma. I love the look of window seats, and that's what we would end up with in here, two separate window seat/beds built at the height of the bump out. The bottom two bunks would be shorter with no window and less head room, and they also would not have a base, the mattress must rest on the floor, but when it's your space, it's your space and it's still better than nothing. Also, since we only have 3 girls, there was no need for a fourth mattress, it's the perfect spot for the doll house, the extra dresser and, well, their junk.

After the room was painted all white (cut down on taping labor and time, all me) I had time to figure out what lamps I wanted in these 4 beds. Lowes had ugly wall mounted lamps for $42 each, so I easily settled on these hobnail milk glass wall lamps and just so happened to find 4 matching ones on Etsy the price was between $30-$50 each including shipping. The plan is to take some plain lampshades and doll them up with some cute bright pompom trim.

And remember the photo of the cute green chandelier with buttons? Well, I don't think mine is as cute, but it's cute. I spray painted our old "antique brass" one I'd gotten for the dining room (that was too small) and put it up in here. I also ordered the beads/buttons from a gal on Etsy. I'll add the bead necklaces as I find them around the house or as they break.

Notice the bunting in the background? Em loves to sew and she really loves sewing triangles. She did the bulk of the initial sewing and I finished them up on Friday. The vintage circus pictures came from the local antique store "Chickadees".

Here's a photo of the least messy bed (Fran's):

Eventually I'll have curtains up on the window, closet and on each bed. I'll also eventually get Sus her own big-girl-mattress and her own set of book shelves. I am ordering a mirror from the local gal who re-paints old pieces in super cute bright colors, I'll put that on the blank wall in the pic straight above.

Snow Icecream

As I sit at my desk not working but blogging instead, my kids are giggling behind me while they watch AFV with my husband. I love hearing them laugh.

The sky decided to open up this weekend and take a dump, literally. We have SO much snow from this "storm". The roads are really bad because they had a good coating of water last week from the melt off then froze, then it snowed, making things very slick. There have been countless numbers of crashes out there, I'm staying home.

To those that say it shouldn't snow in April? I say, "then you shouldn't live in Alaska...it ALWAYS snows in April". Learn like I had to that March is "fake spring" and end of April-May is "real spring".

My 9-year-old asked at 9:30pm if she could make snow ice-cream and papa wanted to say no since it was late but really? How many more great large fluffy snowfalls will we get this year? Here's how we make ours.

Sorry no pictures, my phone is in the shop after last weeks phone-death-by-dog incident.

Snow Ice-cream: serving 6 children

Fresh snow
Vanilla extract (I typically save my gallon of fake vanilla extract for this recipe since we use so much making this and I'm not eating it, the kids are)
Sugar
Milk, any kind (almond, soy, real, we end up usually making this with vanilla almond milk)

Scoop up a LARGE bowl of snow, heaping if you can - (don't scrape it off the ground, gross).
Quickly swirl on one large circle of vanilla, we don't measure.
Scoop on a scoop of sugar over the top, we don't measure.
Swirl on some milk. Stir, mush down chunks of vanilla and milk, keep adding more milk as needed. You want it to be almost mushy but not quite. There should not be any bright white snowy spots yet, you want all the vanilla mixed in. Taste to be sure you have enough sugar, add more if needed.

Serve in bowls, not cones, it melts fast.

Enjoy!

Silly Saturday

My kids are funny and they say or do amazing or silly things. Sometimes I write them down on facebook or here...

As you may know we are homeschoolers. Spring is the hardest time for school for any child and that does not exclude mine. Math seems to get harder this time of year as well and they loose their focus more than usual. I decided to declare a contest on Thursday and to let the kids race through the rest of their math books and see who could win a promised "large bag" of candy. Well the boys were ok with that but were convinced that their little 9-yr-old sister would be the clear winner. She was already 10 lessons ahead of the 11-yr-old and 16 lessons ahead of the 12-yr-old. Well little miss 9-yr-old decided that she was going to win and the first day did 3 lessons total and on Friday morning got up and did 3 more lessons before I even got out of bed! I asked her if she was even going to give her brothers a chance. She giggled, "No!" The boys gave up so I decided to offer a boy reward of the video game that they have been wanting. Yep, I'm desperate.

