The snow is gone and now we are floating away!!!

I am completely astounded at the amount of rain that is coming down as we speak. We went from this....


To this....

The water above is over ankle deep to walk through. That's our driveway.

In just 12 hours. Our driveway is flooded, Diamond Dr. is flooded our neighbor has a HUGE pond in his front yard and my own yard isn't much better. I can't imagine what it would look like if we hadn't dug the trench. The trench is flowing! My rain barrel filled up 3x since last night and fell over. I finally rigged the pipe into the trench for now. We definitely don't need to SAVE the water! The kicker....I am guessing, based on my rain guage and a bucket that was outside (and emptied last night) that from 8pm-8am we got over 4 inches of rain!!!!! Now since 8AM(it is noon) we've had another 2 inches.
There are record breaking river flows happening. At Central Market in town their rain gauge says the MONTHLY rainfall has been 5.94 inches. IT'S THE 3RD OF THE MONTH!!!
Here is the latest from KOMOTV.


Lord have mercy!!!



UPDATE
It is closer to home than I really like. My BARN IS FLOODED!!! I have 2 goats and 43 chicks swimming!!! I spent an hour hauling pallets into the chicks to raise their floor up 6 inches, spreading many inches of straw into the goat stall and rescuing wet chicks!!! ARGH! I've soaked through 4 outfits with my needed outdoor work.
OH do I hope it doesn't back up the drainfield...this is UNREAL!
3.86 inches of rain since midnight at Central Market in town.

Snow Snow Snow

James posted some pictures from earlier on in the afternoon....this is in the evening.

Above is the start of the HUGE "Mr. Frostbite."
Below is the finished "Mr. Frostbite."

Joseph built his own little snowman.

My Little Baby Butter ready for the snow for the first time in her life-Kelsey

They say it is suppose to disappear in the night...but I'm skeptical that 4 inches can disappear that quickly. We'll see.
At any rate...it's been AWESOME!

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

Experience tells me that because this is predicted it really won't amount to much but we can't help but dance around singing the words to "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow".

The weather guessers at the National Weather Service are guesstimating 2-3 inches along Hood Canal and on the Kitsap Peninsula tonight.

Oh do I hope they are correct in their guesses...it would be so fun!

This brings me to say that I've decided that I really do miss the winters of MN where I grew up. I do know that they have had very few white Christmas' over the last several years but I really need to try and get back for Christmas some time in the next couple years. My last Christmas in MN with my family? 1993!!!! OH I MISS YOU ALL! (and the white snow)

Here is a picture from my childhood. This is the kind of snow I remember. Snowstorm of '82, I was 11. That's my sister taking a break from shoveling.

Warning!

Never, Never rub your eyes anytime within the evening after chopping up jalapeno pepper.
It is NOT a good outcome!

Happy 11th Birthday to my Sweet Girl!

Kelsey Sierra
November 26th, 1996
5:56PM

The above was taken at 3 months old.
Below is Kelsey at about 4 1/2 years old.

And here is my baby today! I cannot believe she is 11! Time flies WAY too quickly.
I love you my sweet Kelsey Anna Sierra.
(Chrismated Anna and ever since is known as Kelsey Anna!)

What does this say to you about our society?

The one thing that astounds me beyond anything is the first two sentences!

Do these people NOT have a life?

I do know that Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood opened not at 5AM but MIDNIGHT!!!!
Midnight?

Chick update and more.....

The chicks are growing faster than I can remember them doing in the past. It's amazing. They are losing fuzzy feathers and growing beautiful colors, well at least the Rhode Island Reds are. The Black Austrolorps are turning more black. And they are so funny because some of them look like little penguins. They are now 2 weeks old.

I've gotten 10 posts dug for the garden fence. I'm hoping to get it completely fenced within the next couple of weeks so that I can let the laying hens in there to eat away weeds and to fertilize the soil for a couple months before I need to till it up for spring.

I guess I don't have too much else to say. Same ol', same 'ol. School, housekeeping, farming, mothering.

Here are a few pictures of the chicks.

