That Other Stuff

Finally! We have some pictures of what all is going on around here.

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We acquired four "gobblets," as we like to call them. I don't know what kinds they are, or if they're hens or jakes. All I know is that they're turkeys, sorry.

Here are our three geese and some barred rock layer chicks. Don't know anything about the geese either.

A big silly goose examining the real goose. By the way, the geese are actually a week younger than the turkeys!

The pigs are getting quite large now, and they love getting into their water trough. We have to keep several in their pen so they will still have some left to drink!

The new mower. Daddy can answer any questions about this, but, again, I don't know too much about it.

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We have a batch (25, 30, I don't know the exact number) of freaky birds (cornish cross) in the basement. They are so nasty. We're getting 50 more broilers in a week or two from Freedom Rangers; I think we got the Grey Rangers, but I'm not sure. We are quickly approaching our busy season with canning, calving, milking (when Clarabelle decides to calve), mowing, etc. I love this stuff! It's all so exciting!!!

Here's something you might enjoy!

Until I get around to that other stuff, of course. :)

Post Coming Soon

Really... I'm going to try. I've been meaning to get up some pictures of the turkeys, geese, layers, and broilers. Unfortunately I haven't taken any recently. Hopefully tomorrow, or the next day, or sometime!

They're Gone

The Tent-dwellers are gone, and once again we are all alone on our own little island of reformed thinking. I am very excited for the Tent-dwellers, but we're all alone now!!! We're back to where we were a year ago! Whining and complaining won't get me anywhere, though.

Pictures from the past few days

Setting up Monday morning.

A little while later.

By lunch, or, in three or so hours!

Look!!! Interior walls! Near the end of the first day, or perhaps the beginning of the second.

Hmmm.........

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The next few will be just pictures of the men working.

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I guess I ought to stop now.

An Interesting Article

I linked to this article from Mr. Saenz blog. I found it rather frightening from the little I understood. I liked one of the quotes that the writer had: "Don't believe them, don't fear them, don't ask anything of them." It's from Alexander Solzhenitsyn (don't really know anything about him, but his saying is good.).

A Great Way To Expand One's Repertoire

Have to go from five songs to an hour's worth of songs in a week and a half or less!!! Believe me, it's difficult! We haven't quite got an hour, but it's close enough. We've added three songs just in the past couple of days! However, everything will be better come show time, but everything will be great after we play!

Now all we need to do is get these fellers up!

Oh To Have What They Had!

3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

--- Genesis 4:3-7

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1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

--- Genesis 7:1

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3 And the LORD said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee.

--- Genesis 31:3

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Perhaps He does, and I'm just a bad listener, but I long for the Lord to shout at me. I desire such straight-forward instruction that those men had. I want Him to tell me "It desires to have you, but you must master it." and I want Him to help me!

A Thought

I have two "personalities": the one most everyone sees, and the one that only my family and closest friends see. That's not good. I need not to treat most everyone like my family, but to treat my family like most everyone, only better.

I Thought of Something Else to Blog About!

Another chick died a couple of days ago.

Really interesting.

Oh well, Daddy, Kyle, and Elijah are at the moment picking up some windows and doors that one of Uncle Craig's friend was going to throw out. We're becoming quite the scavengers! I was once again thinking about how much things have changed! About five years ago Daddy got his turkey, and I was absolutely grossed out by it! Perhaps I wasn't the perfect model of the average suburban girl, but I certainly wasn't very tough (not exactly the word I was looking for, but I don't want to spend too much time on this). Since that turkey I have helped slaughter several batches of chickens. I have also been more or less involved in slaughtering a steer and a bull. We have had some success with laying hens. We're hoping to do at least one of the pigs in about a month and a half. Things are rolling around here!

Here's Another One

It Couldn't Be Done

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.

--- Edgar A. Guest

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You can tell I'm working through a poetry book! It is interesting to think of this poem in the context of communities (there it is again. I'm going to wear that subject out!). The last verse especially I think. We've already seen the first half of the last verse, and we're working hard on the last half. It is so exciting (that phrase is showing up a lot too!)!

One Down...

Twenty-four to go! One dead chick by the third day. Pretty good survival rate!

29's Demise (Among Other Things)

This will just be a picture post, if it is possible for me to do one of those.

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We made soap the other day! Can't believe we actually did it!

The boys demonstrating the cattle chute; Kyle's being the head-gate in this picture.

