Hi there,
Today we got the other side of the roof done with shingles! Tomorrow we will start with the ridge cap. We took turns carrying shingles up. First it was dad with Jonathan, Jonathan with me, me with Dad, and then Dad with Jonathan and over and over. Mom went to Minot this afternoon and brought back house wrap for after we finish the sheeting. Mom wants us to post some more pictures of the house but it is too late tonight. I hope Samson doesn't bark all night like he did last night. I think he barks at the coyotes. They seem to be loud for some reason.
Maybe since we got the shingles on we will have more free time to blog some pictures.
Good night,
Peter
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Wednesday
Hello!
Today we started out by putting the starter shingles around the edge of the roof and that took untill about 4:00. The reason it ended up being so late is because mom's washing machine broke down a couple of days ago and we went to a friends storage unit to borrow a washing maching from her.
It was a bumpy slow drive. They were tearing up the pavment on the lake loop road so we had to stop for a couple of minutes at a person holding a stop sign, and then follow a pilot car for another while and when the pilot car left and it turned out that the road farther on was worse.
At one point there was a grader, excavator and scraper parked across the road and dirt three feet high in front of them. Dad stopped we thought about it for a while and then decided to cut down into the ditch and onto the walking path and go around the vehicles. It was the only way to get past them. If we went the other side we would have drove into lake Metigoshe! (not good). We got past them, so that was good but even farther on we were driving over bumps and around rocks and just barely not rubbing on the belly of the car. We seemed small with big scraper machines driving past us and and a bulldozer dozing on the other side. Finally we got there and picked up the washer and headed home. There wasn't any trouble after that getting home (thankfully).
Back to the roofing. We got two rows of real shingles on! It is nice to see the roof coming. It is supposed to be nice weather for a few days so maybe we can finish before rain :o) Maybe it will be hot then the shingles would seal up. Then we can see if it drips! Hope not,
Peter
Today we started out by putting the starter shingles around the edge of the roof and that took untill about 4:00. The reason it ended up being so late is because mom's washing machine broke down a couple of days ago and we went to a friends storage unit to borrow a washing maching from her.
It was a bumpy slow drive. They were tearing up the pavment on the lake loop road so we had to stop for a couple of minutes at a person holding a stop sign, and then follow a pilot car for another while and when the pilot car left and it turned out that the road farther on was worse.
At one point there was a grader, excavator and scraper parked across the road and dirt three feet high in front of them. Dad stopped we thought about it for a while and then decided to cut down into the ditch and onto the walking path and go around the vehicles. It was the only way to get past them. If we went the other side we would have drove into lake Metigoshe! (not good). We got past them, so that was good but even farther on we were driving over bumps and around rocks and just barely not rubbing on the belly of the car. We seemed small with big scraper machines driving past us and and a bulldozer dozing on the other side. Finally we got there and picked up the washer and headed home. There wasn't any trouble after that getting home (thankfully).
Back to the roofing. We got two rows of real shingles on! It is nice to see the roof coming. It is supposed to be nice weather for a few days so maybe we can finish before rain :o) Maybe it will be hot then the shingles would seal up. Then we can see if it drips! Hope not,
Peter
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Tuesday
Hello,
I haven't written for a while so I thought I should write before nobody checks my blog anymore.
Today we put tarpaper up on the roof to help prevent rain INSIDE! A couple of days ago while my Uncle was here it rained but we had borrowed a big 30x50 ' tarp to hang up inside the frame of our house. (that worked out real good)
I guess I haven't written for so long that nobody knows how far we have got on our house. Like I said, we put tarpaper on the roof so that means we have put the trusses on and the chip board sheathing on. And also we have both end walls complete and we have a little more sheathing to do on the outside of the walls.
The peak of our roof is about 26' at the front. A little high for carrying up sheats of chip board. We got things figured out, we had Andrew and David on the floor with the piece of chip board they would lift and pass it to Jonathan and I, then we would lift it and Dad would guide it onto the top boards on the saffolding and then Jonathan and Dad would climb up and lift it onto the trusses (which is the roof). We have taken a lot of pictures so that we can look back and see what we did to build our house. I can't wait to be able to look and think back to the time when we were building the house.
Mom has pictures at her blog but they are kind of out dated. Since I haven't put any pictures on for a long time they'll be new to you.
Andrew (my brother) has turned 10! It seems like just a little while ago he was 9! he was :o) He got a .22 long rifle for his birthay from Grandpa! he is exited
Sorry for the late post.
Peter
I haven't written for a while so I thought I should write before nobody checks my blog anymore.
Today we put tarpaper up on the roof to help prevent rain INSIDE! A couple of days ago while my Uncle was here it rained but we had borrowed a big 30x50 ' tarp to hang up inside the frame of our house. (that worked out real good)
I guess I haven't written for so long that nobody knows how far we have got on our house. Like I said, we put tarpaper on the roof so that means we have put the trusses on and the chip board sheathing on. And also we have both end walls complete and we have a little more sheathing to do on the outside of the walls.
The peak of our roof is about 26' at the front. A little high for carrying up sheats of chip board. We got things figured out, we had Andrew and David on the floor with the piece of chip board they would lift and pass it to Jonathan and I, then we would lift it and Dad would guide it onto the top boards on the saffolding and then Jonathan and Dad would climb up and lift it onto the trusses (which is the roof). We have taken a lot of pictures so that we can look back and see what we did to build our house. I can't wait to be able to look and think back to the time when we were building the house.
