Mountain Lane Homesteaders

She came with the name of "Snowflake", we changed it to Tangle (see previous post), but I'm wondering if Houdini might not be just as appropriate!

 The Escapee!

Just incase you're wondering.......goats DO have personality :). Molly has yet to get free from her picket line while Tangle has broken off at least 6 or 7 times. Each time she gets off differently. So far it's been easy to get her back on because she just breaks loose and then stays right near where Molly is. I'm so glad they were friends before they got here so they like to stick together. One evening we were sitting here inside and there was a nice loud goat greeting very close. We opened the door and there stood Tangle just looking at us. Two nights ago it was already dark outside and we began to hear a bang bang bang on the back side of the cabin. Sure enough, Tangle was free again and saying hello. Tangle is what I would call a more "social" goat than Molly for sure! She's always the first to call to us when we open up the door or arrive back home after being away. She will look you right in the face too with those great big goat eyes. As for her relationship with Molly? Tangle seems to be the one trying to get Molly to play while Molly acts all diginified. As if butting horns with Tangle is something she will agree to begrudgingly! Tangle can be seen standing back on her hind legs to put her whole body into a head butt while Molly just gives a small tap and goes the other way. I have a feeling Molly is something of an aristocrat while Tangle is more of a commoner!

I mentioned in my last post that Tangle is an Alpine and Molly is a Toggenburg. I was looking at some pictures of the different breeds on the internet and now I'm wondering if they aren't some kind of mix. The goats were given to us and the guy didn't really give us a lot of information. He said they were given to him. I think Molly looks like a Toggenburg except for her ears. They are not straight up like the ones I see in pictures. They stick out all goofy on the sides.

I am wondering if she might not be a mix of Toggenburg and Nubian. Anyone have any thoughts? As for Tangle, I just can't tell whether she looks all Alpine or not. For our purposes it doesn't really matter I guess since all we really plan to do is learn about milking them but I am just curious.

We are now back down to only the two outdoor cats. Two kittens were given to the same home several days ago and the three newest baby kittens are no where to be found. At first we thought Baby had just moved them but now we are wondering if something might have gotten them. Baby is back to spending her days underneath the windows with Mama outside so we think she has no more kittens to look after. We are all a little sad about losing the kittens. The kids already had each one named of course.

My garden is looking better each day. It's still been quite cool here so the tomatos and peppers haven't grown much yet but they have recovered from their transplant shock. The broccoli, cauliflower, and especially the brussel sprouts look wonderful. I guess they are liking this cool weather. I read that one plant can make up to 100 brussel sprouts. I have 4 plants. My kids are groaning :). I also made a smaller raised bed inside the fence that is made out of stones. I made it quickly to move some flowers inside that the deer were gobbling but I decided to plant the jalepeno peppers and some salad greens right in with the flowers. Hopefully the jalepenos won't kill off the flowers! In the main garden I've added in some lettuce seed as well as a few melon seeds. We'll see what those do.

We are busy getting ready for our vacations coming up. We have two trips back to back starting at the end of next week. We'll be flying to Maryland for a whirlwind family reunion and then coming home for 5 days and leaving again to make a drive to Iowa for another reunion over the 4th of July. We're certainly getting excited!

Well, seems like the day has begun around here so I'm off. Many thanks for all the welcome back comments!

Oh this is TERRIBLE! How in the world does one just jump back in after a THREE MONTH silence? I feel as though so much must have happened with everyone that I'll never get caught up! Even this page where I type my entry looks different.  YIKES.  Thanks so much to those of you who've been writing to me and wondering where I was. I think that's what finally got me back on the keyboard again. Nothing like wondering if no one will know who you are any more to create a big ole writers block! Sure hope to be getting back to regular visits with all of you.

So how about an update on things around here? I'm sure you've all just been waiting on pins and needles to finally hear the words....... WE'RE FLUSHING!!!! Yes indeed we are creeping ever so slowly back into the realm of civilization. We have a beautiful shiny functioning potty and the portas have been put out of commission! The excitement of it all was just too funny. The night we had it all hooked up we called my parents up at about 11:00pm to have them listen over the phone to our flush. The phone call was quite brief since it was late and they were heading off to bed. It was only AFTER hanging up did I realize that it was their ANNIVERSARY and I hadn't even said a word. I'm sure they were thrilled to share their anniversary with our toilet anniversary!