Resting peacefully under the lights. I sneak a peek over the gate without notice. Once they notice me...they run!!! They scramble everywhere usually into a corner or along a side...smashing each other. Which is what they are doing below. I like the next picture because there was this little Rhode tucked in the middle of a bunch of Blacks. It was so cute.

Here is a cute little Black Austrolorp.

And this one is what James has named "The Creation of the Chicken".

Well, I do have more to say. Today begins the Advent Fast. May you have a blessed preparation for Nativity.

I was reading the Monastery of St. John of San Francisco Newsletter and came across an article titled "Please Remember Me". I had to copy and post it hear as it is really something that I feel very strongly about. I've blogged many times about community and the lack thereof in our society and I think this goes right along with that. If you want to read the whole newsletter it has many good things...here.

When Mother Teresa of Calcutta was
asked which country of all those she had visited
was the poorest, she replied that she has
seen much poverty and homelessness everywhere,
but nowhere had she experienced
poverty like that of America. Why? Because
“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted
is the most terrible poverty.” People in
America suffer terribly from loneliness, even
if they live in the most populated cities or are
surrounded by family. Every person seems
to have an inner cry which silently screams to the world “Please understand
me!” Although it is true that one person will never completely
understand another, due to the fact that we are all created
unique and our expressions are entirely without equal, the thought
that “I am alone” is a slippery slide into darkness.
Unable to find true intimacy or a genuine relationship in a society
which is growing harder and more suspicious of authenticity, an interior
isolation arises and leaves a soul alone without others and without
God. Breaking out of such a state involves immense courage, because
winter is a season many people carry with them year-round.
But one ounce of compassion shown by a clerk, a passer-by on the
street or even a lick from a dog can be the witness needed to break
someone out of their isolation. It is a curious fact of human nature
that the more we flourish in material goods, the less compassion we
seem to show to our neighbor. Perhaps the poverty of spirit Christ
counseled was precisely the criterion for being able to break out of
our isolated selves and be present to those who have fallen victim to
loneliness. Inheriting the earth is to hold all others close to one’s
heart to heal a fragmented society.
Whatever the situation may be, there is never reason to allow a
fellow human to suffer the hell of loneliness. There is no need to
search them out. They are in our everyday lives, and there may be
one looking at us in every mirror. Therefore, we need compassion
toward ourselves and others. This is true wisdom.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle — Philo

of arrivals and a pilgrimage

The wait is over and long gone!




The chicks arrived Friday morning, not as early as I'd hoped, but they arrived none-the-less. Only 2 were well passed on when we opened the box and we've lost 2 more since. The hatchery always sends a couple extra so we are still at 48. Last year I don't think I took a picture of the tiny box they arrived in so I decided to take a picture this year. The box is bigger this year but still it's amazing to think that there are50 chicks in this box.
I still feel so new at this and wonder if I'm doing things right and pray that they survive my uneducated attempts at caring for them. There seems to always be something new that comes up and makes me wonder what to do. "I don't remember THAT before! Is that normal?"

Most Holy St. Brigid, please pray until God for our farm.


I just had to add these pictures of Mina and Killick. She is growing SO FAST! She is 13 weeks tomorrow. She is no longer smaller than his head.



Friday at 10:50 I set sail on Ferry from Kingston to Edmonds. We picked up Liz and 8 of us headed to St. John the Forerunner Monastery to meet up with 15+ more ladies from St. Paul Orthodox Church. We arrived just at the start of Vespers Friday evening.
It was a very wonderful, peaceful, lovely time. Gerontissa (Abbess of the monastery) spoke to us on Saturday morning. I felt as if she was speaking directly to me. I'm sure many of the ladies felt the same way.
Someone who couldn't go with us, asked if I'd blog about what Gerontissa had to say. This is basically what I took away from it.
She began by saying we, more than they, know how our world is becoming more and more of a distraction. Our world is trying harder and harder to pull us further away from God. Our only defense is prayer. PRAY to keep our children close to God. It is the FIRST thing we should do...not as a last resort.
1. Turn to God
2. Show our children BY EXAMPLE! (Oh, Lord have mercy on me.)
3. Speak to our children with discernment.

