Justin and Alicia's Blog

fall project

2011-09-12T18:29:00.003-08:00

I've been enjoying Pinterest.com, which inspired me to try to make a wreath. I had enough stuff to make 2, and some extra decorations, so I made 2 wreaths, and a fall display.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T00:24:00.003-09:00

Merry Christmas! We've had a wonderful Christmas so far, and its just 24 minutes into Christmas day. :)

Dad and I finally, successfully made Mississippi Mud today - we've been trying for about 15 years. Grandma Jean sent me her recipe, and we've been trying to adjust it for the elevation difference, and we've never been able to do it until today. WOOHOO! now it feels more like Christmas. :) Its funny how there are some things that just mean Christmas, and this year Mississippi Mud is one of those things.

Of course we've also been making all of our usual treats as well. We made pumpkin pie for mom, and super chex mix, cinnamon steamers, candy pretzel treats, and 2 very large pans of cinnamon rolls. Plus all the stuff we'll make tomorrow too, and the stuff we've been making for the last week or two. I haven't really eaten much of it, a bite here or there, but mostly I've just been having so much fun making stuff and cooking. Its a great creative outlet.

We opened our presents tonight after our usual Christmas Eve breakfast dinner of sausage (both link and patty), hashbrowns and eggs, and cinnamon roll. We used to always make a cinnamon roll wreath or candy cane shape, but it leaked all the good stuff out. It looked fabulous, but dried out quickly. So, a few years ago I made an adjustment and just started making cinnamon rolls instead of a fancy log. They don't look as pretty, but they're tasty. Especially this year. I finally managed to make the Disneyland cinnamon roll recipe to perfection. :) They're so good. This is a recipe I've been trying to get good at for years. There used to be these really really (I mean really) good cinnamon rolls at the Wallowa County State Fair, if you worked in the food booth, or were there in the morning. I've been trying to teach myself to make them ever since then (another 20 year project), and finally a friend passed me a link to the Disneyland cinnamon roll recipe, and its just like what we used to get at the fair. Very exciting, and very tasty. And its not something I would have ever thought of to try, so I would never have perfected it. There is vanilla pudding in the dough. Total genius. Oh, and today for the first time I also managed to get a mixer to knead bread the way I would. It was the coolest thing. Perfect Mississippi Mud, perfect cinnamon rolls, and lots of fun to boot.

After dinner we passed out the presents, well the ones that were small enough to pass, the big ones we just kind of laid out or stood up. Justin built some AMAZING stuff this year, and I'm so so excited. He built a pantry cupboard for mom and dad that holds our big buckets, cans, jars, etc. Its huge and so cool! then he also built a copper pot rack for dad, and he built the spice shelf that I designed for them too. He was a Christmas rockstar this year, and I'm so grateful. I've been having some depression issues, and having a hard time, and he has done SO much to step in and do much more than I could have even thought of in a good year, let alone this year. I'm so grateful!

Anyway, he built that stuff for mom and dad, and then he built me the coolest sewing table for my new machine (I wonder how long I will have it before its not my "new machine" anymore?). Its fabulous! He got a local cabinet maker to make a custom piece of corian counter, and then he build these adjustable legs, and a special drawer, and its as sturdy as can be, and beautiful! PLUS mom and dad bought me this extender table for my machine, so that I can sew much much easier. Bernina machines used to come with a custom extender table, but they don't anymore, and I've been having a really hard time sewing and quilting without it. But now I have a super duper table, and a super super extender for my machine. Plus I bought myself a new iron during black friday after Thanksgiving, so I'm a happy to sew girl now! I've got the full meal deal.

Everyone also got some other cool things. Dad of course gets to go to Africa, that was his big present. Dad bought mom a laptop, also super cool. Then they each got a couple little things. I bought Justin a really nice table saw (which he got early, and used to make all the beautiful projects he did), and I got him Despicable Me, and Shrek the Final Chapter (or whatever its called). Anyway, it was lovely, and fun, and OH, mom bought the dogs each a cookie monster doll, and we got the cat some catnip. They were all SO SO funny, and we all laughed and laughed. The 2 dogs and 1 cat were all so excited with their presents, it was really cute and funny. We also took lots of pictures which will be fun to scrapbook soon, and I'll post a bunch too.

Well, I just wanted to write this and share it while it was still fresh in my mind, and to share the joy of our day and the season. Love to everyone! Merry Christmas! :)

I Believe in You Lyrics

2010-11-25T16:42:00.000-09:00

This song is a favorite of mine.

"I don't believe in superstars,
Organic food and foreign cars.
I don't believe the price of gold;
The certainty of growing old.
That right is right and left is wrong,
That north and south can't get along.
That east is east and west is west.
And being first is always best.

But I believe in love.
I believe in babies.
I believe in Mom and Dad.
And I believe in you.

Well, I don't believe that heaven waits,
For only those who congregate.
I like to think of God as love:
He's down below, He's up above.
He's watching people everywhere.
He knows who does and doesn't care.
And I'm an ordinary man,
Sometimes I wonder who I am.

But I believe in love.
I believe in music.
I believe in magic.
And I believe in you.

I know with all my certainty,
What's going on with you and me,
Is a good thing.
It's true, I believe in you.

I don't believe virginity,
Is as common as it used to be.
In working days and sleeping nights,
That black is black and white is white.
That Superman and Robin Hood,
Are still alive in Hollywood.
That gasoline's in short supply,
The rising cost of getting by.

But I believe in love.
I believe in old folks.
I believe in children.
I believe in you.

I believe in love.
I believe in babies.
I believe in Mom and Dad.
And I believe in you."

a lovely mess

2010-11-25T16:20:00.002-09:00

Look, you can see my toe prints!

We've had some well troubles lately (as in water well), and last night it almost completely crapped out, so Justin wanted to go under the house today to fix it (he had to install a new check valve to stop the water leaking out of the house and back into the well, to prevent the well pump getting burned out). So I went into the store room to turn off the power to the well. I saw a bag of flour had fallen onto the floor/onto a box of laundry soap. I lifted the bag, and out poured the flour. Apparently the paper sack was totally destroyed when it landed on the sharp corner of the laundry soap. 25 pounds of flour. That's a lot of flour in case you were wondering. Took two pails of shoveled flour, and being vacuumed twice to get it all up. I didn't take a picture of the foot prints all over the house in flour (because I couldn't clean it up right away because we were in the middle of a plumbing project, so I ended up tracking it all over the house). Or a picture of the flour flying everywhere when I dumped the pails into the trash. I also didn't take a picture of an hour later when I was watering the goose and the bucket sloshed and filled my shoe with water. It was an interesting hour.

Update-ish

2010-11-21T19:10:00.002-09:00

There really isn't a lot to report, but I guess lots of blogs start that way. Looking forward to Thanksgiving this week, and making lots of fun treats. I don't really even want to eat any of them, I'm just looking forward to cooking them and trying new stuff. I'm thinking - blueberry cranberry pie. Sounds very interesting. Also got some good looking granny smith apples to make an apple pie. I think I will try to cook the filling on the stove first, then fill the crust. Dad always complains about regular apple pie, and likes Mrs. Smiths better because the apples get double cooked. So I will try it this week, and see how it goes. Apple pie is always good though. :)

Its been very cold lately, especially for what we've had here the last few years. I wish we had more snow, that would be really nice. At least the ground is getting good and frozen so when Justin wants to go snow machining, they will have a good "base" to go on. :) I actually am looking forward to riding in the little cart thing he built to pull behind the sled. He built it for me because I'm a chicken, and am afraid to ride by myself. :) But I'm okay with that. So for now, we've got the cart, which I've never gotten to ride in, we never had enough snow last year to use it. Come on SNOW!!!

We've started working on little December projects, spent some time at Lowe's yesterday doing some research and looking at things to make and do. I was looking for some discount carpet they'd had there last week, but it was gone, which was very disappointing. It was nice carpet at a good price, so I could afford to do the floor down here which is not looking to good. But alas, it was not to be. Hopefully sometime soon though. We stopped by fred meyer last night to get a couple things, and I was incredibly glad that mom and I had done our holiday meal shopping for the next few weeks before the rush. It was a madhouse in Fred Meyer, totally nuts. Glad I only needed about 5 things. Oh, plus I get to brag, for those who didn't see on facebook - I saved $200 with coupons at the grocery store last week. Totally incredible, I was very proud of myself. Organized my list and my coupons to the order of things in the store so that I remembered to use the coupons and the list, and it was all very efficient.

Justin got his last wisdom tooth out last week. he's been pretty miserable with the pain from them, and so it was good to get the last one out. Its been pretty painful too, and healing slowly, but got him some antibiotics and I think its healing better now. Also got his blood pressure refilled, so maybe his BP will come down now. That would be good.

We're both trying to come up with ways to improve our health. We're thinking about joining a local health club. I'm voting for a machine we could have at the house, because I'm embarrassed to work out in public. But I think the club membership would be good too - more variety and such. We definitely need to do something though. We want to be healthier. I'm working at eating smaller portions and drinking lots more water. I took a class at church a couple years ago, and I wish I remembered more of it, but I don't. What I do remember though is to drink an 8 ounce glass of water before dinner, and eat slower, because then you eat less, but you feel full because the body actually has time to get full, and relay to the brain to stop before we get over-full. So anyway, that's where I'm starting at.

We're also going to take the next steps to starting our family. We have an appointment with an infertility specialist next month in Soldotna. He's supposed to be the best around and comes very highly recommended. We've known since I was about 15 or 16 that I have poly cystic ovarian syndrome, and that it would take extra efforts to have children. Now its time to start those. Hopefully we'll see some results soon. We are really looking forward to expanding our family of 2 to include some little ones. Or tricycle motors as Justin calls them. I call them curtain climbers. :)

We lost our dear great-grandma last week. She was 97 and a half, and a wonderful example of a strong, Christ-like woman. Our neighbor is also very ill, which is very sad too. Its been a very emotional couple of weeks for our family, but we're plugging along, and taking comfort where we can. We know that grandma is so much happier now - she was ready to go home and be with her other family that she's been missing for many years. We miss her of course, but know we'll see her again.

I guess that's everything, except Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone reading this has a wonderful, safe, and happy holiday. :)

cool shot

2010-10-21T22:11:00.001-08:00

This is the "Independence', just after launching. Looks so cool with the water so still, and the mountain and all. This was the day before we closed for the season. Such a beautiful picture.

Progression of a sunset

2010-10-21T22:04:00.003-08:00

Oops, got the pictures uploaded in the reverse order, but you get the idea. :)

some pictures

2010-10-21T21:46:00.004-08:00

a video

2010-10-19T20:14:00.003-08:00

Here's a video of what a "catch" of a boat looks like from inside the cab of the machine. Kind of cool. This boat is called "Gamefisher", its a big charter boat. Pretty cool to watch! The only thing you can't really see in the video is that as the boat comes onto the trailer, the machine is pulling forward, so that the boat gets cradled on the trailer, rather than running into and stopping suddenly. Makes a much smoother landing that way.

pictures

2010-10-19T19:53:00.004-08:00

Mya LOVES lincoln logs, not sure what it is about them, but she loves them! :)

Never far from the lincoln logs :)

Cinnamon rolls I made using the recipe from Disneyland. Would have been perfect if I had given them more room in the pan so they could spread out. But the flavor was good, even if they were too gooey.

What one of the blocks in my new quilt will look like. I got the fabrics with the gift certificate Justin gave me for my birthday a while ago

Sewing its first fabric strips

My pretty new machine!

deep sea fish Justin, dad, Mike, and Robin caught when they went out around the point in September. Poor Justin got SO sick, I think its because of all the head injuries, he can't ride amusement park rides because of the way they move, and I think being out on the rough water simulated that and made him sick. He was sick for days.....

I wanted to put a bunch of pictures up tonight, but my computer is being goofy, so we'll see how much patience I have. Might just get a few pictures, but hey, that's better than none right? :)

A little RANT

2010-09-28T19:53:00.002-08:00

Ok, just as a warning, I'm going to rant in this blog post, just F.Y.I. :) And NO, I'm not talking about my husband, this is not a rant about him or anything that he says or does. Just so we're clear on that....

There has been a lot of complaining by some people that I don't do anything, and my husband does all the work and support of us. And that I'm greedy, lazy, and the largest pain in the a$$ that they have ever met. Now, I've tried to be nice, I really, really, really have, but seriously, enough already. I thought I might use my blog as a chance to straighten the facts, or at least rant a little and feel better. I don't say any of this to take away from anything that my husband does, and I have put off talking about this for a long time because I don't want anyone to misunderstand what I am trying to say.

Firstly, I have a full time, paid job. I work 40+ hours a week, and am on call 24/7. Sometimes I work until 2 in the morning, frequently I work until midnight. I make good money at what I do, in fact I make the most amount of money that you can make in this job. I've had the same job for 7 years. I pay all my own bills, and all of our bills, except Justin's truck payment which frankly I don't make enough to pay because its freakishly expensive (19% interest rate - holy crap) (thankfully though I had enough saved that I was able to pay it most of last winter). So I work, and I get paid, I pay the bills, and do my very absolute best to provide for my family. Justin works very, very hard. He puts everything he has into running our business in the summer, and works himself into the ground every summer, and in everything that he does. I appreciate and love him for everything that he does, and for the person he is. I also work in our business in the summer as much as I am able, as well as doing my other job, which is 7 days a week, 365 days a year, every day of every month.

