Trip to Belarus!

Well, it had been a busy last couple weeks of 2012.  Daddy and I went on the ABRO Christmas trip to Belarus and it was a lot of fun!  It was my first time to go to Belarus, and, well, first time out of the country as well, and I enjoyed it a whole lot.  It was very enjoyable meeting the families of my friends and seeing Artsium and Olya again.  The food was good, and the weather was nice, and I took a lot of pictures! 

I'm trying to upload some of my pictures, but I can't get any to load!  Our Internet is very slow, so that could be the problem.  I'll try again later.

It has been raining here for two days and yesterday was 70 degrees, but today it dropped down to 45. It feels like we're in Spring, not the middle of winter!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Okay, So it didn't work out to post something every week. But I've been busy. So what exactly have we been up to? Here are some pictures!

We have been going camping at Piolet Mountain even though it's very cold at it's been very fun. We actually got Mom to go with us one time!

Two weeks ago, someone decided to light a controled fire on the mountain even though we haven't had rain since the begginning of October! As you can guess, it jumped the fire line, and burned around a thousand acers! It was on fire for three or four days before they finally got in under control, and put it out!

 We took a Homeschool Tour Guide around the knob of pilot, and learned some interesting things, about layers of rock, and birds, and why they burn the mountain down: It's because of these special plants that don't grow very well in shade, so they burn some of the other things down.

 

The Homeschool group on the Mountain. Devil's Cave is in the background.

There used to be stairs up this cliff leading up to the knob!

The View.

 

We also have done a couple trail rides! Maria and I got Daddy to go with us on the Corridor Trail and Mommy dropped us off and we rode all the way home.

Spirit, my big, fluffy horse is very slow and I was always in the back.

Everyone taking a break.

 

 

And Saturday, Stephanie called, and said she was going on a trail, and wanted to pick me up! We did the entire Corridor trail and back, a total of twelve miles!

   On the way back, Stephanie let me ride her horse Samii!!!!

Horses taking a drink.

 

And then, some very exciting news! Robert got a Squirrel with his Cricket .22! He was very proud, and we are going to eat it for dinner!

 

 

Enjoy the pictures and video and have a happy thanksgiving!

 

Back at the Farm

Hey all! We have finally remembered that we have a blog, and now we're back on! So, what is new with the farm?

Suzie is sold, and we have a new little pony, Trigger. Some friends let us borrow him because we were looking for a pony for Robert, and they didn't really have a need for him, but they still own him.

And, while we were at Mr. Cooksey's house this summer, we found the CUTEST little puppy out in his woods, living in a tire. We took him home with us, and even though he likes to chew on stuff and bark at the cats, he is a nice dog. We don't know what breed he is but he's something like a mix of Husky and German Sheppard.

But just so no one feels they have been missing out on our exciting adventures, we had a fairly normal summer. We stayed at the farm, had the Belarussians over for a while, rode the horses, swam in the river. Nothing exciting or extraordinary.

The kids played at Galax this year, and their band, the Tadpoles, came in fifth in the Youth Band competition! When I figure out how to get video's up, you'll get to see their performance videos, so just hang in there!

Here are a couple pictures of the farm. Enjoy!

Ducks in the pools.

 

Lightning is the Bantam rooster, Miss Snow is the white hen, and Fudge is the brown. Liberty is the muddy chicken in the background :)

 

Tater and Gypsy, our only goats. Can you believe we used to have over 10?

 

The horses in our new pasture. They love eating all the tall grass!

 

Me riding my horse Spirit back to the house from the new pasture.

                                                      

Enjoy the pictures, and I hope I'll be able to keep this blog up to date!

Butchering Day

Well, the first day of butchering is finished. It was a very long 8a.m. to 10p.m. day, and we killed and butchered 40+ chickens. We still have 18 more chickens to do, but we have some friends who could not be with us for the first day, who want to learn how to do it, so a second day will be scheduled.

This is how we started, after all the setting up, the girls would bring Jeff a couple chickens. In the back of the house they were, killed, scalded, and plucked. Then they were brought into the house for cleaning. After cleaning they went into ice to cool, and in the evening they were packaged for freezing. Our production line worked well, but at the end of the day, Jeff and I were very tired.

Robert is standing ready at the killing station. Although, Jeff did all the killing himself, He will assure you it is not fun.

Here is the chicken plucker. It was worth every penny. We could put two chickens in, and after 20-30 seconds almost all feathers were gone from the chickens.

By the end of the day, it took about ten minutes to get from live chicken, to clean ready for cooling.

Is it worth all the time and effort? I'm not sure yet. We gave several away, and have only cooked one, which was, ok. When we have cooked several, and the reviews of the giveaways come in, then we we know if we will do this again. It is, for sure, a day will never forget.

Recent Farm Activities

Robert, burning old, diseased bee frames. Garden not even tilled at this point.

Six new Pekin ducks.
Mix of meat and egg chickens, four weeks old.

Spring time is a busy time on the farm. In addition to two baby goats and two dozen new egg chickens, we decided to give raising meat chickens a try. A meat chicken is a cross bred chicken, whose sole purpose is to grow meat on its body, and then die. They have a different look and temperament than an egg chickens. They grow so fast and so big that they don't move around as much as others, and they don't feather out the same. If you feed them to much or stress them in some way they will have heart failure, so every morning you first check to see if you have any dead chickens. Also, if they grow to fast, their legs will not develop quickly enough and their bodies will be to heavy for the legs to carry and they will no longer be able to walk. We've only had one like this.

We have only a few more days with our meat birds before several friends come to help with butchering. We did buy a plucker to spare us from the task of plucking 60 some chickens, but it will be a busy day none the less. I'll give an up date on how that went.