Increase your prayer and spiritual life so we have strength and ability to help our children.
The more you pray the more your desire for prayer will grow.
Easiest method of prayer is the Jesus Prayer.
The evil one will do ANYTHING to distract us from prayer. He makes us feel tired, makes us discontented ("I just need to get out of here."). Be watchful.
The more unguarded you are the more you "dark" you will feel.
If you want to progress in prayer you must be more diligent to avoid the distractions of the world.

She had a Q&A time and someone asked her why they pray at night and whether or not this was something a lay person should do.
Darkness, quiet, peacefulness makes it easier to pray at night. We all have duties during the day even the sisters that pull us away from prayer. It's easier at night. It is not just for monastics. Whenever Jesus went to pray it was always at night. He was not leading His example for monastics. There were no monastics.

I wish I would have taken better notes. It was a very wonderful time listening to her. She was encouraging and full of love and empathy of us who must live in the world. For those of us who are bombarded on a daily basis by distractions of the world.

I also must add to this that not only did I have a very real learning experience with Gerontissa but I had a very much needed laugh therapy as well with my sisters in Christ. There were several of us that stayed up and chatted on Saturday evening (thankfully we were blessed with an extra hour as clocks bounced back an hour that night). We laughed and chatted, chatted and laughed. Joking, teasing, sharing, bonding. I want to thank all of you who had a part in really making that evening very special for me (IF you read this anyway).
It was truly a joy to be with all of you...I do miss seeing you on a regular basis and hope we can do it again some day soon.

Here are a couple pictures from that weekend. The first is a walk through the woods as we made our way to the cemetery at the monastery where we prayed the Akathist hymn for the departed at Fr. Thomas' grave. It was truly beautiful.
The other was just looking out into the woods and sunshine. I just liked it.

This morning I am waiting. Waiting for the phone to ring so that I can hop in the truck and drive down to the Post Office to pick up 50 peeping chicks. We've got the stall in the barn ready and waiting for them.

I'm also waiting to take my packed bag, hop on the ferry and head to the peaceful comforts of St. John the Forerunner Monastery in Goldendale, WA. I leave on the 10:50 a.m. ferry and I cannot wait. It's going to be a wonderful retreat away from all the cares of the world. It's peaceful, quiet, lovely. I hope to rest and gain strength(spiritually) from God to face my duties once again. I need this, I need the renewal. There are 20+ women from St. Paul Orthodox Church and St. Herman Orthodox Church heading over on a pilgrimage, by dear Kh. Miriam. I feel very blessed to have this privilege to go.

I'll have lots of pictures of the arrival of our peepers and my pilgrimage next week.

Please pray for safe travel for 5 carloads traveling over mountains and through the woods.

Quick Updates

Just a quick update on the farm and family!

Nicholas lost his first TOP tooth and he looks just too cute!!!



The trench in front of the chicken coop and barn is nearly dug and the first section is overflowing with water....we will break the dam and watch it flow, hopefully tomorrow.

Firefly is in heat. She will be in heat every 3 weeks until January. I'm glad to know I can tell when I need to get her to a buck!

I just ordered 50....yes, I said 50....baby chicks and they will arrive next Friday, November 2nd.
5 months from now we'll be able to double our egg sales!!!!

Beautiful day!

I couldn't have asked for a better day except one small thing, that my sweet hubby could have shared it with us. It was bright and beautiful! I'm thinking it was maybe 70, slight breeze and bright sun. The colors are just gorgeous. We hit the park after running some errands and I took some pictures of color, kids and "monkeys". Charissa just recently started gymnastics and is showing off her abilities while Kelsey "hangs" along.


We then headed home where I toted camera about the property a bit before getting to work on the digging. I just love fall color against a bright sky. It is so crisp.


I did begin some work on the trench we started last week. I just had to post this picture. When we dug last week we saw lots of clay deep down and knew this was part of the drainage problem. But what I found today was, to me, astounding. Look here at the TOP layer, after the first 1/2 inch of dirt....the densest clay I've ever seen. TOP layer! This just happens to be, by far, the muddiest area. Now I know why.


