On Knitting and Campfires

I am positively terrible at taking my own photo either with a self timer or one handed. But I've done my best. I knit myself a hat. It's a bit too small, but I think it will work running to and from the car this winter and when it's a bit chilly around the campfire this summer. 

On my needles now is a scarf that I will loop together with kitchener stitch to make a cowl. This is the third attempt to make a cowl. The first two ended being rewound into a ball. The problem was me, not the patterns. The cowl is also for the summer for the above mentioned chilly nights. I have a pair of fingerless gloves that I test knitted and those too will come with me to the fire.

Do I plan on sitting around a lot of campfires? Yes. Often during the summer we are "Upta" camp or camping (tenting) and I find that the summer night can be quite chilly sometimes. More than once I have wished for something more to wear while we enjoyed the flames.

I supposed if we did most of our camping during the hottest months it would be a problem for me, but we don't do that. My husband doesn't enjoy crowds or tourists so we try to camp when most people aren't camping as heavily. Like last year when we went camping in September on the coast. This summer we have four trips already planned and hope to camp even more than that! 

We will be making our campfire in New Hampshire twice. Once at Cascade and once at Crawford Notch, then closer to home we will return to Mount Blue State Park and to the coast to Searsport. We also hope to try out a campground run by one of the families of the daycare called Silverlake.

I promise that this year I will stay away from the axe. (if you have a weak tummy, don't look)

Fishing

Papa has taken him fishing a couple of times already this year. But, this is the first time I was able to go and take photos. Stomper's concentration is still a little lacking, but he enjoys the togetherness. Papa will try and take him brook fishing if he can find a brook that isn't too full of thorns and brambles. Papa likes to walk the brook as he fishes. I think Stomper would enjoy fishing like that, he loves to be on the move.

This year Stomper has his own fishing pole. He is slowly learning how to cast, but his favorite part is to reel in the line as fast as he can! 

Puddle

Had to have the "talk" with the boy. No, not the one about the "birds and bees", but the one from Uncle Ben's childhood.

"Stomper, we don't drink out of puddles."

"Why?"

"Well, when your Uncle Ben was a little boy he was very sick, he had a bug inside him."

"Why?"

"He drank out of puddles that the dog had peed and pooped in."

"Why?"

"He wanted to."

"Me want to."

"You may go in the puddle. You may not put your nose and mouth in the puddle. Do you understand?"

"Stand, Mommy."

"Ok, go play."

Yes, one winter my brother had a parasite. My Mom took him to the doctor because he had been pooping, a lot. The doctor ran a test and said, "Your son has a parasite that comes from drinking dirty water. Has he been drinking dirty water?" My Mom, not knowing the whole story said, "No."

Later my Mom learned that my brother had been dunking snowballs in a puddle down the hill from the dogs run and then sucking out the water. He reasoned, logically, that the snowball acted like a filter. So, therefore, he was not drinking out of a puddle.

Around here we don't eat snow or drink out of puddles.

But stomping in them, rolling in them, and dunking your head in them, that's ok!

PayPal Button

Last night I added a PayPal button to the left hand side of the blog post. Here is a rundown of how purchasing a bird from us works.

1. Deposit
We cannot guarantee that we won't run out of birds. Last year we ran out of turkeys, we could have sold a lot more than we raised. With that in mind if you want a bird, your best chance to ensure that you get one is to put a deposit down, today.

2. Shipping
We don't ship. If you live local and are willing to come fetch your bird, then go ahead and put your deposit down.

3. Poultry Types
We sell two types of birds: Turkeys and Broiler Chickens. Broiler Chickens are fat balls of feathers and muscle. We are Free Ranging them for half their life so the leg meat will be a little larger this year than last year. The turkeys we raise are Mammoth Bronze and because we Free Range/Pasture them for the bulk of their life they will have equal amounts of dark and white meat.

4. Ready Dates
The Broiler Chickens will be ready mid to late June. It all depends on when my husband has time to process them. We will be doing a second batch of Broiler Chickens to be ready closer to fall so if you miss out this first time you will have a second chance. The turkeys will be ready before Thanksgiving. We will call you when we know an exact day and when you can pick them up.

5. Pricing

• Broiler Chickens (before deposit) are a flat rate of $15, unless it is larger than 6lbs and then it is $3/per pound
• Turkeys (before deposit) are $3/per pound. Last year the turkeys ranged from 14-22lbs (maybe some were  a little heavier too). When you come pick up your turkey, you also may choose which one you take home.
• The deposit amount is credited to you when you pick up your bird. So for a Broiler Chicken on pick up day your bird will cost you $5 (or more if your bird is huge) if you have put down a $10 deposit.

6. Taste

We did a taste test during our open house in March. I was nervous about it, what if our chicken didn't taste better? I will have a whole blog post dedicated to that experiment by the end of May 2014.

My Eczema Relief

I have allergies. All sorts of environmental allergies. Most of the time I don't notice them, accept when I do and I can't breathe. Thankfully there are medications I can take so that I can breathe every day just like the average person. Unfortunately allergies and asthma are often joined with eczema, which I also have.

