This Week at Our House #21

Time runs together right now. Though I keep very busy and often am not sure where that time went. It rained the whole week straight. It started last Saturday night and did not stop until Thursday. Thursday we had about 5 hours with no rain. Thursday night, we had huge thunderstorms that blew out a burner on the stop top. I'm guessing, we had a power surge. I was standing beside the stove when it happened. Friday, the sun came out, and I got the laundry mostly caught up on. Saturday, I spent four hours getting my gardens weeded, and the beans and the large tomato bushes staked up and off of the ground. Some of my garden is looking really good, and other parts, not so much. I need to change one section, so that it will drain better. I have been working very hard on this year's garden. We will definitely get a lot of herbs and a lot of

tomatoes. Some of the watermelon, some of the corn, and the butternut squash are looking the most promising. Some of the turnips are looking good too. The potatoes are harvested and did terribly. We had three frosts after they had sprouted. Ruth, Kate, Johnny, and Adam went about their own business all week. Kate did the grocery shopping with me. I think it may be a year or more before I can bring kids to the stores again. The grocery shopping always takes several hours with the driving, the shopping, the loading, the unloading, and the putting it all away. I wish we had a second fridge or at least a chest freezer.

While out, I bought Kate another parakeet. She loves her birds. Rachel has her little to do list that she is supposed to complete each day. She does not like growing up and being responsible. She would like to just play like Susan all day long now. Anya likes to draw all day long and does not like being interrupted from that. She told me on Friday that her choice of activity is completely legitimate and I need not bother her to do chores. Joseph spends a lot time on the computer drawing. I wish he would stay away from the computer more. Joshua has been building legos a lot. Arwen is my companion for animal care. I made a pen in the garage for the young chickens. It does not

have an easy in and out, so Arwen goes in to hand me their food dishes and to plug and unplug the heat lamp. In another month, these chickens should be able to join the rest of the flock. But, I think I will find a way to make the pen more permanent and more accessible as it will be a good place for mother ducks and hens to hatch eggs and any future baby chicks or ducks. Susan is very interested in dates, days, months, and time. She confused John when she asked if they could do the time-is thing. She was asking for him for the time of day.

Sam's finally talking a lot more. I have been a little worried about it. He's always understood well, but his pronunciation is horrible. He puts a 'b' in for pretty much any sound he can't say. So this is bis, and Gideon is Bideon, etc. Gideon's a little monster. I'm hoping that this precocious one year old will turn into an easy two year old, as he acts two now. He opens doors, climbs up things, works on figuring out locks, and watches where we put things so he can go back and get them when we're not looking.

On Thursday night,after Arwen, Susan, Sam, and Gideon were sent to bed, at their normal bedtime, they

This poor kitty had 3 dead premature kittens.

didn't go to sleep. When we went to check on what was keeping them awake, they had caught a frog and were sitting in the hall outside the bathroom.Gideon was in his crib, happily watching them. (Sometimes frogs come into the house through the plumbing. I think it is a country living thing.) They had filled a bucket and a cup with water and were moving the frog from the bucket to the cup. When Ruth found them, Susan had a toothbrush and soap and said she was going to clean the frog. Ruth safely moved back outside the house, but all the cats were sitting there, so who knows if that frog survived. Anya pointed out that we rarely have frogs on the back windows anymore and she believes that's the cats faults. The chickens eat frogs too.

This is my kitchen garden. It's growing by leaps and bounds

the beans and the tomatoes are really growing

this is about four weeks younger than the kitchen garden

this is my youngest garden planted 6 weeks after the first

This is the second garden. With some newer smaller watermelon plants

the potatoes are harvested, the butternut squash has some young buds. The corn goes to my knees

This is the 3rd garden. I hope to see a lot more growth in two weeks. You can see the food compost in the background. I'll dig that into the garden after all is harvested for next year.

We have 4 girls and 2 boys with these Pekins. We're excited to have 4 egg layers and hopefully future mothers

This Week at Our House #19 and #20

North Carolina remains mostly under lock down while some states have opened back up and others have locked down even more. It's such a strange time in a strange world. We continue to stay put, although that's not much different from our ordinary slow paced life. If this hadn't happened, I'd be working, but the kids would only go out grocery shopping or for beach trips.

At first it was reported that kids were not affected so much by the corona virus. Now, there are reports that it's causing autoimmune issues in children after they're gotten the virus and healed. It's affecting the vascular system, heart, and kidneys. I have a friend who started having some autoimmune heart issues. She believe that she had Covid 19 in January and now she is having some long term effects from this.

