In the Ozarks 2 years!

  Hard to believe we've been here just over 2 years now.  The time has flown by for me.  I'm often asked if I still like it. Yes, I love it here.  I have yet to grow tired of the beautiful views God has created.  I love looking out the front window at the green hills and the life they contain.  I love sitting in my living room looking at my wood stove and seeing the fire twinkling as it warms our house. 
I am truly blessed! 

But, while blessed I am we have had trials and those trials have made us stronger.  With each new improvement and advance I am thankful for the accomplishment. 
One such improvement is that after 2 years I no longer sleep on the floor!  Yes we always has a mattress so really it wasn't that bad. But that mattress was just on the floor. 

Both in the fifth wheel trailer. Like above and you couldn't stand up in the space. So we crawled into bed literally for the first year and a half. 
Then we moved and had a real room but no furniture so we were still on the floor. 
But no longer!

Super D built this amazing bed for us.  I hesitated sharing it as it is still unfinished but couldn't wait any longer.  Now we have to climb into bed but it is in progress.  Still needs stained and some more additions.  It is amazing though and I am happy to be up off the floor!

While we are on beds I'll share the girls beds too.  These have been built quite a while.  They got up off the floor much sooner. :)

Super D calls these floating bunk beds.  He plans to build a desk under each one for them.  But we'll see if that happens.  It opened up their room quite a bit so they have some space. 

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms.  (I know I'm a day late)  Thank you to my family for showing me a wonderful day even though I had to work. 

Spring Yet?

I desperately want spring to be here.  We get a few nice days then some cold and rainy days.  The rain wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so cold.
So here's what we've been up too.

We built cold frames/hot boxes for plants.  They will be filled with soil and topped with glass.  This is in process obviously.

 We recruited some help to paint them. 

 

Didn't show up well in this picture but Sugar Bug got a little carried away and got just as much paint on her legs, arms, hair, ect.. :)  Like her annoyed look because we wanted a picture of it.

Sure sign of spring and warming temps.  The turtles are coming out. Sugar bug is finding several by our pond.  What an awesome place for a kid to explore!

Lastly, Super D has been working on getting our solar panels set up. 

 

 We are slowly getting things accomplished.  I'm anxious to start planting and will be starting seeds indoors or rather in the cold frames soon.  I will fill you in on my garden work more this season.  We still have a list a mile in a half long but are all feeling a bit more energized as the sun comes out more.  I hope to get outdoors more for some R&R in the woods exploring a bit too.

Looking forward to green and spring flowers! 

 

BIG Changes!!!

  I'm sorry!  I promise I haven't forgotten about my blog.  Not sure who reads it but I do enjoy writing for it.  It has been a crazily busy month.  Super D made it back from Colorado and we have been trying to catch up and have had new opportunities.  The big one being..........

We moved.  Yes, you read that right.  We moved again!  But not too far.  We only moved about a city block away.  Next door out here.  We have one neighbor  between us and new place.   We moved to 4 acres with a mobile home on it. 
 
We now have running water, electric on demand, toilets, and showers.  Even a huge bathtub.  Several factors played into our decision but don't worry we haven't abandoned our dreams, they are just evolving with life. :) 

We somehow managed to move, throw a birthday party, and have company in a 5 day period!  I've hardly had a moment to call my own.  But as life is getting back to routine I will fill you all in! 

I have some pictures saved to show you but still need to download them. I wanted to check in though. I will update very soon with all the new news!   What are you all up to this fall??  Anyone have any good adventures?

Newest member of the S family..

  This is Sweet Pea... (we didn't name her but the name fits right in with us)

    She is a 2-3 year old Jersey heifer.  In cow speak that means her breed is Jersey and Heifer means girl  (usually it refers to a cow that hasn't had a calf yet) 
Sweet Pea is pregnant with her first calf now.  She is due at the end of the month (June)

So any day we will have a calf also.  As her name implies she is a sweet, curios cow. She reminds me of a big friendly dog that doesn't know her own strength.  She has caused a bit of trouble already escaping twice and going on her own little adventures.  Thankfully she comes home for dinner :)

    We are looking forward to fresh milk and all the things we can make with it! 
Our summer has been Super, Super busy and I have more coming as soon as I can get things uploaded.  Hope your summer is going well!

