Well, it’s been a while since our last post – nearly a month! With the busyness that comes with spring and sometimes life in general, we got behind several areas and just didn’t make the time to post. The good news is that we have lots to share and hopefully we’ll get some new postings up over coming days and weeks.

After church today, I took the kids to the park for a picnic lunch and some playtime. They had a great time playing with some other kids. Rachel used one of the horizontal bars to demonstrate some of what she has earned in gymnastics, including skin-the-cat and a flip. Benjamin spent much of his time swinging around the monkey bars.

Several times while we were there, Benjamin came to me to ask if he could go to the restroom to run cool water over his hands. They were “getting hot”. 

When we got in the car, he told me that he had several blisters on his hands. I smiled, remembering the time in second or third grade that I wore blisters all over both hands doing the exact same thing.

Then he asked how the air got in the blister. I explained to him how a blister is formed and that it’s filled with fluid. He was convinced from a prior experience that blisters were full of air, but he couldn’t explain how it got there.

So tonight after dinner and baths, we decided to prove it once and for all. Benjamin wanted to get a needle and pop his blister to see what was on the inside. I carefully helped him put a small puncture in the side of the blister bubble. When fluid came running out, Laura and I both said see, it’s full of fluid. Benjamin smiled and disagreed. “No, it’s full of air”. So we pointed to the wet spot on the tissue and said “Well what this then?”

Without missing a beat he quickly smiled and replied. “It was humid in there.”

You just got to love kids!

Many evenings, just before bedtime, Laura or I will read aloud from a “chapter book” that appeals to the kids. Whenever possible we make it a family affair, all gathering around and giving the reader our full attention.

Recently we finished reading Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. It’s a very engaging book about a 13 year old boy who is stranded in the Canadian wilderness. His only chance and tool for survival is his hatchet. As he attempts to provide food and shelter for himself through trial and error, he learns many new things about survival and about himself. It’s well worth the read.

Throughout the book, Benjamin was intrigued about many of the skills the boy learned. How to make fire without matches, why water refracts light and distorts your perception of a straight line, and how to process a small gamebird. At the book’s end, Benjamin was eager to try some of those things for himself.

As it happened a few days later, it was time for Laura and me to process some of our chickens. Laura and I both feel that it is important for our kids to know where their food comes from and the natural order of things that God put in place for man and beast. We’ve tried instilled upon them that it is our charge as stewards of this land and of these animals that we treat both with respect. They are comfortable with knowing that the chicken on our table may have once had a name, but we’ve never pushed them into helping it to get there.

This time however, inspired by what we’d just read, Benjamin asked to process a chicken on his own. He actively watched me as I harvested the first chicken, asking questions and pausing me to get a better look from another angle. He paid close attention to my every move.

Then it was his turn. Without hesitation, he started from the beginning and 20 minutes later he handed the fruits of his labor over to Laura, ready for the pot.

Like the boy in the book, Benjamin learned more than just a new skill that day. He learned a bit about himself, and gained some confidence in the process.

Afterward, it occurred to me that he has now done something at 8 years old that I didn’t do until I was 38! I’m proud of the person he’s growing up to be.

Napoleon

(Napoleon perches on the old well crank to declare war on any who dare challenge him).

“Meet Nappy- he’s a pain.” According to Joe, this is the sum total of all you need to know about this bantam rooster. Seeing my look of consternation, Joe said, “What!? Ask any rooster we have and he’ll back me up on this!” I have to admit that his words do ring pretty true, but I’ll elaborate anyway.

A couple of years ago, I bid on a hatching (fertile) egg auction for “everything that’s laid today.” When the eggs arrived, I put them under a couple broody hens. Twenty-one days later, Napoleon (a Mille Fleur Belgian d’Uccle) appeared.

Almost from the start, he had attitude, not letting anyone chase him away from food or the best spot under mama. By six weeks old, he had pretty well established dominance among his nestmates. His position was seldom challenged.

As his permanent feathers came in, I noticed he was no slouch. He always appeared at attention in dress uniform, like he was ready to inspect the troops. His tail feathers seemed to be starched into an unnatural angle and stiffness. But most of all, he seemed not to be concerned in the least that he was by far the tiniest rooster we had. If anything, he was more arrogant because of it.

He definitely has little man syndrome. He has to crow twice as often as the bigger roosters and from a higher vantage point. Though he is physically incapable of mating with the standard sized hens, that doesn’t stop him from trying his best pick-up lines.

And you’d think that newcomers who grow larger than he would put him in his place quickly, but strangely, the opposite happens. When he faces off with a cockerel who plans to ascend the pecking order on Nappy’s back, the fight looks so lopsided that you’re reluctant to watch. The young upstart brazenly looks on puny Napoleon with disdain. A standard sized cockerel may weigh in at 7 or 8 pounds while Nappy is a “featherweight” (I couldn’t resist the pun) at a mere 1 pound.

Napoleon returns the stare and then the fight begins. The newcomer comes at him with spurs extended only to find that Nappy has not only dodged his attack, but has already come back with well-placed pinprick spurs of his own. The bewildered contender faces off again, but before he can gather his wits, Nappy has connected with his head and zipped away out of reach. This goes on another minute or two before the greenhorn bows out, defeated by Nappy’s speed and agility. The Little General struts away victorious.

Over the past couple of weekends, I’ve been taking diving lessons along with Laura’s sister, Sheryl. We’ve had a really good time. The instructor has put us through quite a few drills in the swimming pool to hone our skills for the open water.

