It's August? Already?

It seems it's been a few weeks! I was on a good roll of weekly or more postings but as I expected, I ran into a lack of motivation and brain power to keep up my pace. At this point the days are going so fast I am having a hard time remembering what day it is, it all runs together in my world! Thank goodness for calendars. In order not to bore you I will just post some pictures and give a summary of the madness that is my life.

Eighth month belly
I am 33 weeks and now see my midwives every 2 weeks and just had a prenatal last Wednesday. Baby is head down now but is favoring being posterior at the moment so I am trying to remember to lay on my left side to encourage him to lay on my left side too. Being posterior means that he is facing forward and has his back pressed against mine. While this is not a problem for us right now, in labor it can create quite a lot of unpleasant things like back labor (think of having a bowling ball being pressed with unnatural force against your tail bone from the inside, it hurts like nothing else), a slower labor and much more effort in pushing. Posterior isn't dangerous or really "bad" but it is nothing us mom's who forgo pain medication want to experience! So I am praying and working on getting him to cooperate. Other than that I am measuring right on track, no major things to complain about and am generally functioning a lot better than I expected for this far along. Only about 4-7 weeks to go! I will be doing a post on how I am preparing for my second home birth and what my hopes are for Labor Day (not the holiday, the one where I give birth silly).

This one Rutgers is loaded! The other is catching up.
The garden I have kind of slowed down with. Everything is growing but I badly needed to do some maintenance including a good dose of watering for the indoor plants. All the potted plants outside are getting regular water with the plethora of rain storms and showers we have had but I have neglected the indoor plants a little in the past couple weeks. Everything needs a fresh dose of liquid fertilizer and inside needs a good soaking. I am harvesting a few beautiful ripe Glacier tomatoes now as well as Northeaster pole beans, all my carrots were pulled this last week (I chose to harvest them at what I call the finger size), Swiss chard is still cranking out 1-2 full cuttings a week and the leaf beet really needs a good harvest. Cucumbers are thriving and should be giving us fruits to pick by mid to late this month. My onions are going to be a bitter disappointment this year I am afraid, my fault as they have not had enough full sun to bulb properly. Some have made tiny bulbs about the size of a large marble but most are still strait and no thicker than a fat pensils.

Glaciers

San Diego Pastes
The chicks are 8 weeks old now and are growing like crazy. Most of them have successfully feathered out completely but there are a few that are struggling with this and look a little like awkward teens. I lost two of my Buff Rocks to a mystery ailment that involved a swollen or blocked up sack in their necks, fluffed feathers and sleepiness. They died within 3 days of first symptoms. I have no idea if this was a contagious illness or it was merely a coincidence but they died within a week of each other. None others so far have seemed to come down with what ever it is. One of my Partridge Cochins was damaged either during sorting or shipping from the hatchery and has a malformed leg. Because of this she was being picked on badly as well as my little rare breed Silver Polish who both ended up with open wounds. I separated them from the rest of the flock and since then with more attention to entertainment, I have not had anymore bad pecking problems. I will keep 'Gimpy' and 'Weirdo' in their own space until most of the roosters have gone to the butcher. I will send them by breed not only to make it more manageable money wise (30 birds would cost about $90 all at once) but also so I can keep track of what breeds preformed the best in meat production. The Light Brahmas will likely be the first batch as they are the largest and most in numbers (which I won't do until after I have recovered fully from birth). I will be extremely thankful when we have a freezer full of organic homegrown meat again!

The barn is kind of a mad house
And, last but not least, the house. We have been approved for a construction loan! Thank you and praise to Jesus! While we have a bit of a process to complete until closing, we will be closing hopefully sometime in September and getting back on the fast track. Obviously this means we will not be in our house before the baby comes but we should have the ok to move in before Thanksgiving or sooner depending on... well it's construction so everything! I do see why people who have the means hire crews to build their house! Building it yourself takes about four times as long. But, at the end of this we get to live in a house where we are reminded of the achievement everyday and for what most people pay for a tiny fixer-upper. The best part is we have designed it to be exactly what we want and to be low cost in utilities, a blessing beyond words here in Maine.

