Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Tuesday

Hello,

It was really warm today. About in the 30s. Snowball weather is what we call it at our house. Jonathan went to vacuum at Metigoshe Ministries and Mom had to go to Cindy's to pick up a box that she had for us. It turned out that she gave us: hamburgers, corn dogs, cheese sticks, all the stuff that we shouldn't eat. We had the corndogs and the cheese sticks for supper tonight. Very yummy, but I couldn't eat a lot of that type of stuff. I think I would get sick, we do not eat like that very much. Later on we went to Paulette's to work on her van and try to change the spark plugs. We found out that you have to lower the engine from under the van in order to get the wrench into it. The van is a 91 Previa with the engine under and in between the two front seats (very wired). I hear it is supposed to be rough outside tomorrow, mid 20s according to the weather man. We'll see!

Peter

Monday, February 27, 2006

Monday

Hi there,

We got some recording done. Go to www.musicaccord.net/Peterbartlett and click the music part and you will see that we recorded Rawhide (a traditional bluegrass song) and John Henry (another bluegrass song). Tonight dad tried making charcoal out of a hot glowing coal. We'll see if it works because he ground it up and put it in a glass of water and GULP down it went. I have been taking charcoal because our friends that are coming up for the North Dakota Homeschool convention (find out more at www.ndhsa.org) and they are sick. I don't want to get sick so I have been taking store bought charcoal. It isn't very bad tasting but just a gritty taste. I think that the stuff we made was a little more gritty than the stuff you buy. I finished my little sculpture today. It doesn't have any arms because I had made his body just as wide as the original stick and then there wasn't any room for the arms to stick out. It's hard to get any thing to stick out because you have to carve everything else around it until it looks right. It was really cold and windy. When the wind would blow the snow would blow and when the snow would blow it would blow into your face and sting kind of like sand. It was worse in the middle of the field. Selah is acting a lot better. I don't know if it is because Samson had the chance to mate her or what? I'm trying to get my immunity up before we leave for the homeschool convention.

Peter

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Sunday

Last night we had Selah inside to keep her away from Samson while she is in heat. Se acts kind of funny when she is inside, nervous, gets scared easy, and just looks miserable. This afternoon Jonathan and I went outside while the other boys were doing dishes and were wondering what to do and so he suggested making a wooden face by carving in some aspen wood. Here's the results:

This is Jonathan's work of the day.

Here's mine.

Here they are together.

The side of mine.

See even he likes to blog!

After we were out and got cold, Dad decided to go out to cut down a dead elm tree for fire wood and so he brought out Selah to get some exercise. You have to keep a close (very very close, every second) eye on Samson or else he will try to mate her, and dad wasn't watching very closely and they just slipped away. I don't know if dogs will go running away if they are going to mate? Maybe one of you that comment on my blog know something about it. Anyway the dogs didn't come back for about two hours. While they were gone our friend Wendel Lund come over on his snowmobile and we visited for a quite a while. When I went out after Wendel had gone to call for the dogs they came running from around the house. I don't know were they were coming from. Sounds like Mountain Fire Keeper had some adventures! Click here to read Mountain fire Keeper's blog.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Our steep snow hill

Today we went to our bee boxes and went sliding on the steep hill that is behind them. Jonathan brought the digital camera so we could take pictures. We discovered the place when we went to fix the boxes the time before, but we hadn't finished them then. It was about 45 degrees of an angle for most of the way down but in some places it was vertical. We had a lot of fun sliding, digging, playing king of the hill and throwing snowballs at each other. One of the games we played was you had to get from the bottom of the hill to the top, but if you fell back down, or retreated then you were out. Jonathan and Andrew were at the bottom and David and I were at the top. We had brought a spade for digging in the snow and I grabbed it and I was throwing loose snow on top of them. A lot of the loose snow went down their backs and since there wasn't many snowballs at the top because they all had been thrown the loose snow worked best. At the almost the end of the game I found about a two foot round snowball and when I threw it Jonathan fell to the bottom (I probably would have too!). It is hard to get up the hill as most of the hill is vertical or almost vertical and you have to carve out foot holds and hand holds in order to get anywhere. If you want to see the other pictures that we took go to Adventures of a Turtle Mtn. Hillbilly or click here . Here's a picture of me and Samson:

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Wednesday

Hello,

We had to tie up Selah because she was wandering off again. If we tie her up, then Samson stays because we think that she goes and he follows.