Mom has pictures at her blog but they are kind of out dated. Since I haven't put any pictures on for a long time they'll be new to you.
Andrew (my brother) has turned 10! It seems like just a little while ago he was 9! he was :o) He got a .22 long rifle for his birthay from Grandpa! he is exited
Sorry for the late post.
Peter
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Picture journal
Here's a picture review.
HOUSE BUILDING...
The wood unloading.
The first third of the first wall. (we built the side walls in thirds so it would be easier to lift into place)
This is the first wall almost done.
The other side almost done.
I'll do another post because the computer won't let me put any more pictures on.
Peter
Friday, August 25, 2006
I guess I'd better write
Helllo,
We have gotten quite a lot done since I last wrote. We have two 40' walls built on the house. The walls are 16 feet tall. We are going to put the floor in the middle somtime other than now because we would like to shell the house together before winter. Last night it rained a little (6 10ths) and it leaked in here a little too! Mostly in dads office, but we covered the stuff in there and collected the water in icecream pails. For the last few days that we have had a break from building we have worked on my treehouse area making a for. If you want to see the pictures go to my music website and click Pictures. My site is here.
Got to eat,
Peter
We have gotten quite a lot done since I last wrote. We have two 40' walls built on the house. The walls are 16 feet tall. We are going to put the floor in the middle somtime other than now because we would like to shell the house together before winter. Last night it rained a little (6 10ths) and it leaked in here a little too! Mostly in dads office, but we covered the stuff in there and collected the water in icecream pails. For the last few days that we have had a break from building we have worked on my treehouse area making a for. If you want to see the pictures go to my music website and click Pictures. My site is here.
Got to eat,
Peter
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
I've got some more music up now.
Hello,
I had a little free time this afternoon so I used Dad's computer and recorded some of my music. It is me on lead and me also on backup. You will probably notice a little timing mistake on most of them but it is hard to record backup without any other instruments. The songs: cripple creek, man of constant sorrow, and my home's across the blueridge mtns all came from tablature from a new book I borowed from a friend. The books are from a series of five books and I am only using the second book of the series. I made up the arrangement for Jesus is our friend (boiling cabbage down) because I got tired of the simple way I had played it before. You can listen to the music at www.musicaccord.net/Peterbartlett .
This afternoon Steve came over and we harvested oats by hand. Steve used our machete to cut it and then he stuck it in piles and I took some of the pile and tied another few stems around it to hold it together and that is called a bundle and after, Dad would come and stack the bundles together into a shock. Right now there is about 6 shocks (I think 6) out there.
Today mom did a whole bunch of presure canning, 49 quart jars to be exact. Those are mostly our green beans.
I'm getting a headache from looking at a computer too much so I'll talk later.
Peter
I had a little free time this afternoon so I used Dad's computer and recorded some of my music. It is me on lead and me also on backup. You will probably notice a little timing mistake on most of them but it is hard to record backup without any other instruments. The songs: cripple creek, man of constant sorrow, and my home's across the blueridge mtns all came from tablature from a new book I borowed from a friend. The books are from a series of five books and I am only using the second book of the series. I made up the arrangement for Jesus is our friend (boiling cabbage down) because I got tired of the simple way I had played it before. You can listen to the music at www.musicaccord.net/Peterbartlett .
This afternoon Steve came over and we harvested oats by hand. Steve used our machete to cut it and then he stuck it in piles and I took some of the pile and tied another few stems around it to hold it together and that is called a bundle and after, Dad would come and stack the bundles together into a shock. Right now there is about 6 shocks (I think 6) out there.
Today mom did a whole bunch of presure canning, 49 quart jars to be exact. Those are mostly our green beans.
I'm getting a headache from looking at a computer too much so I'll talk later.
Peter
Friday, July 28, 2006
I'm still here!
Hello there!
Today it was around 70 degrees which was nice because for the last week it has been in the mid 90s. Today we moved our electric wire to a new spot for the goats because they had cleared out the previous area that we had set up. Yesterday it was David's 7th birthday! It doesn't seem like that long ago when he was only three.
Right now Mom is making raspberry jam and I can smell it from 25 feet away. The gardens are producing a lot. When our cousins were here we picked and shelled lots of peas. The total of shelled peas was 5 gallons. If any of you know how long it takes to shell any amount of peas you know how much work it is to shell 5 gallons of peas.
Today it was around 70 degrees which was nice because for the last week it has been in the mid 90s. Today we moved our electric wire to a new spot for the goats because they had cleared out the previous area that we had set up. Yesterday it was David's 7th birthday! It doesn't seem like that long ago when he was only three.
Right now Mom is making raspberry jam and I can smell it from 25 feet away. The gardens are producing a lot. When our cousins were here we picked and shelled lots of peas. The total of shelled peas was 5 gallons. If any of you know how long it takes to shell any amount of peas you know how much work it is to shell 5 gallons of peas.
My brothers like taking pictures of their toy trucks.
A review of the week after the country living skills workshops.
The day after the country living skills day we played our music at the Bottineau Gospel Music Festival and that went really good just before it started my grandparents and cousins arrived from New Hampshire. We had a good time with them. They stayed a week and we went swimming with them, tought them to shoot, went to the Peace Gardens and had a real nice time. That was only the second time I had met my cousins.