I have felt from the beginning, that this is not a little thing, and likely the beginning of something more and bigger. It is obviously been used politically to change the government and restrict the people in a very communistic way.

D&C 45:31 says: "And there shall be men standing in that generation, that shall not pass until they shall see an overflowing scourge; for a desolating sickness shall cover the land." I do not believe that this is the desolating scourge, as it is by no means desolating. But, it comes across as a warning of things to come.

***

We've had the coldest May so far in North Carolina. We can't complain because in the past it would have been very hot by now. My garden is smaller because of the cooler weather, but on the other hand, we have spent hour upon hour outside enjoying our yard and our animals in the lovely temperate breezy springtime. 
I got twenty chicks. One died from a cat trying to catch it. We tried to save her, but she must have had internal injuries because after we got her away from the cat, she only laid still for a week before passing. All the other 19 are alive and well. I had them in brooders in the house, but they jumped out and walked all over. We could not keep them contained nor was I inclined to keep them in

such a tight area when they wanted to spread out. But they poop where ever they go, so I built a large pen in the garage for them. In another month, they should be big enough, fast enough, feathered enough, and aggressive enough to safely go and live outside with all the other animals.

The ducks are all outside now, and not penned up. I am going to keep my little outdoor pen though, and use it for nesting ducks and chickens in the future. I will need to build a loft in the shed for so many animals and we will likely need a little more fencing.

 

This past week was blackberry week. We've gotten buckets full of blackberries. I think we will get one more. We've enjoyed fresh blackberries, blackberry pies, blackberry crumble, and blackberry smoothies. It's a delicious week.

The kids went berry picking with me in a part of our yard that we call "snake and spider soup". It's over grown, but not wooden. There's a great many baby trees that we have allowed to grow up there. The kids never go in because there are  a lot of poisonous snakes in North Carolina. But I have taken them berry picking and we have enjoyed that time exploring a new section of our land. It reminded me of berry picking wild blueberries and blackberries with my mother growing up in Maine. 


I am working hard on my gardens this year. I have four separate plots and some randomly planted bell peppers and turnips. I do pray over my garden. With 14 people to feed, anything helps. This is the first yea, I am trying beans out. Yesterday, we put stick for bean poles in one section of garden. The little kids keep telling me that I need to take my sticks out of the garden. We all learn together.

   

Ruth, my dear, continues to work on illustrating books. Gideon adores her and hugs her with arms wrapped all the way around. Susan adores her and talks about going to visit Ruth. Ruth calls Susan her cat because Susan curls up in Ruth's lap and licks her.

Kate's been cooking up a storm. She makes desserts almost daily. We all appreciate that. 

Johnny, Adam and John hang out together a lot in sweet camaraderie. It's nice to have boys that have such a strong relationship with their father. 



I saw Adam reading the History of the Church volume I. I about passed out. I have been trying for years to get that boy reading. I think Kate did it.

Rachel has a bit of an agenda of things she's supposed to do daily, but she likes to mostly play.

 

Anya continues to draw and draw both on the computer and on paper. Unlike her older siblings, she has been able to make this her daily focus simply because she does not have to put so much time into homework. I think it will give her an advantage as she grows up.

Joseph likes to be on a computer. I think it doesn't matter much what he's doing as long as it's a computer. But then, that seems to be the world these days. Why are screens so addicting?



Joshua builds with legos a lot. He plays and he wrestles and explores. He loves the animals and likes to hold them.

Arwen cares about looks. She seems to analyze girls faces and figures and always has something to say about it. While we were picking blackberries she chattered on in innocence about how Anya is the the pretty one.

 

I'm trying to teach Suzy to do her chores. I gave her 4 days to clean one section of the house. When she did not, she did not get ice cream treats or computer games. She seems surprisingly okay with that, which shows a sign of maturity that's she has not had in the past. I'll try again this next week to get her to do her chores and to learn stamina and hard work.

Sam came to me one morning

and said there was a monster. I asked if it was in his room. He said no. I asked him where. He could not describe it and said, "Just come with me." I did. He took me to his room and pointed to his window, and said it was there. A vine had grown up outside his window and the shadow of it on the curtain did look monsteresque. Arwen said that it had tricked her into thinking a monster might be outside that window too. I

trimmed all the bushes. Another time, I told Sam to eat his crackers outside. He told me that he could not because it was hot and helicopters were trying to get him.  We live near 3 military bases, so we do get a lot of military helicopters and jets and they're very loud.

