Early February happenings

The boys butchered a year-old ram for the freezer. We now have only one ram left before our ewes start dropping this season's baby lambs any day now.

K6 and K7 re-stacked our firewood storage racks. I needed the backyard cleaned up, so we can get a load of topsoil delivered. Mom wants to turn this area into a giant vegetable garden. The dogs chewed on wood scraps while K7 tossed and...

...K6 caught the wood.

We either burned or sold half our firewood this winter. We have more cut and stacked elsewhere around the farm. 

Home school happens most days, unless the weather is good and Dad requires help with a big project  outdoors. 

Music school on Tuesday and Thursday nights

We have been discussing when to wean her calf and start milking Darling twice a day. The answer came this week when some boy left her in the wrong paddock over night separated from her calf. Congratulations boy for answering our big question! We leave three heat lamps on at night to help take the chill off - this one in the dairy shed, one over the milk machine inside the barn, and one over the dog bed in the barn. In spite of the mild winter, it usually gets down below freezing on many nights.

Now that we are getting extra milk, Mom needs to start making cheese!

Movie Reviews

I had no intention of watching "The Hobbit" after I heard Peter Jackson was going to turn it into 3 separate movies. One movie, yes, two movies, maybe, but three movies from one book just to soak us poor addicted Tolkien fans of three times the money? No way! But K7 and K8 really wanted to see it, and they have been such good sons, so I broke down and watched it - twice, once with each son. The first go round, I was slightly distracted by some new characters and story line that Jackson added to one of my top 25 most favorite books, but otherwise, I was very impressed with this movie. On the second visit to the theater, I was able to suppress any irritation I had with Jackson's literary license, and just totally enjoy the action. Very entertaining, and that's the main reason we go to movies. K7 and K8 loved it. Highly recommended. Catch it on the big screen before it goes to DVD.

I am not much for musicals in general except a few like "The Sound of Music" and "White Christmas" (maybe because both are about World War II?), or an occasional Bollywood flick. I never saw the Broadway production of Les Miserables, but I have loved the music for many years. I did see the dramatic movie version with Liam Nielson a few years ago, and, in spite of thinking it rather gloomy and sad, thought it was well done. Just like the Hobbit, I had no intention of seeing this musical drama, mainly because I thought I already knew the story line and did not need any more depressing things in my life after last November's elections and the recent news coming out of the Boy Scouts of America. However, K1 sent two tickets for S's birthday present, so I had to go. The things we do for love. Well, all I can say is, this movie blew me away with the magnificent cast, music, sets, acting, singing, you name it. Who would have thought I would love a story about France and Frenchmen? Unheard of! Usually my idea of a good movie about France is when there are either German or American army tanks rolling across it's countryside, or Horatio Hornblower is sinking French ships in the Napoleonic War. My recommendation? It is fabulous, not to be missed. Warning to parents: there are a few very brief, but inappropriate and irritating scenes in the first half of the movie which flit by rapidly. (Fontaine selling her teeth and a few minutes later with her first "customer", and a little later just before her daughter is rescued from the low-life Inn). Other than these 2 wasted minutes, the rest of the 2 hours and 38 minutes are incredible, gripping, and memorable. The author, Victor Hugo, must have been a religious man, because there are powerful moments of spiritual truth throughout the movie, especially the ending, which made the movie very up lifting instead of sad. Go see it on the big screen while you still can.

Wet and Cold

We had an absolute down pour this week, and it just kept raining for 12 hours. The pond over flowed. The stream over flowed. The pastures were flooded. Parts of the driveway washed out.

So we stayed indoors and got caught up on various things...

Thursday morning, the temperature dropped. We got our cracked septic line replaced, and it started to snow.

Thursday afternoon, we held our Home School PE class indoors at the YMCA.

After PE, I told the boys to delay their hot showers, and to put on their insulated overalls, gloves and wellie boots, because we were going into the stream to repair our fence line that got whacked by the flood (and some big debris). First we had to dig tons of wet leaves out of the tangled mess and lighten the weight before we could lift the fence.  

There should have been a nice straight fence across this part of the stream, but it's not here. It started snowing harder. 

K6 showed up to lend a hand, which was greatly appreciated.

With his muscles, the hard part - pulling the fence back across the stream - got much easier. Check out his stylist hat - he looks like an English farmer.

Teamwork.

K7 and K6 made a temporary repair and we headed  home for hot showers and hot chocolate.

Our homework this week is to come up with a better design for fencing over the stream. This incident was just a test before the Spring rains come in earnest.

Early garden preps

We had a warm day earlier this week, so S decided to get a head start on her spring garden.  She's headed out to the pasture to collect cow manure.

She's a hands on gardener. Not sure why she doesn't use a shovel & rake - I guess she doesn't want to miss any little pieces.

"Gee Mom, that looks like fun. Can I help?"

Like mother, like son. 

They got a lot accomplished.

I prefer using the tractor. This load of hay will eventually produce a lot more manure for her garden.

Loggers in the stream

During Christmas break, K2 cut down a few dead trees along the stream. Bad news is, most of them fell into the water. We had to get them out before the first big rains arrived and washed them downstream and wreck our new fencing stretching across the water at our western boundary. K7, K8 and I took the tractor and chains down into the stream and cleared it.

We dragged logs up into an open park area across the stream. Unfortunately, all of these photos were taken with my old iPhone and not the best.

K7 has several logs to now cut up later so we can split them.

A few days later, we took the chains up onto the hill and dragged three old stumps to a burn pile. We uncovered a mouse home under this one.

On our way back across the stream, I decided to go after one more log - this one was laying along top of bank, but there was 20 feet of heavy brush blocking it's progress.

So I sent K7 in with the chainsaw.

He cut the end free of the blocking obstacles.

After several pulls with the tractor, we were able to finally drag it out...

...while also clearing out some, but not all, of the brush. We'll be back soon to cut it all out!

Belle

She thinks she is in charge.

Wiley's Zoo

Wiley's Mom put him down for a nap and then headed out to do errands. Wiley awoke 10 minutes later, and needed entertaining for an hour. Some of the pets and I volunteered.