Pretty vs. Functional

      I started this post months ago and as usual life took over.  My days haave been super, super busy!  When I'm not working at the new job which I have decided is really my break time as I work at home a whole lot harder than I do at work.  :)  This week we have planted the garden which included 20+ tomato plants, 5 varities of greens, herbs, cucumbers, beans, and more!  Plus we got the garden fence up, mowed which is really a chore, and spent a small fortune on supplies to get our water running.  I have new blisters and cuts on my hands and tired muscles!

  So this post has been on my mind for some time as with many others I have in the works.  It's just going to take me a bit to get on a new habit with added jobs.  Plus with such pretty weather who wants to be indoors on the computer?
 I really wanted to get a picture of our land this year to compare to last year's picture.  I am hoping to show our progress.  So.....

Here is a picture from last year after we got here. 

        This is about a month in. Now I wouldn't say we have a pretty home by any means.  But does that matter?  The world seems to tell us it does.  I disagree!  My home in and of itself may not be beautiful but it works.  It does what it is supposed to which is keep the rain off our heads and provide warmth and protection ftom the elements. I even have a comfortable bed with lots of fluffy blankets.   I have power to relax in front of the TV if I want or play on a computer.  We have food and water to sustain us. 

1 year later....

This is today.  Not as much has changed on the outside but we've made great progress.  We have the chicken coop now and the dirt plot next to the coop is the garden.  We have the well dug and solar panels up.  We still have alot of work and are working diligently so it will get done and in the mean time we are enjoying the fruits of what we have accomplished.

None of this is to say we don't like pretty.  We do and have dreams to beautify things as we go. But at the moment funtion takes precident to making things look pretty. While we may not have beauty in our home we are surrounded by God's great beauty in nature. 

Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz

  The buzz is bee's!  We have our two hives set up and going.  Again the things you can have mailed to you astound me! 

This is two packages of Bees. Enough for two hives.  They are all clustered at the top as this is where the food can and queen is.  Now to get them from this into the hive boxes.

Here is one hive.  With a few frames missing where we'll put bees, then come back in a couple days and add the frames back in. 

So here are some bee facts... Almost all the bees in a hive are females.  Female bees do all the work.  The Queen lays eggs and then the women get to work taking care of the eggs, feeding the queen, making wax, cleaning the hive, collecting pollen, and making honey.  In a bees life they will do all of the jobs for a time. Only the oldest bees actually leave the hive to collect pollen as they may not come back.  The hive makes what are called Drones, male bees, in the spring and summer but the males do nothing in the hive.  There only job is to mate a queen.  When winter comes the Drones get kicked out of the hive and die because they don't want to feed them all winter.  Drone bees can't even sting. Poor guys have no defense but really don't work a day in their lives.

So back to getting our bee's into the hive.  The bee's follow and stay with the their Queen so we have to get her in the hive.  The package makes that easy as she will be in a cage that has a candy stopper that the bees eat out to free her. 

First we sprayed the bees with a Sugar Syrup of 1 part sugar and 1 part water. This kept them busy cleaning each other off and they stick together a bit to make getting them in easier.  The Metal circle is the food that comes out first. 

 Here's Super D putting the Queen cage in. She's in the middle of that mess of bees.

Next Shake the bee's into their new home. All goes well but notice Super D's hole filled jeans?

 

Yep, bee's found those holes! Super D got lucky and didn't get stung bad. 

 

Ok, bees are in!  Yeah!  Now just one more hive to go.....

 

This one I got on film. So here is the installment. Super D changed for the second hive.  (I tried to get the video uploaded but it just wasn't working. Will try again later. )

 

All set up.  Just two hives. We have the other part of the hive bodies on the ground but will move those after the bees calm down.  With a good year we will have some honey at the end of summer!

 

In all Sugar Bug got stung and Sassafras and I got bees stuck in our hair but no stings and Super D got stung on the lip with the second hive. He really thinks he can do all this with out the bee suit and so far has done great! He did get gloves and hasn't gotten stung since that first day. He's much braver than I but I do help and get close enough to hand him supplies and check out the hives.  It is a neat thing to watch them grow.  I'll keep you all updated on their progress.

All Grown up

  Easter came twice this year for us! Our chickens layed their first eggs this week!! 

Even Sassafras was excited about the eggs. It took about 5 months for us to get our first eggs.

We got our chicken coop built complete with boxes for them to nest in.

There is still work to be done but it is functional for now.  This picture was taken the day we found eggs.
Below is how our chicks grew!

November they arrived.

 December big enough to move outside!

  January taking a dirt bath..

