Sunday, April 30, 2017

March 10 - First Real Work Day

This hard winter has really been a mixed blessing for us, we have really hit school hard, but let me tell you, we were ready to get out and about on a nice day! Today we all headed down to the orchard and worked on the south pump and multiple other projects that have needed attention (like Conrad proofing his pen :).
Daddy had hired a skid steer to do some digging today, almost all of us got to learn how to drive it.
 This is what our river screen looks like out of water. We will probably put it in the river in a month or so.

 Azure spoiled us this year, and now we have a new forklift, since both of our old ones went down last spring. We are so pleased to have it!!
 Gabe's new purchase is a Go-Cart from his cousin, Royal. It needs a little work, but he learned a bunch getting it fixed, and it will be such an amazing tool this summer for him.



Gabe's Week-long Birthday

For one reason or another, Gabe's birthdays seem like they either go on for days or they get postponed for days. This year is no exception. The reason for this year's crazy long birthday was mostly because Gabe's heart is so big that he didn't want anyone to miss out on a birthday party. Our church was having a cleaning day, to clean out the attic of our church building, which has had bat problems. Gabe wanted to postpone his birthday so that all of his friends could share his cake with him. So on his birthday day all he wanted to do was play a huge, long game of Blind Man's bluff, which was a blast!
 Janessa surprised him with a new game that he has been wanting for a long time, so we ended the day with everyone playing Bonanza, and learning his birth story again. Super fun day and 11 years went by far too fast!!
A little over a week later was the cleaning day. All the men worked so hard getting that attic cleaned out, while the women prepared the meal and the kids took over the gym for a couple hours. It really was a great day for everyone involved!

Janessa, as always, did an amazing job with his cake! 
All of the men that work in the orchard absolutely love Gabe and how much boldness he has, so they bought a Remote Control Truck for their "el nino's" birthday. So Janessa used that truck as her model for the cake.   




Since orchard season is about ready to get underway again, we took this weekend to take a good family fun day. Gabriel chose to go bowling, which we haven't done since we went with GRACE Homeschool group in Texas.


 In the bowling alley there was an arcade! So we all had to try everything.

We spent the night in an hotel, where Gabe opened his gifts, one of which was a basketball. He is playing Pee Wee Basketball this year and wanted lots of time to practice up for that.

And when we got home the evening of the next day, our mountain was covered in snow again...the last big snow of the year. 

February 5 - Ice Breakup

Okay so I'm finally getting around to updating the blog again. I am going to just jump ahead, so that y'all are more updated in recent happenings. This post is still a little bit behind, but it sure was a big deal around here. This winter was very unusual for this area, and was very cold. The snow pack was much larger, and the river was totally iced over super thick. In fact Zach had walked out on it the day it all broke up and it held him. Anyway, our horse pen is on high ground, but it's still near the river so we could bring water up for them. On a Sunday morning, Zach was down there doing chores and he went down to the river to get water. He chopped through the ice and everything looked totally normal. Then he headed back over to the pen. He said he heard what sounded like a gunshot, which at that time of year isn't all that unusual. While he was in the horse pen pouring water, all of a sudden the ground got really mushy and then he could visibly see the water rise under his feet. He was just getting ready to move animals, when it went down again. He called home and we all came down to see the river ice move down.

It lasted for about an hour, the river rose to an amazing height. Under the bridge, which usually is ankle deep in the summer, the water had raised to the height of over 7' high.
  Many of the chunks were massive, some as big as cars. When the water receded it left a wall of ice chunks high up in both banks of the river.
It was amazing to get to watch the power of this river in action!