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Well its another cold morning here. We woke up to a pretty dusting of snow covering the ground. Its all melted now and raining on and off. Ive been reading Teaching the Trivium and although Im only in chapter 4 I love the book! A big thank you to my friend Theresa for telling me about it! Im really leaning towards the classical style of homeschooling and note/lap booking also. My girls although very young seem to LOVE reading and hands on learning. So I think this will work very well with them. |
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Brrrrrr its another cold day here! I dont think it got above 6C today and its been going back and forth between snow and rain most of the day. Last Fri we finally got our woodstove hooked up! So weve been working at cutting and stacking our wood. Saturday dh went to pick up a load of mill ends and Sunday we did a bit of cutting and stacking. The girls had so much fun helping! We really have some little farm girls here. LOL We had chairs set up so they could sit and watch but no way, they wanted to help! So they carried a piece or two at a time from the pile in to the shop to me. Little Rebecca (2) told me that work is so much fun!! To day we were back at it again working for an hour or so. When it got two wet out the girls and I came in while dh finished up. This weekend well have lots more wood to work on. Dh is bringing home some skids from work today and hell be getting more mill ends next weekend. We still havent been able to get the gardens cleaned up. Its raining or snowing almost every day, so the grounds just to wet. I hope we get a dry spell in November or it will have to wait until spring. I have all the winter stuff unpacked now, washed the last load today. Along with 4 other loads of laundry. So tomorrow I want to get all the hats/mitts sorted and set out. Im also hoping to have a baking day tomorrow. Id like to make bread, banana bread and maybe some muffins or cookies. |
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Last Friday we got hit with some snow! We only got about 2 inches on the ground well we did get a bit more then that but that's all that stuck. But a few hours east of here they got a foot and power knocked out for a few days, I heard a few places are still with out power :-(.
Here's a few pics of our snow. And yes it's all gone now! lol
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Well our water seems to be just fine now. Praise the Lord! It's been ok since Sunday night, it's suppose to rain tomorrow so that will be a test! We still wont drink it for a while but at least I can use it to clean with. I'm working through a mountain of laundry and dishes. Almost done!
This morning we were up early and headed out to pay the property tax and pick up our phonics work book I forgot at a friends. Then headed to another town to get the tile grout for the stove base. Also picked up more bottled water and pullups as we were getting low. On the way home I started feeling very sick. By the time we got home there wasn't enough time for dh to grout the tile so he'll do that tomorrow. But he got all the prep ready for that and helped clean up the mess in the living room from the construction.
I'm finally starting to feel a little better now so I'm hoping it was just a 24 hour bug!
Speaking of bugs on Sunday we found 8 yellow jackets in the house! They are trying to get in because it's getting sooo cold lately. Dh sprayed that nest on the front of the house. It was not very active now anyway but just in case...today we found 2 more arrg....Hopefully that will be the last of them! I'm almost wishing for winter lol. Even though there's still so much to do out side.
Oh I also got my copy of Teaching the Trivium by Harey & Laurie Bluedorn I can't wait to read it! And the Abeka catalog I requested came today to. I haven't seen any of there books before but I here they are good. I was looking at a friends Christian Light Education books and they look good to and are half the price or less of Abeka....Any thoughts from thoughts that have used them?
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Well today we had to go out to pay the property tax. While dh was there he found out the clerks uncle (who's 80) grew up in our home as it was owned by his parents once. Funny we keep meeting people who used to live here! Anyway dh was talking to her about us wanting to find out more about the houses history. We can get a compleat listing of that for 8.00 at the land registry office. But she looked up a bit of info on her computer for us. Our house we thought was built in 1880ish is much older! It was built in 1850!! Making it 156 years old! That is likely one of the oldest houses in this town. The original info said it was built as a signal family dwelling in 1850 with a barn on the front and a summer kitchen. The summer kitchen is still on the back of the house dh uses it as his shop for now. The barn on the front of the house was taken down at some point and one built in the back yard. But this explains a lot! We think at one time the entire up stairs was all open with out dividing walls between the rooms. Mainly because of the lay out and NONE of the walls up there are load barring walls. Same as with the walls down stairs. When we opened up the living room wall to put the chimney insert through we found 9 layers of wall paper about 6 layers of paint. Then the old plaster and strapping. The first layer of "siding" on the house is vertical log type boards and that would have been the original out side wall. Then latter asphalt shingling was added, then horizontal wood siding, then there's 2" thick insulation over that and the newer board and baton that was put up the year before we moved in.