The boys "cleaning the basement!"

The snow that I mentioned in my last post.

Cutting the throat after they shot our 29. I think it only took one shot, but the Lingos and the Wiggins can correct me on that.

The expert tractor operator, Mr. Tent-dweller, bringing 29 to the chicken yard.

Skinning the legs a bit so they can get the gambrel (I think that's what it's called) in.

Here there will be a slight jump. Our photographer wasn't out there to capture the whole skinning experience. So, they are (or are trying to) pulling the... They are eviscerating 29.

Daddy cleaning out the cavity. Gotta like Jacob's job!

Here Daddy is beginning to cut 29 in half. In this picture you can also see the two color schemes of the men's pants. There were a couple of blue jeans, but Carhartts and Dickies reigned.

29, halved.

29, quartered, and ready to be hung.

Our chicks came in this morning! This is the only picture that's not blurry. It's our "exotic" freebie bird that we got because we bought 25 (I think). All the others are Barred Rocks.

One last thing. Kyle's turkey trophy was destroyed by this dog. Kyle was pretty upset about it, reasonably so. It was his first turkey; he shot it with Daddy; it was the biggest turkey we've heard about all season, etc.

It's SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!

I don't want it to snow! Why can't we get snow in the middle of winter!?! It's snowing hard and fast and in big flakes! Great bull killin' weather. The wind will freeze us tomorrow morning! I'm not sure I've ever seen snow when the trees were green and blooming!

A Poem

Be True

Thou must be true thyself,
If thou the truth wouldst teach;
Thy soul must overflow, if thou
Another's soul wouldst reach!
It needs the overflow of heart
To give the lips full speech.

Think truly, and thy thoughts
Shall the world's famine feed;
Speak truly, and each word of thine
Shall be a fruitful seed;
Live truly, and thy life shall be
A great and noble creed.

---Horatius Bonar

Things

Kyle is 12 years old today. He rarely looks at my blog, but I'll tell him 'Happy Birthday' here anyway. Happy birthday, Kyle! I told him in person, too!

Claire and I have a recital coming up on the 21st. Our first bluegrass recital. We have chosen "Bluegrass Breakdown," "Harvest Home Hornpipe," "O'Keefe's Slide," "Drowsy Maggie," and "Clinch Mountain Backstep" for our pieces. It's just going to be Mr. Brantley's students. We're playing at (of course) the Pickin' Parlor.

Then on the 29th (I think) our community band has a thing to do at Granddaddy's church for their fifth Sunday fellowship thingy. We get to play for an hour.

Last night we made a batch of soap. Don't know if it will turn out right, but we did it!

Today we've been out in the berry patch garden picking up rocks. And more rocks, and more rocks, and more rocks, etc. Kyle, Mr. Tent-dweller, and Elijah have been working on the cattle chute since lunch.

The asparagus is coming in well lately.

The cold weather has kinda stunted the dogwoods in the front yard.

We're apparently slaughtering one of our bulls Saturday. I didn't find that out until this morning! Daddy wants to take advantage of the cold weather. Too bad we can't do both at the same time! We just don't have enough room in the basement.

I can't think of anything else to blog about right now, so here's a picture of our boys two or three years ago. I love the picture, but things sure have changed since then! You just have to think "Luke, my boy! You need a haircut!"

A Few Things That Have Been Going On Around Here

The Tent-dwellers have started to put floorboards down.









Daddy had Mr. Doc Lewis come spread lime on our pastures.


Granddaddy and others hung another bell out front.







Mr. Saenz and Chris came this weekend to play at the Pickn' Parlor. They gave us a great show on our front porch too!









They even allowed us to jam with them! We had a great time!









Saying the rods really do work.

Proving the rods don't work.








Experiencing the rods not working!
















Kyle shot his first turkey Monday morning. Stats here.









Optimism paid off. The scalder and plucker (with a little help) worked well.

See! This tom turned into roast turkey (Did you know that turkey came from a turkey?!?! Apparently Luke didn't) that we had as a fellowship dinner with the Tent-dwellers last night. He tasted even better tonight in turkey potpie!

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Oh, well, it looks fine in Internet Explorer.

Ain't It Odd!

Them weather people sure do git things wrong! They been sayin' we'd just have temp'tures in the mid-70's, but we've been out-doin' that by ten or twenty degrees! And how 'bout that there rain? We h'ain't got none of that hardly!

