Another great article to read

Artificial Stupidity

This is great and so true of our culture today...

A great article regarding the roles of men and women

http://networkedblogs.com/4fofC

Plants and seeds

My sun room and sun porch are now filled with plant starts I received from Azure Standard yesterday and seeds are pouring in.  I am itching to begin planting but have to wait one more week for a decision being made about our house here.  If we move I will be planting about a month behind schedule so will need to resort to some frost covers in the fall to complete the season.  I also received a great book yesterday, "Dick Raymond's Gardening Year".  It is a month by month pictorial schedule of what to do when - and since his growing season in Vermont is very similar to the one here it should be easy to follow.  Our apple trees are blooming and I hope to have Gina begin taking a bunch of pictures so I can start adding pics as we progress with the garden through the year.

On another note, Lucas and Eric are excited about attending Veritas Press' End of the Year gathering next week and getting to put faces with students and teachers they have met online.  Hopefully, the rest of us will be packing..:-)

Working on figuring out new homestead blogger system

I have not been posting much as we are trying to figure out the new homestead blogger set up.  I have a feeling it will take me a few days.  I will miss my farm picture I had at the top of the other blog - this one was the prettiest I could find but still doesnt quite capture farming like I want it to. Oh well, sometimes new  improved technology is not always a blessing.

We are busy getting the garden ready and watching the orchard trees bloom.  More turkeys are laying on clutches and spring is definitely in the air.  We will wait to plant until the end of next week in case the folks that say they want to buy our house follow through.  Dick Raymond's "Joy of Gardening" had been recommended to me by a mentor of an agriculture class I am taking and it is an excellent book.  I will be trying out his "Eat N Store" garden plan as well as continuing with some raised Stout method beds.  I hope to get Gina to begin some pictorials of the garden as it progresses...

Fire

For many years I have taught my children that even when you think what you are going through it tough (and my kids have been through some tough times in their lives) there is always someone who has suffered more than you.  This lesson became quite evident to all of us Wednesday night.  Just as we were preparing for bed, my older daughters heard an explosion and came to tell me they thought our neighbors house was on fire.  I followed them downstairs to confirm this (we both live on 20 acres so our houses are not very close) and sure enough as I came into our living room, huge rolling flames and smoke were rising from their house.  I called 911 and as I was talking with the operator, our neighbors called in the fire themselves.  Apparently they were sleeping when it started, so we saw it first since it started in the garage which faces our house.  We are thankful to God that He brought them both out alive.  As the fire was raging we heard explosions which turns out to be ammunition exploding in their garage.  Unfortunately both of their cars were in their garage so not only was their house completely destroyed but both of their cars and all 3 of their cats as well.  As can be imagined they lost everything and are devastated.  And then of course there must be that awful contingent of society that is now showing up in their driveway with pickup trucks (after the owner and fire chiefs are not here), driving around the rubble and shouting all sorts of really crass and heartless things...

We were blessed by God in a big way during all of this, as we are surrounded by woods and the fire could have gotten really out of hand.  We left our property pretty quickly in case this were going to happen.  The firefighters (6-8 trucks) contained the fire rapidly and God blessed us by diverting the smoke in a different direction.  We were very concerned that our animals would suffer from the intense smoke but it didn't come our direction at all.  Thanks be to God for this and prayers please for our neighbors as they attempt to recover from this catastrophe. 

Mothers Day

My 5 year old, Emma, said yesterday, "When I have a Mothers Day, I am going to have lots of desserts and no soup!"

Turkey poults!!

Our first set of Red Bourbon turkey poults (or is it pullets? - I can never keep that straight) hatched yesterday.  We have 8 fluffy babies following their mama hen around - they are so cute and hopefully will make good eating and breeding stock in the future.  It is so fun to make new discoveries on the farm as they happen and finding baby animals is one of the best.