Catch Up

So here we are.  We have failed at the blog thing, but the persistence of family members has squeezed another post out of me.  For those who complain... where is your blog?  But I digress.  This is more or less family history, journal, and generic letter writing all in one. 

So here are some pictures and explanations.

This is an ingenious mouse trap we began using a few weeks back. Simple and effective. Slather the can with peanut butter, put a board angles up to the bucket edge and sit and watch the mice climb out to the peanut butter like its a drug they cant resist. The can is balances and spins on the wire, the can spins as the mice start putting weight on it and the mice fall into the water and drown.  I was standing 5 feet away when one raced up to the peanut butter and fell in. Henry got a pair of binoculars for his birthday and one night we sat in the house watching from the window as 4 mice met their demise. Great entertainment.

Porter Wray making funny faces.

Calvin just hanging out.

This is my dumpster bear and antlers.  I need help from my brother Tim to polish my story but....Long story short. There was this bear in a dumpster along with some antlers.  I might have watched the bear and antlers go into the dumpster, but when no one was looking....I confronted my fears and battled the dumpster to release it's hold on the antlers, I then used the antlers to fight the bear until it succumbed to injuries and was lifted free from the dumpster.

It was soaking wet and a mangy mess.   But I thought to myself, bears get wet all the time fishing and such, the fur should survive some water and unknown gooey substances.  With careful attention and skill I threw it in the back of my car and took my spoils home.  It spent 2 weeks on a picnic table drying and working it's magic on Lisa. What started as "you wont bring that thing into my house" came around to letting me put it in the basement in the new movie room. But as movie rooms go, it was dark and didn't fit the décor.  With careful scheming and persistence, much like those family members persistent in getting me to post here on the blog, I won Lisa over and she allowed me to hang my dumpster bear on the wall along with the antlers used to rescue it.      

I got about 10 feet from a wild hare this last week slowly sneaking.  Not sure if it is truly albino or a late changer.

The neighbor's turkeys have gone wild for the summer, we currently have 3 female turkeys hanging around with about 10 baby turkeys.  I use them for obedience drills with Chevron. I send him after the turkeys and then call him to stop before he reaches them.  Takes a lot of discipline to stop a few feet before the turkeys and return without the prize. But this is necessary discipline or he becomes a unfunded liability.  

Elizabeth participated in a pirate play at school. She makes a good pirate!

The kids have been taking swimming lessons 4 days a week for the last 3 weeks. Its part of their home school this summer and a good skill I think every kid should learn.

I turned 32 recently, Porter turned 3, and tomorrow Calvin turns 1. Porter is such a fun kid, he laughs at everything and has just enough spunk and courage to make him dangerous.

Other updates..... We are in the process of selling our other house down the street. We have passed all the inspections and just waiting on the buyers financing and closing next month.  We have been blessed and if the sale goes as planned, we should be able to pay off our last remaining debt, the mortgage, and become debt free.

I plan on working much less overtime at work and enjoying more time off with the family.

We are considering buying a Harvest Right home freeze dryer... if anyone has used one and can give us advice please let us know.  

Our friends R & L have moved out of the apartment above our garage and into their new house.  We spent the last week cleaning and painting the apartment for our new renter who moves in this coming Friday.

The pigs are about 100 lbs each now and still growing. Chickens are still giving us about 12 eggs a day, and the raspberries seem to have survived the transplanting and new shoots are coming up all over. In a few years we should have a real nice raspberry patch. 

If anyone wants to ship us some blackberry roots I will pay the shipping (hint hint Tim)  I hear you just dig them up and wrap them in wet news paper and stick them in a cooler or wax box.

Well that's it for now.

Update

So there are many reason we have not been updating the blog frequently. Among them were a computer failure, password loss, 5 kids, laziness, and laziness.  Did I mention laziness?

 

We are still alive.  Still in Alaska. Still working.  "Chevron" is getting old but still gets around.

 

 

I can't complain, at times I get paid to ride around playing in the mud and dirt.

 

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So we have been working on our finances, budgeting, and working our way out of debt.  I listen to the Dave Ramsey Show frequently and as a family we are working towards being debt free.  Sometimes it means forgoing some unnecessary wants like eating out, or eating "mild cheddar" instead of "sharp cheddar" (family joke: sharp cheddar is 40% more expensive at the local store), store bought bread and tortillas (Lisa makes all our bread and tortillas as home).  Lisa really got into saving money one day and allowed me to cut her hair to save $50.  Proof below. 
For the majority of society talking about Debt and Financial Health is an off-limits topic, something you don't talk about.  As a child I remember my parents having a family debt free party.  They had survived the loss of a home to fire and built a new home and struggled to the point they became debt free.  Those choices they made enabled them to make decisions best for the family and us kids rather than being tied to a job to support a debt.  Debt becomes a cancer when left unchecked and makes you a slave to it.  We are happy to report that we have paid off all debts but our home mortgage.  We are in the process of selling our first home (the one we built while living in a pop-up trailer in the garage) which will go toward paying off our mortgage on our new home.  Although it has been tough at times, we have been blessed beyond measure.      

Please don't think the next few pictures and paragraphs are a result of our frugal penny pinching practices.  This was an experiment for fun and a test run for an emergency preparedness fair.

 Last week we made Wheat Meat.  The process takes wheat and separates the wheat into 3 parts, the bran, starch, and wheat gluten protein.  We took about 18 cups of wheat flour we ground using hard white wheat, added water until it formed a dough.  Then rinsed the dough in a 5 gallon bucket of water until the bran fell out and the starch rinsed into the water.

