Mom's Birthday!

Today was our wonderful Mom's birthday! We are blessed to have her as our Mother. She is such a joy to be around and we would all be lost without her. She brightens each day and loves to tackle new projects. She has unconditional love and is willing to talk no matter how late into the night it is. She is a daughter, a wife, and a mother, our best friend.

"Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 'Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all."

~Proverbs 31:28-29

( This picture is of Mom with her first horse: a pony named Dusty.)
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Modest

Open

True

Humble

Encouraging

Rare jewel

We love you so much Mom and hope you have a wonderful birthday!

A Sunny Verse

While reading my Bible the other day I found this verse:

"Arise, shine; for your light has come!

And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you."

~Isaiah 60:1

Isn't that a beautiful, cheery verse for the morning!!!

Goats, goats, & more goats...

Our kidz

Mom and I recently built them a platform to jump on and they absolutely love it. We built it out of cypress wood which is a lot easier to hammer into. We pride ourselves on building this, because you should see some of the other projects we've tried! We did have some instruction from Poppy, though! ( It is level, it just doesn't look like it!)

Cookie

Roxie - the milker

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We recently bought two new goats from a friend of ours up in Blythewood, SC. We bought one milker and one yearling. We also traded a buck of ours for a buck that wasn't related to our does. We named him Levi. (I still have to get a picture of him)
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The doe that we have been waiting on for a month now to have her babies finally had hers last Saturday! As big as she was, she only had two (last year she had 4). Both were very big and healthy though, so we aren't complaining! What makes these two stand out is the fact that neither one of them had frosted ears! It is a very uncommon thing to have a Nubian without frosted ears, but they are just too cute! They are both a chocolate brown so the girl is Brownie and the boy is Fudgy.

Fudgy and Brownie

(This isn't a very good picture of them. Brownie looks like a deer in the headlights. This was right after I bottle fed them and everytime I had them in a good view of the camera, they moved toward me looking for their bottles!)

Posted by Kelsey

Steps 3 & 4 On The Dairy

Early Monday morning the call was made: bring in the cement trucks! We got all of our chores done early so that we could go out and watch them pour it. We were estimating that we would need about 13 yards of cement. The truck that was coming out would only hold 10, so we were assuming two trips would need to be made. And so the pouring began and it kept coming and coming and coming. Finally we were at the last section and it was slowing down a little bit. We started praying that it would make it so another truck would not have to be brought out. And it made it! Just like the fish and bread, and we even had one "basket" left over!

(the overseer/Dad)

(the three "overseers")

(the onlookers)

the finished product drying

Dad put our name and year in the cement

On Thursday Dad rented a Ditch Witch and we started digging for the plumbing. Since we had the Ditch Witch for the day we decided to run water out to our garden. Say goodbye to those hoses stretched across the yard! We were able to get all of it connected that day and even got the drain done. That was an all day job with all of us doing it, and we all went to bed stiff and sore!

Posted by Kelsey

Two Boys, A Dog, and A Campfire...

Dad, Ethan and Noah recently learned how to build a Dakota fire hole. That night the boys wanted to try it by themselves, so they picked out a good spot, dug their hole with a tunnel adjoining it, built their fire, built a grill, and cooked their dinner on it: hot dogs!

This shows the fire a little better. The hole to the right of the fire is the tunnel for you to blow through. It worked very well and they were both excited that they could do it themselves!

Voila! Dinner is served!

Posted by Kelsey

Step 3 On The Dairy

We are ready to pour cement for our dairy! They are planning to come tomorrow morning. The men came out to level the ground and put up boards to frame in the cement. Dad put in the drains with them. We took some pictures, but had quite a few goof-offs in them!

This picture is of Gram, Pop and Dad smoothing it out a little more with shovels. (If you click on the picture you'll be able to see that Poppy is "playing the guitar"!)

This picture is of Ethan using the tamper. You can tell that he is REALLY struggling! lol!

And this is the finished product after the tamper! Ready to pour!

