Category Archives: Newsy Stuff

The Next Generation

What do you believe?

What do you think is best?

Chances are, if you truly believe it and think it’s best, whatever it is, you want your children to follow in your footsteps.

But what are you doing about it?

Learning kitchen skills

I was reading in the Bible this morning how in just a couple generations, the Jews had completely turned away from God.

Judges 2:10 says, “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD, nor what he had done for Israel.” (NIV)

Now, no matter what your religious leanings are, there’s a lesson there for us all. In just a couple generations, the nation of Israel had fallen away from their beliefs.

Helping build the chicken coop.

I got to thinking about what our own country was like just a few generations ago. When my grandparents were young. Their values and morals. And just how different things are now. A LOT can change in just a few generations.

Whether you believe it’s a good change or not, the fact is, there’s been a drastic change in the last 80 years. And there will probably be more as we go forward.

More cooking skills

So, how can we pass on our knowledge, our beliefs, our values, to the next generation? How can we ensure that our children have the best chance of believing as we do?

Bible study

The answer to that also can be found in the Bible.

Deuteronomy 6:7 says, “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (NIV)

Packing lunches for the homeless.

Of course, this verse is talking about God’s laws, but the principle is the same for every value we hold dear.
We have to talk to our children. We have to teach our children.

It’s not enough to just show them. Yes, our example is very important. We need to live out what we believe. But to expect our children to follow in our footsteps just by observing us is walking a dangerous road.

Helping preserve the harvest.

They’re never too young to teach the why.

Why do you believe what you believe?

Why do you do what you do?

Why do you live the way you live?

Homegrown cherries and the fun and hard work of harvesting them.

Sure, when they are young, they won’t understand. They will follow you because they love you and because they know no other way.

That’s why we have to talk to them. To teach them about our way of life. About your values and beliefs.

Planting the garden

Because one day they are going to grow up. One day they are going to look around and see that the rest of the world doesn’t live like your family. And if you haven’t prepared them for that, they will have a much harder time holding onto the values that you hold so dear.

Planting the garden

Now, this is a homesteading blog, so I don’t want to get too preachy, but in the long run, do I really care if my children follow in our homesteading footsteps? Well, I hope they do. I believe this type of life is a very good one. But I know that there’s something in life so much more important than organic veggies and sustainable living. I believe that following God is the most important thing.

Observing and helping (and getting to stand on the roof of the trailer 😉 )

And I want my children to believe the same thing.
I am reminded of the first episode of season 2 of the TV show Alone. It is a survival show where the contestants are up against nature and their own psyches completely alone in the wilderness. They can tap out at any time. The last man standing wins half a million dollars.

In episode 1, they showed a man who bragged about how good he was going to do. He had the skills, he said. He wasn’t afraid, he said. He bragged about how if he met a bear, someone would have to come to the bear’s rescue.

What happened when he got to the wilderness and encountered actual bears (or rather the evidence that they were close by)? You guessed it, he bailed. As much as he bragged about it, he wasn’t actually prepared for there to be bears out there.

Learning to use tools (and learning to be a teacher)

I see passing on our values much the same way. It’s easy for people to say they believe something, but as soon as they come up to a difficulty or hardship, they bail because it was harder than they really expected.

If we truly want our children (or anyone we are mentoring) to follow in our footsteps, we need to teach them not only that there are bears in the world, but how to handle them.

Talk to your children, folks. Teach them. It’s a big job, a hard job, yes.

But one with some awesome rewards!

Maridy

Leaving soon

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We have our moving date set!

The house is on the market and Bachan and Pagee have accepted a contingent offer. But no matter what happens with the house, we are moving on May 20th!

Actually, May 18th marks the beginning of the big move with me and a friend taking the moving truck with all the rest of our posessions to NV, turning around the next day (the 19th) to travel back to OR with my mom (“Ahma”) in her RV – which is how Bachan is going to be able to make the trip down – then all of the family back to NV with our various vehicles on the 20th.

Whew!

Makes me tired just thinking about it!

In the mean time, since we only have 3.5 weeks left here in Oregon, we are finishing up with small projects around the house, visiting with friends one more time, and just kinda waiting for the day.

