It's Almost Time..

The tree is up and covered in kid-made, construction paper ornaments, plastic beads and a few lights. We had to aim for a puppy, kitty, toddler-resistant tree. The bottom foot has nothing on it as paper quickly turns to confetti. The animals have, of course, discovered there is an additional drinking fountain under the tree. Our little girl was afraid of the green giant when we first brought it inside but now thinks it is "pitt-tee". The kids are out of school, the youngest boy turned eight on Tuesday and the weather is once again trying to float us away. I walked down to the river at the back of our property this afternoon and it is up at least eight feet since Tuesday.

According to the construction company the cabin area is covered in at least two feet of snow and the new metal roof is working fantastically. So is the new furnace, therefore drywall and interior finishing is coming along nicely. There should be some new pictures of the interior and of the exterior siding posted on the website shortly.

Happy Holidays to all.

Holidays Are Coming...

We have been trying to get ready for the holidays. The kids are getting antsy which translates into general chaos at times. As of yesterday, we are down to six kids with one of the boys leaving for a permanent placement in the guardianship of his uncle. Hopefully, we will be able to maintain some kind of sporadic contact with him so we know how it is working out in his new home. Winter vacation from school will start on Wednesday, the 19th and with that comes an intense effort to thwart cabin fever. One boy will have a birthday on the 18th and another will have his birthday January 2nd so it is a rather busy and expensive time! Tomorrow is tree-getting day. Hopefully, the weather will be mellow enough for us to go to a local farm, ride a draft horse-drawn cart out to the tree-cutting area and pick out our tree. The place we like to go has hot chocolate and candy canes for the kids and the boys are looking forward to going. We will have to experiment with decorating the tree. Between the puppy, the cats and a crafty two year-old, I'm sure some 'rearranging' will occur. We will try to get some pictures up soon.

Stormy Weather

Mother Nature has been wreaking havoc on us the past two days. Pouring rain and strong winds knocked down trees and power lines all over. Luckily, we did not lose power this time. Mom and Dad have delayed their trip south until things calm down. We border the Long Tom River and it rose 11 feet in the past 36 hours. Unfortunately, the builders of our house did some interesting landscaping that is less than functional in our rainy environment. A small lake develops in the front yard during heavy rain and likes to keep growing until it encompasses the sidewalk and tries to flood the garage and the front porch. I spent about two hours today out in the nasty weather digging more trenches in the driveway and front yard to convince the water to flow away and building a makeshift dam out of gravel to keep water out of the garage. It looks like some new french drains are in our future. For some reason, when this house was built, the foundation was set about 3 feet lower in elevation than the drainage ditches out by the road. As we all know, water does not flow uphill.

Things are moving along with our hopeful adoption of one of our kids. Nothing is set in stone but we are hoping there are no major roadblocks in the near future. We'll keep everyone posted.

Thanksgiving

It's unbelieveable that it's already this time of year. The turkey's been cooked, eaten and ready to be turned into soup. The kids are working on their third 4-day weekend in a row. We've had some freezing temperatures and I think the yellow jackets are finally hibernating, thank goodness. We had a nice holiday with Mom and Dad over for the day and just hung out at the house. Now comes the psycho time of the year for Michelle at work and even more time off from school for the kids. Our oldest one has joined a local wrestling club and some of the younger ones will start to participate during the second season after the new year begins. We have several court dates and review boards coming up on some of the kids so it's possible our population here may shift around the end of the year. Three of the boys are available for adoption and one is moving to a permanent placement with a relative in another state. There's always a good chance that as they move on, more will come. We'll have to wait and see. We hope everyone enjoyed their holidays.

Pictures

I'm working to learn how to post pictures along with text. The first batch of photos I'm going to try to add are all taken from somewhere on our property. We feel pretty lucky to have found this place. We have 4.21 acres along the Long Tom River approximately 15 miles West of Eugene, on a dead-end road with minimal car traffic but lots of animal traffic. We are between two ridgelines so there is a micro-climate here resulting in some interesting weather that can be different than the weather happening just down the road. We have deer, pheasants, turkeys, grouse, rabbits, bobcats, raccoons, possums and other assorted creatures that pass through the property. There is also a wide assortment of songbirds and birds of prey that come visit. Occasionally, a cougar will show up in the area and force us to keep close watch on all of our pets. On the nights with a full moon, we can see clear across the property as if it were almost daylight. It's a lot of work to have the acreage but I cannot imagine moving back to town after living out here.

Cabin Construction Update

As many of you reading this know, our family cabin burned down October 22, 2006. Construction has started and is moving along quite well. If you are interested in seeing some of the progress, go to the construction company's website www.northwindconstruction.net and select "current projects". In that window, select "custom 1100 sq. ft." and you will find a picture gallery of the new cabin being built. You'll know you've found the correct home as the first picture is of the burned out hulk of the original cabin. The site will be updated weekly. If you are interested in seeing the future colors of the cabin, go to the website's home page and select the picture gallery for "garages". There is a small, orangish building that is our new pumphouse in the front yard. The roof on the pumphouse is the same type as will be on the cabin and those are the colors the cabin will be painted.

This new cabin will be very solid with 2X6 framing, a deep and well-insulated foundation, a very expeditious new septic system and extra-beefy roof rafters due to updated code requirements. The building is on the same footprint with the exception of a small outcropping where the sliding glass door used to be. The new woodstove will go in this alcove so it won't take up as much space in the living room. The sliding glass door is now closer to the kitchen area. We are not able to have the larger window in the kitchen due to requirements for engineered support beams that must be placed directly above foundation anchors which divide the width of the walls. A new feature that seems very nice is the addition of three covered porch areas made possible by extending the length of the rafters. A portion of the back deck will be covered and also, a portion of the new front deck (instead of patio). In addition, there is a covered area on the front of the house opposite the front porch (where the boat trailer used to be parked). The new toolshed is on a cement slab with no opportunity for any wires underneath to do anything nefarious.

The hope is that the builders will be able to get the house weather-tight and then be able to work on the inside during the Winter months, further expediting the construction. Originally, we thought only the foundation would get poured before the weather stopped further work until Spring. Things appear to be ahead of schedule and hopefully stay that way.

New Adventure in Blogging...

Greetings!--
This is our first attempt at having some type of family/household blog. Hopefully, we'll be able to keep friends and family up-to-speed with things going on around the farm. Some things will have to be kept to a minimum due to confidentiality issues with the kids but, hopefully, we'll be able to share what's happening, what's pending and what we'd like to see happen with our crew here.
Currently, we have seven kids (six boys and one girl) ranging in age from two to twelve. It's our first experience having a middle schooler. We've always kept the ages of the kids here under ten and I cannot seem to wrap my head around the different school schedules. It was so much easier when they all went to the same school! Now we have one that wants to go to the school dances! They've all been told, "No dating until you are 40."
As I write this, the two year old is "helping" by crawling over my head and up the back of the couch to see her "kitt-teee" while periodically poking the keyboard and pushing buttons on the TV remote....
As we figure out how all of this works, hopefully some pictures will get posted of the farm and critters that like to hang around. We are west of Eugene and approximately 45 minutes from the coast.
Thanks for checking in and keep coming back when you get the chance!