Secondly, no, I don't get up at 4, 5, or 6 AM, because I often work until at least midnight, and often later. I appreciate that other people's lives allow them to go to bed and get up early. My life doesn't. My work doesn't. My health doesn't. After I work until the late night/early morning, I still need to take care of my home and husband. I do laundry, dishes, straighten up, take care of the pets, keep the wood stove going so the house stays warm all night, etc., all after I get done working at night. So no, I'm not going to get up 3 hours after I go to bed just to make you feel better. Maybe you don't see what I do because you don't live here, but that doesn't mean I'm not up working while other people are sleeping.

Third, of course you are free to think I'm a pain in the "behind", all you want, you will anyway no matter what I say. I don't agree, naturally, but hey, whatever. I know the truth, and I know what I did and how I behaved, and if that's considered being a pain in the behind, well then that's just weird.

Like I said, this rant is mostly so that maybe I can get this monkey off my back, and out of my head, and move on. If someone who thinks these things about me reads this, then great. You should have asked me, rather than trashed me, but you didn't. So I'm writing about it here, because its my blog and I can do that. I hate writing about this online, and sharing this with people, because our finances and our working schedules are OUR business, not anyone else's, but I'm so incredibly tired of being accused of runing Justin into the ground, and doing nothing to help. I'm tired of feeling angry, and frustrated, and like I've somehow done something wrong to be treated this way. But I haven't. Its the issue of the person or people who have made the accusations. So I will say again: I work....for pay....every day....I sleep when I can.....Get off my back.

And very lastly, I am VERY thankful for everyone who supports me and believes in me, and loves and trusts me. I love my husband, family and friends!

Still Alive

2010-09-28T19:32:00.002-08:00

Well, we are still alive, in case anyone wondered. We have been trying to un-wind after our long boat launch season, but have only been marginally successful. We have been trying to get all the fall/summer projects completed that there wasn't time for this summer, and trying to recuperate, and trying not to go nuts, so we've still been pretty busy. :)

Its been so long since I wrote last, I'm not sure what to write, or even if anyone checks the blog anymore!

Its working up to winter here, after a pretty crappy summer (second coldest/wettest summer since they started keeping track in 1929). Had a lovely warm September, with sun almost every day, and the warmest temps we've had all summer. But 2 days ago someone flipped the switch and we're heading down the fast track into winter, which is okay by me and Justin. We're tired. We're ready to get some firewood done, and hibernate.

I bought a new sewing machine, something I've been saving up for for a very long time. Thank you Alaska Permanent fund for giving me the extra push! I bought a Bernina 1008 (or is it 1080? I can never remember, but I'm pretty sure its 1008). I'm very excited, its the hardcore, non computerized machine, the current version of mom's old machine basically. I got no electronics (other than basic power) on purpose, because I don't want to fight a computer when I sew. I have to do enough computer battles when I scrapbook. When I sew, I just want to do my thing! I had a quilt cut out this spring, that I have been saving to sew with my new machine, so hopefully I will get to feeling better and do that, maybe the end of the week??? We'll see. But I'm excited. I'll post pictures soon (I hope).

Our other fun purchase this fall was a compound bow, for playing with here in the yard. I took archery in college as one of my P.E. classes (I know, cool huh?), and really enjoyed it, and have been wanting ever since then to get a set up of my own. Now we have one, and that's exciting. I've never used a compound bow before this week, in class we used a recurve, but the compound is cool. Now we just need to get is sighted. We've been sharing it, since its adjustable to both of us, but its not really fun to share, since the other guy just has to stand there and watch the other one have fun. So I'm seeing another bow in our future, his and hers models. :) I'm looking forward to having an outdoor activity that I enjoy, that we can do in any weather, and any time we want, plus its basically silent, so no worries about bothering anyone.

We had a pretty good boat launch season, with 80+ more launches than last year. Unfortunately we "lost" one of our machines, doing a vessel salvage, so we had to buy another one in the middle of the season. That pretty much screwed up our profits, which was really really really lame. But looking at the more positive side, we have a better machine now. We were really hoping to travel this fall, but unless we have a much more frugal winter than I think we will, I don't think we will be able to. We really wanted to go visit, and get refreshed, but we'll figure out something to do at home I guess.

Oh, we got a car, it gets 31 mpg, which is great, it only cost $1250, and only has 116,000 miles on it. Its awesome! Plus its a BMW, which is pretty neat too. :) Its supposed to be my car - but in the thousand plus miles we've had it, I've driven about 60 of them, if that tells you anything. But at least Justin likes it I guess, looking at the positive side, or trying to anyway. Now we can travel around, and do errands a little more affordably. Last week we took a drive that would have cost $300 plus in gas for the truck, but only cost about $55 in the car. That's a huge savings! A couple trips like that and we've paid for it in saved gas alone, so that's pretty cool.

Other than that, this Sunday was our first day to go back to church. We were in too much pain to sit past more than the first hour, but we hit the most important part, so that's good. It was really nice to sit and enjoy the music, fellowship, and such.

UM, I guess I don't have a lot more to put in this post. I've been looking for a picture from this summer to put up, but I haven't even had time to take them off the camera yet, so I guess I will post sans picture. Sorry, I'll try to post something more interesting next time! :)

Sure

2010-03-29T19:25:00.003-08:00

My Susan

Gabby's kids, two on the left are boys, one on right is a girl

kids pestering mom for food. :)

Well, we've been busier lately than we've been most of the winter. We got our loan finally, so Justin has been super busy rebuilding our machines. Today he is working on nickel plating some of the parts that are constantly in the salt water, so that they won't rust. He's been rebuilding drive trains, steering cylinders, and all kind of broken, scraped, bruised, and rusty stuff. Everything is coming together so far.

We went to Anchorage this weekend, and it was so nice to get away. We've been stuck at home for so long, because we were so broke we really couldn't put gas in the car. Sad but true. But we were able to go to the big city, and get some parts that Justin and dad need for fixing everything. I got to go to the mall, which was nice. I found nothing to buy, or at least nothing I thought was worth the price they were selling it for. I love the brazilian nut body butter from the Body Shop, but it was $20 for a container of it, and I just wouldn't pay that. Then they had some earrings that I wanted, but they were kind of ugly smiley faces, and they were $11, and I know its silly, but they were the same earring we paid about $4 for in the early 90's and I just wasn't going to pay that much for them. Something I'm sure you're all interested in. :)

My sad news is that we sold our goats, which was really hard, especially since Gabby just had her babies 2 weeks ago. They went to a great home, Beth, the woman we bought them from originally bought them back, and she was excited, and her girls were excited, so that helped, but I still cried, and am sad they are gone. We just absolutely could not take care of them in the summer working the hours we do. Couldn't happen. But we put almost 2+ years into them, and I loved them. Someday when our lives are more stable again, we will get goats again, but for now, my Susan and Gabby have been re-homed. Super sad about that.

Mom's having another procedure on Thursday, still trying to work up to a hysterectomy. Hopefully something good will come of thursdays procedure and she can get the help and recovery that she needs to move past this particular stage in her life and feel better.

I've been making bunches of earrings, I made something like 15 pairs last week. I saw a cool craft show on tv, and she made a super simple pair of earrings, and it gave me all kinds of ideas, so I've been busy making them. I think I've made a pair to go with every shirt or dress mom or I own. I might have a few more to make though, to go with the fabric we have for new clothes. :)

I guess that's all my news. We're working, goats are gone, and it is still snowing! GAH! Enough snow. I've been happy with all the snow storms we have had, until this morning, and when I opened the curtain when I got up, and it was a white out, I was not impressed! I'm glad for the moisture, but I have gardening to do, and seeds to start before I go back to work at the launch, and I need warmth for that! I really don't want to have to give up my baking center to make it a planting center. I will, but I don't want to. Oh, and we're going to get some new chicks this week or next. I'm looking forward to that. Ok, well, I guess that's it. Oh, and I got a new printer/scanner/copy/fax machine on sale at Fred Meyer, and sent my first fax today, and it was awesome! I loved it. Its been SO hard to try and run a business without a printer, I mean, there is a ton of stuff that needs printed running a business, and now I have a printer, a copier, a scanner, and a fax machine. woohoo! I know, I'm a geek. :) But I'm an excited geek.

All the news that isn't the news

2010-02-28T20:54:00.002-09:00

We've had an eventful week.

It started out with Justin still being sick, and having big red splotches and sores all over his legs (which were also very painful), plus a fever, and general ickiness. Then tuesday his feet swelled to twice their normal size. time for a doctor visit. Took him to the local satellite clinic here of a larger clinic in Homer. They were completely freaked out, said it was the weirdest thing they'd ever seen, had no clue what it was or how to get rid of it. SO, the sent us in for blood work, chest x-ray, and to make an appointment for an abdominal ultrasound because they said his spleen was enlarged and ready to burst. After the tests, went to their big clinic in Homer to see another doctor, she thought she knew what the spots were, but didn't know what was causing them. Told us he might have leukemia, hodgkins lymphoma, heart failure, kidney failure, liver failure, TB, pancreatitis (pancreitis?), mono, strep, bacterial infection, viral infection, cancer, etc. Basically scared the crap out of me. Wednesday I made Justin an appointment with a "real" doctor, at another clinic. Thursday morning was the ultrasound, then appointment with the "new" doctor. The new doctor walked in, looked at Justin's legs, said you have Eurythma(something or other) nodosum, and here's how we'll treat it. Said it could be cause by something serious, but he didn't think so, he said that what happened was Justin got sick with the flu, or strep, or some sort of basic winter illness, and then his immune system went to work, eliminated the illness, but then his immune system just kept cranking in overdrive, and that was what caused the inflammation, swelling, fever, etc. His immune system sort of turned on his body. He said if it was something else that caused it, then that other illness will show up when we clear up the leg inflammation, but that generally it was just his immune system going way overboard. He'd treated it before, and said it could take 6 months to clear up, we'll just have to see, but he wasn't concerned or anything, just very competent and knowledgeable. I really liked him, I had seen him when I was in the ER this summer, and liked him, so when I couldn't get Justin in to his regular doctor, luckily I was able to get him in to Dr. Brady instead.

So now Justin has his pills, and he feels like the inflammation is reducing a little, so that's great. His feet and ankles still swell when he's upright too long, but we were able to go to church for an hour this morning, so that was an improvement. The first time we've been able to go in February at all.

Other than illness, we're still waiting for our loan to be approved, and hoping and praying desperately while we wait. Mom and I went to Soldotna on friday, that was fun. We had a really good time at Joann fabric looking at patterns and fabric - we haven't been able to do that in years. So we're looking forward to working some new patterns and making some new clothes in the coming weeks. Should be fun.

I made a skirt yesterday with mom's advice and instruction. We had a little trouble with our math, some measuring issues, and some fit issues, but eventually got it done. Its a blue corduroy skirt, looks good I think, although not how I pictured it, but then clothes I make almost never do. I have trouble with that. I actually get really frustrated making clothes because clothes have to be altered to fit me well, and its hard to do that without having to redo stuff over and over, and anyway, its really easy for me to get frustrated making clothes. I love to quilt - totally love it, in fact I made a small quilt to give to the women's shelter this week, but making clothes is harder. I go through phases where I enjoy it, and I seem to be in one of those now, so maybe I'll get some new clothes done soon. That would be nice. Especially because I already have the fabric, I just need to put in the needle time and get it sewn.

My poor kitty has a deep wound on his backside. The neighbors cat bit him, we think trying to bite off something rival male cats would be trying to bite off if you get my drift. But he has this big sore now, about the size of a quarter or a little bigger, maybe between the size of a quarter and a fifty cent piece (ok, how many people remember 50 cent pieces? I do, my grandparents sent them all the time, and I have a good collection of them around here). Anyway, we cleaned his wound, and gave him some love. We're not sure if we'll have to take him to the vet or not. If we do I guarantee the neighbor is paying for it. You can't leave town for months at a time, and just leave your pets alone! Very frustrating, and I don't do well with my kitty being sick or wounded, poor little guy.

So, that's pretty much what's been happening with us. It was really nice and warm, but now its pretty cold and windy, guess winter decided to come back to us. No goat babies yet. We sold our billy goat (by Billy Bob!), and we're pretty sure we're going to sell our herd after Gabby has her babies. I love them, and we love the milk, but we don't have time or energy to take care of them in the summer, and I guess they just dont' fit our lifestyle right now. Maybe when our lives are more stable and less up in the air. It will be hard to get rid of them, although I'm still pretty heartsick over all the ones that died last year and the drama with that. I'll miss my Susan. We'll see what happens though, but I think that's how we're leaning.

Ok, now I think that's everything going on around here. :)

Looooong Winter

2010-02-19T22:49:00.002-09:00

Its been a long winter around here, not weatherwise, but lifewise. We've been hoping and wishing for more snow, but nothing doing, didn't happen. Hopefully we'll still get some snow this march, a nice big fluffy pile of snow.

We've been really sick this winter, a lot. Poor Justin just can't get well. He's on a strict vitamin regimin now, we're hoping it will help. We just keep passing stuff around, and getting sick over and over and over. Makes a looooong winter when you can't get well, and you can't get anywhere, and you're broke...... Thankfully its february, and warm now, so maybe we're looking up.

