More Update

Aug. 26th, 2009, Evening.
I somehow slept through my alarm clock again, I even had it up next to my pillow and still managed to sleep through it. :-/ Yikes I'm getting slack. :-) I would like to get back into the routine that Lydia and I had before Millie and Muckers went down to the studs'. We would get up every morning at 5:30 and ride some 6-8 miles or more before breakfast, I love going on long morning rides. :-) Everything is fresh then, and there's almost no traffic. :-) We usually would get home around 7:45 and breakfast would be at 8:00 am. :-) But unless I can get up at a decent time I'll not make it riding in the mornings. I'll have to see if Lydia and I can set our clocks to ring at the same time, maybe we wont be able to sleep through dual ringing. :-) I'm not the only one sleeping in, but for me I would really like to either ride or read my Bible and practice banjo before breakfast. I'm getting to bed on time (9:00 pm, no later than 9:30) but I can't seem to drag myself out of bed. :-) I'll conquer this problem, and you probably are bored with me going on about it so I'll go to something else.
Went and picked raspberries and beans at Stehr's (that's where Shiloh came from) we got about 2 gallons of raspberries and ½ a gallon of beans. Those we put with the ones we had picked from Youngs and made a small canner load so that's nice. :-) Purple and green beans from Stehr's, we have yellow beans and so do Young's so we'll have a large variety of colors for our winter plates. :-) I don't mind canning, but I'm still a little scared of the pressure cooker, you know, watching the poundage and making sure I don't blow the thing up. :-) I've never had a problem with it, I just prefer using a steam canner. But you can't can beans in a steam canner so.... I know my time will come this season. :-)
I worked on fixing a bin roof this afternoon after I had picked raspberries and beans, cleaned and washed both, and weeded part of my plot in the garden.... I really don't like heights at all. So I'm like inching around on the roof thinking, “What's going to happen if I fall?” I didn't end up sliding or falling and I was able to fix what I needed to. :-) Putting sheet metal over an auger hole so it's now somewhat rain proof. I'm kind of hoping to “fix” it up a bit more and be able to practice music in there, because as I am very much aware, Banjo is a very LOUD instrument and the house we're in is a leetle on 'de small side. (really let your accent roll here and you'll get what I'm talking about. LOL!) So you can imagine what happens when I practice, and the baby's trying to sleep, Mom's tired of noise, the kids are screaming in the living room over toys, Dad just came in from the shop and he's never been real interested in listening to us kids practicing, so..... :-) Hopefully with a few improvements this old grain bin will become a sanctuary for me to play (or is that twang) to my heart's content and not be bothering anyone but myself. LOL! :-)
I'm not sure when we'll be going into town so I can post these posts.... this is more than I've ever posted at one shot so far. I've only had three to post at one posting session before, pretty soon I'll be getting up near #10. :-) But I'll not complain, I'm just glad that I can post on a blog and keep people updated with what we're kind of doing, even if it's my opinion of what's going on. :-) I suppose y'all are getting tired of me dragging on and on. :-) So I will leave you for now. :-)
Hannah

Regular stuff

Aug. 25th, We've been given several gallons of raspberries from some people at church, picked our patch and a neighbor's so we have a few to put up. We're putting this batch into juice which we will can for winter use. After this we'll just can the berries with some honey and water for fruit in the winter. We might make a jam with Rhubarb as well, that always seems to disappear fast. :-) Since it rained yesterday I wasn't able to weed and after a week of no attention my part of the garden looks rather sad. :-( I was able to weed two rows this afternoon, hopefully I will be able to weed in-between the other rows tomorrow. :-)
4 of the girls went down to the Galbraith's to get Ellie's and mine fillies from the stud. I'm looking forward to being able to ride again, and also to seeing what kind of foal Millie will have next year. ;-) When Sarge (colt from my first mare born in 2004) was born I was happy to see that he was a paint, though just barely one, I never did train him before I sold him, he ended up paying for his dam, his castrating and his feed so the turn around was good. :-) I keep remembering when I was teaching him to tie, that colt went crazy on a rope but in the end he tied better than any of our older mares and geldings. Soft, silky coats on a new born foal, little spindly legs, running across the pasture to their mom, cute little tails stuck straight up in the air, and that first feeling of a baby taking a step forward on a rope without a fight.... :-) I love foals. :-)
I guess all baby animals are cute in a way, even snakes, lizards and spiders are “cute” at a young age. I'm not too favorable of those species though. :-) I don't mind salamanders so much... which could be seen at camp as I ended up putting one on an instructor's head one evening. LOL! Poor guy, it scared him for a bit. He has a horror of creepy, crawly things around his feet. :-) And yes for those of you who are wondering I have had salamanders on my person and snakes as well... not my favorite past time, and I will admit to screaming like a girl “gasp” more than once when met by reptiles of that sort. LOL! :-)
I should close this post... I need to work on dishes, practice banjo and get to bed at a decent time (like 9:00 pm not 10:00 pm). I've been sleeping through my alarm clock the past two mornings (that could be attributed to the fact that I was up till 4:30 am Sunday morning) and I've not gotten my Bible reading and music practice in before breakfast. I loved being able to get up at camp and go down to the fire pit in the mornings.... us girls would read our Bibles and then my sisters would leave and I would practice for 15-20 minutes so I was somewhat able to stay up with my class. :-) Here at home it's really hard to find a quiet place to practice and I don't want my music to suffer by my neglecting it because I don't want to disturb anyone, and when I play banjo you can bet that my family will be disturbed. LOL! :-) Okay, I will close for sure this time. :-)
Take care and God bless.
Hannah

