It's been lovely weather...

...for hanging clothes out on the line! I also spent a while in the garden, clearing off the stubble and putting it in a big pile to burn on a less windy day. (I had to put a couple old tires on top of the pile to make sure they stayed put.)

The guys were busy in the shop all day (except Dad did go over and load another load of hay to be sold). Jacob has his pickup fixed now (with some help from Andrew and maybe Dad?)! It is really nice and Jacob likes the fact that it is loud......a guy thing. :) Andrew fixed the problem on his Stratus, so I get to test-drive it again tomorrow. He said they put my car in the shop today!!!!! I don't think I said that Andrew bought a white truck last Friday, so Dad will be using that to pull his cleaner with while Andrew uses Dad's semi to pull his larger rig. :) It's so nice that we can all work together like this to make things work!

Speaking of tomorrow though... I'm excited as I'll be starting a new part-time job, babysitting at least 1 day a week for a family who live about 12 miles NW of us. They have 2 young girls and I can hardly wait to spend time with them! The baby is just 11 weeks old. :) (Thanks so much, Kristi and Stacey for the referral!)

In a couple days, Dad and Andrew will start in on the grain-cleaning season, which means we won't be seeing much of them for the next 3 or so weeks! They'll come home late at night, dusty, hoarse and exhausted, but with nice checks in their billfolds. Jacob will be in charge of taking care of the cattle while they're gone. If you would pray for safety and for all to go well during this very busy season, that would be wonderful!

Meanwhile, Mom and I will be planning our garden while enjoying the feel of a cool breeze coming in the open windows and the sound of geese honking their cheery greetings to the countryside.

"Thank you, Lord, for Spring!" :)

It opened!

...and it smells so sweet! To be honest, I didn't keep very good track of which dwarf fruit tree was which when I transplanted them out of the greenhouse last Fall, so it will be a surprise fruit. :) Time will tell....

This afternoon/evening, I waxed my Colby cheese.

That's the funniest kind of painting I've ever done!

I sure wonder how the cheese will TASTE! Time will tell.....

As the Endorsing Convention was canceled due to a blizzard on its way, our company did not come and we spent the day working on taxes and paperwork.

I may have found the car I'd like to buy (on BisMan).... Andrew called the owner and spoke for the car, so it will either be mine (if I like it when I "Meet" it) or he will fix it up and resell it. Time will tell...

Our life is so exciting!

"Thank you Lord for interesting bends in our road each day!"

Blizzard warnings again are in the air...

I wonder if anything will come of them?

I drove to Linton this morning to get Carol's (from FSA) signature on my calf check, then from there, I drove to Napoleon and paid off my operating loan with the a big portion of the money. It feels good to be able to pay your bills, doesn't it? :)

I put gas in Mom's vehicle and bought stamps at the post office, then realized that things had gone so well (I'd allotted plenty of time for possible bad roads) that I had a couple hours to spare before I needed to be working at the nursing home, so I drove home (15 miles) for lunch with my family. They were in the middle of a project when I arrived! They were reupholstering the dining room chairs and the 2 kitchen stools. They look so nice now!!!

Well, I just arrived home a little while ago, showered, and am very much ready to go to sleep, so I shall again say "Good night". We're getting company tomorrow, so Mom and I'll be getting up early to spend some time in the kitchen....

A picture post!

I took the time to upload my pictures tonight and thought I'd share a few of them with you all...

Here is the boxful of cake divider-plates that my neighbor brought over and that I bought from her:

Brother Andrew, cleaning off the trailer he used to haul a few round hay bales home.

This is the big kettle (it holds 4 gallons) I ordered when I decided to experiment with making hard cheeses:

My not-so-fancy but very practical, use-what-you-have cheese-press: :)

....and the resulting 2 chunks of cheese: NOTE: I did not wish to add any artificial coloring to the cheese, so that is why my Colby cheese is cream colored! The cheese dries on these mats for several days, then it gets dipped in hot cheese-wax and put away in cold storage. It still needs to be flipped over every day for a while...

This last picture is of the cake I made per request of one of my coworkers. Her granddaughter, Kaitlyn, died last year on this day in a car accident (slippery roads). My coworker was having a special memory-birthday party for her this evening, so I took this cake to her at work this afternoon:

That's all for now.

I just want to say a huge "PRAISE THE LORD" for the wonderful price we got on the calves we sold today! This will help so much..................

Good night everyone.~

Colby cheese~

I attempted to make Colby cheese for the first time today!!! :) Now we just need to wait 6 months to know if it turned out well or not! Has anyone who's reading this ever made hard cheeses before? How did they turn out for you? What did you use for a cheese-press? I'll share a picture with you of my "System" when I load my pictures someday soon.