I just happened to get this cute little picture of our goats. Firefly, mamma, is behind Butter, who is not so much a baby any longer. She is near ready to breed. December is the month we'll breed if all goes well. They'll kid in May.
And now my favorite story. Way back in August during the Kitsap Fair we visited the area called "Farmer for a day". This is a fun area where kids can take part in make-believe farming activities. They roped a "horse", drove tractors, milked "cows", dug up potatoes (real ones), and picked "apples" from wooden trees (Joseph LOVED this and spent all his time here) and washed clothes in a wash tub with a wash board. Charissa LOVED this! She spent a long time scrubbing clothes and hanging them to dry. Yesterday I found a pair of wet jeans(kid jeans) tucked away in a bag and it appeared as if they had been there for quite awhile as they kind of stunk. So I put them in a wash tub of VERY mild bleach water to try and kill the mildew smell (I am very sensitive to this smell and cannot stand it.) and salvage them. Charissa saw them sitting there and decided she was the one who needed to scrub them. She dug around the cupboards to try and find something that might work as a wash board. When she couldn't find something satisfactory she wrote on my shopping list "wash bord". She scrubbed those jeans though squeezing the water in and through them then rinsing them and hanging them in the bathroom. The whole time she is lamenting about not being able to grow up in "the olden days", she changed into dress and covered her head. LOL! She then asked if she could do more laundry. So we put the wash tub in the bath tub (less of a mess) and she pulled out about 5 articles of her clothing. She scrubbed to her hearts content. We hung them in the bathroom on the rod with promises of her doing her own laundry the next day. I had recently decided the girls would do their own laundry (in hopes they'd be more careful about what went in the laundry pile) and so Tuesday was Charissa's laundry day. So this morning she pulled her BIG pile of laundry into the bathroom, readied her wash tub and began. She got about half way through the pile when she kind of ran out of time. We rinsed and went to hang them out on the clothesline. The pictures below of of Charissa appreciating the Quotidian Mysteries of life. I can only pray it holds and she will always have this appreciation.


Addendum: We are wanting a real washboard. If anyone has one laying around in their attics or garages, etc. and wouldn't mind parting with it, let me know. The girls would be so EXCITED!

The day of October 18th, 2007

The day started rainy and cool. As the clouds moved away the wind began to whip. At about 2pm I went out to watch as the maple trees began to lose all of their leaves along with those really cool "helicopter" seeds. It's one thing to throw a "helicopter" seed into the air and watch it spin down to the ground but it is yet an entirely new experience to stand and watch while hundreds of them come spinning down at you from the tops of the trees. The first picture below doesn't do it justice but you get the idea of how many were spinning down at me. It was so cool. We didn't dare go too near the forest as we many times heard branches crack and fall to the ground. One even made it's way down to the goats and they braved it to go eat the pine needles.
(Be sure to click on pics to enlarge) The power went out just as I was getting ready to put a pot of chicken soup on the stove. I was thankful that the menu was soup so that I could get a fire going in the wood stove to cook upon. We had chicken and rice soup that Charissa decided to add broken up spaghetti noodles too. It was quite delicious, although could have used some more seasoning as I didn't attempt to saute those before adding the broth and whatnot.
Here are the children enjoying their dinner. It's amazing what they'll eat when the lights are out. Usually I serve salad AND bread or biscuits with soup to bribe them to eat the soup, but tonight it was JUST soup. And they all gobbled it up, there wasn't even enough left for dad's lunch.

These are just some fun candle pictures I enjoyed taking. If you look closely you'll see Nicholas in the 2nd one.

Here is my little Charissa. This is how you'll often find her when she is tired or cranky. She looks quite contemplative and peaceful here so I'm guessing she's tired not cranky. I like this picture as it captures her well.


The one above is just one I took of Mina during the day. She did that cute little puppy thing where they cock their head when they hear a funny noise.

And I just love this picture of the boys. Joseph on the left and Nicholas on the right. They are growing up too quickly.

