Each Wednesday, The HomeKeeper’s Journal is led by Sylvia at CHK. You’re welcome to join The HomeKeeper’s Journal, too. To see Sylvia’s entry for this week and/or find instructions for participating, visit Sylvia’s entry for this week.

What’s happening in my home……?

In my kitchen… Still trying to keep up with the dishes, as the dishwasher is still broken. Jeff got a voltmeter and continuity meter (or whatever they’re called) so we can try to figure out what part is not working. In the meantime, I’ve been delegating the dishes chores alot. We had Mikah’s birthday, and so enjoyed another chocolate sourdough cake. We love that cake!

With the family… Still working on outside projects. Kids studying hard. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by these great people – so thankful the Lord gave them to me for my family!

Around the homestead… Goats are adjusting to their new home; got the second stage of the water system turned on, yay! so we’re fully switched over; put in a baby stall in the barn yesterday to keep the little kids from nursing at night – keeping the mom’s milk for us in the mornings; got gutters installed on the new barn and the old barn (now garage); just enjoying how everything is starting to work really smoothly; feels permanent!

In my “Inner Man”….. still working on being less sensitive and more loving

• Paisley – She troubles me no longer. She’s sweet and docile and loves attention. The issue in the left teat didn’t ever resolve, though I’m 100% certain she never had mastitis. I’ve tested leaving her milk in the fridge for at least 10 days without any off smell or blood precipitating out. At this point, the left teat is blocked and I can get only a tiny bit of milk out at milking times. It does not pain her at all. The right side gives quite a bit of milk, about 3 cups at each milking.
• Gingham – (Paisley’s sister) She’s become the trouble maker. Those sisters just switched places. But I can still handle Gingham, so we’re getting her milk and her submission. I really don’t know what gets her stirred up. Being in heat could explain some of her moods, moving to the new barn could, too. But this all started when we went on vacation to Montana. She gave our friend (who milked the goats) a really hard time, and she has kept it up ever since.
• Trimming Hooves – Naomi helped me trim the big goats’ hooves last week. It was a job, but that’s because I was late getting to it. Immediately, Gingham and Paisley got up easier on the stand. Which makes me wonder if their hooves were paining them when they’d previously get up there.
• New Home – the goats took a few days to adjust to the new barn. Especially Gingham. Boy, she can be a pain! But they’re used to it now.
• Breeding – We need to get our milk goats pregnant. But we have no buck. Nor do we know of one. He must be a Nubian, as we want to keep our creamy milk, thank-you-very-much. This is a matter for prayer and further research. Does he come here? (We’re not set up for a buck yet.) Do we take the does to him? (We have no trailer and their heat cycles are probably all different.) Do we breed the does who were born this spring? (One of them is quite big and probably will get fat if she doesn’t get pregnant.)
• Belle – We had to put Silver Belle down. She is no longer. She is the first goat we got. From Shipping Fever Complex, she got pneumonia. It was pretty bad, and her lungs got damaged such that she never again breathed without difficulty. We wanted her to hang on long enough to give her babies six months of nursing and that she did, admirably. Over the weekend, Jeff and the kids did the deed. I didn’t want to be there. They examined her and found strange lungs that didn’t seem healthy.

Each Wednesday, The HomeKeeper’s Journal is led by Sylvia at CHK. I’ve been wanting to join in for some weeks now. Even though I’m a day late, here goes!  You’re welcome to join The HomeKeeper’s Journal, too. To see Sylvia’s entry for this week and/or find instructions for participating, visit Sylvia’s entry for this week.

What’s happening in my home……?

In my kitchen… local potatoes thrilling the kids almost every meal; the dishwasher went kaput and we haven’t the time or energy to try to fix it, so I’m doing dishes by hand; my hands are dry and cracking from all the moisture loss; my saving grace this week are those yellow gloves; not much cheese as the kids are keeping up with the goat’s milk – they love their chocolate milk.

With the family… the kids have helped tremendously with the barn projects – currently they’re moving old hay bedding from the temporary barn into the new barn, one wheel barrow load at a time; Mikah’s 9th birthday is on Monday coming up and he tells us how many days are left constantly; Jeff has put in many exhausting hours laboring on our barn/water project – I’m thankful for his devotion!

Around the homestead… barn, barn, barn, barn, barn, barn…

In my “Inner Man”…..  working on being less sensitive and more loving

I didn’t take pictures of everything we did, but here’s a rundown: finish siding the back, add corner trim and door trim, stack the lumber inside, make finishing connections for the water system, fill trenches with dirt, create animal stalls, move feed and milking stand to new barn, move fences, create corridor for animals to enter and exit, add gate to keep animals from leaving the wrong way and down the driveway, dirt work to prevent water running into the barn, and turn on the new water system.

Click on any picture for a larger view.

We felt so good last night, even though it was late when we came in. Jeff had taken most of yesterday (Monday) off so we could finish. We hoped we would. It was the last sunny day. God worked it out – helped us finish. We got the animals moved in the nick of time – as last night it started raining!

Last weekend, even though it was rainy and muddy, we got much done.

On Friday, our siding arrived. It is not a perfect color match. We weren’t too concerned about matching the color. This is what was available to us, so it is what we got.

On Saturday, in the rain, Jeff and the kids finished framing most of the pole barn.

