Time Keeps On A Ticken'

 As usual time really gets away from me and I tend to forget about the blog. Every now and again I'll have someone mention it and I'll go Oh yeah the blog I should really update that. Then of coarse life keeps happening and there are more important things to be done. Sometimes I'll start the post and it will sit and sit and sit before I complete it and post it. We are back in full swing with Homeschool as well as all the animal chores, fall butchering and bringing in the garden harvest. Then right on the heels of the fall harvest comes prepping for the long cold winter. There are always things to repair and activities to be completed before the cold makes them impossible. Then it seems like we jump into all the holidays and community activities that come along with them.

Well here is a little in brief with the highlights of things that happened from September - December.

SEPTEMBER

This year we lost one of our bee hives completely and the other didn't do very well because of all the rain. We only ended up with 3 1/2 gallons of very dark honey dew or forest honey.

Me uncapping the honey

Ken and kids extracting the honey

 One crop that did well again this year to spite all the rain was the potatoes.

The largest pile are the reds. The smaller piles are other varieties that we tried this year; brown, mountain rose, fingerlings, and Yukon Golds.

Oak and the tater piles

Last years light fireweed honey VS this years forest honey

Lisa and her pack goat Tamarack

Wyatt up the tree Oak down below

Oak with a large red potato Wyatt photo bombing

 OCTOBER

Cocoa Butter Soap

Oak helped unmold the soaps

My first batch of Goats Milk soap

We got a new livestock guard dog puppy. He is a Maremma/Great Pyrenees and his name is Rover.

9 weeks old

Tank

 Kids had a good time trick or treating and got lots of goodies.

 Only in Alaska do kids get full size boxes of cereal while trick or treating.

Enjoying some sugary cereal that they got trick or treating.

 NOVEMBER

Kids Tank and Rover 12 weeks

Oak, Lisa, Wyatt

 We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my Mom, Dad, September, Ian and Our Pastor Earl and his lovely Wife Lynn. I especially enjoyed spending time with Lynn visiting after dinner. We had a great time sharing stories and lots of laughter. 

Pecan Pie

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Grandpa and Wyatt wrestling around

I got to use the fine china that Ken's Grandma Rose gave us for the first time ever. I had never even seen it. It was packed when we got it and then we moved so I had never even opened it until Thanksgiving day. I had to go online to see how to properly set a table and to find out what all the pieces were for lol...

Adult Dinner Table 

Kids Dinner Table

Rover 15 weeks

DECEMBER

Ken started fixing up the old plow truck and added the towing equipment from the broken tow truck onto the plow stuck. It is still a work in progress.

The kids all set to cut down the Christmas tree

Oak

Lisa

Wyatt

 They each had a turn at cutting

Wyatt

Lisa

Oak

Tank Supervises 

.

Then they hauled the tree home.

The animals are all enjoying having a heated barn. Rover is peeking into the barn to say Hello.

Rover and Tank wait patiently outside the Turkey pen.

The kids all took part in the Church Christmas Play. Lisa was Mary, Wyatt was an Angle and Oak was a sheep. 

Lisa made Christmas Cookies. The Santa faces were special for Santa she said.

It's Christmas Eve and the scene is set.

Cookies and Milk for Santa

Gifts are under the tree

Stockings are hung.

Christmas Day

Stockings are full

 Our traditional homemade Christmas doughnuts.

A game of Marbles after opening gifts. 

Rover got to spend a little time inside with the family on Christmas morning.

New Years Eve

We had a nice little fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. 

After all the food was cooked we added some little packets to the fire that cause the flames to burn all kinds of different colors. We sat back watched the fire and listened to the owls. At 7:00 pm it was chores as usual. We milked the goats and closed everyone up for the night. The kids went to bed. Ken and I enjoyed a couple of glasses of sparkling cider before we too headed off to bed. New years or not the wake up call is the same when you have animals to milk and feed.

We want to wish all of our friends and family a wonderful New Year. We hope that God's blessings will be abundant and his presence ever felt throughout 2015.

James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.