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!

Caleb's Halo Birthday Party

 

Amidst the all day conferences, baby bunnies being born, chickens dying (one with a head flying off mind you!) our sweet Caleb turned 9.

 

Nothing says Happy Birthday like a chicken head flying at you!

 

Ok. Ok. The chicken head didn't actually happen until the day after his party but more on that later.

 

Caleb loves his birthday and so does Owen. They usually start counting down in January and begin discussing what they are going to do for their party and what they would like for gifts.

 

When they are happy with each other they even say things like,

" I am going to get you the BEST present ever!"

or "I am going to spend soooo much money on you!"

 

When things are not so good between them it is more along the lines of

"I am NEVER, EVER going to buy you a present!!"

or my personal favorite

"I am going to buy you the worstest present ever!" said by Owen in a particually heated rage.

 

Countdown or not, the big day had finally come. And then it went because technically we only celebrate birthdays around here when Mark has a day off and it's a weekend. That happened to be Saturday the 20th this year.  

 

Caleb wanted to go to Chuck-E-Cheeses again but that didn't sound like fun to me so I planned out something for us to do at home instead with a Halo (ie the Lego version) theme.

 

I started with a few birthday invitations to some of his friends:

 



 

(side note here - in the invitation I asked the kids to bring some guns with them. I assumed they would bring toy guns but I had one mom text me asking if I meant Nerf, airsoft or BB. I told her to go ahead and bring all 3 and we could work them all in with some supervision of course! You might live in Eastern Oregon if...)

 

 

Then I made some camouflage cupcakes. They were so easy and fun I can't believe I haven't made them before!

 

Here they are before I baked them:

 

Here they are after I baked them:

 

And here they are all frosted up and ready to eat!

 

(I could make some jokes here about them being hard to see but I will spare you)

We threw up some camo streamers and tanks, helicopters, and other stuff. Then we fed the hungry troops some pizza before the cupcakes and ice cream were brought out.

 

Happy Birthday Caleb!

 

I hope he wished for something really cool.

 

 

The first birthday bite...

 

Then the real fun began.

I whipped out some face paint, camo bandannas and even some tank tattoos. Then I added some dog tags and toy weapons and we were ready to party!

 

Cousins..

 

Friends...

 

 

The original plan had been to go to the park, split up into two teams and play Capture the Flag. However, with the winds being what they were (cold and freaky strong) I bagged that plan and set them up with some games for outside. The first one involved Owen being a hostage, Mercy being a dog of war and children running amok out in the pasture trying not to fall head first into the ditch we have dug for our sprinklers.

 

The second game was A LOT more fun!

We played Capture the Flag on the Dad!

 

 

It was the best game ever!

Mark went outside and hid and then I made all the boys count inside to 100. While they were inside with me I told them that they had to try to get the flag he was wearing on his back pocket.

 

If he touched them first they had to give him their glow stick and be "out" for that round.

 

Then I sent them all outside.

Did I mention it was dark by this point?

I hope so, because that was the best part of it all!

 

I think that they agreed with me!

 

It was a birthday that Caleb will not soon forget!



Projects, projects, projects!

 

Do you know what I love about blogging the most?

It's not the photo editing or the endless backspacing as I constantly rethink what I want to say.

 

It's the looking back over previous posts and seeing all the fun things we have done. 

Without this blog, I know I would forget half of it (at least!) and the other half I wouldn't remember with nearly as much detail.

 

Here's to blogging!

 

So this last week we scored some free railroad ties that we plan on using in the pig pen, around the chicken coop, in the pasture and a dozen other places. For those of you who have never moved railroad ties (I was one of you just last week!) please know this - THEY ARE HEAVY!

 

My body has been telling me that it was not built for this kind of lifestyle. This building fences, lifting heavy things lifestyle. 

 

 It was built for sitting on the beach, reading a book and drinking something cold with an umbrella in it. I've tried telling my husband that and he just tells me to keep dreaming and start lifting.

 

 

We had a bazillion trees delivered to our place and Mark decided that wasn't enough so he went and dug up some more at an old nursery in Umatilla. We were included in a grant that gave us free trees to plant along the creek bank. They range in size from skinny medium to teeny, tiny watch-where-you-step size...

 

See how all these trees are mostly pointing upwards and outwards?

Now think back to those horrifically windy days this last weekend and picture all of those trees pointed straight at the ground with their bottoms out of the water.

 

Rude, I know.

 

After braving the wind gusts 109 times to try and put their bottoms back into the water, I ended up just pulling the plug on the trough (literally!) emptying all the water, removing all the trees, moving the trough under Caleb's window, moving all the trees into the trough again and then refilling said trough with water again.

 

Wish I had thought of that plan on one of the 108 trips I had made earlier.

 

Caleb is happy because he now has a "forest"  outside his window.

 

We (the marital "we" - technically I was at work) started planting them at the eastern most edge of our property along the creek and will continue to work our way west as we go. We are planting the bigger trees first in two rows offsetting each other in each row.