I guess I'll go now. My brothers want me to ride bike over some of the jumps they made
Peter
Friday, July 07, 2006
Update
I haven't written for quite a while now so I thought I should write a little more to update everybody. We have a irrogation systom up and running. It is a 1 1/2 inch pipe running up the hill to our farthest garden and then off of that there is 1 inch branches that can reach to the whole garden. Steve let us use his rainbird sprinklers and it is so nice to have them pouring water over the garden and us not having to do any thing exept move them once in a while. A couple of nights ago Jonathan and I were sleeping in our army surplus two man tent and Selah who was tied up by the chicken tractor started barking wildly so I got up and went over there. At first I couldn't find anything wrong but then I saw somthing that I thought was a turtle. I went closer and it ran faster so I went in front of it and it stopped. That was when I got a good look at it. It was a muskrat! I wonder why it was by our chicken coop insted of in it's pond!
Right now I am sitting in our hot house with a little fan blowing on me and missing out on the first part of Steve's "Primitive Living Skills" workshop over at Paulette's in the woods. Last night I started getting a stomach ache and sickish and so this morning I took a shower and am feeling almost back to normal but a little tired. We might end up going over to Paulette's later on today if we (Jonathan is feeling about the same as me) feel better.
This morning the turkeys were out because the wind had blown the cover of the pen off and they were walking around peeping. The are about 8-10 inches tall now and have got their feathers. I did all the chores this morning because Jonathan wasn't feeling up to it.
The gardens have grown and we have been eating peas, carrots, little potatoes, a couple tomatoes, spinach, and a little lettuce. Dad got the semi wired up now and so there is a light switch that turnes on lights all the way to the back. Now we can have more of a real shop! Having lighting in there makes us want to have it more cleaned up and it makes it more shoplike. It's getting hotter.
Peter
(I feel like swimming)
Right now I am sitting in our hot house with a little fan blowing on me and missing out on the first part of Steve's "Primitive Living Skills" workshop over at Paulette's in the woods. Last night I started getting a stomach ache and sickish and so this morning I took a shower and am feeling almost back to normal but a little tired. We might end up going over to Paulette's later on today if we (Jonathan is feeling about the same as me) feel better.
This morning the turkeys were out because the wind had blown the cover of the pen off and they were walking around peeping. The are about 8-10 inches tall now and have got their feathers. I did all the chores this morning because Jonathan wasn't feeling up to it.
The gardens have grown and we have been eating peas, carrots, little potatoes, a couple tomatoes, spinach, and a little lettuce. Dad got the semi wired up now and so there is a light switch that turnes on lights all the way to the back. Now we can have more of a real shop! Having lighting in there makes us want to have it more cleaned up and it makes it more shoplike. It's getting hotter.
Peter
(I feel like swimming)
Friday, June 09, 2006
Turkeys
Today we went to our friends the Scigliano's to pick up some turkeys that we bought from some other friends. We got 10 Bourbon Red turkeys. Right now they are about four inches tall and look like a brown spotted chicken chick. They are all cozy in their coop with the heat lamp on. We have bought two heat lamps this year because we only had one and that is not enough to heat 120 chickens and 10 turkeys. The turkeys are in a chicken tractor right now but I hope we can let them free range (if the dogs won't be a problem).
I haven't had to water because it has been rainy and the gardens were moist and since the sun hasn't been showing it won't dry up and need to be watered. I'm sort of glad of that. We had a good time at the Scigliano's. We had lunch there and visited for a while. We might end up helping them weed their BIG patch of berries sometime soon. I'm sure Chris (Scigliano) would be glad to have us help. We have been getting along pretty good without Jonathan and Dad over here but it will be nice to have them back in a few days. Time for our late supper.
Peter
I haven't had to water because it has been rainy and the gardens were moist and since the sun hasn't been showing it won't dry up and need to be watered. I'm sort of glad of that. We had a good time at the Scigliano's. We had lunch there and visited for a while. We might end up helping them weed their BIG patch of berries sometime soon. I'm sure Chris (Scigliano) would be glad to have us help. We have been getting along pretty good without Jonathan and Dad over here but it will be nice to have them back in a few days. Time for our late supper.
Peter
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Only three Leeches!
Hello,
Yesterday and the day before we cleaned up a spot on the shore of our lake and went swimming. It wasn't that simple. We had to use hand pruners and clip a trail through thick brush to get there, cut down three trees to put across the four foot deep beaver canal in order to get across the span of about fifteen feet, pull up logs that were across the path, scrape weeds out of the water, and haul logs from the lake. Even though there was a lot of work we still had fun! On the edge of the lake there are a lot of dead diamond willow brush in the water so you have to swim around them and not step onto any of the sticks that are sticking upright. At about 30 feet out I can just feel the weeds with my feet on the bottom so I suppose that the water would be about 6' deep. I'm not a real good swimmer but good enough to keep my head out of the water and get where I want to go. When we see some duck droppings in the water we say that it looks like "wild apple sauce." It sort of does look like store bought apple sauce! When we were done swimming I got out and I had three leeches stuck on my ankle. It is hard to pull them off. They are very slippery and suck pretty hard. David had one that after it was pulled off wouldn't stop bleeding for quite a while but now it is fine. I have a lot of mosquito bites on my legs and arms and one really itchy one on my cheek. When I milk the goat there is a whole roof full of mosquitos just sitting (or standing, I can't quite tell) and they fly down and bzzzzzz and bother the goat. We have lost a lot of milk because the mosquitoes bother her and then she kicks and, ah! the milk spilled!
