Visit with the Millers

We finished with our second flock Wednesday, March 4th and decided it was time we got away for a few days. Our dear friends, the Millers live in Arkansas about 3 1/2 hours away. What a wonderful time of fellowship we had with them. Sadie was in charge of taking pictures and surprisingly, these are about all she took. There is a shot of the salad and the beef stew we had for dinner Friday night and a couple more of Samuel being silly with the Lincoln Log roof on his head that I decided not to post.

Mrs. Miller and me in the newly remodeled kitchen

From left to right is Andrew's shoulder (he and our Daniel had a terrific time together), Daniel Miller, Matthew, RG, my husband Patrick, and Benny sharing conversations around the dining table

Samuel Miller

Samuel, Emilie and Rachel exploring the loft

Emilie and Rachel had a great time being together

More Ice Storm Pictures

This is Maya's leash. Notice the ice on top of the leash.

This is the grass

Our willow wept for several days after the storm. Well, until all the ice melted ; )

The kids loved it

That's about an inch of ice. The truck was completely encased in ice and we had to apply heat and chisel away for about an hour and a half just to get inside and be able to drive it. I was fascinated by the ripples made by the flowing water as it froze.

Well, another ten pictures and an hour (or more) of my evening spent waiting for pictures to upload! This is ridiculous. I will get more posted as I can. I still have yet to post about Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Until next time...

A Few Pictures from the Ice Storm

This is our neighbor up the road
See the ice on the power lines, ice, not snow. Some friends of ours just got their power restored yesterday (Thurs. the 12th). We have been truly blessed. Our power was only out for about two days, I can't imagine two weeks!

This is our backyard.


This is the tree at the corner of our driveway.

The ice is about an inch thick on top of the branch

Many branches broke under the weight of the ice

The wall is actually covered in a sheet of ice and that is the water that froze as it flowed out the waterspout

Spring is near even with all this ice

Looking out my kitchen window

It is taking forever to post each set of pictures, so I'll stop for now and post more later.

Keep checking back!

Alive and Well

Apparently, the weather in our area has hit the national news. Since we don't have any TV reception, we didn't know. Also since we are new to ice storms, we just assumed this was normal and dealt with it. At any rate, the little town of Westville (just up the road from us) is completely out of power and dealing with downed trees and power lines. However, we have been spared any of these problems (so far). We had a mist like rain for a day and a half which has made our yard and driveway icy. We parked our work car in the garage to keep it safe, but it needed gas. We intended to take the work truck up to the gas station this morning, but had to chisel it out of its ice shield first. This took a couple of hours!

We have a TON of pictures to share with you and I hope to be able to take the time VERY SOON! I have attempted three times to post a few pictures, to no avail. I will try again another day.

Getting the hang of it

Well,our chicks are 19 days old today. We started off with two houses worth of chicks in one house (double brooding). Thursday a catch crew came and moved half of each house to the house next door. We had birds in houses 2, 4, 6, 8 & 10 and now we have birds in all ten houses. It was a lot of work getting the odd number houses ready to receive birds and the even number houses ready for the catch crew to have room to work. Patrick and I worked from 4 am to about 7 pm two days in a row, but now that part is over. The really great news is that double brooding was an experiment. All the other, experienced growers absolutely hated it and so our boss has decided it wasn't worth all the work. This means our next flock should be a lot easier.

At any rate, we have been able to get done with our main chores by lunch, which gets me back in the house with the kids where I want to be. It has also allowed Patrick the time to finally finish painting the girls' room. Today we stared bringing in all their things and as I type they are nestled snug in their very own bed quietly reading books. I will post pictures of their room in the near future.

We have also robbed our camper of its couch and two recliners for our living room. It's all coming together. Patrick needs to make some bookshelves for our massive library, then we can get the rest of our boxes unpacked. We just talked tonight about doing something rustic (i.e. cheap and easy). We sure wish we still had access to Glen and Bill's mill.

The weather has been cold, but not bad. We have had a few mornings that the temperature was in the 20's (once it was 18). The wind is the killer. If the wind isn't blowing we have found we can tolerate it so far. The temperature in the chicken houses is about 80 degrees. We bundle up in layers and our Blizzard Pruf (that's how they spell it) jackets and then shed them just before we enter the chicken house. Depending on what we need to do, sometimes we end up getting so hot we sweat and then the cold air outside feels good for a minute and then we bundle up again. It's really like having a cold Oklahoma winter with a touch of Florida, smelly of course ; )

Well, I just wanted to post an update. It has been a while since our last one and I wanted you all to know we are doing well. We love and miss you all.

Tired

I have returned our teeny, tiny family picture in its proper place. So my last post won't make any sense to someone who hasn't been following the saga. Oh well.

This post will be extremely short.

We are tired! We helped with the sell of the last flock and have been getting things ready for our first flock which arrived today. This morning, we were met outside by our neighbors (the couple who have been working the two farms). They helped us unload the chicks and get our computers set to monitor the houses. What a blessing! They have been a tremendous help to us and we are grateful. If all goes according to plan, this flock will be sold just after Christmas and then we will have a week off.

The Lord has blessed us with the purchase of a used (extremely used) and inexpensive (in comparison) four wheeler. It has also been a tremendous blessing in getting us around and has saved us a lot of walking.

It is 9:30 pm and everyone is in bed and I should be heading that way myself. I just wanted to touch base since it had been a week since my last post and also get the picture of the old car labeled as "Our Family" changed back to normal ; )

See What I Mean!!!

When putting a picture at the top of the blog, if I don't shrink to fit, I get what you see. I actually chose the element from the bottom of the page and the picture was complete, but GARGANTUAN!!! I moved it up to the top and this is what I got. Someone PLEASE help me!! Kitty, Sarah, Callie... someone?