Abundant Blessings

The musings of a Mega Family. What constitutes a Mega Family you say? Well for us, its 17 children, a number of dogs and cats, an ever-expanding goat herd, some laying hens and a few broiler survivors. We're working towards achieving our Christian agrarian vision of a large family farm wherever God wants that to be...

Name: Abundant Blessings

Saturday, September 30, 2006

On the Blog Again

Well, as you can see from the dates, we have been quiet for quite awhile. Much has happened since I last posted before our move so this post will hopefully catch some of you up on the "fun" we have had since leaving New Mexico.

For starters, just before we left NM, I found out I was expecting. I didnt tell Steve until after we got to Alabama because I didnt want him to worry. I had miscarried 8 weeks before that. Although I felt terrible for the first approximately 20 weeks of this pregnancy (some moving stress related I am sure) things seem to be going better now. I am due the week of my birthday (end of January).

This move has shaken up a lot of things for us. First off, both Steve and I realized very quickly that we do not like hot weather. From the day we got here until about 15 days ago, it was over 100 degrees every day. Most people just stay in the air conditioner (atleast that is what we have been told) but its kind of hard to farm when you are indoors...

Secondly, finding food here is difficult. The coop that usually serves this area went bankrupt the month we got here. There are no large organic food stores here either (we were very spoiled in NM). For several months until I was able to get in on a grain order we mail ordered everything-not a cheap venture. We have been able to get pastured organic meats by special order through the commissary and fortunately will have our first set of chickens to butcher in two weeks. We tried mail ordering chickens but that was way too expensive. We have still been mail ordering raw milk cheese as I learn how to make it (I have successfully made mozzarella so far). We still have our dairy goats so milk is not a problem, and have also acquired a Jersey dairy cow and her calf.

Our animals have done fairly well, our beloved Patty who we had for 10 years died after we got here- she was bitten by something. Also, some of our baby goats died, including our one Oberhasli breeding male, from eating something poisonous we assume.

In addition to that, our house plan didnt work too well- we still havent sold our house in NM so we are all pretty crammed in 2400 sq feet right now. However, we are thankful it didnt sell yet because God is causing us to rethink many things and we would have wasted a lot of money adding on to this house that would have been hard to resell.

So, at the moment we are looking at:

1. Where to move permanently (we are seriously looking at Missouri right now).
2. When to move (we are looking at the kids and I moving earlier in order for this house to have a chance to sell).
3. What Steve can do for employment that will allow him to be home as much as possible so we can start the family farm business.

So, thats a summary of what has been going on with us. Like I said above, although this move has been very hard on all of us, we believe God is showing us that we need to change a few things which we would not have realized had it not been so difficult.

We appreciate your prayers as we sort through all of this and we will try to keep you updated more often...

Friday, June 16, 2006

You have new Picture Mail!

The fish are bitin'...we finally found a few minutes to check our fish stock. We are probably overstocked, but we'll fix that soon...

Sunday, June 11, 2006

You have new Picture Mail!

Septic is done, too! This was done very well and much cheaper than in NM. We were even able to run the washing machine line seperately into the woods.

You have new Picture Mail!

Well.....we now have water...well almost. The wells done, 160 ft deep and tastes good. Still needs electricity and plumbed to the house, but were thankful!

You have new Picture Mail!

Southern Fried Hospitality - we had a nice lunch last week at Grandmaws Kitchen. It was all you can eat with fried just-about-everything. The kids enjoyed it

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

You have new Picture Mail!

The house is here! It arrived and was put together over the weekend. Should be a couple more weeks until its ready for us to move in.

You have new Picture Mail!

Emma's feeding one of the baby goats. Each day we drive 20 mins from our rental house to our new land/future farm to milk and care for the goats and dogs.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

You have new Picture Mail!

We're in Alabama! Looks like we'll stop short for the night - 3+ hrs. We enjoyed seeing the change in landscape from NM to AL. Wow! what a change...

You have new Picture Mail!

Kids enjoying a shade tree

You have new Picture Mail!

Caravan stops for lunch in LA just west of the mighty Mississip.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

You have new Picture Mail!

We reaffirmed the size of Texas today by falling short of our goal of reaching the Louisiana border. We stopped in Canton, TX after 9 hot hours driving.

You have new Picture Mail!

Traffic Jam in the Big - D. It's hot and yes we're not moving!

You have new Picture Mail!

AL move - part 1 - we stopped to visit the Kearney Family in Clovis, NM. Great family that also love the rural life! Pictured Bubbas - Brad, Steve and Rob.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Down for awhile

This will be the last post for awhile as we leave for Alabama on Friday. The farm we wanted to buy didnt work out but we found a beautiful piece of land- 80 acres with two large ponds (16 acres and 6 acres-stocked with fish). We will be camping on the land for a couple of weeks waiting for our first house to be delivered-more on that later. We will be off the computer for a month I imagine but will post stories of the moving adventure hopefully by the end of June.

Till next time-

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