A New Way To Home School

The books have been purchased and are lined up on the shelf.  School supplies are in bags stored in the closet waiting for that incredible first day!  Field trips are planned, worksheets are printed, schedules are made and pencils are sharpened!

It's almost here!

Back-Pack Fairy 2012

How awesome is it to look outside on the porch for days in a row and see boxes from Amazon out there, knowing that new books and new curriculum are there waiting for you??!!  TOTALLY!!  Anyone else feel that way?

I love the first day of school.  Always have and I think I always will!

I remember not being able to sleep the night before those grey, metal doors opened to the world of learning!

Now I have the same problem, but it is because I am so excited for my girls to begin their new school year. 

This year we have a problem though. 

It hit me today when I finalized our schedule and prepared it to be printed.  I had to delete a column. 

You see, my oldest daughter, Brianna, is getting ready to leave for college in two weeks.  Yes, 14 days! And I needed to delete her column in our school schedule.

When we started down this homeschooling road, we decided to take it year by year.  Each year we would re-evaluate and decide if we would be homeschooling again.  We did.  We were.

This year we begin our school year four days before she leaves.  This is good because it means that the backpack fairy will be able to visit her the night before and leave her school supplies and a few surprises!  It is also good because I suspect we will appreciate being in a routine when it hits us all that she is not coming back for a while.

Our goal has always been to give the girls a good education and provide it in the way the Lord leads.  We have made an effort to close no doors for them and to have them prepared for whatever He might call them to do.

She is ready.  She is ready spiritually, emotionally, physically and educationally. 

She will miss us for a time, but she will learn a new normal and she will thrive.  I know this not because of anything we have done, but because the Lord has called her and led her down this new path.

But we are not ready.  Her sisters will break down and cry at moments that remind them of what is to come.  I choke back tears when I realize that we sat next to each other in church for the last time for a while. 

Things are going to be different.  We will never be able to live this part of our lives again.  All four sisters together with mom and dad, educating together, living together, going through life together.  I know that we are closing that chapter.

But I hold on to what will not be different.  The love our family has for each other.  The love we all have for learning!  The love we have for the Lord.

The thing that helps me hold the tears back is knowing that God will provide for us just as much as He is going to provide for her.  We might not feel it now, but He will give us the strength to find a new normal and to thrive.

So as you begin this new school year, whether you homeschool or not, slow down and take the time to appreciate it.  Life goes by so quickly.  The noise that annoys you today, you will miss tomorrow.

Take time the first day to really look at your child.  See who they are.  Hear who they think they are.  Dream of who they will become. 

Let the Lord fill you with the joy of parenting!  And then wait for Him to fill you will the joy in letting go and watching them soar!!

The Great Goat Adventure - Part 2....The Goat Shed

So....I told you last time about how we installed the fence for the goats.  Well, let me tell you about my finest achievement....the goat shed!!!

My oldest daughter, Brianna, and I decided that we were going to build it inexpensively (well, truth be told, our pocketbook decided that we would build it inexpensively!!), so we read about using old wooden pallets.

Farmer Willie took off for the feed stores, plant stores and tractor supply stores to gather pallets that they were getting rid of.  Finding pallets was actually a bit more difficult than I thought it would be.  It seems that most places recycle their pallets (which is good for the environment, but makes it a bit more difficult if you are looking for free pallets!).

Luckily for me, my dad kept his eyes open and found me some as well!!

Pallets are accumulated....now we move to step two....planning!

Well, when you are building a goat shed with pallets, the first step in planning is to look at what materials you have....check!

Then you move into the sketching it out, planning what you need part.....ummmm, I don't like doing that so we skipped that portion!!!  :)  (drives Farmer Willie C-R-A-Z-Y!!)

Alrighty, so we have a bunch of pallets, screws, nuts and bolts and we set to work!!  For the walls, we lined up two pallets for each side wall, three for the back wall, and bolted them together.

We made three walls like this and then attached the walls to each other at 90* angles using L brackets.

Oops!  Look who snuck into the photos!!  Cutie pie!!