The gardens are doing good. The corn in the hoop house is almost knee high. Dad showed me how to get water in the tank at the lake. You have to: drive down to the lake, back up with the trailer (which I am not perfect at), unhook a hose, put a different one in the pump, pull the cord and play with the choke until it goes good, wait until it is filled enough, unhook, drive up and start watering. I've only done it once by myself.
I can't forget to write about our sheep being sheared. Our neighbor Mr. Pozarnski and his wife came over with a piece of ply wood and the electric shearers. The plywood was to put the sheep on when you shear. We caught one and he started shearing. He started on the belly and and sheared up to the neck and then sheared the half of the back that was facing up, turned it over and then did the other side. The sheep we have, have two years of wool on them so it made them more difficult to shear. He did nick their skin in some places so the sheep bled a little and it stained them so the don't look very good right now. I bet the sheep feel a lot cooler now without having about 4-6 inches of wool on them. How would you like to wear a winter coat in the middle of summer? I wouldn't like it. Almost lunch so I'll write again some other time.
Peter
Yesterday and the day before we cleaned up a spot on the shore of our lake and went swimming. It wasn't that simple. We had to use hand pruners and clip a trail through thick brush to get there, cut down three trees to put across the four foot deep beaver canal in order to get across the span of about fifteen feet, pull up logs that were across the path, scrape weeds out of the water, and haul logs from the lake. Even though there was a lot of work we still had fun! On the edge of the lake there are a lot of dead diamond willow brush in the water so you have to swim around them and not step onto any of the sticks that are sticking upright. At about 30 feet out I can just feel the weeds with my feet on the bottom so I suppose that the water would be about 6' deep. I'm not a real good swimmer but good enough to keep my head out of the water and get where I want to go. When we see some duck droppings in the water we say that it looks like "wild apple sauce." It sort of does look like store bought apple sauce! When we were done swimming I got out and I had three leeches stuck on my ankle. It is hard to pull them off. They are very slippery and suck pretty hard. David had one that after it was pulled off wouldn't stop bleeding for quite a while but now it is fine. I have a lot of mosquito bites on my legs and arms and one really itchy one on my cheek. When I milk the goat there is a whole roof full of mosquitos just sitting (or standing, I can't quite tell) and they fly down and bzzzzzz and bother the goat. We have lost a lot of milk because the mosquitoes bother her and then she kicks and, ah! the milk spilled!
The gardens are doing good. The corn in the hoop house is almost knee high. Dad showed me how to get water in the tank at the lake. You have to: drive down to the lake, back up with the trailer (which I am not perfect at), unhook a hose, put a different one in the pump, pull the cord and play with the choke until it goes good, wait until it is filled enough, unhook, drive up and start watering. I've only done it once by myself.
I can't forget to write about our sheep being sheared. Our neighbor Mr. Pozarnski and his wife came over with a piece of ply wood and the electric shearers. The plywood was to put the sheep on when you shear. We caught one and he started shearing. He started on the belly and and sheared up to the neck and then sheared the half of the back that was facing up, turned it over and then did the other side. The sheep we have, have two years of wool on them so it made them more difficult to shear. He did nick their skin in some places so the sheep bled a little and it stained them so the don't look very good right now. I bet the sheep feel a lot cooler now without having about 4-6 inches of wool on them. How would you like to wear a winter coat in the middle of summer? I wouldn't like it. Almost lunch so I'll write again some other time.
Peter
Monday, May 29, 2006
Monday
Today it is kind of rainy. It's not really rainy but misty, cloudy, and windy. There is not a lot to do in this weather but be inside and find something useful to do. We had a good time with our friends yesterday. They came at about 11:00 a.m. and left at about 11:30 p.m. Not a lot of sleep time in between last night and this morning. I did get to sleep in until 9:20 p.m. this morning but I'm still tired. Maybe a nap before bed tonight would help.
I learned another song from a CD today. I don't know the name of it but the guitar flatpicking is pretty neat. The songs that I learn off from CDs are not exactly how the player played it (but it's pretty close). I have to make up my own parts for some of it when I can't follow along with what they are doing.
This morning we had two cats that fell into the used oil bucket by the semi. A BIG MESS! We had to bring them in and soap them up (which a cat does not like) and rinse them off and soap them up and rinse them off and over and over but we still didn't get all of it off. Right now they are a little greasy and where the white was it is now brown colored.
We have switched the milking chores from Jonathan to Andrew and I. I do it in the morning and then I hope Andrew will take his turn tonight. Jonathan's chores is taking care of the 50 baby chicks that we have and he will be taking care of fifty more after they come sometime this week. David's chores is feeding and watering the cats and dogs (that is pretty easy to do!).
I'll talk later,
Peter
I learned another song from a CD today. I don't know the name of it but the guitar flatpicking is pretty neat. The songs that I learn off from CDs are not exactly how the player played it (but it's pretty close). I have to make up my own parts for some of it when I can't follow along with what they are doing.
This morning we had two cats that fell into the used oil bucket by the semi. A BIG MESS! We had to bring them in and soap them up (which a cat does not like) and rinse them off and soap them up and rinse them off and over and over but we still didn't get all of it off. Right now they are a little greasy and where the white was it is now brown colored.
We have switched the milking chores from Jonathan to Andrew and I. I do it in the morning and then I hope Andrew will take his turn tonight. Jonathan's chores is taking care of the 50 baby chicks that we have and he will be taking care of fifty more after they come sometime this week. David's chores is feeding and watering the cats and dogs (that is pretty easy to do!).
