Spots for learning

We have dug into the books at home this year and things are going well.  Both girls are diligent in getting assigned work done and there are several things we are doing together.  We have just finished reading the book 'In His Steps' together and both girls would love to have me read it aloud again!  They are both reading other books continually and we also do readings for history and science.  The best part of it all is having them climb out of bed in the early morning (7 am!) and climb under blankets on couches and chairs in the living room.  There we begin with devotions, some worldview study and some medieval history.  That's before we get unsnuggled and have breakfast and family devotions.  You can't have too much of devotions, can you?  Lots of scripture getting us hearing from God and time to pray so he hears our voices too. 

By nine in the morning when most kids are pulling out their pencils and books, our kids are onto the 4th or sometimes 5th subject.  Nuts eh?  And we have school wherever it works.  The kitchen table is often plastered with many books.  The living room is the comfyest place to read and sometimes the girls even do math and language work there.  But there are other spots too - in front of a sunny window, outside near a fire, and science fun in the kitchen or outside!  Kierra and science experiments usually equals a lot of fun and a mess.  And mostly understanding.  She is a learner on a roll and carries the rest of us along and we work to keep up.  Her thoughts often seem to be one ahead of us all. 

We are enjoying the year thus far.  Hopefully we will survive the winter ahead of us without too much cabin fever. 

Kierra's first choice of book was to finish and re-read 'Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry'.  She read that with her class back in Stratford and would often comment on the way that certain readers had read parts of the book.  I think she enjoyed that almost as much as the book itself.

Dayna packed up some books and worked outside near the campfire one beautiful morning.  I would love to have some more of those mornings in the next weeks.  Maybe after this snow melts we will have some gorgeous fall weather.

the lineup.

Several tractors have loaders and one can choose from this line-up to find what you would like to attach for the current job!  Kierra is getting better at this job.  Because she is, I am spared the job of trying!

Tic, Tac, Toe anyone?

It's been a few weeks since we completed this massive tic-tac-toe board.  What a relief it was to finally finish. But doesn't it look pretty?  I am all about making things look nice.  This is a nice 'nine-patch' with some of Dayna's outdoor twister discs used instead of x's and o's for the game.  Don't worry, no-one won the game.  Besides, I was just playing against myself!  This is what the close up is like...then a view from farther away...and farther... and farther!

 In my naivety I had looked forward to the corn silage harvest thinking that since we needed two less people (no one needed to cut or invert as we do with haylage) things would run quickly and smoothly.  On the whole things ran quite smoothly.  Long and smoothly.  Like, really long and smoothly.  Which after a while doesn't really feel so smooth anymore. Acres and acres of corn hauled home to fill up these 'bunks' for winter feed.  Notice how we are making bigger bunks all the time?  Maybe we are getting better at it.  Besides these four bunkers we have several 'piles' that we made out on the ground.  And there is another bunker of haylage and two large upright harvestore silos that are full now too!  A milking herd of 190 plus all their 'followers' means lots of food put up into storage for the winter!  I won't be as naive next fall.  I was able to put in a lot of milking shifts.  I was ok with that.  It was cooler out.  This farmer isn't into working in 30+ degree weather.  I will let you know about working in -30 degrees after the winter. 

After the corn silage was done, we had a couple days off and Dave went out in the combine to finish off our last acres of corn for high moisture corn.  And that took a few days and then WE WERE DONE HARVEST for the WHOLE year!  Yippeee. And we finished off the new 'up close/calving barn' so we can use that too.  Now the jobs are to spread the manure, work the fields and clean out the pens!  But this is good.  The guys stop to come in for meals and do the milking with our hired milkers and even have naps once in a while to catch up on something called sleep.  They don't do a whole lot of that...more next year, I am hoping!

The New Additions

The farm is a great place to be and the expanse of this place has meant that the reality of adding new additions is possible.  Even horses!  And two girls here are very excited that we have FINALLY found the next answer to their dreams.  Meet Kierra's new equine friend,  KEELA!

and Dayna's daily companion, WAYSA!

Keela is 4 years old and a great horse for Kierra.  She is green broke and easy for Kierra to handle.  She needs work but we have Sarah Stam living next door and even though that is far away at times, she is here at the main farm A LOT and that is a huge bonus for both girls as they work with their horses. 

