Sunny Morning Chores with Beet Pulp.

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My citrus grove, happily enjoying a new flush of growth, due to some fertilizer.





I am just enjoying the light. Forward lighting can take a back seat today.





Thaw is in full force. Not real warm yet, but the sunlight is hard at work.





Is there any breakfast today?





Why yes, as a matter of fact. There is!





Beet pulp!





Stirring up in some warm water. Don't want to take any chances, even though the information of dry versus wet is still a bit conflicting.





Oh, yes. Warm, sweet, tasty, healthy, fibrous, metabolism-boosting, lovingly prepared beet pulp. Just for you!





Breakfast is served!





Is this for me? You are too kind!





This is new. What is it? Mom, come on over and try this.





What is this slop?





Maybe this one is better.





Nope, same stuff. I don't like it, do you like it?





Maybe the 20 dollar a bale stuff will come on the next delivery. We're not eating this!





Tune in next time for "As the Stomach Takes Turns" when the ruminants arrive and happily enjoy this same meal four times as much.

I'll trade two horses for a Dexter cow! Any takers?

~Faith

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I Miss Two Things At This Moment.

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Time to do this, and mild enough weather to do this.





This was taken in January of 2007. Michael and I were focusing on sports that home school year. We played tennis, every sort of _______ball you could think of, swimming, skating, and pretty much everything.

I'm so grateful for that last year before my DH left us. It was a fantastic year for Michael, to be able to experience those things before we no longer were able to do so.

My folks even came a long a couple of times, and that made it extra special.





But four years later...

We are hibernating as much as our garden beds!





Not a lot to blog about beyond that. I've been working really hard on learning computer things. I am reminded at just how near to being brain dead I am. Michael has been working on school and is the brains of the family.

I'm getting really good at driving on ice. That will be helpful in the coming ice age, um brought on by global warming?

Life is good
and cold.

From the woolly mammoth den,

~Faith

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A Photo Montage

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For 2011, I've decided to look at the world in a whole new way.





Maybe not. I can see the plates go flying on the way to the dining room.

On Shabbat the sunlight hit the greenery we have still not put away, intensifying the colors. The lovely golden hue that was there was lost however.





Michael, testing and finding the roads still providing the perfect skating medium for shoes. Not so good, though, for driving to rehearsals and office cleanings. We went anyhow, very carefully, but there were many wrecks all over town, including in front of us.





I had dug up our pepper plants to save for next year. They lost all their leaves, but had grown lots of new ones. We took them out on days above freezing, and brought them in before frost hit. Until one night we got home too late. I'm hoping they'll come back.





Brrrrrrr.





The horses were shivering, poor things.





A snow angel from the day before.





Photographing used children's clothing for ebay is using up a lot of my time. I can see this is a poor return on my time, but I am grateful for any income at this point. Now, if I can just figure out how to get them up and selling.





Michael is still getting used to the fact that these are indeed, man shoes.





And yesterday, after foraging food for the horses from where ever we could scavenge it from, making snow angels, and having a snowball fight. We did a little outdoor work, planting grass seed.





I'm told that during snow is the best time to broadcast seed. You can not only see where and how much you've strewn, but as the snow melts, it pulls the seeds into solid contact with earth, and next spring it should do very well. This is Kentucky 31 blend, only good for the sunny side of the house.





I hope this old seed is still viable. We've tried to thicken up this grass for years, and it doesn't like to grow. I'm thinking something tall, thick and lush would be mighty fine. Except for mowing. OK, a modification; thick, lush and green. And bad bug repellent. And....

Slap!

Realistically, the days are getting longer. And we have passed the official date where the northern hemisphere begins to gradually warm up its average temperature. Hold on, any faint of heart, we are on the upswing!





There's no place like Figi. There's no place like Fiji. There's no place like Fiji.

~Faith

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Wow! Cold!

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I can't help but wonder as I see the map of Canada, -40 wind chill factor.

I don't even want to think about how cold that is for man and animal; probably where they came up with the idea of garden statues.


Last week, as the wintry weather set in, we had another example of how we are protected. This minivan we've got is only going to go so far without having the funds to make repairs on it, but we are nursing it along as best we can. I make sure to get it serviced pretty regularly, but the broken things are more difficult.