Home

Aug. 23rd. Done with camp.... I will miss it. :-) I enjoyed learning how to play some banjo and I hope to learn more in the future. :-) Joel copied some music for me and also lent me a couple banjo books so I hope to continue learning that way. :-) On Friday evening we had a talent show and pig n' whistle programs. :-) Us girls did a song.... This Old House, played with Piano, Fiddle, Guitar and..... Banjo! LOL! I sang solo second verse and managed to fumble my chords but hey, not bad for only learning how to play the banjo a few days before. :-) I also played a medley of tunes with three other banjo students.... having a strumstick, guitar and two banjos in the group. It was an arrangement of Will The Circle Be Unbroken and Old MacDonald Had a Farm.... If I can I'll get Naomi to put the video clip into a format that can be posted on the blog so you'll be able to see/hear us play. It was a surprise to everyone in camp but those who played the song.... We had only been intending to play the bluegrass song but ended up adding this little ditty to the end to jazz it up... and yes it did jazz it up. LOL! :-)
Dad, Mom and the rest of the family came down for the student concert on Saturday and we drove/are driving home that night/morning as it is 3:08 am right now.... :-) We're all extremely tired.... :-)
Funny thing ran across the road just now.... we're driving through Sturgis and a fox ran in front of us. As you may be able to tell I am not completely with this typing.... but since there is no way to sleep I thought I would work on a blog post..... my fingers are like, “ummm we're like really tired, and we really don't want to work.” LOL! So I've been fumbling my typing a lot. :-) I should close now anyway... this post is probably long enough for now.
Hannah

Good afternoon

Dad, Mom and several of the kids along with Naomi, Ellie, Lydia and I went through Yorkton on the way down to Kenosee Lake. We picked up a few more things for camp including our supper.
We arrived at Camp around 4:30 or later (I can't remember, I should have written this down earlier. :-) Michele greeted us with hugs and then we met J.J., Lindsey and Gordon right there. :-) We unloaded the van of our stuff. Dad and Mom left after talking for a bit to various people. And us girls headed up to the Mother Theresa building to register. We stayed there for a couple of hours, went and ate our supper then back up to the Mother Theresa center for jamming.... well Naomi, Lydia and Ellie jammed I sat by to watch and listen. :-) Tuesday started out great, and continued to be through the whole day. There are 9 banjo students... (I think I'm remembering correctly) I was in a class with 4 others the first two sessions in the morning. Joel Olson is our teacher in the morning and Daniel Koulack is the teacher for afternoon. Joel is teaching us three finger style bluegrass banjo and Daniel is teaching us claw-hammer or flailing style. I am not the greatest learner in the world. I feel like I am closer to failing than I am succeeding some days. :-) I find myself liking both styles of Banjo.... and in-spite of feeling like my brain is over loading, I'm glad that I have a chance to learn both at the same camp. :-) I really should let Lydia do the camp stories as she has a better touch than I do.... :-) It's Wed. (19th) evening right now.... and I'm in the mess hall.... it's so loud in here with almost everyone talking, reminds me of cooking at Ketchen those two Mondays. :-) Until next time....
Hannah

Here again

Well here I am again... this is the third post to be posted today. LOL! I don't usually have so much to say that I have three posts to put on in one day. :-) I weeded the last 4 rows of my carrots in the garden yesterday morning. Naomi helped me weed rather than weed her flower beds but hey I wasn't going to complain about the help. :-) Ron Young cut most of our southern 40 acre hay field in the morning, he didn't get it all done but we were glad that he was willing to cut it. :-) Afternoon rolled in with a thunder head rumbling for a while then God unleashed the whole works..... an extremely hard driving rain with hail around the size of a thimble beat down on us for about 10 minutes.... then it slowed to just a soaking rain and the hail melted. Thankfully the garden and the hay look all right and not too beat up. :-) Thursday is movie night and we watched The Parent Trap and Dreamer.... both good movies. :-) This morning I weeded flower beds with Mom and some of the kids. Naomi was to tired to weed... between the rest of us we were able to weed the main ones that needed it. :-)
I'm kind feeling a little on the ill side.... sore throat and a little clogged up sinus I don't know for sure why it happened this time, but it might be related to eating some Toblerone Chocolate, I had noticed before that I had a slight reaction to the white Toblerone chocolate but I didn't pay to much attention. I guess I wont be eating that kind. :-) I've had the dark chocolate and the milk chocolate and neither of those bothered me.... so hopefully it's just the white variety that bothers me. :-)
Okay I'll close this for now. We're heading down to our neighbor's for a barbecue this evening. :-) Should be nice.
Hannah