How about a picture?

As you can see, no walls yet but we've got blankets tacked onto all that framing and at least finally have a little privacy. Gone are the days of the "NOBODY LOOK!" commands. I cannot tell you all just how wonderful it is to stand behind those blankets and get ready for the day without an audience :). Something else we've accomplished is to get the engine rebuilt for the sawmill that was given to us and have moved it onto our property. Just as soon as we're able to get it all leveled we'll be able to mill the wood for the bathroom walls. And a door.......I can't even hardly imagine.......a door!

You know, I was just thinking. I think one of the reasons I must have slowed down on writing and even reading blogs lately is because everyone was so excited and looking forward to their gardens. It was so hard to read all that great garden information because of my last years experience of having everything here demolished by the deer and free range cattle. My poor little tomato plants that I so carefully grew from seed were just carelessly destroyed!

But.......Happy Birthday to Me! This year Sam was determined to see to it that I had a fence so that I could garden again without fear. So at the beginning of May he peeled several poles and we set about creating a fence. We were able to buy a 100 foot roll of welded wire, 6 feet tall, for $99. Sam dug post holes into our clay/rocky ground and we mixed bags of cement in the wheelbarrow. We stood each pole up, made sure it was level, and began to shovel in the cement. Once all the poles were in place we were ready to put the wire on. Our ground slopes a bit where the garden area is so we had to take a stair step type approach to the wire rather than just wrapping it around and being done. Since the deer are not daunted by a 6 foot jump we stretched several lines of single strand wire around the tops of the poles so that each area is actually now protected up to 8 feet high. Hammering in the fencing staples and pulling the fence tight was actually a pretty enjoyable task and we are so proud of our accomplishment.

We think it turned out beautiful! We have set in 14 raspberry plants along the back side (that's on the left side of the picture as you see it.  The gate is on the right) and I've put in tomatos, bell peppers, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts. I've left a place to put in some lettuce as well and I still have to figure out how to do the jalapeno peppers I want to grow for my salsa. A neighbor told me she had once planted jalapenos in with other things and everything else took on the heat of the peppers. Anyone else have that happen? I'm thinking of putting them in pots rather than the ground to prevent this. We have a short growing season here with the weather still being pretty cool right now and will get cold again at night starting probably in mid September. Don't know how all these things will do but at least I finally get to TRY!

Along with the additons of the toilet and a new garden fence we also have several new animal additions. We are being overrun by kittens! We moved here with 2 pets. A dog and an indoor cat. Last fall we found a cute little kitten snuggled down in our wood stacked up next to the house. We think she was trying to stay warm. We thought she was an orphan abandoned by her mother so we made her a cozy box outside and yes, started to feed her. We just call her Baby. It wasn't too long before the kids found another cat that looks just about identical to Baby snuggling with her underneath a stack of windows we have outside. Seems baby's mama was now going to live with us too. So, since last fall we've been caring for these two outdoor GIRL cats. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and we found mama's newest litter of kittens....underneath those windows. Two boys and a girl. Soooooo cute. Although so tempted to keep "just one" we have found homes for all three. One little boy left yesterday and the other two will go to a home together just as soon as we can get it arranged. Which will be perfect timing because just over a week ago, on my birthday, Baby had babies too. Two girls and a boy. And they are soooooo cute! We have a few weeks to go before finding homes for these. You don't suppose I'll get talked into keeping "just one" of these do you? 

Along with the cats/kittens, as of this holiday weekend, we find ourselves as of Saturday to now be GOAT OWNERS! Sam e-mailed me from work on Friday that he'd heard of someone who wanted to give away two female baby goats. Although, we've talked about getting goats some day it surely wasn't in the plans to do it yet. However, when presented with the opportunity, we at least had to go and look at them don't you think? They are bigger than I had imagined. They are each about a year old. They've not yet been bred so they can't be milked but they're just at the right age I guess. Here are our new friends.