We got up very early and warmed up the van for getting to an office cleaning before church. We had two to get to that day and still try to make it. We did, and after visiting for a while afterwards, the car inexplicably would not start. It finally did with jumper cables but I know batteries and that was just not normal. Sure enough, at AutoZone they ran a test and said they'd never seen a battery do that before. The guage steadily dropped as they held it to the battery.

He said it looked like the battery had sudden catastrophic failure, and either my alternator was bad, or the battery, when it malfunctioned so badly, actually ruined the alternator. Yikes! Another 200 dollar part, plus labor! I thought I might cry. I think I'm tired. LOL

My battery warranty was up. But one guy said he'd pro-rate it for me. I could get a replacement at a cheaper price. The guy in charge saw him and said, "Can't do that, it's too far over warranty."

As I stood there wondering what God was going to do. The guy in charge suddenly picked up a new battery and carried it out to my car. This is the same guy that had previously said they were not allowed to work on my car because the battery is buried too deeply in the compartment.

I asked how much I would have to pay for this new battery - the first guy quietly said that they were going to replace it for free! AND they were going to do it for me after all.

Praise God! I sat in a sheltered car while the guy stood out in the snow for 30 minutes, rapping his bloody knuckles and changing my battery. Then he checked the alternator again and said it seemed to be fine.

I'm still looking for that milder winter that Accuweather promised in their long-range forecast. Maybe in January?

I've been outside, moving very dry snow off of our porches. Michael is disappointed that it's not the best for snowballs, but it's very pretty, and we are even getting some sunshine trying to peak between the clouds. It is so light, it almost poofs up like talcum powder when you shovel it.

We winterized the pool in between these two massive arctic blasts, and it's a good thing because we are going to end up with several inches of ice on the top.

Since Thanksgiving and the cold weather occurred, I've not had the chance to get out there and work on the greenhouse any more. Actually, we've not done much outdoors at all.

I've been sick for a week, and it seems to be really getting worse today. I'm hoping it's the peak of the germ warfare, and after today, my antibodies will be short. "Short", a military term for those who do not have long until their tour is over.

So I've got on a Santa hat. Not because I'm dressing like Santa, but because as we have been slowly unpacking Christmas stuff and decorating, it came in very handy to keep me warm.

We are having to cut way back on everything right now. Christmas will be really nice. No gifts this year. Instead we are going to relish the joy of really focusing on the Lord and others. We've also got our thermostat set way down to about 60. So we are layering! WooHOOOO! It's actually helpful when we go out of doors, because we are not hit by a sudden shock of cold air that we are not used to.

And we are so thankful for a freezer full of our garden produce and canned goods we can freely eat from!

I found an adorable framed print at the grocery store. A little girl, dreaming of being a ballerina, and I added some three dimensional ballerinas to the front. A little bit of paint, and it's going on eBay. All the thrift stores around here are having huge sales. That's helpful when I'm trying to find fabric for practicing sewing some custom shirts for Michael. Fabric is just to expensive for practice, so old sheets and tablecloths are like manna from Heaven!

We had a fun dance after church yesterday. I knew I should not have danced, being sick, but I washed up well so as not spread germs, and then proceeded to have my lungs set on fire from being out of breath. Nothing will clear out your sinuses like good exercise!

~Faith

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Modern Snowmen and Bees

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February was to be a month of getting a lot of outdoor work done. What with the weather and an uncertain future here, none of that has been happening. Otherwise this post would be filled with images of getting our greenhouse going and building some rock-lined beds.

What we have been doing is housework, continued homeschooling, and several field trips.

Didn't there used to be a rapper called Ice Cube? I think this is where he retired.





We went to the local ballet, where several of our friends were performing and working...





And the next day, Michael worked as well...




A group of us have been waiting for just the right time and a clean movie to go see together. We finally had success with "The Tooth Fairy". I thought it was hilarious. We all enjoyed it, and it was clean. Yay!





We've had a lot of wintry weather of late, so not a lot of outdoor events. But Michael, on a field trip to a Russian Folk Ballet performance,



tried his hand at dancing.





I cooked up this sandwich for Michael's breakfast one day. I didn't notice until I'd loaded the image that that it looks like a guy in a hat, with a goatee, a long nose, and sunglasses.



They were delicious! Not having an egg ring, I fried some beaten eggs in a wide mouthed canning jar ring, melted cheese on them, topped them with bacon, and served inside well-buttered and toasted sourdough french bread.

This might look odd, but it's my young son's weapons cache for Airsoft.