During the course we had to

• assemble our scuba equipment blindfolded
• take off all our equipment at the bottom of the pool, swim to the surface, swim back down to the bottom, and put it all back on again
• jump in the pool with all our equipment in our hands and put it on while sinking to the bottom

The final day of pool activity included swimming in a large circle around the pool blindfolded while other people messed with your gear. The “sharks” would reach down and turn off your air supply, take off one of your fins, place a tangled rope or other obstacles in your way, or even add additional weight to your back. The purpose of the drill was to build your confidence in a safe environment so that if you encountered something similar in the real world you could think back to yourself “Hey, I’ve done this blindfolded. I can handle this situation.”

For example, many divers get entangled in fishing line while diving. These exercises were designed to help give us the skills and confidence to react calmly and appropriately. I hope that I’ll never need that skill, but I’m glad to have gone through the exercises just in case.

This past weekend, we went to Panama City Beach for our open water check out dives. We had two dives on Saturday, both along the jetties near the pass. The jetties are home to interesting fish, snails, anemones, and crabs. I wish I had an underwater camera with me.

On Sunday, we ventured out to the deep water. Our first dive was to a World War II era mine-sweeper, the USS Strength. It sits in 76 feet of water and provides shelter for a lot of fish and other sea life. We jumped right in encircled the sunken vessel, taking in all the sites we could. It was great.

The second dive of the day was to a sunken bridge span. It sits almost eighty feet below the surface and we could swim in and out through the trusses like an underwater jungle-gym.

After completing those four dives in two days, we are officially certified open water divers! I cannot wait to go again!

For years, both Laura and I have resisted buying a minivan. We each had our own reasons for not wanting such a vehicle. My reasons were admittedly, at least in part, rooted in vanity; I didn’t like the idea of driving such an emasculated-looking ride. There is just nothing “manly” about a minivan.

The usefulness of minivans became apparent to us a few years ago when we went camping with our Sunday School class. Out of the fourteen families, ours was the only family that did not make the trip in a minivan. We crammed all of our stuff in the back of a SUV; the other families transported their camping supplies in the comforts of their oh-so-roomy minivans. It was then that we first became aware that there is a certain practicality to minivans and that perhaps that’s why they are so popular.

Still we resisted.

Eventually we replaced the SUV with a 4×4 truck. As a family feeling led back to a homesteading lifestyle, being a two truck family afforded us a certain amount of flexibility. If either of us needed to stop by the store on the way home to pick up some fence posts or chicken feed, no problem – we each had the room.

However, in December as we were preparing for Lydia’s imminent arrival we discovered that although each truck could seat five, having a rear-facing infant carrier in the mix made it significantly more difficult get people in and out of the rear seat.

So we began reconsidering the minivan. And we bought one in late December.

Now we really see why they are so popular. Running errands, going out to eat, and taking trips are so much easier when you have a minivan. It’s great. Now we take it anytime the whole family is going some place together.

This past weekend, we made a trip to Alabama. We went to attend a farm equipment sale in Moulton with my grandfather. As we were packing for the trip, we were in a quandary – which vehicle to take? My first thought was to take one of the trucks just in case we found a farm implement that we could not pass by. But on the other hand, it’s just so much easier to travel in the minivan.

Finally, the allure of traveling in comfort won out and we took the minivan. We reasoned that if we had to, we could always borrow my grandfather’s truck to transport any purchased items back to his house and then we make alternate arrangements to get them back to our house.

So, we headed off to the auction. As we pulled into the grassy field to park, we laughed as we realized that our minivan would be easy to spot when we decided to leave. The rest of the vehicles were large farm trucks – 1/2 tons and 1 tons, flatbeds and duallies. Many of them were pulling trailers large enough to carry multiple tractors. We parked our white minivan between a dusty dually and a 3/4 ton pickup hitched to a trailer that must have been 40 feet long.

Once in the auction, we looked around a bit. They had lots of good stuff. I eventually won a much-needed hay fork for the back of our tractor. Yippie! Now we can move the hay rolls around as needed.

But now, how to get it home? Parked back at our house were two 4×4 pickups, either of which could have easily carried our newest farm implement home. But no truck, no matter how good it is, can help when it’s a couple of hundred miles away.

Since my grandfather’s truck was about 30 minutes from the auction, we decided to fold down the rear seats in our minivan and try to put the hay fork in the back. Laura went to get the minivan while I settled up with auctioneers.

As she drove in the gate to claim our merchandise, the guy guarding the entrance stopped her and politely told her that she could not park here. Laura told him that we had just bought a hay fork and we were picking it up. He looked at her, looked at the minivan, and then back at her and skeptically said “Are you planning to strap it on top?” Laura told him of our plans and he could barely keep a straight face, but he waved her through.

When the our hay fork arrived at our van – on a forklift no less – the driver helped me to carefully position it into the back of the minivan. It fit! Just barely, but it fit nonetheless!

When we returned home, we were even able to wedge our luggage back there among the prongs.

Now I’m an unashamed convert – minivans are great! I’m not giving up being the primary driver of a truck, mind you, but until the kids are out of college, we’ll probably own a minivan.

Now that deer season is over, I saw 12 deer in the field near our house, including the albino deer!

The picture is extremely poor quality, but you can make out a normal deer on the left and the albino deer on the right. The picture was taken at approximately 200 yards and cropped & enlarged to narrow the field. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to sneak up on the white beast and show you a better picture soon.

Due to popular demand, here’s a picture of my stitches. It’s healing very nicely if you ask me.

In years gone by, car owners could expect to get a good 30,000 miles on an engine, if they were lucky and maintained it well. Now days, a set of tires can go twice as far as the cars of yesteryear.

As you can see, my 10 year old pickup truck just rolled over 200,000 miles! I, for one, am glad they don’t make ‘em like they used to!