This is Molly Hazel. She is a Toggenburg and came with the name Molly but we added the Hazel because of the color of her eyes. She seems to have an affection for Sam since he's the one who sat by her in the back of the truck for the ride here.

Here is Mara with Tangle.  Mara was wearing this dress the day the goats came.  Doesn't she just make you think of Heidi?  Tangle is an Alpine and came with the name Snowflake. We changed her name because Snowflake just didn't roll off the tounge. Her new name fits her though because this one sure seems to get tangeled in her line a lot. Since the goats were unexpected we have no pen yet but have them tied to lines between trees. When we got home from church on Sunday we found Tangle laying on the ground with her legs all tangled up. We got her untangled but she scared us because she just layed there. At first her eyes were shut, then they were opened but huge and vacant looking. We were just about to call one of our neighbors over who has goats when Tangle finally stood up, peed, pooped, and started eating again. Whoa. What a way to start things out. It was like she just had given up. I hate to think how long she must have laid like that. She was fine when we'd left but we were gone probably about 3 hours or so. All seems to be fine now though. Both Molly and Tangle are getting use to us and now are willing to eat some oats from our hands. Every so often I'll just look at Sam and say "We have goats" and then a little later he'll say, "Darc. We've got goats." I think we're somewhat bewildered but we're sure having fun :).

So lets see, a potty, a fence, sawmill moved over, baby kittens, and goats. I guess that's what's been going on around here while I've been A.W.O.L. these past several weeks. Sure am glad to be here this morning. I hope to hear from some of you and I'll be checking in. I have a lot of reading to do to get caught up with you all.

Talk to you again soon!

Never underestimate the hazards of fallen trees and icy roads!

Picture the scene:

One logger shimmies the side of a steep slope, chainsaw in hand, in an attempt to reach the ENORMOUS dead douglas fir tree that will fill two trucks with excellent long burning firewood. Maybe it wouldn't all even fit in two! The second logger is the get-away-guy. Their job is to wait for the tree to fall, back their truck up, hook on the heavy chain, and quickly pull the prize out of the middle of the icy road and onto the side where it can be cut into sections for loading. Logger number three has the distint duty of watching for cars coming from either direction to stop them dead in their tracks lest they be on the section of road directly beneath the oncoming tree at precisely the wrong moment!

All goes beautifully. The tree has landed and been removed. All three loggers have done their jobs. Now logger three sees that there is a car headed in their direction and shouts. All three scurry to clear away any large shattered bits from when the tree hit the road and the car passes without even having to pause. Ah, all is well on this logging day.......almost. There are still some pieces of brush and twigs that have to be picked up and thrown aside. Not much was left now so logger three began the "shuffle clear". Take a step with one foot, swipe brush aside with the other. It was that third shuffle/swipe step that was the doozy.

Anybody yet figured out that I am the unfortunate logger number three? You wouldn't have any questions about it if you could feel the headache I'm left with! Apparantly I went down and hit the back of my head.  Hard.  Sam said he ran to me and started to talk to me. My eyes were open but he knew I wasn't seeing him. He said I was also making some kind of strange noise in my throat. I don't remember any of it. One minute I knew I was slipping, and the next minute I was "coming to" and Sam was pulling me up off the road and walking me to the truck. I sat there for about an hour fighting nausea and making sure not to doze. Sam (he was logger two by the way) kept checking in on me while the truck was being loaded. At one point our friend Frank (logger one....the mountain goat) looked in and asked me how my head was. I said, "It hurts." (I'm not thinking there was anything else TO say!). His response? "Yeah. I heard it hit." Great. I'll be holding my head up high as this news gets around town.

Now let me just say that of all the more fascinating injuries I could have endured while out in the woods for the day........animal attack, a wayward tree landing on me and trapping me underneath, or even being hit with flying chainsaw shrapnel, I get to report the unfortunate injury of FALLING OVER MY OWN TWO FEET!

How undignified.

*Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW, WHAT A RIDE!"

With so many things half done and pieces of things having to find places to hide until they're ready to be used, it's easy for the area surrounding our house to begin to look well, awful. Saturday morning's bungie bag just sealed the deal.

