Large Family Logistics- Our Version, not Vision Forum's ;)

I know that a long time ago I promised to do another Taste & See Family Farm post all about our planting. And I plan to....eventually. But the thing we farmers soon realize is that the plants very soon begin to grow, and once they begin to grow, so do the weeds, and once they *both* are growing there is no time to talk about planting. ;) But Uncle David and Matthew have been working on a website, so when that's launched I'll give ya'll a heads up and you can hop over to see it! :) Also, we've been selling produce (not much, but a start) at our True Value Hardware and the local Feed and Seed. Yesterday we sold 150 pounds of sugar snap peas to a wholesaler! She sells to 50 or 60 chefs! The Lord is really blessing our harvest- the 150 pounds only represents one and a half pickings of our pea patch! :)
But how do you work every day, all day in the garden in 98 degree weather and still keep a household of 11 running full steam ahead? Witness the birth of "The Plan" ;)

Credit to Mama and Dad.

Introducing Part 1 of The Plan: we will begin getting up by 6:30 every morning and getting out to the garden by 7:30 or 8:00, having all the animal chores accomplished and breakfast eaten and devotions had by then. Those of us who are out in the garden will work until noon, then take a break in the heat of the day to have a little free-time and indoor projects. Then we'll get back out to it by 3:30 or 4:00, and work until dinner. That doesn't leave much time for housekeeping, does it?
This is where part two comes in: Meet "The House Manager".

Umm...not her. I was picturing something more glamorous. ;)

That's better. :)

Her job description includes making all meals for the day and breakfast for the next, doing all chores, running, hanging and folding laundry, keeping house in other ways, and doing school with Gracie and Abby. We four oldest girls will switch off day to day. Sounds good, huh? :) My first day on this duty is tomorrow.
So I don't even know if that topic interests anyone, but you *did* say that you liked hearing about large family things and...well...there are plenty of logistics when you've suddenly turned farmer! -Rachel

Goateo and Crueliet- an operatic farm-drama. :P

These are the Villains in this Drama:

Meet Daisy....


(Notice the dastardly-looking lack of ears? :P LaManchas are all so....sly looking as adults. :P

Next is Chocolate Chip (So glad we didn't name him Mr. Darcy- the vagabond!)


And the innocent [ ;) ] Miss Elizabeth Bennet (Lizzie)



It all began on a warm, beautiful, ideal early-May day in our corner of Virginia...

We spent the morning working in the garden planting more flowers for cutting. Then we got in the car, went to choir, and, in the odd hour between choir and Matthew's baseball game, we decided to go strawberry picking.



Buy two baskets, get the third free.
We finished picking 15 baskets in about 40 minutes. :)

Then off to the ball-game, and home to make dinner.

*Cue dramatic music*

♫"Woe are we- we gurgle our throats
Over our evil, dastardly goats...."♫

Um. Never mind the singing part. Skip ahead.

As we drove up the drive a astonishing and angering sight met our eyes. Every swinging one of those blasted goats were out and gallivanting around the garden. Ahem.

There was a chase through my newly planted flower bed as Leah rode Chip...

A dash through the peas after Daisy...(yes, I fit through the trellis without ruining any peas myself. :P)

And finally we caught them. Oh the fiendish animals!
♫"If I ate meat like a Blackamoor, We'd have a barbeque, But since I don't, I'll sigh some more Until those goats are through!"♫

Ahem. Proceed.

The worst of it was not over. Those measly, pitiful, awful animals chomped down on our baby blackberry bushes and nibbled our eight prized, adored baby blueberry bushes to nubbins. And they were even getting berries!



Oh the Horror! :[

Mama and I were quite put out, and the girls scurried to capture the goats, tie them up so they couldn't repeat the offense, and creep around till our wrathful state subsided a little. *Sigh*
So that's the little drama of the day. We are hoping that the blueberry bushes will miraculously grow back, and that we won't have to construct a veritable Guantanamo Bay to keep them inside and away from our garden. Because right now...it's pretty much Stalag 13 :P


But on the bright side...
*thinking hard*.....

Um.....

Hold on a second.....

Ah!

On the bright side, it gave me....something to blog about? :P -Rachel

This Little Lassie....

This little lassie went to market (that's me!)

This little lassie stayed home (that's Sarah)

This little lassie had roast beef (to sell- that's Morgan Wilson)

This little lassie had none. (that could be Leah)

And this little lassie went wee-wee-wee all the way home.