I plan on finishing up some more projects in my room and then I will do that home birth prep post!

Til next time.

Building a House While Pregnant: This Mama's Experience

Disclosure: I'm going to get real and be a little vulnerable here for a minute, so be nice if you comment.

After googling this subject and coming up with squat I figured maybe that's because most people aren't crazy enough to do it. And, had I seen how long this was going to be taking, I would have done it differently too. Blame my hormones, my husband's encouragement, God's command, the excitement of having a new little one... blame ME. Yes, I am saying that this is not what I pictured. Does that mean I am not thrilled to be having this little boy? Not at all! I couldn't be more happy, but it does mean I don't always feel like I can express that happiness. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I didn't even want to tell anyone because I just didn't want to hear it. Quite honestly I had foolishly thought it would have taken awhile longer to get pregnant and my due date wouldn't have been an issue to our timeline. Not the case and moving on! So, now I am seven month pregnant and staring down my due month like a deer in the headlights. Let me tell you, I have never felt so much stress, pressure and out of control in my life. I could rattle off a laundry list of things that stress me out (read haunt me) daily regardless, but this takes the cake.

First off, I birth my babies at home. At HOME. My home is not done. I currently have no place to give birth. Make this my number one stress.

I have a ton of crap I have moved about a half a dozen times in the last six years and a lot of it I don't even know where it is or that it even exists until I open mystery box number 27. I am not usually a terribly disheveled person, I like to be fairly organized but after you pack and re-pack and re-pack and re-pack you start to just not even bother to unpack any thing but the necessaries. They are just things but not having your things just makes you feel like you don't belong where you are. And, really we don't belong here. My parent's home stopped being mine the day I got married and I have felt an underlying level of guilt and failure since the day we moved back here. Now that our basement is finished enough, I have begun to wade through all our belongings in the basement of my parents house and will soon do the same with the ones in our horse trailer. This I hate. I will love having it be finished, but it is a lot of work and requires me to make a mess in order to accomplish it. I started with the easy and kind of fun stuff: baby things. I am almost done with prepping the baby's needs so soon I will move on to everything else and possibly I will have enough to do a yard sale.

Montana Man and I see very little of each other. This makes me sad. He works all week and then is at the house all weekend. I see him in snippets but it's not the same as being able to spend a whole day together as a family. I am so proud of the work he is doing and his provision for us. This is hard though. Both of us are stressed and exhausted at the end of each day and our marriage is kind of just an after thought right now. We are parenting fine together, but I miss closeness and love. We talk about financing, carpentry, how much time we have left, how much work he will have this week, what's next on the list of to dos. As an emotional and hormonal pregnant lady, this is second in line for stress. I'm trying not to let this bother me so much so that I don't put any more pressure on MM, but lately I have been struggling with it and I'm starting to get depressed.

I am starting to have a hard time keeping up with normal everyday life. I'm bigger, I'm tired and my two little energizer bunnies are running me ragged physically and emotionally. My mom helped me so much yesterday and I am so grateful for her! But, I hate needing help! I just feel guilty that I can't do it all and worry that I am being a burden to those that are helping me. To be honest, yesterday was half physically exhausted and half depressed. Ugh, so frustrating! My children are my life pretty much and to feel like I am failing at that just reinforces my guilt.

One thing that surprises me is that I do not have any fear about mothering three children once I have the baby. Praise be to God, I do not stress about that! In fact, I feel quite peaceful about it. Check one for the positive list!

I'm not writing this post to have anyone pity me and I hope no one will judge me harshly! I am writing this because I am so sick of people just covering up what life really is like! Everyone's got something! I will not feel these things once we are moved in and once the baby is here, but that doesn't mean that the next two months won't be hard. I wish I could read something like this so I guess I wrote this for those that are in the same situation(ish) so they can relate. So, if you are the prayerful type... pray. Pray for someone to finance us so we can stay on track, for Montana Man to stay well and have enough work to keep the bills paid, for the baby to not come early, and for my sinful, worrisome, insecure heart to cling to Jesus.

