Dane went on a marathon sanding and painting streak and got all the exterior wood for the house done, so putting it up should go quickly, Lord willing.
Here is a picture of it as the children were counting how many pieces he had painted on Sunday. At that point he had painted 204 for the day, but he continued on an hour or more after that.
Elijah, who turned seven last week, lost his job painting to his Dad, so he started making the frames for the new bee hives that we hope to establish. He is starting to get good at driving nails.
Our chickens stopped laying eggs a few months ago, and we bought our first store bought eggs last week, a whole 30 dozen of them. Ironically, four of our hens started laying again two days later. Of these, one has insisted on laying her egg in Joseph's bed. The first day I found an egg in the bed I thought it was funny, but it has been a fight to keep the hen out of our tent ever since because the zipper isn't functioning properly. Needless to say,we have found an egg in the tent nearly every day for a week. This has led to discussions on expanding the chicken yard and ending this free ranging bit. We certainly want our chickens to free range, but here in these parts the vegetation is abundant and so are the insects, so a very large enclosed area would work nicely and keep the birds out of our area. My mother always thinks it is funny when we are talking on the phone and I have to excuse myself to shoo chickens out of the kitchen tent. Yes, living without doors can be very interesting.
This is a little video of Abby spinning Joseph on a tote lid on the table.
With the rain this week, Joseph had to spend some time off the ground to keep him from getting too muddy. In the below picture, he had just fallen off a chair and into the mud. Sorry, the shutter of the camera got a little stuck.
Last week Dane took the U-joint off the Toyota to replace it; however, the new one did not fit. We decided to go to town in the big Ford truck to replace the part and to do our monthly shopping. Unfortunately, the truck slid off the road and got stuck in the mud on the uphill just in front of our neighbors' home on the other side of the creek. This is the same spot where the gravel truck got stuck a year ago. As Dane was trying to get us back on the road, the truck ran out of diesel. There hadn't been any diesel in town the last two trips Dane had gone and he had gotten word that there was some that day, so therefore, another reason to take the big truck. We ended up walking home and taking the Toyota without a U-joint or rear drive shaft. This meant Dane had to drive the truck in four wheel drive without functioning rearwheels. I didn't think we would make it, but thankfully, the Lord saw us to town safely.
The next day Dane and I spent the afternoon trying to get the truck out with the little crawler. I steered the truck while he pulled with the crawler. We finally got free after two and half hours when I figured out how to be helpful and not counterproductive (the truck is big and I am little - I can't see which way the wheels are pointing and it took me awhile to figure it all out). It is amazing how strong that crawler is. No tractor could have pulled that big truck out, but the crawler did! Afterward, I learned how to drive the crawler and got to drive it back to our farm as Dane drove the truck. The crawler had left some huge ruts in the road about two foot deep, so Dane returned to the site with hoe, shovel, and pick ax to do some road repairs. All and all it was an exhausting and exciting afternoon!
Here is a picture of what the house looks like today (Tuesday). Dane finished the exterior wood on the northwest facing side except for the attic at the top.
This is a picture of a huge cockroach. For a roach, it was pretty. It had an armor-like shell and neat colors. I can say this because Dane found it outside on a piece of wood, not in the kitchen.
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