Life Right Now.

Fall is here, and boy oh boy, is it crazy!  We spend a lot of time racing around town, dropping off boys at science class or Konos classes, taking Ivey to hockey, getting Olive to ballet, dropping Addison at orchestra, jetting to the girls’ music classes, or getting to scouts or Aikido.  If we aren’t in the big ol’ van, we are at home teaching Inman Hybrid or Farm Fusion classes, moving fences, milking goats, or doing chores of some kind.  

  

We now have a house permit in our new spot, so it took a solid year for us to change gears and build right here where we are.  It’s a year well spent, as I am completely sure this is the right move for us!  Jeff got back to work on the next bent last weekend, and we will meet with the foundation guy within the week.  We’re excited to get back to building!

 

It is a seriously wild ride right now, but it's just the phase of life for parents of four kids of this age.  At least we have a couple nights a week that we can squeeze in dinner together (if I manage to actually get something fixed ahead of time)!  So far, school is going extremely well for all four kids, and I each and every activity they are in is because they love it enough to make it worth the effort.  As a business-owning, farm-running, homeschooling mom, I am just hanging on for dear life as I juggle it all.  I will drop some balls, no doubt.  But, I’m sure the world will keep on spinning, and these four sweet kids will keep on growing.

She Shoots, She Scores!

Ivey just had her first hockey game of the season tonight, and she did great!  The girl started at 4, so this is her 3rd year on the rink... and although she has always had speed, I think this may be the year that it all "clicks"!

I'm so very proud of her, but I am mostly just happy that she has something that she loves to do!  She adores her coach, her team-mates, and she feels at home out there on the rink.  This is your season, baby... even if this is the only goal you score this year, just keep on having fun and trying your best!

1st Week of School!

This week was the first week back for all four kids!  The girls are entering the 2nd-ish grade at our sweet little Inman Hybrid Program.  Our classes of 2nd-3rd graders lets us ebb and flow in grade levels, so they can be exactly where they need to be in each subject.  Olive was so excited for classes to start that she was bugging me for weeks!  The girl basically spent the last two weeks following me around, asking me if I was sure I was going to get it all finished in time.  She is so much like her brother!  I thought it was awesome that she asked to have her bike tires pumped up the week prior to classes beginning.  She had to have a bike so she could ride her bike to class.  It's 2016, and she and Ivey can ride bikes to school.  How awesome is THAT?!

Last week, Ivey informed me that she didn't need school.  She explained, "I can farm and draw, and I don't need anything else." My girl is a mess.  Honestly, this week has shown me just how free-spirited Ivey truly is.  Putting her in a classroom setting was like putting Mowgli from the Jungle Book straight from climbing trees and riding elephants into sitting in a desk in the Man Village.  The girl is wild at heart, and it was amazing to see just how painful it is for her to try to squeeze herself into a box!  By Thursday's class, she was getting into the groove, and I think this is going to be just the thing to balance her feral nature with a little structure, while still allowing her to be creative and free!

The boys began Konos today!  Asa is in the 8th grade, and Addison is a sophomore!  Asa's group is made up of 7th and 8th graders, so he is playing the role of "mentor" this year.  The kid loves to talk and teach and lead, so it should be a great fit.  Addison is in a class of 9th-12th together for most lectures, and now he is not the newbie!  I think it's going to be an awesome year for all four of these sweet kids!

Now, I get to try to manage getting Asa and Addison to Konos science and foreign language classes while getting Ivey and Olive to guitar/piano on Monday, Addison's orchestra Monday night, teaching at Inman Hybrid on Tuesdays before getting Ivey to hockey, teaching Farm Fusion classes on Wednesdays, getting the boys to Konos on Thursday mornings before teaching Inman Hybrid... and then getting Olive to ballet directly afterward, making sure the boys get to boy scouts every 1st and 3rd Tuesday, having Addison fed/ready for Randy to take him to Aikido on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and getting Olive to Nutcracker ballet rehearsals on Fridays before Ivey's Friday night games. How I'm going to get people fed, clothes washed, or take a deep breathe, I'm not exactly sure... but I know it's worth it all!  The kids aren't in ANYTHING that they aren't greatly benefiting from.  As a self-employed/homeschool mom of four, everything is just a la carte.  It may overwhelm me at times, but it's good.  It's so good. 

Piglet Relocation

Last night, we successfully weaned the piglets and moved out of their electric-netting-training area with momma and into a new paddock in the pasture!  With the help of crackers, the move was completely stress-free for momma, babies, and us.  The hardest part was getting our sow from joining them in the crate!

Although wild with momma, the crazy seven are getting used to belly and ear scratches, which will make life easier for all of us.  They will hang out here in this paddock for a couple weeks, and then the whole crew moves to a new plot of land.  The goal is to keep 'em moving to fresh grass and use the pigs to help, not hurt, the pasture.

