Josiah's First Communion

We went to Milaca for Josiah's First Communion.  Josh is his God Father.  We got him a Bible and now every Sunday evening Josh calls him and they read the Gospel together and decide what they want to do for the week related to the Gospel.  It's really cool.  This week Cy is doing something nice for Kristina and Josh is making his own lunch (to give me a break). 



Katie had a wedding shower at Grandma and Grandpa Hayes' house it was fun to go to it.  I haven't been to a bridal shower since my own.  It was good to see everyone there too.

"No you can't hold me..."

"But you can feed me!"

This weekend was cold and rainy.  We even got some snow on Saturday morning.  We spent most of our time inside.  We got our vines planted in the house and did some planning.  It was nice to have a little inside time to do those things, so we didn't have to do them late at night (which is what usually happens when the weather is nice).



Snowing on Friday morning

Johnny liked the snow, til he got cold.

We have very nice weather forecasted for this week, so it looks like we'll be able to get into the gardens again!! We're looking forward to the work and fun ahead of us outside. John and Olue helped me plant my hanging pots already this morning. In between playing in the new mud puddles that are in the drive way. Those two sure like getting dirty!

More Videos of the kids riding Mater

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Fun & Drama on the Farm

We got our baby chicks a week ago Friday (Fun).  They came a day late (Drama).  It was really cold that weekend and we didn't have the brooders warm enough, so we lost quite a few before we figured out the whole temperature thing (Drama).  The kids both love the chicks.  All Lu Lu says when we get her shoes on to go outside is "Chicks, chicks, chicks!" (Drama)  Johnny even loved one to death.  He picked it up and squished it when I wasn't looking...Ooops (Drama).

Johnny and Lu Lu in the chick pen

 

Johnny holding baby chicks

"Come on little guy!"

We finished building the pasture pen to put the pullet layers out in.  We were really excited to move them out (Fun).

Pullet pen that we moved the pullets into on Saturday.

We built this frame for the cooling tubs for when we butcher chickens.  This will be a huge help, since we were just using coolers before and I had to stop cutting heads and plucking half way through because the coolers were full.  I'd go in and bag.  By the time I was done bagging Josh would have started chopping heads and plucking since he was all caught up butchering.  Hopefully having enough space to cool all the chickens at once will streamline our process and make it go faster!  Yay! (Fun)

Cooling Tubs for butchering chickens

Row Cover over lettuce.

We planted one row of lettuce under this row cover (Fun).  Our 1-year-old tom kitty then destroyed it (Drama).  We had to "Take him hunting" and leave him there (Drama).  We were pleased to find out after he was gone that our other two cats didn't bother the row cover and barely eat any food.  I've barely had to feed the cats since he's been gone.:)  We did end up planting the second row of lettuce/radishes before we replaced the row cover (Fun).

Feed Storage

We bought garbage cans to store our broiler feed in for the summer (Fun).  They seem to work well.  Last summer we used bags and stored them in the coop.  That led to our rodent problem, so we're hoping to prevent that this year.

Laying pullets in their new home

We moved the laying pullets out to their new home on Saturday (Fun).  It's aways good to see animals out of their little confinement into the great outdoors.  They seem like little kids...Tentative at first, but then ready and excited to run and explore.  We had issues with them getting out through the fence (Drama).  The holes in the wire were too big, so we lined the outside of the pen with straw bales. 

Pullet pen

Johnny and Lu Lu in the wagon

Cutie Girl

Funny Girl

Johnny playing golf

Johnny and Lu Lu watching a train

Lu Lu learned how to drive Johnny's Mater 4-wheeler.  She does pretty well and she's so cute!  Looks like we'll have to get Johnny and new (bigger) one for his birthday (Fun).

Wednesday morning I went out to check on the pullet chicks and found 4 dead, we concluded by a weasel (Drama).  Talk about a ruff day!!!  Josh called at noon and asked how my day was going.  Then he asked if it would be better if he came home.  It definitely was.  We moved the pullets to one of the movable broiler pens and placed it right beside the chicken coop for safety and ease of weekend chores.

We got the potatoes planted last week too.  We had so much to do and so much drama with the chickens that we were going back and forth trying to decide if we should go to Josiah's First Communion.  We finally made the best decision...to go!  Josh is Josiah's God Father so we're really glad we went (Drama).

So there was our fun and drama from last week.  I'll have to have another post to tell of the good time we had at the Loegering's.  I was reading a book about farming and the author said that failure can be a good thing if we learn from it, since we usually don't learn from our successes.  I think we learned a lot from all our drama last week.  Josh said he just hopes it's not a foreshadowing of how the summer will go.

The weather is beautiful now and the chickens are doing great.  Our baby kitties eyes are open now.  So things are looking up.  Looks like we won't have near as much drama this week.:)

I've started doing weekly posts on our CSA blog.  Sometimes I don't post all of those "farm" pictures here, so if you're interested you can check it out at http://www.logreenacrescsa.blogspot.com/

Happy Easter!

We went to my Mom and Dad's for the Easter weekend.  Josh helped Dad put steel on his truck garage and get ready to put steel on the old farrowing barn.  They also did some work on one of the side walls of the farrowing barn.  They didn't finish all that they wanted to.  It was poor weather for working on roofs...chilly and windy, so we plan to go back on Memorial Day weekend to do some more roofing work.

Dad and Josh working on the truck garage.