And since we have gotten rid of tons of furniture, look what I finally get!

A reading corner next to a window! I haven’t had this in so long and I always long for a little space all my own like that. Now, this is in our bedroom, which is still Hubby’s office during the day, but in the evenings, when I am tired from the day and would rather get away to read or journal, I finally have a quiet corner all my own.

After almost two years.

For only three more weeks.

Ah, well. I’ll enjoy it while I have it.

And speaking of enjoying it, here’s the view outside that window as I sit here and blog.

I sure am going to miss the green!

But, the trade off is worth it.

Heres a picture I took the last time we were on the homestead.

Flower Girl running around the homestead nearly naked. Playing in the dirt. Having a grand old time. And Princess Girl, at 10 years old, was in nearly the same condition.

The freedom they have there cannot be replicated where we live here in Oregon.

We are so glad that our children are going to grow up with a close connection to the outdoors in a place of freedom and openess. They will not know or remember the scrutiny of neighbors. The claustrophobia of being hemmed in by houses. The fear of living in a neighborhood where you stay indoors or in your yard after dark and the curtains are drawn and the the doors locked.

At Castle Rock, we will not be putting in an air conditioner, which means that on hot summer nights, all the windows and doors are open to let in the cooler night air. The cars will be left unlocked, and probably even the house most of the time. Some of the windows might not even have curtains, or if they do, it’s to block out the sun in the summer.

Life in the country is kinda laid back like that.

And we can’t wait! Only 26 more days!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Unbuilding a home

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As we plan and prepare to build our house in Nevada this summer, I feel that we are quickly unbuilding our home here in Oregon. We already sold off a lot of the larger pieces of furniture.

Emptiness

We are having a yard sale this weekend to hopefully get rid of the bulk of everything else we have stacked in the garage.

The girls’ bunk bed is dismantled in the garage waiting to be sold. Princess Girl took the whole thing apart with very little help from us. She is going to be such a huge help when we build!

She even patiently let Flower Girl help with a couple things.

So now the girls are sharing one dresser (the other is being sold) and sleeping on their mattresses on the floor.

Toys have been downsized to a few favorites. Some have gone into storage, most have been donated to charity (No, I don’t want to fight with a three year old over selling her toys in the yard sale. Better that they are just out of sight, out of mind!)

The living room has a couch and coffee table in it. Nothing else. And the coffee table is going bye-bye this weekend. The dining area has a table, but no chairs. The family room and kitchen are the most furnished rooms in the house, since we do still have to live here. But even they are sparse.

And it feels good! Not just the knowing that we are returning home soon, but the emptiness itself. The space. The uncluttered feel. When our family of 4 moved in with Bachan and Pagee, we had to fit our stuff in on top of their stuff. I needed an area for school/crafts/work, so we squeezed it into a corner of the living room. It worked, but it sure felt cramped.

Since Hubby works from home, he uses our bedroom for his office, which means his desk, etc is in our bedroom. It works, but it sure feels cramped.

And since he takes up extra space in the bedroom, there’s really no space for any of my stuff. So I keep all my clothes in the girls’ room. It works, but, you guessed it, it sure is cramped.

So as we downsize our lives once again to fit into 240 square feet, I am once again reminded that we often carry around too much extraneous stuff in our lives. And that the more space you have, the more you fill it up.

So, once again, I am finding the downsizing process liberating. And while most of the stuff being sold in the yard sale is Bachan and Pagee’s, there are quite a few item of ours as well.

And it’s all rather exciting since it means we are moving soon!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Moving right along

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Our small remodel project in the kitchen is almost finished. And we’re so excited! We should have done this when we moved in nearly 2 years ago!

Just a reminder, here’s what the ceiling looked like when we started.

We cut into the drywall and pulled that soffit off the ceiling. You can see pictures of that process here.

We got the new sheetrock in place.

And did some sanding to make the old stuff meet up with the new stuff. And my man is absolutely amazing! I was anticipating tons of dust all over the kitchen from shaving down the sheetrock. Hubby got the rasp from the garage and started thinking. And came up with an ingenious solution. He taped the rasp to the end of the shop vac! With the corner attachment, it almost seemed like it was made for it!

It worked great! Very little dust all over the kitchen!