I'll talk later,
Peter
Friday, May 26, 2006
An update from around here
Hello,
For the last few days it has been real nice out. About in the 75-80s. The gardens are shooting up and so are the weeds but we take care of that by tilling and weeding.
Today Steve came over and we got a bunch done. He used his hand roto-tiller and went in between the rows of the garden, Jonathan and I built the start of a chicken coop, Steve and I used a drag and leveled out the ridges in the garden spot beside the hoop house, we did a lot more watering in the North East field (I did two rows of beans that were about 15 feet long and in order to soak it I used half of a tank full of water, about 150 GALLONS), I did some obediance training with Samson, and picked up rocks out of around the house and out in the field for a couple of hours.
Our humming bird feeder has had activity recently. Tonight as we had popcorn on the patio with Steve we watched one fly in, take a sip, chirp a couple times, and then fly out. Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Earlier on we watched a bumble bee that looked about the same size as the humming bird. I like all the wildlife and birds that we have in the Turtle Mountains. One of my favorite things to do is watch and identify birds and try to see how many different types of ducks I can see on the way to town or on a trip somwhere. It's nice to see a bird and know exactly what type it is. My list of identified birds has grown to more than 100.
For the last few days it has been real nice out. About in the 75-80s. The gardens are shooting up and so are the weeds but we take care of that by tilling and weeding.
Today Steve came over and we got a bunch done. He used his hand roto-tiller and went in between the rows of the garden, Jonathan and I built the start of a chicken coop, Steve and I used a drag and leveled out the ridges in the garden spot beside the hoop house, we did a lot more watering in the North East field (I did two rows of beans that were about 15 feet long and in order to soak it I used half of a tank full of water, about 150 GALLONS), I did some obediance training with Samson, and picked up rocks out of around the house and out in the field for a couple of hours.
Our humming bird feeder has had activity recently. Tonight as we had popcorn on the patio with Steve we watched one fly in, take a sip, chirp a couple times, and then fly out. Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Earlier on we watched a bumble bee that looked about the same size as the humming bird. I like all the wildlife and birds that we have in the Turtle Mountains. One of my favorite things to do is watch and identify birds and try to see how many different types of ducks I can see on the way to town or on a trip somwhere. It's nice to see a bird and know exactly what type it is. My list of identified birds has grown to more than 100.
Ned (our billy goat) says hi!
Mamma and the kids.
As you see the kids like to play on the sheep's back and the sheep don't seem to mind.
This one is You-too. He is the spotty kid. :-) I didn't get a picture of our other goat that we are milking. Her name is Mustard Seed.
Time for bed, Goodnight
Peter
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Tons to write about!!!
We have been keeping busy watering our ~acre garden. It takes about two afternoons to complete it all even with a 425 gallon tank and a heavy duty pump with two garden hoses on it! You only have to water about twice a week if you soak it down really heavy but with the strawberries and carrots that are close to the surface they need to be watered a lot more frequently so that it is still moist at the level where the seed it. Most all the seeds are peeking out of the soil now so it won't be long until everything is six inches tall!
Yesterday we had Chris Scigliano come over and till up another patch of ground so that we can till from now until next planting season so the weeds are deleted from that area. Our little twin kids are doing just fine! Jumping around and playing with each other. It is fun to watch them play and jump onto a sheep's back that is standing up and nibble on some wool and jump off again.
Today we went and took apart the beaver dam that is holding up water over the road. The beaver has built it up pretty good so it is harder to take apart than the first time we did it.
We are going to be playing music at a graduation near Bismark in a few days so we have been practicing and have got dad on the big upright bass so now he can play seven songs. Tonight mom took a try at milking and I didn't hear the story as to if it was successful or unsuccessful.
Oh yes, yesterday a lady came over from Rugby to help us take a look at our bees with dad and found out that one of our two hives was empty from most of the bees except for a bunch of dead ones so we are thinking that it got sick. Or possibly the queen moved or the queen died and all the other bees flew somewhere else but we don't know and at least we still have another hive. There's a bunch more to say but it's getting later so,
Good bye.
Peter
Yesterday we had Chris Scigliano come over and till up another patch of ground so that we can till from now until next planting season so the weeds are deleted from that area. Our little twin kids are doing just fine! Jumping around and playing with each other. It is fun to watch them play and jump onto a sheep's back that is standing up and nibble on some wool and jump off again.
Today we went and took apart the beaver dam that is holding up water over the road. The beaver has built it up pretty good so it is harder to take apart than the first time we did it.
We are going to be playing music at a graduation near Bismark in a few days so we have been practicing and have got dad on the big upright bass so now he can play seven songs. Tonight mom took a try at milking and I didn't hear the story as to if it was successful or unsuccessful.
Oh yes, yesterday a lady came over from Rugby to help us take a look at our bees with dad and found out that one of our two hives was empty from most of the bees except for a bunch of dead ones so we are thinking that it got sick. Or possibly the queen moved or the queen died and all the other bees flew somewhere else but we don't know and at least we still have another hive. There's a bunch more to say but it's getting later so,
Good bye.
Peter
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Planting
We are home! There has been a lot of things going on at our place since we left to Carlton MN.
We have (along with our three sheep) five goats, two of them are three or four day old kids, and Dad has been calling them "you" and "you too." They are real cute! You is mostly black on her back but You Too has the same design only with extra white spots on her back. One of the other goats, Ned (we didn't name him) is our Billy goat. He is the most friendly goat of them all! The other two are females and are Mustard Seed and I forgot the other one's name but we are milking Mustard Seed and the other one is the one that had kids so we are letting the kids take the milk from her for now.