Due to some strong winds in the area we lost electric power around 3 a.m. on Friday morning and were still without it at 9 a.m. Saturday morning as we were getting ready to leave for the day to make a shopping trip into Missoula (1 1/2 hours away). Since the temperatures were low we asked a neighbor to pop in mid afternoon and toss some wood into the fire to keep it going while we were gone. When the power is out, our well doesn't pump so first off (to my horror) there were a days worth of dishes sitting on the counter. I could have done them the way we did when we first moved in here by using the water in our jugs and boiling it on the stove and such but I had not imagined the power would be out for so long so I let them sit. Then, I checked the meat in the freezer which was just beginning to feel a little soft. We decided at that point that it would be better for the meat to be outside rather than in the freezer. Only thing is, it had to be up high enough so no animal could get it while we were away. Where better than on one of the nails we pounded into roof rafters to hold the lanterns we used out front before the outside light was installed? So out came a black bungie and a plastic bag full of meat. Up on the first nail it went.... on the side of the cabin with a ladder leaning against it and the old wood stove sitting there. The uncovered septic tank was there too, right between the house and our make-shift shed. Now here is where the ulimate homemaking experience took place......I asked Sam to move the plastic bag of meat suspended by the black bungie cord over to the nail on the OTHER side of the house because it just didn't look QUITE SO TACKY there! Move over Martha Stewart!!! I wonder if the neighbor was able to appreciate this as he approached the partially stained front of our cabin while stumbling over the thick pieces of bark that had been scattered about as firewood was being tossed out of the back of the truck. I'm certain it more than made up for the vision of my undone dishes once he made it inside! Ah, living in the woods........

We did go on our shopping trip and the neighbor filled the stove for us, however we were gone longer than we had thought so the fire was completely out when we got back in the wee hours of the morning. Thankfully the electricity was back on but the temperature inside the cabin said 37 degrees. Sam went to work fast on the fire (bringing the wood INSIDE to split!) and I turned on the cold water faucet. The moment of horror when nothing came out passed when we turned on the hot water tap and got sputtering water. After it had heated up and ran for a while the cold began to flow as well. We then kept it running until the fire was well under way and the temperature began to rise. No frozen pipes this time but boy it was as close as we'd ever want to get. It was another layered jammie night for me!! Thankfully the kids were all so exhausted from the day that they were asleep within moments under their warm blankets and not standing about shivering with cold. Ah, living in the woods.......

Lately the terms redneck and hillbilly have been coming to mind around here. I think I like the sound of hillbilly much better, although according to this definition I found, perhaps I am really more of a redneck since I often feel resistance to assimilation into many things in the dominant culture! Oh well, I don't suppose it matters. Which ever one is fine with me as long as my meat can hang from the leftside nail in the front of the house where it's colder than the freezer and the only one I have to worry about seeing it is the kind neighbor who's stopping over to fire up my woodstove on a cold winters day. I don't think he always assimilates into the dominant culture either!

What an encouraging bunch you all are! Not only did I get to hole up in my den and hibernate for a day, I also got to be reminded again of what great friends I have found here. Heartfelt thanks to all of you for your thoughtful comments!

Since hibernating really only works if you are indeed a bear, I did venture out yesterday and made it to that eye appointment. Which is better...1 or 2? How about now.....3 or 4? Tell me when you start to see double.....WHEW! After an hour of this it was proclaimed that I have very healthy eyes (seemingly apart from the fact that without correction even the big E is fuzzy) and am still a few years away from the bifocal experience. Eye pressure is excellent and no capillaries are threatening my cornea. It's been a while since I've received a report card but I think I got an A! Anyway, my trial contacts are on order and will be in next week. HURRAY!!!!

As for an update on our homestead......I'm not entirely sure just what to tell you about our future flushing capabilities. We were "3 feet from oil" so to speak when the snow came. Our septic system has been officially approved by the sanitarian but we still have to cover everything over and install an electric pump in the tank by the cabin. We have asked a friend to help us with the electrical side of things so hopefully that will be taking place soon. Right now, keeping warm and getting ready for Christmas are the top priorities!

