Road Trip

 

Okay, these are a little out of order. Oh well! Arthur's been a roll recently to restock our firewood for next year and the rest of this year, plus to help out Amos and Silas with wood. It's a good thing he has grandsons and Eli around to help out!!

We went to the North Dakota Home School Convention last week. We mainly went because Priscilla was doing a book booth at the vendor show and thought we should make it a family trip. We had a great time! One night however, we got a room on the way home that was SO cold! Arthur messed a long time with the heater and finally, after we were in bed with our coats on asked for more blankets. The lady came by a little later with some nice warm ones right out of the dryer with an apology. The next morning Miriam tried one more time to get the heat on and just like that it kicked on.  

Since we no longer homeschool the workshops just don't hold the interest they used to to Arthur and I, did a bunch of shopping. Arthur attended a bull auction and the steak dinner that went with it but didn't buy any of the $4,000+ bulls. We also checked out the Missouri River and the keelboat replica of Lewis and Clark. I did enjoy the vendor show and came home with way too many books!

One look at the Missouri River and we decided there was no way you were going to skate down that river like our local Warroad River! What a beautiful city Bismark / Mandan is.

Priscilla also did a workshop on self publishing. 

Forgive the mess in my living room! These are some trikes we picked up to use at the maze and Arthur, the girls and Eli were testing them out by biking in circles, and down the stairs. The grandkids had fun testing them out too.

I just enjoy this picture with the girls enjoying each others company.

Living up north we don't to a Cracker Barrel very often so we stopped there for supper one night. If I could pick up their store and plop it down at the maze I would. I love that place!

Hope you all have a wonderful week! Don't forget to pray for our country!

Catch Up Time!

Okay, we haven't blogged for a LONG time! I've had several people tell me in the last few months that they miss it though so I will try to do a few more posts than in the last year!

Probably the same where you live, but the news this week is the bitter cold! We've had quite a few days now where it hasn't reached 0 degrees F. My father-in-law keeps a thermometer in the valley behind our house and one morning it said 59 below!!! That happened one other time in my memory. It's been tough on the cows, and the water pipes to the cows. Poor Arthur is pretty busy keeping them with fresh drinking water.  

Backing up to Christmas, I had fun making a special pillow for each of the older grandchildren with my new Cricut machine.

The Christmas highlight was having Nate and Hosanna come up for a whole week with their adorable little Ruth. By the way, Hosanna is expecting again!

In January our nephew Josh, who has been on this blog a lot over the years, and Priscilla's friend Jessica got married! What a beautiful wedding with two of the sweetest people!!! I can't wait to see what God has planned for their lives.

It doesn't matter how cold it is, Arthur keeps on working, and anyone else he can get to help. Last week, he got a bunch of firewood with Eli and some grandsons. I hear their going out again today. Brrr! And I'm freezing in the house!

For Valentine's Day I made everyone in the family a hot chocolate bomb. They were so fun to make even if it took me a long time. I'd like to perfect them a little and then maybe sell some at the maze.

Speaking of the maze, this is the first 2021 project for the maze getting worked on in our kitchen. I also had the fun of attending a virtual agritourism conference. Getting together, even if its online, with a bunch of other maze owners is so much fun. Everyone shares their ideas and what works for them. They share pictures and farm video clips. Plus there were lots of workshops.  My brain is "amazed" at all the things we could do! My family wasn't so enthusiastic!

At our church we've been having a ping pong tournament. Pretty much everyone is in it from young children to us older ones. It has been so much fun watching people play that we don't normally see play. 

So that's about it for now. A quick catch up on the last few months. Again, I will try to do better. I actually like blogging way better than facebook because I like to write more than people read. I hope you all stay warm, and count your blessings from God, and name them one by one!

 

Busy Days!

I'm sure you are all getting tired of the Coronovirus shutdown like we are. One thing we have enjoyed is doing a drive in service at our church. It's not like being in person, but sure better than sitting home watching it!

We were looking through some old pictures and found this one of Arthur, far left, from back in our college days at Northland. Those of you that know us, should know who is standing beside him as well! This was taken in our apartment when they were getting ready for a nightime campus event.

Another oldie picture we found was this one from the April Morning drama. It hardly looks like Arthur! 

The guys have been out sucker fishing a couple of times and one thing I did with them was make some pickled fish. Okay, as a girl I loved pickled fish. Ate it whenever I got a chance. But then one day I made some and realized that its really just raw, pickled fish. Haven't been able to eat it since!

Today my project is to take some old beans I had, both black beans and garbanzo beans and cook them up. They've been soaking all night, and after draining, rinsing, and putting in fresh water, they are on the stove as I speak. I love both of these beans in salads, in chili, in omelets, you name it! This time of year I always get into "empty the freezer and pantry" mode for the new garden season coming up. 

