Maple Grove Farm

The Nanny State Strikes Again

Clothes for Paige...

Mom sent me some clothes for Paige and while we didn't get on the web cam... Mom, here's some pictures of Paige.  She loves them and is already saying she wants to wear them to church and she is mixing and matching with her own combinations.  Dresses with pants and she is having a ball.  Steve said they were nicely made and thought they are great for Paige.  I will need to move buttons on the shirts, as the straps are too long, but that is a small thing and hopefully I can get that done in short time.   Mom made these all for Paige... when she told me she was making some dresses, I did not expect this many nor the shirts and pants as well.  I was happily surprised.

So, here's the pictures... enjoy! 

Thanks Mom!

~Melissa

We bring good things to life:)

Blessings!

   Well, as with all things on a farm, nothing ceases to amaze me:)

   As you all remember, our duck hatched out a total of 3 chicks. Two of which, lived. Now she's had 2 ducklings! (As a good duck should):P

  These ducklings are the cutest things ever. They were born 2 days ago and were so yellow the first day that it looked like someone colored them in with a yellow highlighter:P

These are just hours old. Actually I'm pretty sure that the wet one was not quite an hour. We take them from the mom because we don't want her to abandon her nest before they are all hatched out. Once there is a lull in hatching the duck will abandon the nest and crack all the eggs open to eat what is inside of them. Sometimes this means there are partially formed babies in them which means a lost "harvest" as it were. We do raise these for meat so it's important to have as many appear as possible:)

All dry, happy, and spoiled:P

Along with the two living chicks, it feels good to see our farm expanding on it's own. Isn't that what we strive for? Self sustaining? Well, with the Lords help, of course:P

Now if we could just hug our Nigerian Dwarf enough that she will finish up our breeding year:P

God be with thee!

Sister Lori

What I am beginning to notice...

Is that life is revolving around this fire.  Every day is seemingly affected by it.  It is just crazy how one small incident that took just minutes to happen has somehow touched so much of our current life.   I am trying to change that, however it seems a bit hard.  Part of each day needs attention spent on cleaning up... if I don't, we won't get past this. 

Today, Dh and Megan helped a friend sort his sheep out.  He had a hand injury that is limiting what he can do, so help was needed.  While they left this morning, I cleaned the bathroom linen closet.  It is now clean, but I had packed away much stuff and I will still be working on putting things back.  But I am glad it is clean.  Towels are all back and not packed away.  Spare bedding is slowly returning as it gets washed. 

After our morning work, we left for town to do some errands.  I picked up the package from the post office from my mom for my daughter.  We have not opened it yet... Paige is still sleeping at the moment.  I got some buns from the bread store for the funeral lunch that we are helping with tomorrow.  I got some money from the bank for my two kids that are working at camp and apparently BROKE.  We then went browsing at Menards to pin down ideas on items that need fixing. 

All this... do we stay with the same color or something new???   I'm not sure we determined much to be honest with you.  We plan to hit a couple other home improvement shops and hope to make some decisions in the next week or two.  Steve wants to get started so it gets done sooner than later.  But we haven't heard from the insurance company as to what they are covering in full, so we wait to make sure we get paid for the estimates we sent in.  What i found today is that I forgot to add paint to the ceiling tile price... that will add another $100 to the overall cost.  I also priced out the cheapest wallpaper to replace and we're leaning towards one that is about $5 more per role...so $15 more overall, but still.   Each little bit adds up. 

 Tonight we brought lots of samples home and we just sighed, not really able to make a decision.  Too much running through our heads at the moment.  

I'm learning to just take each day... just one at a time. 

Warmly, ~Melissa

Woo Hoo the Winters Wood is In!!

Tobin and I were both quite proud of the youngest three kids as they worked to help with this task. Jacob especially has really done a lot of maturing in the last year. He is a hard worker and knows how to put in a man’s days work, not a bad thing for a 14 year old to know. He is even sought after by the neighbor to do work for him. This year Jacob has learned to use a chainsaw (it is a smaller electric one).. he used it to cut up all the small pieces of wood that were brought in (and there was a LOT of them). He made a stand to hold the tree limbs in so he could easily cut them.  He also learned how to drive Tobin’s tractor and use it around the property to bring in wood, move piles of leaves and sticks and any other task Tobin needed his help with. He is proficient with mowers, weed wackers and a host of other tools. Just had to take a moment here and share with you about my boy   Here are some pics of him driving the tractor during one of the wood gathering days. Sierra and Jacob are also helping with the clean up of a tree that Tobin took down..