I also cleaned out my aquarium thoroughly (even boiled some of the rocks that had black fuzzies growing on them and soaked my bridge and fake plants in very hot water). I also baked and crumb-coated a cake that I'll decorate Thursday morning and take to my coworker who asked me to make it.

Dad and Andrew were busy in the shop most of the day and also fixed some fence. Mom and Jacob worked on schoolwork and tax work; laundry and dishes. Jacob was out in the shop all morning too.

Please pray for safety for us all tomorrow morning/afternoon, as we'll be sorting some calves and loading/hauling them to the salesbarn to sell on Thursday! Thank you.~

"My" child....

Let me tell you a bit about him:


...and here's Dinesh's picture:

I have prayed about sponsoring a child for some time and it is now finally official! :) My family (my parents, really) sponsored a little girl many years ago through Compassion International. Her name was Tabita and we wrote her letters and heard from her for about 10 years time. We were blessed by her prayers and it was such a wonderful feeling to know that, because of our help, a little girl in Indonesia was receiving an education; a good meal every day; clothing; medical care if needed; and most importantly, she was being taught about the Lord and we rejoiced when she talked about her love of Him! We still pray for her when she comes to mind.

I am now very much looking forward to getting to know this young lad in India through the years and praying for him as he grows in the Lord. I plan to write my first letter to him tomorrow. :)

We have sent most of our tithe money to Gospel For Asia for years, and really believe in the work they're doing there. "Bridge Of Hope" is a division of Gospel For Asia, bringing needy children together with sponsors who want to help them... I look forward to the years ahead, knowing that I'm helping a little boy in Chhattisgarh to grow big and strong. Who knows, he may one day be a missionary and we can help support him together? :)


I baked bread today and made mozzarella cheese...
Mother had 2 clients come out this morning and, as their sessions were pretty lengthy, we invited them to join us for lunch too, which they did happily. :)

This next picture is for all the farmers out there: How would you like to have this seat to sit on as you go about your chores?

(Thankfully, it is a lot more drivable now that Dad fixed it!)

Here are our two sleepy heads in their favorite spot in the whole wide world at this time of year----right behind the wood stove in the shop!

Brother Andrew, searching for the perfect diagram...

This is Andrew's most recent project:

Mother likes this car so much, she's talking about buying it from him for summer driving...... :)

Andrew replaced the wiring-harness (I think that's what it was called?) on this car for a customer/friend recently:

OH, and here's one last picture that I found on my camera when I uploaded my pictures:

This is the collage I put together from last years' events.... Enjoy~

PS. Does anyone recognize the man Andrew's standing by in the far left, middle photo?

The grain cleaners are home!

After one more full, dusty day, the guys returned this evening triumphant. :) Next job on the list: Reassemble grain cleaners!

Mother and I had a very productive day at home, cooking and cleaning. We actually did more intensive cleaning than usual and got some messy areas put into a more orderly array of, well, things. We even had a few minutes to play duets on the piano while waiting for Dad to feed the cows! I had done the other chores earlier while Mom finished washing up the kettles and pans we'd used in our cooking/baking, but I don't feel comfortable feeding bales to the cows ( and Mom didn't want to either), so Dad hopped in the tractor right away when they got home at 7:30.

We are very much ready for a peaceful day spent here at home before another busy week gets here. May your weekend be blessed.~

PS. Oh, I was going to share this with you all too.... :)

Now wouldn't THAT be nice???

Hopefully we have enough cleaners now!

Dad and Jacob went to purchase and bring home another grain-cleaning unit East of Jamestown this morning. Dad will use this trailer now for his cleaner and move some cleaners around to make an altogether better unit...

Mother cleaned the house and, in the process, went through some boxes of sewing items from our neighbor that's been sitting in her room for a while.

Andrew stayed home and worked on his pickup.

I went over to our neighbors' house and babysat 2 of their children again so the others could go to Bismarck and get Michael's sling/splint off his arm finally. The remaining 3 of us read books; watched Popeye; played with toys and made a "Tent" with one of Amelia's blankets, oh, and cooked and ate. :)

Tomorrow, Mother, Andrew and I will be attending a meeting on delegate training. Should be interesting! I found the following cartoon video a few days ago and thought it was well worth sharing with you all:


Let's be wise, not foolish.................... Take a stand for truth!

The project I said I'd tell you about...

You may (or may not!) remember that I wrote in an earlier post about how I worked on a project while Mother was still in Canada, but that I didn't want to tell you about it until she saw it? Well, she found it (the next morning after she got home)---and was she surprised!

The project:
The room (pictured below) used to be another small bathroom, but when Mother was so ill, our guys took the sink, small tub and toilet out so as to be able to fit the nice, big Whirlpool tub in for Mom to soak in as needed. Well, at that time, we had also peeled off most of the old, falling off wallpaper in there. We never got around to painting it though (and my mom probably wouldn't have been able to handle the paint fumes back then anyway).

