Makeshift Christmas Card

When I decided that I wasn't going to make a family Christmas card this year, I thought, "I will write a blog post instead" -- thinking that would satisfy the 1 person (maybe 2) that still check on this poor blog. Well, I didn't get to it. And didn't get to it.
But am now.
I know, y'all were holding your breath.

Anyway, the last 6 months have been busy. Not rush-around, can't-see-anything busy, but mostly more a steady thump with all of the little free time going toward either the FarM, Family, and/or hanging out (generally including both the FarM and Family). And I have been totally ok with that. At peace even. Because I'll be honest, this year has been a whirlwind that, Praise God, we have made it through. But I am craving peace and rest.

But anyway, I don't want to make a long list of things that we have done in the 6 months since I have posted. But here are a few of my current favorite things:

We are loving the snow. I think the animals would probably disagree, but the kids have So. Much. Fun. playing around in it. Mmmm....and I could sit outside at night for hours watching the snow, hanging out with the animals. The sunrises have been sensational. Just pure love.

God bless :)

It's July, right?

Seems like this summer is going fast. Thought it might be time for an update on happenings with our summer.

Gman went to training in May. He came home the Monday we got back from vacation. I am so glad to have him back, he's an awesome, light horse to ride and he's doing GREAT.

Kgirl turned 4 while on our vacation. She got to pick out her sweet pink cake.

"Nummy!"

For our vacation, we went with my dad and that whole side of the family up to Voyageur National Park and stayed on a houseboat for 3 days. It was awesome.

These are kind of old pictures,  from about a month ago, but I love them enough to show them. Mel the wonder horse is the one horse out of the 4 currently at our house that anyone can ride. She tolerates the young'uns well. Both of the girls love horses, try so hard, and are doing a great job! A was the first to be able to get Mel to ride away from anyone standing near, and without a leadline. She worked hard to get to this point, not that Mel would be bad, just that she decided that standing next to people standing was preferable to working.

On Saturday the big K was riding, and (I'm sure not influenced by the girls' recent addition to Horseland, the Saddle Club, and many, many hours of playing horse both with play horses and on their 'pretend horses - bikes and scooters) she says to me, "Mom, run?" "No, K, not run". She asks again, with the same response. Finally she goes, "Mom, trot?" "Yes, that's fine". She is my daredevil, and doing a good job of getting Mel into a trot and bringing her back down to a walk. It's hilarious to watch her though, her little legs barely reaching down below the saddle, and when she kicks her right leg flexes and extends with good force while her left secures her against the saddle. 

So, that's about where we are at. Still not in the house. And honestly, I can hardly comment on that right now as I vacillate between having strength and being ok with living in a 35' travel trailer with the 5 of us and knowing God is in charge and all will come to fruition, to getting frustrated with the multiple errors, setbacks, and other issues that are rising the longer we are out of the house (mouse poop and moist close-to-moldiness on our stored boxes in the back of the basement, really??). But anyway, despite being somewhat (ok, probably really) anti-social, we're hanging in there, and hope that y'all are having a great summer!

The Elvis Pig

Happy as a pig in slop.

Thank you, thank you very much.

How to FarM with a wild, raucous Tot

Baby J is not so much a baby anymore. He's a crazy wild running machine who is infatuated with all things wheels and steering wheels. Throw a ball in there and he's a happy camper. Given this description I'm not so sure I need to mention this, but I'll throw it out there: Left alone to his own devices, he will cause trouble. He will fall off the Gator, climb into Opa's truck to commandeer the steering wheel, take over the lawn tractor. Not that he's done any of this, I'm just saying.

So. Drastic times call for drastic measures. Here's what we do.
A. Put him down for a nap. For some reason, now that we live in a trailer and need to clear out the trailer of live, loud children when one naps, or maybe to make up for the first 8 months of his life when he did NOT sleep, J has decided that 2 naps a day is sufficient. Really. But, it's nice for the days when it's sunny and 70s. I'll be thankful for these days.
B. Take him along. This really only works when one is driving ... something.

When not riding a motorized vehicle, he hangs on in a backpack. Which actually works great, but we've used it so much that one of the buckles keeps slipping. It may or may not have to do with him being a 2 year old's weight in a 1 year old's body.

The girls are not nearly as narrow-minded. They're in for anything as long as it involves accessories, driving the Gator, riding the horse, or training a calf. 

No joke. It's a trip around here!

FarMin some Hay

Praying for it to dry, and to stay dry...

just for a few more hours...