Now for the planting part. We have planted: corn, beans, tomatoes, some peppers, lots of raspberries, onions, lots of potatoes, carrots, peas, red wheat as an experiment, white wheat as an experiment, oats as an experiment, and a bunch of trees scattered in the raspberry patch. Now that we have all that planted it takes about three or more hours to totally soak the plants as much as they need. Yesterday we watered using Steve's water tank and a gas pump on the bace of his pickup truck. Each tank full was about 350 gallons and we used at least five tank fulls. That is a lot!!! We will still be planting more this spring. Got to get going and ready to milk the goat.
Peter
We have (along with our three sheep) five goats, two of them are three or four day old kids, and Dad has been calling them "you" and "you too." They are real cute! You is mostly black on her back but You Too has the same design only with extra white spots on her back. One of the other goats, Ned (we didn't name him) is our Billy goat. He is the most friendly goat of them all! The other two are females and are Mustard Seed and I forgot the other one's name but we are milking Mustard Seed and the other one is the one that had kids so we are letting the kids take the milk from her for now.
Now for the planting part. We have planted: corn, beans, tomatoes, some peppers, lots of raspberries, onions, lots of potatoes, carrots, peas, red wheat as an experiment, white wheat as an experiment, oats as an experiment, and a bunch of trees scattered in the raspberry patch. Now that we have all that planted it takes about three or more hours to totally soak the plants as much as they need. Yesterday we watered using Steve's water tank and a gas pump on the bace of his pickup truck. Each tank full was about 350 gallons and we used at least five tank fulls. That is a lot!!! We will still be planting more this spring. Got to get going and ready to milk the goat.
Peter
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Really high jump!
Hello
We got the hoop house up and done a couple of days ago and have some trans-plants and seeds in it. We planted lots of corn and some peas in the hoop house so far but outside we have: two rows of potatoes, five rows of carrots, four and a quarter rows of peas, and just a couple of days ago got two rows of onions planted. We have a pump hooked up to a little pond across the field and use that to water with the garden hose. We have our bikes out and running now and have had fun doing jumps. Here is yesterday's record jump. We couldn't measure exactly how high I went but it was fun!
We like using the digital camera to take pictures because you don't have to buy film and you can delete the ones that don't turn out. How do you think I went so high? Here's a good picture of our growing German Shepherd. He is getting bigger:
We got the hoop house up and done a couple of days ago and have some trans-plants and seeds in it. We planted lots of corn and some peas in the hoop house so far but outside we have: two rows of potatoes, five rows of carrots, four and a quarter rows of peas, and just a couple of days ago got two rows of onions planted. We have a pump hooked up to a little pond across the field and use that to water with the garden hose. We have our bikes out and running now and have had fun doing jumps. Here is yesterday's record jump. We couldn't measure exactly how high I went but it was fun!
We like using the digital camera to take pictures because you don't have to buy film and you can delete the ones that don't turn out. How do you think I went so high? Here's a good picture of our growing German Shepherd. He is getting bigger:
Peter
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Hoop house
Hello,
We got the hoop house (green house) almost finished in the last couple days. Pretty much all that is left is the plastic sheet over the top. We have a door on the northern end of the hoop house and got it tilled inside. Also, in the last couple of days we put up some cattle panels for fencing and wired them to metal stakes for a pen for our sheep and maybe goats this summer. I took these pictures this afternoon of the hoop house and other things:
The hoop house.
Dad putting the washer and hose clamp on the end of the re-bar to hold it from shifting in the wind.
Jonathan putting the wire into the 2x4 to wire the board to the pipes I filled with cement.
Steve, David and Andrew spreading the manure farther from the pile.
Jonathan admiring the hoop house.
We got the hoop house (green house) almost finished in the last couple days. Pretty much all that is left is the plastic sheet over the top. We have a door on the northern end of the hoop house and got it tilled inside. Also, in the last couple of days we put up some cattle panels for fencing and wired them to metal stakes for a pen for our sheep and maybe goats this summer. I took these pictures this afternoon of the hoop house and other things:
The hoop house.
Dad putting the washer and hose clamp on the end of the re-bar to hold it from shifting in the wind.
Jonathan putting the wire into the 2x4 to wire the board to the pipes I filled with cement.
Steve, David and Andrew spreading the manure farther from the pile.
Jonathan admiring the hoop house.
Looking through the door at Steve and the tiller.
Dad is having a good time :-)
Our tilled garden spot without any plants.
Our garden spot with plants.
A good picture of Mom.
Later in the evening we went to our neighbors to look at their sheep and lambs. The pictures:
Us bottle feeding the lambs.
As you can see, they have lots of sheep!
A cute picture of one out of about 120 lambs that they have.
Our sheep that need to be sheared. I'll have to put some pictures of the fences that we put up. Now it is time to got to bed. Goodnight!
Peter
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Rain rain rain = mud mud mud
Rain rain rain = Mud mud mud = mess mess mess. It is pretty dreary out today. I only went outside a couple times and don't feel like going out any more than I have to. Samson is kind of lonely because we had Selah inside all night. The thunder scares her pretty bad. We did indoor stuff today like: math, reading, music... Not a lot to write about. Dad went to sawmill lumber to pick up an aproxamate price ammount for building supplies.
