Our Winter Solstice Celebration!

This year was our first year to celebrate the Winter Solstice/Yule.  I really wanted to make it special.  We started off making sure we were celebrating the Re-birth of the Sun and Thanking the Earth for what it has provided us.  We decided make some grapevine wreaths. One we decorated for us with pine branches.  We also made one that we wrapped in popcorn for the wild birds to eat and hung it from a tree.  We gathered pine cones and slathered them in peanut butter and rolled the in wild bird seed for the birds also.  We hope to help the birds throughout the rest of  the winter.  We lit candles to represent the Earth, the Sun and Family.  Ryan picked out the colors he thought represented all of those things best.   We had a wonderful candlelight dinner of venison, carrots and rutabagas.  We tried to make the dinner something that was a bit seasonal.  I also made a cake that looked like the sun!  We had a great time and will continue to celebrate the Winter Solstice/Yule.

Beginning our Solstice crafts after gathering everything on our hike.

Putting the peanut butter on the pine cones.

Our finished pine cones for the birds.

Ryan with our popcorn wreath.

And finally the wreath for the house!

Smooth Ambler Spirits

So, on our way to Perk Dairy we stopped in at Smooth Ambler Spirits, a wonderful distillery in Lewisburg near the Airport.  Wow, what an amazing place.  I was so cool to see how everything worked.  I guess you could call it a science field trip for Ryan.  Smooth Ambler makes; Gin, White Whiskey, Vodka and I think Bourbon.  They have been in business since 2009 and I hope for many more years.  If you are ever in the neighborhood, you should stop by.  Of course we didn't leave without T-shirts and a bottle of White Whiskey!  Find them on Facebook!

Inside the Distillery!  So many cool things to see.

You sure don't get to do field trips like this in Public School!

We each got to sign a bottle of White Whiskey!  I wonder where our bottles will end up!

OMG, where do I start!

Ok, so I really have to pick a day and blog on that day.  I have so much to update on and I don't know where to start!  I think I am going to have to write for several days in a row to catch up.

So, we got a Dairy Cow on November 28th!  We went and looked at her on the 21st at Perk Organic Dairy in Lewisburg. We also went to a Smooth Ambler Spirits.  I will talk about that in a bit!  We started hand milking her that evening, it took 2 hrs!  Yes, 2 hrs!  She has to be milked 2 times a day which will be about 6a and 6p.  We got up the next morning early, we were so tired and it was really cold.  On our way to the barn Mark said, "Who's idea was it to get a diary cow?"  FYI it was his!  Anyway that am milking took 1 hour and 45 minutes.....we are making progress.  That evening the milking to 1 hour and 30 min.  A milking machine was ordered promptly when we got back inside!  The machine came within 4 days and I have to say was the best invention in the whole wide world.  The actual milking process takes about 10 minutes. The cleaning process about 30.  She is a really great cow but we couldn't agree on a name so we just call her Brown Cow.

Just looking at the picture makes my hands hurt!

Mark and Ryan giving a thumbs up to the new machine!

We are currently getting about 2 to 2 1/2 gallons a milking.  All  the excess goes to the pigs.  I have also been making plenty of butter, cheese, yogurt and whipped cream.  Our morning coffee has never tasted so good, the fresh cream makes it amazing.

Homeschooling a full class!

It has been a beautiful week here in WV.  We have been doing most of our homeschooling outside.  I love it we spread a blanket out and start school.  Well, on particular day I had a full class.

We won!

I am to happy to announce that Mark and I both got a picture in the 2012 Homesteadingtoday.com calendar!  My picture which is a landscape of our farm made the cover.  Mark's picture which is a beautiful picture of our pigs and chickens eating with the sun's rays coming down will be the pic for May!  We are so excited.

It was Spots time.