On Sunday, our friend Joe and his family came over. Joe and Jeff put the mud skirts up, along with the siding on the two long sides and half the front. I like the color block look. What concerns us is that should we sell our property someday, we hope people won’t be turned away by the colors.

On Monday, Jeff took the day off work. The weather turned nice. He and I put the siding up on the rest of the front. We framed the back side of the barn.

On Tuesday, Jeff took another day off work. He went back over the three sided-sides and screwed in all the remaining screws. We hoped to be able to side the back, but we didn’t get to it.

The pictures don’t show the finished front. We added some trim around the doorway to finish the metal edges. It really looks nice. We like it.

This coming weekend should be dry. We are going to hang the siding on the remaining back side. I will help with this. We will also add all the trim to the four corners. Then Jeff plans on doing tractor work – bringing in dirt to make the ground level inside. He also wants to create the stalls in the barn for the animals, milking area, feed storage, shop, etc. We’ll have to move fences, too, in order for the animals to be able to get in and out of the barn in their own territory (not ours!).

He also wants to turn “on” the new water system from the storage tank. He probably won’t get to hooking up the other circuit – from the well to the storage tank. But we can hope.

This is amazing. We’ve never done a project like this. It has been fun, challenging, and fulfulling!

Jeff has been out of town since Wednesday, but he’ll be back tonight.

I researched steel through the early week, and then ordered the steel siding for the barn on Wednesday. The Lord was good and allowed it to be delivered today, in time for the weekend. That is amazing. We did not expect that. I had a great and thought-provoking conversation with the delivery driver about goats and cheese.

The kids and I had our bi-annual dental cleanings yesterday. This was the first time that I’ve declined fluoride treatments, and it was because of some reading I did at the Weston A. Price Foundation. The article is called Fluoridation: The Fraud of the Century.

Above are a few pictures I pulled out of our iPhoto from the last few months. Haniya took them. Well, except for the one of herself.

• finish framing the sides of the barn
• order water to fill the storage tank (ordered – will be delivered on Wed)
• turn on the electric and plumbing to the new pump/storage tank/pressure tank
• wire the barn with lights and electric
• put metal siding up on the barn (determining dimensions now)
• build up uneven level of ground inside barn
• contract out for gutters (getting estimates now)
• create stalls and doorways inside for: animal area, milking area, feed storage, water system, shop (using cattle panels for most of this)
• move fence so animals have a way in and out of their area
• gravel all the mud areas

Over the weekend, the kids and Jeff started the framing. That’s what’s in the pictures. Jeff did a big thing (for him). He bought himself some tools. He’s never done that before. He buys me tools, but puts off his own. He has a very cautious nature and he dislikes machinery, so this was a big deal. He needed some, though, so he got a kit with a circular saw, reciprocating saw, drill, and impact driver. He put them to good use on the framing. It was fun to watch – and the kids were great helps. The pictures don’t show all they got done. These pictures were just at the beginning…

Then on Sunday, our friend and his family came over, and Joe (our friend) helped Jeff finish the plumbing and electrical for the water system. It is just about ready to go “live” – and they’ll do that this coming Sunday. That’s our time crunch. We’re depending on the Lord to help us finish…  otherwise, we will be parking in the mud and our animals sleeping out in the pouring rain…

A week has passed and I haven’t mentioned that we went “back” to school last Monday. We do a bit of schooling all summer, but it seems like we really took a summer break this year because of the kids’ two vacations.

We’re all happy to be back to it. Once again, we made some curriculum changes. And I’ve neglected to write about that, too.

Instead of using the Pathways readers and workbooks for reading and phonics and grammar, etc., we switched over to using ACE workbooks, but for more than just English and Literature. We added in Spelling using ACE (for Naomi and Mikah), and also Social Studies and Science (for all). We are sticking with Teaching Textbooks for Math, and continuing one page a day in Daily Grams (excellent daily review of important grammar concepts!). And Haniya is keeping up with Draw Today for her art program.

I needed a change because I needed to simplify the planning involved with homeschooling. It feels like an excuse to say that I don’t have time to prepare and plan lessons, but it is true. And that’s okay because there are curriculums (like ACE) where you don’t need to plan anything.

Each subject has twelve workbooks (paces) that last the year. The kids work through them, at their own rate, or at a rate you determine ahead of time. We have determined that they should finish a pace (workbook) in each subject every three weeks. This means they must do 3 to 4 pages in each subject’s pace, each day. Haniya and Naomi decided they wanted to do two years’ worth of Social Studies – and this because they wanted to cover areas they’d not done but also do their current grade level. So in this subject, their rate is to finish a workbook every other week, or 7 to 8 pages per day in each pace.

Each time they finish a pace (workbook), they put a star in that subject on their progress chart. There are checkpoints where I go over their work, and the kids are also encouraged to do some self-checking at a separate station from their desk with a red pen (which discourages cheating). Each subject comes with Bibles verses, and they are reading and practicing those alongside – I love that!

Each pace contains its own review/practice test and final test. I don’t have to plan those, either! What I like is being available for the kids, to help them, to explain things, to check their work. But I don’t like planning and I’m not good at it, because I never have enough time. What I’ve seen so far assures me that they are learning a great deal, and having good practice at important basic skills, as well as growing in being self-motivated and self-focused. I think we’re good to go – and I might not change anything next year. I can hope anyway.