little miss stinker doing her math

Yesterday was garbage pick up day. I asked the kids if the trash man had come yet. My 4-year-old daughter responded. "Yes, he came and we talked and talked. Oh, mama, I have to whisper you something." "Ok."  I said and bent over. "I think the trash man and I are in love with each other." Hopefully my daughter will grow out of the extra tall, much older, really creepy men stage.

the girl who loves the trash man

My 11-year-old son has now read all of the Brothers Grimm stories he also had his own chicken job this week and his brothers as well. On Tuesday he wrote this story:

The Two Chickens

Once there were two chickens. One of the chickens ate eggs and the other was simple and stupid. One day the evil chicken overheard the farmer talking with his wife, "One of the chickens is eating our eggs! When I find out which one eats the eggs I will kill it!" When the hen heard that, she became frightened and then she remembered the simple one and thought of something evil. The next day the farmer came out with a hatchet and put an egg in front of both the hens. Then the evil hen said to the simple hen, "Hey guess what? There is a treasure inside the eggs, just peck them out." When the simple hen heard that she looked at the evil one and answered, "But I don't know how to do it. I have never done it before." When the evil hen heard that she became angry and yelled, "Why are you so stupid" Do I have to show you how to do everything? Look, you do it like this." Then the evil chicken pecked the yolk out of her egg. But no sooner had she done this her head was cut off. And the stupid hen lived happily ever after. Then end.

My writer man on his birthday. I had to go with the Instagram 1977 look because of his vintage
Star Warst-shirt and his Star Wars cake his sister made for him.

Our daily bread

I got a request to share our weekly bread recipe. I don't expect most people to want to make it this way because you need a grain mill and a variety of grains to mill, but none-the-less this is the way we do it...

Multi grain bread (makes 3 large loaves)

Add to grain mill, typically we set it on fine:
1 c Prairie Gold wheat berries (Hard white spring wheat, known for it's light color)
1c Hard Red wheat berries (I use this because a friend gave me hers, she didn't know it was flour, another reason to have a grain mill, you can score free food...)
1 c Spelt berries (ancient type of wheat, nutty flavor, high protein, not gluten free, typically paired with Kamut)
1 c Kamut berries (another type of wheat, high protein, not gluten free, typically paired with Spelt)
-we grind these 4 cups of wheat berries in our NutriMill grain mill-

4 kinds of wheat berries made into flour

Combine flour with 3.5 cups of water and cover with a plate, let sit overnight. (I have done a decent amount of research and have discovered that whole grains have Phytic acid in their hulls. This is not good for you and prohibits your body from absorbing the good nutrients in those same grains. Soaking or sprouting those grains breaks it down making it better for you and easier to digest. Not to mention that it makes a much nicer loaf of bread. The easiest way I have found to soak is after grinding, that way I don't have to soak the grain, then dry it then grind it. Saves many steps for us.)

here is the wheat soaking in the water, getting all soft and good for us

Add to grain mill:
1/2 c lentils (what ever I buy in bulk, I believe they are green or brown lentils)
1/2 c millet (this is a gluten free grain, is a complete protein, high in nutrients and much less expensive than quinoa)
1/2 c brown rice (I personally don't love cooked brown rice...perhaps I even hate it, so I add it to my bread)
-grind, this acts as my "white" flour that I add in later, these grains probably *should* also be soaked, but the recipe only calls for 3.5 cups of water and I'm trying to eliminate extra white flour)

Next day add to the dough:
1 heaping Tablespoon of yeast
1/4 warm water, proof

1 heaping T of salt
1 scoop (maybe 1/4 or 1/2?) of white sugar (this is clearly not the best sugar for us, but it's cheaper than honey or maple syrup so I use it because of cost and ease)
1/2 c ground flax seeds
1/2 c whole or quick oats
2-3 glugs of oil (that might be 1/4-1/3c oil? I use olive oil but any oil will do, I won't get into the trans fats oil thing today...)
--mix--
(we use a large Kitchen Aid mixer, this recipe fits the normal large size, I have seen larger Kitchen Aid's just recently but this recipe is to the max of my large one, my sister does a large recipe in her Bosch mixer)

Gradually add your lentil/millet/rice flour. When it needs more flour start adding white all purpose or bread flour, you should only need one or two cups of this to make a nice, not sticky dough. Knead the rest of the way if you think it needs it. Let rise for 1.5 hours.

