Kitchen Progress

The time arrived to get the kitchen put together.  Jeff cemented in the wire for the island.  That little crater will not be missed.  The next project was cabinets.  I think it took 4 hours to level the lower cabinets.  It was a long day!  The uppers went up with hardly any issues!  The island is sitting, waiting for its turn, but it's so great to have some cabinets I can start using!  We are just waiting on the uppers about the oven and the island to get installed.  

 

Going to the Ball

A local homeschool group hosted a masquerade ball.  Mhari went with her friend Raegan and her sister Adalyn.  Mhari bought her ticket and a mask.  She already had a dress to wear.  She went over early to get ready with her friend.  She had a fun time at the dance.  

 

Bathrooms

We ordered light fixtures and mirrors for the bathrooms.  We also got a new curtain rod for the guest bathroom along with it's own shower curtain.  It was a busy day, but we got all the bathrooms done!  They look so much better!  It is so nice to have good lighting and a mirror when trying to get ready in the morning!

 

Wild Boars

We have all sorts of wildlife here at the ranch.  We often see deer, rabbits, birds, and wild pigs.  The pigs are a problem because they dig up our pastures!  We were out picking up logs with the Elders again and I was shocked at the holes everywhere.  I tried to fill them in, but it was a sea of never ending holes.  We really need to terminate these intruders!  

 

Yellow Flowers

Spring is here along with all of the spring flowers.  These yellow flowers have been loving our ranch since we bought it.  Unfortunately they have been spreading ever since.  The kids and I have spent time weeding to try to get rid of them.  We cleared the gathering pen and the feed lot for pastures 6 and 7.  Pasture 6 is just overrun with them though.  I don't think we can weed fast enough to keep up with the problem.  I decided it was time to break out the weedwhacker.  It took me about a week, but I cleared pasture 6.  I never took an after photo, but there was no more sea of yellow!  Hopefully next year we see a decrease in these flowers.  There are so many weeds, but we will take any win at this point!

 

Sunsets

We have really been enjoying the sunsets at the ranch.  It is so nice to just look out the window!  Being here is such a blessing. 

Calf Craziness

The Elders came out to help sort off the calves.  It was kind of crazy, but a good day to get them weaned.  Elder Badger manned the gate and Elder Russell helped with midgates and running the moms out of the pens.  The next week Elder Bradshaw and his companion joined the fun as we weighed and gave a booster to the calves.  That turned wild and we had calves jumping through barb wire fences and back to the other pasture.  A couple made it back to the main herd.  We were blessed with some rain and an amazing faint double rainbow at the end of that day!   

After a few days of waiting and being patient we finally had them all back together and ready to move on to their new homes.  Calves are always so cute, but they are also so crazy!  It's nice to be back to just our small herd of 11.  

 

Kitchen Cabinets

We have been assembling kitchen cabinets!  We have the dining room cabinets in and it is so exciting! I have been building the kitchen cabinets, but have had a few delays.  One of our cabinet clamp we use to screw 2 cabinets together broke :(.  One of the pieces of a drawer was cracked.  Ugh.  Well, we have more built and set in place.  It is a slow going process, but it is starting to look like a kitchen.  I will sure be happy when I don't have to live out of boxes in the kitchen!  

Friends

The Elders came over to help with ranch service.  It sure is nice to have extra hands and build friendships.  We are still recovering from logging last fall so we are piling up branches so Jeff can eventually mow again.  While working the Elders found a lizard.  He was their new friend.  Elder Badger was so excited.  Elder Russell decided he had made a new friend for life.  He hung out on Elder Russell for quite a while too.  So fun! 

Burning

Living on the ranch means no normal trash service.  We could pay for it, but why do that when you can burn your trash?  We have a lot of normal paper trash and we have a ton of boxes.  Let's just say we could be burning our trash for a long time before we catch up to the pile we have.  It was fun to feed the fire, but it can still get out of control quickly.  I'm sure we will have many more burn nights in our future!

Settling In

We have been making progress with the house.  The bathroom cabinets are now ready to be set.  I have also been getting out our old wall photos/decorations.  It's feeling like home having it all get decorated!  We are still a long way from being done, but we are moving in the right direction!