Today I tried on every piece of clothing I own, and sorted it down to almost nothing. I think I have about 10-12 shirts, 2 pairs of pants, 2 dresses and a skirt. Not much to wear.....so we (mom, Justin and I) went through all my clothes to decide what looked good, what fit, what didn't, what was flattering, etc. It was really helpful to me. I'm not much of a fashionista, I don't really worry about what's "in", I just want to look good and have stuff fit comfortably, but that's still really hard, especially in the sizes I wear, with the budget I have this winter, and with how hard I am on clothes. Its very difficult. But this also ties into my other news, I joined a "Biggest Loser" competition that my work is offering for this spring and summer! I'm really excited about it actually, the prize is $1500, and I really am looking forward to that extra motivation to get healthy and skinnier. Plus yesterday I worked out, which is a big step. Eating isn't really the biggest problem for me, its not exercising. I always think that my daily activity is enough, but obviously it isn't. :) So that's what I'm working on right now - designing some new clothes, and losing weight.

We're also in the seemingly never ending search for money for our business. We're having a major change shortage this winter, and its been really hard (as it has been for almost everyone this year). We've applied for several loans, looked for investors, and are in the middle of applying for another loan right now. Its a time consuming, frustrating, scary experience. I guess the upshot is that it has completely re-committed us to paying off as much debt as we can this summer, so that we don't have to go through this again. We are so ready to be debt free, and so tired of the fear and uncertainty that it brings into everything, and so restrictive. Honestly its been a painful, long, frustrating experience, which we hope will start to look up any day now.

On the positive side, our goat Gabby is going to have kids any day now. That is exciting, and a little scary after the mass casualties of last year, but still excited to see what happens. We're selling, or trying to sell, our billy goat. He's not really a good fit for our barn, he's too closely related, and we'd like to bring in a new blood line, instead of kissing cousins, or in this case, kissing half siblings. We'll have to post pics of the new babies when they come.

The dogs are good, the chickens good, cat is a cat, and we're plugging along, hoping to get better, hoping to get the money we need, and hoping for more snow. :)

Moose in the yard

2010-01-30T20:08:00.002-09:00

We had some moose in the yard, a mama and this years calf. Had to take pictures of course. They hung around for a long time, they ate a bunch of willows (they're the reason we have willows- so they come around more) and then bedded down next to the pond and chilled for a while. They were still there when the sun went down, so that was neat.

New sign

2010-01-18T15:03:00.001-09:00

I've been wanting to make a vinyl sign for the bathroom wall that said this for a while now. Finally got around to it. I think it looks great - not sure why the bathroom wall looks that color, the wall is actually a nice light cream color. But anyway, the sign looks cute, now hopefully it will stay - the vinyl didn't really like the textured wall.

Dad's new (ish) chair

2010-01-08T17:26:00.002-09:00

Mom got a new chair, that will help her get up and down more, given to her from her insurance company. So dad decided to trade up from his old broken chair, to mom's "old" chair. Mom's been trying to get him a new chair for years, and he wouldn't even consider it, but then the other day he decided that when she got her new chair, he would trade for the chair she was sitting in. So, now he's got a newish new chair. And its a recliner and a half, so there's even room for a puppy to sit with him. And it didnt' take 2 very long to figure that out. I think he'd been sitting in the new chair trying it out for about 20 seconds before she jumped up there and sat down on the empty side. She was so cute. Mya wanted to get up too, but she didn't want to jump up, so she just leaned over the arm of the chair. Such funny dogs!

Justin's new bowl

2010-01-08T17:18:00.001-09:00

Here are some pictures of Justin's newest bowl. Its beautiful!

Doggy cart ride

2010-01-08T17:05:00.003-09:00

Well actually this first picture is 2, helping dad eat his jerky and read the paper. She sat next to the chair for a long time, then eventually she just climbed up there and started licking his face, she was sure that jerky smelled like something she wanted and that gramps would let her have it. Then she stayed in the chair, and she would stare at him for a few seconds, then lick him really quick. then he'd tell her to stop, so she'd stare at him for a few seconds, then lick him really fast again. It was hilarious!
Justin taught the girls to ride in the garden cart today. Unfortunately the pictures loaded backwards, but they are still cute. He started up at the shop, and loaded them into the cart, called me so I could see and take pictures, then he "drove" them all the way down to the house, and under the deck where the wood is stacked. It was so funny! They were so serious about it.

My best quilt ever

2009-12-29T00:21:00.002-09:00

I found this pattern in my quilting magazine last year, and took it down to the store to find fabrics, and found these four, one is a cream with white print, the other is a darker cream with red flowers, and cinnamon red with dark cream flowers, and a brighter/darker red with cream flowers, and I knew they had to be this quilt. I am so excited with how this turned out. The quilting is an all over pattern, in red, then the center cream squares are a free form flower that I just cranked out by eye to fit the space. The back is a really cool japanese, mum flower pattern, that is red and white. I can say absolutely this is the best I have ever done. I made a cool purple quilt last year that I did really good on, but there were a couple bobbles on the back. But I think there is only 1 tiny bobble on the back of this one, and the rest is perfect. I'm so proud of myself! :) Love this quilt. Its a super king size, larger than normal, so that it almost touches the floor on all four sides of the bed, so they can fight over it, and tuck and roll, and the other guy won't freeze. :) I used a cotton batting, with a little polyester, that is really warm and super soft. Anyway, I'm very happy with it, and mom and dad love it! It goes great with the creamy/red colors in their room, very warm and friendly looking.

Christmas stuff

2009-12-29T00:03:00.005-09:00

Kitty's present didn't get done, so he had to suffice with a sparkly bow tossed at him. He wasn't so impressed, but that could have been because Mya was SUPER excited to open presents - this dog really gets the whole present opening thing. She doesn't get that they aren't all for her, but she does enjoy the process.

Before the ribbon.

Here's 2 showing "grandpa" her new baby doll. Sewed from old jeans, and stuffed with an old shirt cut up into little pieces. very durable and safe, in case they somehow tear them. 2's baby has purple hair, and a purple ribbon.

Mya chilling with her baby doll, her's has pink hair and a pink bow.

2 was terrified by the sound of the paper crackling, something from her past of being abused, not sure what happened, but anyway, she tried to crawl under Justin to hide, until he could show her it was a present.

No, that's not Mya's present, that's MINE! She stole it, and kept trying to take it out of my pile, guess she decided that all the presents wrapped in snow man paper were hers...

Blurry I know, but it was a blur of activity while they were trying to open their presents. Like I said, Mya really likes unwrapping.

Here is the beautiful rocking chair Justin built for me. The wood is from birch trees that dad logged, and our neighbor Ron sawed into lumber, and Justin made into a rocker for me. Pretty cool!!

Here's the genealogy/computer desk dad commisioned and Justin built. On each side is a shelf that slides out. the one on the left is for the scanner, the right is for the printer. So cool!! Mom was floored, she loved it, and it was a total surprise, because I was the master of keeping secrets this Christmas - and usually I'm really lame at present secrets - you can ask anyone. I get too excited. but since it was a small Christmas it was very important to me that the element of surprise be there, so I worked really hard, and let me say I rocked! hehehe. Justin did such a great job of building this, its absolutely gorgeous!

Snowy Girls

2009-12-17T22:56:00.002-09:00

Sniffing, always sniffing

Mya watching 2, making sure she didn't do anything Mya didn't approve of.

2 wallowing in the snow, she flops out in the snow, and stuffs her nose down as far into the snow as she can get it. This dog really loves snow!

A little napping

2009-12-12T17:08:00.000-09:00

Scruffy never misses a good nap, and curling up with Justin was just his style!

frozen fog

2009-12-12T16:57:00.005-09:00

We've had a lot of fog the last couple of days, and it froze to the trees, and made everything so pretty and white! I figured I better get some pictures before it melted, not that it was warm enough to melt anything today. brrrrrr

More pictures

2009-12-04T20:15:00.002-09:00

Susan a couple months ago. She turns 8 months old on the 8th of this month.

The ever earnest 2.

Mya, looking a little bored.

Some of our thanksgiving yummies.

New background

2009-12-04T19:56:00.004-09:00

Ok, I think there was a reason I was holding off of putting up my own designed background. Doing the designing wasn't too hard, I was following instructions my cousin Joanna posted, and I knew what I wanted because I was going for Christmas and I only had 5 Christmas papers on this computer - keeps that simple. But I had the hardest time getting it to post to my blog, in fact it still is not right, but its pretty close so we'll go with that for now. I'm really looking forward to trying more of these in the future. My friend gave me a bunch of digital images and such to use, and I think this is going to be fun. Hopefully everyone can see it okay. :)

We had our church women's group Christmas party last night, which was fun as always. I've been spending a lot of time connecting, or trying to, on facebook, and have been neglecting my blog. But I have a new friend at Church, and she blogs a lot, and that has inspired me to reconnect with my blog.

When Justin and I got married, my brother gave us a Kitchenaid mixer, which I have been saving, and dreaming of using. I wasn't going to get it out until I had my own kitchen to enjoy it in, but since its been more than 2 years, I decided I should get it out and start enjoying it, even though its not my own kitchen. So I got it out and annointed it with powdered sugar, making frosting for a new recipe for Christmas cookies. Its FABULOUS! I love it. It has a little more juice than mom's that I usually use, and its smooth, and fast, and I LOVE my mixer. This is going to be a fabulous addition to my life for many years to come. Thanks Blake!

We've been enjoying a big snow storm this week. We got about a foot of snow at the house here, so that was fantastic. Justin was able to plow some driveways and make a little cash, so that was great too. It was so pretty and new. I love big snow storms. It could have blizzarded like that all week, and we would have been ecstatic. Mom and dad- not so much excited about the snow. The dogs love it too. 2, the dog, loves the snow more than any dog I have ever seen. After it snowed, before he plowed, she would walk out and just FLOP into the snow and lay there with her face stuffed into the snow. They were happy doggies this week.

Something New

2009-11-21T22:16:00.002-09:00

Justin's sister Novella was complaining that we hadn't posted anything in a while, so Justin (and I) came up with this post. We posted "something new" and a fun picture for Novella. :)

There's a real new post below this one. :) This was just the opener for Novella.

Creative Block

2009-11-21T22:02:00.003-09:00

We've had a little trouble being creative lately in the scrapbooking area, and looking at some old pictures tonight, I can see why. This first picture is what the room used to look like. Nice and open, lots of room, and light, and empty space. Then following this, you'll see some of the stuff that is on the desk, and around the desk now. I'm thankful that I don't have a picture of what it looks like today from this same angle, because lets face it, its frightening! I'm thankful, very thankful, for all the wonderful papers and supplies that we have, I just wish they were displayed and organized in a more eye appealing way, because right now its kind of overwhelming. I'm not really sure what to do to fix it, but looking at what the room used to be, I can definitely see what we need to!

Above is the before. Below is a storage piece we used to keep next to the desk.
My side of the scrapping desk, and the book case in front of the window.

More of my side of the desk. See the black piece of paper on the desk? that's my work space area now to do my projects - Needs a little work! :)

Finished Quilt

2009-10-15T18:20:00.001-08:00

Here's the finished quilt. Its about 4 feet square. Turned out pretty good I think. :)

2009-10-13T22:45:00.000-08:00

This years carrot and cauliflower pickles and the zucchini relish. Good stuff!

New quilt

2009-10-13T22:40:00.001-08:00

I'm working on a new quilt, to hang on the stairs, above the entryway. See, we need a quilt there because the dogs, or the cat, always open the upstairs bathroom door, when someone is in the bath tub, and then that door, and consequently the bath tub, look straight out onto the driveway and highway. Not so fun. So I've been working on this project for a few years, and I'm finally getting back to is. The outer blocks are done, and as of today the center panel is done. A few borders, and some connecting work, and it'll be done. But for now, here is the center panel. I cut out, and appliqued and embroidered it all. The mountain is about 5 shades of purple fabric (batik), and its embroidered in a hollowshimmer thread so it sparkles. Very fun! Can't wait to finish it this week.

2009-10-13T22:28:00.003-08:00

Up close of the leaves, with Mya in the back

I love the colors!

Such pretty leaves

The mountain ash in the back of the garden The mountain ash in the front yard

Up close of the tree in front

The front tree again

Our pretty blue spruce. I love the blue tips

2009-10-13T22:16:00.002-08:00

Here I am holding the biggest Rhubarb leaf I have ever seen!

This is our new raspberry patch. Should do great next year!

Here's the garden after got it all planted

Dad tilling the back yard, so he could plant it to grasses and clover. Clearly the goose loves company - or maybe not so much

Our garden growing. We got a lot of dill this year too, which was nice. And radishes, and some celery that was not so good, the stalks weren't big enough, and it was a little intense. Oh, and we got a bunch of potatoes, but I think I showed them earlier.