Grease 3 large loaf pans (I should measure mine, but I believe they are "regular" sized loaf pans, not mini size). Divide dough into 3 parts, shape into pretty oval loaves, flour, put into pans and let rise for 1/2 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Let preheat for another 10 minutes, don't let the bread rise for more than 45 minutes. If you do, pop them out, re-grease pans, reshape loaves and let them rise a third time for only 20-30 min. It will rise much faster this time.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350. Remove loaves and pop them out of pans right away, they should be nice and brown on the bottom. Let cool on their sides. Put in bags when cool and eat within a couple of days or freeze. There are no chemicals so it WILL mold if it sits out for too long in a bag.

As is most bread, it's best enjoyed warm. You can also shape into rolls instead or create cinnamon/raisin bread with it instead of regular bread.

We typically start our bread on Thursdays and bake it on Fridays so we can have a yummy fresh loaf every Friday night.

As you can see it has many grains, thus the "Multi grain" name. I like using different grains in my cooking because they are a great way to get extra protein, minerals and nutrients into our diet. A better balance, if you ask me, than just plain wheat bread. I like knowing that even if my kids only put some butter and cinnamon/sugar on top they are still eating a "healthy" snack and they won't be hungry in 5 minutes.

The grain mill in an investment to be sure, but any whole grains are better for you if you grind them fresh and wheat flour can become rancid if it sits for too long after being ground. I originally split the mill with my sister and we'd share it, but she has since bought a hand crank mill (which I envy) and her little boys enjoy grinding her wheat for their weekly bread.

I have used the mill to make my own gram flour (not to be confused with graham flour). Gram flour is made from garbanzo beans or chickpeas or chana dal. Also called garbanzo flour or besan. Used a lot in Indian cooking and I've seen more in gluten free recipes. It grinds up those large beans no problem. If you are on a gluten free diet I would imagine that a NutriMill or something similar would be a great investment. Those tiny bags of specialty flours in the health food stores are expensive! But beans and rice are not. You just grind up what you need and you have your flour. I have a coffee grinder for the stickier (more oils) nuts and grains and spices. So if I need almond flour or to grind some flax seeds I use my coffee grinder for those.

Like I said before, this recipe will be way out of the league of many people and it certainly was for me a few years ago. But getting a system down really helps. And having a 9-year-old who only wants kitchen jobs (no animal jobs for her) is a great way to get my bread made weekly.

And I forgot to take more pics the day of baking. But here's the finished product.
Soft and extra delicious with homeade fireweed/rhubarb jam on top.

Bumbershoot

In 2011 my kids were calling umbrellas "bumbershoots" it seemed very random and strange. It was the younger girls too, but they all did it. I even mentioned it in a blog post one day called "random".

Today I saw this posted by a fun "word of the day" fellow who posts daily on facebook:

You can follow his page here.

I had to laugh. Here I thought they were making up a silly word but they probably read it somewhere. I love knowing that my kids are are learning with out me even knowing it.

Christmas break and the dreaded week after

I can not express how much I love Christmas break. This year was better than ever because I decided to take a full two weeks off and to not even THINK about school 'till it was over. A couple times when the kids seemed stir crazy I considered giving them school to keep busy, but quickly forced those demonic thoughts out of my head and told them to play more video games or watch another movie. We enjoyed our break, IMMENSELY. 

Starting school again after Christmas break is always rough.

This week...has been hellish.

This is the week all those homeschooling moms say, "why do I do this again?" and by the weekend are ready to lay in bed for two days straight after drinking themselves into a stopper because on Friday they started drinking at noon to just make the pain go away.

I have come up with some neat tips and tricks that you can tuck into your ammo vest, this list was compiled mostly with what not to do methods I discovered by doing them. That's how I roll.

Firstly (for the kids) DON'T constantly loose your temper at them right away in the week (like I did: do as I say, not as I do) . If you've come down with a nasty fever/cold like I got, perhaps TAKE A SICK DAY as much as humanly possible or you will be an even more wicked witch than you normally are and nobody benefits from it. In fact, I have a feeling that anything you wanted them to learn that day will be eternally blocked from their memory because it was taught on such a traumatic day, so it won't matter anyway.