Okay. So that last line was a bit scary, and didn't make any sense. Anywho! Today I'll be going to the Wilson's farm pick-up day to sell our crazy surplus of produce all by my lonesome. *yikes!*
The rest of our family is going to help the Tate family (in one way or another) to prepare for Grace T.'s graduation next Sat. Sarah is going over there to watch the little boys. (Thus the rhyme for her. But I guess that means she isn't staying home. Whatever!) Well, see you guys later! (Some of you on Mon.! :)

CEO, Chickens, and an Essay

I am now a CEO. Of sorts. By this afternoon, I, Rachel, will be the...mother of quite a nest of baby chicks. I bought them. Leah will take care of them. Come October we will sell the eggs to our landscape customers, and we will split the difference. Sound good? I hope so! Leah had the enthusiasm and likes chickens, and I had the money and a nice picture of some earnings in my head, so between the two of us, we will have a little business. I wonder how it will work out? My part sounds almost too easy, but she is out there with Sarah who already takes care of our family chickens so it'll be fine. There has been an awful lot of talk around and what the measure of a good book or movie is. Funny enough, I had to write a paper on the book side of it for our literature-based unit study a couple of weeks ago. Here it is as I wrote it:
In 1868 John Ruskin said, "Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books." I believe that one of the main questions you should ask yourself when reading a book, is whether or not there is anything to be taken from it, and applied in your own life. Some books are, for obvious reasons, wrong to erad, containing things that are contrary to God's principles. Stay far from such books, for, though they may be entertaining now, it is not worth the poisoning of your mind to gain a few hours of selfish enjoyment. There are others books, not harmful in any way, but presenting life in very unrealistic scenarios. When evaluating this sort of book, it is more of a question of "better" or "best". The best sort of book one can read, is a work that inspires us to higher thoughts, to purer ideals, and ever points our imaginations to Christ's standards. C.S. Lewis sums up well the measure of a worthwhile book, (fiction particularly) when he said, "No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally, (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty...the only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all." But the ultimate measure of our standards as Christians can be found in Philippians 4- "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things."

So, what do you think? I know this is a subject that many people disagree on, and I do think that various people have varying convictions about it, but these are my thoughts! -Rachel

Various and Sundries

Hey everybody! The picture right here has nothing to do with anything, only the fact that the lassie is doing something I wish I was doing, and looks prettier than I ever hope to be while doing it! :) This morning we are going to be planting our potatoes, and maybe onions. I love cutting the potatoes into chunks with eyes. I'm not sure why....Tomorrow we'll be planting peas. This afternoon we have choir, (and I hope volleyball after! :) and then this evening, we have a slight dilemma. It's Generation Joshua night, and the laundry fairies are down from NY. They are coming to dinner, and we may have to miss them! I would willingly stay home, but Dad is not sure if he wants us to stay at home since it is part of our school....it seems a shame to skip seeing people from NY!!! Last night I had to drive in the dark with Dad. We went to Dairy Queen, and Dad got icecream. I would have, but I had already had chocolate chip cookies here. Blast! I didn't do the drive-thru so well. It seemed really strange to talk to some little plastic box...oh well. At least I managed to stay on the road and avoid all the other cars.
(This is a very disconnected post by the way. That being said....) Sarah is now reading "Great Expectations" and I am reading "The Last of The Mohicans". I had stopped reading it, because of all the terribly bloody indian massacres and because half of it was written in French! ;) But it is a classic, and I do want to know whatever happens to those girls! Also, it is really interesting to me particularly, because the story takes place right where Uncle Lon and Aunt Heather live. All the places sound pretty familiar to me, and it is almost as fun as when I read "To Have And To Hold" that takes place right in our area and the area surrounding it. There is something so inspiring about imagining what our land looked like and felt like 250 years ago!
Anna found a nest of baby mice when moving around hay in her goatpen. She killed the mama and then cried about it after. The dad mouse went away, so she has kept the babies alive for two days now, feeding Daisy's milk out of a dropper. I'm telling you what, it is crazy what sorts of fragile animals are actually living in our home! We have two tanks of tadpoles that are in their second week of captivity! (They debuted in Daniel's music video) Well, I have to go make breakfast! See you guys later! -Rachel

In Which I Nanny a Calf and Sing to a Captive Audience ;)

