I’ll hopefully be back to blogging now that I have internet at my farm via the Droid phone. Funny thing about this phone, being that I live in the boonies…(seriously, we have a post office, a mom & pop gas station and a really creepy looking motor vehicle trader and that’s it.) my phone cannot figure out where my location is to give me weather and time. I’m good just about everywhere else, but when I’m home, it can’t find me. The interesting thing is, a lot like my GPS, which is a whole nuther story, instead of saying “Location Unknown” it gives me random world locations. It’s had me in Nice, France; Las Vegas, NV; West Ferriday, LA; Statesville, NC and Bloomingdale, IL. I figure it’s a great new way of doing Random Geography lessons…where are we today kids?. So, expect periodic updates from places I am not, nor probably ever been, but my phone thinks I am. I wonder if your phone could benefit from psychiatric help?

Anyway, updates quickly are:

Farm is well, though we took some hits on chickens in the heat wave. We now have 2 bucklings and a doeling from the spring births of our dairy goats. We’ve been enjoying drinking our own goat milk. We did really well considering our heavy tree lot when the hurricane blew by recently. We just realized where we have to put in drainage.

The girls entered chickens and their baby goats in the fair with 4-H and did really well. They have the awards banquet coming up this week. We go to Kings Dominion theme park with family and friends this weekend.

Lizzy turns 15 at the end of this month, boy has time flown. She sure is growing up. Beautiful and hardworking, just like her dad.

Other girls are well. Hoppy turned 9 in July and is really doing well. She’s a bit of a perfectionist (a lot like her daddy too).

Elena is growing like a weed. She wears her daddy’s CRT ball cap like a uniform and is Steelers mad….he’d be so proud!

I’m doing well. Got another vicious ear infection which I couldn’t have more than Tylenol for since I’m allergic to things with codine (including evil vicodin). On top of that had a wisdom tooth come in and crack and create an abscess so had to have surgery on that at the same time. Thankfully, they put me out for that. Just have to go back to the dentist to do all the other work I’ve put off for close to 12 years or more. Hooray.

God is so good though, everyday is a testimony to His goodness and grace to the widow and orphan.

That’s all you get for now, have to go run fencing for the goats.

Because He lives and reigns!

~Kate

I’m sure my dears you’re all suffering from shock….I’m posting?!!

So, we’re in Alabama visiting our friends and then trundling out on Saturday to head for Louisiana to visit family and friends. Our friends are watching our farm for us which is sweet as all get out and we’re excited to be back in the Crescent City for food and fun! Can’t wait for a po-boy and the Audubon Zoo.

Hope you’re all well. We’ve got lots going on what with mini-farming, homeschooling and such….and we just don’t get the time to go online for more than e-mail now that we’ve not got internet at the farm.  The cell card was a major mistake and cost me mega $$ thanks to being in the boonies and surrounded by woods….so, mostly get internet at the library.

Life is good.

Blessings,

~Kate

Here’s a great article my sister sent out, and since she was the Christian who reached out to me in love when I was determined to be rebellious I can vouch for the wisdom in this post.
I hope it blesses any of you who may have a similar struggle.
Blessings,
Kate

Hi gang! I’m asking you to pray for 5 year old Lillia B. She was battling hard with Neuroblastoma brain cancer not long a go and put up a wonderful fight! By the Grace of God, she has been cancer free for a good bit.   They have found a mass on the back of her neck and are having it biopsied this week. Please pray for Kim and Shane, her parents, for her brothers and sister and for dear Lillia to persevere as these Saints once again walk the rough road through the valley of the shadow of death. Praise God they are in His hands, the best to be in. Thanks for your prayers.

In Him we live, and move and have our being,
~Kate

Me blogging again in less than a month that is! Just a quick hello to everyone. I now have internet at the farm thanks to Verizons cell card whatsit….it’s still a bit slow, as I only get 1 bar out here…but what can I say.
Today is busy with a Raising Ebeneezer celebration at Providence Farm in Waverly, Va and then a Bonfire at the GCF in Ivor,Va.  Food and Fellowship with awesome people, you can’t go wrong. I’ll try to find batteries to get some good pictures. Weather looks to be warm and muggy, thanks to precipitation fronts moving in….might make me feel like I’m back home in Louisiana for a bit.
Have a blessed weekend gang.
~Kate