June House Progress

This weekend we poured the basement floor! Finally, and we could not have asked for a better day to do it. It was warm but dry with the humidity only around 40% which is uncommon for Maine in June. God was being gracious! With only my dad and Montana Man working the concrete my dad had ordered it with a higher moisture content so it would set slower and give them more time to manipulate it so it was level. With all that extra moisture we were prepared for it to take forever to cure but with the stiff breeze, the gaping hole in the side of the house and the low humidity it was hard enough to walk on by afternoon. By now, a day later, it is hard enough to start unloading and moving some of our belongings that have been in storage for years into the basement! Normally I wouldn't be this excited but I have a lot of things to sort through and organize before we move into the upstairs and I just don't think I will be up to it in September or for months afterward. You don't realize how much stuff you have until you have moved it around a half dozen times. We have a large horse trailer, about 100 square feet in my parents crawl space in their basement and what we are currently using upstairs. That's a lot to go through and weed out! Especially my books... I have a lot of books. Anyway, lets get back to this floor shall we?

You might notice the silver shiny stuff on the floor that the concrete was going over. That is 1" polystyrene (foam board) insulation with a reflective coating. While the reflective coating really wasn't necessary, that type of foam board was what was available and the most affordable. We chose to insulate the slab because with the walls being completely insulated with the ICF forms it only made sense to complete the thermal barrier so the basement will not be effected by the ground temperature or moisture. This means heating the basement and keeping it dry without a dehumidifier will be much easier. In fact, it provides such a great envelope that heating the house above it with a pellet stove will be entirely enough even in the coldest weather. Even if a house is only on a slab foundation I would still encourage using a foam insulation under it to beak the thermal barrier to avoid cracking and cold floors. It's worth the extra money!


After the floor was poured we had some extra concrete which we had already paid for so Montana Man threw a form together in front of the porch for a pad which our steps will base from. We had not planned on this but it is a nice perk! Of course we had to put the kids hand prints, our hand prints and the year in the pad. I only have pictures of the kids doing theirs!

I'm glad we got to put our prints somewhere we will see them often. My brother and I did ours in the wall of the addition when we were little but it got covered by an exterior wall so we will probably never see them again! Montana Man kind of balked at putting his in but as he had never done it in his life I felt this was important, another piece of his childhood that he could make up for. I only wish there was a way for the baby to be able to add his! Perhaps I will just plant his placenta with a tree instead, hahahaha! He should be born in this house so I guess that's pretty profound *winkwink*.

I will have to do a part two to this post and add more pictures of other things before the month is out. There is a good chance we will have all the windows and part of the siding on by the end of next weekend, they are to be delivered Monday morning! It may be slower than some but progress is progress and I am still hopeful for a September move in date.

Stay tuned!

May House Pictures and Progress Report

Montana Man, my dad and my brother have been hard at work and we have interior walls as well as a nearly complete roof (just a few loose ends on that) and we are ready to order our windows and siding! With it inching closer to summer and me now past the half way point in my pregnancy we are feeling the pressure to move as fast as we can!



Views from the front door of the kitchen/dining and living room.



Our very large bathroom (our only one I might add!).



Laundry and linen closet.



A really bad picture of the master bedroom (not real sure what makes it 'master', pretty basic).



Kids' bedrooms, mirror images of each other.



Where the stairs to the basement will be located between the kitchen and bathroom walls.

