Country School

It's been a while.

Okay, my last two attempts have been erased by technical glitches.  Let me try this again. 

Thank you for all your letters of concern and support.  I am sorry I have not kept up.  Honestly, by the end of the day I am so emotionally and physically exhausted I can't even think of blogging any of it.

We did make it to Creation 08 this year.  We also took along some friends.  It was another great week.  It was bittersweet as we realized it was probably the last year we will all be there together.

Doug is still out of work.  We keep praying that something will open up.  Until then, we just do the best we can and I keep working (and clipping coupons).

The biggest change here has been that our oldest son, Jason, has left.  He moved to Moses Lake, Washington to attend Job Corp.  He's doing great.  I'm not doing so great.  I am so proud of him, he's really working hard.  Afew weeks ago Doug, Marissa (Jason' friend) and I drove up to see him.

This is me trying to say goodbye:

I don't know how you all do it.  I've nearly lost my mind with him being out of the house.   I miss him something terrible.  Everyone tells me it gets easier.  He's been gone almost 2 months!

Chris was also excepted in to the Running Start program at Clark College in Vancouver.  He has chosen to take online classes because of the gas prices.  He also obtained his drivers license and has been driving for a few months now.  It's nice to have another driver in the house.

I'm still self-employed and working hard.  I work more hours right now because Doug is not working.  I was also offered a Parent Mentoring position at the local Children's Services office.  This position works with birth families to help them successfully parent their children and prepare for reunification from foster care.  I'm very excited about this opportunity.

The saddest news is that the girls we have cared for the past 16 months are returning home in a few weeks.  We have bonded very deeply with them and we are all going to miss them greatly.  I'm just praying for God to protect them and guide my steps as we prepare them to transition back home.  We love them so much and I am sure this is going to be very difficult for our entire family.

On a more cheerful note, our garden was great this year.  We actually tore down one of the old goat barns and planted a garden in it's place.  Wow, goat make great compost naturally!  We just finished off picking the tomatoes.  We have 2 25lb bins of tomatoes to deal with.  Doug has made a few batches of chili sauce to can.  Tomorrow we are going to do another batch of chili sauce and a few batches of spaghetti sauce as well.  It's great to look at your cupboard and see them stocked full!

We were blessed to have a visit from our local "apple lady" yesterday.  When she was around last year she had suffered a stroke.  We had not seen her in quite a while and the kids were speculating that she may have passed away.  So we bought a few boxes of apples from her and Chris already made a huge batch of our favorite apple brownies.  After we have the tomatoes taken care of we will move on to canned apples and apple filling.

Speaking of canning.... I've begun to pray for a canning pressure cooker.  They are so expensive and there is no way it is in the budget right now but I figure if I start praying who knows what will happen about it??

It's begun to get cold and there is so much to do.  Jason was a big help to Doug outside so it's been hard to get a lot done out there.  We still need to build a woodshed and complete a bird barn for the chickens, ducks and turkeys for the winter.  I don't know how that is going to get done without Jason here. 

We had a great year for Muscovy Ducks.  We sold quite a few babies and then put 38 ducks in the freezer.  We have a few turkeys that we will butcher at the end of the month as well.  I miss not having pigs this year but again, without Jason we were unable to get the pig area ready.

It's late and I have an early morning meeting.  I wanted to catch everyone up so that is a quick overview of the past few months from our home.