20160226_220351_resized

We finished the sheetrock…

…then hired a professional to come in and do the taping and mudding and texturing. We have some experience in that department, but not much. And since it needed to match the existing ceiling, we decided to leave it to someone with much more experience than us.

And he did an amazing job!

Now that it’s dried, you can’t even tell the difference.

And last night Hubby (with Dad’s help) hung the upper cabinet and the mounting bracket for the microwave. This afternoon they will finish cutting the hole for the vent, and get the microwave hung. A friend who is an electrician is coming this afternoon to finish the electrical stuff and we’ll be done!

Just in time to move. Of course.

But, really, I’m ok with that. Since doing all this work means that we’re actually in the process of moving back to Nevada. I will gladly do anything I have to do to make that happen.

And speaking of moving…

Dad went and signed on the dotted line for their trailer they’ll be living in while we are building. It is so very nice!

It’s a brand spankin’ new 34ft Springdale. It won’t be delivered for a couple weeks, but it is designated as sold to Dad.

Not our actual trailer – picture found online

Not our actual trailer – picture found online

It has two huge slideouts. Mom’s hospital bed will fit perfectly where the couch and dinette are currently. There will still be one side of the dinette for people to sit when they come to visit. And there is a second “bedroom” in the back where Dad will put his computer, etc. It will also have a couple bunks for the girls if they need a nap during the day or want to spend the night with the grandparents. I’m a little bit jealous because this trailer would fit our needs exactly. But we only paid a 10th of the price for our used one with no slideouts that Mom and Dad paid for theirs, and it works just fine. And we’ll be so happy to live in it again after thinking for so long that we wouldn’t get to.

Not our actual trailer – picture found online

The thing I’m really excited about Dad and Mom’s trailer is the outdoor kitchen.

Hubby’s and my trailer (with the girls of course) will be parked on our barn pad, which is about 0.2 miles from the house pad where Mom and Dad’s trailer will be parked (not enough room for both). As you can imagine, we won’t want to be running back and forth between the two for snacks, lunch, etc. Or when the camp cook (ie, my mom) comes by with lunch, it will be good for her to be able to finish up prep without having to bother Hub’s parents in the trailer, especially if Mom is sleeping.

Hmmm…OK, how are we going to keep all the Moms and Dads straight in this story now that we are all going to be living in the same town and we will be super involved in each other’s lives?

Ah, I know, Hubby’s parents (who live with us) will from how on be referred to by their grandparent names. Hubby’s mom is Bachan, and his dad is Pagee.

I may on occasion refer to my mom as Ahma (the girl’s name for her), and my stepdad as Pops (my name for him). And my dad will simply be “my dad”.

Got all that?

Good. Neither do I. 😉

But hey, it’s a good problem to have. Not many families are as close as ours. It will be wonderful to live back in the same town as the rest of our family!

Drum Roll Please….

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So, our big announcement…

Well, a big development happened this last weekend.

I mean huge!

Colossal!

Ginormous!

It was totally unexpected and turned our lives upside down.

All our plans for the summer are are scrapped. Everything has changed.

And it’s the best news I’ve had in 19 months!

Are you ready for it?

WE’RE MOVING!!!

Yep, you read that right. We’re moving back to Nevada. Hopefully in just a couple months!

Now, it’s still not set in stone and we haven’t actually done anything besides start clearing out cabinets and begin a garage sale pile. But that in and of itself is a huge step. The dining table is full of stuff to sell.

Piled high!

And Mom and Dad are both on board. We’re moving as soon as we can get the house ready and on the market and sold!

But how are we going to do that? We don’t even have a building permit yet, let alone a finished house to move into. And won’t for a while.

Well, Mom and Dad have decided that they would be quite comfortable living in a travel trailer on the property while we build. They even have a brand new one all picked out and will be purchasing it soon!

So they’ll have their trailer and we’ll have ours, and we’ll all be living on the homestead soon!

This of course means no gardens this year. But I’m ok with that.

It means getting all those little projects around the house done (or deciding to just leave them), and I’m totally on board with that.

It means lots and lots of work and very little down time, and in a way I’m looking forward to that.

It means that our prayers (and those of a bunch of other people) have been answered.

