With an oink, oink here and an oink, oink there...

 

Meet our newest additions to the family!

 

Starvin' Marvin and Rudy!

 

(Both the pigs are actually girls but that didn't stop the boys and their cousins when it came time to name them)

 

The boys and I love them already. Mark just shakes his head at us while we coo at them and tell them how smart, and cute, and precious they are. He then reminds us that the bacon we ate at breakfast came from some of their brethren.

 

He's mean like that.

 

We just ignore him though and grunt at him until he gives up trying to make us see reason.

 

 

Since we have brought them home last Thursday, they have had more visitors than we have.

 

They are quite the little chatterboxes and grunt and squeal with the best of them. They are so funny to watch with their little tails dancing in circles as they root around.

 

The pig pen is right off the orchard and we planted two juniper bushes right beside it last weekend to provide more shade.

 

Mark made them two different watering containers. They have nipples at the end of them that the pigs have to press in order for the water to come out. This way they don't try to take baths in their drinking water! He placed a hook at the top of them so that the boys can easily grab and pull off the top when they are refilling them.

 

 

Mark was also in charge of picking up something for us to feed them in at D n B. He came home with the Rolls Royce version of pig feeders. He was excited because you can put in lots of food which allows us to be away from them for a day or two. Also this way they can't climb into their feeding trough and make huge messes.

 

Mark also mentioned to me that someone had told him that pigs like bowling balls to play with. He asked me to pick one up at a yard sale. I told him that in all my years of yard saling, I had yet to see a bowling ball.

 

Wouldn't you know the first time I went this year, I found one?

I hate irony...

 

But for 5 bucks our little piggies have their first toy!



The Latest...

You know it's been a long time since you blogged when you go to log on and you can't remember your username or password. 

Sheesh. 

Life around here has been wonderful.

Busy.

Peaceful.

Heavenly.

An almost every-single-minute kind of wonderful.

We are living our dream. 

Having a little bit of property to do a few fun things. 

Raising up a couple of boys.

Loving each other and having fun while doing it.

Our kind of wonderful.

Here's some of the things that have made us happy this last month:

The sprinklers are in the ground. They are all glued together and attached to the pump and even working. It's amazing I tell ya!

We have been planting trees and trees and more trees. 

(Sometimes with our shirts on and sometimes with our shirts off...)

We thought our free chickens were duds since we had them for about two weeks and they never laid a single egg. 

So we went and bought some little babies to raise up and lay eggs for us. 

Turns out our free chickens were just a little shy and not duds after all, but that's a different story that involves chicken heads and BBQ sauce. I will tell it shortly as we now have another big project looming on the horizon thanks to my baby chick purchase.

Walter our Walnut Tree is doing well and finally leafing out. 

Our new pump is all primed and pumping that creek water perfectly! Mark has chained it to the post there so that a floating tree won't snag the hose and try to pull it away. (That would be no bueno!) In the winter we just hook that trailer up to a 4-wheeler and store it in the shed. (The one that has yet to be built...). 

We buried all the pipe. Both the pipe that will water the orchard, garden and berry area as well as the pasture pipe. 

They let the water out of the dam and it is so nice to hear the water running.

The neighboring town of Helix sent 40 of their students to our house (in a large yellow school bus!) to help plant trees around our property. Here is some of their work. (I didn't take the pictures of the few that were planted upside down. No complaining about free help around here!)

 Listening to our sprinklers make the "chuh, chuh, chuh" sound as they shoot out water into the field makes us smile every time. It is so "country" to us that we sometimes eat outside on the back deck just so we can hear the sound. 

Mark tilled up another part of the yard/garden area for me since we won't be planting any grass this year. I put in some pumpkins and corn and then placed a small fence to keep the dogs out of it. (I'm counting on the dogs keeping the deer out of it however). 

The pumpkins are just now starting to come up. 

Fall Harvest Party here I come!

We have made a huge dent in the number of trees we have to plant for the erosion grant we were part of. We were really looking good and then we had another 500 or so delivered...

We found rocks that we wanted to share with our Aunt Sherry in Spokane so she could see what we are dealing with. She still has a lot more but I think she must admit we have a few big ones as well!

The trees that we have been planting are starting to leaf out and give us hope that they will make it. All of them from the bigger set to the itty-bitty set are seeming to come along nicely so far. 

These ones were so tiny when we planted them that we staked them with flags so we wouldn't step on them accidentally. 

This little guy has a twin brother that we also planted and the funny story behind them is that in December Mark and I did a run in Portland and when we finished the run we were each given a little tree to plant. Well being it was December and all, it wasn't planting season so they have been living in our fridge this whole time. Not sure if that's ok or not... time will tell I suppose!

The garden is looking good. Here are the onions and lettuce with some carrots in the background that are hard to see. 

Some potatoes...

Peas...

And strawberries. These are a combo of transplants from a friend of mine as well as a bunch of little babies from Mark's mom. So far so good but we will see what happens as it heats up. 

A few other items of note this month are:

*We had our final meeting with DHS and are approved to do foster care anytime. 

*I planted and planted and planted flowers all around the front and back porch to try and distract people from the yard of weeds we are currently cultivating. (Mercy has only eaten 2 plants so far). 

*The boys have now sold $28.00 worth of eggs. (Farm fresh!)

*We have agreed as a family to host dinner for more people and so far we have had Mark's friend Paul over, my whole book club last night and just this evening the boys had invited their teachers over for Teacher Appreciation Week. The boys cooked the majority of the meal. Owen made "bird's nests" with bacon as the nests and eggs cooked inside with cheese on top and Caleb made french toast with yummy strawberries for a topping. We all played some rousing games of UNO afterwards and I loved every minute of it! Those kinds of things fill me with happiness!

Trying to live life to the fullest is keeping us busy but we are making sure to take time out to sit and enjoy each other as well. It is all about balance for us. The balance between too much work and not enough time to enjoy the work is a line we dance often but by working together I think we are doing ok!