Snowing

Here it as 29th of April and it is snowing. It was 30 degrees when I got up at 7:30 AM this morning.

We got 3 inches of snow Tuesday night and one inch today. It was sure strange scraping snow off the car yesterday.

Dave left for Portland Oregon yesterday morning to attend some meetings today. He will drive back this afternoon and be home between 10 and 11 PM. He said it took 6 and a half hours to get there.

Kathy is hoping to get Kaylee into her new day care tomorrow, but this one closes at 6:30 pm and she doesn't get off of work until 9:30 pm. So one of us or one of Kathy's brothers or her sister Terra will have to pick up Kaylee before 6:30. It also is not open on weekends.

Today I am making more fire starters. But it has to be done during Kaylee's nap time.

On the bull situation the 2 yr old was traded for 2 yearlings but C. didn't know how good a job they would do being young so that's why 2 of them. They didn't act like they knew what to do lol. But we hope they figured it out.

Foggy day

It is a foggy/rainy cool day here.

Well I am still getting over my cold. Dave is pretty well over his and getting back his energy, which is great.

We have the loft area cleaned up and things transferred to the front of the loft above the living room where we laid the OSB. I have been taking my sewing baskets and other things up there after I washed the rug I crocheted ( 5 by 7 ) and laid it back down. It is getting done slowly during the week as able while I am babysitting little Kaylee.

The bull we rented is a 2 year old Charolais and I got a call before 6 am this morning saying he has to trade bulls. lol Our cow Spring just wouldn't get inseminated he tried 3 times. So it was on to rent a bull from him. Just hope she likes the new bull, keep your fingers crossed.

Getting ready for chicks

Dave is up making sure the chick pen in the barn is ready for the new 50 x-rock chicks that will be here the 29th of April. The 10 turkey chicks will be in a week later. We are raising them all for our son DJ, friend Brain and wife and us.

The x-rocks will be butchered in 8 weeks give or take and will be 5 to 8 lbs by that time, they are the best chicken we have ever had. The turkeys will be ready in the fall.

I did end up coming down with what the rest of the family had, really bad colds. Aren't I the lucky one. Guess I should have known I wouldn't get away with not catching it. Dave has been feeling much better this week.

Here is our 2008 batch of turkeys. The poor geese George and Gracie thought the turkeys were theirs.

What a difference

Saturday morning at around 8 am it was 25 degrees. Sunday morning it was 40. My goodness some difference. Bam its spring lol.

Sat. Dave got the barn all cleaned out again and a ditch dug that behind our barn. The previous owners had taken out the incline behind the barn and must have thought they leveling it out. But what they did is create a giant bowl. So on the upper part he dug a trench that will hopefully drain off the excess water.

We also cut 6 sheets of 8x4 OSB sheets in half for the attic loft to put on top of the insulation to walk on so we can store things up there better.

It was a very interesting job, for me at least. Holding Kaylee on my right hip and holding a cornor of the OSB wooden sheet with my left so Dave could cut them in half off the front deck.

Dave still wasn't feeling the best but it was a lot easier getting them up there cut in half as we have to go through a loft trap door and the ceiling up there in the attic was like 6 inches short of him being able to get the whole big sheet up there.

To top things off Sunday, I found I was coming down with the same thing Dave, Kathy and Kaylee have had for 3 weeks. But I waited until now to get it it seems, oh joy. I got up this morning just feeling awful and I am having to babysit Kaylee this week as Kathy is trying to find a new day care.

I have been giving out hand outs each Sunday at Church called 52-week food storage. It is where each shopping trip you pick up what is on the list so by the end of a yr you will pretty much have a years supply of food, toilet paper and a few other things.

Along with a finished 72 to 96 hour kit, some people call them Bug Out Bags (BOB). We are on week 30. If you shop once every 2 weeks then you get whats on 2 lists. It is for 2 people and you add for extra people in the family. Along with want to put in a car kit.

One week will be say get an extra 8 cans of meat and 8 cans of vegetables. The next 30 lbs of flour and 10 lbs of sugar and so on. You also need some water storage for at least 2 weeks which might at least give you a leeway so you can find more to filter.

Lewiston Valley has a earthquake fault line running down the Clearwater River. Which runs the coarse of the valley then joins into the Snake and 3 places in town that have chlorine tanks. Dworshak Damn is 45 miles up the river and the study said it would take a few hours to get down to the valley so at least that would give people time to grab a BOB and get out of the valley.

Not to mention we are east of inactive Volcano's lol. They got 7 inches of ash in the valley when Mt. St. Helen's erupted.

So it is a good idea to be prepared for disruption in your every day life. The old Boy Scout motto. Be Prepared.

Which goes for us big time in the winter because we have been snowed in a few times.

One couple was snowed in so bad up here they couldn't get out of their house for over 2 weeks. The snow was over the doorways. They had to be dug out and they were pretty much out of food. They had been rationing it.

Needless to say they moved out and went back to CA. right after that.

Here is a picture I took of Dave getting to the barn in Feb. 2008, he was making steps for me to go up so I could get to the barn.

EEgads

Dave has been home for the last 2 days ill. He caught a really bad cold from our granddaughter Kaylee. So I am wondering when its my turn to get it.

With Dave sick I have had to milk the last 2 mornings, at least I was able to do it as I am not sick yet.

We bought a new mattress after having a water bed for 36 years, at least we have the option to trade it for a different one as this one is awful hard for me.

It has been snowing since Friday. We had 5 inches on Friday with some melting and snowing again. We are supposed to have one day where there isn't a chance of snow this week.

The rhubarb is up in the garden and I hope this doesn't harm it to much. As soon as things warm up again he is going to get the garden area tilled and get the 2 year old manure tilled in good.

We won't plant the potatoes until like the middle of May along with the other root crops. We are only planting vegetables that we are low on this year.

I have been working on the family history a bit more and it is so great to find cousins with old pictures they will share.

This is my great great grandmother Lydia Margaret Bloomfield on the right and her sister Martha before 1918. Lydia was murdered in July 1918.