Saturday, what a day!

We had an outdoor work day this past weekend.  It was a beautiful day and we all worked hard and got quite a bit accomplished.  I am so proud of the character our children are developing!  I'll include some of the pictures that we have taken that show the "before" aspect along with the pictures of everyone working and the end results.  It always feels so good to remember what it used to look like and be able to see all that we are accomlishing as we take dominion over this bit o' earth.

Most of us spent the first part of the day pulling weeds in Indian Field.  This is a photo that Emily took one day after an ice storm.  It gives an idea of the amount of weeds we were up against and a glimpse of some of the random matter we encountered as we continued our cleaning up and excavating efforts.

 

 

 These weeds are tall and thick and they daunted the hearts of each of us as we prepared to tackle weeding the whole acre field.

This is the area over by the old well and pump before we started...

A shot of that side of the barn in it's entirety...

This is a photo of the side of the barn showing some of the debri we would excavate and remove.

And here are some of the pictures of everyone at work, clearing it out and making large bonfire sized piles appropriate for roasting weinies over. :)

This is Noah adding to the pile.

Here's Ethan making good progress!

This is Emily, who earned herself the knickname, "The Bush Hog" because of her style of weeding.  A voracious on-her-knees style, using both hands to pull up the weeds and toss them behind her leaving a trail of chaos in her wake that it was Noah's job to pick up and add to the pile.  She's something else!

Here is what the cows did while we were working....

They like to be around us.  It is sweet to see them lying near us and Jessie napping by Sweetiebelle.  They are good friends.

Over in the garden the boys are making some headway...

That's a bucket of rocks on the rocky part.  It's a pretty large area that ought to keep small persons busy for some time.

 

Here's Jacob hard at work...

 

 

I have to laugh at this next picture!

 

 

The ballerina farmer, hoe in hand!  What he is actually doing is using his feet to measure out the 2' pathway, but it looks so funny! 

 

 

Here is Jacob hard at work under the watchful gaze of the silent, yet cheeful sentinel. (snicker) 

 

 

"Oh dear, have I soiled my boot? (snort!) 

 

"Hey, Jacob, you missed a spot."
 

Okay, okay, I'll stop ribbing poor Jordy.  Just to make up, here's a picture of Jordy hard at work, too.

 

You know, this picture reminds me of a saying my father has...One boy is one boy, two boys is half a boy...uhum, never mind.

Both of the boys spent the day working in the garden making rows and paths. Click here to see what the garden looked like before.  I gave them a rough idea of what I was wanting. I told them to leave a 5' row that runs the length of the garden on either side for all of our melons and tomatoes. In between those rows I wanted rows that ran the width of the garden with 2' wide paths between them. They shoveled up the valuable top soil as they created the walkways and tossed it up on top of the rows to increase our depth of growing material.

They did a great job, both of them. ;)
It is very exciting to see the garden taking shape!

Some of the younger children picked rocks out of the rocky part of the garden. There used to be a gravel drive there, which we didn't know about until we plowed it up and discovered aaaaaallllll the rocks. We've decided to just pick them up here and there over the years and eventually we will have better soil there at that end.  They also picked a bunch of rocks out of the new rows.

We gave them 5 gallon buckets to fill and then Jacob and Jordy would carry the heavy buckets over to the house to dump them beneath the bushes that have rocks around them.

Here's a picture of them all picking up rocks taken from an upstairs window of the back of the house. 

Partway through the day I went inside to feed Samuel and get some helpers started on making a lunch for everyone.

 

 

 Yes, it was a strange lunch. I guess that's what you get when you combine enthusiasm with lack of supervision!  I couldn't see what they were doing from my position nursing in the living room.

 

 

After lunch we pulled all the weeds on both sides of the fence that runs along what we call Food Field.  (We really need to come up with a better name than that!) We need to put up barbed wire or chicken wire or something to keep the dogs out of Food Field or they will run all over the garden and dig in it. 

By now everyone was running out of steam, but we are happy to see the fruits of all of our effort.

 

 

Here's Indian Field over by the old barn...

 



 

 

And looking down the long fence that was our final stretch...

 



 



A lovely, thorny rosebush we unearthed...

 



 

All the growing things are coming alive!  I love to watch the progression of spring!

 

 

By the time the sun was setting and it was chore time. We gave Brisket his bottle right out in the field while Noah brushed him.

 

 



 I love this picture!  It captures the happiness of working together doing what we love to do.

 

 Here's Molly snuggling with her barn cat, Mittens.

 

After this we were all limping and aching and making dibs on a hot shower, but all in all, it was a very good day. Exhausting, but it is good to work together and play together and talk together and accomplish together.