TRY even harder this week to be EXTRA CALM. This will benefit you, I promise. A calm mother helps to calm her children. Even if that means calmly duct taping your 4-year-old mouth shut and sticking her in a closet, that's fine. After all, she has soooo many new songs she wants to sing after watching an exorbitant amount of NetFlix cartoons during your 2 week vacation.

Use bribery. Again, something I totally forgot about 'till today, Friday (the booze helped me to remember). Bribe with all that 50% off candy you bought the day after Christmas, that's right, chuck your no sugar rules OUT THE WINDOW this week! Bribe with their new video games that you just screamed at told them they couldn't play for a year because they weren't getting their school done. Coax them by cutting out problems in their math, after all, they are all just. so. repetitive. 

Stay in your pajamas. One less thing to do. It's a good thing. (this is one of the things I DID do this week)

Extra coffee. Well, duh.

Make good food as much as you can. I know, I know, this is hard. But, it reminds your kids that you can actually be kind and they may even thank you for your delicious food when you sit down to eat as a family. Also, feed yourself!!! This is one of my biggest mistakes, but forgetting to eat makes for an extra chafed mama.

Try to get at least one date night in during this week. You need a break from your kids but an even bigger reason is that they need a break from YOU! Go out with your husband, your girlfriends, or yourself. Doesn't matter.

Apologize to your family (individually). If you had the week from hell like I did, take a few minutes to tell them how hard it was for all of you and how very sorry you are for loosing your temper so often. Also praise them for the great job they did in spite of having such a rough week. This goes a long way. Include a hug for good measure. Remember that you're not only their teacher but also their mom, your job is to nurture as well as teach. Something I often forget.

Buy extra pencils just for this week. Sharpen them, leave them in jars on your table. (thank you Amber for this tip) They will inevitably: drop, loose, snort, eat, destroy, disappear and break THOUSANDS of pencils during this week in order to avoid doing their work. Don't let those pencils win.

Air horn. Brilliant. Thanks, Aimee.

Don't shower. Again, less to do for you. (did do, don't tell)

And that just about sums up the practical tips that I have after my week is now over (mostly) and my brain suddenly makes it's grand appearance after being in hiding all week long. I shall try to read my tips BEFORE school begins after next years Christmas break. But I probably won't. I think I'm doomed to repeat this cycle for the next 12 years that I will be homeschooling my children. 10 years down, just 12 to go!!! If you have tips to add PLEASE indulge us! Add them to the comments below.

And don't forget, sweet mothers-at-your-wits-end, homeschooling is a sacrifice and a choice you made to benefit your children. Wear your yoga pants-greasy hair-no makeup badge proudly. And remember my wise husband's motto that helps me be a better, and less worried homeschooling mother:

"It's our job to screw up our kids education, not the government's. Have faith that even if we have some failings, we WILL do a better job than someone else can with our God given children."

He also asks regularly:

"Honey, would you like a beer or some chocolate?"

What a wise man.

This is a fairly good image except for the mom's cute top, clean apron and dressed children...what homeschooed kid 4 and under wears all clothes at all times?? And look at the little girls' hair, it's BRUSHED. Psh. Unrealistic.

Disclaimer: Please realize that this post is VERY tounge-in-cheek. I want to stress how much I adore my children and love them dearly. I'm the best mom they could have and I would never actually do anything to harm them. Please don't take this post too seriously. I personally think it's silly to have to say this, but wise husband has encouraged me to regardless.

"What now mama" game

I started a game a long time ago with my kids when I want them to do a lot of work, happily, in a short time.

Here are the rules:

Mom brings a bag of candy like M n Ms, Skittles, Reese's Pieces, etc. (I have also used pennies.)

She declares a start to the game and calls all the children to her.

She declares that they shall do as you say. If they do as you say, they come back to mom and say, "what now mama? (mom?)" and you thank them with words and hand them a piece of candy. Then you give them another task.

I have 6 kids so this can get chaotic. I added another rule last time.

If they interrupt anyone (you or another sibling) they shall play the game with zero rewards.

I will typically do some fast and furious tiding up this way. Our kitchen island is 6'x6'. VERY large and get's VERY full of junk. Also good for tiding up living rooms and dining rooms, etc. Especially places where you know what goes where but you don't want to do all the running around to put it all away.

It usually only lasts for 45 minutes or so. I start to run out of things to tell them to do and it hurts my brain to think of so many things so fast.

Some of them stash the candy for when they are finished and some eat it right away.