Posted by Kelsey

And Just a Couple More Pics...

This is a video of us sledding down the hill in a subdivision down the road. On the first sled, Gram is on the bottom, then me, Jordan, and finally Savannah. Ethan is coming down on the second sled.

And this video is of Noah sledding down. Dad is video taping and Mom is standing up at the top.

Our Winter Wonderland

the pasture

Rainy, our Great Pyrenees

the farm viewed from on top of the hill

the chicken coop

our little herd

A Blizzard in South Carolina

Okay, so not really a blizzard! But we did end up with about 6 inches of snow, which for South Carolina is a big deal! We haven't gotten that much snow in 8 years! It was exhilarating!

So it all began on Friday afternoon...

After hearing year after year of reports that "this winter is gonna be a bad one" or "we might just get our snow this year", and nothing ever really happens, one finally grows very skeptic that it's ever going to snow. Or at least, I did.

But I was wrong this time! It started snowing about 3:00 o'clock and it kept up until early the next morning. We started playing in it that night until dark...

...and early Saturday morning we were back out in the snow (right after the chores, of course), and boy did we have a ball! We built a fort, threw snowballs, went sledding, pulled each other around on the tractor, made snow angels, went for a walk, took lots of pictures (about 50!), had a fire, and just had a grand old time of it! By noon on Saturday everything was dripping and the snow was soon long gone, but we are still talking about it! (It's strange to be able to sing "I'm dreaming of a white Valentine's Day..."!)

You know you're in a South Carolina snow when:

-Your lap dog barks ferociously at it and tries to tear it to pieces

-Your goats won't walk to the garage to be milked for fear of "THE WHITE STUFF" (they did finally get over their fear, thankfully)

-Your laying hens can't find their way back to the coop after "the blizzard"

-Nobody eats breakfast until 10:30 because they don't want to miss the fun

-Your kittens run around trying to catch it

-Your golden retriever plays so hard in it the first day that he doesn't even feel like going back out the next

These are just a couple of pictures. Don't worry, there'll be plenty more!

Posted by Kelsey

Happy Valentine's Day

"Love suffers long

and is kind;

love does not envy;

love does not parade itself,

is not puffed up;

does not behave rudely,

does not seek its own,

is not provoked,

thinks no evil;

does not rejoice in iniquity,

but rejoices in the truth;

bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never fails..."

~1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Snow!!

IT'S SNOWING!!! YIPPEE!!!

Step 2 On The Dairy

There is a huge pile of clay in our side yard right now. We have had to get loads of fill brought in for where our dairy is going to be to make it all level. (We finally found the "perfect" spot to put the dairy barn! Not too close to the garden so that we have room for expansion, but close enough to the house so we can run to it easily in the rain or the cold,...not in the way of backing up vehicles, but also not too far down the hill where the ground starts to slope! You get the idea! And this is only the beginning! The small hills on our land sure do make for a pretty landscape, but are not very practical for building!) So as the man drops the clay off and goes back for another load, Dad is diligently smoothing it out with the tractor. He was even working on it in the dark last night until it started raining, and then finished it this morning. We are all enjoying watching the loads of clay come in, especially Noah and the twins. They stand at the window and watch every single load! So, we are on step two of the dairy barn. The next step will be cement pouring...
Posted by Kelsey

10 So Far

On Wednesday, the 27th, Allie had her babies. One doe and one buck. Their names are Sidney and Mario. They were the biggest babies yet!



And last night, about 1:30 at night, Dreamer had her three babies. Two bucks and a doe. All are beautiful and none of them look alike! The little black buck has something wrong with both eyes. We are praying that he isn't blind and that it will heal quickly.

(Dreamer's boy)

(Dreamer's girl)

(Dreamer's boy/this is the one with eye problems)

So our tally right now is 4 girls (Corrie, Sadie, Sidney and the new one) and 6 boys (Chance, Sparrow, Shawn, Mario, and the two new ones).