And that is a wonderful thing!

The daily life of an urban homesteader

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I’ve been thinking about doing this post for a while now. But several things have stopped me. It never seemed to be the right time and I didn’t know if I was the right person. Half the time I feel like somewhat of a homesteading sham. I don’t live on a farm, and much of my life here in the suburbs is normal, mundane things that don’t have much to do with homesteading. Maybe that’s why I don’t post very often, because I don’t feel like I have very many homesteaderly-type things to write about. But here’s the deal, not everyone can be the type of homesteaders they want to be right away, maybe never. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from doing what they can with what they’ve got. I have a vision in my head of what a homesteader is and does and looks like. Don’t you?

Stop for a moment, if you will. Picture in your mind what is your ideal homestead situation. Mine looks something like this:

Source unknown

The thing is, I don’t think I fit any of the “perfect homesteader” requirements in my own brain. Especially living here in our normal little house on our tiny little lot in our very suburban neighborhood. And yet, I still identify as a “homesteader”. No, I’m not where I want to be yet. But I am working to get there.

And that’s truly what the homestead journey is all about. It’s about doing more for yourself, being more sustainable, and living a healthier lifestyle,

It really is a journey and you start where you are and you move forward from there.

There’s a great quote out there by Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

So here we are on our journey which we’ve been on for several years now. We started out in 2007 by planting our first garden. Our garden expanded every year and we branched out into raising animals. We got our first meat rabbits in 2012 and our first chickens in 2013. We purchased and moved onto our homestead land in 2014. Things were going great and we were on the fast track to being “real” homesteaders! And then we took what seemed a huge step backward just two months later when we moved to the suburbs in Oregon. The only thing worse I could think of is if we were in an apartment/condo with no yard. And yet we are still homesteaders. We make our own chicken bone broth and bacon lard. Though it is small we do have a garden. We have some chickens. We even butchered our own meat. Once. Our diet has taken a radical turn toward whole foods (not the grocery store!) and eating a more sustainable diet. We’ve started the process of building our own house. I’ve taught myself how to make soap, deodorant, carpet deodorizer, and various other cleaning and beauty products (which I will blog about one of these days). And I’ve dabbled in 3 season / year round gardening (two posts about that #1 #2). Sounds like numerous other “legitimate” homesteaders I know.

So, yes, even though I don’t fit my ideal vision of a homesteader, I am one.

And thus the idea for this blog assignment was born.

I am going to post every day (or as close to it as possible) for a month about my daily life.

I’m going to get real.

And along the way, I hope to debunk some myths people might be about what it takes to be a homesteader.

So for my first day in my Daily Life posts, here’s me on my daily walk (I try to get out at least 5 times a week). I really didn’t want to post this pic since my hair is all crazy because it’s humid outside (it’s the Pacific Northwest go figure). But this is me being real. Thus, a picture showing overweight me with my flyaway hair.

So do I look like your vision of a homesteader? I don’t to me. Other than the flannel of course. 😉 In my mind, homesteaders are skinny because they eat right and get lots of exercise. You know, somewhat like Shaye Elliot over at the Elliott Homestead. I mean have you seen her? They just moved their farm and are in the midst of a total home renovation on the new place. And she’s, like, 6 months pregnant!

One day I would love to be skinny and totally in shape (and have great hair). But that’s not where I am on my journey. And I may never be. But that doesn’t stop me from doing what I can now to further my journey in homesteading. So I go for walks in order to stay in shape at least a little so that one day, when we are living and working on the homestead, I might have the strength to survive it.

Because homesteading isn’t about the way we look or the piece of land we live on or the number of animals we have. It’s about the choices we make along the journey to become the people we want to be.

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Happy New Year

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I know, I know.

I’m a little late with my holiday greetings. But as I said in my family newsletter (which I just sent out a few days ago), better late than never, right?

I’ve been doing a lot of reflection the past couple of weeks, as is typical this time of year. And also looking toward the future of this year. Are any of you already planning for your spring and summer gardens? Now’s the time to order your seeds and in some cases, get them started indoors.

I just read this online article (How to Pick Your Vegetable Seeds Without Going Crazy) and it’s got me dreaming!