Ferget them thar weather persons! I'll just go out an' look at th' sky when I wanna know the weather!

What's Been Goin' On

There is a certain amount satisfaction that comes from knowing you did a job as well as you could. However, there is also a certain amount of trepidation that comes from wondering if you did that job well enough, even though you did your best. Obviously, I know something about this. Well, I mowed the yard today. Nobody has said that I didn't do well, but I don't think it looks very good. Anything would have made it look better than it did though. It was the first cut of the season.

We put up some sort of protection cloth over the broccoli and cabbages down at the garden. It will hopefully keep the worms and butterflies off. We kind of used the same design as our mini-greenhouses except that the "utensil wire" (Luke's phrase, he meant high tensile wire) went directly into the ground and we held the cloth down with bricks.

Speaking of the mini-greenhouses, we are having some rather major seed-starting problems. Although we have sort of successfully conquered the mold (if you don't look too closely) the soil blocks have completely dried out. We are currently combating this by soaking them in one to two inches of water.

Quick update on Clarabelle: She is still leaking some, though not nearly as often or as heavily as before. She hates the lead rope. I mean she really hates it! After studying (standing in) the place where we have been handling Clarabelle we have decided that we will probably have to pour concrete there.

Last night we went, for the first time since we "quit", back to the Pickn' Parlor. It was odd not having to wash dishes, make sandwiches, fill up drinks, or buss tables. I enjoyed myself as much as possible though. Everyone was glad to see us back, and "the crowd went wild" when Claire sang her rendition of "Blue Moon of Kentucky!"

Oh, this morning I finally, after three years or more, connected a sound to its creature! The llama has a very unusual sound. It sounded to me something like a hoarse turkey-peacock combination. I found this out when Lily chased it. Yes, she is still very bad. I'm beginning to believe the old saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" only our version would be "you can't teach an old dog to obey." She's going to have to start showing some progress regularly, or I afraid her demise might be near.

This is a much longer post than I meant for it to be!

We Started

Lily has been introduced to the shock collar. She was traumatized the first day though. We had to set the stimulation all the way up, and she still didn't obey it. She was, to say the least, eager to get away from Mama (the torturer). When she got up to the house she hid under the Mule. Kyle was filling it up, and he spilled some died diesel on her. Mama further tortured her by giving her a bath. Yesterday went much better. We kept her on a leash and chained her up when we went out to Clarabelle. She did very well.

Some Pictures

These are in no particular order. Sorry.

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Working the shredder. We didn't have any good pictures of this.

Working in the berry patch garden. I think this one must have been posed because he didn't really work.

The pigs new house and BIG pen.

Umm... well, we didn't plant 'em last year, but it don't seem to have hurt 'em any.

Look at them sprouts!!! Only, we've got a problem. Mold. We're combating it with fresh air though. Hopefully it will work.

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I might get several more up later, but I don't have time right now.

I Guess I'll Blog Again

I don't have much time though. So it's really just going to be a quick update.

Clarabelle still hasn't had her calf yet. Lily still has a problem with chasing her (that's what ended the life of one dog, and got another sent away from here). The Tent-dwellers' have started construction. They are able to get about one beam done a day; they have eight to do. I can't wait to see this completed! It's so exciting! We have been continually working on the berry patch garden. Late last week we put lime on it, and followed that with horse manure. We didn't hill up our beds yesterday because of the rain. Instead, we used the Wiggins' chipper/shredder extensively. Elijah, Kyle, and I were out in the brush pile behind the carport/garage all day! We got six or eight bags of chipper mulch, but we still have some stuff to shred. We're planning on using the mulch on the walkway between the beds in the berry patch garden. Daddy gave us his plans to put up the last pig fence yesterday; we'll probably work on that today or tomorrow. We're getting twenty-five Barred Rock chicks next week for layers. I hope we can keep them alive; I really am wanting some of our own eggs again. Oh, our "gig" (I guess that's what you'd call it) Sunday evening went really well. The Church of God people liked to clap, and they could do it in time! That helped Kyle and me stay on the beat! (Yeah, we have a bit of a problem with that occasionally) We were exposed to a lot of new stuff there. Coming from the liturgical Methodist background, I had never experienced anything like this. During the congregational prayer(maybe during other prayers, too) everyone prayed their own prayer as loud as the pastor prayed. It seemed a bit chaotic to me, therefore it also seemed irreverent. It was fun though. The Baptist preacher who was going to give the message the next night (it was a revival) closed it with a prayer. He sounded kind of like an auctioneer to me, but Daddy said that there is a word for the rhythmic way he prayed and that it is highly prized by some. He couldn't think of the word though.