This little room has proven very useful to many of us in times of sickness or in cases of severely aching muscles! It was a complete eye-sore however.

Want to SEE? Look below:


At this point, Jacob and I'd already put some plastic up to protect the tub... Yuck! Just look at those walls.

The first step was to wash off the rest of the old wallpaper and spots of moldy, mildewy stuff. Then, that had to dry a while. I also put some spackling in the cracks and small holes in the wall. Eventually, I was able to paint on the "Morning Dew blue" and "Nutmeg pink". :)

I took this pictures while the paint was still wet that night:
As you can see, there is some old, water-proof paneling in the bathroom too which still needs some help. I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I left it for the time being....

The room is so small that it was hard to get a decent picture!
The bathroom is by no means picture-perfect, but it is a lot better now, if I do say so myself. ;)

This has been a nice, quite day. Dad and Andrew were gone from 5:00Am 'til 8:00PM, driving to Aberdeen, South Dakota and then to St. Cloud, Minnesota for car parts. They were pretty tired tonight!

Jacob fed the cows both times today and helped Mom with cleaning the house.

I helped with cleaning some too, and cooking, and then this afternoon, I went over to our neighbors' house to babysit one of the twins while Kristi took her other son to the Dr. to have his broken arm examined. Poor little man! He's quite the trooper though and didn't seem to let his arm slow him down too much! I had fun with James (after he woke up from his nap, that is) and was surprised by how much he talks already, as I hadn't been over there in a while.... (We enjoyed reading your Holiday letter very much, Kristi! You are a very creative writer. :) )

And that, was our day. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

* PS. Just a friendly reminder to my friends AND family that the next JBS constitutional lesson/meeting is tomorrow evening at 7:00. *

Mother is home...

...safe and sound. She arrived at about 9:30 this evening. We looked at pictures from her trip and then looked at all her pretty Canadian money. :) She had a wonderful time and is glad to be home too!

The rest of us worked on special projects today. I don't want to write about mine yet, as I haven't shown it to Mother yet. I'm waiting for her to find it on her own....

The guys were happy tonight because they were able to save about $500 by fixing something on the 9030 tractor themselves. They had asked the local machinery shop to get our tractor in to be fixed about 2 months ago, but they've been so busy that they've not been able to do it yet... In the meantime, we've gotten our shop heated, so the guys fixed the tractor on their own, thereby saving all the money they would have spent to have it repaired in the Kintyre shop.

It's been a good day! Be looking for project pictures in the near future----whenever Mom discovers what "It" is. :)

Guess what we did on this lovely day?

....You still have time to guess, as I'll post some older pictures first. :)

Did you know that goats love eating banana peelings? Well, they do---amongst other things...

Here are the promised pictures of our pretty-much-finished shop project:

We're really enjoying being able to use the small side-door the guys put in instead of having to open the big door for everything....

This afternoon, while playing a few games of pool, we put a tea-kettle on the wood burner and made ourselves some nice, steamy hot chocolate. :) The guys and I were saying that we've probably spent more time in the shop this last week than we have in the house! It's such a good feeling to have such a nice, bright and warm place for the guys to work in all Winter!!!

I didn't take a picture of the shop today, (after the guys worked in there all day yesterday) but it looks more organized than in the above picture, with things put back in their places.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alright, have you guessed yet what we did today for fun----and exercise?

Here's a pretty easy hint:

Yes-----we went ice skating/hockey playing, up in the North pasture!

First, we had to push a little snow around. It wasn't too bad really.

Dad joined us younger people on the ice....

We found out that we're a bit on the rusty side of things!

We also found out that the little black puck can really sail far on a smooth surface!

"Get it, brother!"

We all landed on the ice at least once (and some of us a bit more than that), although in the picture below, Andrew was just resting his ankles....

That's me:

The boys..... Our "Goal" was the small opening between the snow piles (where Jacob is standing.)

We have plans for getting an ice rink set up here at home, but have been too busy with the shop project to work on that project. Plus, it hasn't really been all that cold.....thankfully!

We talked to Mom again a little bit this evening and it sounds like she's having a really great time there. Hopefully she'll be ready to come home when the time comes to leave. :)

At Calgary...

Mother is now in Calgary, Alberta Canada. She said her flights went very well, the one plane being very crowded and the next very empty. She's trying to adjust to using Canadian money currently and said the coins were a little confusing... I hope her Canadian bed is soft and comfortable tonight. :) Tomorrow the class starts, so Mom is very excited---now that the plane ride is over with, for the time being.....