My eczema is strange. It is only on two fingers of my right hand: the pointer and the ring finger. That's it. Do you know how much you use your pointer finger for? A lot. My finger will crack, peel, bleed, and itch like a demon. I have a steroid cream I can use, but I don't like using it around my kids. The steroid cream strips my finger of skin and it sometimes takes a long time for my skin to grow back. I tried lotions, but they made my eczema weap. I tried coconut oil, but it would only work for a short time and it was so greasy. I was pretty miserable.

A few months ago my loving MIL bought each of her daughters a little surprise gift package from Julie of Stitch Pray Love. Lotions and lip balms came right to our door. My MIL told me that people have had amazing results with Julies lotions. I was skeptical, but desperate. I tried it, and to my delight my eczema didn't weep. In fact it got better and eventually healed! Imagine my delight!

Recently I ran out and I had to buy some more (of course I was also foolish during this time and put my hands in soapy dishwasher which made my eczema freak out). I was several days with out a lotion stick (my fault not Julies) and I was becoming miserable. Then the mail came with my order. I quickly ripped open the package and put it on. 

In hours my skin was already feeling better. Hours! 

If you were like me and are searching for some miracle, natural cure for your eczema, check out Julie's shop. You won't be disappointed.

6AM

These are the images I wanted to have accompany my last blog post, but the day I wrote the post it was cloudy and yucky. The next day, the day of these images the sun was perfect. When I getup and do chores, it is my favorite part of the morning. The sun is so warm, the air so clean, and all the poultry so happy to greet the morning. 

If you are wondering how our flocks are doing, they are growing. We have twelve new chicks in the kitchen. The library hatched chicks for the second year and I told the librarian that we were interested in taking a few. She called me and asked if I'd take all twelve. They camp from a farm, laid naturally, and kept in an incubator. My Dad read that we have a 50/50 chance of them being roosters. If they are roosters then they will probably end up in the crock pot. I'm hoping that at least half are layers, they are going to be so pretty. 

The ducklings are growing so fast! They are huge! The broilers are nearing the end of their growth. It looks like we won't get a chance to get this batch outside. Hopefully the next batch will go out. We have fences to move and poles to place. And turkeys are coming next month! The chickens in the photo are the "Sixers" they are so fast! We are looking forward to putting all of our chickens together in a month. Our flock will be huge then!

Morning

I am not a morning person. I am far from a morning person. I would much rather sleep until 10 and stay up until 2 in the morning, than get up with the sun. When I was younger if I had to get up early in the morning I would stay up instead of going to sleep so that I wouldn't sleep in past my alarm. When we were first married and had no children my husband worked nights. It was pretty perfect for me. I could get involved with a game, a movie, tv series, or knitting and not be disturbed. Then I'd pass out in bed and he'd join me in a few hours and we would get up and have breakfast together. It was pretty perfect.

Now I have children. Children who get up with the sun and are happy to see it. To this night person it's pretty disgusting. I peek in his room and her crib and they are all smiles. She laughs and giggles and talks to me when I poke my head over the side of her crib. He greets me with "Good Morning Mommy!" and hops out of bed ready to go. 

It would make me grumpy to see them that energetic that early. What I'd like to see is sleepy, groggy, cuddly children first thing in the morning, not joyous, bouncy kangaroos. So then I'd feed them, feed me, snag a quick shower and then by that time I'd be happy. In the meantime we would have a pretty horrible morning. It was not a good pattern to be stuck in.

I knew that something had to give. Then Ira (a pastor at my church) started preaching about love and how we should love people as they need to be loved, not how we want to love. I took it a little further and decided that instead of trying to make my children fit into my morning, I needed to fit into theirs. I needed to love them as they needed to be loved, mother them as they needed to be mothered, not try and make them conform to my mothering ideals.

At the same time a fellow blogger spoke about how on the mornings she got up before her children and read her bible she had a much better day. They all had better days.

And I found Good Morning Girls, which had a free Easter Bible Study.

And then my Mom went away for a week leaving me in charge of daycare, which meant I had to get up.

I could say one thing led to another, but really it was God guiding me to a solution to our grumpy days.

I now get up at 5:30 in the morning.

Yes, this night owl purposely gets up at 5:30 in the morning. I found that if I wait until 6:00 the baby is up and ready for the day. If I leave the room at 5:30 for some reason she will sleep until 6:30 (go figure). I get up, grumping at the distance sliver of a sun, and take my shower. Then I open my bible and remember that first and foremost God loves me. God loves me despite how awful I can be and I'm His child. If He can love me when I don't deserve it, than I can overlook my son's foolish three-year-old antics.

I would like to say that I am always successful; that every day I get up at the right time, take a shower, and read my bible before they get up. But, I'm not. I only managed to get up once this week at 5:30 (today-Thursday) and it has been an awesome day. A day full of strife, stress, and an exhausted three year old. But today I also read about how God ripped the veil top to bottom to signify that we could access Him whenever we need Him, and it is that love that in turn helped me to love him when he was trying to fill the shopping cart with Hamburger Helper.

I would also like to say that I completed the month long study on time and with the group, but I didn't. I haven't even finished the second week. I am not discouraged by this "failure", because change is a process.

My challenge to you is this: take a hard look on your life. Is there someone that you've been trying to love the way you want to love and it hasn't been going so well? Can you instead love them as they need to be loved?