Hello to Everyone out there whose hands are as cold as mine right now! (And even those of you who are warm! :) Do any of you people have New Year's Eve plans? We are going to have a family over and they shall most probably stay till midnight! Daniel and I just got back from buying feed. I sound very important. Go ahead and grin all you Alexanders and Wilsons and Graham Donahue when I tell you all that we made the trip for a solitary bag of layer pellets for our hens! On the way Daniel and I stopped to try to herd a calf back into a fence area as it was out and near the road a bit. We didn't want to "pull an Anne Shirley" as Abigail stated, so Daniel went to the house down the road to alert the people, and I stood there: the sole object of interest to 30 big black cows. The calf ignored me entirely, though it was a bit nervous it seemed. As the beasties moved ever nearer the fence,I started singing a song half to myself, half to the cows if they were listening, all the while musing whether they would charge the fence. All the tales of stampedes and gorings I ever heard knocked on the door of my mind but I didn't let them in! So like I said I began singing since I didn't have anything better to do! I assure you, after standing in the cold air for 15 minutes with an enraptured audience listening to my renditions of "Cockles And Mussels", "Danny Boy" and "Scarborough Fair", (and yes, in the cold air, trying to keep from shivering, my voice cracked on a high note in case you were wondering!) I was ready to get back in the warm car. While singing I hoped no hunters were hidden in the woods listening to me standing there with only a shawl to keep me warm, my hands clasped behind my back, rocking back and forth on my toes while I sang to cows.... I think they'd have labled me "eccentric". Daniel told me that the poeple weren't home in either of the houses to which the calf might belong, and the woman in the third house said the cows didn't belong to those people anyhow, so she called the guy who it really belongs to. We continued onto the feed store.
So now we are home and I am writing this to entertain you all. I really need a way to have a reliable income of money so Mama has challenged me to make a business plan. Please pray that I would have inspiration in my business endeavors! Have a very happy new year everyone! Oooo! I realized that if I keep saying "two thousand and ten" as I have been practicing, it will sound every bit as old-fashioned as the people who used to say, "eighteen-hundred and sixty-four"!! Isn't that cool? I hope I don't offend anyone by stating that I think "20-ten" falls in the category with "dude", "Sweet", "Yo!" and every other manner of slang. I abhor it! ;)
Almost in the year of our Lord two-thousand and ten!
-Rachel

An Eventful Day

Hi Everyone! This is Sarah. Today was Grace's 3rd birthday and Mom's 44th birthday! I know that Daniel's already posted on this subject, but hey! Anyways, this morning we worked on a nice breakfast for the birthday girls- cinnamon raisin rolls and sausage. We gave a few presents to Gracie, and while she was slowly unwrapping them, Rachel was looking antsy and agitated. I asked her what was up, and she whispered that the Thompsons were on their way over here for a surprise birthday visit! So we finally finished the gifts, and tried to get Mom to go upstairs and get showered and changed. After spreading the news, all us kids were hurrying around getting chores done and the house presentable for company. Daniel pulled me aside quickly telling me to meet our visitors-they'd just pulled up and Mom was barely upstairs! So, after meeting up with them and letting them where Mom was, we caravaned up there with flowers, presents, and the whole kit and caboodle into the hallway. Mrs. T. knocked on their door, and eventually Mom opened the door to find us! It was a great birthday surprise for her! We went downstairs and she and Grace opened the presents that our guests had most graciously brought.

Then, once they had left, Mom and I started on Grace's Princess Castle Cake. I'd already made the cakes last night and some icing this morning so we weren't off to a horrible start, but it was already around 12:30, I think and our family was coming at 4:30. Here's a picture of the finished cake.

It took awhile, but I have to say, it turned out great!

Now don't think our adventures were done for the day! Dad and Mr. Scott had hooked up and apparently, Mr. Scott was coming over this afternoon to pick up our pigs to be taken to market.

So, after cleaning up cake-making mess in the kitchen, I went on out to watch the hog-tying. :)

Mr. Scott, Dad and Daniel were out there and right as I'd come up the one that had just been caught and was in the trailer, got out! I eventually got in there with the men and brought over pallets and other bigger pieces of wood to fashion a make-shift chute leading into the trailer. (Now Mr. Oliver, Rachel says to say that the next sentence is a result of you not telling us how to catch a pig and us forgetting to ask Will) After about 2 hours, 4 moldy English muffins, 2 carrots, some scraps of miscellaneous food, and a pinched finger(mine, to be exact), we had both piggies in the trailer! Oh, I forgot to mention the fact that also, after wrangling those pigs for a long time, Rachel couldn't get the gross piggy smell off her hands, even after trying: Baking soda, lemon juice, salt, vinegar, soap, Germ-X, and finally rubbing alcohol.

Okay, so after that was all done, my smushed finger looked after ;) , the party went on! The Walkers had already arrived as had our grandparents. We had dinner, did presents, and dessert.

Cleaned up , and now I'm sitting here after putting now 3-year-old Grace to bed; Very Tired.

Happy Birthday Mom and Grace!

Processing Our Broilers

Hey everyone! This is Sarah.

Yesterday afternoon, we got a call from some friends of ours saying that they, and one other family, were going to go ahead and process their 4-H broilers, and we were invited to do ours as well. So this morning, Dad, Daniel, Abby, Benjamin, and I went over to the T.'s house to process our broilers. Our birds weren't the biggest ones there, by far, but it was high time they were "done away with". ( They'd sort of been on a budget diet, but hey! We're new to all this and are learning all about it:) Dad, Nigel T., and Benjamin, sort of ran the killing, Mrs. T. and I did the head and feet removing(I felt like a real surgeon with rubber gloves ;) and Daniel, Daniel T., and Stephen T., were eviscerating. We got our 28 all ready and bagged in a pretty short time. Dad had asked if we could save all the innards , etc. to give to our pigs when we got home. Boy did they enjoy 'em! Here are a couple pictures of them feasting on their treats :)

Well, There they are, and I'd better be going!

-Sarah