But alas, my biggest decision this year is that I am scaling way back on my plans for our garden. Any when you have a tiny plot anyway, “scaling way back” means that I don’t plan to do much of any gardening this year.

The reason why is actually pretty exciting. We are hoping to be in the process of actually building our house this summer. Which means frequent trips between Oregon and Nevada. And as I learned last year, my garden doesn’t do so well if I’m not around to care for it. Imagine that. 🙂

So, I’ll probably throw some carrot seeds in the ground and call it good. Those were what did the best and we ate the most of last year. And I love that they are frost tolerant and you can leave them in the ground all season and just go out and grab some as you need them.

It kills me not to really be making plans for the garden. But the trade off is worth it as we make progress on our house.

A couple days ago was a fairly mild day here in the Portland area, overcast but dry and not too cold. So I used the opportunity to get outside and do some yard work.

Almost done! And it’s a good thing, too, because the debris can is almost full!

I scooped up the walnut leaves and put them in the yard debris can. Yes, we have a compost pile, but not the right set up to cook the toxins out of walnut leaves.

Just after New Years, we had snow here. It was a rare treat for us in the Pacific Northwest. Normally, any time there’s snow here, it’s covered in ice. This was a light, fluffy, “dry” snow. At the beginning of the day it wouldn’t even compact into snowballs. The girls and I spent 3 hours playing outside.

Going for a walk in the neighborhood

snow angels in the street, because, why not?

Exploring in the park woods near our house

The wild onions are already growing! And the snow didn’t seem to affect them at all.

Our back yard looked quite different with a thin layer of snow.

A light powdery snow covering the backyard

My little 25sqft garden with the caterpillar eaten kale and aphid eaten brussels sprouts, neither of which did I harvest much of because I was too busy to deal with the pests.

Snow dusted honeysuckle vines

And then, that night, a freezing rain came in, covering everything in a layer of ice.

Same honeysuckle just 24 hours later

Icicles on the EZ-Up

Iced fence

Iced branches

A really cool ice leaf found by Flower Girl.

For this girl from the desert, ice storms are pretty magical. It is surreal to see ice coating everything. However, I am glad no one in our family had to go anywhere. One of those times I am thankful that my man works from home.

The hens don’t mind a bit of snow.

We had a bit of sad news recently. One of our hens (“Pepper”) was killed by a predator of some sort. Considering it was during the middle of the day in broad daylight, we think it was one of the many neighborhood cats.

Flower Girl with Pepper this past spring.

Now we’re down to three hens, one of which doesn’t lay very many eggs per year and none in the winter (our English Game Hen). The other two, however, have laid fairly steadily this winter (after their molt), even without supplemental lighting (for more information on supplemental light in the chicken coop, see this great article from Jill at The Prairie Homestead). I would love to add to our little backyard flock, but then I think of how much we are hoping to be gone this summer. And I think of transporting them back to Nevada when we do finally go. And I think, three chickens is enough. For now. 🙂

And in the mean time, we’re dreaming. We’re dreaming big!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Another day on the homestead

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I can’t believe it. I spent an hour last night writing this post (while being distracted by the homesteading videos Hubby was watching on Youtube) and when I went to publish it, it was just gone! Grrr…technology sometimes!

At any rate, I wanted to share about our last couple days on the homestead before we came back to Oregon.

Oh, it was simply wonderful to be back in the wide open spaces, with only the sounds of nature around us. To sit for hours with the Hubs and just talk and dream of our plans for the house and homestead.

We’re hoping that when we go back in December, that we’ll be able to stay in the trailer again. But then again, we’re hoping that Nevada has so much snow that we can’t even get up our driveway. They need moisture so horribly. I guess we’ll see.

Oh, before I forget, let me introduce you to our new/old membet of the family.

This is Obsidian (ie Sid). He’s a 6 year old black lab whom we’ve had since he was just 7 weeks old. But, for the last year, he’s been staying with friends in Nevada. When we had to move so unexpectedly, it was just too much to try to figure out how to bring him with us. But we have some wonderful friends who offered to take him for us.

Well, a couple months ago, their circumstances changed and they could no longer keep him for us. So, the Hubby and I talked it over with Mom and Dad and we decided that we were in a position to bring him to Oregon to live with us.