Waysa is only 3 years old and not rideable just yet but  we have someone coming a couple times a week to work with her and Dayna.  We hope it won't be long until the two of them can be seen flying through the fields, alongside the palomino and her rider, Kierra!

The horses are such a big part of the girls' lives that in celebration of Kierra's 13th birthday she had a "Riding party' with 3 of her friends and Dayna and Sarah.  Two of the girls brought horses along and they are just leaving home to go to a neighbor's farm where Sarah's horse, Shade is until they have a spot for her at their place.   It was an long afternoon of wonderful memories -  6 girls and 4 horses and beautiful weather!

Ontario girls (you know who you are!) - should you want to come out for a riding party of your own, let us know when you will be here and we will make sure to have enough horses ready for a ride!!

Blessings!

Life is full of blessings if we choose to look for them.  This past weekend we haven't had to look for them at all - they just came and we soaked it all in.  Maybe our guys didn't do as much work as they normally would and maybe we had more coffee than usual but it was all for a great cause.  For sure we have been blessed by Henry's parents and his sister, Jackie and her husband, Orwin.  These people travelled a great distance just to bless us - well ok, they wanted to see our farm too but we got the better end of the deal!

 Dad shares a break time with Henry.  Logan looks at them and wonders, "Is that all you guys are gonna do, sit there?!"

Uncle Orwin happily takes the kids on a ride on our special vehicle for the weekend! This makes it look like this may have been his main occupation for the time he spent here but we can assure you that Orwin was in the barn by 6 in the mornings and did some work for us in the barn and on the construction project happening out our front door.  We just couldn't figure out why he would want to leave just after we are getting him groomed for work here!

 Grandma gets advice from Logan on the watering of the flowers near our entrance.

 Henry was able to find someone willing to lend us this golf cart for the weekend so that Dad could enjoy the farm from his own set of wheels.  Well, Dad never got much time on that machine alone.  There were always kids swarming around it begging to come along.  Can't say that he minded the opportunity to chaffeur them around!

 Grandma was happy to sit at the back with a few of her great-grand-girls!

 Logan entertained us forEVER with his tales.  Here he is telling us something about his worms (spruce branches that he picked out of a tree) which on occasion change to fish and then to pigs and cows.  There was not a dull moment in his telling or in our listening.

Mom played catch with the kids and enthralled them with her ability to juggle.  I mean, how many people can juggle?  And Mom has done this her entire life to delight her kids, grandkids and now her great-grandkids!! 

If only you could hear Ava's continuous laughter as her ball bounces off of mom's head or arms.  Ava is the basketball player and Grandma is the net!  The games kids come up with are always fun for everyone.

Jackie was thrilled to be on a farm with dogs and spoiled the newly arrived, Farva.  And if Kierra would mention that they were going to visit with the horses down at the neighbor's farm and go for a ride, Jackie was right there with them!  Besides us humans, the dogs, cats and horses got a good dose of loving from Jackie.

After coffee time this morning they are leaving.  Back to their normal schedules back home.  Orwin and Jackie go back to their own cows and kids.  We are so thankful that they could come and bless us with this visit.  We will treasure it in our hearts and memories. 

Together

The fact of life here is that our kids - Henry's & mine and Dave & Kristin's - spend a lot of time together.  Most days are great as they play horses, house, with stuff in the sandbox, hide and seek, colouring or just whatever.  Sometimes they argue and complain.  Sometimes they fight.  But on the whole they do the playing thing well. Here you see the oldest 4 girls on the ONE swing, layered according to age!

And while the girls giggle away there is another one napping and the super hero making me watch amazing jumps right 'into the tree'.

This farm is a good place to play and grow!

Progress

Our first major-ish update on the farm was to pull the feeders out of the heifer pens and put in a manger that allows the feeding to be done by the tractor and TMR driving right alongside the front of the pens.  It's pretty slick!  That project is complete!

Now we just add grain to the top of the small heifer's feed easily by walking along this new manger.  Before we had to go into their pen and put this on top of the feed in a bunk that wasn't the easiest to access. 

Dave rigged up this new device for the skidsteer so that they can just drive along the bunk and push the feed back to where the heifers can reach it. Works well.  And even though the kids like to sit in the skidsteer they aren't actually allowed to push up the

 feed with this tool yet!

