Luxury of hot water

I have found that I don't realize and appreciate the luxuries I enjoy, until I have to go without.
2 days ago our water heater stopped working. It got over-heated, so the safety switch turned it off. Joe doesn't want to turn it back on, in fear of the tank exploding. I really wanted/needed some kind of bath today, so I decided the only way to get hot water was to boil it. So I boiled a big pot of water, poured it in my bathtub, and added enough cold water to make a nice temperature. Well, I had about an inch of water in the tub to bath myself with. This is where I decided that my hair would have to wait for a later time, and quickly took care of business. I sure miss stepping under a nice hot, steaming stream of water, and being able to stay there for 20 minutes or so. The technician is supposed to come either today or monday to fix the problem, so we'll live primitively until then.

Countryside

Teresa and I have started swapping play dates for our kids, and Sterling, Van, Ginger, and Parker have been having a great time. Today they went to their house, so I had 3 hours to myself.
What to do?? I wanted to make sure I did something I can't do when they are here, so I decided to finally listen to Catherine Morphis and went running in our beautiful countryside. I say running, but it was more like a stumbling jog alternated with a walk. There aren't really any good loops around here (they're all too large) so I decided to run up the road and back. The way out seemed hard, but not unmanageable,.. but when I turned around I realized I had been running downhill, with the wind in my back. Needless to say, I did a lot more walking on the way back. Still I was proud of myself for getting out there and giving it a try. And, it was longer than I had originally thought! (3.4 miles, instead of my estimated 2 miles)
The most disheartening thing about all of this was that when I went to enter my exercise into my online program, it didn't even recognize my overall speed as a jogging speed, but rather a walking speed!!! Yes, I'm THAT slow!

How to grow a vegetable garden

This year I decided to try to be more self-sufficient, and grow a garden. We have the land, the water, and the sun to do it, so why not?
I started by ordering a whole bunch of seeds online. Seriously any vegetable you can think of from carrots, peppers, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, and tomatoes, to squash, onion, cucumber, kale and endive. I also got some herbs; basil, thyme, parsley, and chives. I spent like $42, but figured that I'll easily save that much when I don't have buy under-ripened, tasteless veggies from the grocery store. Then I went to Lowes, and bought potting mix, and seed starter trays for a mere $20.
Sterling, Ginger and I went outside and started the planting process. At first they were very excited and helpful, but the excitement quickly wore off, when they realized it wouldn't be done in 5 minutes. Sterling did help me put the bigger seeds in like pumpkin, zucchini, squash and beans.
This is the point where doubt started to fill my mind. "Am I putting enough seeds in each planter?", "are any of these going to sprout?" "what if they all sprout, and start producing.. I would have enough to feed our whole ward" "Did I just over-water them?" "Did I put too much dirt on top of the seeds... after all, it says to put a thin layer of dirt on the top, but then the planters would be half empty" In short, I started d0ubting if an average woman such as me can magically turn a bunch of seeds in to plants, and then into vegetables we can actually eat.

Another day, another puppie

You think to yourself; do they ever stop?
Probably not.
Joe has wanted to get a good guard dog for our sheep and goats, and the other day the perfect puppies became available. And yes, they were free too.
Our newest addition to our farm is Justin, a 3/4 Anatolian Shepherd, and 1/4 Great Pyrenees.
He is named after the previous owner's son, who got killed in Iraq while on duty.
Justin is just a ball of fur now, but will be a ferocious protector in the near future.
It just so happens that Teresa has this exact same breed, so they might just have to get together if you know what I mean...

Trade Days

My friend Teresa and I went to the Canton Trade Days. Canton is about 2 hours from our house, so it's kind of a day long outing. The trade days are really cool. There are literally thousands of merchants that sell everything from plants, to home decor, to live animals. For the last several months I have wanted to get some chickens on our farm. Mostly because I have to pay $3 everytime I buy eggs at the store. That's just crazy to me. Teresa knows a lot about chickens, and she was able to help me pick out some good egg layers. I got 3 and she got 2. We would have liked to get some more, but most of them were sold out (chickens are kind of out of season right now)
We each also picked up a free puppy for ourselves, and she got another one for her grandpa. So here we were with 5 chickens, and 3 puppies..... Teresa bought a little cage, and we came to the conclusion that the only way we would be able to carry all of them to the car was to put her puppy in with the chickens in the cage. She led her other puppy on a leash, and I carried my puppy.
The reactions we got!!!! So funny. every 2 seconds someone would say something like: look at that! a puppy and chickens!!! Like it was the craziest thing they had seen in their entire life.
I named my puppy cinnamon (with the help of great grandma Benac). She is a mix between a blue heeler and some kind of shepherd dog.... a mut, hence the good price tag.
After I got home Joe and I spent several hours working on a chicken coop. We decided to turn part of our shed into a coop, and we got a good start, but we'll have to finish it on Monday. We even made some nesting boxes. Hopefully the chickens will start laying eggs soon!

updated animal count:
2 cats
1 horse
4 sheep
1 cow
4 goats
3 chickens
1 dog

Bug in a Rug

I'm not sure where this came from, but the kids love to be a bug in a rug. This really just means to be tightly wrapped in a blanket, but it's really exciting for them

Outdoor kids

When we first got here, I had to send them out, or they wouldn't go out. Now, Sterling is to the point where he'll go outside just because he feels like it. My friend Teresa has a son Sterling's age, Van, and he practically lives outside. He loves playing and exploring. When I go to visit her,My kids are learning to appreciate playing outside more. the kids have a blast. Of course they have a lot of fun things to play with outside: swingset, toy jeep, dogs, etc. I just hope that Sterling will learn from Van that it's fun to play outside. Maybe some day I'll have to beg him just to come back in.