They like this much better than the non-candy version which I do use sometimes. I will pick one or two and nominate them for the "what now mama game with no candy". They are basically my slave 'till I tell them, "thank you, you can go." They really don't seem to mind that too much. They really need to know when the end will be, then they can cope with it much better.

The main purpose is to get things cleaned up right away, but also to get the kids in the habit of being polite, saying thank you and making them ask if you need help.

It's easier than beating them with a broom...

Silly Saturday

...just a few things from today.

-7am oldest thinks she has to puke, she doesn't, we go back to bed
-took kids to choir practice
-had girlfriend over for a short chat
-got stood up by a customer
-customer called back, he wants to meet me in 7 minutes at the gas station
-bailed on friend to run to said customer to meet him on time
-said customer decided he couldn't pay me all the money he owed and paid only half
-I let him get away with it
-picked up my nephews
-dropped them off at home and went to get my book I forgot at choir practice
-got home and heard something next to me, I saw something move and freaked out, it was one of our cats, she had stowed away in the van
-ate a gingerbread cookie, first "meal of the day"
-got a call about our baby crib
-asked husband to get baby crib ready
-got upset
-cried
-husband hugged me
-husband solved the problem
-got out split pea soup of the freezer for dinner, thawed it
-ate 2nd meal of the day, yes another cookie
-called a bunch of customers who owed me money to make up for earlier
-lady came to pick up crib for a 15 year old mother
-split pea soup is actually refried beans, kids ate beans and chips for dinner
-close by customer came over to pay his bill
-took kids and nephews to church
-home again, home again, jiggity jig
(maybe I should feed myself proper food now)

The circle of life in mice

Now, you might be guessing, why in God's name would I write such an essay. I would never do such a thing, but my 13-yr-old, lover of all things animal, would. This year has been an interesting one with our homeschooling. I have not stressed as much about what I want them to do or study, but instead have encouraged them (in their English) to write every day and usually write what they want to write. This way they can work on their cursive, punctuation, spelling, grammar and over all how to write a paper. They love it and writing now seems to be easy and not a chore for them. It has been fun for me in the process. I'm amazed (still) at how different my 6 kidletts are and how their interests are so vastly different.

The other day my daughter asked if she could study mice and write a short paper on it, I obliged. Here it is:

A baby mouse is called a pup. Newborn pups, or "pinkies" are almost transparent. Pups are weaned at about 4-5 weeks. Mice can mate at 5 weeks old. Female mice (does) come into heat every 3-5 days. After the buck (male) breeds the doe, extra semen forms a waxy plug in the vagina. The gestation period in the doe lasts 18-22 days.

The doe needs fattier foods such as sunflower seeds during pregnancy. The doe normally gives birth between midnight and four in the morning. A doe's average litter size is 8-12 pups. Does can have anywhere between 1-32 pups.

And there you have it. Isn't that interesting? I never knew...

Poem by Second Son

Birds

There are many kinds of birds in our neighborhood.
Like the Yellow Bellied Dote
and the Blue Crested Balote.
The Black Headed Squinch
and the Evil Brain Finch.
The Ugly Faced Belch
and the Moldy Head Squlch.
All these birds in our neighborhood.

random

Do anybody elses kids call umbrellas "bumbershoots"? This is a new thing...but it's consistent.

I heard a yell, "MAMA". and my oldest brought my youngest into my office and her sad dirty face looking up guiltily holding a giant salmon fillet (cooked) in her hand eating it..."Do you want fish?" I ask (it's almost bedtime). She nods her head. "Ok, yes you may." I say.

I'm building a one-bale-of-hay holder for my kid goats. It's fun, I'm almost finished. I like that I'm getting better and faster at building things.

My neighbor came over about a 1/2 hour ago and took his tractor disc to a small part in our field so I can have a big-ish potato patch. It's late in the game for potatoes, but I started late last year and they did fine. It's nice and big.

A moment in time

Wanting to capture every precious moment of what my kids do, I still don't do it. I have a blog, therefore I'll write some of it here.

Youngest is developing her personality quite a bit lately...lots of words being said, lots of stealing of other people's food and lots of fits...

...however.

When she pets the dog on the porch she says over and over, "who's gonna miss you when I'm gone? who's gonna miss you when I'm gone? who's gonna miss you when I'm gone?" and the dog enjoys the attention.