Arthur enjoyed taking Daniel sucker fishing and teaching him how to filet a fish. He loved it! Suckers are a great fish to learn on because if you mangle the filet all up, who cares! There's more!

Backing up to Easter Sunday, the girls took time to dress up and fix their hair to celebrate our Lord and Savior's death and resurrection!

They couldn't resist a Coronovirus facemask photo!

Arthur and I went for a drive last night, which we very seldom have time for, and looked at the fields. This is last years flax crop that never got harvest because of the fall rains. The field is still too wet to harvest. Such is farming.

Meanwhile, we are having calves born every day and its so fun to see the mama and baby pairs in the field!

Meanwhile, Priscilla works hard to finish up the rough draft of a new book.

Meanwhile, Miriam got her plane tickets for this summer. We will sure miss her!

So that's it for now. Continue to pray for our country and its leaders. Pray too for church leaders around the country that they would have wisdom in when to reopen and how. Have a wonderful day, everyone!

Early March

Well, this has been an eventful month so far, hasn't it? Things haven't slowed down a whole lot at our house. In fact, everyone I know in our entire town is pretty much still working almost like normal. There are no cases of Covid 19  in our area that anyone knows of, so that could change if there gets to be some. Meanwhile, we've been watching grandchildren here and there.

One of  AJ's favorite thing to do at our house is play with play dough. Literally, he can do this for hours! Having sisters join in helps too!

Priscilla had a birthday this week and decided to try her hand at making cake pops, which we've never done. They were very good! Little nieces helped her.

Arthur had a wild game of Apples to Apples with the older grandchildren.

Mike enjoyed all the extra attention he got!

If you remember this fall, it was really, really wet. Arthur was unable to get all the corn harvested. This is the strip left of the corn maze, trails and all. Another field with corn we just put the cows in it a few weeks ago to finish it off and to stretch out the hay till spring. Wait, it is spring. Well, Minnesota spring!

Ready to fight the Covid19 virus! Seriously, I think I'm the only grandma who lets her grandkids take over the entire house having battles and games destroying it all in the process. Where is my common sense? Hopefully some day they will appreciate it and remember the fun they had at our house! And yes, they're really good at helping clean it all up when the battles are over. And no, they didn't use real paintballs in the paintball guns!

School. Can't get out of that!

Priscilla did the girls nails and they dug out the dresses from our dress up chest.

A birthday picture of our lovely daughter. I so appreciate Priscilla's creativity, hard work, heart for God, imagination, and the fun she brings to our house! We love you, Priscilla, and hope you have another great year!

I've still been plugging away on maze projects. I did a couple more macrame hangings. 

I made some reversible snowmen / scarecrows. Also made a pile of aprons, dishtowels, and some earrings. If this virus continues for months and months, guess what family members are all getting for Christmas! I actually love doing crafts and its a great way to enjoy these long winter days.

Arthur is still doing some construction. We're hoping it will warm up some before spring calving starts in a month or so. When he has time between construction, and feeding the cows, he's building shelves for the Granary and doing some work in the 2020 escape room for the maze.

I hope those of you that read this are all doing okay. The world is kinda crazy but how good it is to know that we have a God that is in control of it all! One of the facebook groups I am a part of has people who are very genuinely scared that they might die and are so afraid. These days are great times to share our faith and the peace of God that comes with it. The world is so needy and we have the answer they need. That being said, even those who trust in Jesus as their Savior can sometimes be afraid. Read your Bible, pray hard, and put it all in Jesus' hands. He cares so much! It might not calm the fear immediately, but at least you can know you went to the one who can and will calm those fears! Our family loves you all! Have a great weekend!

End of February!

This isn't our family, unless you want to count Eli, who says he's our Swedish exchange student, or Priscilla's little brother!  If the church guys want to play soft air, one of their favorite places is the corn maze. With all the buildings, fort, corn box, deer stand, etc, its just the perfect place to run and hide and have fun, even in the winter!

Today there was a broomball tournament fundraiser in Roosevelt and a bunch of our church guys, including Arthur, had a team. They got 1st place!

Meanwhile, Arthur and his dad decided that the corn, still standing in the field waiting for harvest, had too high of moisture content to harvest, and since we're a little shy on hay this year, put the beef cows in the corn. They love it!

I've been working on sewing aprons for the corn maze Granary.
Priscilla did a test set up of her table for next weeks home school convention.
Miriam's been plugging away on updating our church's photo/scrapbook.
We tore down last year's escape room to start on this years room.
The days are getting noticeably longer, both morning and evening!