And so now we have a very large dog living in our small back yard. But we play ball with him. And take him for walks. And so far, he’s adjusted well. Scooter is not sure what to think of him, and the cat just avoids him. But eventually they’ll all be friends.

So, that’s Sid. We can’t wait till we are all back on the homestead and he can roam free again.

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program (yes, I’m aware I don’t actually post regularly :-). Here’s how we kept ourselves busy our last couple days at Castle Rock:

Cooking in the outdoor kitchen. Because even though we did hook up the propane to the trailer, who wants to be cooped up inside on a beautiful day?

Playing. Our girls LOVE swings! And I love that our carport frame is sturdy enough they can play on it.

More playing. We call this area next to the driveway “the Sandbox”. The sand there is only a bit more coarse than beach sand.

Taking some time to just relax and take in the view.

Playing with bugs…well, their casings at least.

This is the shell of a cicada. At some point in their lifecycle, they shed their exoskeleton.

Do they remind anyone else of aliens? And they are everywhere! The more you look for their shells, the more you find. On branches. In bushes. On the ground. It must have been a noisy summer on the homestead!

As an aside, for those of you who might be wondering, this is our bathroom while we’re at the property. Not looking forward to using that in the middle of December if we are able to stay in the trailer while we’re there.

The Hubby decided to repurpose an old gas grill. After gutting it and cleaning it, he made it into…

…a GRILL! yeah, yeah, it still functions with the same purpose. So not really REpurposing. But now it is a charcoal, rather than a gas, grill.

And it worked great. Look at all that meat! Good thing we had a bunch a family over to help us eat that.

That night we had a spectacular sunset.

Signs of fall on the homestead. Our apple trees have survived the summer. Here’s hoping we get a super winter to keep them hydrated.

Princess Girl is such a good helper. I can’t believe she’s almost 10.

It was a great several days on the homestead. A time to dream, a time to rest, and a time to plan.

And now we’re back in Oregon. Now it’s time to concentrate on schooling for the girls. And working on some canning projects I’ve needed to do fo a while now.

Ahhh…fall. I’m looking forward to cooler weather, soups, canning, and baking.

*sigh*

I love this time of year.

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Camping out

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We’re spending some time in Nevada camping out on the homestead. We used our time today to get our trailer put back into livable order. It had become a catch all for storage and we want it ready so that when we come down from Oregon to work on the house, we have a place to stay on the property.

And speaking of the house plans, we meet with our Residential Designer tomorrow! We’re finally almost done with the engineering phase! Next will be the permitting phase. Lord willing it will go quickly. We’d love to be able to get the footings done and the main shell of the building put up this winter. But if this winter is as bad as all the forecasters are predicting, there won’t we any building going on. I guess it would be a good trade off. In the grand scheme of things, an extra 6 months to build our house is worth it if we get the snow we so desperately need.

Flower Girl passed out on the living room floor after a busy morning of getting reacquainted with the homestead.

Found this checklist from when we first bought the trailer. It is a huge accomplishment that nearly everything on that list is marked off (and most of the “want”s we decided to either wait on or just forego all together.)

We decided we needed a little treat tonight. I didn’t even look at the ingredients. I know there’s a bunch of stuff in there I usually choose not to eat or feed to my family. But every once in a while life demands cookie dough ice cream.

And the four of us sitting on our recently cleared off back bed in our home-away-from-home on our own property seemed like one of those times. 🙂

Tomorrow I’ll try to get some more pictures of the trailer and our newest member of the family, who just happens to be an older member of the family.

Stay tuned!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Summer Doings

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I know I’ve been horrible at posting for months.

So, what have we been up to this summer?

Take a look and see!

We went camping:

We traveled to Nevada to work, see family, and spend time on the Homestead (click or hover over pictures to see captions):

preventative maintenance on the drainage ditches so they don’t wash out the driveway.

My little helper

Can you see the orange markings on the dirt? We started laying out the house!

Tea time with my sister and nieces

Working at the Ropes Course.

We worked on house plans:

And found a building almost the exact size of the one we are going to build:It’s cool (and helpful) to see the dimensions in real life rather than on paper.