Do You Agree?

Please! Give me more feedback about my last post! I felt that it needed very much to be said, but if anyone disagrees (or agrees) please respond! Daddy said that it had the potential to be a very controversial post, and now I am afraid that I have offended some. That was not my intention. However, I do believe everything I wrote, and I felt that it was extremely important (if I hadn't, I would have kept it to myself).

A Few Thoughts on Community Living in the Country/Agrarian Setting

Living like we and the "tent-dwellers" are now has its pluses and its minuses. Mostly though, there have been pluses. Note: I did not say there have been exclusively pluses; we have had our minuses, still do as a matter of fact. We have, as a family, undergone some rather drastic changes because of this community life. The "tent-dwellers" probably have too. I don't see how anyone could possibly be in close proximity to someone who understands them, will hold them accountable, and whom they wish to continue their good image as a friend, how anyone could possibly have all that without going through some fairly dramatic changes in their daily life. So, we have, and are still, going though some of those changes.

In doing this, the community participants becomes more than long-time visitors; they become something like family. In our case the "tent-dwellers" have become closer to us than some of our extended family. It is like having more siblings and an aunt and uncle. Mr. and Mrs. "tent-dweller" have not yet become like another set of parents to me. Even though it is like having more siblings, it's not. It really does make sense; just let me explain. You may get to the point where you can freely tease and maybe even have little, petty arguments, but they are still not your siblings. They are your friends. You still want to maintain the positive look of a good friend. When you are with your family, you tend to be more relaxed and unguarded with your actions and speech. Around friends, that isn't usually the case.

This is where one of the most major pluses comes in. Although perhaps initially looking like a minus, the sanctification you gain through continually guarding yourself among your community friends will eventually spill over into your family life, making it much more agreeable and good. Still, we must not deceive our close friends. We have to be ourselves, just guarded against the disagreeable things of which, we all must admit, we have.

Guarding yourself among your friends is important, but there are other important aspects of community life that we have to continually think about. Being with the "tent-dwellers" is wonderful. The fellowship is always sweet, and the work accomplished is good and extensive. However, I believe there is a limit to how much we should be together. This is another huge thing we've had to learn. Even in a community we must still be family-focused. To be completely, or even mostly, family-focused becomes one hundred times as hard when you become part of a community. When our little community first began, we all had problems with moderation. Some of us always wanted to go up to the "tent-dwellers", that is, if we were not already up there. When I noticed this in myself, fairly quickly because I kind of anticipated it, I went to the extreme opposite. That was probably just as bad. I am now settling into a fairly comfortable middle place, but it has taken five months to get here. That's just me though. I believe privacy, personal and family (community, state, etc.), is a very important part to be able to successfully continue to do this kind of community living.

Through all this, I think I can conclude that all our initial minuses will eventually become long-term pluses if we continue to work things out. With that I conclude a few thoughts on my experience with community living.

(Tell me if that made any sense please!)

A Bit of a Whim

I found this on Jessica McDonald's blog, and I thought I'd have a bit of fun.

Take the Quiz here!

Finally!

I am ready to post again. I know it has been a while since my last post, but I have my reasons. We were unable to find our camera, and this post needed pictures (I thought). Last weekend Daddy and I made some miniature greenhouses to start our seeds in. We are both quite proud of them. The only thing we had to buy was some more clear plastic for the top; we didn't have quite enough.

We covered our chicken processing tables with black plastic to absorb warmth. Whether it is or not, I don't know, but it sure made them look professional!






Saturday evening we started making the soil blocks (no, I don't know what all we put in it) and planting the seeds. Monday evening we finished filling up our tables (those table hold a lot of soil blocks!). Yesterday Mama said that we're starting to get sprouts from some that we had planted Saturday!

Yesterday and this morning was spent doing this. No, not being lazy; we helped "anonymous" cut and drag cedar logs from over halfway up the mountain. Yep, the cabin is beginning become reality! We ladies are in pants only because you can't really climb the mountain in a skirt or dress.

Well, it's off to mandolin/fiddle lessons now. I hate being unprepared, but I haven't exactly had a whole lot of time to practice!