Fathers Day

I realized something yesterday; Father's Day isn't any different then any other ordinary Sunday for us. Every evening this whole past week, Dad has either played ball with the boys, gone bike ridding with Johnny, or played volley ball with all of us. Two Sundays ago, he took us all fishing and showed us how to properly cast and hook worms and stuff.

Dad showing off our only catch.
(Really pathetic... it's his plastic bait).

Playing volleyball at the net in town.

This week he's been working on the cabin foundation with the boys as well as picking up loads of wood, helping Stephen build a garden fence, working with Andrew on the fascia around the house, driving us girls into town to plant flowers at the church and repairing bikes.

Working on the cabin's foundation posts.


This Sunday (in lieu of Fathers Day and the fact that Jules will be leaving soon) we went hiking in the Porcupine Mountains 15 min. away. (As well as playing more volleyball when we got home.)

This is a trail overlooking Lake Superior in the Porkies.

Resting on the rocks in the Nonesuch River.

A Nonesuch Fall.

Our family photo.


Now for the most interesting part of our hike:
The remains of the old Nonesuch Mining town from the 1800's. These huge foundations are made of rock, expertly fitted together with crumbling mortar between them.

As you can see, this one is almost 40ft. tall (compare my 6' brother at the base).

These foundations are situated near the river where they got their power. At it's peak, the village had 12 houses, a General Store, Post Office, Stage Coach and their own uniformed Baseball team. Now, it's nothing but crumbling foundations in an overgrown forest. A strange feeling...

Anyway, ending Fathers Day with a gorgeous evening sky.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY DADDY!

Bigger Banner

I enlarged my banner today. Whaddya think? I'm not too crazy about it, but since it takes forever and a half to fiddle with it, it's probably going to be sticking that way for awhile now.

God Bless you all today!!
 

Fuel Efficient Lawn Mowers

I'm so happy! First, let me explain two (of many) daunting 'problems' that our impending economy collapse is providing. One being rising gas prices (obviously) and the other being rising hay prices for keeping animals. Well, Ontonagon, Michigan, is proving to have these 'problems' at top intensity. We are nearly feeding hay out all year round, with the exception of (maybe) one month in the summer. Pathetic! Well, with no time to put in sheep fencing, these poor beasts were facing a whole summer in their pen this year (with the exception of the hour/day herding that the boys give them). Refusing to waste gas on lawn mowing this year, it was determined that sheep grazing/mowing was the best option. A moveable pen was the top choice since that eliminated fencing in the whole lawn. BUT, four fencing panels, such as we needed, cost nearly $100 dollars, at almost $25 a panel!!! We talked about other possibilities with the menfolk, but they were too busy with the summer building projects to offer any help. Fed up with this obvious need, and the ridiculousness of buying gas for the lawn mower and feeding hay to the sheep, I grabbed Theresa this morning and went to work. I am more then a little pleased with our feminine attempt at carpentry.

You can see our overgrown yard in this one: (Miserably overcast today.)

They ate for 4-5 hours and we moved it twice, (though we really didn't need too, it was just so fun to see the 'mowed' areas). You can see the two patches where they ate:

This is our gate; a portion of the fencing that we didn't tie to the frame. We wove a smaller piece of wood into the fencing and attached it to the corner post with bungey cords.

You can see the sad state of our fleeces this year. The bare patches that Paddy (the calf) left on them are just starting to grow back in, leaving them looking rather like french poodles.

Anyway, I just have to point out that this pen was 100% free (). The wood was dug out of the scrap piles left over from our house building project. The fencing was found in the dump pile and restored. Then the string that we used to attach the fencing to the frame was pulled out of the garbage can (it initially came off round bales). Even the nails were pulled out of dad's left over bucket of screws and nails!

Fuel efficient lawn mowers! Every yard should have one.

Babies

Our baby animals are growing up and their proud parents, (or Grandparents I should say... they insist that when a pet of theirs has babies, they're the Grandparents and Mom and Dad get the title of great Grandparents already). Anyway, they have been supplying me with an abundance of pictures of their precious' to share:

Fleeces

This past week, we had the wonderful opportunity to shear two gorgeous fleeces off the backs of two unfortunate sheep. The sheep belonged to some friends of ours and they gave us the fleece for the shearing. Sadly, our sheep have not produced fleece half that long this year, due to an unfortunate encounter with a baby cow sharing their pen.  She quite literally licked their fleeces off!

We didn't get any pictures of the shearing, but here's one of us skirting the fleeces.


They are now being processed (washed, carded, spun...). Ordinarily, we would just wash the fleeces and stick them in storage until the winter months are upon us, but we wanted Jules to experience the process, hands on, while she's here.


Even though it looks like two dead animals in our living room, () the sheep lived. Actually, they fared better then some of ours, since their fleeces were different colors than their skin. (Our black ones are tough to shear, since they have black skin too.) I had the back legs to hold and I also trimmed their toes while I had them down (clipped my own finger pretty good too).

Well, I'm nicely sore after today's work, with just enough energy to go join that wild looking volley ball game going on outside, and just enough weariness to put me out when I hit the hay tonight. Looking forward to another long, hard work day tomorrow!