Our Family's Table Talk: Two Years Too Long (An Update, by Rebecca)

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy.
The Lord is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works. Psalm 145:8~9

We would like to give thanks to God for His guidance and grace to our family through these past two years of much learning and growing.

In February of 2011 our family moved to Idaho. The Lord provided a 20 acre piece of land in the country with a house and a few out buildings on it. It has a good well and a pretty view and a lot of privacy.

The house is 1,084 sq feet with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and had a tiny kitchen, living room, and entry/laundry room. It took a lot of creativity to figure out how to put a family of 10 in this house.

This was the 2 man kitchen we remodeled.

The bedroom floors had a few waves. The little boys thought it was pretty fun driving their cars over the "hills".

We spent the next 6 months in our camper while fixing up the house. We had to learn a lot about plumbing, electrical work, drywall, love, and were delighted to learn how many mistakes could be fixed with caulk and trim boards.

A layout of our yard before we got the office on it.

The demolition and transportation crew.

After pictures of the kitchen.

The living room before and after (or I guess it turned out after and before:))

We moved Dad's log office to Idaho with us.

Last year, Grandma moved to Florida and mom wanted to visit her so in October Jessica, Mom, and Daniel flew to FL for a week.

Daniel thought the planes were "so loud".

The three buckaroos- we were having our own fun at home!

By April 2012 things were greening up and soon we had 20 acres of weeds to deal with. Cows don't like poky weeds so we got goats. We knew almost nothing about goats and hence we have been learning about (and from) them ever since. Right now we have around 30 goats. We have pens 16 ft x 16 ft made out of ranch panels with a hutch and water bucket inside. We put 2-4 goats in each pen and move each pen daily to fresh feed. We have a rotating schedule so that everyone gets to do one week of either milking, moving pens, watering, or making breakfast and supper.

Our Idaho Quarter Horse?

Daniel and the twins bottle fed 3 baby goats this summer.

Grace was cleaning off the milking stand and got stuck!

Katrina milking a goat. We now milk in a trailer out in the pasture.

Our family also sold at the Farmers Market this year, something we've never done before. The Market started in May and we just finished up here in October. A family from church gave us a canopy and, although it takes effort to put up, it was a wonderful blessing to us. We sold whole wheat bread, rolls, buns, milk, yogurt, cheese, different kinds of quick breads, soap, kitchen towels, and small farm animals. It was a good way to get involved in the community and it helped us with our math,communication, and serving our customers.