Pictures from the last several days

Finally, the camera wants to be cooperative. Ignore the picture of me...don't click on it at all...trust me. That is my chore apron, it's wide and puffy and I look like a blue Pilsbury Doughboy in that thing. We do not want to click that photo any larger...honestly, I am not steering you wrong here. Just trust me on this one :o)

Today I am just miserable. My throat was a bit sore yesterday so I kept to lots of warm tea and such. At some point overnight, though, it changed on me :o( This morning I can barely speak. (yeah, the children are lovin' today...bet Dewey is sorry he's missing out on this...). My throat is so sore. I can't even explain how miserable my throat feels. I am sipping on anything and everything constantly, literally. The very second I swallow my throat is instantly dry and just feels icky.

Ugh. I hate being sick. I have a class to teach tonight and obviously, we're not going to church. I don't guess it will make much of a difference...with me not there, half the class isn't there either. We have work to do, and I hate missing my class -- we are working on putting together a VBS sort of program for the teens to teach our youngers the 10 Commandments. I'm trying to keep it on a bit more serious level and not so much games and snack time with a touch of Bible here and there as most VBS programs go. Oh well...one missed class won't kill anyone I suppose.

The children are doing school work right now with the Jennifer. Johanna is making a pan of cinnamon rolls and I'm going to start a big pot of soup with some ham. No idea what else I'll throw in there, but I have a hunk of ham left from a couple days ago and we need to use it. Then I think I'll just rest...I have some crocheting work to do for our ladies group and I can rest a bit while I do that. It just seems like I'm wasting the day if I'm sitting around not getting anything of real use done here :o( There are so many things I really need to be doing.
I hate being sick :o(

Ok, the pictures...
Never thought I'd be thankful for old, poorly taken care of tools around here, but I am. Jacob...yes, The Wild Child, who else?... decided he would tackle wood splitting while the olders were occupied with other things. He has little strength it seems, the axe is far too large for him, it's dull as a tennis ball...and David got in the way. That's a cut by his eye. Not anything remotely bad at all, just barely opened skin there, bled just a little considering it's a facial location, but still...he was hit by the axe. I cannot even entertain the idea of what might have happened on anyone else's homestead with decent tools in optimum condition.

Here's my monster cast iron pot browning up some 40# of ground beef for the canner. Kris, I so like that ground canned with some of the drippings! What a breeze to do. And it tastes so much more 'rich' compared to the boiled. Not that the boiled wasn't good, mind you, but this just has more deep flavor to it and worked up just as quickly I think.

Matthew working away on the wood pile...

...and Johanna working away as well...

And Mom working on the wood pile.

We accomplished quite a bit for a work day, I think. It's all stacked nice and tight and looking almost too pretty to use :o) We pulled 2 of those large 8 ft pallets from the barn to use on the ground. With all the rain we get and the clay soil that doesn't allow it to drain anywhere, I thought it was best to bring it off the ground at least a little bit with the pallets. Right now, with the sleet/rain we had coming, we covered it with plastic sheeting so we weren't trying to bring in nasty wet wood for use. We did bring a substantial amount up to the porch and stack it there for immediate use. I think we have about a weeks' worth up here on the porch.

I don't know if pine cones are the best to burn, but they are making the best fire starters for us. The children scoured the pine grove near the pond and filled 3 large feed/water buckets, and the large wheelbarrel with them -- good dried ones, too, from a dead tree back there. It's still loaded with cones waiting to fall off. The younger girls gathered those and the younger boys started digging into the underbrush and thickets for branches that were dry for our other kindling.

Makes for a nice fire that starts quickly and gets our logs really burning.
Considering that still green wood we had first off, I don't imagine I'm putting too much junk up the chimney at this point. You should see those pipes outside...I told Dewey I may have him replace them as they look old and nasty, drippy with creosote already and it's barely been 3 weeks. I imagine his eyes rolled...you could just tell by that tone in his voice when he said, "no, hun...don't think so".

I'm off to drown my throat in some salt water and get more hot tea to drink. I'm going to listen to the children's reading lessons while I work on that crocheting.