Broccolli

2009-10-13T22:10:00.002-08:00

I read this story, shortly after dad and I planted the broccolli plants for the year. It said that if you want enough broccolli for a family of four, to eat fresh in the summer, you need to plant 4-6 plants; if you want broccolli for the family to last all summer, and to put away for the winter, you need 10-12 plants. And I thought, hmmm, this could be a problem, since we planted 142 broccolli plants. We eat a LOT of broccolli, and its something we all enjoy a lot. So here's one of our broccolli harvests. Not the only one of course, but it was the largest, and the last big harvest. We enjoyed some fresh, and some really great fresh broccolli salad (fresh broccolli flowers with a tangy vinegar/mayo dressing). We put probably 50-60 quart bags in the freezer. Lots of broccolli to get through the year. Oh,and we kept a lot of the stocks for making broccolli cheese soup, which we had a couple of weeks ago and it was AWESOME! :)

Oh Harvest, Our Harvest

2009-09-27T21:45:00.003-08:00

Saturday was the last day of the garden. We had a hard freeze this week, and the potatoes died big time. But we were hoping if we left it sit, it might dry out a little, but it didn't, so we took saturday and harvested everything. Dad, Justin and I spent about an hour or so digging potatoes and beets. And carrying plants over to the chickens. We ended up with about 120-130 pounds of really, really nice red potatoes, most of them about weighing at least a pound EACH. It was fantastic. Our Yukon golds didn't do very much, we didn't get hardly any of them, not sure what happened there. But the German butterballs (my favorite potatoes) did pretty good. They would have done better if they had been in a less shady spot. But they still did good. I think we'll can some of them at some point, haven't tried that yet, but it sounds good. Then we got about 20 pounds of beets, which I didn't take a picture of. I thought we would have more, and I was planning for canned beets, and pickeld beets, and frozen beets, and..........I think we'll have beets a couple times this week, and be all done. lol. But anyway, we had about 230-250 pounds of potatoes, 20 lbs. beets, about 60 quarts of broccolli, and a bunch of canned fish and veggie pickles. A pretty productive fall considering how much other stuff we've had going on. Now we all have the flu, but hopefully we'll get over that soon. its kind of a weird flu. hope it passes quickly. Well - there's our harvest anyway. :)

Wrapped up

2009-09-13T13:59:00.002-08:00

We wrapped up the boat launch season on September 7th, a week earlier than we wanted to, because of mechanical troubles. Both skidders kind of went pbbbttthhh so we did as good as we could for 2 days, then decided we couldn't risk damaging them any more. So we closed early. It was a really bad weather week so we wouldn't have bad any business any way. It was a good season, it didn't go as we had hoped, but we did good for our first year and for the economy being in the state it is. We're well set up for next year. It'll be a tight winter, but if Justin can get a job up on the slope, or somewhere, we'll be able to keep everything going until next spring when we open again.

Other than that, not much is new. Our littlest goats are very sick, we're not sure why. Today we had to give them vitamin b shots. Not sure what's going on, but the poor little guys are pretty weak.

We've just been resting, and trying to get everything wrapped up from the boat launch this week. Hopefully this week I'll be able to get back to making cards for sale, and scrapbooking. There's a bunch of appointments for this week though, so we'll see. Anyway, here's our update. :)

I like seagulls

2009-09-13T13:58:00.001-08:00

I like seagulls but they're hard to get a good picture of. I like this one though.

2 the Dog

2009-09-13T13:52:00.000-08:00

Just some cute pictures of 2

Random pictures from our last day and week

2009-09-13T13:46:00.001-08:00

Our windmill

2009-09-13T13:43:00.001-08:00

I finally got some pictures of our windmill right before we went to bed on one of our last nights at the boat launch.

My new couch! and chair

2009-08-21T19:56:00.005-08:00

Ok, so its been a long time since I posted anything, since we've been so swamped with work and life. Today I pulled into the yard to pick up DJ to take him to the high school so he could get registered for school (only for about 6-7 days of classes before he goes back to NM, but it will help him be not as far behind when he gets home). Anyway, I pull into the driveway and my neighbors Ron and Lydia (Ron just got out of the army and they just moved back here) have some of their extra furniture for sale out in our neighbors front yard. Its was the most beautiful dark brown leather sofa and chair. I know Lydia's style, so I knew they would be great quality, and they are! I got them for a great deal, its a $2200 set new, and I got it for $200 and 4 boat launches. I'm pretty excited. I've been wanting a new sofa that was of a fabric that was more durable and easier to clean, and have been wanting a leather sofa, without having to pay the leather price. YAY! So here's our new sofa and chair.

Windmills and stuff

2009-08-01T19:38:00.002-08:00

I am proud to say that we are now the proud owners of a wind generation system. Yesterday Justin and I went to Soldotna and bought a wind generator and the necessary add ons to run our office building on wind power. It was kind of one of those things that happens. We've been running the Honda generator that we bought this spring, but it broke down on thursday, so friday we took it in to be fixed, and they thought maybe they might think about fixing it on monday, if they got to it. So Justin and dad were going to Soldotna to get an air compressor for dad's shop, and so Justin went by the alternative energy place and priced one out. The guy is really knowledgable and has everything in stock, solar and wind, and knew about the area we live, and in fact he installed a wind/solar system on a house about 1/2 mile from here, for a guy dad knows. So we talked about it a bit, and ended up going back to Soldotna friday afternoon, right before they closed and got the set up. Then Justin installed it today. We've been spending about $200-250 per week buying gas for the generator, and so in basically 11 weeks we'll have paid off the wind system in saved gas. Plus we get the wind system we've been wanting! I'm very excited. I went down to the beach to take pictures, but I only got one before the batteries died, and then I forgot the camera in Justin's truck, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

We have great plans for our alternative energy. If we had made enough money this year to have some left over for ourselves we would probably have purchased a whole system or the start of for the house here. But as it is, we'll be able to use the system we bought to probably run a nice little greenhouse this winter, or to run the heaters and lights for the goat/chicken barns. Or to add onto the house, or..... We've just got all kinds of ideas. Its fun stuff. Anyway, we've taken our first step to being on alternative energy. And as soon as I can, I'll post the one picture I got to take. :)

Dads

2009-06-13T21:32:00.002-08:00

Dads are great! My dad totally saved our butt today. Justin got a super migraine this morning and between throwing up, and not being able to see or really even stand, he was in no shape to be running his machine. So we ran with one machine for a while, as best we could. Then we got super slammed, even more than we had been earlier which was much busier than usual. Anyway, so we got slammed and I called my dad and asked if he knew anyone that could help us, and as soon as he could he came and ran our machine for us. I don't know what we would have done without his help today! When he got there we had 4 boats waiting to be launched, and 5 boats waiting to be brought in out of the water. He hates running skidders, the machines we have, because they are really hard on your neck and back, because you're always looking over your shoulder and then forward, and over your shoulder and forward.......all day long, which is very painful after a while, but he jumped right in and helped. THANK YOU DAD!! You saved our bacon! or our boats I guess! :)

Also fun to report today was our 2 busiest days in the last 2 days. Friday we had 46 launches, which ties for our biggest day. Then today we had 68 launches - way past our previous best day! It was so busy, but it was really a fun busy. Especially after dad came, and we had the capacity to handle all of our busy-ness. So although Justin was sick we have much to be thankful for!

Goat Baby Updates

2009-06-11T20:46:00.007-08:00

This is my absolute favorite picture of the goat babies from tonight. Her cute little tongue sticking out just cracks me up. :)

Susan stepping in while I was trying to take a picture of Bob

Friendly Susan

Jumping down

Susan and Bob

Susan is a big jumper and climber, she's always looking for food.

The tail end of Lucy's yawn - so cute

The suspicous Lucy. She's a little more shy than she would have been if I was bottle feeding her, but after the disaster of the first four and all that trouble, I just wasn't up to it. We won't get as much milk, and the babies will be more shy, but I guess that's just the way it has to be.

More lucy

I lifted the heat light to shine on her for a better picture, but she wasn't such a fan of the light in her eyes, not that I blame her.

"Are you taking a picture of my bum??" funny little goat

Mama Gabby

Gabby peaking at me

Watching my every move to make sure I'm not bothering her babies

Fawn scratching his head

Chewing his cud, such a cute pic of his lip sticking out

Fawn

Here's Billy Bob

Bob again

Susan, Bob, and Fawn

Susan, Bob, and Fawn again

So right now we have Susan, the only survivor of Gretta's brood. We brought her home about 10 days ago or so. Then we have Bob, or Billy Bob as I call him. We bought him from Beth the goat lady, to keep as our own buck. He's a funny guy, totally different personality than the lady goats. He's only a few months old, and he's already trying to get to Gabby, and trying to flirt with her and stuff. Kind of funny. Next we have Fawn, or Mr. Tumnus the Fawn, named from "The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe". Lucy is also named after Lucy from the book. They're gabby's. We don't yet know if we will sell Fawn or eat him. The jury is still out on that. Then we have mama Gabby. She's doing good, taking good care of her babies and very protective of them. And that's our goat brood!

Baby Goats

2009-05-30T18:57:00.002-08:00

Here's the pictures from the first night, about an hour after the babies were born. Sorry for the bloody stuff, but hey, this is farm life right? hehe :) The lighter colored one is named Fawn, and he's a he. The blacker one is a girl, and her name is Lucy. We thought the black one was a boy, so we named it black billy, and the other one Fawn because we thought it was a girl, but obviously we were wrong. So we (I) changed the names a little. I decided to go ahead and keep the name Fawn for the billy, after Mr Tumnus in Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe who was a fawn. And then I decided to name the black one Lucy after the little girl in the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe.

And then there was one

2009-05-27T19:27:00.003-08:00

Well, another baby goat died, well she had to be put down technically. She got some sort of vitamin deficiency or goat disease. She was paralyzed, and had a 107 degree fever. She was fine yesterday, then today she was dead. That seems to be the norm now. They do fine, and then they die. I'm not really sure I'm cut out for this, because frankly, this sucks majorly.

Eagle and dogs

2009-05-27T19:17:00.002-08:00

The other day there was a really big, cool eagle sitting on the edge of the parking lot. I got some great pictures of him (or her I guess). I wasn't 8-10 feet away from him, and he just sat and looked at me. It was pretty cool.

My funny girls. They have to sit in the trucks or be on chains most of the time they are down there because they like to chase stuff, run, and just generally get into trouble and other things that smell nasty. But they look funny and cute sitting in the truck waiting.

Boat launch

2009-05-27T18:32:00.009-08:00

Catching some sea doos. If you can put it on a trailer we can launch it or retrive it! :)

Here's Justin cutting the skid plate off the bottom of his machine so he can get to the transmission and front end to work on them. The skid plate isn't supposed to be welded on, whoever had the machine last really did a number on it!

There's Justin's legs under his machine. See how the tire is off the ground? He used the blade to life the front end of the machine off the ground.

More of Justin under the machine.

The door wasn't quite latched when Earl took off and as he went down the ramp the door flew open, got hooked on the tire, and popped off. It was hilarious!

There's the boat as it motors away.

Farther into the water

Deeper and deeper

Pushing the boat deeper into the water.

Backing it into the water

Down the runway

Down the way

Here they go

Hauling our first boat out to be launched

Our other skidder - Justin's skidder. He runs the yellow one. His dad runs the red/orange one

The big house loaded on the trailer to go down to the beach.

Skidder with all its teeth, ready to go to work, rake some rocks, and launch some boats.

Bunkhouse ready to run down the road.

Here's our first little bunkhouse, safely delivered to the beach.

Down the road...

Just can't wait to get on the road again...

Our first skidder.

Justin's dad welding some "teeth" onto the blade of the skidder. The teeth are for raking rocks off of the beach.

Talatha, and Justin's mom, putting together some spill pans for underneath the skidder. We put them under the skidders while they're parked to catch and leaks, spills, etc.

Here's our "big" bunkhouse/kitchen/bathroom. It was quite a project to build. Then we also built another small bunkhouse, that is just 3 beds.

Here's the "little" bunkhouse on the trailer, ready to move to the beach.

Little bunkhouse, loaded on the trailer to move to the beach.

Well those are the pictures of our first couple weeks of boat launch business. I'll try and get a video of us launching, and a video of us retrieving so that you can really see more of what its like.

Two down

2009-05-19T11:09:00.002-08:00

Well, two of our baby goats died last night. We think it was white muscle disease, from Gretta having toxemia or ketosis. The prognosis was pretty grim, but we hoped they would make it, but they didn't. The two that died were Edie, one of the blonds, and Mike, the little red billy goat. I guess the good news is the two that are surviving are doing really good, so I guess that's the best we can hope for now, is that they keep doing good, and at least we'll have 2 goats out of the four (5 if you count Gretta).

Today

2009-05-16T21:32:00.003-08:00

Well we had a pretty good day today all things considered! We had 46 launches at the boat launch, which is our biggest day yet, and despite the one skidder going down for about 2 hours, it all went pretty smooth, if super busy. Then Beth, the nice goat herder lady, came by to check on how these two baby goats were doing, and then she volunteered to take them, since they really haven't taken well to the replacer, and raise them with the others until my other doe has her kids in a couple of weeks. It's SO nice to know that they are being well taken care of, much better than I was able to do without my Gretta. So anyway, just wanted to say we had a good day!

You know....

2009-05-15T19:46:00.003-08:00

This has been a weird, sometimes good, sometimes horrible week. A couple of days ago 2 of my baby goats were not doing good at all, so I called the really nice woman Beth that we got our 2 does from, and asked for her help. I took those two over to her house, and she agreed that they weren't looking good, and the one especially might not make the night. So we went over what I could do for them, and suggestions and stuff, and after a while I said, you know I'm at the point I would give them to someone just to make sure they survived, and she said, well I could watch them for you, and nurse them for a while if you like. I, of course agreed! She's got a large herd of goats, and she always has really good ideas and is really helpful and nice.

