Week 12-Oh My!

What a week!  It certainly didn't go as planned!  School was kinda a bust, but we did what we could.

Shane and I have talked a whole lot since we moved to our current house about homesteading/being more self sufficient.  It sounds really great, but we have been afraid of investing the time and money it takes to get started.  With all of our family health issues, we have decided to look into it again to provide cleaner, healthier food choices for our family.

We have chickens to produce our eggs.  We tried raising some to butcher this year, but they just didn't fatten out well.  We think we need to try a different breed of chicken.

We raise goats.  We don't eat them yet, but we are considering it.  Not totally convinced we will like it.

We bought a couple of cows a few years ago and are trying to raise our own beef, with lots of help from Meme and Papa on this one!

We have grown a vegetable garden in the past.  We are planning on getting ready to grow one again this coming spring.  We much prefer home grown vegetables.  We quit gardening when I became so sick, but my new medicine seems to be working, I just have to rest more often.

We have discussed dairy cows for our milk and butter many times.  It is a huge undertaking!  We found some calves from a dairy farm for sale the other day for really cheap, so we decided to go in with a friend and buy 4.  We knew they would be a little sick, they were very sick!  We still aren't sure they are going to make it, but we are certainly trying to nurse them back to health.  They each kinda take turns being the sickest, so we aren't sure what the outcome is going to be.  If they live, we will have about 2 years to decide if we what to use them for our milk.  We will see.

In school this week:

Physical Fitness: Logan started back in therapy this week.  The girls and I joined the gym where he has therapy so we can all exercise at the same time.

Logan: I started Logan on Easy Peasy High School this week.  He completed two days of work.  He is still taking his electives we started with, but we are trying to streamline his education choices so he has more free time.

Savannah: She worked this week on her same curriculum.  We are going to start her on Easy Peasy 7th grade next week.

Lillian: Lillian started Easy Peasy 4th grade this week.  Once again, I'm just trying to streamline our education, and meet everyone's individual needs.

Co-op Classes: This was our last week in co-op for the fall.  We had a very blessed experience.  Logan completed Weather and Debate.  Savannah completed Rocks and God's beautiful girls.  Lillian completed Fall into Crafts and Under the Sea.

Agri Class: We had lots of experiences this week learning to care for sick bottle calves.  It has been a learning challenge for sure!

Poetry: Everyone selected new poems to learn for our next poetry tea time.  The poems had to either been written by Emily Dickinson or Alfred Lloyd Tennyson.

Logic: The kids played the game of Clue with their grandparents while I was at the dentist.

Extracurricular: Trap practice has officially started and we had our 2nd practice this week.

In other happenings:

Sunday my Aunt and Uncle came down for a visit.  My Uncle gave Lillian a ride on his Harley. She is so in love with motorcycles!

Monday was Logan's first therapy intake meeting.  Dad was off of work so we did lots of work around the house getting ready for winter and Trap practice.

Tuesday I had a dentist appointment and ran into a resale shop and found some costumes for the kids for Fall Festival. Lillian is a girl Captain America, Logan is a Minecraft Creeper, and Savannah is a character from her book she is writing about a student at Hogwarts.

Wednesday was church bible study.

Wednesday and Thursday evenings Dad and a friend built the calves a shed and pen. We will turn them out into a bigger lot when it gets finished and they get better.

Friday was co-op classes, boot shopping, and library book return.  The kids then went to spend the night with Meme and Papa. Shane and I took care of errands and just enjoyed being with each other.

Saturday we did lots more errands, lots of calf doctoring, and a friend came over with his bulldozer and pushed up some old buildings that needed taken down.

All throughout the week there has been lots of calf care. We are trying not to get attached or name any of them until we see if they live.  However, we just had to name this one Valentine!  See her heart!!

Now I'm going to work on a new chore chart and daily schedule.  We have to get better at time management!