Another nice day today. Not real warm but sunny. We have been practicing music and we're getting better, and singing also. This morning the cat was really wild! I woke up from him jumping up onto the piano keys to get into the window sill. We had him outside all day after that! The trench that we dug last summer was filled with snow and there was about two feet of snow above ground so when we dug it out it was about five-six feet deep. Not much to write about.

Peter

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

The last three days

Sunday: The country living skills workshops turned out pretty good. It was all taped, and it was kind of interesting when it got dark, Steve used his camera that has a sort of night vision that makes everything that is dark look bright. There was a workshop on: candle making, kerosene lamp usage, Turtle Mountain herbs and how to use them, peak oil DVD, biblical view of city/country, and then an informal music jam session. I met a few new friends, and had a lot of fun!

Monday: Two Stegman boys, Stovers and the Hendersons stayed over night at Paulette's and in the morning after breakfast we went over. Most of the day we played snow balls. It was hard to make ones that would stay together, but we figured out that if you squeezed it hard enough it would stay together. One of the games we played was one team of two or three people would be at the top and another at the bottom of a steep hill that was covered with brush, and the team at the bottom would have to defeat the other team or push them past a certain point. You can use these rules if you want for your own snowball fight:

Each team has about even people and a post or a tree as base. If you are hit you lose one of three lives and if you get hit three times and lose all your lives you go to the other teams base/prison, but if you want to you can get freed by getting hit with two snowballs from your team, if you go to the prison three times you are out of the game and have to wait until the game is over.

Tuesday (today): The dogs had gone on an expedition on there own and were missing, and it isn't the first time that happened. Later today when we were at Metigoshe Ministries helping Jonathan vacuum, and when we came back the dogs ran from the direction of the old house. Andrew and I followed their tracks and the led all the way to the state land (about a half mile). I was surprised that they would go that far away. Oh I forgot, Dad was gone the whole day and came back about 6:30 PM

Peter

Saturday, February 18, 2006

The deep dark dungeon

Today it was about just as cold as yesterday. And we had Selah in all last night, because she was cold. I wrote some about our adventures this afternoon!


We went to our old log cabin (I don't know if I have talked about it before, but it is an old Norwegian cabin and has aspen logs that are cut square on the sides. Must have taken a lot of work to make) to venture into the unknown deep pit, under the cabin walls. Upon entering into the cabin I lit a fire to cheer up our spirits and to give warmth to our bodies as we slowly climbed down the steep ladder into the dungeon. Lighting our lantern we put a nail into a rotting beam of rough wood beside the single post that held up the the entire cabin floor. Looking around we found that the walls had shed a layer of clay/dirt the floor had quite a pile of dirt about two feet high. We decided to try to undertake the task of removing the dirt bucket by bucket. We stopped for a short break and some pictures of the laboring task that was at hand, not knowing what lay before us.

Returning to our work my older brother stuck his spade into the loose clay and to his surprise found a (read Adventures of a Turtle Mtn. Hillbilly, his blog to find out what he found) in the front of a earth dwelling animals den. Startled by seeing this we all thought maybe we should get the gun, of which was .22 caliber, and keep watch while we continued with our work. After a while we noticed a strange creature wriggling in the five gallon pail. A monster about the size of a fist with an ugly appearance, rubberish skin, long lashing tail, partially closed eyes, a slimy gum coming out of the skin, but the creature was moving slow much to our advantage, for if it was the any bigger or the size of an alligator it would be the terror of the woods.*



Peter

*It was only a three inch long salamander. Pretty yucky looking.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Did you know?

Mom was looking at a website (CNN) and noticed a title "fast food ice dirtier than toilet water". We didn't look at it as we were just about to eat supper, and didn't feel like reading anything to hurt out digestive system's feelings.

It was another hot day today, highs reaching 10 below zero F. The dogs were shivering some until it the sun got a little higher. We had Selah in the house a little bit but not Samson because he is a little bulky, and when he is in something gets moved or knocked over.