So, yesterday was our first pig slaughter!  Yup, we did it. We slaughtered Spots one of our GOS boars.  I have to admit I was extremely nervous but, I was trying to be as calm, cool and collected as possible.  Mark was to shoot then stab.  I was to castrate, which had to be done quickly, we then hung it and skinned it.  Some great friends of ours came to help which was great because we needed it.  That was a 200lb + pig!  Everything went great with no problems.  Mark took the carcass to the butcher this am.  The butcher is actually Shady Springs High School.  They have a Vocational Agriculture program that teaches butchering of Pigs, Cows, and Deer. They also cure and vacuum pack!  This was a learning experience for the whole family. I guess I'm learning this farming stuff!

Long Division...and more!

Homeschool has been going much better since my last blog!  Thank goodness.  Maybe its this wonderful fall weather we are having that is getting him motivated but who knows. 


Yup, Long division, that is what we have been doing this week in Arithmetic, Today we worked on remainders!  Did i do division in 3rd grade?  I sure don't remember but, he is doing really well with it.

Language arts is going well.  We are using McRuffy secular as our curriculum for L.A. and I love it!  This week we are working on synonyms, antonyms, prepositions, fact and opinion!  He also took a L.A. test for what we have gone over since the begining and got a 98!  Good Job Ryan!  He has to read a chapter everyday and answer questions and he is doing really well.  Mad Libs are still an almost daily occurance in our house.  They are still fun and he doesn't yet realize that it is educational.

Let's see, science took care of itself this week with the birth of the piglets.  Ryan got to see 8 of the 10 be born so, there was a lot explaining going on there!

I don't even know where to begin..

So much has happened since the last time I blogged.  This will teach me to not wait so long.  I will try to get everything in so I may ramble a bit.  Fall is here and I love the weather!  I have snapped of few pics around the farm and wanted to share them.

I think this is my favorite picture of the farm so far!

We planted 8 apples trees so in 4-5 years we should get some apples!  I hate waiting that long.  Right now we have 1 tree and I am happy to say I canned some applesauce.  It was my first canning experience ever and it wasn't that bad.  I am getting excited and hope to can some salsa later.  I have tons of tomatoes that I froze from the garden so salsa here I come. I have to be careful because I can't make it too hot!

So I started out with all these apples.  I thought I was going to have applesauce coming out of my ears!


But, this was all they made!

I decided I wanted a flower bed against the house and wanted to fill it with bulbs so Sunday, that is what I worked on.  I hope they all bloom in the spring.  I also plan to plant a rose bush under each window.

I raked out all the weeds and put down the landscape fabric.  Now you can see the finished product!

I put in Hyacinth, Tulips and Daffodils.  Planning on some lillies also.

After working on the flower bed  I couldn't wait for a nice relaxing evening!  However, it didn't go as planned.  When Ryan and I tried to bring Big Mama in to eat for the evening, she didn't want to come inside and just wanted to lay in the nest she made in the pasture.  OMG  I thought, it's time or at least pretty close to time.  We finally coaxed her inside and she ate.  We came inside and I planned to go out every hour or two to check on her.  After my shower I went out to check and there were 2 piglets in the pen!!!!  I called Ryan and he came right out.  Did i mention Mark was out of town!  Big Mama did well, she actually had 10 piglets but the last one was stillborn.  We have 3 girls and 6 boys.  Ryan and I spent the night in the barn to make sure everyone made it through the night!  Mark came home the next day.  We still have all 9 piglets, they still seem to be doing well!

They are all so cute but, piglets don't like to be held! 

This is how Ryan and I slept Sunday night.  Well, should I say how Ryan slept, I didn't get much sleep!

That is all for now.  I will continue to update on our piglets!

Baby it's cold outside!

So this morning it was 38 degrees when I woke up and went out to feed the animals.  And to add to the cold, there is a light rain.  It's suppose to reach a high of 47 today and continue to rain.  Ugh!

Mark left yesterday for Richmond to fly, they needed a pilot and Mark is the go to guy.  He will be back late Monday night, yea!  I hate when he is gone.  It's kinda weird because I was used to him being in and out when he was in the Navy but now, its different.  So,  now it's weird when he leaves because he is always here.  I miss him, can't wait til he gets back. 

