I LOVE FALL!

Well hello there…man it has been awhile! Life here has been a busy one. Since my last entry I am happy to say we now have two FULL freezers and an empty garden. You know when we first moved up here we rented a cozy cabin just outside of Anchor Point and I loved that cabin but the downer was that it was not ours. Now that we have the house and the land that we can call our own we have been trying to hold our own as far as using what God has given us. So with that over the last three years we have put in a huge garden, a greenhouse, laying chickens, and now meat chickens. Up until this year we have not had a whole lot of success on the whole gardening thing. However, this year we took in two gallon bags of broccoli, 180-200lbs of potatoes, nine pints of salsa, enough carrots to munch on, and a bunch of onions. That may not sound like much to those of you in the Midwest but growing things here is really different. So I call it success. On top of the vegetables we have gotten enough money from selling the eggs to the local bakery to pay for the 23 meat chickens my fabulous husband and super friend Jeff just butchered, so they were like FREE! The other thing I LOVE about living on the last frontier is that we are free to live off of the game supply that is here. So in addition to the 55 salmon we dipnetted this summer, Jesse was blessed enough to get a very large moose, his first! Every year he and the men folk in his family take a trip to hunt the large goofy looking animals and this year Jesse and Josh were the lucky two who bagged the meat. So after a fall of freezing, canning, cutting, wrapping, and plucking we (and some of our neighbors) are ready for whatever my lay ahead this year. I am looking back and am very thankful for God’s provision and though the world may seem so unsettled at the moment I am holding to the fact that He promises to provide and protect those who praise His name.I love the progression of these photos...Brahm was "helping" us dig potatoes when we went off to explore, and seemed to find something cool... He was just checking to see if I was checking...

And after many minutes of quiet I went and found out just what caught his fancy...Now that is how all of our broccoli has chewed marks on them!

In other news I am happy to announce that our little Baby Brahm is no longer a baby he is the big two. We got to celebrate him this last weekend with balloons, presents, cake, trucks, family, friends, and a very special web attendance from Grammy and Grampy! He was such a trooper. Never once did he wig out or get overwhelmed. He was super smiley all day and loved his day .

So while I wrote this I was super bummed because our cat of almost two years was MIA for a whole week and we chalked him up to eagle, wolf, or bear bait. But thankfully last night as we returned from our date (thanks to our good friends and Pastor Steve and his family) we got out of the truck and I heard was a very happy MEOW. It was like one of those scenes in the movies when two long lost individuals were running to greet each other…yeah that was Auden, Me, and Buzz. I swear I saw a huge smile on that silly cat face. Even Jesse was so excited he scooped him up and we petted him for like a half an hour.

So now that it is raining and all gross today it gives me a chance to finally write this long overdue entry and finish some of the chores that have been nagging for a few days. I might also get to finish that quilt I have been working on…pictures to come. Hope you all are ready for winter if not have fun enjoying fall while you prepare.