Workin' away

Well lots has happened since the last post. We're making progress on the shed which now has power and the shop has walls with insulation. Having never run power underground or installed a service panel before made the last while quite interesting and a bit stressful at times, that part is behind me and now I just have a few outlets to install and I'll be done with the wiring for now.
It's been busy around here as usual trying to get the shed done enough to leave for Minnesota. Which is only about a week away now! Hooray!! We are all ready have a vacation. Abrahm is looking forward to meeting his new cousin, as are we, and Leslie and I are looking forward to some down time. We'll be driving out this time in hopes of saving money as well as avoiding air travel around the holidays. We'll be gone for about 3 weeks and look forward to seeing many friends and family there again.
I don't have any photos of the shed progress at this point so I'll keep it short and try to get some more here in the next few days.

Shed in the making

Well I'm not going to write a whole lot as I'm quite sure that there are very few readers at this point. I can't even remember the last time I posted on here. Here are some pictures of the shed from this past weekend. We've been making very good progress and I'm now waiting for some supplies from Hammond Lumber to do the floor in the shop area. I still need to dig a trench for the power, and run some cable so that I can wire things up for the shop. I'll be ready for bed pretty soon so I think I'll end this now. Hope you're all well. Ben

It's been a long time

We've been a bit lax in posting here, so I thought we had better fill everyone in on what's happening around here. We are still contending with new snow on very consistent basis, and to be honest we are getting a bit tired of it. We have heard that the total snow fall for this winter in Jay has been about 130". Last weekend I took a shovel around the back of the yurt so that I could dig out Abrahm's window which was entirely covered in snow all the way past the awning! Our window was not far from that either and even the windows on the south side which are quite high off the ground have snow up to about the middle . As I write this however we are having quite a good rainfall which has knocked down the snow piles somewhat. It's been fairly warm here for a while as well and so we now have the pleasure of dealing with a muddy driveway. We know spring is on the way, but it's a bit hard to imagine at this point. We're pretty ready to be done with the snow since this will also mean the end of snowmobile season. Way to many and way to loud is about all we need to say on that matter.
We have just sent out our first flier for Full Circle Farm which is the name of our place. We'll be offering a few vegetable shares in a CSA setup this year as well as pork and soap shares. We're quite excited about being able to really start farming this spring, but also a bit overwhelmed. The snow of course does not exactly help in spring preparations, but we are lucky in that we will have a bit of established garden space courtesy of our neighbors Leslie's aunt and uncle. We will be working up some more ground as soon as things are dry enough and that is also part of the pork share plan. Our pigs will be enlisted in working up an area of future garden which is quite a handy way to do it, and they are quite good at it!
Leslie is still enjoying school which she finds generally not too difficult, but still a lot of work. She has recently started to do a bit of fiddling (violin) with a friend of ours who has a couple of gigs lined up for the coming months. It is great for her to get back to playing and to have something other than farm or school to keep her creative juices flowing.
I've been in a welding training program since the beginning of February. It has been fun, but also very challenging. I had never welded anything in my life before starting this program. I've learned quite a lot already, but realize that I have much more to learn. It is nothing like woodworking, but it is quite rewarding. I'm quite close to getting my first structural certification, and after that I will move on to pipe welding, which from what I hear is more difficult. I have about six weeks left in the program and then I'm expected to head out into the field and begin work on a huge project for the company I'm working for. We will see what happens in that regard as the job site is about 2 hours away and they are expecting overtime right from the beginning. I've mostly been interested in this program so that I will be able to make repairs around here on farm machinery and the like, but we'll see. At this point I'm just hoping to learn as much as I possibly can from my instructor who is an amazing welder.
Abrahm continues to busy himself with all matter of toy machines from tractors to trains, but he is also developing a great love of books. It's great fun to sit with him and ready book after book. He's still not very interested in talking, or I should say not interested in speaking English. He often keeps up a pretty steady commentary in his own tongue. He is picking up words hear and there and also showing much more interest in mimicking sounds and words that he hears. I still find it amazing to watch him learn and experiment with new things. A good reminder that the world is truly an amazing and rich place. I forgot to mention that he has also started to help me bake bread. He has a great time wearing and apron and measuring and mixing the ingredients. He also has a great time consuming the end product!
Well I think that is all for now. We are looking forward to a trip back to Minnesota in less than a week. Which will be a wonderful chance to relax and reconnect with friends and family.

snow, snow, snow, chainsaw, chainsaw, chainsaw

These are the things that dominate our life lately. This winter has been abnormally snowy. It seems that every few days we get dumped on with another storm. Full-fledged storms, not just dustings of snow. Our trusty skidsteer has generally done well with clearing the snow, and we have some impressive mountains of snow at the end and edges of our road. The one flaw in our plowing plan was that we had a spell of very warm weather in late December, which took the frost out of the ground. All that soft ground was covered again with all the snow. So the edges of the driveway are pretty squishy. We've found out just how squishy by sinking 7000 lbs of skid steer into it. Many times. Marco, the logger who has been working here, commented that every time he came there was a new hole beside the road. He was exaggerating, but not much. We now have a set of tracks, which are in the process of being installed (the 30-minute estimate on the instructions was a bit optimistic, as we ended up having to get an extra piece for each track so that they'd fit around the tires). Anyway... it's much colder now, there are reflective markers at the edges of the road, and we're cautiously optimistic that our days of miring the skid steer in the muck are behind us.

Besides pushing snow around, we've both been spending a lot of time with a chainsaw, thinning and clearing in the treeline between our house and the field (soon to be field, pasture, and garden). Marco has been working to get the biggest trees thinned, and we're tackling the smaller-diameter stuff. Marco took out 3 truckloads of pulpwood out, and we traded that for his felling and hauling out a nice pile of pine that we will mill for lumber. The stuff we've been taking out wasn't even worthy of the pulp truck - smaller firs and poplar, mostly. It's very satisfying work - like weeding, but on a much bigger (and mechanical) scale.

I'm back at school -so far I haven't told any patients that my main experience giving meds (and shots, especially) has been on farm animals! Ben starts his welding training/job in a couple weeks. Abrahm continues to explore and entertain. He's still enthralled by all things mechanical, with the exception of snowmobiles (thank goodness!). I ordered seeds this week, doing a joint order with my first farm employer. For anyone interested, Fedco Seeds carries no varieties owned/distributed by Monsanto - it makes conscientious ordering much easier! I'm not quite ready for spring yet, but it sure has been fun poring over seed catalogs.

Thanks for checking in!

Leslie and Ben