Last night we installed a new wood stove. It is exactly like the one you saw in my pictures when I showed the inside of the cabin except that it has no cracks or warping and so we can actually close the front and get it to hold heat now for longer than 2 1/2 hours. We purchased the new to us stove from some friends a couple of weeks ago and spent some time getting it sanded down and repainted. Last night was the first opportunity we had time to switch the stoves so after dinner we stopped feeding the fire and let it begin to die down. As the kids headed up to the loft for the night we began the process of scooping out the coals, disconnecting old pipes, pulling out the old stove, assembling 3 new stovepipes and getting them connected, and getting the new stove in place. I think it was about a 4 hour process during which time it became somewhat CHILLY inside. I actually ended up crawling into bed under the down comforter with my fuzzy jammie pants on, warm socks, my sweater, and my coat while Sam built the first fire. I was beginning to drift off a bit when the smoke detector above my head started to loudly announce it's displeasure at the peculiar smell wafting from the stove. Luckily we had read the part on the paint can about the odor that would be produced the first time it was heated up. So, while we were unconcerned and set about opening up the windows (brrrrrr), the smoke alarm continued to complain until Sam finally had enough and disconnected it entirely! Now we'll have to add "reconnect smoke alarm" to our list of activities. Wouldn't do to become bored now would it?!! Anyway, the stove is all in and has been running like a champ. It's much quieter now that it's all sealed up and air isn't rushing through from different directions. It was also still FULL of heat this morning so there will be longer sleep cycles taking place around here and I will also be able to go Christmas shopping without having to be back in 3 hours to load the fire. These are very good things!

Let me leave you today with this picture I took from the front of the cabin on hibernation day. I posted a similar view earlier taken in May.  Looks a little different today!

Good morning. I just thought I'd better pop in and let everyone know that we have NOT been eaten by the bear! In fact, we haven't seen him again since that one night several weeks ago. What I think is that while we have continued to walk, no make that run, the hamster wheel of life, Monster bear has found himself a nice cozy den somewhere to wait out the snow, slick roads, head lice, bronchitis, truck in the shop, missed appointments, undone septic, and general winter exhaustion.

I think I want to be a bear.

I will spare you all the nagging details of the above annoyances of life but let's just say that while there's been nothing earth shattering (death, job troubles, relationship issues, etc.) life's day to day has been less than idyllic for the past few weeks. At first I was still reading and commenting on blogs even though my soul was not able to produce anything worth reading. Then it digressed to simply reading without making many comments. I knew it had gotten bad when I stopped even checking in on my friends. Time wasn't really the issue (well, except for during that whole ugly lice incident). It was more a matter of spirit. I haven't been in a depression as much as in an astonishment at the increasing number of things seeming to prove the theory "If it can go wrong, it WILL go wrong." Now I know that is simply negative thinking but never-the-less it sure has seemed that way!

This morning I had an eye appointment to get new contacts. I've been in my glasses for quite a while now and have really been looking forward to going today to get a new set of contacts ordered. I wasn't sure whether to try and take my van because we've been having trouble getting it out of our "driveway" and up the small incline onto the county road. In order to be on the safe side I reluctantly decided to take the truck and let Sam tackle getting the van out this morning (which he did with no problem). So at the appointed leave time, off I went to trudge up the snowy slope to the truck, hopped in and turned the key. Nothing. Not a click, not a bit of life. Did you see it coming? I didn't. But when it did, it just didn't surprise me much. So, here I sit, talking to you with my glasses perched on my nose for yet another day. I've rescheduled for tomorrow. You see, these things are not the end of the world kind of happenings. But things like this, one after another, can really work on getting a girl down.

So this morning, I'm thinking about that bear out there somewhere all rolled up into a ball snoozing away. Although rummaging through people's trash for food and being hit in the backside with buck shot don't appeal to me much, the quietness of a cave and shutting out the cares of the world for a few weeks sounds heavenly. I think it's time to take advice from a bear. I can't go anywhere anyway, so for a little while today I am going to huddle up here in my cozy warm cave and not worry about whether it will be cozy and warm tomorrow.

Thank you to all my friends out there who have been encouraging me to keep telling our story. Today's chapter isn't terribly inspirational but it's real.