So she agreed to take the two of them for a while to nurse them and help them hopefully feel better. She's done a great job! They're doing really good she says. I'm not sure how long she will keep them. We're actually trading one of them to her for a billy goat that she's been bottle raising for us, so we'll do a little goat swap and one of them will end up being hers anyway, but it was really nice of her to take them. The two I kept are doing better. They have been eating more each day. I added a little whole store bought milk into their bottles, and they've been liking that, plus Beth also said I should give them canned pumpkin for the diarrhea, and they LOVE the pumpkin. I open their mounts and put it in on their tongue and they get so excited and eat it up. Really cute! I'll have to post some pictures soon. The camera is in the truck with Justin at the boat launch. There are some really cool pictures on it too that I want to share.

Mom had her procedure up in Soldotna and she's doing better today. We'll get the results back on wednesday hopefully. Then we can go through another round of deciding what to do. Her new doctore is really good, and we really like him though, so I think he'll do a great job on whatever needs done.

Other than that, everyone but me (so far) is sick with some kind of cold/flu thing. They are all miserable! I hope it passes quickly (and I hope I don't get it!).

Let's see - its mostly spring now. We've had some really beautiful days. The boat launch is going good, business is picking up every day. Tomorrow the river opens for salmon fishing, so that should really give us a boost too (we hope). Then next weekend is Memorial Day Weekend, and that's traditionally the first really big weekend, so we're hoping to do good.

I guess we don't have a lot else to report. Our DSL modem died a few days ago, so we've been waiting to get that fixed, finally the repairman came today and set up a new one. YAY! So glad to be back online. I never realize how much I do online until the internet is unavailable. The first day is okay, but after that its kind of rough, hehe. Ok, well hope you're all doing good! love Alicia

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-09T21:36:00.001-08:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the women and mother's in my life, especially my mom! I love you all.

Thank you

2009-05-09T21:23:00.003-08:00

Thank you so much to everyone for all of the loving and helpful comments. It means very, very much to me, well to all of us really.

Today the babies are doing good. Justin buried Gretta out by the pond, and he noticed that she seemed like she had some kind of infection, and that's probably what caused her to die. So he was talking to his mom, and when their goats have done that in the past, they give the babies each a couple drops of tea tree oil, and that helps them get over any of that that they might have gotten if Gretta was infected. I think she probably just had ketosis - she had 4 live births (mom thinks maybe a 5th was stuck or dead inside), and sometimes when they have that large of a brood it is too much stress on the body, and they build up toxins and even if you catch it in time, which is very rare, they usually die, because their bodies are basically poisioning themselves. Anyway, whatever it was, at least the babies are doing good so far. Thank you Carol for letting me know about the colostrum, I was really worried about that, and how I was going to dig up the energy to feed them every 2 hours for 2 weeks. That was pretty daunting.

Anyway, babies are good, they're inside enjoying the warmth. Mya is pretty sure she needs to love them and lick them clean, so I've been trying to slowly teach her how to love them without getting too excited and scaring them. She's a good dog. I think she would snuggle them all and love them if we had a way to do that. 2 just stares and sniffs them, but Mya is really worried about them.

This morning was pretty much the perfect ending for the week I've had. I woke up after sleeping from 3am - 4am, and I was just sick, I'd been so sick after Gretta passed, and the stress of everything else that I started throwing up, and pretty quick I was throwing up red, so after trying to lay down and calm down I decided I better go to the doctor, and since it was Saturday I had to go to the ER (that'll be a nice couple thousand dollar bill) and after a bunch of blood tests the Dr. said everything looked really good except I have an ulcer, and the throwing up had just scratched my esophogus, and that was the blood I was seeing. He said not to worry about the blood, and he gave me 2 acid reducers, and 2 anti-nausea pills, and told me to eat a bunch of small bland meals, so my stomach will stop attacking itself. I really liked the Doctor. He's an ear, nose and throat specialist, and I'd been wanting to see him anyway, for myself and Justin - me for my tonsils and me ears, and Justin for his nose (its been broken at last count 26+ times poor guy!). So it was nice to meet him and know that he's a good doctor. So someday when we have a little disposable income we'll both go in and he'll get his nose cartilage re-attached, and I'll get my tonsils out.

Sorry for all the bad news, I hate to post bad stuff, but I guess the bad stuff is important too. Thank you again for all of your kindness and love and prayers and support - its much appreciated and helps a great deal. Love Alicia

Oh, little good news, the local radio shack/computer store was having a Mother's Day Sale, and we got the laptop we've been needing so that I can do the accounting we need for a really good deal. So we have a nice, BIG, hp laptop. Justin got the one with the 17 inch screen, almost full size keyboard, and it has the 10-key keyboard for numbers, so that will be really helpful. So at least we had something good. :)

My goat

2009-05-09T01:58:00.002-08:00

My momma goat died tonight, at about 1 am. We hope we can save the babies, if we can find some colostrum milk, and formula for them in the morning. I am so completely heartbroken.

So stinking cute!!

2009-05-08T21:15:00.004-08:00

This is Edie closest to the camera, she was trying to head butt me to give her some milk. She's the runt.

This is Edie after Justin's mom taught her to nurse. That's Susan behind her.

Edie is closest to me again. Susan is the black and white. Mike is the red one, and Bree is the blondish one close to Gretta. Sorry about the placenta in the picture.

Oh my gosh they're so cute! And we have four of them! Four desperate housegoats! We were so blessed to get 3 girls and one boy, so now we'll have at least 5 nanny goats we can breed and have milk from, so we'll be able to have milk year round if we schedule it right. So cute, and so fun. I was going to work at the boat launch, and as I walked around the house to get in the car, I heard a really high pitched goat whinny, and I thought, well that's odd, I wonder what's wrong with the goats. And I went in and here's all these little babies! The one was outside, and really cold, so I picked her up and started rubbing her and snuggling her. So then she warmed right up and started walking around. Mom came downstairs with the camera, and helped snuggle the cold one, and Justin's mom came right over to the house from the beach, and checked them all over, and said they looked great and Gretta's a good mommy goat. Gretta's so tired though, we finally got her to lie down this evening after we milked her a little and gave the runt some milk. Edie is the runt, she was the one laying outside, and she's pretty cute with a strawberry blond body, and yellow blond face. Then there is Bree, she looks just like Edie, except she's not got the yellow blond face. Then there is Susan, and she's the black and white goat. The boy is named Mike. He's a beautiful red color, with black and white accents. Really attractive. So this is our herd! They're so cute. We've got about 3 weeks left before Gabby has her babies, but Gretta was a week early, so we'll see what happens.

Yes indeed

2009-05-04T21:19:00.002-08:00

Yes indeed we are alive, although you couldn't tell by our blog. We've been so swamped working on getting our business going. Justin's family got here the day after Easter, and we've been running non stop building bunk/office buildings, trying to get money organized (and located), finding machines, paying for machines, outfitting machines, clearing rocks off the beach, getting set up and all that. We opened on Friday May 1st. We launched 3 boats the first day. The second day we launched 13, third we launched 11. Today we didn't have any, there was a pretty good wind storm, so no one wanted to go out. That was okay though it was nice to have a day "off" even if it wasn't really a just do anything day. We did get a lot done, and it was nice to be able to have some say in what I was doing, instead of running headless chicken trying to keep up with everything all at once.

We've been having some fun getting everything going, even if its been a lot of work. It will be nice next year when we dont' have to do all this preliminary stuff, and when we'll have more time to be ready, instead of having 3 weeks to do 2 months worth of work. But we're having a good time. I've had some trouble because I don't do well on small amounts of sleep. When I don't sleep as much as I need to, or I get nervous in my sleep, then when I wake up I throw up, off and on for hours. Its no fun. So I've been trying to work through that, and not let that get me down. I think I'm going to make some ginger snap cookies, and put them in little bags in the freezer, they really seem to calm my stomach. The spices keep everything working better. But that's a project for another day.

Justin, me, Justin's sister Talatha and her husband (Jerid) and kids (Cordell, Mariah and Wade) went to the movies tonight since we had the night off. They were showing the new Dreamworks cartoon "Monsters vs. Aliens". It wasn't as good as I thought it would be, but it was okay, and it was nice to be out and away from everything for a while.

We had the most BEAUTIFUL weather this weekend, I got sunburned, and even started to tan. The water was flat calm, and the mountains were out. We saw a sea lion eating fish in the water right out in front of our beach. There were tons of migrating sea birds, and geese, ducks, etc. Its a really really beautiful place to be 'living" for the summer.

Our goats are about ready to give birth. Gretta has about 10 days or so left. She's so big and fat we feel bad for her, she's not really loving life right now. We're pretty sure she'll have at least 3 hopefully 4. Then Gabby is due at the end of the month, she might have 2, that would be good for her first time, but she might just be having 1. We'll just have to wait and see. They're pretty funny though. Our chickens are being WAY lazy. Out of 35 chickens, we're getting about 10 eggs a day. I'm about ready to kill them all. I keep telling them that either they lay eggs and make food, or we butcher them and THEY are the food. But they just don't get it. Hopefully they will pick up soon. If not we'll be out of the egg business soon. Can't afford to keep feeding them just for nothing.

I guess that's about all the update we have. We're just running around crazy, but we're hopefully getting set up so that we can get out of debt, that's our major goal. here's hoping (and praying really hard) it works! Love you all.

Justin

2009-04-05T16:59:00.002-08:00

I got up the other morning and here was Justin asleep on the floor, a dog on each side for company. If anyone sits or lays on the floor they are right there to be with you. They love when we sit down there with them. Funny dogs.

Rolling up the tape measure after measuring out our beach space for the boat launch.

I got some good pictures of Justin this week, and thought I'd share them. Plus we got some good pictures of this cool ice thing that happens to Justin's truck. We've had it happen before, but we never have the camera with us. But lately we've been taking the camera with us all the time because of the volcano and wanting to take pictures of it. So we took some pictures of the ice thing. The ice builds up on days that its warm enough for water to thaw, but cold enough in the wind that it freezes again. We went to Soldotna and his truck ended up covered in these little ice things. They cover the whole truck, and they point towards the front of the truck, and they get an inch long at least usually. They're frozen hard in big sheets. Its pretty neat. the other thing, is an ice wheel thing that develops on the center spindle of the wheel. And makes a spinning ice amoeba thing. Very cool.

Random volcano pictures

2009-04-05T16:46:00.003-08:00

The picture above is Augustine volcano, taken from the beach in Anchor Point.

Wanted to share some pictures that I've been taking over the last week or so. I've gotten some cool ones! Mostly the volcano just chugging and steaming away.

Redoubt Rocket

2009-04-05T16:08:00.008-08:00

Hey you can see Justin walking in this picture on the right there.

You can really see the contrast between where the sky is already light (or what the sky should have looked like) and the ash cloud.

Here's the view to our right, on the other side of the ash cloud from the picture I took above. You can totally see that the sun was up, and how light it was before the ash.

Straight at the ash cloud.

More ash cloud

This is as the ash was falling, taken out mom and dad's bedroom window. You can see the contrast of lights, and the dimness of the ash falling, and locking out the light.

Those upper pics are all of the ash falling out mom and dad's window.

This one is out the kitchen window at the sun. You can see the computer screen reflected on the kitchen window.

More out the kitchen window.

This picture above is out my kitchen window downstairs. It was SO bizarre, I looked out the window and it looked like a sepia toned world. The whole world was brown, just like an old fashioned sepia tone photograph.

You can see the white of the window frame, and the contrast of the brown outdoors. That's really what color it was outside.

I think you can see in this picture how dirty the snow is outside the window. It just looks dingy - that's the ash.

Out the front door downstairs towards the end of the ashfall.

Poor car! Bill's car has just gotten hammered by ash the last couple weeks.

Its hard to photograph the ash, and make it look like its not just dirt or dust. So I took pictures of things that you can compare it with. The above picture is our neighbors house - see how white the roof is? Their roof is brown in "real" life, like their house.

Some ash holes in the driveway

The neighbors house above has another "white" roof. Their "real" roof is dark purple.

Just the driveway.

This above picture is ash accumulated in some footsteps up at the tubing hill.

Dad and I walked out today and took pictures of the mountain puffing away. Today the steam cloud is going towards Kenai/Soldotna. Its just steam, and a little gas, maybe a tiny bit of ash today.

Its pretty cool! Usually this mountain is snowy white, year round. But not now!

I have to say HA! I knew it was going to erupt. For a day or two the volcano seismometers had these little earthquakes, 3-4 per minute which they said was it building a new dome. Just rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat for a couple of days. then they stopped friday night, and I said the dome is done its going to blow up big really soon. And mom said, yeah maybe. But I said, it will. Mark my words it will. The Volcano observatory lowered the code to orange from red, friday night, but I said its not done, and HA it wasn't. Ok, I feel better now. Had to do an I-told-you-so, even though there really was no one to say I told you so too. hehe.

This has been so fun! I always hoped that at least one of the volcanos across the inlet from us would erupt while we were living here. I hoped it would be Illiamna which is directly across from us, but its been Redoubt instead, which is still pretty cool. I think yesterdays explosion/eruption thing was the coolest. About 6:15 or 6:30 the dogs started barking, which they don't usually do in the early morning. They are usually pretty soundly asleep by then. But they kept barking and running up and down the stairs. I could hear this rumbling sound, that sounded like someone walking on fresh snow, or on the stairs, and I thought well I better get up and see what it is. So i open the curtain in our bedroom, and there's nothing there, and its pretty light out because the sun is getting ready to come up. And I look but there isn't any one out there, but I know I heard something, so worrying that there was still someone out there, I opened the window to hear better, and I hear this long rumble rumble rumble. As I'm starting to wake up a little more I realize that I'm looking at a long black cloud coming over the house, directly over the house, coming from Redoubt and maybe there's something fishy going on.

