Projects...

While in Bismarck last Tuesday, Andrew and I (and Mom went to a couple) went to all the major thrift stores to look for several items that were on our wishlist for Prairie Days. We did find several treasures (mainly things we weren't looking for, like joysticks; computer cables; a couple movies about the "House on the Rock" and "The touch of the master's hand"; several skirts; etc...) and Andrew found a few pairs of elbow pads which will be used at the Appleseed Shoot for extra comfort. We also found a tan colored pair of pants and a matching shirt for Andrew's "Andy Taylor" outfit, but did not find any sheriff's badges or any "Barney Fife" hats for Jacob. After also searching through 2 party supply stores, we finally came upon just the things we were looking for: A hat (I decided that if we found a hat like Barneys, to buy it {$9.00} instead of trying to sew one, as we're running out of time for such things and I wasn't quite sure how to go about it anyway...), and some plastic stars and police badges. Here is the new-and-improved Barney Fife member of our family:

Tonight, the boys practiced the skit they'll be doing at Prairie Days... :) I won't tell you what the skit is about though, as it might ruin the surprise for some of my readers who will be there!

One of my mom's clients on Tuesday gave her a lamp for her office, although she said it didn't work, but Mom assured her that our guys could most likely get it working again, which, they did!

I was just re-hanging the jeans up on the line this morning (the wind was very, very strong and kept blowing them off!) when the Fed-Ex man pulled in the yard. After I signed on the required dotted line, he got out a large box which, I could tell by the way that he carried it to the house for me, was quite heavy. I commented that perhaps it was the motor we've been waiting for, and the FedEx man assured me that that MUST be it, which it was! :) We're all very excited, as we've been waiting for this motor to come for some time now (apparently, the people who own the company who builds the motors had had a death in the family...) so the boys can put it in Andrew's lawn-tractor and can then till up our garden area so we can plant!!!

Andrew got to work right away... (that's the new motor on the tractor already)

...and Jacob joined in later. They have the motor all in now, but then the battery on the garden tractor went dead, so I'm not sure if it's running right now or not?

Another of todays more exciting projects was to get the wheat bagged up to sell! Dad drove up to Steele to buy bags from Double S Processing (an organic bagging plant) and to rent their hand-held bag-sewer for the day. Here Dad is balancing out the scale...

...and here he's sewing a 50lb bag of Certified Organic red spring wheat closed. It took a few tries before he got the technique down, but then he whizzed away at it. We all took turns scooping the wheat in, and filled all of the 56 bags that the man had sold to dad. (We have more wheat yet, but may bag that in smaller amounts....) Now, all that's left is to print out our labels and stick them on the bags! How exciting this is and what a dream come true for our family! Eventually, we'll be buying our own bag sewer, (a purchase of $400+) but for now, it was really nice to just use it for the day. God has blessed us indeed!

Here's a picture of another blessing: flowers and greenery!

And, when a long day is over, it is great to sit down to a meal of freshly grilled whatever (hot dogs, hamburgers....).

Oh yes, there's one more blessing/project to write about before I close for the night.

Andrew decided that we'd been using an old white sheet as a projector screen long enough (it was in pretty bad shape and was hard to roll up after watching a movie), so he purchased a large, thin window shade (the kind you jerk on and it rolls up on its own)! We used it when we watched "The Touch of the Master's Hand" that night and it worked really well! The picture is clearer than it was on the sheet, and we could still watch it from the back side as we'd done with the old white sheet.

"Thank you, Andrew for this nice addition to our big-screen movie theater setup." :)

Our current in-the-house project is to get the Summer and Winter clothes changed around as we have time, so needless to say, my room is far from tidy this night! In fact, it's quite the disaster. :)