Have a great weekend! If you need something to add to your prayer list, please pray for Mrs. M and Mr. G who both have cancer.

Loving Winter!

Okay, you wouldn't live in this part of the world if you didn't love winter! I could live without the icy roads, but other than that, its pretty nice. One thing everyone up here loves is hockey. You can't live in Warroad without loving it some anyway!

Once a week a group from our church, plus a few others go skating and play hockey. This week Esther and Anna showed up and Miriam helped them skate around the rink some since they're just learning.

Arthur and Caleb going for the puck. 

Eli as goalie. Yes, they miss Hosanna because she was a fabulous goalie. Eli is good too!

Okay, I was a little disappointed when I dreamed it was summer the other day and woke up to a very cold, windy day!

Other things we love about winter:
Getting house projects done.
Time to work on maze things.
Time to fix tractors and equipment.
The crunch when you walk in the snow.
The crisp, clean air.
It's easy to cool a room down for sleeping.
Everything looks so clean outside.
A little extra time to sleep.
Bright days- the snow reflects light!
The reminder that God can wash away our sins white as snow!
Ice fishing!
Snowmobiling (We don't do this a lot but those that do, love it!)

Tonight some of the grandchildren came by and we got a smile out of little Glorie! So adorable!!!

On the farm this week, Arthur butchered a couple of cows to feed various family members with help from a few nieces and nephews and friends to cut and wrap.  He also worked double hard to keep the cows fed with how cold it is this week.

I finished up another macrame project and then did some dishtowel embellishment using my Cricut machine. Both maze Granary projects. If you remember back awhile we made a "Come and Dine" cookbook, well, I remade it, with some changes and additions and am having it printed in magazine format. This is way cheaper than the hardcover and hopefully I can sell some at the maze as well.

Have a wonderful week! God loves you!!!

Well, I Wouldn't...

I would never be caught up this high but Arthur would!

Arthur is adding an addition on to a man's house with Eli, Mathias and Daniel's help and they wanted the branches cut from off of their antenna. It was an all day job but he came home safely so I was happy!

I've been working on Granary projects and made a few macrame hangers this week. I loved the feathers on this one.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Don't forget to go to church on Sunday and enjoy worshiping God and fellowshipping with other believers!

Glorie

It's been so busy since Christmas. I really wanted to do some blog posts, even tried. Backing up in time, our main computer, crashed in early December. Not good. I had so much stuff on there and I'm not really good at backing stuff up. I had backed up all my pictures the week before though! Anyway, Arthur bought me a new one for Christmas, almost exactly like my old one which I really liked. And here's the problem. It would not let me download pictures for a blog post. Today I tried something new and dowloaded Opera, a web browser, instead of using the Explorer the computer came with and voilá, it worked! Much faster too!

The big news is a new grandaughter! Isaac and Aimee had a new little girl named Glorie! It was a long labor, but it went okay is she ever an adorable little girl!! Here's the happy grandpa!

Martha checking out her new little sister. Such love this little one will have!!! 

Heidi will be a perfect big sister!

Priscilla enjoying the new little one!

Miriam taking her turn at holding the new little one. Such a blessing from God! The longer the labor the harder I pray and its such an answer to prayer to finally have the child in world and the baby and mother doing fine! Isaac and Aimee are great parents and we enjoyed watching the other  children while she was in labor.

Once January hit, I started working on maze stuff. Honestly, it takes months of prep on my part! This week I started tackling craft projects for the Granary. The plan is to bring back the gift shop and I know those plans could change, but I want to be prepared. If not, Priscilla enjoys bringing her books to craft shows and these things can go along. These are mini sticky notes. 

These are note cases. I also made some other sticky note "thingy's" and other notebooks. I love doing this kind of thing so it really wasn't work! Finished today and put away the HUGE mess I made.

January is also when we go through the church library, section by section, reorganize the books, and figure out which ones are missing, need fixing, need to be pulled or replaced.  We did that yesterday and now we make overdue slips for last year.

Arthur has been doing some construction on a house and usually takes Eli or Mathias or even Daniel along to help. He is also excited to have his first AI calf of the year.  A nice big black angus bull. There are a few other AI ones that should be born here and there but the bulk of the calving won't start until March / April.

Priscilla just got back from a trip out to visit one of her cousins so she is feeling refreshed and encouraged!

Miriam continues to do housecleaning for some ladies and keeping our house on track.

Next project? I think next week I'll work on some projects with my new Cricut Maker.  So excited to see what I can come up with for the Granary!

May God bless you all in the coming year and give you a desire to serve Him and follow Him!