At first I thought it was the volcano erupting, but then I realize that I'm hearing thunder coming out of the ash cloud. So I wake Justin up, and go start the computer to see what the volcano observatory says is going on, and then I go upstairs to see Dad who got up because of the dogs, and we look out and we can hear more thunder, so I went and woke mom up. She was funny, she said " is it worth getting up for?" and I said well yeah I think so, but its up to you. Eventually everyone got up, and it was SO COOL! Dad went out and got the paper. We asked him if he saw the lightning, because we'd seen some right over the neighbors house. He said he had, he said the whole thing was "eery, eery as hell". I think the lightning lasted for about 15 minutes, and then as soon as it stopped Justin and I went out to move his truck under cover. We wore our cowboy hats to keep the ash out of our hair and stuff, and we could hear it hitting the felt. It was much bigger pieces than when it happened last week. So about, I'd say 15 minutes after we get the truck moved and everything, the ash starts to fall, and it fell in sheets, like a blizzard of snow, only it was just ash. It was really heavy, we could hardly see the road, and all the big trucks going by slowed way way down as they went past the house. It also got completely dark here in the house, and it had been daylight, the sun was up, it was dark as could be. I hope you can see in the pictures what it looked like.

After general conference, Justin and I went north to Kenai/Soldotna to do a little grocery shopping, and to go to Home Depot to do a little scouting for our office/kitchen/bed buildings for the boat launch business. The ash stopped about 5 miles north of the house, and it was clear all the way up. After we went up there, we came home, and went south to check out the tubing hill, and the ash was pretty thick between here and town. It was very interesting. It was kind of hard on the lungs after a while, so I wore my mask on the way home. I kind of felt silly, but it stopped the burning so whatever works.

Lightning pics

2009-03-28T20:47:00.003-08:00

These AWESOME pictures were taken by Bretwood Higman of the Redoubt eruption this morning/last night. They've thought there was lightning but no one had seen it. These are absolutely breathtaking. If you want to see more pictures go to http://www.avo.alaska.edu/volcanoes/volcimage.php?volcname=Redoubt Then if you want to see what's going on with the volcano click Current activity in the upper right quarter of the page. Pretty cool stuff!

Digital Scrapping

2009-03-27T19:31:00.001-08:00

I was spending some time on the computer yesterday looking at the pictures that I got of all the volcano stuff, and thought I might as well do a little digital scrapbooking while I was at it. I'm not really sure I like the colors of the layout, but of the papers I had, these were the best for the intense colors of the photos. Anyway, this is them.

Redoubt Redoubt How do you fly!

2009-03-26T17:36:00.013-08:00

These first pictures are the ash cloud as it came rolling in. The sky had been the brightest blue we've seen in months. Then the ash started coming. Be sure to notice how white the snow is in the first pictures, and how not white it is later.

I love the contrast in this picture also, the stark white of the snow with the almost black ash cloud. After this, the cloud turned brown. Then about 2 hours later it started dropping ash. It looked like a snow storm, only when we went out, it was grit falling from the sky.

Ash cloud moving towards us. See how white the snow is?

I love the picture above. Its such a clear, stark contrast between where the ash cloud ends on the left, and the blue sky on the right. Right after I took these pictures it got really dark in the house as the cloud blotted out the sun.

Above is ash in the water/runoff on the step.

On the bed of the truck

Above is ash sitting in the tread of Justin's tires

The picture above is ash accumulated on the back of Justin's pickup

Poor Bill's car

Ash accumulated on the goat barn door knob.

The above picture is the drop cloth on the snow.

The white is where I had my drop cloth laid out.

As soon as the ash cloud lifted completely we got a great view of Redoubt chugging away with a new plume that also contained ash. So amazing!

Here's some of the ash I collected. I laid our some garbage bags flat on the deck, as soon as the ash started to fall. Then I just left them to sit until it was over, then I dumped it all into this one container. Except the one that had some melted snow, its settling out in a jar in the kitchen. This isn't even anything compared with how much we got on the big drop cloth in the front yard. That one has a bit of melting to do, I let a lot of snow land on it when I picked it up.

Man we had a cool day! I LOVE stuff like this, totally cool stuff. This morning when I got up I felt really odd, and this weird pressure. Then when I got up, about 5 minutes after I got up, Redoubt blew up in its largest eruption yet, over 65,000 feet! So then I was looking at the ash projections, and it showed them coming here, and I thought, well that's odd. So I went and checked the weather service and sure enough, it was headed right for us. Justin and I hurried and put all the animals away, closed all their doors, made sure they had food, etc. Then we moved his truck under cover (mostly) and covered his snowmachine, and brought in a bunch of wood just in case. Then we walked out to get the mail, and we could watch the ash cloud forming, and heading for us. It was SO cool. As soon as we got back, I went and got the camera and started snapping shots. SO cool. Can't say that enough.

Volcano

2009-03-26T10:31:00.002-08:00

Hi everyone just wanted to let you know that the volcano blew again this morning, and the ash is headed our way. We could get anywhere from a trace amount to and 1/8th of an inch or better. Justin and I just got done moving everything under cover, and putting all the animals inside, even grouchy heathcliff (the chickens weren't a huge fan of him being locked in with them I can tell you!). Now we just wait. We will probably have to turn off computers and cover them, so we'll be off until this stuff settles out (probably anyway). Anyway, we'll be fine, just wanted to let you know. We should keep power and phones, unless something weird happens. In which case we'll still be fine, we'll just be incommunicado (is that how you spell that? is it even a word, or one of those movie words?). Anyway, love you all. Go here if you want to read about what the volcano is doing. They update hourly or so. http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php

Funny comment

2009-03-23T23:26:00.002-08:00

The Anchorage Daily News has this feature where at the end of the story people can log in and post comments about the news. And usually the comments are pretty dim witted. Like yesterday everyone was talking about the volcano erupting, and how if the volcano observatory wouldn't turn off the webcameras at night we would be having a great video of the volcano erupting. And a bunch of other people wrote in and said, um hello they didn't turn it off, its NIGHT, its DARK. So tonight I went onto ADN.com and read the most recent story about the volcano, and there was a hilarious comment, and I just had to share it.

The first guy said: I am worried about the ash falling and melting the snow too soon and creating ash holes. The sun will warm these ash deposits more rapidly and soon we will have alot of ash holes throughout the Anchorage area.

The second guy said: I hear ya, i have an Ash Hole right next door, he keeps blowing snow in my driveway :)

Just made me laugh, and thought I'd share.

Ah, to be sleepy

2009-03-20T02:19:00.002-08:00

I don't really have a lot to say, but its 2:30 am and I don't have anything to do, and obviously can't sleep, so here I am. Things have been pretty up and down lately, with mom's surgery being cancelled, other family being sick, working the tubing hill (and accompanying difficulties - NO fun), having a church party tonight (or would that be last night since its technically friday now?), the weather is hot then cold then hot then cold, waiting for the contract to go through, waiting to fall asleep, dogs being funny, and just all that usual life stuff. There was an article about us in the Homer News, that was pretty cool, although the article was really weird. The link is: http://www.homernews.com and the story is in the business section about the new boat launch operator.

Justin and I got to see the end of a small ash/steam explosion from Redoubt coming home from work Sunday, that was pretty cool. We couldn't really tell for sure if it was ash or clouds, so when we got home we looked online, and it was at the tail end of a small eruption, so that was pretty neat. Not really sure what's going on with the volcano at this point. Sometimes it's busy and chugging away, and other times it just sits there.

Not much else to report. Mom's been trying to coordinate transferring her records and all the test results from Anchorage to back here at the local doctors. The Anchorage doctors wimped out on helping her, so after waiting a YEAR for them to take care of this, she decided (and everyone fully supports this) to mover her records back here and let the local surgeons/specialists do the work. So that will be good. I think she will recover much better if she can be close to home. Turns out that what they thought was cancer was a very large hernia. So hopefully that can be removed, along with the other stuff, and she'll be doing a lot better!

Well, now its really 2:30 so guess I'll stop for the night and try again to go to sleep. Anyone have any tips for sleeping? I'm tired, but as soon as I lay down I am WIDE awake, and that lasts (no matter what I do or don't do) until at least 1:30 usually 2 or 3 or later. Or I fall asleep by 1, and wake up at 3 and I'm awake for about an hour, then wake up every 1/2 hour from there. Then the phone starts ringing or Justin's alarms starts ringing by about 7:30. So tired......

Fun layout

2009-03-12T13:55:00.002-08:00

I had some time last night, sitting here downloading itunes for mom for her computer/ipod. So I figured Imight as well do a little digital scrapping while I was sitting here. This was just a simple layout I did of making cheese this summer. I like the way it turned out.

We GOT IT

2009-03-09T14:42:00.002-08:00

We just wanted to let everybody know that we got the preliminary contract for the Anchor River Boat Launch. We'll get the final contract in about 2 weeks. And we will be in business. It is a 2 year contract with an option of 5 years additional that is automatic if we follow the terms of the initial contract.

I will see if I can find some pictures of what we will be doing so you guys can picture what we'll be doing for the next 6 months. Basically, we have tractors that hook to the boat trailers and we launch them out into the ocean and then when they get done fishing, we back their trailer into the ocean and they pull up into it and we haul them out. YAY - we are so excited.

Now the work begins. Love you all. Thanks for your prayers.

Queen of the clean closet

2009-03-05T17:07:00.002-09:00

Yeehaw! I am master of my closet and all powerful. or maybe not, but I'm still master of my closet. I've so been dreading working on cleaning the closet, like 2years dreading, but for some reason I went downstairs and decided that today was the day. Our closet used to be the place we stored all our food storage, then we moved that into another room, and turned that into Justin and I's closet, and other than taking the food out, I've not done anything to it, or taken anything else out of it. I just keep piling, and pushing, and stacking, then restacking after it collapses - you get the idea. So anyway, mom's reading a book that she's really into, so I thought, well I'll go downstairs and clean up something. I walked past the closet and thought, oh my gosh I can't take it anymore, reached in and started yanking stuff out and throwing it into the living room. And I just kept pulling and pulling until I was all the way back into the corner under the stairs. Somewhere along the way I got 2 pieces of glass in my feet (one in each foot). The one I just pulled out, the other Justin had to "surgically" remove (YOW!). So anyway, once I got it all out, then I started putting back in what was going to be allowed to stay. Everything else either found a new home, or went to the dump!! I'm really getting into throwing stuff away, it feels so good, so much better than keeping it thinking - well someday I might need it. . . . .

Now I have 2 loads of laundry to do, and then the closet project is done. Sweet! I could take pictures, but its still not an attractive closet, its just a functional one. I should have done a before picture, but honestly it would have just been embarrassing. Next fall, if all goes as planned, I will go to Home Depot and get the white plastic covered shelving, and the stuff to make drawers, sheetrock, lights, so on and so forth, and make it a pretty closet. But for now I can go in there, get what I want, and not feel the need to pull my hair out or choke someone. YAY for small victories. hehe

Justin and I are on pins and needles this week, we're supposed to find out tomorrow if we got the permit for the boat launch here in Anchor Point. The bidding closed last friday, and when Justin delivered our bid, the manager said that we should know by the end of this week. Every day we get a little more nervous. I'll post when we find out, but for now, we're frantically praying and hoping we get it. Our friend Bill and his wife MaryLou agreed to finance our machines, so we will be able to buy the skidders that we need, and then we'll basically use up all our credit to get the other things we need (hoping that its enough). Scary, but a really good opportunity for us.

I guess that's about all I've got. Hope you're all doing good! :)

Cool frost pictures

2009-02-19T20:38:00.003-09:00

Just some cool pictures I took this week of the deep frost up at Bill's house. The frost pieces were so big, and in long strings. It was really beautiful.

Two

2009-02-19T20:20:00.004-09:00

The center of the picture is our friend and business partner Bill, his son Josh is on the right. This was at the cabin that they and Justin rented last week up in the woods above Cooper's Landing. I guess it was a really neat little old cabin, rented out by the forest service. They rode in, or tried to anyway, on snowmachines. They had a little trouble. Then they got up the next day to go ice fishing, but the wind was blowing about 40 mph across the lake, so they just came home. They were disappointed they didn't have more fun, and they had so much trouble with the snowmachines. The one machine quit working about 1/2 mile from the cabin, and so they had to tow it in, and all the way out. bummer! The rest of the pictures are taken from the night before, as Justin was packing.

The ever vigilant, ever present Mya.

The top of Two's head.

Look how sad Mya is that Justin is leaving. She was so worried.

Still sad and worried.

up close and personal with Two.

Still sad. funny dog.

Here's a better picture of Two. She's got a true lab square head. I so wish she hadn't been malnourished as a pup, she would have been much larger!

you can kind of see how big her paws are. Maybe she'll grow into her body yet. :)

What to say

2009-02-18T22:19:00.002-09:00

I guess I should update our blog, seeing as its been a while. I don't really have much for uplifting fun stuff to say. Except our goats are getting big and pregnant. That's fun. Other than that, we're just living. Been doing a lot of driving and phone work getting all mom's medical stuff arranged, and talking to doctors and stuff. Then trying at the same time to run Extreme Tubing, and start our own business and fill out the 1 inch bid packet, and locate machines, find someone who actually knows what they're doing, and figure out how to get it all done in the next week or so.