Lil Update

K peeps. I loathe typing on my phone, and the phone posts look weird because of the odd picture size, but it's what I've got right now. So. I'll bore your eyes for a bit, then when I get sick of typing I'll just load up some pics of the most adorable children ever.
So the week of the house fire, A's pony, her birthday present when she turned 1 -year-old, passed away. Plus multiple car/truck issues, it was a rotten week.
I wanted to tell you that, so that when I show pictures of our new horse it's not alarming - like thinking really, what they needed was a new horse? But I could only take so much of Grimmie following us around with his nose on our shoulder before I folded and bought him a friend. Although, the bite mark on his shoulder and the way he hangs his head over the gate makes me think they aren't exactly BFF, if you know what I mean. But he'll get her back when he leaves for training this weekend.
In house news, our first restoration company quit on Monday. So the fire investigation was done this past Wednesday, we should be ready to go, an the company quits. But we have another that we called Monday afternoon, met them on Tuesday morning, and they are raring to go. Which is good, because I love camping, but preferably not in my front yard.
Baby J has turned 1!!!!!!! This kid rocks my world, he's great. For his birthday he got a cupcake and ice cream cone, as we'll as a bucket of water to play in. What 1 year old wouldn't love that?
My fingers are cramping. I'm out ya'll.
PS. The pigs are doing awesome! Go Bacon! And free rototilling!!!

FarMFire and other news...

Since we're received so many phone calls, texts, etc. from people who have heard from other people, we want to contact y'all ourselves and let you know "from the horses mouth" a little more and that we are OK.

By now most of you know that on Easter morning, about 3:15am, we were woken to a fire starting in our house ceiling above the woodstove. For those of you that didn't know, at 3:15am on Easter morning I awoke to our smoke alarm bleeping 3 times. Something made me run out into the living room, where I looked up and saw a ring of orange around the ceiling where it meets the woodstove piping. We didn't know it at the time, but flames were shooting out of the soffit on the side of out house. We all got out safely, including the dogs and chicks, and are doing well given the circumstances. The house, on the other hand, will need to go through a major renovation before it is liveable. Though the fire damage itself wasn't great, water permeated our great room and is now seeping into our basement. The house reeks of smoke. Praise God, above all else, that we are safe and unharmed. The rest is just fluff. :)

For those of you who have contacted us - Thank You, from the bottom of our hearts, for the offers for help, prayers, and genuine concern you have given us. Your support means so much. At this time, we are just taking it day to day and our needs are minimal - we had good house insurance (Trav had double checked on our coverage after he was on a call for a fire about a year ago.). We are at an extended stay hotel in town, one of the few places we can stay and have the house dogs with us. Travis is commuting to Gun Lake and feeding the animals on the way to/from - unfortunately, our current location places much of the "FarM" duties on him. Hopefully within a week or 2 insurance will know why this has happened and have an expected timeline for restoration, and at that time more permanent living arrangements will be arranged - we're praying closer to Leighton, so Trav can continue his fire department and EMS roles, and so we can more evenly split up the FarM chores. If anyone knows of a rental something (we're flexible :) in Leighton let us know.

In other news, more Praises!, Trav found out yesterday that he was offered a position on the southwest MI Tactics team that he interviewed for a few months ago. HUGE PRAISE! I know Trav will be awesome in this role, congrats hon!

So, to recap, we are doing well. We are well aware that it could have been much, much worse. We have faith this will all work out for His good, and God has blessed us so much already that we know that He will work out the rest of the details, and give us the strength to carry on through this. We are so very, very thankful for all of you and thank you for taking the time to check in. We feel very loved. 

God's Love, Grace, and Peace from the FarMasselinks.

Even though the weather isn't agreeing...

Spring is springing at the FarM! Today 2 monumentous arrivals occurred - Broccoli sprouts and 9 piglets! Woot woot! More pictures to come, it's late.

Preparing for Spring

So there's a mess of snow on the ground right now, and T informed me this morning that there is more on the way. I'm ok with it, the kids love it and it gives me more time to prepare for spring. Cause let me tell ya, it's going to be busy here on the FarM. Starting with pigs and chicks, moving into fencing in our back acreage, add in the garden and working with the Colt, and we'll never get to leave. Which, is ok with me. We haven't planned away the winter though. These past few weekends we've had some time at home. This weekend was fab, and the kids LOVED playing outside. This morning the sun brought some frosty winter beauty to the landscape. Enjoy!