We, my brothers and I, have been sending Lego rockets to Mars and having fun using Legos and having missions on other planets (the planets being our living room). Our desks are full of different pieces that are going to be manufactured into rockets, space probes, or satellites.

I have been making a game on Microsoft Power Point (a slide show program) where you have different links to go to different slides. For example: there is a scene of trees and a stream going through it. You have a choose of going, left, right, or straight. It you click a little box it brings you to another scene that is black. If you click next you see a bear and other animals eyes looking at you, and then you have to go back to the beginning and re-start and try a different way. Its really fun making it!

A few minutes ago we had to open the door (the windows were frozen) because the bottom door on the wood stove, the one that the ash pan is in, had allot of smoke (allot!) coming out. There must have been a back draft of some sort. We've got most of the smoke out and both the dogs in. Talk to you later.

Peter

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Wednesday

Today we did the usual: home school, reading, math, writing music etc. I got out a magnifying glass and tried to light a fire with it. I probably would have got it going but I didn't want to bother with the tinder. I used some charred cloth and made the beam of magnafied light as small as I could. It takes probably only about fifteen seconds of direct light on the charred cloth to make a coal. I put two inch by inch pieces of charred cloth in a waterproof match case (also in the match case which is a 5 in one survival whistle I have: 8 strike anywhere matches, a band-aid, a piece of two inch by four inch paper, short pencil, and knife blade).

One bad thing that is hard to forget to write "I'm sick" :-( . I have been trying to take all all sorts of herbs to try to raise my immunity (all the yucky stuff).

I got a picture of me and Samson on the profile (you probably can see it).

Peter

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Tuesday

Hello,

Today it was really cold (more natural for Febuary). Dad had us keep on schedule for the morning and afternoon. For the home repair time of our schedule Andrew, David and I went to our bee boxes (with no bees in them) to put some straps of wood on the sides, but it was really cold to have our bare hands out in the wind for so long and we only got two of the four boxes done (with four slats on each stack of boxes one on each side). It is quite a ways walking to get to the bee boxes, at least through the deep snow (in the front of our house you couldn't feel the wind but when you get into the field you really get hit).

Later on in the day (about 4:00 p.m. the sun already starting to go down) we went to Paulette's to work on her van and we had brought more tools to get the spark plugs out, because the van wouldn't start. It was so cold that we had to go into the house to get warmed up, and then go out again. We didn't get very far and the socket got stuck in the spark plug hole and I'm not sure if Dad got it out. We will probably have to wait to work on her van until it warms up.

Samson is doing allot better with the "heel" command but we still have to hold his collar and when we walk him around.

Dad has a brochure for Paulette that I designed with her help being printed.

Peter

Monday, February 13, 2006

The Jump

Yesterday the Hendersons came over to have felowship/home church and had brought their sleds. Our hill is pretty steep that is in the front of our house, and the snow was about 8 inches deep so we had to go over it a couple of times in order to get our sleds to go very far. After a while we got tired of just sliding so Adam Henderson had the idea to make a wooden jump. We found some scrap boards and assembled it and put snow over the top of it. Here's a few pictures of what it looked like:

This is Adam on one of his sleds.

This is Evan Henderson breaking a record.

This is me but the landing on that one hurt a little.

Another one of Evan.

This shows the jump and the sled with Adam in it.

This is the jump that is only about one and a half feet tall. The highest we jumped was about three feet off the ground, and the farthest we jumped was 16' 3" and that was Evan.

Peter

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Guess What?

The guitar that we have is electric! We didn't notice it until now but there is a plug-in on the place where the strap hooks on, and also noticed that there is a wire inside.

This afternoon it was really nice (nice enough to get all my snow stuff wet!) and we did some more snowmobiling. I had tried to go from one field to another field on the power line clearing but I got stuck about half way through. The snow was about three feet high and the snowmobile sunk half way through the snow and only showed about 16 inches of the hood(but of course I didn't measure exactly because I forgot to bring a tape measure :-). It took a quite a while to try to get the snow out of under the machine I pushed and got out (thankfully). We also found some drifts to go over with the snowmobile, you would go up about a three foot drift go down the other side up another drift, curve to the right go past the chipper of Steve's and go as fast as you could and then bump up the last drift.