Here at home, Dad went "Up North" this morning and loaded a load of hay that he sold down South again. He and the boys worked in the shop the rest of the day, except for when Jacob came in and helped cut up some apples and set the table.....

Andrew's very happy because he was able to get his Sheriff car indoors and he's started tearing it apart already. Dad and Jacob moved the pool-table over to its permanent location and got it leveled out (and played a few games too, so I hear...).

Meanwhile in the house, I was very busy cleaning and cooking. I worked quite a while on cleaning the laundry room and pantry, as they were very out of sorts! For supper, I made chicken enchiladas (with freshly made tortilla shells), apple raisin salad, and fruit pizza. Yummy! Want to drop in and have a bite? I made a big pan full.... ;)

It's all done--mostly!

This morning, we all worked together to finish painting the inside of the shop. Mom took several pictures, but I think her camera may still be out in the shop? At any rate, I don't have it here, so don't have pictures to share yet...

The guys installed the small door this afternoon. Now they just need to insulate the big door and then they should be toasty warm in there all Winter! :) The dogs really enjoy being in the shop now also and cozy up by the wood burner pretty easily. What a dream come true this is for the guys---to be able to work out in the shop during the cold months (and not to freeze while out there) while they have spare time on their hands. All the warmer months are so full of farming activities that they don't really have time for special shop projects. It will be fun to see what they all do out there this Winter!

Mother and Jacob went to town this afternoon (Jacob drove :) ), as Mom needed some cash for her journey and also wanted to put up fliers all over town about the 2nd "Constitutional" meeting that will be held in Napoleon on December 17th (at 7:00PM, FYI at Ray's Cabinet shop---using the side door, because if you come in the front door, you'll run into his entertainment center!) Everyone is most welcome to come join us there!!! Please come! Our friend, Mr. Stevens will be presenting the important and interesting information....... There will also be a meeting in Bismarck that my Mom has helped set up sometime in the beginning of January, so let us know if you'd be interested in coming to that one and one of us will get you more specific details.

While the Mom and Jacob were gone, I spent quite a bit of time cutting up old, stained clothes for shop rags. The guys are constantly going through rags out there, using them to clean up oily and greasy parts and pieces----and hands....... I cut up 3 bags full, so that should last them a while!

The rest of the afternoon/evening was mainly spent in getting Mother packed up and ready to leave early in the morning. She will be flying to Canada to take a BT health class that she's wanted to take for 4 years already. She's pretty excited (about the class) AND nervous about flying by herself out of the country to a place where she knows nobody but the teacher, so prayers for safe travels and pleasant company would be greatly appreciated I'm sure!!! She'll be gone until late Monday night.

And that, dear friends, was how this day was spent.

Wishing you all a great Friday,
~Cora

A little splattering of white....

All five of us worked on painting the plywood in the shop this morning. By lunch time, we were half done with the shop and several of us had quite a few little white polka dots all over our faces and hands/arms! We were using rollers (a couple on sticks to reach the higher areas), and 'though those are nice, they do splatter little drops of paint in every direction! I'm not sure how far the rest of my family got out there today as, after noon, I headed for work in town. Dad headed for Bismarck then to return the scissor-lift. Mom, I know, had a session here at the farm for a client. The boys were going to work on moving everything from one side of the shop to the other so we could paint the other half...... I'll try to get pictures tomorrow---before I get my hands all painty again! :)

More shop progress....

I didn't take pictures today, but we did get a lot done in the shop once again. All 5 of us worked in there for most of the day, so we were able to get more insulation up; we got the guys' work-bench cleaned off most of the way and pulled out from the wall; took down more plywood from the wall so as to be able to put insulation behind it; then we put up more plywood over the insulation. :) We were so busy, we didn't even play pool today!

It snowed about 2 inches worth of white stuff this afternoon and evening. It's beginning to look a lot like Winter!

Well, it sounds like Dad's about done talking on the phone with his dad, so we'll be finishing our Bonanza here shortly before heading for bed...


Yep, he's done. So, good bye friends, and good night.~

Recent pictures of the shop project:

The following photos are from yesterdays work.

Dad took this one of my brothers and I on the scissor-lift......


...and in this one, we're actually working. :)

Jacob swept up all the wood chips/dust from the floor before we set up the pool table.

I never realized there were so many pieces in a pool table! Here, Dad and Andrew are tightening up the stand:

Then, they tried to make the outside frame more square than it was before....

Jacob, working on bolting in the "Slate".

Andrew, mounting the ball return...

After all that was screwed and bolted together, we put the stand on top and attached that. Then all 4 of us carefully tipped the table right side up.

Andrew vacuumed the table-top carefully while Dad leveled it out...

...and then we played a game before chores. :)

We played several more games this afternoon. Mother came out after a while and won a couple games.... :)

What joy it is to be a part of a fun family!