When she "plays" with the baby goats she grabs their collar and yanks them where she likes and chases them with wooden stakes and sometimes hits them....then she gets in trouble.

She bites 2nd youngest if she makes her mad.

When I come home she runs to me and says, "mama, you came home! I missed you!"

She goes outside and gets dirty, every time. She sneaks out even, she loves it out there.

When we have any milk left from the goat's milk bottle she'll drink it if we aren't watching.

Last year she'd sneak into the chicken coop and this year she sneaks into the doe's pen even though they are 3x her size. She loves to hang out with them.

2 days ago I was on the phone and looked outside. She'd gotten out of the bath and gone out and was chasing chickens...naked...on the side of the fence with a VERY good view for the neighbors and all of their kids.

Last night we went to our friend's goat farm. She has many many goats. We discovered she really enjoys going up to each doe and pinching her teat. Not sure if it's to piss her off or to try to milk her. Either way it's funny.

She gets in my bed early early in the morning and snuggles with me and says, "I love you mama."

She wakes me up later and says, "Mama, it's morning, I have to go potty, you have to make me cereal."

We leave my sister's house and she says, "I had so much fun at Aunt B's house."

She drives me crazy. She loves life. She loves animals. She loves me. I love her.

Kids and dogs

My oldest daughter turned 13 this May. This is my child that has begged me for animals her whole life and this year is no different. She wants a puppy so she can breed it and sell the puppies.

I am not an animal lover. Not at all. I used to like cats, but not anymore. When I started having children I lost any interest I had for animals. HOWEVER as you know, we have many animals. This is mostly the fault of Martha Stewart and my daughter. Martha Stewart because when I watched her show years back she had the most beautiful eggs and I coveted them. I wanted THOSE chickens so I could get THOSE eggs. My neighbor knew about chickens so we jumped in. Turns out having chickens is fun and my husband took to them much more than I did. I love the eggs, he likes the hens.

When my daughter was eight she begged me for a horse (again) we have 2 acers but no fence or barn. Horses are very impractical in Alaska, however, as a homeschooling family we want to encourage our kids passions not discourage them. We got her into horse lessons. Unfortunately she was a natural...which sucks 'cause that means we can't easily quit. So we go during the summer. Last year she won the first competition she was in...beginners luck? At this point in time we are not equipped for horses and perhaps never will be, but we like the idea of her being distracted with animals through her teenage years. I don't think that will be a problem...our younger girls on the other hand, well that's a different story.

Another animal she begged for were goats. I didn't want to milk a goat, who was I kidding. I'm a lazy NOT farm girl. But goats make a whole lot more sense than horses do. I began collecting chain link dog kennel panels after our friend gave us theirs and another friend gave us theirs. I realized they would be great for goats (who are terrible at getting through fences). When I discovered last year that goats don't need the kind of heavy duty shelter that chickens do up here in the winter, I realized it was time to jump on board. No time like the present...if I don't do this now I may never. So we took the plunge, 2 Nubian does in milk producing 2 gallons a day. A whirlwind of a learning curve, what to do with THAT much milk?! Learn to make everything out of it and find what you like best.

This June one doe is maybe pregnant, harder to get her knocked up than the other. The other had 3 bucklings. The nice thing is that bucklings need more milk than doelings, so the doe will produce more that year, but the bad part is they suck it all and you don't have it to drink. We get about 1/2 gallon a day from the other doe now for ourselves, which is barely enough...we have to ration it. I'd wanted a LaMancha doe last year but the breeder I chose didn't have any. This year she had more LaMancha kids available. I don't have enough milk at the moment with the doe feeding kids and I also don't want my children getting attached to the bucklings we're raising to sell as bucks or to butcher this fall for meat...I decided that after my daughter did an amazing job this year doing 95% of the milking that I'd buy her a goat instead of a puppy.

It was a good call (so far) she was not disappointed, she's totally in love, she picked out the one that was born the day we were at the breeder's visiting, she and I will split any profits from sales of kids and the doeling will provide our family milk for years to come. Daughter named her Elka and though LaMancha's aren't nearly as cute as Nubians (no ears!) with her docile personality, she will definitely grow on us.

I'm finding the goats are growing on me in general. I dare say I could end up being a goat lover. Don't tell anyone.