At one time when we were at a local history museum looking at building styles over time here we found out that plaster/strapping wasn't used until about 1910 ( I think have to double check with dh on that!). Knowing that and also by looking at the way the house is we can tell that the plaster was added much latter and the only walls inside and out was the vertical logs. Some of the old strapping in our house is milled and others hand split because they are rough and not even. Also the beams in our home are huge barn type beams with ax marks and even some bark left on lol. So despite having a few problems I think it's doing pretty good for it's age! LOL And we laughed at it lasting so long in such good shape when non of it would meet "modern" building cods. heehee obviously it's save and was built to last!
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Well it's still snowing! We started getting a little bit yesterday. Its going to warm up in a few days though so it wont stay. Although it's pretty I'm glad it wont stick because I still have a lot of clean up to do out side!
Yesterday a friend of dh from work came over and finished putting up our chimney for us!! Bless his heart
 . Just after he left we discovered that our well had gone bad again arrrg.
 The heavy rain the day before had washed more soil into the well. So dh dug up around the well and found the cracks in the cement casing. He took a few hours off work and went to get some cement. And patched it all up good. So that should be the end of our well problems for now anyway! How ever he had to let the water settle so he could scoop out all the muck that got in there. He'll be doing that today when he gets up. Sooooo I had no water yesterday or today. I'm getting very low on bottled water! This is the 5th or 6th well problem we have had this year and it has used up my emergency water supply. (sigh) BUT at least it's fixed and by tonight or tomorrow I should have good water back.  Another new thing happening around here is I'm finally going to be getting a breeding pair of Manx kittens. I used to have a Manx cat that I just loved to pieces. I've been wanting more for a long time. The sister of my friend has been breeding them for a long time and I've been wanting to get a pair from her for over 2 years now. Dh knows I've been saving and has had no problem about it each time I've talked to him, as soon as last week. Well I was talking to her last night and she has the perfect kitten for me now. And we are waiting for another to have a litter. That cat had Siamese pointed Manx last time and I'm hope she does again because I would just love one of them! Anyway she has given me an awesome deal that I just can't pass up. Soooo at the end of the month I'll be getting the first kitten
she's a little red/orange rumpy. Told dh last night when he got home and he was surprised...For some reason he thought it would be another 2 years before I'd be able to get them. He's not up set though, but he wants me to get my other two cats fixed before the male will be old enough to bread them. So I agreed with that I'll have a bout 6 months at least to get that done as the male hasn't been born yet lol. So my new little hobby/biz will be raising Manx cats I can't wait to get my first one! At first he thought I'd gotten another puppy lol but I laughed I don't want another pup any time soon. Our crazy Lab is enough! lolAnother project dh is doing today is finishing the base for the tile backing for the wood stove. He has to have it ready for him and a friend to tile tomorrow. Then I think he's grouting Sunday and we should have the stove up and running by Monday or Tuesday.
 I can't do any cleaning until the water is clean again. But one thing I want to do latter when dh wakes up is try to get at the clothing tubs/bags to get out the winter things. I need to check sizes and see what I need to pick up.
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Well we had a busy but interesting/fun weekend. Last Friday we did our shopping. Boy were the stores busy!! Everyone in a rush to get there Thanksgiving goodies before the last shopping day on Sunday. After we got home the littles had there supper and went to bed. Laura got to stay up and help us out side
. After the little jobs were done, I helped dh move our new stove into the house. We had to go bit by bit because it was so heavy for me. It weights 180 pounds! I ended up pulling my back and tummy muscles.  But at least I held out long enough to help dh get it into the kitchen. After that we put a towel under it and could slide it to ware we wanted it.Shortly after that we found out that Amanda was in labor! So her kiddies came here for a few hours until her mom could pick them up. We had a fun time reading stories and watching a history of tractor dvd of dh. We staid up late talking about the renovations we are planing to do.
Saturday dh started working on putting in our chimney. He put a whole through the livingroom wall and installed the insert. Problem number one was the peace of steel chimney to go through the wall was 12" long. That was about an 1" to short lol. So called all the local hard ware stores and know one carried that brand. So we had to drive all the way back to Home Depot to get an 18" peace. Four hours latter we were home and dh got that peace installed. Then started putting up the piping. He got 2 peace done before it was to dark to work and he was having trouble with the heights. He's not good with heights or latter's especially caring heavy things up latter's. Putting the two together and well.....