We then formed, sliced, and boiled the wheat protein in beef broth.  Then we sliced it and added fajita spices and fried it up in a skillet.  What you end up with is a tofu-like wheat gluten protein meat.  My cost analysis makes it about 30 cents a pound (not counting labor). If you believe the internet, the wheat meat contains almost twice the protein the same amount of chicken or beef steak contains.  Several co-workers tried it and agreed it was not just edible but a delicious alternative to meat.  They then all conspired to come to my house when the zombie apocalypse occurs :)

Yes, Lisa's home made tortillas. Topped with a little Greek yogurt and cucumber pico.

We recently played my favorite board game - Monopoly -      I went to jail 10 times during the game and only passed Go 3 times.   I still won.

We got ourselves a couple of pigs again this summer. Should be fun. We were a little late for the kids getting into 4H for the State Fair. So these 2 pigs will will likely be filling our freezer come September or October.

 

 

Well that's is for now.   Lisa will hopefully post again soon with pictures of the kids.

Sick House

News from our house this week:

Daddy bought us a new computer, one that doesn't have to be hooked up with a cord to the router.  One that doesn't have to be inside the dark closet.

One that doesn't get too hot unless there's a cookie rack underneath it.

So this week Mommy is finally back at the "blogging" thing again.  

 

 In other news, this kid is the only child that doesn't have "hand, foot, and mouth disease"

The other four are not allowed to touch him.... for now. 

The worst part of the virus is that there's nothing to stop the spread of blisters on hands, feet or in their mouth.  They are surviving on water, egg nog, popsicles, and ramen soup.  I think the combination of sickness and diet win me the Mom of the Year award for sure!!

 

 This guy keeps growing! 

I am sure he's grown a few inches every night this past week.

He sleeps like no bodies business.

He may also be on the list of "healthy" persons but I'm just waiting for it to appear since he loves to drink from everyone else's cups. 

 

 

This one has it the worst.  It's hard explaining to a child that you love them but don't want to touch them!?!  I thought it was a great idea to "quarantine" them to the couch while I spent the day scrubbing everything in the house.  (toys, walls, toilets, sheets, pillows, windows, door nobs, handles, etc.)  Cleanest my house has been in a long time... Maybe that's part of the problem....

Anyway, after finishing all that cleaning, I realized I would be doing it all over again after they got better. 

Notice Porter wants nothing to do with them, he subconsciously knows he's not sick yet.

Also included in the photo is our "old" computer...cookies rack and all.

On a positive note, I taught Joel how to play cribbage.  He thinks half the time I am making up rules, so I am forced to call the cribbage expert, i.e. "Mom and Dad" to settle any disputes. 

I learned to play in school, 7th grade.  Best math class ever!  And our family plays quite a lot.  I think most of my siblings play with their spouses every night.  I am one excited lady.  Love playing games.

And this month begins our family budgeting. I have tried to utilize coupons but not having a printer kind of put a damper on that.  All of my shopping for kids is done at thrift stores, and yet we find ways to spend lots and lots of money each month.  

I have a lot of learning to do.

 

Hope you are all having a wonderful week.  We love and miss you all! 

Germy hugs and kisses coming your way.

Sorry for the Delay

Well we have not been the best "bloggers" this last month. I was out of town for a week and things just fell apart including some computer issues, a flooding dishwasher, and the usual life of a family with 5 tornado children. To catch-you-up here are some picture.
Each of the Kids got a pumpkin to carve, they got to design it on the table first then carve it themselves.

And below are the finished products, with a little help from Mommy.

 L finally figured out a good recipe for making home-made flour tortillas. She made me some the first night she figured it out and I had to suddenly leave for work and took diner with me. Later that night I came home and she asked me how the tortillas were, I replied they tasted fine wondering if there was something wrong. I ate them not even knowing they were home-made. Though some wives might take offense to that, she took it as a sign she could finally make home-made tortillas as good as the store bought packs.   

Below are 2 pictures taken on Henry's nature walk around reflections lake. Home school is a great way to get out and do stuff in the name of educations.  I saved these photos upside down but try as I might, every time I tried to upload them to the blog, the blog automatically turned then right side up again.   Oh well.  

Porter decided to twist his napkin around his finger one night and created a perfect rose. He then brought it to Mommy and gave her a flower.

Sometimes the home school Gym class goes to the local skate park and the kids run up and down the ramps and jumps. 

 Calvin in growing fast. He just starting teething and becoming cranky, otherwise he has been the easiest and calmest baby yet. 

 Another Home School Activity at the Fire Department. Unfortunately they came home telling me how brave the firefighters were and how tough they were and we had to set a few things straight.    

 Halloween Costumes, Lydia wanted to be Tinker-Bell and Porter decided to be an Elephant.  

 Henry decided to be Pater Pan.

 We spent a day doing K-9 Training and certifications at my house. Some of the guys are working undercover so we had to photo shop their faces out with similar looking celebrities.

Found some boat plans online (see spirainternational.com  the 24' Key Largo with a 40 HP 4 stroke is what I am leaning towards). Thinking about building a boat this winter. I have also been thinking about an epic-multi-leg-float-trip the whole length of the Yukon River and then weather permitting make the 120 mile charge across the bay to Nome. Its about 2300 miles and I would likely do it in stages over the course of a couple summers. They suggest the whole trip could take 90 days in a canoe, but that could be shortened by using the motor to cross several of the larger lakes and sections with a current speed of less then 3 MPH. Any takers?