Ryan has a football game today in Alderson.  It's not going to be pleasant, cold and rainy ugh!  Let's hope Ryan gets some good tackles!  Football in Summers County is just awful this year, we are a winning team but there are issues.  I think I blogged before that I would explain why football is sucking  this year but not today.  But I promise I will. 

New addition to the farm

So we finally decided on a side by side.  I will be pretty helpful around the farm.  Of course we went a little bigger that we probably should have but it will be fun too.

Homeschool updates

This week has been a little better not as much whining and crying from either side.  I was pretty strict and his attitude improved.  I hope it continues to improve!  I think he will realized that we mean business when it comes to school.

In arithmetic we are currently working on division we did 2's yesterday and we did 3's today.  He does really well in Math probably because he like it and it comes easy to him.

In Language arts we are working on homophones, writing paragraphs, and of course spelling, vocabulary and reading.  I ordered some Mad Libs and they came in this week.  He loves them.  I forgot how fun they were.  They changed a bit, my Mad Libs didn't have a word bank to choose from and these do but we don't use it.  I let him be as creative as possible with these.  When I was ordering them I saw the had adult ones ;) hummmm I wonder?!  I didn't buy them but I was tempted :)

History is really cool we are learning a lot, yes I said WE.  I love the History curriculum I have,  it starts in the beginning and goes through history chronologically.  We are currently in Volume 1: Ancient Times.  This week we have learned about Hieroglyphs and Cuneiform. We also learned about how and why mummies were made and about Egyptian Pyramids.

Science is always our favorite subject.  We are currently learning about different types of plants and trees and how seed are scattered.  Plus, science is always ongoing since we live on a farm. 

Next week we are going to get back into cursive writing.  I not big on cursive but he has to learn it so he can read it. 

Around the farm updates

Big Mama's maternity ward is ready.  She is due towards the end of October so we got everything ready this week.  We went ahead and moved her into the pasture by the barn away form the other pigs and cattle.  We wanted to make sure she was getting enough to eat and being left alone.  She loves all of the extra attention.  So far 8 piglets are spoken for plus 2 on a waiting list and we would like to keep a few for ourselves.  Since this will be her first litter, we have no idea how many she will have.

She is one big pregnant pig!

Chickens....really?!  We were getting about 12-16 eggs a day about 2 weeks ago and now 1-4 eggs a day.  What the hell?  It could possibly be because a fox got in to the hen house and killed 3 chickens and the are afraid to lay because they don't feel safe or they are going through molt.  Either way they need to work through whatever issues they are having and start laying already!

The cows are doing well.  The 2 new ones are doing fine.  Snooki is the only one that won't come near Mark or I.  Of course she lets Ryan go right up to her.  Our current spring fed concrete watering trough may have a leak so we are currently trying to figure out a solution.  The trough was here when we moved in and was put there in 1956.

The Goat.....is still strange.

We went to Princeton, WV today looking at RTV's/UTV's or side by sides, whatever you want to call them.  We test drove 2 today and will hopefully make a decision soon.

Mark took this pic today, I Love it.

Roasting Chestnuts

So a guy at the bottom of our mountain brought us a huge bag of chestnuts from his tree, we were all excited.  We ate a few raw then decided to roast some.  I got online and figured out how to do it in the oven, not roasting over an open fire in 75 degree weather.  I even took pictures of my roasting process.  When they came out of the oven they looked delicious we couldn't wait to dig in.  They finally cooled off enough to eat, we all grabbed one peeled it adn took a bite and YUCK!  Nobody liked them and we all wanted too.  I think we all tried a few to try to make ourselves like them but we just couldn't do it.  Anyway, the pigs got some nice roasted chestnuts, at least they liked them!

Homeschooling, it has its ups and downs.

 I love the homeschooling concept especially after we tried the school here and he had 2 years of public school (PS) in Virginia Beach.  I love that I can go at his pace whether  fast or slow.  I love that on beautiful day we can do school outside.  I love that we can take day off when we want.  I love that I am responsible for his education and not some stranger who doesn't care about his education as much as I do.  I love that we can home school in the barn.  I love that I can pick the curriculum.