This is a view from the manger looking towards the dairy barn. The skidsteer is hiding in the trees just to the left off of this photo and our house is just beyond that!

TODAY ~

we started a NEW project! 

This is the 'close-up barn' that we hope to make a bit bigger and add an outside manger here too.  This business of driving a huge tractor and large TMR mixer into this pen is a bit ridiculous. That is over for now as we renovate and rebuild this shed.  The kids are over there looking at this trench..

where the water lines go.  And to the back of the one taking this photo is also where there are some major power lines that we didn't know were there.  But we do now.  A short time with no hydro and a little late start of milking tonight but now 'it's all good'.  (borrowed expression from a certain son-in-law) 

Look at the toys they brought in to dig today.  Just what a dad needs to put big smiles on a boys face!  What a treasure it is to have the time to enjoy this process. Easier said as the photographer.  The labourers are already asleep!

More to come soon!

July 14, 2012!

Our forth kid decided to follow in his sister's footsteps and plan a wedding in a short time!  He and Sarah thought that they would get married, give up their lucrative jobs in Ontario and join the job force here at Rehoboth Farms.  We all know there is lots of work to do around here.  Sarah will love the fact that most properties out here have at least one horse on them.  It won't be long until she has a horse of her own, I am sure. 
Thought I would share a couple photos of their wedding day with you all.

Sarah's dad led Sarah in on this beautiful horse!  And afterward we got his lovely photo of Chris with her!


They had a great pastor marry them and lots of friends and family in attendance.  All this took place at the home of one of Sarah's aunt and uncles.  It is the farm on which her mom grew up! 

Chris and Sarah with their best man and his family!

Chris & Sarah with his siblings, parents and grand-parents.  (Kierra is missing from the photo - she was very ill and went to lay down and slept for several hours.)

family farm

It's safe to say that we are farming together.  This farm with it's 1000 acres and 400 bovine creatures roaming about is a little large to do it without extra help.  The good thing is that we do celebrate and work together.

Yesterday we had a birthday at the farm which means we eat supper together and share cards and gifts. 

After supper we went off to work. 

Dave started to mix the night's feed for the cows with the help of Logan and Ava.

Dayna and Cadence feed the calves. Currently there are 25 calves in individual pens who all get milk, grain and then some water!

Henry gets started cleaning out some calf pens.

Kierra has the privilege of moving that manure to the pile!

Isn't it great that everyone has jobs to do?  We sure aren't bored.  We are also enjoying food from our garden now - beans and zucchini which were part of the birthday supper.  Our youngest two and the oldest three grandkids are all getting good at ending and snapping green beans!  Think of all the things they can write on their resumes!

The swimming hole!

One block over there is a spot where we have seen people near a nice looking bunch of water.  The heat has been enough that we decided we would check it out. 

The drive to get this far is just a bit humpy and bumpy - not good for a car but for the farm truck it was ok.  And then we walk in since there is another car there too.

Looks pretty good, wouldn't ya say?  Henry decides it is worth cooling off in!  There is no gradual going in though and Henry enjoys the spot closer to the edge.  Dayna and I did manage to swim across to the other side - on the right of the photo below but it's pretty rocky and not as nice as the stoney beach in the foreground.

This is definitely a spot we will be visiting a lot over the summer!!

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Birthday, Canada!!

Isn't it fun that we get to celebrate the birthday of our country?  And that we want to?  Imagine the people in countless other countries around our world and the fact that they can't celebrate and don't want to because of oppression and persecution.  We are so very blessed and it's a bonus to enjoy one of many celebrations across our great nation. 

Last night, Henry, Kierra, Dayna and I were able to head down to Vita to enjoy some rodeo activity.  There is no lack of horse activity in this province and our girls are always trying to get us to go somewhere.  So we watched some fun stuff at this gymkhana and here's one photo of the 'rope and tarp' part of the competition that the contestants enjoy! This is a young girl pulling her dad on the tarp - to the other end and then around the barrel. 

Later in the evening, like 11pm when it is finally dark enough we are treated to some fireworks. We are grateful for people here who graciously let us into their friendship circles without making us feel intrusive as we sit to enjoy the spectacular display.   This is the first time in ages I have tried to capture the fireworks with my camera and it was great!  Enjoy our ooos and aaaaws with us!!

It was a spectacular display in the dark night sky!