One nice thing today was taking 2 huge bags full of wrong sized clothing to the local helping hand store. That felt really good, and it was only about half of what I need to get rid of. It was so nice to get it out of the way, so I could get the clothes that fit into the closet. That's always nice.

Well, I just wanted to let you all know that we're still here, and so far hanging in.

Volcano

2009-01-30T11:07:00.003-09:00

the Redoubt Volcano that is being much talked about all over the place is one of the ones right across the the water from us. The one directly across from our house is Illiamna, and the one to the left is Redoubt. We can see it really well from upstairs. The big earthquake we had the other morning that mom was talking about on her blog has been tied to the volcano. Usually an earthquake has to be within about 5 miles for them to consider it part of the volcano, however the intensity of that quake, mixed with a sudden jump in Redoubt activity very close together made them believe that they are tied. The volcano is set to erupt "imminently", they're not sure when, but are fairly sure, as much as I think they ever can be, that it will erupt its just a matter of when.

We're pretty well prepared, except when it happens we will need to go close the goats in, and put healthcliff in with the chickens and close their doors. Other than that, we have masks, filters for our cars, water, food, etc. We just have to wait and see what happens. We don't know the trajectory of the ash/explosion. I don't think they will know, until it happens, because it just depends on what the currents are doing, and such. There is a website, which has been pretty overwhelmed today because of the national news coverage, but if you are interested, here is the link. http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php That has webcams, ash trajectory maps, periodic updates, lots of cool information.

I just wanted to let everyone know about this, in case you had seen it and were wondering, or if you hadn't heard about it, now you know! It is near here, but we are prepared, and I'm sure all will be well. :)

Due to the size of the ash, sometimes they shut down the electric facilities and probably the phones and I would expect that the cell phone transmissions will also be affected, so don't be alarmed if you can't get ahold of us for a few days. We use wood heat, so even without power, we will be warm and we will post on the internet as soon as they put the power back on.

We just now checked the site and they expect it to go off any minute now - so here we go !!! How Exciting ! !

Digi page

2009-01-29T17:14:00.003-09:00

I really did not need another reason to be on the computer so much, but now I'm hooked! Shoot! :)

Snow

2009-01-29T15:25:00.001-09:00

Thank you to everyone that prayed for snow, and sent snow vibes our way! We got enough snow to re-open tomorrow. YAY! Thanks

Digi page

2009-01-28T15:16:00.001-09:00

Another page I did. Actually the first page I did. Also from the same free pet kit by Faith Sisters.

Digital Scrapbooking

2009-01-28T14:00:00.002-09:00

Well, we got this cool program with mom's new computer, and it does all kinds of photo stuff, including digital scrapbooking. I've been watching this show on BYU TV called scrapbook memories, and everyday the person from Adobe comes on and teaches a new technique for this program that we have. So then I run over and try them out. So far this is what I've learned. This stuff was from a free digital kit that I got from blog hopping from the "Faith Sisters" company, promoted on Ikea Goddess' blog. It's free until february, and you get a piece by going to each of the artists blog. Cool stuff!

No pictures

2009-01-25T23:10:00.002-09:00

I guess I don't have any pictures on this computer to post. I thought I must have something that would be interesting to look at, but I have already posted all the pictures that I have on this laptop (the one for the business), and I still haven't taken a picture of Anna, the new dog, or as we call her "2". Anna and Mya were too similar, so when they were in trouble and I was trying to straighten them out, I kept just ending up yelling DOGS! STOP! or YOU! QUIT! so now we call her 2, so we can keep them straight when they are in trouble. or at least a little bit.

Anna isn't used to being taught, or talked to really, so she's learning, and we're trying to enrich her vocabulary. Mya has a huge vocabulary, probably more than any dog I've ever had, like we can tell her that if she wants to go outside, she needs to stretch, and if she wants out she will stand up and stretch, but if she doesn't, then she just looks away or goes back to sleep. Now Anna is learning that when you ask her if she wants to go outside, sometimes she stretches. So she's learning. She's a smart dog. She was mal-nourished as a baby dog, so she's not as big as she should be, which is a bummer, I've always wanted one of thos gigantic labs, and that's what she would have been if she had been fed right. She's still growing a little, but she's got lots of extra skin, and big paws still, but her ribs are filling in a little bit.

Tomorrow we have an audit for the insurance company. Mostly its just making sure we're keeping the paperwork in order for the tubing hill. Not much to show since we've been closed for 2 weeks. We're still way short on snow. We went up and checked after church, and there just isn't enough. We need four more inches. So if you have the inclination - we could use all the snow prayers or well wishes that you want to send. For those who live locally, and don't want snow, its okay if you just want to send the snow to Ohlson Mountain Road. :D

Justin's pretty antsy without having snow. It means he can't work, or play, so he's getting pretty tired of just hanging around. I'm trying to get more organized. Mom and I decided to move the sewing room from the tiny extra bedroom (the smallest bedroom in the houes) into my old bedroom, which was the 2nd biggest in the house. We'd been using my old room as a guest room for all 3 weeks a year that we have company, and for storage. So we decided that we need a project to keep us busy for a few weeks, and so we're repainting, at least I'm repainting, the room, and then we're going to switch everything around. Should solve a lot of problems for us on where to put stuff. We've been having trouble storing everything while still having access to it. So this will be better. Plus it keeps us busy. I'll try and post pictures as we get them.

I guess this is turning out to be a long post. We got a new program when mom and dad got their new computer, Adobe Photoshop Elements 7, and I was trying to use it today, but holy cow! Its really hard to just jump into. I'm going to have to get some books, or a movie or something to learn how to do it. if anyone knows a good learning thing for it, let me know. I was going to try and take a college class for it, but they only have a web based class for it here, and I thuoght well, if its going to be web based, I might as well learn it myself, since that's what I'd have to do anyway. So we'll see.

Well, guess I'll be quiet now. Hope you're all doing good, staying warm, etc.

Our New Dog

2009-01-19T13:14:00.002-09:00

I haven't taken her picture yet, but we got a new dog yesterday - a companion for Mya if you will. Her name is Anna. There was an older gentleman living up the hill from the tubing place, and he was dogsitting this dog for a guy that owned her but didn't really want her. Well, the dogsitter had to leave suddenly to go to Seattle to take care of his ill mother, and didn't have anyplace to give the dog (he didn't want to give it back to the owner, I guess that was not a good situation for a dog to be in and the dogsitter couldn't afford to take her with him). Soooooo Justin said we'd take her. I said no, he said yes, I said no, no no no no no no no. But then yesterday we picked her up, with the intention of giving her to someone else, but I agreed to give her two days here. She's really a nice dog. Her and Mya are having a lot of fun playing and wrestling. She's gotten her butt kicked a couple of times by Mya, Mya is definitely into showing that she is the boss, which is understandable, and acceptable, as long as no one gets hurt in the process.

Anyway, I've been stressing about this pretty significantly the last couple of days because my plate is so full right now that I really can't add anything else to it. This morning I had to take a relaxant and go hide upstairs in the bathtub for 2 hours, I just couldn't take the panting panting panting, pawing, panting, growling, rolling around, stepping on the feet, and the fur! the fur everywhere! and on and on. Then just now I was sitting here (I know, I know, its just a dog, what's the big deal, get a grip, I know, I know I'm over reacting). Anyway, I was sitting here reading the news stories on MSN, and there was a story about how more and more people are abandoning their animals because of the recession, and it was so sad. Animal shelters make me incredibly sad, to the point of I have to go out to the car to cry everytime I go to one, I just feel so bad for those animals. Anyway, here's a clip from that story: "The effect has been cramped quarters for dogs and cats, a faster rate of shelters euthanizing animals and some shelters turning away people looking to surrender pets, according to interviews with several shelters and animal advocates. Of the estimated 6 million to 8 million dogs and cats sent to animal shelters every year, half are euthanized and the rest adopted, according to the Humane Society of the United States. "It's definitely discouraging for us," said Adam Goldfarb, a Humane Society spokesman. "One of our major goals is to develop and celebrate the bond between people and animals. It's so tragic when families reach a point when they can't afford to care for their pets.""

And while I REALLY don't want a second dog, she's a really smart, sweet dog, and I don't want to just send her to a shelter where she could be put down, I only take dogs I hate but don't have the heart to shoot to the pound. So, now I'm trying to figure out how to re-arrange our yard, or home, to make room for this extra life. I guess I think of it as, we have room for another dog (even though it makes things really tight, especially downstairs), we have room, and means, so I feel like I should help out the poor homeless doggie. Even though its making me crazy, crazy, crazy! :)

Sourdough

2009-01-16T18:59:00.004-09:00

Found my sourdough jar pics, so here they are!

Oops, I forgot I took pictures of the roasting chickens in the middle of bread making. This chicken is SO good. If you want the recipe its on http://www.foodnetwork.com/ and look up Beer Can Chicken. Its the recipe by Guy Fieri I think its called big buds beer can chicken, but we don't use beer we use seltzer water or sparkling water of some sort. I think we even used 7-up once. Works great. Really really good chicken. My first sourdough bread. Short as usual. Hopefully today's bread turns out taller.

Making my own flour!

I wanted to add the pictures of my sourdough pot, but those are on the other camera, on the other computer. SIGH. But anyway, at least here's a few pictures of what we've been doing. :)

Christmas Pictures

2009-01-16T18:35:00.003-09:00

Here's some pictures of our Christmas. Mya got a stuffed bear from Justin and I, and it was wrapped and everything. I handed it to her wrapped, and she squished it with her mouth for a few seconds, then put it down, and ripped the paper off to get the bear out. It was so cute that she knew to open it, and how to open it. She was really excited!

Ok, I don't look good in these pictures, and I wouldn't share them, except I love this gun, its so cute and I want to show it to everyone. So I put them up. Its a really cute gun, its a Davey Crickett "My first rifle" type thing, Really cute.

Our Christmas Eve dinner

The new nativity and our new camel. Thanks Jody! hehe

Here's some pics of mom and dad cooking and grinding wheat with the hand grinder before the good grinder showed up.

Below are some pictures from our Church Christmas open house. We did a display about storing food for long term/emergency storage.

This picture (above) is our booth.

Quilt pictures

2009-01-16T18:25:00.001-09:00

I found these pictures on mom and dad's camera and thought I'd add them too. I look horrible in them, but oh well. At least the quilt looks good. :)

Tubing Video

2009-01-13T19:02:00.003-09:00

Here's a picture of Justin going down the tubing hill. We're going to put it on you-tube soon, and on the tubing website when we get a chance. Its pretty cool. Worth the time to download.

Little Texas

2009-01-13T18:48:00.003-09:00

I was sitting at work on the tubing hill about a week ago, or a little more, and in the background I heard on the radio - "I'll take the fifth caller right now for tickets to the Little Texas concert - fifth caller right now" So I grabbed the phone and started dialing. First ring I was the third caller, I hung up really fast, redialed, and he said "Hi you're caller number 5!" WOOHOO!! I won a pair of tickets, with preferred seating up front, and a first place in line for the autographs. YAY! Totally fun stuff. It took a little finagling (spelling?) to get the details worked out so we could go, and in the end we had to close the tubing hill for the night, but it was totally worth it. So cool! It was their first concert on their 20th anniversary tour. They were great. It was really loud, too loud for the space, but with earplugs it was perfect. Four of the original members are still there, so that was neat. The other guy, who was pretty cute, is part of another band that just got the deal to open with Kenny Chesney this year on his tour. He was fun.

Tubing Photos

2009-01-13T18:41:00.002-09:00

Here's just a few pics of our tubing hill, of people going up and down the hill. Its' pretty cool, but we're almost out of snow! Pray for snow!

Christmas Quilt

2009-01-13T18:32:00.002-09:00

I've been wanting to put these pictures up, of a quilt I did, but since it was a Christmas present for Justin's mom and dad, I didn't want to possible ruin the surprise. I love the way it turned out. I goofed the quilting a little bit, but I had to sacrifice perfection, for getting it done, so I think that's a good compromise. :)

I was going to...

2008-12-27T23:36:00.002-09:00

I was going to do a post with pictures, but realized that the business laptop I'm using now doesn't have a card reader, and i'm not going on a hunt for the cord at 11:40 at night, when really I should be in bed, but instead I'm sitting here listening to the dog snore, and man is she snoring it up! Kind of odd, she's not usually a snorer. The cat is, but not the dog.

We had a super busy day at the tubing hill today. We had 65 for the one session (60 is the max, but the extra 5 were part of the same family that already had passes, so we just had them share tubes, they really wanted to go) and 25 for the other session. We've been having 10-20 in a whole day, so this was the first session we've maxed out. It was pretty cold so they werent' short on tubes, because most of the time there were at least 10 people inside warming up. I think it was 5 degrees when we started the day. brrr. But it was beautiful. I was very busy inside checking people in, getting forms filled out, selling concessions, and all that fun stuff. Justin was busy outside making sure everything was working right, and rebuilding the snow berms as they got messed up. The snow we have is really light and powdery, so it moves easily, not like a slightly heavier snow, which would be nice for the berms, but hey, we'll take what we have for now. We got a nice half page right up in the local paper, with pictures, so that was pretty cool, plus we did an ad with them, turned out good. You can see it online and http://www.homernews.com under "Advertisers" is our ad, just click extreme tubing. then under sports is the blip with the pictures. fun stuff. The photographer from the other Homer paper was at the hill today taking more pictures. good day for him to be there with so many people. Justin took some cool pics too, every hook on the rope toe was full this afternoon, and there were people everywhere, which is what I was going to post, but no cord, no cardreader, tired person means no photos. sorry. Maybe later. :)

Other than that, we're doing good. We're pooped but we're good. We've been working about 12-14 hour days on this, and we are TIRED! We have 10 more days to go before break is over and we go to 3 days a week at the tubing hill. I'm looking forward to sewing and scrapbooking and being home more often. I'm an at home person, I like to be home, so I'll be glad when we get to be home more.