With all the things that I love, I have and a few problems with homeschooling.  I dislike the fact that my son "hates" school!  Unfortunately, he never really liked it.  In kinder he did OK, 1st not so OK.  He basically refused to do his work on most days so, it all would get sent home and I would have to sit with him and do it at home.  This went on all year no matter what the teacher or my husband and I did.  I was an exhausting year for us all.  He passed the year but he struggles in reading because he "hates" that too.  I was hoping that he would change over the summer and with moving and a new school, he would forget that he "hates" school.  Well after a week or two in, I hated the new school and so did he.  We didn't like it for different reasons.  I didn't like that their 2nd grade curriculum was a repeat on his first grade.  I didn't want him to fall behind in the subject he excelled in.  They also only do 6 weeks of science the whole year, same goes for history.  He had already slipped back in the habit of not doing his work even though it was easy.  So, the only things left to do was take him out and home school.  I got a curriculum based on some recommendation of a few people I met that home schooled and boy did i dislike it.  Not all, but most. 


This year, we have some new curriculum for Language Arts which I love!  Ryan doesn't like it because it requires a lot more reading that last year.  I see improvement in his reading already.  We also have a new History curriculum which is great, I am learning right along with him.  Even with the great new curriculum, we are not having fun!  There is whining, crying, fits, and tantrums everyday!  Most from Ryan but, not all.  We started out the year with a bit of a schedule but now we have a strict one as of this week.  This week I laid down the law, Tues-Thur. were still bad but today was amazing.  I hope he finally has given up the fighting and complaining and will actually do the work.  I will keep my fingers crossed.  I let him know that the strict schedule will remain in place until he can do school with out all of the issues.  Privileges will slowly come back as his behavior improves.  Today we covered every subject in 3 1/2 hours.  Before it was 2 subjects in 6hrs.  Oh please let today not be a fluke!

Fencing! How could I forget all about our fencing projects.

Putting up High-Tensile Fence is not fun at all.  However, it has to be done.  So we rented a post pounder, that machine scares the crap out of me.  Its loud and it drives 10 ft posts in 5 ft by whacking them!  So far we have done about 15 acres and many more to go.  We really want to be able to do rotational grazing with our animals.  All of our animals are out to pasture including our heritage breed pigs.  So, this winter will be more land clearing with more fencing in the spring, I can't wait.  Did you detect the sarcasm?  So, since we live in West Virginia, nothing is flat so after running this fence with my husband you think I would be like 90 lbs but, not so much.  I honestly think that the fencing is the hardest work I have ever done in my whole life!  It is rewarding  knowing that our animal will have lots of nice green pasture!

Did you catch that I said more land clearing in the winter?  I swear that is the best time to clear land.  We have tons of pricker bushes and multifloral rose bushes here so its much easier to clear when they not green and blooming.  I would also rather clear in 20 degrees and snow than 85 and humid.  I think we are the only people on our mountain that actually go outside in the winter let alone work in the winter.

Time to update!

A lot has happened since my last post!  Actually it seems like ages since I updated.  I don't even know where to start.  My goal is to start blogging once a week to begin and then work on daily.  Trying to get up to date is going to be killer.

So here goes......

My first garden ever did great.  There were a few things that didn't grow buy for the most part everything did well!  I was just a little bit proud of myself :)  The whole garden was done organically, no chemicals or pesticides here. Last week I harvested the last of the goodies and turned it over to the animals. 

The animals....  In my previous post i mentioned chickens and pigs well now we have added 5 cows and 1 strange goat. Our first cow was Daisy, a milk cow, she is 6 months old now and loves attention.  She hung out with the pigs so long before we got other cows, we call her the big brown pig. Next came Fiona and Woolly Bully.  Fiona is a beautiful white Scottish Highland heifer and Woolly Bully is a Scottish Highland bull.  She is 6 months old and he is 1 yr. 

Last week 2 more Scottish Highland cows arrived.  Rufus is our 2 yr old bull and Snooki is our yearling heifer.  I will have to gets some pics uploaded to the new ones soon.