Peter
Peter
Monday, April 17, 2006
Our day of trans planting little seeds
Hello,
There has just been so much going on around our place that I haven't had time to do any blogging. I like blogging but sometimes I just can't get myself to do it.
Today we headed over to Paulette's at 10:00 a.m. and trans-planted A LOT (almost 5,000) of little tiny plants. The snap-dragons were the worst. They were about an inch tall and the stem was about a 32nd of an inch wide (very hard to work with but at least you didn't have to plant them singly like some others that we did, you could plant three in each one of the sections of the six pack plant cariers). After doing trans-planting for the morning we went outside and worked on some weeding, cleaning out dead flowers from last year, and planting seeds in and out of the green house. We planted a bunch of rows of vegtables: potatoes, peas, corn, tomatos, and I don't think we planted any beans.
After a while we got a break and had a few cookies and then we used the scooter we brought with us. We got it free from a friend when we helped her clean her garage. It is not motorized but we would like to put a little motor on it. If you started on the hill near the heath center you could give yourself a push and glide down to around the bend where Mom got stuck, about 200 yards.
We had supper there and I'm full! When we got home Dad pulled off the straps that held on the tarp for the roof and so we took the roof off. I'm tired. Time to go to bed.
Peter
There has just been so much going on around our place that I haven't had time to do any blogging. I like blogging but sometimes I just can't get myself to do it.
Today we headed over to Paulette's at 10:00 a.m. and trans-planted A LOT (almost 5,000) of little tiny plants. The snap-dragons were the worst. They were about an inch tall and the stem was about a 32nd of an inch wide (very hard to work with but at least you didn't have to plant them singly like some others that we did, you could plant three in each one of the sections of the six pack plant cariers). After doing trans-planting for the morning we went outside and worked on some weeding, cleaning out dead flowers from last year, and planting seeds in and out of the green house. We planted a bunch of rows of vegtables: potatoes, peas, corn, tomatos, and I don't think we planted any beans.
After a while we got a break and had a few cookies and then we used the scooter we brought with us. We got it free from a friend when we helped her clean her garage. It is not motorized but we would like to put a little motor on it. If you started on the hill near the heath center you could give yourself a push and glide down to around the bend where Mom got stuck, about 200 yards.
We had supper there and I'm full! When we got home Dad pulled off the straps that held on the tarp for the roof and so we took the roof off. I'm tired. Time to go to bed.
Peter
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The green is showing!!! and more...
Hi there,
The weather is now very nice (about 65-70 degrees) except for last night when it thundered and stormed with rain but now it is all dry. We went to Paulette's today and helped transplant little baby plants into other containers to be farther apart from each other. We (Andrew and I) had a good time and got a pretty good amount done and Andrew helped Steve bring them down to the attached green house by his cabin. A few days ago we came over and put the plastic sheeting on the hoop house (a green house that is about 40 feet long and gets VERY hot in the sun) and so that is all done and ready after the ground is tilled inside to plant the little plants in it. I have been seeing little shoots of grass coming up in the open places and it is nice to see some green again after the winter/mud.
This afternoon we had a little scary adventure with the burn barrel and fire extinguisher. I was the one that noticed that the smoke from the burn barrel was spreading farther out into the field. Earlier in the afternoon Jonathan had brought the garbage over across the field and burned it all but it must have been before it was completely burned a piece of burning garbage fell out and started the dry grass on fire. We have a metal screen that we put over the barrel when it gets going and all the garbage is in and then the burning pieces can't fly out in the wind. Today it was windy and the rain that had fallen the night before was dry by the afternoon so the piece of burning garbage that fell out started a fire that spread about 25 yards and had spread side ways about 10 feet. I was the first one to run over there and I started trying to stamp out the worst parts and then when Dad and Jonathan came and helped but it wasn't doing much and that is when Jonathan mentioned "fire extinguisher" and then ran to get one. He got the one from near the wood stove and on the way told Mom about the fire and she got buckets of water in the van and drove out to help. When she got there Dad had used the extinguisher and gotten most of the fire out and the buckets were just used to make sure the fire wasn't going to start up on us again. I had gotten the metal rake and was beating out the flame and scratching up the ground and the little flame that was left was out. I'm glad it didn't spread any farther than what it did! Lots of exiting things happen around here.
I've been doing Samson's training sessions regularly now and he is improving. I have got him to do heel really good with the leash and without the leash he kind of moves away when I turn to the right. We are all still recovering from being sick. It is mostly the cough now and a little of the runny noses. It has been staying light now about until 9:00 p.m. which is nice to have more time outside in the evening. This morning we went to sawmill lumber to think out our house plans and look at lumber, siding, roofs... The man there will be giving us an approximate price list for when we order lumber. Glad spring is here!
Peter
A few pictures of the fire:
The burn barrel and a few buckets included.
Part of the area burned.
This was the direction the wind was blowing and the fire was spreading. If we didn't stop it it could have burned down those trees and everything behind it. Glad it didn't happen!
The weather is now very nice (about 65-70 degrees) except for last night when it thundered and stormed with rain but now it is all dry. We went to Paulette's today and helped transplant little baby plants into other containers to be farther apart from each other. We (Andrew and I) had a good time and got a pretty good amount done and Andrew helped Steve bring them down to the attached green house by his cabin. A few days ago we came over and put the plastic sheeting on the hoop house (a green house that is about 40 feet long and gets VERY hot in the sun) and so that is all done and ready after the ground is tilled inside to plant the little plants in it. I have been seeing little shoots of grass coming up in the open places and it is nice to see some green again after the winter/mud.