After a while we got tired of snowmobiling we started (only started) digging some tunnels in a four foot snow drift, I got WET!


Peter

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday

Here's a review of the last three days.


Tuesday: We had supper with Paulette, Steve, Azariah, and another homeschool family. They came because the Azure Standard truck was going to come at 9:00 p.m. we all of had ordered. We had some fun playing games and sliding. We had chili for supper and some soup that Paulette had brought.

Wednesday: We went to Paulette's house to look at seed catalogs and compare prices. Dad had gone to town and when he got back to our house he headed over to Paulette's place to have supper (mom had brought the chili that was left over from the say before). We were sliding on the road going down to the house when dad got there. It is fun sliding and we had brought our big sled to use in sliding down the hill, and it went pretty fast!

Thursday: More homeschool in the morning and allot of wind outside. The dogs were really glad to see us because we weren't home very much yesterday.

Peter

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Heat Exchanger

We got our heat exchanger going now and we have had the electric water heater turned off for three days. We have had all the hot water we want, but sometimes when the wood stove isn't going very good we don't get really hot water (that doesn't happen very much because we have got the fire going all night thanks to Steve's help). Last night we had four showers and we didn't run out of hot water. It works!

Tonight we are going to Paulette's house to have supper with another family and wait to get our Azure Standard order (that is coming at 9:00 p.m. tonight). I am still waiting for a (late birthday present) package with my white winter camouflage in it. It was supposed come on the 27th of last month but it wasn't there (I don't know why).

We have been walking the dogs through the sheep's pen and we think that Selah was the problem with biting the sheep because they are all scared of her and not Samson. The dogs are getting better and haven't got in with the sheep. I'm glad!

Peter

Saturday, February 04, 2006

I saw what I really looked like


Hello,

Yesterday we went to Paulette's house to make salve, and it just happened to be that the Huwes were coming to pick up some herbs. We played some music with Andrew Huwe, and he had brought his banjo, mandolin, and guitar. We had allot of fun. Later on in the day we went sliding on some hills going down to the health center, and just as we were putting the sleds back Jonathan noticed in Steve's pickup window that he looked different. Here's what I looked like when I looked in the window:


The window must not have been very straight!

Kind of silly right?

Peter

(that isn't what I look like)





Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Sliding

This morning we almost finished our wooden guns, we still have to spray paint them. I made one that wasn't on the pictures before but it is bigger than all the rest.

I forgot to say that last night we (except Mom because we thought she might be getting sick) went to the Redding's new house and had supper there. We had: helped them move out of a house, into an apartment, shoveled out a basement with eight foot walls and it was 50 feet by thirty feet, out of an apartment, watched the new house put on the basement, and then finally we helped them move into the new house. After the meal which was really good we played some games.

This afternoon we were sliding some in the front of our house but most of our sleds and all cracked up from hitting trees and of course we hit the trees also! Last year we had a pole that would stick up and we would have to slid around it, but there was too many crashes so this year we cut it off under the level of the ground and put dirt over it. Without the pole there we go farther but just far enough to hit some piles of wood and a few trees. We have a big sled made out of tough fiberglass and with runners and that goes really fast! If you get going fast you can go right past the sheep barn and onto the lake. That is about the farthest we have gone without hitting anything.

After we got tired of sliding in the front of the house we went to the "big field" and went sliding there. It is steeper there and there isn't any trees to hit into. While we were there Andrew invented a way of sliding he calls "snomodiving" that is what he calls it and it is were you stand up in the big sled and hold onto the rope and see how far you can go. Most of the time you or at least me fall over on your face and thats were the diving part of "snomodiving" comes in. When I tried "snomodiving" the second time I fell over behind the sled and something must have caught on my snowpants and ripped the knee of the outer layer of cloth. I know what Mom will be doing and what I will be doing. Popcorn for supper and I'm getting hungry.

Peter

I forgot to write yesterday

Today (yesterday) we made some wooden guns out of a 3/4 inch plywood, and we made them to have a folding stock. We haven't made the stock but we would like to use some aspen poles
about 3/4 inch round and use that to make the stock.









This is one of the three guns like this we made.

Is that me? (are you sure?)

Peter