(and yes, because it is my husband, tape measure have been brought out just to make sure things are lined up and symmetrical).

 

Notice all the rocks? It is NOT fun to dig right beside the creek!

Mark's friend Paul came by again to help us and visit. (He remembered the new plan - work and visit!) Thank goodness! Tractors make life much easier at times! Thank you Paul!(and please note that I only included nice pictures of you this time. I am saving the bad ones for a later time just to make sure you are still reading my blog!)

 



 

The boys came outside to see what was going on and then asked how they could help. Owen took over my job of raking.

 

 My barely healed blister thanked him.

 

And Caleb grabbed his shovel so he could help fill in holes and then dig new ones. 

 

Last week we (again, marital we being used here. I only loaded up and scored us the free pallets) also begun to create the pig shelter for the pigs that will be ours in a couple of weeks. It still needs floor boards, a roof and some front siding but it's coming along nicely. I am so proud of us and all "our" hard work!

 

This weekend the boys and I went and picked up the newest members of our family. We packed the car up with two large dog crates and headed to Milton-Freewater. Upon arriving, we found out that getting chickens for free also meant we had to catch those chickens first.

 

Now, for those of you who know me, you should know that I have never held a chicken in my life. A baby chick, yes. But a big chicken that could peck your eyes out or scratch your arm off? No way, Jose!

 

I am now an official chicken wrangler. After running around a very large chicken coop for an hour and unsuccessfully trying to throw my coat over the chickens to catch them, I decided enough was enough. I put on my black, fuzzy gloves that were located in my coat pocket and proceeded to catch me some chickens. Once I set my mind to it, those chickens were no match for me. They tried to flap their wings at me and once I worried for Caleb as a couple of them landed on his head but overall I was only pecked once (luckily my black, fuzzy gloves saved me!)

 

 

Those chickens had their revenge though - let me tell you. Remember I said that I brought two large dog crates. Well, on the drive home we didn't hear a peep from them but it turns out they were plotting the whole time. When I unloaded the crates back at the house, I noticed a whole bunch of black poo. I opened up the crate door and tried to coerce them into going into their new accommodations. They wouldn't listen to me at all.

So out came the black, fuzzy gloves again and I got on my hands and knees and wrestled each and every chicken out of the dog crates.

 

However, some signal must have passed between them because each and every bird proceeded to flap and flutter and spray me with black chicken poo. Before too long I was covered head to toe and when some friends stopped by to see how I was doing, I must have looked pretty bad because they flinched when they got close to me and even took a step back. I clipped each bird's wing and then let it on it's merry way in the coop.

 

 Say "Hello" to the girls!

 

 

Mercy sure wants to!

(Her wireless collar prevents her from getting any closer but I'm sure if she didn't have it on she would be up in these chicken's business in no time!

 

 

The boys have individual names for all of them but I haven't learned any of them besides one Americana they have named Jalapeno.

 

Since Mark was at work, the boys and I decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to add some more members to our family once the chickens were calmed down (and I was relatively cleaned up). 

Our friends The Summerfields gave us their hutch to use for a while and also their rabbits. They are focusing on raising fryer chickens right now and are super busy. Aren't they the best friends ever!

 

Meet Mama. She is pregnant and ready to have her babies sometime this coming week.

I'm soooooo excited to have baby bunnies bouncing about!

 



 

This is Baxter. He is a buck from one of Mama's earlier litters. I hate to say it, but I think he has stolen some one's heart.

 

 I'll give you 3 guesses who and the first two don't count!

 

 

We have a third bunny but I haven't allowed myself to take him out yet to play with. At some point, I am wanting to sell these bunnies as pets or for their meat and I just don't think I can do that if I start to play with them and love on them.

 

For now this guy is Nameless and we are looking for a home for him. Whether that be a new cage to live in or a soup pot, at this time I am impartial.

 

 

Just in case you were thinking we didn't have enough to do,

it is time to get our pasture sprinkler system up and going.

 

Here is the ditch for us to start laying some pipe. Just follow all those little white flags. Keep going.

Keep going.

That one way down there...

there are actually 3 more after it.

 

I need another spring break please.

Pronto.

 

In lighter news our orchard is in bloom.

Or I should say, in A bloom.

 

This year we knew there would be no time (nor money!) to put in our garden fencing so we are planting in the orchard area. Believe it or not, but there are onions in this picture.

 

Lots of weeds as well but right now I'm scared to hoe anything until some of the weeds either become more weedlike or the onions become more onionlike.

I have no idea what I am killing otherwise!

 

 

Side note: When I told the boys that I was going to go hoe in the orchard, Caleb told me that his friend at school had said that was a bad word. I said his friend was silly and what could possibly be bad about a hoe?

 

(Mark better get home soon! I can't handle tough topics of conversation with the boys at all! I need my marital "we"!)