Fall on the farm

One day this past week we woke to a cool, foggy day. The dew was everywhere and what it did to the landscape of spiders was amazing. The dew drew them out. Popping out right before our eyes, what we didn't see the day before now was glistening on every pine bough, tree limb, needle and leaf. It was truly amazing. I feel blessed to have captured some of it on my camera.
I cannot believe how well they turned out. Be sure to click on the pictures to see them closer.

The one above is a close up and the one below, I hope, gives perspective to how tiny that little web is. It was so amazing.

With fall we have harvest. As Mr. Paradosis spoke about yesterday, apple pie, we indeed harvested the apples yesterday. I love this picture of Charissa picking apples.

And we did bake an apple pie, probably the second one in all my life, but the first with my own apples. I didn't have white flour or even WW pastry flour so I had to use my 100% hard whole wheat and it turned out surprisingly well. The crust was denser and quite flavorful.
It probably wasn't "as good as grandma's", but how can I compete.

Just thought I'd post some pictures and whatnot.

Not too much to say. Same old stuff.

We did go to the farm tours which was really a fun time. But I forgot my camera. We loved the dairy farm and the cattle ranch!!! Some of the other farms had some great activities for the kids like pumpkin decorating and straw crawls (digging in straw to find treats). There was also a hay ride which was fun. And it didn't even rain!!!
Here are some fun pictures.


This is what I saw in the WEST this morning as the sun rose in the east. It was so beautiful and only lasted about 10 minutes. The clouds in the lower right corner where very thunderous looking in person.

This is our little Mina. She is so full of energy and fun to watch.
Below, she is playing with Kelsey. It was so cute how she'd reach out for Kelsey's nose.

This is a funky egg we recently found in our coop.

A Magic Wand Anyone?

Well, it appears as if summer is completely gone and autumn for that matter. I feel like winter jumped from the sky 3 months too early! All of my projects I talked about earlier seem to be stalled due to the constant rain and cool temps.
In all honesty I think I've completely given up on getting a new coop in "before winter". Hah! Winter is here. No, really, there is just way too much to do. I did start it last Saturday, there was a break in the weather and I got the floor nearly done but then the weather turned which seems to have turned my optimism as well. Despite the fact that my chickens only gave me 8 eggs yesterday (it is so disappointing) I just cannot see how I have time to build a coop right now. I really am disappointed about not being able to sell eggs right now...there are some who say they won't buy store eggs anymore (it's so nice to hear). Anyway, if you buy eggs from us and read this, we won't be selling eggs except maybe 2-3 dozen a week ( and they are claimed).
One of the reasons I've set the coop on hold is that because of all the rain we are getting the goat yard and the coop run seems to have turned into complete mud pits. Worse then normal. So I have decided it is priority to dig a french drain across their yards to help with this. The area of the goat yard and chicken run has HORRIBLE drainage and we knew we'd have to do this eventually. But it is so bad right now that I cannot imagine going through the entire winter with mud this deep. Sooooo, the next few sunny days (if there are any) I'll be digging a trench!
The puppy is adjusting well and is so fun to play with. She sleeps in a kennel on the front porch and last night she "slept through the night". (As James said, "Who needs a human baby when you have a puppy." ) We fed and ran her at 10pm and she slept till 5am, which is when I had been waking to anyway and taking her out. She seems to get the elimination part quite well, in the grass most of the time. She loves to bother Killick. A name? We haven't voted yet, but I'm pretty much stuck on Mina....short for Wilhelmina which means protection/protector.

This coming Saturday we are going to a Harvest Festival in Sequim. A very different kind of harvest festival than I have ever been to and I am very much looking forward to it. There are 8 farms that will be on tour, 8 different kinds of farms (dairy, beef cattle, vegetable, flower, and more). At each farm there will be opportunity to learn about that particular farm, there will be activities for children, food, and even some music at some. Then in the evening (I do not believe we'll get to stay for this but it is SO COOL) there will be a potluck at one place along with an old fashion barn dance!!! I can't wait!!!

We will be insulating the cabin today and tomorrow! We have guests (they aren't really "guests" anymore) and it is COLD so we will try and get the insulation complete.

Thanks for visiting and reading my blog. Have a great day!!!