By February they are pretty much full grown here.
They have been so much fun to watch.  They are all still very tame with the exeption of our roosters. They like to practice their dominance by chasing children that run and pecking at thier legs. :)  Our girls have gotten better about warding them off. Sugar bug carries a "chicken" stick with her to bat away attacking chickens.
We only need to have one ot two roosters so we are still deciding which roosters to keep.  We have four right now. The others will go the the frying pan. 

We feed our chickens ground corn but only feed them a couple handfuls in the morning and evening.  They get the rest of their food from the land.

So ever wonder the difference of farm, free range eggs from store? 

Our's are smaller but will get bigger as our chickens grow a bit. They are brown because our chickens lay brown eggs.  Some chickens lay white eggs, some blue, and even geen. 

I did a little research and this Mother News site tells the nutritional difference of store bought and free range eggs.  Including what qualifies as free range being that chickens are able to get food from the land.  And interestingly enough that eggs labeled free range from the store may not have the same quality as there are not strict regulations for what qualifies as free range.
We have eaten our share of store eggs the cheapest you can buy and some inbetween grades but farm fresh are by far the best tasting!  If  you have a way to get good eggs I highly encourage you too.

Any questions??  

More Power Please....

So I keep wondering if any readers wonder how I post on a blog when my profile tells you we have no electric? I guess I may need to reword it now that we have a well too. ;)
We have electricity but we are what they call off the grid.  We don't get our power from a power line feed by a power company that we pay to use their energy.  We run off of Solar.  In some of our pictures I'm sure you've seen our solar panels in the background.

This picture is from shortly after we moved here.  We had the panels leaning against the trailer until we could built a stand for them. 
Super D made these panels while we were in CO.  So we have had some power from the beginning.  The panels supplied enough energy for us to power or lights, TV, X-box, and freezer last summer.  At the end of summer we moved our freezers to a family members house to power while we were on our trip to Colorado, we never moved it back.  It worked out well there and we share it with our family too. 
Now, Super D has gotten into the business of selling and installing Solar for others.  Since we made our panels the cost of solar has come down significantly.  So we bought some new panels...

See the new panels leaning against the old behind the blue thing.  (that is the pressure tank for water.. and I was getting my garden rota tilled! Yeah!)
The difference is that the factory made panels produce more power than our homemade ones.  We upgraded a bit.  We have plenty of power most days.  When we have long stretches of cloud cover and run down our batteries we have a generator for back up.
Will we ever get on the grid?? Maybe, we did look into it but it costs to much to get us hooked up.and while I love not having a electric bill solar does take more thought and effort to watch what  you are using.  In the long run that is probably a good thing as we aren't wasting energy just because it's available.  But that also means we think twice about everything we plug in and things we want that will run off electric.  Eventually we will have enough solar or be on the grid to not worry to much about it. 

 You can tell we live in the information age as it was easier for us to get DSL Internet run to our place than to get a well drilled!  We are fortunate to live where they ran DSL so we have good Internet, go a couple miles up the road and they are still on dial up or have to get satellite Internet. 

So while we may live in the middle of nowhere we really aren't in the dark.  We have plenty of electronics to entertain and keep us busy along with everything else. :)
Any Questions?

270 Feet!

That is how deep our well is.  Our well is dug and we are one step closer to having our own water. This is a huge relief and we are excited about it.  We still have some work to do as we have to get a pump into the hole and have a way to power the pump.  All detail Super D is working out. 
Nevertheless, we had fun watching the well guys work and they must of though I was nuts as I took pictures of every phase of work. 

 Just set up the drill...This reminded me of my Dad who worked on oil rigs.  He would have loved to see all this!

 Drilling Begins

Here they put a flap over where the drill goes into the ground as lots of stuff was flying... Yes that's water!  This was early on.  We actually hit rock at 12 feet. (that's a good thing) and had good water at 70 feet.  But Missouri has a law that says you have to drill and case (steel tube down the hole) for 80 feet!  So because of a law we had to keep going and didn't hit enough water again until 270 feet.  Sadly that law cost us alot of money. 

The steel liner going in.

All that gravel is ground rock from the hole.  They made a little dam with it and put that pipe in to measure the flow of water.  It measured by how long it takes to fill the gallon jug.  We stopped drilling when we were getting 10 gallons a minute. 

All said and done this is our expensive but life giving hole in the ground.  Now how to get the water out of there and to where we want it???
That is a story for another day.  Any questions?

It's Today, It's Today, It's Today!