Our crazy goat!  I have never been around goats in my life so I am not sure how they are suppose to act but, I think this one is strange.  It acts like a dog!  She even hits you with her paw/hoof if you stop petting her.  She won't stay in the fence and stands at the front door begging to come in. She is so freaking cute though.

The pigs are doing great and Big Mama is due the end of October. 

Ryan--So baseball is over and he is now playing football.  That is a separate entry about the issues with football this year.  He is doing great but there are so serious issues with the team/coaching. 

Homeschooling has resumed!  I love my new Language Arts Curriculum, Ryan doesn't because it is requiring him to read a lot!  Homeschooling is a bit of a challenge because Ryan "hates" school.  But, we are working through it slowly.  There are some tears and yelling on both sides but I am hoping things will turn around soon.

Ryan's 1st HomeRun

Woo Hoo! Ryan hit his 1st Home Run today, I was so proud of him.  I was a little sad that Mark missed it, he had to work.  He also hit a triple and a single. The won their game 7-3.

I am really glad Ryan is into sports. Since he is homeschooled, he doesn't get to interact with too many kids and there is only 1 kid his age that lives on the mountain. He plays Football, Basketball and Baseball so, with all of that he gets a good bit of interaction with kids.  I'm sure get a little tired of just myself, Mark and the animals.  Unfortunately, there are no HS groups in this area either so thank goodness for athletics!

History of how I got to where I am today...well kind of!

Several years ago Mark realized retirement was in his future.  He had to ask himself what he wanted to do when he grew up...  He decided he wanted to be a Farmer.  For several years we searched many states trying to find where we were going live for the rest of our lives.  On our way to look at some land in Kentucky we drove through West Virginia and noticed how beautiful it was.  Once we were back home in Virginia Beach, we started looking in West Virgina.
The Navy took Mark overseas for 8 months. While there, he scoured the Internet for a farm in WV.  He found a nice looking log home in a small town called Hinton.  The weekend he got back, we loaded up the kids and went looking.  We immediately loved the area.  Although the house and land were not what we were looking for, the area was.  There happened to be another place for sale on the same mountain but, it just wasn't right.  At that time we were shown another place that wasn't technically for sale but maybe, to the right buyer.  So, we stuck a note in the door and crossed out fingers.  Several weeks later we received a call.   A few months later we were proud owners of 53 acres on Brooks Mountain in Hinton, WV.
We have spent many weekends in WV working on the property, making plans and hanging out with some wonderful people.  Initially Mark spent a lot of time going up and cleaning up the property, it looks great.  He removed trees, cleaned up around the pond and removed stumps and trash.  So what next...?  We realized that the site where the current house is, is where we want to build our house.   The current house is more of a shack, we actually called it indoor camping. The problem is, if we tear it down,  where will we stay?  We threw around many ideas and our final decision:  Garage/Barn/Apartment.  We call it the GBA or Bartment for short.  So we started the project; a 32 x 48 concrete building which will be home until we build our FINAL home.
In June 2010 we closed on our house in Virginia Beach, where we had been living for the past 12 years and headed to our new adventure/life in West Virginia.   Our goal to start and Organic Farm.....
A lot of work has been done in the past year land clearing, barn building, and more land clearing.  We have added animals to our farm so far we have 30 chickens and 3 pigs! 
In addition to farming or trying to I am now homeschooling my now 8 y/o son Ryan! Yes, homeschooling!  It is something I thought I would never in my life do, but I do now.  When I grew up I only remembered weird religious people, so I never thought it was for me.  We had met 1 couple in WV that homeschool (HS)and they were just like us well, when we realized that WV schools weren't for us, I gave them a call.  Ryan was in school about 3 weeks when we knew that school here wasn't going to work.  About 3 weeks after that we began our homeschooling journey!  We just completed our 1st year (2nd grade).  He just completed our 1st standardized test and are awaiting the results.  We have to test yearly for WV to make sure I am doing a good job!  That is a little surprising to me because I am sure i did a better job than what he would have gotten in the PS (public school) here!