 So he called a friend to see if he could come and give a hand the next day. Sunday, morning we took the kids out to the petting farm/tractor museum for a while. Then came home and had lunch. Then our friend came over to help dh with the chimney. They got one peace put up no problems, but after that there were about 15+ feet up and neither felt up to going any higher (you need to get up almost 30 feet to the peek of our roof). I don't blame them!! That steel chimney is that stainless double insulated and HEAVEY!! I can hardly lift a 3 foot section let a lone drag it up a latter!
That night I started pulling everything out of the laundry/craft room. Moved the tables around in there sorted out a bunch of junk. Then dh put up two huge shelves for me. So most of my boxes of yarn and such are up out of the way now. I need more shelves though! LOL Anyway I put things back as best I could.
While I was doing this dh was working on fixing our well. We still had yucky smelling water! It smelled pondy. This was after he had bleached the well twice and had been flushing it out for days (it's spring fed so replaces quickly). Well he took a light and had a real good look at it. Found a crack in the old casing were soil had washed into the well! It had piled up near the intake. We had been having rain almost everyday for 3 to 4 weeks and the last day before our water trouble started was a VERY heavy rain storm. The pressure of the heavy wet soil must have been to much for the old casing. So any way he made a scoop and started digging out the top soil that was in the well. It's only about 8 to 10 feet deep. After that was done he bleach treated one more time and we flushed the well good. Guess what?! That was the problem with in hours the water had cleared and smelled good! It must have been the organic material in the soil turning the taste/smell.
Monday was our Thanksgiving up here! Since I FINALY had water back I was able to get cleaning the kitchen. Dh helped and it went quickly. We moved all my sewing boxes out of the kitchen and into the craft room. That was why I was cleaning it the night before to make room for this stuff. lol. Moved some things around in the kitchen and it's more open looking now we like it! Then started on my cooking for the day. Got the turkey in the oven about 9am. Cut a cabbage from the garden and made cold slaw. Then started getting the veggies and casserole ingredients ready. Our friends got here at about 1:30 and brought a yummy apple pie and pumpkin cream cheese bars with them!
I had to take a break from cooking to tend the baby who decided to play strange lol and get her settled down for a nap. And I'm very glad my good friends are country people and cat lovers. LOL We JUST sat down for supper when Laura ran in the kitchen (the kids were eating at a little table in the living room beside us) and said there was a mouse in the living room!?!? I didn't belive her but though well I'd better check. LOL good thing I did, the cat had caught a mouse and was proudly sitting under the pc desk with her trophy. So I had to get rid of that lol then back to dinner. Our cat was so happy with her self she had a crowed of people telling her what a good kitty she was ROTFLOL!
After dinner my dear friends did the clean up for me so I got to relax the rest of the night!
We had a wonderful day visiting and I'm already looking forward to next Thanksgiving!Tuesday is back to our normal work days. Dh went and asked a neighbor if he could come and help with the chimney. He had helped the last owner put the siding on the house. He said he would come tomorrow. Well I just found out it's suppose to rain tomorrow!! I'm hoping it will hold off for them to try and finish it. Dh also called 3 other places one was recommended by a friend but he's booked solid for the next 2 weeks. We really can't wait 3 weeks to get our stove going, the temps are going to drop this week. And the weather report is calling for rain mixed with flurries later this week!! One other place we are waiting to here back from and we were able to book the 3rd for next Wednesday morning. But they will probably be expensive and we are hoping we can find someone to do it sooner. We'll just have to wait and see!
I was just looking at the weather and see Northen Ontario and Manitoba and NWT are under snow storm warnings!! Yikes winter will be here before we know it!
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Well I was just getting up and putting the dog out when the Home Depot truck showed up, it was 8:10am!! Yes I over slept lol little ones wanted to party last night |
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Tell everyone what you would do if you were on WifeSwap! What qualities about your family would you want others to share in?
- Jessica
Well I've never seen Wife Swap, we only have 3 channels and I hardly ever watch TV. But I can guess easily enough by the title what's it's about LOL.
If I was in someone else home I'd try to bring a sense of togetherness in. Make meal times family time again, not having everyone eating at different times and alone. Share how much fun you can have turning the TV off. Lots of time for reading together, playing games and getting out side. Most importantly I'd try to encourage them to come to the Lord as there saviour. Encourage respect to others and modest dress AND behavior.
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Well this morning we were woken up by a very nasty thunderstorm.