Johnny and Lu Lu loved looking at the cows.  They are all up in the yard for calving and they both loved watching them and spotting the new baby calves.  We also found a baby kitty while we were there.  Mom said it's since disappeared, so it must have just shown itself for the kids.  They both just loved the baby kitty!  He was a good holding size, but not much fun to actually play with.  Johnny named him "Rock-a-bye-baby", Rocky for short.  What a silly boy!

John and Lu watching the cows.

Lu Lu

Johnny and the bull

Lu Lu and Rocky

Johnny holding the "Baby Kitty"

Lu Lu crawled into the toy box

What a cutie!

Dad gave us a bunch of T-posts and 2 pig huts to use for our chickens. We are building two pens in the pasture, one for some of the laying hens and one for the new laying pullets. We're hoping they can do some tilling for us in a spot that we plan to plant to asparagus. He also gave us some 50 gallon barrels that we plan to modify into cooling tanks for butchering chickens. As you can see we have lots of building projects to work on this coming weekend.

We brought the kids to Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday. It started at 9pm and was 2 1/2hrs long! It was nice to go though. It's a great end to lent and the waiting of Jesus rising after being in the tomb for 3 days. It's also good to hear all those old testament readings about our history. Josh and I got very tired and achy holding two sleepy/sleeping children.:) They did really well though!

Johnny and Lu Lu all dressed up

Quick family pic before we went to Mass.

The Easter Bunny came to Grandma and Grandpa's house. The kids had fun finding the Easter eggs and baskets. John was so excited looking for them! He would find the eggs and then dump the jelly beans into an ice cream pail. Lu Lu just liked playing in the colorful jelly beans in the pail. We all have been enjoying way too much candy this week. Johnny is always asking for more.

Lu Lu's a ham!

Easter Eggs!

Johnny found Lu Lu's basket for her.

Another One!

And another...

My basket's name tag!

Johnny found his basket

Johnny Dancing for Candy!

Do we have to eat breakfast???  We just wanna eat candy!

I guess...If we're having cheerios.

Lu Lu has to hold all her stuffed animals at night.  Josh took this one.

It's been chilly and windy here this week. I've been getting a lot ready for Vacation Bible School. I'm hoping I can get most of it ready before the really nice weather kicks back in. We've been doing a few odds and ends projects outside in the evenings after Olue goes to bed. We're always out just a little too long for Johnny and have to listen to him complaining about being cold...He gets over it once we get inside.:)

We have a new niece!! Susanna was born on Saturday to Jake and Ruth. We can't wait to see her. The pictures that we got are very cute!!! It makes us excited to hold our own little baby and me look forward to the end of the pregnancy...To be only poked at from the outside by my children and not from both the inside and outside! The baby likes to push really hard against John and Olue when they are sitting on my lap. Comfortable snuggle time isn't as comfortable anymore:).

Susanna

Weekend Company

Roger and Sue and Tolya, Vika, Kiril, and Josiah came to spend the weekend.  They came Thursday night and stayed til Sunday.  We had a great time with them.  They helped us out a lot.  The weather was beautiful and we spent every minute we could outside.  We even ate lunch and supper outside on Saturday.  They helped us get done about as much work as me a Josh could do in about 3 weekends, and we even had time to play and relax.  It was really nice!!!

We got the swing put up just before Roger and Sue came.  It was a favorite of John and Lu throughout the weekend.  They fought over whose turn it was.  Ahhh....sibling rivalry.  I told Josh we'll have to get a swing set this or next summer.

We went to the playground on Friday morning while Josh and Roger went to Bismarck to pick up some supplies for the weekend projects.  All the kids had a great time!  (No fighting over the swing set there:).

Grandpa and Lu Lu reading story books.

Lu Lu in front of the Strawberry plot.  We pulled back the straw on the row this weekend.

Strawberries growing new leaves.

Rows for sweet corn this year and raspberries next year.  Josh till them up and Roger dug out the center sod that the tiller had missed.

 

Summer time Chicken pen. Josh and Roger pounded in these posts. We plan to make this into a pen for the laying hens this summer. Hopefully it'll give them some better grass and they'll be our little tillers. We plan to plant asparagus here next spring.

Paddock. We pulled all the fence out a while back.

Vika and Johnny mulching the flowerbeds.

Grandpa and Lu Lu going for a 4-wheeler ride.

Playing in the sandbox.

Roger and Josh fixing Grandma Loegering's old ladder.  I plan to repaint it and use it as decoration in the flowerbeds with flowers climbing on it.

Roger and Josh in house garden

Josh and Roger bent these metal pipes.  We will use them as frames for row covers for the veggies to plant earlier and protect them from insects.  It was really nice to use Roger's pipe bender and have the help.

My chives are already up!

Lu Lu playing behind the house

Josh uncovered the rhubarb plants.

Rhubarb popping up.

Playing baseball.

Johnny and Kiril playing in the sandbox.

Relaxing in the little shade of the yard (the trees aren't leafed out yet).  I think Josh and Roger fell asleep for a while.

Johnny wearing Cy's hat.

Johnny and Cy looking at a butterfly.  This butterfly loved flying around Johnny.  It landed on Johnny's shirt and hands numerous time.  It landed on Cy's hat too.

 We had a campfire on Saturday night.  It was really nice to be outside so much this weekend.  We were all a little pink by Saturday evening.  Both John and Olue didn't get their normal sleep this weekend with all the excitement.  So we all took a long nap on Sunday afternoon.
We're looking forward to Easter and the end of Lent!!!  Happy Palm Sunday!!