On the Homestead

It has been nearly two weeks since we posted. We are really enjoying our new house and have been busy cleaning, and organizing. Dane has been working on all sorts of projects as usual: plumbing indoor and out, planting trees, moving things into the house, cleaning up the camp, working on the 4Runner, cutting paths along the edge of our property in search of an area suitable for a better road, etc. He discovered that a road on the riverside of our property probably won't be possible because of the rough terrain. The children and I began their schoolwork again and we are working to settle back into a comfortable routine with it. Our day is considerably more efficient now that most of our things are in one place (in the house) instead of spread out around camp. Also, Joseph has a lot more freedom to run around since he has a concrete floor in which to walk. We are all very thankful for that.

The weather has been really beautiful. It really doesn't feel like winter at all. It has been in the 70's during the day and in the 50's at night for at least a couple of weeks now. We are enjoying it tremendously.

Things we've found......

Last week Dane found a green snake in the driveway. The chickens thought they would make lunch out of it, but Dane got it first. We have no idea if it was venemous. The snake didn't have any fangs, but it kept trying to bite Dane. I think the chickens had it pretty agitated. He let it go in the garden.

Abby and Sarah found a "siamese" leaf. It was interesting, so we took a picture of it. We put a single leaf next to the conjoined one for comparision.



Last week Sarah found some wild onions and parsley in the forest along the trail to the big creek. It is always exciting to find wild plants that we can eat. We ate them before we could take a picture of them.

On their excursions around the farm today, the children found these beautiful wildflowers.

They also found some mondo grass or "monkey grass" that had some pretty blue seeds. The picture is a little blurry because Elisabeth was wiggly. Mondo grass makes a good ground cover and border plant, so the children planted some of the seeds in the garden for us to later plant around the house area.

New Additions......

Our smallest hen, who had chicks once before, made a nest in the tea, instead of the hen house, and four of her nine eggs hatched. Two of the chicks didn't make it, but so far the other two seem to be doing well. They are so cute when they are brand new.

Good Help is hard to find....

Here is a picture of Sarah carrying in the day's laundry. She had quite a load :) . We are very blessed to have so many little helpers.

Fun Stuff....

Daddy is Joseph's new best friend. He doesn't need mommy as much anymore and has discovered that it is pretty neat to hang out with daddy.

Today we went down to the river that crosses the corner of our property.

Here they call it a creek, but where we come from - this is a river. The name of it is Arroyo Bonito. This is the first time that most of the children and I have been to it on our property. We usually visit the river on our neighbor's property because it is easier to access; however, Dane cleared out a trail for us when he was surveying our property earlier in the week. The part on our property has lots of rocks to sit on and rocks in the water to swim to. There are even a few rapids.

We've Moved

We are very excited to announce that we have moved into the house. A week ago Sunday we moved our kitchen into the house and then the following Tuesday, our beds. The house is not complete, but enough of the exterior walls were done on the ground floor to keep us dry, so we couldn't resist the urge to get out of the tents and into it. We are living in the bottom story until Dane completes the second story and attic. Eventually our bedrooms will be on the second floor.

This is a diagram of our "one room house" right now.

This is the end of the kitchen with Dane's office area. On the right you can see the back door, our washing machine and a refrigerator that we use as a pantry because it takes too much energy for our energy operation.

This is a picture of the kitchen area from where the beds are. At the ceiling level you can see the unfinished second story floor and the gold colored door that will eventually lead to the staircase on the outside wall of the house. And Sarah is in the background and David from the nose up is in the foreground.

This is the sleeping area.

The new living arrangements are wonderful. We are really thankful for the Lord's blessing of this house. For the first time in eight months we can walk around without our shoes and we have a mud free zone in which to spend our time. We also have doors now, so the chickens can't let themselves into the kitchen anymore. However, there is one small catch to that - we have not gotten glass in our front and back doors yet, so occasionally our smaller chicks fly through the doors. Below is a picture of Dane sending one out football style. By the way, he did finish that wall around the front door last week.

After moving in, the children and I spent the week organizing and cleaning the mud from all the furniture and appliances. Dane worked on plumbing for the kitchen and shelves for our books and clothes, among other things.

Dane also worked on the plumbing outside. He dug ditches for the pipes and this is a picture of him digging a hole for the septic system.

Dane also started cutting up the wood he got from the sawmill for firewood.

On another note - Check out this huge grub worm that Elijah found. We are always surprised at the enormousy of the insects here.

Also, thanks to everyone who voted in our poll. Eighty percent of the votes were for Dane to install the wood vertically around the attic. Hopefully, he will get to that soon.

We plan to start our schoolwork again in the morning, so we are off to prepare for that before we go to bed. Until next time - we hope all is well with you all.

Jessica