By Alena Mentink

The rain we received has been a huge blessing.  The pastures and hay fields suddenly sprang to life and became a carpet of green. The lilac bushes leaped into bloom, although we think that a late frost killed a large portion of the flowers. The bees have become active and have been feasting on the many dandelions surrounding our property. Because of bees, our family went from despising dandelions to loving them! Over the winter we did lose a couple of hives. One to a mouse at our old place and the other was lost after a brief warm up followed by really cold temperatures. Dad was able to buy two packages of bees to replace them.   Mom has been busy working in the garden. Dad ordered a trailer full of wood chips for the garden, so Mom has been slowly hauling them into her large garden. Everything seems to be thriving in our new wood chip garden! Mom finished The Art of Natural Cheesemaking book. She is very excited to start her natural cheese making adventure!

Kailey sold her buck last Wednesday. His contented disposition did not last for more than a few days. After the thrill of his accomplishment had passed away, the buck began to find that life was rather boring. He made a short excursion over the fence on Sunday afternoon during a rainstorm and began to munch on the lilac bushes. We easily chased him in, but during the following days he jumped the fence more and more. Kailey chased him back to his pen an outrageous amount of times. Because of his size, Kailey decided that she didn’t want to breed him to her goats. Mom was concerned that he would escape onto the road and cause an accident, so Kailey ended up sending him with Grandpa to be sold at the sale barn.  Mom and Dad told Kailey that if he didn’t sell for as much as she had bought him for, they would give her the extra money. This is not a common practice, but they were just glad that he was gone. After an anxious day of waiting to find out what he had sold for, Grandpa called. Dad talked to him and then told Kailey that the buck was sold. He had been the first goat into the ring and the goat that brought in the highest price. He had also sold for way more than Kailey had been asking for. Everyone was excited and Kailey was rather dazed.

Caleb has been building raised beds to meet his customer’s orders. Now that spring is here, people have started thinking about gardens, and a raised bed is a simple way to grow food or flowers. Caleb has been busy, but he enjoys building, although he could use a better set-up. I have been working on sewing aprons to sell. Having a sewing room to work in has greatly helped to make projects flow more efficiently. Kailey and I have enjoyed working in our cabin in the trees and planting our garden. The boys have been fishing and enjoying the outdoors. The babies love getting outside more. Annika loves to pick chamomile and feed the goats grass. Asher loves to race down the slide and copy Annika.

On Saturday our family worked on tearing out the plaster on the downstairs. Several people said that they thought it was more fun than tearing out the upstairs because they were knocking out pictures that we had drawn on the walls. Mom and Dad knew that we would be replacing everything, so we were allowed to color on the walls. Aiden drew monsters and other strange creatures, Caleb made target practices to shoot his toy nerf gun at, Kailey sketched people from foreign countries with names that are impossible to pronounce, and I drew a series of pictures of strange happenings. Annika made little scribbles on other people’s pictures, but Asher was not very interested in drawing. So instead of hitting blank walls with a hammer, we called back and forth to each other about what we were destroying. Kailey said that it wasn’t as much fun for her because she was working in the kitchen and the only interesting thing she hit were the words I had written that said, “Someone please cook in me!” The signs of spring are apparent here on the farm and we look forward to the many adventures this time of year involves.