This is a well drilling truck! They have finally arrived.... through much waiting and searching we have them here. (we actually had to changed companies as the first guys were just taking too long)  Details to come but I was so excited I had to share! 

Oh, by the way we found the missing charger for the camera.   Have a great day friends! :)

 

Upgrades!

I get so excited to see upgrades and changes come that I always want to yell it!  One day the girls and I went to town for laundry and supplies and came home to this.

Yeah Shelves!!!! Yes I know someone is shaking their head because I'm so excited over something so silly but truly this is a life saver.  And your getting a picture after I loaded them with clothes.  This freed up one super small closet and got my Sassafras out of her suitcase. Poor girl has spent almost 6 mos living out of her suitcase!

   This also got me thinking how we tend to own a ridiculous amount of clothes.  This is pared down from what we had in Colorado as I cleaned out our closets as I packed only about half of what we had.  With these shelves I still probably got rid of about half!  I decided I was done finding space for clothes.  If it doesn't fit on the self (we each get one) then you have to part with something.  (We all have a few items hanging in the other closet but the majority is on the shelves)  It has been a great lesson in simplifying. 

Good job Super D!  Keep up the good work ;)

 

Upgrades and new arrivals

   I have a new appreciation for bloggers! Some of the blogs I read have a new post everyday. After just 7 months of keeping this blog and trying to at least post once a week and failing I am amazed at the wonderful loyal bloggers I read.  I have ideas for posts quite often but getting on the computer to put them to type is another matter entirely.
   Our new life is quite busy but laid back at the same time if you can believe the two can go together. Maybe it's just a matter of perspective. :)  The fall weather here has been nice a mild.  We have had a couple good freezes so the garden is done and all but one kind of mushroom is done for the season.  The garden didn't fare well this year as I only got the tomato plants in and the armadillos kept digging them up.  We did have some good fried green tomatoes but that was about it.
    Now we will be on to hunting season.  Super D has been getting ready and the girls are itching to go.  We also added on to the trailer to make room for a wood stove.

 Super D hard at work again!  He is awesome!

Ok, here's a shot from inside you can see the stove pipe behind the silly hillbilly, dark fairy, and leprechaun. Well, I don't think he was going for leprechaun but I think it fits :) We still have some work on this room as you can see the exposed insulation.  I am loving the wood stove but am learning it's a bit of an art to know just how much and when to add wood so you don't cook yourself out.
  Our family is also growing.  We moved here with our two dogs, remember Grandma holding them in Colorado vacation post, and we have had a variety of reptiles move through our doors since being here. Well, now I have to introduce Simba.                                               

 Simba has adopted us as his family. He has made himself at home and is super sweet.













He has no problem with

Sugarbug smothering him with love.
















It took Simba two day's to break us all down and let him into the house one freezing night. I don't think the dogs like his presence!

 Simba has been regulated back to the outdoors for the time being and we've given him a bed next to the batteries for the solar system to get out of the weather because we added baby chicks this week.

 Who knew you could get chicks mailed to you!  Super D picked them up at the Post Office.  They are super cute.

  This little one is our rare chick.  Not sure what kind he/she is but the rest are buff orpingtions. I'll have a post about their care later :)
Our only other big news is we have a well coming!  I can't wait till we have our own well and pump.  Running water is on the way :) We're moving up in the world. 

Upgrades

    Super D has been at it again!  He built us a table and shelves for the trailer.  This has really helped to get things in order and give us a place to eat indoors.  I love the new space and getting things up off the floor. 

I love how this frames the window and the top self extends the whole side of the trailer.

Sassafras trying it out mid build.  See all the stuff I was trying to get off the floor. :)

         So did you wonder how I do laundry with out running water?  Well, right now we go to the laundry mat.  But right now it usually costs us under $10 to wash everything about every week or two but if we dried the clothes there it would more than double that!  So we bring home the wet clothes and line dry everything.  The first time we did this we winged it and Super D ran a couple lines for me.  I don't think we realized how much we had to hang!



      That is actually a the volleyball net we set up, plus lines to the four wheeler and from the trailer over.   We have since put up a nice long line that zigzags through the trees.  
     Next on the list for upgrades is to keep clearing out the woods a bit.  (Most of that work was halted due to extreme heat!) And hopefully a well soon.  Still pricing them out and figuring out the best way to go about it.  Super D is also wanting to get  a couple more solar panels built too.  Again extreme heat has really slowed us down.  But we got some glorious rain the other night and it has cooled slightly.  Amazing how 90 degrees feels nice after weeks of 100 + temps.