People always ask the same question about the house... when will we be moving in? Well, through God's good grace I would like to be moved in and halfway settled before the first of September. I am not "due" until the 17th but with Mini Me coming a full ten days early last time I would like to not cut it so close I have no energy to birth the poor thing. With luck, (and I will later insert my foot in my mouth for saying this) I might go to my due date this time which would give me time to unpack fully, organize and feel really ready for little man. But, we have a long laundry list of things to do before we can get our occupancy permit:

pour basement floor
siding
windows
install door
deck the porch
plumb
finish electrical
insulate
sheetrock
install kitchen cabinets, counters and appliances
tile bathroom (floor, shower, tub surround)
install bathroom fixtures
install boiler/hot water system and baseboards
install pine tongue and groove boards on the cathedral ceiling
prime and paint
flooring (wood, carpet, tile)
install solar power system
septic and leech bed
drill well and run lines and install pump

Most of that is to make it liveable. Yes, we could live with bare sheetrock and sub flooring for a while, but after talking it through we realize with small children that what seem like easy "later" projects would be a big pain. So, we will take the few extra days to prime, paint and install flooring to save us a hassle later. The windows and doors might not get trimmed out right away and the porch will be in a state of "good enough" for a year or so, but it will be comfortable and functional! Thankfully we decided to go with a small house to start with and a lot of these projects can be accomplished in a weekend or by me in the evenings (like tiling or painting, refinishing the cabinets or tub). Building your own house is hard work and I am so thankful for a husband that is willing to do this and has the skills! I would like to glean some more carpentry skills and build the chicken coop although being five months pregnant I might need some help with the lifting *winkwink*. Yes, I am still technically supposed to take it "easy", but I seem to be stable enough to test my limits just a little. I am still lugging water, tending the garden beds and animals as well as wrangling my writhing ball of energy that is my daughter with little ill effects, a day or two of carpentry shouldn't hurt! In fact, I have been so active lately that despite my new larger appetite I am gaining weight pretty slowly. Not in a bad way! This baby is growing fine and is one strong kicking little dude, ask my bladder.

So, there you are. More updates to come as we progress!

Til next time.

House Update!!!

Would you look at that?! It looks like a house now! After three snow storms we finally got the roof on. Let me tell you, getting snow out of a walled in house is not easy... for the men. Ok, I didn't shovel any, but in all fairness they didn't ask me to or even tell me when. I would have. So let's look at some pictures shall we?!

And then the roof...

And, as you all know, Valentine's Day has just passed. We don't normally make much out of this "holiday" but this year Montana Man decided to surprise me with dinner and s'mores in the new house. Yes, it was cold and it was a bit dark as well but it was very sweet and quite the memory!

Today MM and I went to Home Depot and got some electrical boxes and chalk line to start laying out the interior and prep it for wiring. We managed to get the basic layout lined out and all the exterior wall electrical boxes up. After we pour the floor down stairs and put in the lolly columns which will allow us to level the floor we can start on interior walls. Well, insulation will come before interior walls but you get the idea. As we start gearing up for spring I will start posting more regularly on all aspects of the homestead and life.

Til next time.

Thoughts For 2014

Ah, another year. I must be getting old because they fly by way to fast. Now, let's get one thing taken care of... I don't do resolutions. Many do and feel it is a meaningful part of life. Personally I find them a complete waste of time. I am always trying to save more and spend less, lose weight and attain rapidly evolving goals. I do not need a date on the calendar to signify I have begun or failed (cause lets face it, we all fail one or more of those resolutions). Nope, I just don't need that kind of pressure! But, I do enjoy and encourage making both a mindful and realistic picture of your coming year in your minds eye. This year a certain word comes to me when I think on it. Surrender. Oh, what a loaded word and one I struggle with so much. Surrendering to God and his will for our life as a family. Surrender to unknowns. Surrender to situations not in our control. Just surrender!

With this concept in mind, I will share some projects I am planning to work on this year. Notice I said work on not accomplish! If I accomplish them then I can grab a hard cider and kick my feet up in celebration. If not... eh.

photo creditA new garden! The joy of a new home. I have been working on this post for a couple days (because I have interruptions every 5 minutes) and in that time I have discovered a new style of gardening! Back to Eden gardening is a concept born of Creation. A man moved his family to a new home so he could grow their food but was faced with the challenge of not enough water. So through prayerful exploration and listening he was guided to 'covering' the soil and letting the Father do the rest. It's a fascinating and simple concept. For many reasons I want to use this method but the largest one is because I feel called! I have always worried about failing at growing, the hard work, the time, the weeds. Making this discovery was the Lord taking the worry out of my hands and replacing it with something I know will work... because He designed it, not me. Please watch the free film through the link above!

