Logs are Being Cut

Our logger, Billy Harris, has been trying so hard to get our logs cut, but the weather is not cooperating. When the temperature is below freezing, his equipment will not start. He only has about a fifth of our logs cut now and he has surgery on his arm in a few weeks, which will put him out of commission for at least a month. He says he will deliver to us as much as possible before his surgery and the rest after he recovers. That will give us something to start working on for now. We are going to be running at least six weeks behind our original schedule before we even start. Oh well, so goes the house building business. All things in God's timing! There is so much that is totally out of our control and I think God likes it that way. Each day has enough troubles of its own, doesn't it. In the meantime we are waiting for a dry Saturday that is above freezing to finish the outdoor playground. Hopefully sometime before April. We have been spoiled by the dry warm winters of the past few years and it is hard to lay low for these many weeks. I plan to have a few raised garden beds and want to make a compost pile. It is hard to wait when I have no idea when I can get started. We also want to have chickens and need to build a coop. Again now are the days of planning and dreaming and hoping and praying. We plan our days but God directs our paths. We look forward to seeing God's plans for our family unfold.

Adoption

We have begun the process of adopting Benjamin David. He should be officially ours in about 90 days. He is such a sweetie and we couldn't imagine our life without him.

The Snow of 2009

Gabby inside their igloo.

The simple life got even simpler this weekend as we lost electricity for four days. The Snow of 2009 as it will inevitably be known as, was absolutely beautiful. The 14 inches we got was too much for a lot of trees to hold. Limbs and trees were brought down all over the county, knocking out electrical lines and blowing transformers.

Staying warm was not a problem with our Kerosun heater and cooking on our Coleman cook stove and turkey fryer made cooking not a problem. Our wonderful neighbor brought us a basket full of home-canned goodies including applesauce, blackberries, blackberry jelly, and Pink-eyed Shellies; and red potatoes and deer meat. We have been feasting!

It was great having Dad home for 5 days. Dad helped Blane, Jr. build an igloo, pushed Gabby on the sled, cooked outside, melted lots of snow for flushing and kept the Kerosun filled and burning.

Blane, Jr. took lots of pictures with his new camera. We hope you enjoy them!

The scene from our front window.

The swing was grounded!

Kiki liked the snow but not for very long.

This is the side of our shed.

Our car.

A Winter Wonderland

Being a Mom

Today I had a child phsycologist tell me that if I am ever without children at home, which would be a very long time from now, that she could use me in her office. Once before a Child Developmental Coordinator said she wished she could hire me to teach parenting. It makes me feel good that even though I don't have a degree, being a Mom for over twenty years has been a good school master and there is great value in what I do. It was interesting that she picked up on the fact that I am a teacher, which many would say that I am not qualified to do either, but I have been homeschooling for 17 years. Some things I have learned through research, other things by networking with other moms and many things by trial and error, but all things by the Holy Spirit.

Hot Chocolate

Choosing A Logger

After getting three bids on logs we decided to use a logger named Billy Harris. His price was a bit higher but he is very experienced and has cut logs for log homes before. He was very nice and welcomed us to come out and look at the stand of trees he had planned to cut for us. Other loggers we looked at were used to cutting pulp wood for paper mills and were not used to hauling the 40' logs we would need. Although their prices were lower than Billy's, we decided to pay a little bit more to make sure the job got done right.


The trees he showed us were almost perfect for building a log home. They were very straight with little taper on most of them. There were also some big beefy trees that we will use for our ridge pole (RP) and ridge pole support logs (RPSL).


Billy will start cutting the logs in the second week of January. As soon as we get our logs the work on the cabin will start, and hopefully will not stop until January 2011 when we are planing to be finished with the cabin.