"The children were snuggled all safe in their beds, while visions of machine guns danced in their heads." Hmmmmm...

I received a wonderful surprise from a friend I met through this blog, some delicious honey! From their own bees! We have had a beehive in the past, but it did not last. I believe a raccoon got the hive. But we are hoping to try again. We've had our eyes on building our own hives for a while now, and we even attended a local bee meeting with some friends of ours who said they would donate some starter bees.

We've looked at several alternative methods of keeping bees, but the Top Bar method is the one that is intriguing me right now.




http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm

The object of a Top Bar Hive (TBH) is to be easy and cheap to construct, easy to work and having natural sized cells. A Kenya style (sloped sides) is so that the combs are more naturally strong and less likely to break and collapse when they are full of honey. This hive worked very well with no comb collapses. The small combs are easy to handle and not nearly as fragile as large free hanging combs. The pictures are, from left to right:

1. Kenya style Top Bar Hive being constructed. The sides are one by twelves 46 1/2" long. The bottom is a one by six 46 1/1" long.
2. The ends are one by twelves 15" long. None of the boards is ripped or beveled. They are just cut for length and nailed together.
3. The sides are spread to where they fit the ends and the ends are nailed. I ended up using deck screws on the end because when I pried the bars over I would pry the end off of the hive.
4. With bees. The top bars are ripped from one bys with a beveled comb guide glued and nailed on. You can see a bar on top of the hive on the right end. The brood nest is 1 1/4" wide bars and the honey is 1 1/2" wide bars These bars are 15" long.
5. Comb from the KTBH. Can you spot the queen?
6. A close-up of the queen on the KTBH comb.
7. See through drawing of KTBH (thanks to Chris Somerlot).

The entrance to the KTBH is just the front bar back from the front at least 3/8" The top sets on top of a 3/4" top bar so the entrance is 3/4" high and 3/8" wide and is really just the gap in front of the first bar.

Parts List:

• 2- one by twelves 46 1/2"
• 2- one by twelves 15"
• 1- one by six 46 1/2"
• Any kind of lid 15" by 48"
• 16- bars 15" by 1 1/4" by 3/4"
• 18- bars 15" by 1 1/2" by 3/4"
• 34- triangular comb guides cut from chamfer molding or the corner of a one by 3/4" by 3/4" by 1" by 13"
• 2- four by fours 16" long cedar or treated for stand.

All cuts except for the triangles are square cuts.


Here's a link to a video about how to build one.

And a link to images of several Top Bar hives and pages.



Watchin' the snow melt...

~Faith

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I Knew it.

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It's so cold, I'm sure this is gangrene setting in.
Kids are so resilient, though.





And the mounds of snow are going up even into the sky.





It's official.

I've got cabin fever.

~Faith

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Climb Every Mountain.... Ford Every Stream... Follow........

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We got our first frost of the year on Sunday night, and it was a good one.





Focusing in on the mountains, from our sliding glass door. That's where we were going. And there was snow up there!





Loaded up with friends and headin' for the hills!





We finally got a sunny day to go hiking on top of the Appalachians! WooHOOOO!

Half our crew was not able to make it, but the rest of us had a pretty good time. Driving up there took about 40 minutes out of town where we all met up.













Oh Yah. Snow. I did not want any yet. I have not had enough warm Autumn!





Made it to the top!





About 50 - 55 degrees up there. The snow was melting and dropping off the trees in wonderful "plops".





The young people, ready for adventure.





On top of the world. Or at least anything that is lower than 4000 feet. I like to call them big hills around here.





The goal? To hike about 30 minutes over to the bluffs where you can sit on the rocks and scare your mother to death.





We decided Ollie could not be carried over there without the extra arms we'd been expecting, so he and I bowed out of the trip. Off they went.





And Ollie and I traversed some utility trails that go past cell and radio towers.









Lots of Woolie Woolies around!





And the cutest little tiny baby snake.













The crew returns. And no one fell off the bluff! Or at least they followed my stern warnings to not even MENTION if any of them 'slipped' or 'almost' fell or wrestled and pretended to throw each other off. My heart can only stand so much.





I love the skies...





Only enough snow left for these tiny little snowmen.





But it was enough to make their fingers too cold.





We had to make it a short trip, back to town by 3:30, but it was a good outing.

Hope you enjoyed the view!

~Faith

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