It’s been a while I know, and I’m starting to sound like a broken record to begin the last several entries on a note like this.  Well, we’re farmin! . Busy on our homestead, moving a chain link dog kennel about 6×9- half on a wagon with one kid pulling and two others helping me hold up the other end, while we book it down our dirt lane to the other side of the fencing before the 18 wheelers that the real farmer down the road uses to transport his heavy machinery needs to use the lane again. We’re using the kennel for our first laying hens to use as temporary housing. We now have 9 barred rock laying hens under tarping, clucking happily away in there and Hannah very proudly has gotten up to 4 dozen eggs since we got them. They are a housewarming gift from our friends the G family.  We are also raising 15 more barred rock and 10 araucana hens from chicks, they’ll be laying sometime in the fall….so Hoppy’s egg business will really take off then.
We are also the proud owners of 2 dairy goats, Barbara and Margot, who are currently being used as brush clearers. We hope to breed them in the fall for babies next spring.
No pictures at present for you to see, largely because I don’t have internet out at the farm yet, and I’m doing this at the library on my laptop.  This entry will also be uncharacteristically short! Life is good.  We are so very blessed by God to have our farm, our family and our very lives- His are the best hands to be in! Girls and I are working on memorizing Romans 8:29-38.  Going well. Liz & Elena begin their next homeschool year in 2 weeks and Hannah just started yr1, but because she asked for extra work, she’ll likely be in yr. 2 quicker than I expected.
I’ll update more on the farm and on the kids when we get internet which will be soon if my Mom has anything to say about it (which she does! ) Hope you’re all well.
In Him we live, and move, and  have our being!
~Kate

There were so many titles I could have given todays morning adventures among which “The Chickens of Mass Disdain” and “I am Schultz” were the major contenders.

This morning was a failure…..We thought we had been through the great pig escape of 2009, but we were wrong. That last episode was merely a skirmish, a trial run….today was the real thing.  Did you ever watch Hogans Hero’s? I used to watch it with my big brother, along with F Troop and Petty Coat Junction…awesome 80′s re-run t.v….though I won’t claim my brother watched Petty Coat Junction. I always imagined myself as one of Hogans Hero’s, but today I discovered, I am Schultz. 

I always thought of pigs as mindless eating machines, but I have discovered the wily street intellect of these ravenous porkers. Today as the fence was approached with the appetizer of pig pellets, the fence was breached….oh they claim they were just excited and really hungry, but we know better now. It’s real slick how they do it, one bops the bucket with his snout, and the others sorta crowd around you, and then it’s a real slick, trotter to the side, slip out the fence and pork bum in the clear.  So, we had the fun of a mass break out- the real thing, instead of just wandering up and down in front of their own enclosure and hanging about their food shed and wandering a bit here and there, they made a mass bid for freedom…or more accurately, for more goodies.

One pig took a swell romp into the yard, another investigated the cow field and two of them made a mad dash for the other side of the farm….the chicken yard.  We’re very thankful for Boomer, the C’s herding dog, who managed to encourage one of the pigs back into his fence where we fed him liberally with bread and apples and other slop….then off we went to round up the others…. Mr. Free Range Pork was investigating the chicken yard, while his two compatriots wolfed down chicken feed. The chickens, turkeys and guineas stood clumped together in outraged accents decrying this fowl abusage!  

I had the girls load up a pig feeder full of slops and I went with another bucket of pig feed to round up the rebels.  We managed to get the chicken feed away from them and did our best to encourage them back towards their side of the farm….here we found another interesting issue, though Boomer did a swell job containing the pigs, he seemed to feel that just getting them into any fenced enclosure was a good thing, so no matter how much I tried to get the pigs out of the chicken yard, he kept herding them back in and looking at me with hurt and reproachful eyes; why was I determined to spring the pigs that he had finally managed to get behind a fence…and like, what was I trying to accomplish anyway?

We managed to convince Boomer that the pigs were behind the wrong fence and we managed to herd them out, only to have them all make a mad dash for the woods!  I was able to interest the black pig finally with the feed bucket while Boomer and Elena, armed with a stick, corralled the other two. Elena may do well with a herding dog someday.  As you can imagine, throughout the whole adventure was much shouting of encouragement to each other, to Boomer, yells of “here piggy piggy suuuuuuuiieee! ” and such like. After well over an hour, they were rounded up in their enclosure and we liberally showered them with slops. 

As we trudged wearily back to the house, we looked up to find the entire fowl population of the farm standing in disapproving disdain. Even Hot-Head Harry stood there, it was obvious that he felt we were so beneath him that we weren’t worth the bother. It was a very lowering feeling….going from being the big rooster on the farm to inept pig wranglers.