Housing for all animals. Ok... this might be a must. By next fall we would like to have the barn up and operational although that really depends on the progress of the house. By April we need to have shelter for the dairy goats which doesn't need to be fancy or large by any means so that is easily do able. We will build a good sized chicken coop so we can increase our flock and our horse will be using his trailer as a run in once again until he has a stall in the barn.

Increasing the chicken flock. Now that we have had chickens for the better part of a year now, I have learned a bit and think I can confidently say chicken do not come naturally to me as well as I do not enjoy them! Nevertheless I find them extremely useful and productive. After some more research I have decided on trying out a few different heavy breeds that have certain characteristics of broodiness, meat production, egg production and winter hardiness. Basically I want as much bang for my buck and not much to fuss with. My plan is to place an order with a couple of people who also want to order (so to split our shipping costs) and also get a large number in a straight run. This will allow me to add layers but have roosters to slaughter for meat in the fall. Then the following spring I can allow a few hens to brood the next generation and start all over again.

Learn to make cheese, yogurt and butter. As of April I will be milking one Nigerian Dwarf, two the following spring. Although we will be drinking most of what she gives us I would love to try my hand at making some cheeses and yogurt. I may wait on the butter given I need a cream separator to get a good yield. I will breed them both in November/December for spring kids!

Continue to increase our pantry stock. Currently we could comfortably live a month or two with what is in our pantry and not suffer nutritionally. I would be much more comfortable at a years worth or more. So, canning our garden's and local produce, raising chickens and pigs for meat, hunting, stocking grains and other dried goods and maybe? making a root cellar. The fun part about this is that I get to design and build a pantry in the basement to fit our needs and keep our stock safe from spoilage and theft.

Get my hunter safety certification. I have put this off for years and this year I am GOING to do it! One more odd to getting free meat. We as a family appreciate venison and pray every year someone will get a moose tag! The men may make a trip out to Montana to hunt in the fall. I hope they do! I would love a elk or caribou as well.

I could go on and on about the things I'd like to do. Again, though, I need to pace myself and stay within the realities of my season. Sure, I could bang out a bunch of stuff this year and I probably will! But, I will not let it get me down if I don't do everything right now. I am looking forward to this year!

Any of you care to share your hopes for your homes, lives, homesteads this year?

Til next time!

Update: Meat Birds

Update time! We finally got that stall organized and outfitted for the meat chicks. We used pallets to section off one side off it...

We used pallets because, well, that's what we had! It didn't require much of any construction other than nailing them to the stall walls to keep them steady. The middle one I can remove for cleaning and it also turns into a partition while I clean to keep them from taking off.

Getting big aren't they? After some trial and error and a sick chick that spent the night in my bathroom because she got squashed, I decided to feed them with more structure. Free choice was causing them to grow too fast so I feed them twice a day and let them run out in between feedings. The result is very lively and alert birds that don't lay around the feed dispenser all day. Yes, they are growing more slowly because of this but, I decided it was worth it in the long run because it's a more kind way to raise them. It won't be effecting my bottom line price per pound amount but it does push butchering time back about 2-3 weeks. We're looking at the first week of December right now as a rough estimate for butcher time.

Something I have learned when I switched to using shavings instead of straw: put the feeder/waterer up on a block of wood about 2-3 inches high. This keeps it from getting clogged with shavings the chicks like to scratch around. Ideally I would hang these but I don't have a good way of doing that at present time. In the official chicken coop we'll build at the house we will have a hanging set up.

Speaking of the house...