Gideon or rather Getting Giddy continues to tyrannize our house and stuff in a clever baby way. Sometimes he's a little tornado. He'll grab things and throw them on purpose. He thinks everyone's frustration with that is funny and he'll sit and laugh at us.

This Week at Our House #18

I was thinking about the people who have said that during World War I and the 1918 Spanish Flu, people thought it was the end of the world, but it wasn't. Then again before and during world war II people thought it was the end of the world but it wasn't and therefore the 2020 pandemic is not the end of the world. I am guessing that people mean that Christ would come. I don't think Christ is coming anytime soon, but I look back to those times in history and know without a doubt, they were times of great evil and great sorrow and should not be

dismissed from our minds.

As Americans, we like to think all is well, and in those times, some in America were very well and some were not, and it followed a time of great prosperity. So we forget what has happened around the world.  After World War I and World War II, much of the world experienced death., dearth, and a loss of freedom. They did not experience the prosperity that Americans did.

For example in Russia after World War I, Stalin took power and killed millions to establish his communist dictatorship. In the Ukraine beginning in 1929, Stalin removed farmers from their homes and fields and made them community farms. People who were unfamiliar with farming had to run the farms. They produced little and the people were starving. Then to punish the Ukrainians  for not growing enough food, Stalin took all of the food they did grow. 4 million people died of starvation in the Ukraine by 1932.

Communism spread like a disease in years following World War II and it caused innumerable deaths, disease, starvation, depression, pollution, etc. Eastern Europe and Asia after 1945, and many people suffered for many years because of this. One only needs to read the warnings of the prophets in those days to gain a small understanding of their sorrow for those people. The suffering did not end for years and in many places, still has not ended. Just because Christ did not come the world still changed and changed for the worst and millions upon millions lost their lives.

Therefore, I cannot look so lightly upon the past two months and feel like all will be well and we will go on as usual. I feel certain that's not the case. I cannot see the piles of dumped potatoes, the wasted vegetable crops, the piles of dead pigs, the spilled milk, the killing of the millions of chickens and believe that we will not have serious consequences for this. Evil is growing again. The sun seems to be setting and taking much knowledge with it. And I fear for my children and my country. This is not born of nothing.

Now to the fam:

 

We had a pleasant week reading together, playing together, drawing together, etc. We got 10 more baby chicks. So now we have 10 ducklings, and 20 chicks. We slaughtered Joseph's roosters because we could not keep him from attacking Gideon, Sam, Susan, and Arwen. That was more smelly, but much less hard and terrifying as I expected. The meat was very hard because he was a free ranged, exercised bird, though the flavor was stronger than store chickens. We ate much of it and then fed the rest to the cats. Nothing went to waste,

even the bones were used.  Joseph cried for a bit, but he's okay now. The yard has been much more peaceful without that rooster. Still, we got three more. One is named Solomon. One is Colonel Sanders and the other I think the kids named Happy Meal or McDonald's. 

Ruth's working on coloring pictures for my chicken book. She's spent a lot of time contacting old friends and chatting with them through zoom and skype, etc.

Kate has been caring for one of her ducklings that has not gotten enough food. Helping in the home, reading, and working on her art, writing, and illustrations.

Johnny stays up late at night most nights discussing the scriptures with John.

Adam has been digging up more sod for more garden space for me. I needed a sunnier spot for some tomato plants that just weren't growing, and a place to thin my thriving corn out, so we can keep all of the plants. Adam also helped me transplant some baby trees. We'll be doing more of that. 

I sent the kids out to the woods for an explore and a picnic. Rachel adored that and did the same thing for the little kids again on Saturday.

Anya spends hours and hours drawing everyday.

Joseph got grounded from all computer games and until he fixes his behavior. He fixed it immediately, but I am making him wait until he has more time to prove his sincerity.

Joshua and Arwen have been coloring books about chickens. Josh has 20 or more. Arwen just started.

After eating two ice cream cones, Susan said to me that she was never going to eat again. When I questioned her, she said, not for a long, long time. When Ruth was making cookies, Susan said, "If you let me help you, I'll let you play with my unicorns. I have two purple and two blues." Susan has been drawing a lot too.

Sam thinks that he should watch tv everyday. I usually make him wait until dark, so he'll play outside as much as possible.

Gideon is sooo big and active. I rarely remember that he's only 15 months. He's as big as or bigger than all the girls were at two. We keep missing lots of silver ware. Kate finally found a bunch inside the hvac vent. Gideon watched her pull it out and cried as if she was stealing from them.

This field is only about a fifth of our yard and that makes me happy.