 

 

 

This was the first year he mentioned that maybe getting a log splitter in the future might be a good idea!

Winter may still be a ways off.. but it is great to know we can look forward to warm cozy days and evenings inside while the wind and rain and the snow do their thing outside! 

 

Stapes Teacher Appreciation Day

At the event, you'll get a beautiful tote bag filled to the brim with all sorts of goodies. There are also doorprizes and coupons!

Daily Devotion 206

Give-Away: Hands of A Child-The Vikings

Being Humble

I must admit I had a rough day yesterday.  We went to look at a house last night that we were really interested in.  The house had 5 bedrooms and the whole upstairs was brand new!  After coming home last night we really thought this house might just work for our family!  The problem was we did not go to an online mortgage calculator beforehand.  The taxes in NYS are very high.  This house had taxes that were 5,200 a year!  That is over 400.00 a month on top of a mortgage payment.  We realized that there was no way possible we buy this house unless we offered much less than the asking price.  Our realtor seemed to think that there was no way we could offer less.  So...that was the end of our thinking this house might be the one!  I really had myself convinced last night that life is too hard, and it is never going to get any better!  After trying to convince Joe to have the same conclusion that I had I realized that I had an awful attitude!  Joe reminded me that God is in control of our lives.  We have so much to be thankful for.  We have a very nice home that we own in a nice neighborhood, plenty of food in our fridge, clothes to wear, no debt besides our mortgage and my student loans, and we are most thankful for the gift of our children.  Being home with them all day makes it possible to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  I am so very blessed to be able to teach our children at home with Christ in the center.  There truly is nothing more important. 

You know what?  This house did not have at least an acre of land that we have been praying so fervently for.  And it is further away from Joe's job, with the rising cost of gasoline it probably would be a dumb move on our part!    I believe in due time the Lord will show us clearly if it is His will for us to move.  Like I just read in The Newharvest Homestead newsletter, you can have a homestead in the city.  I know the Lord is in control of our lives and He is the One who has given us the home we have now.  Our taxes are dirt cheap!  He has had His hand on our lives from day one.  What have I learned?  I need to humble myself before the Lord on a daily, if not minute by minute basis.  If not, my wants will rise up and devour the humble nature the Lord wants me to have. 

"Humble Yourselves before the lord, and he will lift you up."  ~James 4:10 (NIV)

Kitchen Fire UPdate: Oven here!

We got our oven yesterday.  We are all so happy.  I can't imagine not having one.  I know people who wouldn't have hurt without an oven, but for us it was torture.  LOL!  Even my little  3yo understood we couldn't make bread, cake, muffins, etc. 

Last night to break in the stove we made a half batch of sugar cookies.  After I got to starting on them I was freaking out with each ingredient... sugar?  (I threw out the open sugar, do I have any other sugar?),   Cream of tartar (we threw out most every spice in the cupboard, but I had a spare new one in the bulk cupboard), almond extract?  (I knew I threw it out, but I had recently bought some new that I hadn't opened and it was ok).  I didn't have any regular white flour, but I did have bread flour... the cookies ended up a bit heavy, I imagine from the higher gluten content.  I imagine we won't eat the entire batch anyways... Steve and I are trying to eat healthier and the girls are just not woofing down the sweets.  It was more of an effort to give Paige some Mommy time.  She saw the oven and said... Mommy, I want to make cookies.  She wanted some "normal" back into her life... so we made cookies. 

As we were placing the cookie dough onto the sheets Paige looks up to me and says so sweetly... Mother, I am glad our oven is back... with a soft sigh. 

The oven does look almost identical to our other one... which we were told to replace as close as possible.  Even thought we had just bought the oven this January, the model is not a current one, even thought it was new.  So, we had to find something as close as possible with the current models.  We lost our warming burner.. .to get it was another $100, but we didn't use it and it was in the way.  But now all the burners are able to cook with two different sizes... so it was a trade off.  I am happy with the exchange.  I would have liked to have gone back to a gas top /bottom electric oven, but that was more yet and not comparible in price... I just find I am not crazy about the flat top stove.  It is not flexible in my mind and the pans swim on the top surface... driving me crazy!  But DH loves it and I will eventually get used to it.  Dh says if I can't manage after a year he'll buy me an LP stovetop... But that seems silly to me altogether! 

Anyways, we all just sighed when the oven came... life is feeling more normal. 

Warmly, ~Melissa