Holter place

13th...... Well I ended up not riding Shiloh.... Martha did instead. :-) I was going to get on and Martha says, “I want to try this” and up she goes. Shiloh backed up some when Martha first got on. Other than that she acted like she'd been ridden all her life and this was old hat for her. :-) I am so happy for that. Ellie ponied her for a bit off of Cracker but Cracker and Shiloh don't get along that great.... LOL! So I ended up taking Shiloh. Since I had been intending to ride Shiloh I had put Lydia's colt saddle on her.... and Martha was going to ride Gray Girl... as you know Martha is small and her saddle reflects that. LOL! I ended up riding Gray Girl for some 6 miles in a saddle that was not only too small for me but since the stirrups don't lengthen very easily I rode feeling like me knees were up to my chin. LOL! It didn't look that bad but did I ever ache getting off. I stepped off twice trying to relieve the cramps that would hurt my knees and ankles. We went down to Stehr's.... they were happy to see that I had broke Shiloh (though Martha was a little embarrassed to be called the “bronc” rider. ;-) They were starting to extract Honey that day so we didn't stay long. Then we headed over to Covlins.... Bear (their collie dog) had followed the kids home the day before and we wanted to drop him off and hope he'd stay there. Even though we had one of the girls hold him while we left ½ mile down the road he caught up with us... so he's over here again. :-) Covlin's have another dog that goes around the neighborhood as well.... :-) he's a little dog.... anyhow this dog (Buddy) came up out of the grass right next to Shiloh's head, on her seeing side, she saw Buddy about the time I was calling to Martha to be careful, and Shiloh jumped, only about 3 feet then she walked on. Like nothing had happened. Martha of course didn't have stirrups because Lydia's colt saddle doesn't shorten to her length so she ended up in front of the saddle... pushed herself back and went on riding. Shiloh is very quiet and gentle, a horse that you must talk to.... she gets to the point that she has to be talked to. She seems to think that if you don't talk to her it means you aren't paying any attention to her. I think it's mostly because of her blind eye, she needs that voice to know where she's at. :-)
After supper Lydia, Martha and I rode down to Rockford. We got home around 8:30 to find that Naomi hadn't paid attention to the kids and they still had to shower. We had been hoping that Martha could jump in right away then the other two of us. But that didn't work out and around 10:00 I decided to just go to bed. I was to tired to want to stay up till 11:00 to take a shower and Dad and Mom still had to clean up as well. Hopefully I will be able to shower tonight. ;-)
Hannah

Here goes

Howdy y'all. I hope it's all been going good for those who read this blog. :-) We've been having some nice weather. Actually getting some heat the past three days. :-) On Sunday Brad preached... such a good sermon. All I can say is God knew I needed the topic. What are you really hoping for? What are you seriously looking for? Do you want to lead people to God or are you more hopeful about getting that new car, looking nice.... and so on. I was hit in-between the eyes so to speak. Thank God for good preachers. :-)
Sunday(9th) afternoon we had Fenske's over for lunch.... Neil and Elfreda with their children.... Trisha, Darren, Matthew and Dylan. There was horse back riding, potato gun shooting (actually it was green apple shooting) and they ended up staying for supper as well. Later Hudy's arrived and stayed for an hour or so. It was good to see them again. :-)
Monday morning found most of us down the road a few miles picking raspberries at an elderly couple's place, they go to our church. They had a large row that was heavily loaded and neither of them were in condition to do much picking. So they asked us to pick for our family. :-) They also send home a large amount of Rhubarb that they can't use, several onions and lots of radishes. God does provide. :-)
Monday afternoon those of us who had horses to ride headed out for Millers so Lydia could pick up Sugar the three year old they want miles put on.
Tuesday (today 11th) has been going well.... so far. That could always change. :-) I saddled Shiloh on Saturday and Lydia ponied her around the field a couple times. I saddled her again today and slapped the stirrups a lot... she calmed down quiet well. The kids were going for a ride this afternoon so I asked Lydia to pony Shiloh before they went and she did really well, so Maybe tomorrow I'll take the step and get a leg on either side of her. I do hope that the weather holds.... :-) I would like to tie her head around in the morning and then see about riding her in the afternoon. Am I nervous and scared? Yes very much so... LOL! I am no good at this colt breaking, but it has to be done. :-)
And on that I will leave for now.
Hannah