This afternoon we had a little scary adventure with the burn barrel and fire extinguisher. I was the one that noticed that the smoke from the burn barrel was spreading farther out into the field. Earlier in the afternoon Jonathan had brought the garbage over across the field and burned it all but it must have been before it was completely burned a piece of burning garbage fell out and started the dry grass on fire. We have a metal screen that we put over the barrel when it gets going and all the garbage is in and then the burning pieces can't fly out in the wind. Today it was windy and the rain that had fallen the night before was dry by the afternoon so the piece of burning garbage that fell out started a fire that spread about 25 yards and had spread side ways about 10 feet. I was the first one to run over there and I started trying to stamp out the worst parts and then when Dad and Jonathan came and helped but it wasn't doing much and that is when Jonathan mentioned "fire extinguisher" and then ran to get one. He got the one from near the wood stove and on the way told Mom about the fire and she got buckets of water in the van and drove out to help. When she got there Dad had used the extinguisher and gotten most of the fire out and the buckets were just used to make sure the fire wasn't going to start up on us again. I had gotten the metal rake and was beating out the flame and scratching up the ground and the little flame that was left was out. I'm glad it didn't spread any farther than what it did! Lots of exiting things happen around here.
I've been doing Samson's training sessions regularly now and he is improving. I have got him to do heel really good with the leash and without the leash he kind of moves away when I turn to the right. We are all still recovering from being sick. It is mostly the cough now and a little of the runny noses. It has been staying light now about until 9:00 p.m. which is nice to have more time outside in the evening. This morning we went to sawmill lumber to think out our house plans and look at lumber, siding, roofs... The man there will be giving us an approximate price list for when we order lumber. Glad spring is here!
Peter
A few pictures of the fire:
The burn barrel and a few buckets included.
Part of the area burned.
This was the direction the wind was blowing and the fire was spreading. If we didn't stop it it could have burned down those trees and everything behind it. Glad it didn't happen!
Friday, March 31, 2006
The winter is not over yet!
Hi there,
Last night Samson didn't bark (I'm glad) so we all slept pretty good and woke up to a sunny day outside. I was cleaning up the front part of our house (we call it that because our house is all one room with the bathroom closed off with a curtain)this morning and there was a pile of garbage there so I took it out and noticed that all the barrels were full (we only have two barrels for burning and the other two go to the dump in town) and since they were full I decided to burn it. The burn barrel is across the field to the NE and there was more garbage than what was in the barrels so I used the sled to haul the stuff over. That was at 9:00 a.m. and I after I burned the garbage I looked at the clock inside and it said 9:54 a.m. it might not be exactly right but it does take time to burn the garbage.
Last night as I wrote last post it was storming out and the rain was coming down pretty hard and what I didn't write was that we had heard thunder. At first we weren't sure and thought that it was our tarp flapping in the wind but then we heard it more and louder and were soon sure that it was thunder. We brought in Selah (because she is always scared of loud bangs like a rifle and when she was a puppy the first night that it stormed with thunder she was really scared and wanted to come in but we didn't let her in so she must have thought that something was out to get her and ran away and we couldn't find her until our neighbor called and said she had seen her) until the storm gone down and the thunder quit and then let her outside again. The rain turned to snow and then this morning there was about a half an inch of snow and a few 6 inch deep drifts. That soon melted away and created more mud and slush. It sounds like the dogs will bark tonight because we can hear the coyotes and when the dogs hear them they start to howl. A German Shepherd howl sounds kind of funny and Selah can howl almost like a coyote.
This afternoon I started making a wooden box but the problem is we don't have many scrap boards or even good boards but we did have a few left over scrap ash boards so I used those. I hope I'll sleep good tonight!
Peter
Last night Samson didn't bark (I'm glad) so we all slept pretty good and woke up to a sunny day outside. I was cleaning up the front part of our house (we call it that because our house is all one room with the bathroom closed off with a curtain)this morning and there was a pile of garbage there so I took it out and noticed that all the barrels were full (we only have two barrels for burning and the other two go to the dump in town) and since they were full I decided to burn it. The burn barrel is across the field to the NE and there was more garbage than what was in the barrels so I used the sled to haul the stuff over. That was at 9:00 a.m. and I after I burned the garbage I looked at the clock inside and it said 9:54 a.m. it might not be exactly right but it does take time to burn the garbage.
Last night as I wrote last post it was storming out and the rain was coming down pretty hard and what I didn't write was that we had heard thunder. At first we weren't sure and thought that it was our tarp flapping in the wind but then we heard it more and louder and were soon sure that it was thunder. We brought in Selah (because she is always scared of loud bangs like a rifle and when she was a puppy the first night that it stormed with thunder she was really scared and wanted to come in but we didn't let her in so she must have thought that something was out to get her and ran away and we couldn't find her until our neighbor called and said she had seen her) until the storm gone down and the thunder quit and then let her outside again. The rain turned to snow and then this morning there was about a half an inch of snow and a few 6 inch deep drifts. That soon melted away and created more mud and slush. It sounds like the dogs will bark tonight because we can hear the coyotes and when the dogs hear them they start to howl. A German Shepherd howl sounds kind of funny and Selah can howl almost like a coyote.
This afternoon I started making a wooden box but the problem is we don't have many scrap boards or even good boards but we did have a few left over scrap ash boards so I used those. I hope I'll sleep good tonight!
Peter
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