Homestead Happenings - August 2017

As our contractor, Daniel Jacobson, finished the basic construction of our house, we started working on the wiring. We also had other local contractors working on all the heating and air/ducts as well as getting the plumbing roughed in. The kids, including cousins and friends, were constantly helping us sweep and clean the interior after each project was complete.

 Rina is standing in front of our new heat pump. That thick powdery dust is what we dealt with all summer long. Piles of it! We were all dirty - constantly. 

 Rina is standing in front of our new furnace which is twice the size of the one we had in our old house.

 Josiah's friends from Boy Scouts would come over and help us late into the night. Michael taught them how to string wire. They were so helpful!

 Hailey loved to get up in the rafters to help string wire. She's a monkey, too. 

 Our friends from Boy Scouts, Josiah and Ryan Bork, helped dig ditches for plumbing....

 ...and helped Michael in the evenings with stringing wire. We have awesome friends!

 Daniel's son, Tavi, who hung out with us for much of the month and a half that his dad was camping on our property buildig the house, used a magnifying glass to burn the wood with his Dad's business name. Daniel nailed it into the rafters. We love it!

 Josiah's turn to help Michael string wire through the rafters. It was soooo hot in that house! We had to do it later at night to keep it bearable. We were exhausted from so many late nights, but it paid off in the end. Daniel worked late into the night constructing the house almost every night he was here. He worked so hard and so fast. People around here just couldn't believe a house could possibly go up that fast with so few people working on it.

 This is pretty much Daniel's pace every second of the day. Now you know how he got it done so fast!

Daniel, contractor extraordinaire!

Here he is right after he put the last nail into our house. A job well done! We made many memories with this amazing Romanian mountain man. We were absolutely honored for him to be the contractor to build our home. He gave us an amazing deal on the house because of our circumstances and got it done in record time besides. We pray many blessings on him and his precious family whom we count as special friends. 

 Michael took a night off from working on the house to take Hailey to one of the nicest restaurants in town since she had been working hard on learning her table manners. It meant the world to Hailey that her very busy dad would take her out for a date. This is why I love this man.

 Michael's beautiful date.

 Josiah was able to go to the desert with Grandma Kricket to get everything prepared for their month of vacationing down there. He got a little driving practice in.

 This is what my kids looked like at the end of every day. I would spray her down in the evenings using the outdoor shower on our travel trailer where I would also do the dishes.

 She cleaned up well though. Here she is standing in the shop I struggled to keep half way clean despite all the dirt (and sometimes sheep) constantly coming in.

 Hailey was able to save up enough money to get her mermaid tail. She used the tar out of it the rest of the summer and really became quite good at swimming in it.

 I took a quick trip to my sister's house where Rina got to play with Cousin Marcus while I did some yard-saling with my sis. She ended up storing a bunch of furniture that I got really good deals on that I wanted to put in our new house. What a blessing! I saved so much money on furniture that weekend.

 I asked Josiah and his cousin, Andrew, if they could build me a stanchion to use for the sheep for shearing and doctoring. Josiah came up with this design and they used scrap lumber from the house to make it.

 Then they convinced me to try it out, LOL. It worked! Mama approved.

 A friend from church gave Hailey this new outfit. I thought she looked so grown up in it.

 Grandma Kricket came back from the desert after taking Hailey and several of her cousins down there. We had one night to celebrate her birthday and then she was off again! Josiah made her shrimp sushi and I made her Thai chicken in the Instant Pot. Just because we lived in a shop, didn't mean we were going to stop celebrating and living life to the fullest.

 Michael patiently wired a great deal of the house with his little helper clinging to his back. He's always let the kids do this as he's worked on his projects. Rina is no exception.

One night we impulsively took the trailer up to Indian Lake where they were having a MOPS retreat. We invited Michael's folks to join us and we had a wonderful time. It was so nice to use the trailer for which it was intended. 

 Josiah is a good big brother and is always teaching Rina about the great outdoors. 

 Kay, Ernie and Michael, just relaxing by the lake in the morning. It was so nice to see him doing absolutely nothing but visiting with his folks.

 Rina got to hang out with some of her MOPS friends. Aubrey looks so much like Rina. They're adorable together.

 Josiah and Hailey were able to borrow our friend's kayaks and had a wonderful time paddling on the lake.

 When we got home, my FIL, Ernie, was hard at work with Michael as they continued to work on digging ditches.

 I decided to throw together an impromptu Solar Eclipse party at our house where we had a good view. We didn't quite see 100% totality, but we still had fun. We even made tin hats to keep the aliens from sucking out our brains, LOL. Glad we have friends and family who are nutty like us.

 Mom and Rina watching the eclipse. 

 Rina lost interest after awhile. 

 Then we had a little eclipse potluck in the shop. Complete with an eclipse cake compliments of our friend, Gracia.

Total Eclipse Cake

 One of our homeschool friends brought his family over the mountain one night and wired the control panel for the house which was a huge, complicated job. What a help Brandon was to Michael that night. It was so hot in the house. Just miserable. They worked through it until they got it done.

Brandon's wife, Marlana, was very pregnant with their latest son. She's a mama of many boys. It was so nice to visit with her and her sons got to play with our children on the homestead. They went home very dirty, LOL.

 We were visiting my mom's house to water for her while she was gone. Rina just sat down in her green lawn in absolutely heaven. Didn't realize how much we all missed having a green lawn until that moment.

 The girls were great about helping do laundry using our outdoor laundry system.

 Josiah started working on his hiking merit badge for Boy Scouts that summer. 

 We took some time to swim in the river near our friends' property. Found a great swimming hole to play in.

I managed to have a small garden. It brought me a lot of joy in a time of extreme stress.

This was the last picture I took of the Rina at the pool. The bumble bee was tired, as were the rest of us. As exhausted as we were, the work was really just beginning. 

"Peace out" from this bumble bee!