Farewell to 2018

It’s the last day of 2018. I’m not sad to see this year go. It’s been a difficult one on many levels. I am a little contemplative today as I think over what has been and what I want the next year to be. 

As far as our beginning homesteading efforts go, I am pleased over all. 

We made our garden. Planted lots of plants. 

 Bottled over 150 jars of food. We also did some non-garden projects.   

We put in stairs up our hill. 

Built a big picnic table by the fire pit. 

Put a bridge over our stream 

 work in progress

All with wood lumberjack milled from trees on our property.  

 And built an enclosure for our garbage cans.   

As winter hit,  we’ve been doing inside things.  Lumberjack has built several shelves and many Christmas presents (including a rocking horse, and a rocking llama) 

We also have chopped and gone through over a cord of wood with these cold temperatures. We are keeping warm though, and are very grateful for our wood burning stove.

I have learned how to knit, but am still working on spinning. 

We have made great progress towards adopting our foster baby and even make progress on our son's PTSD.  

It's been a busy year. 

We hope to keep working and continue to improve as we start a new year with new knowledge and goals. 

Here’s wishing you all a great 2019.

Life...

It’s been a difficult year for us. 

For years mini -engineer has struggled with gastric issues. We’ve been to several doctors and tried a few things with not much success. Finally, we made our way to a pediatric gastroenterologist. They’re planning a scope, but they think it might be celiac, which would mean some big changes to our family. Our sports guy, or Jekyll and Hyde, which is a better name, unfortunately went through a lot of trauma before we adopted him. This trauma will have life long consequences. He’s been having a very hard time of it starting first grade. We are fortunate to have the teacher we have and several other people that are all working together to try and help him, but it's been a rough road. Miss independent is keeping to her name quite well. She also got her first round of braces off. Our Foster child which I will call joyful, because she brings me so much joy, is 14 months now. We were picked to be her adoptive family, but a distant bio relation came forward and says he will take her and now we are waiting for the courts to decide.  Sometimes we get foster kids on emergency placements, meaning it happened fast, it often happened in the middle of the night, and kids need somewhere safe for a few days while the department sorts things out.

We have three adopted kids and our one foster child. Even if we lose Joyful, even with the difficulties of Jekyll and Hyde, I do not regret being an adoptive parent or a foster parent.   They have brought so much to our lives and our family. Even though some days are so hard I don’t know if I’ll survive, and some are so hard I don’t know if I want to survive, they have made me a better person and I don’t regret any of it. Just know, that if I don’t keep up with the blogging it’s because I’m taking care of them.

Begins

Winter has come early. I don't know if it's here to stay or if more fall is waiting for us on the other side of this freeze. That's the fun thing about Colorado. They always say if you don't like the weather here just wait a day.

This year has been an interesting one. I'm sorry I failed to post more over the late summer and fall. I'll do a review of life and speak of some things that are dear to me. But for now, I couldn't let the start of winter pass by unnoticed. This week has been perfect for sitting indoors in front of the fire, catching up on house work, reading, making soup, and, dare I say lest I jinx myself? finding time to write.

I'm wishing you all cozy and warm.

Safe garbage

We celebrated our country's independence day this week.  We had a fun day, going down the mountain to a movie and dinner and fireworks. The best part though, was that Lumberjack took the whole week off work. We got a lot of projects done. Cleaning up downed trees, more work in the garden, lots of odds and ends.

Our big project however was building this enclosed area next to our propane tank to keep our garbage cans in.

Eventually we'll put a roof on it but hopefully this will keep the animals out.  No more mornings picking up scattered garbage.

Garden update

With all that work putting in the garden I worried mightily about whether or not I could actually make any vegetables grow. The financial and time commitment made me really, really  not want to fail. What if nothing came up? What if I killed everything off?

Fortunately, we've had most everything make an appearance. The only things we haven't seen pop up at all is the celery and the eggplant. I can live with that. Not everything has come up in abundance but they're here and we're getting a good idea weather or not they'll grow well up here.

We're a bit behind, even our late mountain season, just because it took us so long to get everything built, but we're hopeful and hardworking. We did have to plug some gaps today as something got in and ate our peppers. Grrr, the first veggies showing and something else got them. But, we learned and hope we plugged all the gaps this time.

Here's to a handsome harvest.

threat of fire

A haze of smoke fills the horizon, reminding us of everything we could lose. It’s the price we pay to live up here, in this beautiful country. Everywhere has a price, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, 8 months of winter, tropical heat and bugs.

 But here, the thing that makes us fear and remember what is important is forest fire.

Today, thankfully, there are no fires nearby. The smoke comes hundreds of miles from other fires, other people who worry and fear. Even so, in the back of my mind there is a running list of things I would pack, things important to take, if the evacuation call ever came. The kids are subdued and hesitant to go outside as we all think about what if.