We'd been hearing the rumors going about. Although we had good reason to believe them we had no first hand experience. So we were cautious, but we really needed a good dose of reality before we accepted rumors as facts.

So anyway, Sam was not planning to be unprepared if this bear decided it wanted to visit us INSIDE.  He loaded up the handgun and sent me upstairs to get Caleb's shotgun for added backup. We both felt safer up in the loft! We woke Caleb up and told him to load his shot gun. Sam went back downstairs to put in a call to the police. We didn't want them to come out but were calling just as a precautionary thing in case he had to shoot the bear. We do not have a bear tag for hunting purposes and there are severe penalties for anyone shooting a bear without a tag. So all the while Sam is getting ready to protect our family from this huge animal if it should decide to come in for a snack, I am imagining my husband behind bars because bears around here have just about as many rights as humans! I felt a little better when the police told Sam that if he felt threatened he should shoot the bear but they never DID say he wouldn't be put away for life. (Well, they would probably just take away our firearms and ban us from hunting for a period of time but you know, it was midnight, the adrenaline was high and so were my imaginations).

How we decided to just go back to bed and hope the bear would just leave I do not know, but that's exactly what we did. It had it's snack and went away. But we spent a good long time laying awake with our 2 guns loaded and ready just in case. Monday morning Sam talked to the people at the fish and wildlife to make them aware of the bear that's roaming the area. Basically he wanted to know what actions we could take if necessary without getting into trouble and is now feeling much more relaxed because they told him the same thing as the police did, if we feel threatened we should shoot it! YEAH. They also said that others in this area had called about the bear as well and that they would back us up if we had to shoot it. That is very good news!!!

Monster bear has not been back since Sunday night. We spoke with one of our neighbor ladies yesterday about it and she has had it on her property as well. While Sam and I have only been wilderness dwellers now for just a little over a year, she lives "higher up and further in" and has for years. She told us that when she saw it outside and the dogs weren't chasing it off, she went outside and waved her arms around growling at it and it took off. People who've been around black bears will tell us that they don't like people and are more scared of us than we are of them and they will run away rather than attack. Fine. Tell me that all you want. My kids go up to the county road at 7:30 in the mornings to catch the bus. It's still dark out then. I'm pretty sure they aren't interested in testing out this theory!

So the plan is simple. If the bear is smart enough not to return, it is safe. If he decides he likes roaming about our 7 acres.....well, he's not welcome here. We're all for enjoying the wildlife as long as we're not afraid it might eat us!

I love our trees.  We have A LOT of trees....Ponderosa Pine, Grand Fir, and Douglas Fir to name a few of the varieties.  Some of them are enormous and some of them are no more than 12" tall.  I find myself watching out for even the tiniest of them.  The areas I have started to mow still have tiny trees I am leaving in place while I painstakingly mow around each one.  Simply going out and deciding which one to take down for a Christmas tree was a BIG deal!  Now mind you, we do have 7 acres.  What is with this new "love affair" with trees?  Maybe it's because for the first time I have actually noticed how the tips of the pines and firs turn a very light bright green during the spring as they are producing their new growth.  I can now go to our trees and see just how much each one has grown just this season.  I don't know, but whatever it is, taking down trees because we "have" to is very distressing.

Unless you have experienced this phenomenon you may think I have lost it.  Saturday we got the lines all figured out and yesterday we started the dreaded cutting.  I found myself so stressed out that I literally had to work myself up for each tree to go.  At one point Sam mistakenly took a small one down that we had decided could stay in place and I FREAKED OUT on him.  Go figure.  Both of us were highly keyed up and it was only through sheer determination that we got the task completed.  We only had to take down one mature tree.  All the rest were little ones that no one would blink over.......except us. 

One of the trees that went was one that had a tiny little bird nest in it when we were first looking at the property.  We eventually got to see 3 little eggs in that nest though we never saw the baby birds.  It was just sad to see it go. 

There are still lots of trees on our property and a month from now we probably will forget what things looked like before.  I imagine that no one will be thinking about the trees as they reach back to flush the potty!  But as I was going through the experience I knew it would be something that would make it's way to my blog. 

Where else could I go to talk about my trees and know that if not everybody understood, surely SOMEONE would?!!!