Footing forms are going up today! We have the inspection on Wednesday and then we are free to pour the concrete. Our ICF blocks should also be here Wednesday or Thursday this week and we will likely have the foundation walls up next week sometime. We are already getting snow showers here so we need to get this hole filled and covered up!

Til next time!

All Things Fall

Fall brings many different emotions to different people. Some morn the warmth and strong sun of summer, others can't wait to see summer go and welcome the colors! Here in Maine we have beautiful leaves, fields of orange pumpkins and crisp days. Fall is my favorite season hands down. This is what our fall is going to look like this year:

Finish canning. I started canning in August and have canned mostly foods from local farms and friends gardens who have traded for eggs. When I have finished I will share my list and totals and how I store them. Just so you know, I love canning. It's hard work but it's instant gratification as soon as you line up those beautiful jars and step back to see your food insurance policy.

Start on Christmas presents for friends and family. This is something I struggle with. I hate gift giving. Not because I am a crab but because of the message it can send. I feel like if I don't give them something perfect and meaningful that the recipient will feel I cheated them therefore I must not care much. Untrue, but it's so much pressure! Once I had kids I decided I need to really explore Christmas and how our family wants to celebrate not just follow my extended family's deep seated traditions. It's a touchy subject, but my first baby step that I am starting this year is that I will only be giving gifts made with my hands. I might need to do a separate post on this! To be continued...

Buy and raise meat chickens. Lord and money willing, I would like to buy 25 meat chicks and raise completely organic for slaughter. We have reduced or grocery bills to around $75 a month and that has consisted of a lot of sale chicken of all kinds and not organic. And, it bothers me. So, I did some research (of course!) and crunched some numbers and we should be able to raise these 25 birds for about $1/pound of finished chicken. Then I will have a freezer full of chicken for the winter and I can cross that of the list until spring when we do it again!

Homeschooling. This is our first "official" year homeschooling though I have been teaching Puzzle Boy the basics as he has grown. He knows his colors, can count beyond 20, knows his letters by sight, has improved his speech and is learning sight words. This year is kindergarten and I prefer to use this year to experiment with different types of learning and have fun! We school 3 days a week and are part of a co-op that meets all day Fridays. Our basic goals for the year are to start reading, start simple math, work on social skills (like stranger smarts, how to ask for help without mommy, working it out with friends), learn our states, homestead skills and so much more! Homeschooling is unlimited!

Build that house! Oh gosh, don't get me started! But, we should have walls and a roof by November. Perhaps moving in around Thanksgiving? Remember it won't be finished! Just needs to have hot water, hold heat and be functional.

Split wood. After discussing it with my parents, they have agreed to let me borrow their wood cook stove that came from my great-grandfather's home. I am so excited! Not only will this save me on propane cost for my cooking but it will also save a little on heating fuel as well. Cook stoves are not famous for heating but they do throw enough to help a small well insulated house. Plus I am nostalgic and like the idea of waking up to start a fire and set my percolator on the top to make me amazing coffee. It's been a dream for years.

Enjoy Maine. Yes, I live here. But, I rarely just drive out to the ocean or visit farms or go for a hike and enjoy my home state. Sad, huh? Fall is my favorite season to enjoy my state because it is just so beautiful! So we will be picking apples, go explore a trail, visit the lighthouses and enjoy the best weather all year!

Fall can be busy and slip right by. Winter is so long here, preparing for it is necessary not only physically (like firewood and buttoning up the house) but also mentally. I need a winter game plan! Fall gives me time to ease into winter and decide what I want those short and gray days to look like.

House Progress: The Hole

That above shot is soon to be my view from my front door. Beautiful, no? This post really is more to share pictures and let them speak for themselves. Call me lazy, but it's late and I just want to share without writing a ton!Please enjoy the digging of our foundation hole...

The guy in the hat is Montana Man (aka the hubs, he has a nice butt huh?) and the man in the black shirt is my dad (aka our excavator). Dad has had his own excavating business for 27 years and he is the best at what he does. He is such a blessing to this project. Thanks Dad!

Til next time!