Anyways, back to the shed....after attaching the three walls together, we attached one more pallet in the front for a half wall.  I know that I am not describing it well, so just take a look!!

Why oh why do they have to make a point to take pictures of me when I am not looking my normal, chic self??!!??

Okay, so you see the 1/2 wall in the front with the opening for the door.

Next we attached some wood pieces to the front "beams" to raise the front of the roof a bit in order to assist with drainage.  After that we started to add the roof boards.

Let me tell you, I have always hated the part of building where you have to take exact measurements and then cut these crazy accurate angles in order to make the roof.  Then I discovered the....BRACKET section at Lowe's!!! 

Oh my goodness, I can attach anything to anything and NEVER have to cut an angle!!!!

Anyways, Bri and I used the brackets to attach the roof boards and it looked something like this....

After attaching the vertical roof boards, we came back through and attached some horizontal ones that we could attach the metal roofing material to.

I used some scrap wood that we had for the 2x4's, but I did have to go and purchase the brackets and metal roofing.



Then it was time for the roof to go on!  In my opinion, this was the most difficult part as it was hard to screw through the metal and then into the wood, even though Bri and I used screws that were made for that.  Oh, and if you use metal for roofing, be careful!!  The edges are sharp!!!

 

 So now we have walls and a roof, but you might have noticed that there were large gaps in-between the boards of the pallets.  We wanted some gaps to promote air flow, but not so many that they were not protected from rain.

We were not too worried about cold wind as we live in Texas and we don't have much of that around these parts!!  :)

To cover the gaps, we pulled boards off of extra pallets and attached them to the walls.

 Let me tell you, pulling those boards off of the extra pallets was WAYYYY more difficult than it looked!!  Those pallets are made to stay together!!!

So after we covered the outside of the shed, we were ready for some paint!  Well, at this point all of the girls wanted to be involved!  And, or course, what color should it be but RED!!!

So after a day full of hard work we were dirty...

Had gone a little crazy....

 Were a bit more cautious when picking up wood....

 And totally tuckered out!!!

But we had FUN....



And had a deep sense of satisfaction...

 

When we were able to look at this....

And know that it would keep these girls....

SAFE and having FUN!!

Proverbs 27:23, 26 "Be diligent to know the state of your flocks, And attend to your herds.  The lambs will provide your clothing, and the goats the price of the field."

The Great Goat Adventure - Part 1....The Fence!!

Hooray!!  They are finally here!!

Meet Nancy and April.....




This is Miss Nancy....

And...this is Miss April!!

 

They are La Mancha dairy goats and they are just the sweetest things!!

It took a couple of months for us to prepare for their arrival, but they are here now and filling our fridge with lots of yummy goat milk!

In preparation for their addition to our farm family, we had to install fencing and a goat shed.  That was a job! 

 

My sweet neighbor came over and used her tractor to dig our corner post holes!!



Okay, so her tractor is a bit larger than mine is!!

After digging the holes for all of the corner posts we went to work installing them.  After we set the first post, we decided to cover the post, fence and entire goating endeavor with prayer!  So we each wrote a verse, note, or prayer on the first post installed.

 Then, as a family, we prayed over it.

And now we were ready to roll!!

 
 Some of the holes needed widened, so there was still some grunt work to do!

After getting the holes ready we added river rock to help level the posts.  This is followed by an alternate pattern of concrete and water until the hole is full. 

We put our 8 foot posts 3 feet into the ground to increase the sturdiness of the fence.  Goats are known for being fence escape artists!!

Then it was time to insert the posts and level them.  William, Emi, and Brianna did the digging and pouring while Kalli and I were in charge of leveling.

 
Tori was in charge of taking pictures and taking care of the house for that week!!  She is not an outdoor kinda gal!!  :)

 

We were so blessed that William was able to take off work for the week to install the fence.  And it took almost every minute of that week!

It was dirty, hard work.....

And we were exhausted at the end of each day!!!

But spending the week with cuties like this....

And this....

 

And these.....

And ending up with a well-crafted goat fence that looks like this....

Makes it all worth it!!!!

In my next blog post, I will show you how we built the goat shed out of old wooden pallets!!