As for the remainder of our day, after chickens are tended, we have been finishing school work, putting in the garden, and cleaning winter debris from pastures. Yes we are fairly busy in the spring and most of the summer, yes the fall can be busy, and winter brings it's own set of chores, but what else could we be doing with our time? The mall, computer games, or TV? I'll take the farm any day.

A Visit to Belarus

March 26 through April 4th, Jeff and I and our friends Tony and Gena visited Belarus. It was a short trip to visit with the children and parents of the children we have brought over to stay with us during the summer. We met Slava and Anya Viazovski in Minsk. Slava is a pastor of Church in Minsk. We got to meet with Artsiom and his family. This is his Dad and older sister.

We spent one night in a hotel at the Zoo Park. This picture was taken at the crafts park next to the hotel. Here you can visit weavers and bakers, blacksmiths and a distillery.

This is Jeff, Tony and Koli at Koli's house in Behov. This is the family that fosters Tony's children Vitali and Vika. They had a cookout for us and the men took a banya, a sort of steam bath.

We had a wonderful visit. We met with Katya, the chaperone from ABRO, and her husband, we visited David and Angelina, and their family. We met the new girl we have invited for this summer. All the food was great, we made new friends and did some sight seeing as well. It was a busy trip, but a lot of fun.

Snow

It doesn't take much snow to make me wish for the 90 degree days of summer. I would much rather be hot than cold.

Today, January 11th we have our third snow of the 10-11 winter. Last night's snow was only 2-3 inches, but the Christmas day snow brought us 6 inches and the first snow in December we had 3 inches. I could put up pictures, but you all saw our farm under the snow last winter.

I will show you something interesting. Before the snow started we had sleet, I must say I never really looked at the shape of sleet before, but Maria did. What she noticed was that the sleet was in the shape of stars, like chicken and stars soup, not like miniature snowflakes, which is what you see in the picture.

Teach Them The Faith

There is a family in our congregation that has produced a CD of the most beautiful music. It is called Teach Them The Faith, by Dan and Karen Vitco. It is my prayer that everyone own this CD. It is the doctrines of Protestant Faith sung by Karen and several children, Dan having written all the music. Their website is Teachthemthefaith.com and on the site you can read more about Dan and Karen and hear selected parts of the CD.

Family Reunion

Part of the family at the Capital Building.

Hanging with George and Martha.

All the kids at Mount Vernon.

Last weekend, October the 15-17 my entire family meet in Vienna Virginia for a reunion. The event was sparked by my cousin Kathleen, who was so kind to invite us all to her wedding, and we all accepted. I have one sister who lives in New Jersey, a brother in California, and a brother in Washington, and the last time we were all together, along with our parents, was in 2004.

It was a fast paced, fun couple of days, during which we toured some Smithsonian buildings, some national monuments, the Capital Building and Mount Vernon. Of course on Saturday night there was the absolutely beautiful wedding of my cousin as well.

It was a great time of fun and laughter, some great food and conversation, and as with any reunion, a lot of picture taking.

The Horses!

Last week Helena went to the barn and took some pictures of the horses. It had been raining for a while so the horses are all rather dirty.


Cord, a twenty year-old Paso Fino is our best horse of all.











Spirit, our very lazy thirteen year-old Tennessee Walking Horse.







Nugget, a thirteen year-old Racking Horse is the best trail horse in the world.






And Suzy! She is a nine-year-old Halflinger Mare and is cart trained. She is a very enjoyable pony to ride, and she LOVES the trail!

Chickens and Eggs

Over the course of the year we bought 43 new chickens, and 6 new ducks. That gave us 60 hens, three roosters and 7 ducks. Well, since then we have sold three hens, 4 hens died and we lost one duck and as a surprise, one hen turned out to be a rooster.

Well, last week I entered a dozen eggs into the local county fair and won first place. A little recognition for all our love and hard work to chickens.

By the way, I also won first place for my lufa sponge, and second place for popcorn.

St. Augustine

This was our third visit to St. Augustine. Here is why we enjoy this city so much.



The architecture - Flagler College




























The water

The History

Ponce De Leon made landfall in April of 1513 and named that land La Florida, the city founded in September of 1565 named St. Augustine. Not until 2055 will the American flag have waved over St. Augustine longer than the Spanish flag.

Ponce De Leon travelled with Christopher Columbus on his 1493 voyage to Santo Domingo. In 1508 Ponce travelled to San Juan and soon became its governor. After the 1513 trip to the east coast of Florida he travelled to the west coast. He left in February of 1521 with two ships and 200 men, by July of that year he was dead. He is buried in San Juan Puerto Rico.

Beach Vacation

The first week of July we took our family, the boys and Katya, the chaperon from Belarus, to St. Augustine, Florida. We stayed in a beautiful home in the historic area of the town, and drove the ten minutes to the beach four different days. We had a very enjoyable trip. Katya and the boys really love the beach. Katya had seen the ocean before, but the boys had never, Belarus being landlocked. We also visited the alligator farm one morning and rented a boat for one entire day.

Swimming, hiking and Horses

We have a small river that flows through our property, last Friday we all went swimming. Saturday we hiked around Pilot Mountain knob, then on Monday we saddled up a couple horses and got the boys riding in the ring.

Summer with our boys from Belarus

Robert and Artsiom



Artsiom and Helena

Intimidator, the new roller coaster

Entrance to Carowinds

We are participating once again in the American Belarus Relief Organization (ABRO), which sends children of Belarus to America for six weeks in the summer. We take them to the doctor, dentist and eye doctor and buy them shoes and clothing and they live as one of us in the hot summer sun. At our house they also get to feed animals and do farm chores as well as play outside and ride bikes. I will be putting pictures up of some of the things we are doing.

Yesterday we all went to Carowinds. Yes, Helena has a broken arm, she fell from her horse.