 It hit about 4:30am and woke everyone but the baby up lol. After it started easing up we all fell back a sleep for a few more hours. Later on we had to run to town for a few little things. When we got back we discovered the terrible rain had mucked up our well.  It's been raining here almost every day for 3 to 4 weeks now. And we got a LOT of rain with this last storm. We have a shallow well and I guess the ground was so saturated the clay was not able to filter the water as well as it normally does. So dh took this opportunity to bleach out the well before winter. So I've been letting the water run to clean it out. Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to use it again. Luckily I have a little bottled water on hand. Normally I store quite a bit but a lot of it was used up when our water pump broke down this summer. I'd better get stocked back up again! So I haven't been able to do any dish washing or cooking today. But we did get our school lessons done this afternoon.Tomorrow our wood stove and other supplies are going to be delivered. Dh is planning to start working on that this weekend. It's going down to 1C tonight so I can't wait to have it working!!!
Also when I talked to dh he told me there's been more trouble at work. Tonight a load (of steel) crashed and almost hit the fella he was working with. He saw it happen. Then he found out that a load had crashed earlier today and DID hit someone in the back of the neck. He wasn't hurt badly but left for the day. Needless to say he's not impressed. He said the mechanics were in there trying to fix the problem now and he was going to talk to a few people about this! |
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Well we just got back home. We stopped at the insurance office today and they finally had the answers we needed. SO tomorrow we are going to pick out our wood stove and stuff we need to install that. And enough dry wall to finish most of the house and carpet for the living room to. :-) Can you tell I'm excited LOL!!! I've really missed having wood heat! |
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Well Im still sick but starting to feel a little better. I came down with a nasty head cold on Thursday. The two oldest little ones had it yesterday to but are all better now! It was very cold when I got up this morning, I herd it went down to 0C last night! Burrrr I would think we had a frost but I wasnt up early enough to know for sure. I was very glad I brought my potted plants in yesterday. I had a hibiscus, rosemary, and stevia plant on the porch.
Today is our shopping day, only need a few thing this time. But we have to stop at our insurance office. We have been trying to put in a wood stove and dealing with everyone having different regulations! Our insurance company would tell us one thing, then the hardware store would say something different, and then a stove shop would tell us something all together different. Arrrg! So we decided we would just lesson to our insurance agent because after all they are the ones that can cut it off if youre not up to there code. This is the first place weve lived in we have had to have insurance (because we have a mortgage) it was so much simpler when we didnt have to deal with them! Anyway dh talked to them last Monday with a list of a few questions. They were going to get a hold of the insurance inspector and get back to us the next day. Four days latter nothing grr Well we will be stopping in there when we go to town to see whats up. We left it in prayer to God that if he wants us to put this stove in this year we will have our answers today. Because the snow will be flying in a few more weeks, we need heat and cant be up on the steel roof in the snow/wind! If we dont get the answers we need then we will use the money to finish the dry wall and other things the house needs. Dh would like to have it in sellable condition by next year.
Anyway Im hoping to pick up a few more storage containers so I can sort through all our close pack up the summer stuff and bring out the winter clothes. Then Ill have a better idea of what I need to buy/sew for us. |
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Oooooh what a week this has been! I dont know why but the children have been bickering non stop all week. Last night I was up all night with them. They all took turn waking up crying. I think it was Anyway we discovered that the evil rats we have been battling since we moved in this place are back again. On of the joys of fall I guess. Talked to a few other friends who are having the same problems. We are getting ready to put out harvest in the cellar so dh put rat poison down there Monday afternoon. Also he put some in the attic. Well I went in the cellar Tuesday to get a few things and the bait was half eaten!!! I also herd something in the attic .Then tonight I went up stairs and something has been chewing a hole in the baseboard in the hall way and working on a spot on the ceiling to. So I phoned dh at work. This is the first time Ive ever had to call him at work lol. He talked to his supervisor and got off picked up more bait and headed home to set that out and patch up the damage. He thinks they are chewing because they are dieing. They did the same thing last year after eating the bait. So hopefully they will be GONE soon! Yah know if Id know this house was mouse/rat/chipmunk/wasp infested when we first looked at it we might not have bought it! But eventually we will win the battle! Its already much, much better then when we moved in. Tomorrow we are going shopping in the afternoon. Then I have a friend coming over for the night. Sat she and I and baby are heading out for a girls shopping day. DH and the other girls are taking a load of rabbits to market and picking up more cage trays. Hopefully the weather will be nice. If it rains well have to put off our girls day until the next weekend. Cant have the baby out in the rain going from shop to shop all day Oh thanks to our friend staying with us all our white potatoes are now harvested! The yield was low this year, just to dry. We planted one 50 pound bag and filled three 50 pound feed bags with potatoes. I havent weighted them yet to see the exact weight though. I also canned 5 quarts of tomato sauce today and cut out some diaper wipes. Tomorow I need to get them sewn. |