Puppzies

Olive set up a puppy store in her room. There are different isles of puppy supplies, boxes to use to carry your finds home with you, comment cards, and a sign on the door that says "Puppzies". Ivey wouldn't play with her (I'm sure it was too organized of a game of pretend for her liking) so I went on a shopping trip at Puppzies and tried to merge the two sisters into a single game. Ivey had two packed suitcases. As I shopped and asked the amazingly helpful sales staff my questions, Ivey explained that she was moving to Texas to see her parents, and that she had packed her two pet baby miniature tigers for the trip. Seeing a way to merge her into the Puppzies experience, I informed her that the store had a wide variety of pet foods and may have some things that tigers would need. "My tigers go out each day and hunt for wild rabbits that eat my tomato garden." Well, darn. Each time I would try to reel Ivey into the pet-shop pretend world we were playing in, she had a very detailed account of how that could not work. See, she was moving to Texas. She has her exotic animal license (obviously), but is working on her wildlife rehabilitation license, as well. After arriving in Texas (aka living room), she realized that her parents had packed up and left for Africa, leaving nothing but a massive pile of clothing all over their couch. It seems they must have only taken one set of clothing with them, given the massive pile of laundry. (sigh)

There is no way to get Olive into the madness of Ivey's untamed imagination, and there is no way to get Ivey wrangled into Olive's organized and structured mind. These two sisters are a hoot to watch.

 

Pray.

You read the news, you watch the videos, and you think that the entire country is full of people who hate each other. Then, you go out for errands and you know what I saw? People holding the doors for each other. Conversations. Smiles. Love. Even with all the uncertainty and unrest on our screens. The world has madness, but the world is not all mad. My heart is broken for the scared mothers, the scared fathers, the scared. I weep for friends who are scared to death for their babies to grow up black. I weep for friends whose husbands are on duty tonight and they are terrified for their safety. I know tears don't help. But, I can pray. That, and I can raise up children to be kind and strong and smart and just. Not all police are bad. Not all black people are thugs. Not all white people are racist. Not all protesters are violent. Not all gun owners are murderers. And although these are the people showing up on our t.v. screens and monitors, these people are not the majority. Hate is always so loud. My heart aches for the state of our country right now... in so many different ways. Pray for Peace. Pray for Empathy. Pray for a healthy USA.

Donkey Shoppin'

Today was an adventure!  I found an ad for a little baby mini-donkey that I wanted.  I wasn't really in the market for two donkeys and this one wasn't weaned yet, so I convinced my friends at Flat Tire Farm to go in with me, taking the momma once the baby could be weaned.  And so, today was the grand adventure to the exotic animal farm! 

We piled two of my kids and all four of theirs into my van, and the 9 of us made our way across the state.  Once there, we met all of the amazingly friendly donkeys (I fell in love with the Jack, but he wasn't friendly toward goats so I couldn't bring him home).  The owner was kind enough to show us around.  We met mutjack deer, water buffalo, rhea, an enormous ostrich, emu, and breathtaking African watusi cattle, with horns that were gigantic!

The kids had a blast, and we came home with two sweet donkeys!

My Camp Helper

 This summer, I added summer camps dates so that the Farm Fusion class lessons could reach children other than those in the homeschooling community.  Although I hadn't initially planned on it, I listened to the moms out there and added a KinderFarm class for ages 3-5.  The cool thing about this group was that the vast majority of the kids were friends and family.  I got to know children that I have heard so much about, and my girls were able to spend time with cousins!  Marisa even helped me, so it was definitely a family affair!

For this class, I had the best little helper ever... Ivey.  That girl is just a natural with all of this.  Since the kids were so young, we took the animals to the students.  This meant that we walked/drove them over before camp started, set everything up, and then brought it all home each day.  I don't know what I would have done without Ivey's help!  She's my little farm-girl!

Inman Truck Show

Cousin-Time

Tripp: "Sometimes, I sleep in my clothes."
Olive: "Sometimes, I don't wear anything till lunchtime."

Such Sports!

My boys are SO incredibly helpful... This stuff would be so much harder without them!

Me: "Boys, I need your help today."
Asa: "With what?"
Me: "Piglet castration"
Asa. "Uh.... Ouch."

Zzzz....

In the last 16 hours I have finished setting up an above ground pool for the kids, moved electric netting, bought/loaded/moved 400lbs of feed, color banded this year's birds' legs, set eggs in the incubator, ran normal-people-domestic errands, gathered coolers for picking up beef from the processor tomorrow, gathered crates for hauling new goats tomorrow, helped a neighbor with his cattle, milked the goats (twice), bottle fed the babies, cleaned up all the junk feed bags that piled up, labelled soap and lip balm for tomorrow's event, picked up the new farm banner from the printers, picked up the livestock trailer I'll need for tomorrow night's milking demonstration, finally took the sunglasses off the top of my head at 11:30pm only to have the dogs alert me to something out back... so I ended the night tending to our Ossabaw gilt's first (very successful) farrow. I'm taking a much needed shower, and heading to BED!
(Oh, and since no housework was done today, it looks like a tornado hit! Yowza!!)

Keep it Even

Olive's response to making Break-and-Bake cookies....

"You know how I like things to be even numbers and in order? When I break off one of these I just have to hurry and break another one to make things even out."