I’ve looked outside and the roosters are holding a conference, it’s clear that they are unhappy under our temporary management. I bet the discussion is like this:

Harry: “Rrreeedeeeeculous, to geeeve us theese…..seeely peeeg chaseeeing peeeoples”

Pierce (Harry’s brother): “rrrrrrreeeeedeeeeeeculous”

Red: “What I say is, the utter nerve of our people demanding a holiday in the first place. Do we not pay them daily? One cannot get good help these days.  It is the fault of those creatures on the other side of the farm, if you know what I mean.”

One-toed Jack: “Aye…..you’ve got it rrrright there matey….I know the other side of the farm, making little excursions there now and then, don’t ya know….prrrotectin’ my interests…a set of rowdier folk ye’ve never seen.”

Pierce: “Rrrooooowdy”

Fat Bruce: “When ahhh….when ahhh….when the people…the people return….we shall….we shall…”

Red: “What I say is, we ought to let these…temporary people know our displeasure.”

Fat Bruce: “….we shall…have to…have to…”

Harry: “Geeeeeve them a peeeeeeeice of ourrrr mieeeend.”

Fat Bruce: “…..”

Red: “Precisely. We shall show them our displeasure by denouncing them loudly every few minutes, and then we shall discuss our further plans at the Rooster Ralley this evening.”

Fat Bruce: “….ahem. What you said.”

So, I’m having a coffee and a regrouping….today was a battle in our ongoing war and the more we do this I find that, like Schultz “I know nothing! Nothing!” But the good news is, I’m learning.

I shall have to go out again soon and check on everyone, I wonder if Harry will give me the time of day….ahh well…to be exposed as an incompetent noodlehead to the farm yard population is lowering but not desperate. We shall rally! Four score and a lot more hours ago my family set forth on this great homestead….

Off to get my wellies, ~Kate

  December 29th, 2009

In honor of my Elena Joy’s 11th birthday, her life briefly in pictures:

Home with big sis, Lizzy looking on January 2, 1999

January 2006 For those who know our Lanie, she’s never without her ever faithful and much repaired woobie. Her woobie has a new face now, but here it is when Mrs.Dorni fixed it for her.

After Daddy went to live with Jesus, we took his ashes to Pennsylvania. Here Lanie & Sisters are hugging the Punxsatawney groundhog statue…and at the Hotel Hershey.

Elena refused to smile for the camera….and here she is with her horse jumper Birthday ’07

I call these her model shots, both were just me catching her in mid-motion, she never poses like this.

From her birthday year or two ago, Lanie & her friend Holly who also has a January b-day, and our Hoppy with the pinata.  Elena holding mom up!

July 13, 2009, at her sister, Hannah’s 7th birthday party with family.

My Elena is my middle gal and very unique, besides her absolute passion for horses and devotion to her woobie. Elena has always been reserved with strangers, but becomes a giggling playful handful when she’s among friends. Usually opting to play “horse” she is the horse and pulls kids in a wagon or gives rides, or talks her friend Holly into being the horse and giving her a ride! Lanie loves animals of all kinds, and animals seem to know that she’s their champion. She works hard and is of a fairly even temperament, usually in good spirits. She reads well and cooks breakfast for her family most days. Lanie is learning to crochet and sew as well as her regular schooling. She loves the outdoors and keeping shoes on her is a challenge. Elena hopes to marry a cowboy/farmer who has horses (of course). She loves broccoli and potatoes and dislikes most meats, because it’s chewy . Elena is looking forward to someday having her own horse on our farm, so she is reading up and learning as much as she is able. She is learning how to be patient because it will be a long while yet before that dream happens, if it is able to at all. A good lesson for a young person to have and a good goal.

Elena is indeed our joy and we are so pleased that God has gifted her to us. Her daddy was very proud of her and wrote in a letter to her that he felt an affinity with her, being a middle child himself and encouraged her to care for her sisters and to maintain her joyful love of life around her. God has blessed Lanie with a very tender heart and a love for others that we hope will grow and grow for His glory and her good.