Well, I really should try and get to bed, I wanted to stay up to get the wood stove cooking good before I went to be so it would stay warm. Its nice and toasty in here now! feels good after being on the cold hill all day. Note to self - tomorrow take fleece sweater!

Christmas stuff

2008-12-18T23:49:00.001-09:00

Most of our Christmas stuff is on the Family Christmas Countdown blog. Rather than post everything twice, I just put the holiday stuff on that blog. So, if you want to see the holiday stuff we're up to, check it out! http://family-christmas.blogspot.com

Kind of sad

2008-12-11T19:50:00.003-09:00

We took the goats over to the people we bought them from tonight, so that they can get bred. She'll keep them for a month, to make sure that it "takes" and they don't come into heat again. I think Justin is looking forward to them being gone, so he can sleep in a little, but I'm kind of sad. I like my goaty girls! I'm sadder about them being gone than I thought I would be. I mean, we get them back, but still, gonna miss the ladies!

EEEEEE

2008-12-09T20:03:00.004-09:00

OK, maybe EEEEEE is a little excessive, but its close. Justin and I agreed this fall, well 2 weeks ago really, to run a local business this winter. Its for winter recreation, called Extreme Tubing. Basically its a hill, on the side of a small mountain, and its groomed to have like 5 "lanes" of snow, and we have innertube type things (only with solid bottoms) that people use to sled down the hill at a high rate of speed. Sorry, I'm not really good at explaining it. Its just extreme tubing. We're getting ready to open, since obviously it can't open unless there's snow. Although Bill, the guy we're running it for, is thinking about buying a snowmaker so we can have snow anytime and be open sooner and later in the year.

Bill recently got married, and moved full time to Seattle, but he's spent a couple years growing this business and didn't want to just throw it away. So we needed work, he needed his business managed.....and so here we are. Justin has spent the last week and a half getting the machinery fixed up, the hill groomed, the new counter built, tubes aired up......and on and on. I'm going to be helping more the end of the week, getting the candy/hot cocoa/soup cups, etc and office organized. Then I plan to be there most of the shifts to check people in and sell candy bars and such. Should keep us really busy for about half the week. We're planning to be open Friday evening, Saturday afternoon/evening, and sunday afternoon and evening. We didn't really want to be open on Sunday, we don't usually work on Sunday, but the ox is in the mire as they say, so we just have to do it. We won't open until 1 so at least we can go to Sacrament meeting, so that will be nice. Oh, check out the website, well, the old website we haven't updated it yet, but you can see what we're doing sort of. its http://www.extremetubing.com/

We're also going to be applying for a contract in January that will hopefully give us a good business/income for the next 2-7 years or longer if we do a good job. I don't want to put details on, just in case, but its going to be an intense bidding process and application time for us! Very intense. We have 2 people though that have agreed to help us with it, and with getting the machinery we will need, so that helps a tremendous amount. But there are a lot of details to work through, and its going to be hard.

Other than that, we're still getting ready for Christmas, today we got out the nativities, and made room for the tree. I think tomorrow we'll do the tree, unless we go shopping in Soldotna anyway. Then Saturday is a big Christmas open house at the church, and we're helping with that in all different shifts, plus if we get enough snow this week, then we'll open the tubing hill on saturday too for a "free ride" then open for pay on Sunday. SO MANY projects going on right now, its kind of overwhelming, but I hope we can keep everything together and all of our irons in the right fires.

Cookies

2008-12-07T13:00:00.003-09:00

I put a couple of recipes for really good cookies that I found the other day on the family Christmas blog. I got a new Taste of Home magazine, and the cookie recipes were great! They're on the family Christmas blog at http://family-christmas.blogspot.com/ Check them out - yummy~!

Missed one

2008-12-07T12:39:00.002-09:00

Missed the picture of the kitty enjoying the new floor.

Yay new floor!

2008-12-07T12:01:00.005-09:00

Here's Justin taking out the extra beams. Well, maybe not so much "extra" as moveable. We had such a small living room because of the beams, and them being right in the middle of the room. So dad and Justin figured out how to strap them, and bolt them, so that we could move them, and use one instead of 3 and actually be more structurally sound. Pretty cool really. So dad and Justin cut the plate, and got the bolts, then Justin did the remodeling. Gave us TONS more room, and we could totally rearrange the living room. We'd been stuck with the same configuration since we moved in, it was the only way to get everything into the room. Now we have so much space its amazing! We're loving it.

The tired old grey carpet.

In this picture above you can see how much of a footprint that beam, and old area where the stove used to be took up. Used a lot of our space up. But no more!

Sorry for the blurry picture, that's the floor guy scraping staples after he pulled the old carpet

Its so pretty all finished! The tile and the carpet go so beautifully together. It took us 10 years to figure out what we wanted, and to be able to afford it, but hey - it looks really good now!

Birch Burl Bowl

2008-12-02T12:11:00.003-09:00

Here's Justin's most recent bowl. Its so beautiful!

Off the net - sort of

2008-11-21T23:17:00.002-09:00

I have noticed over the last few months that I have become increasingly addicted to checking blogs, facebook, myspace, and generally just being glued to the computer. And with that I've noticed my mood going down down down. So short story long, after getting very frustrated with the way I was feeling, I decided to do an experiment and kick myself off of blogs/facebook/myspace/etc. I allowed myself email, craigslist (we're always looking for goat stuff) and a minimum of news stories.

I have felt so much better. A lot of the issues and feelings that were bothering me are getting better, and I feel healthier. I checked my email/craigslist, then instead of sitting here clicking around on the net, I have to get off and go find something to do- and you know - I had so much fun doing stuff! I finished a couple of projects that I've been avoiding, I spent more time talking to people that are actually here instead of "cyber stalking" people and news stories. I went to visit people and had lovely visits with them. I almost finished a quilt, I did some organizing, I spent time with my family, played with the dog, worked on Etsy, went to town, went to Soldotna, and on and on. It was great.

I thought by the end of the week I would be itching and desperate to get back online, but the few times I have caved and checked blogs/facebook/etc. I felt the same feelings coming back, I was happy to see what was going on with people, but I was disappointed with myself for "cheating" on my self appointed rules. I don't mean in any way that I don't love the blogs, or any of that, I think they are wonderful ways for staying connected, but I've been just following people online instead of working to stay connected, and that's not good for me, I'm enough of a hermit as it is. :) So anyway, I think I will keep up with my reduced online presence. I'll check the blogs frequently, but not like 5 times a day "just in case someone posted something since I checked 2 minutes ago", and am really looking forward to the Christmas blog, and Top Chef blogging, and all that fun stuff. I love the pictures and seeing what everyone is up to, but I need to get off my hind end and get busy so I can get feeling better about myself, and life, and everything else that goes with it. Wish me luck!

Winter wanderings

2008-11-13T14:23:00.002-09:00

Well, I don't really have anything to post about, but I noticed it had been a week since I posted, so thought I might as well ramble a bit.

Justin is home now for the winter, the company he worked for has shut down for the rest of the year, and until at least spring. So that will be interesting. He's working on making some more burl bowls right now for us to sell, and he's thinking about cutting and selling firewood to make some extra money. He's kind of stressed, but enjoying being home more I think. I know I love having him home. Money will be tight, but its nice to have him around more. We're with the groups of people worrying about losing our right to buy guns with the new administration, so we're trying to get what we need before he takes office, even though its not in the budget right now. I don't like the sound of presidential edicts to "get things done quickly" without having to involved legislators and such. So we'll see what happens.

Other than that, we're doing pretty good. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do for the holidays, decorations and food wise. I want to try and make my own chocolate covered cherries. For some reason that sounds fun to me, plus its hard to get good ones at the store, so thought that might be fun. I'm pretty excited about Top Chef being back on - WOOHOO! I love that show. So that's something fun to look forward to each week. :)

We have a little skiff of snow, but not much. The ground is frozen, and its cold, but no snow really to speak of. Ok, well, I think that's all I have to say today. Hope everyone is doing good. :)

Lake Clark

2008-11-05T15:45:00.007-09:00

Here's a jay or "camp robber"

Justin took "Flat Stanley" with him to Lake Clark so that he could enjoy the helicopter ride and rural Alaska. That's why some of the pics include Stanley, Stanley got some fun times. :) Such a pretty area. I'd like to go there sometime.

Justin's back

2008-11-01T14:59:00.002-08:00

Justin's home - YAY! He brought some really cool pictures too from over there. I'll put them up soon. But just wanted to let everyone know he's home!

Holy Pinto Beans Batman!

2008-10-30T22:53:00.007-08:00

Clean jars ready to go

Washing the great northern beans

Boiling water, and heating up the first canner

Mya wanting to know what we were doing

Beans measured out ready to go

Mom washing beans

Mya looking at me like "You've got to be kidding me - there must be food here somewhere!"

Beans with boiling water.

Up close and personal with the great northern beans

And the black beans

Half way through, this is the first batch cooling.

Rinsing the chili beans. They were really pretty colored

Boiling lots of water to pour on the beans

Here's the beans measured out, ready for the boiling water and their lids.

Another of the beans in their jars....

Mya the helper dog. She's been very concerned that she's being deprived treats, because we never spend that much time in the kitchen withouth making something that she gets a taste of. Canning is kind of a new concept to her. She was just sure we were hiding food from her. She kept bringing her dog balls and alien to "trade" for whatever we had. I think we ended up with 5 balls and an alien this afternoon.

Happily canning away

Tada! 28 more quarts. The ones in front, the multi colored, are the chili bean mix

You can really see the three types of beans in this picture. The really dark jars are the black beans

Another view of beans.

Well, see we had the great bean canning on tuesday, and wednesday I cleaned the kitchen and wrote about it. Then this afternoon, I still had the canners up stairs here because they weren't dry enough to put away yesterday. Well, I was talking to Justin's mom about canning beans, and she asked me how I do it, so I told her, and she said that there is an easier way to do it, but just putting dry beans in a jar, and pouring boiling water over them, then processing. Much less mess, much less time, much less everything except finished product. So I got really excited and thought, well hey the canners are still out, and the jars are clean, so what the heck! Nothing like canning another 28 jars of beans. Only this time I thought I'd try some other types of beans. I canned great white northern beans, some black beans, and some "chili bean mix" that we've had for a while (its kidney beans, red beans, pinto beans, and black beans all mixed together). So today we did the extra 28 jars of beans, about 14-15 pounds of beans. All in all that makes 83 quarts of beans all canned up ready to go. It will be fun though. A lot of time saving for dinners. Just mix in a little meat, and seasoning, and voila! dinner! Fun fun!

Beans Beans the Magical Fruit

2008-10-29T17:32:00.006-08:00

Heating beans in the oven

And on the stove....

More beans....

We had so many beans we had to start using large bowls.

All the empty jar boxes

Well, I'm sure some of you will remember that a few years ago I learned how to can beans. It was lots of fun, and there were beans everywhere. Roughly 5 pounds of dry beans = 15 cups (dry) and need 3 cups of water per cup of beans. So say 5 pounds of beans is 15 cups, and 45 cups of water = 14 jars with a few stray beans, and takes 2 canners to do. Then you hydrate them, cook them a little, put them in jars, and can them for 90 minutes. Well, those were very good beans, and very useful, especially because Justin loves beans. So we ate all of those, then I canned another 5 pounds, we ate all of those. We've been out of beans for a couple of months now, and I keep meaning to can them, and haven't.

So with Justin gone, mom and I decided it would be a good time to do a big project like that. We were going to can 10 pounds, which would be 4 canner loads roughly. Well, I grabbed the wrong bucket, and ended up with a 25 pound bag, instead of the 2 resealable 10 pound bags I was looking for. Plus I had a bag that was partially used so we were going to can those. I know this is too much info, but its part of the story I swear! Anyway, so it was about 35 pounds of beans. Well mom and I start washing beans, and we fill up our 2 pans that we were going to use, and then mom says "Let's just keep going" So we keep going, and going and going, and pretty soon we've washed 35 pounds of beans, and put them in every pot we could find. Now to use the math from up above that would be 105 cups of dry beans (roughly) and 315 cups, or 40 gallons if you prefer, of water. Let's just say - it was a sea of beans as far as the eye could see. We took pictures, but it just doesn't do it justice.

That was monday, we put them to soak, or soften. Then tuesday we set out canning. We used 5+ cases of quart jars, worked for 16 hours (until 2 am), and ended up with about 60 something quarts of canned beans. There actually were more beans 2 1/2 canners (15 jars or so) but we just couldn't do it. At 2 am we said enough, the chickens can eat the rest of the beans and went to bed. It was really fun, but lots of beans. If we ate 1 jar a week, we would have enough beans right now for more than a year. It was a lot of work, but at least it was done at one time instead of having to keep doing smaller batches throughout the year I guess. Now we just need to see how long they actually last! :D