“Father in heaven, thank you for our light and joy, Jesus, and for this precious child, Elena Joy who brings light and joy to our family in so many ways.  Please keep her in your ways and bless her all of her days with a sweetly feminine and godly spirit. In Jesus Name, Amen”

“Where life is anything but lazy”.  The girls and I are farm sitting for the C family in Providence Forge, VA.  Chalk another up for our Collecting Farm Skilz folder.  Here we are on 10 acres , babysitting: 3 cows- Patty, her son- Sir Loin and newest heifer Caramel Apple;

4 pigs- Pork Chop, Petunia, Harley and Kingsford; Border Collies: Bonnie with her 7 pups, whose eyes have just opened the past week or so

, Boomer- who keeps herding our dog Baxter -I’m pretty sure he thinks that Bax is a large sheep (not too surprising actually), Lolly, Fanny, Sky, Flynn and Lucy aka Dizzy because of a bad habit of running in really tight circles to the right; and last but not least the few farm cats and the chicken/guinea/turkey population roaming around here and there.

Life certainly is not lazy for the C. family who have 7 children- homeschool and run this exciting homestead. And we discovered, it’s not lazy for us either. Chores take us around an hour- that’s just feeding and watering…time varies depending on who may or may not escape-who may or may not challenge our authority and whether we can find our wellies….

We’ve settled into a dandy routine, for the most part. Sunday we discovered on our way back to the Lazy C from church- about an hours drive give our take a few- that there was definitely something wrong with our truck. We’ve had a bit of a shimmy and a wobble had developed which looked suspiciously as though we had busted another tire, not unlike the one that developed a huge bubble a month or so ago. Sunday the shimmy turned into a shake and the wobble warped wildly so that we turned back quickly from our return trip to the lazy C and opted to stay at our city house in Npt. News to go to our awesome mechanic there. Mr. Moore took the truck for a spin and lo and behold, he returned with a “Wow, the back end was all over, and well, you need tires! ” So, off we went to a tire shope that stocks our size of tire. 

My dear Sis came and got me and the girls and allowed me to borrow her van for a hop up to the Lazy C to do the chores…we expected at the very least, dog issues from the few that are kept indoors, including the still being trained Lolly who hangs out in the laundry room.  We were gratified to discover that Lolly had crossed her legs, so we had no accidents to clean up, we did however, have the Great Swine Escape of ’09.  We’ve now learned that when your late feeding the pigs, don’t set the bucket down just outside the electric fence in order to situate yourself for feeding….no…diversionary tactics are quite necessary. Our darling oinkers took the shock and trotted out for a buffet. Rounding them up became quite an experience, but finally all were safely back inside their enclosure and much potato salad and spinach artichoke dip were hurled in at them to make their return to captivity a treat.

Next we headed for the chicken area, armed with chicken sticks (longish bits of small tree limbs) to protect us from the two feisty roosters. One seems to just have an issue with my Lizzy, the other is Hot Head Harry- a silky- He’s got a real problem with challenging my authority…it was quite the surprise to be rushed at when feeding the chickens by this mad wigged out haired rooster- I had to thump him with the feed scoop…after that, it’s been pretty much defending myself with whatever is to hand whenever he accosts me…so far it’s been a 2×4, a wagon, a metal strainer, the feed scoop, the water bucket and my chicken stick. Harry and I are down and out enemies now, and I admit, if anyone saw our bizarre dance I’d be hauled off in a white jacket…cause you know, when Harry puffs up and crows…I just have to do my war dance and crow back and when he takes a mad dash at me, I just got to meet him half way, chicken stick waving….I am determined that he is not going to win the great range war and well, unfortunately, he has the same idea….the good news is, I’m bigger than him. Though, you may notice I took these pictures from the safety of the other side of the fence…and look, there’s the water bucket…Hi Harry!

And for your enjoyment, one of the highlights of the Lazy C : Fabio- the prize turkey! I’m too sexy for this farm yard…. te-he…

And I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the girls and the puppies.

 I’ll update later with pictures from our Christmas Taffy pull attempts and perhaps New Years Eve.  We’ll be outta here and on to watch the Gowins Clan Farm in Ivor, Va on the 2nd- which is also my Lanie Pie’s 11th birthday….where does the time go?! Hope ya’ll are having a wonderful Christmas and looking forward to an awesome New Year full of rewarding work…hey why not learn a new skill this year? Blessings! ~Kate.

For my friend Becky, and her daughter, Danielle. Becky’s husband, Richard, died early this morning. Please pray for them to have peace as they look to their Jesus for loving support. Please pray that they would be surrounded by God’s people for comfort and help.
Thanks my friends.
~Kate
P.S. sorry for the long absence, taking care of a city house and a farm are a bit on the busy side. Hoping to be able to hop back in before long.
God bless you on this Lord’s Day!