BLIZZARD!!!

I feel exhausted and ready to fall asleep right now!  My running muscles must have gotten lazy over the winter months and they're for sure not used to running through heavy snow and jumping over snowbanks in pursuit of cows who are going astray!  :) 

 

These are some of the mamas and babies that were in the barn this morning.  We had 3 new calves born today and I praise God that they're all alive!!! 

 One of the cows that calved today is very aggressive and was ready to knock people over if they came too close to her calf--or other's calves, for that matter.  I praise God for safety and that WE are all alive!!!  (That cow will likely be on a trailer headed for the salesbarn this fall, if not sooner.)

 

 Our herd was turning white!!  Thankfully, the snow let up a bit now, but the wind is still howling something fierce.  Continued prayers would be so wonderful!

 One of the new calves (it was Andrews') had to spend some time warming up in the kitchen.  He kept me company while I made supper, as my mom wasn't home to do that.  She wisely decided to stay up at Rolla with her friend one more day after hearing what we were saying about the weather here...

 It's a little hard to see through the screen, but this picture was taken out of my bedroom window and those are our vehicles half buried in snow!

 It's hard to believe that this picture was taken yesterday, isn't it?  It's amazing the difference that 12 hours can make!  When I checked cows at 4:30am, there were no snowflakes in the sky.

 The next 2 pictures are from yesterday as well, when Andrew and I were cleaning in his house.  He did the vacuuming and I dusted and swept things.

He found this lovely picture hiding in a closet...

As I'm writing, this song is playing in the background and I thought these words would make the perfect ending to this post!  :)

 

 

"May the Lord protect and defend you,

 May the Lord preserve you from pain,

Favor them, oh Lord, with happiness and peace..."

Oh hear my prayer----Amen.

Babies!

They're arriving---faster and faster with each passing day and especially with the blizzard that is rolling in!  There were 3 calves so far today (my first one of the year today!!!) and there's for sure one more well on its way to being born. 

This picture is of a calf that was born this morning.  We sorted the cows and their babies off and put them in the north pole-barn so the calves don't get stomped on overnight in the other barns with all the cows trying to squish in there.

 This picture is of our very first calf of the official calving season.  :)

My mom went to Rolla, ND this morning (talking about Kangen water and other things with several friends) and won't be back until sometime tomorrow, weather permitting.

My dad, brothers, and I sorted off the bulls this morning and moved them across the road.  This afternoon, (after Andrew fixed something on his generator on the grain cleaner and after I made a batch of ice cream) Andrew and I went up to his place to clean for a few hours.  It sure looks a lot better now!  :)

Please pray for all of the ranchers and the cows/calves during this upcoming blizzard!!!  Thank you so much.~

Busy days on the farm!

Here's a quick overview of the past 2 days (from my perspective)...

The guys ground the rest of our oats and put it in the small bin so we can feed it easier, plus they needed the gravity box it was in!  They're also busy getting the grain cleaners ready for the big season.

Yesterday,  my dad drove the big tractor up by Steele to a farmer's place and brought home the big air-seeder he purchased.  Today, he and Jacob were figuring out how things work on it.

Yesterday, I babysat for a while so Paula could run some errands.

Today, my mom and Andrew were gone in Bismarck most of the day.  Andrew bought some furniture for his new home.  :)  When they returned, the rest of us headed up the road to help them unload.  It's really neat to see his house beginning to look like a home!

We had another calf yesterday, so that makes a grand total of:  2.  Thankfully, they're both doing well!

The chickens are starting to lay again--today we collected a grand total of: 4.  :)  The peas must be what they needed!

Praise the Lord---our friends' son, Joshua has improved dramatically.  Thank you for your prayers!  He still has a long way to go, but they're all so happy with the progress so far!!!

Jacob helped me clean the house today, then I made the feast for tonight and food for tomorrow as well. 

My dad went to Napoleon to put money in the bank again and to get fuel.

One of my dwarf fruit trees is blooming now and the smell is heavenly (it is what I imagine Heaven might smell like anyway)...

It was a wonderful day!  :)

I hope and pray that you all have a wonderful weekend!

Guess what????

 

The calving season has begun on the Bornemann farm! 

We have a grand total of 1.  (Outside of the 3 that came early from a bull that obviously wasn't where he was supposed to be last year.)

The guys had to get the little tyke in the barn with it's mother, as she was not doing a very good job of getting him licked off and it was pretty chilly with the wind blowing this morning.  They also tube-fed it some colostrum to make sure he got a good start in life. 

....And so starts the busyness on the farm once again!!!  Prayers for safety for farmers and cows/calves would be wonderful.

NDHSA annual Christian Home Educators Convention pictures!---and helpful links?

As I mentioned in a previous post, the convention was once again wonderful this year!

 

 Mr. Phil Downer was the main speaker, and his son, Paul also spoke.

 I borrowed Andrew's camera for a while and took some pictures, as he was "Stuck" behind a booth helping out most of the 2 days we were there.  I found my mom while walking through the vendor hall...  :)

She volunteered to sit in a booth called "Mentoring Moms", where new home schoolers could come and ask questions of veteran home schoolers.

 Andrew's Project Appleseed booth...

 Mr. Downer's booth...

 Andrew once again volunteered to run the NDHSA booth for selling recordings of any/all the workshop sessions.  He's such a blessing to them, I can see, as there were many other things he did as well for other vendors who needed technical help...

Jacob was glad to meet some old friends and meet new ones, and get to be better friends with both.  It had been a couple years since he'd attended a convention, so I was glad he came along!

 My friend, Hannah K. took a lot of great pictures and made a video with them.  I'll share that at the end of this portion of the post....

 My mom helped run the Appleseed booth from time to time.  I did a little too, as did our new friend, Emmy, who is the kind of person who loves to jump in and help wherever needed.  :)  We weren't trying to sell things really, but were more there to make people aware of the program and to encourage them to attend a shoot.  We were glad to get many e-mail addresses of families that are interested in coming to a shoot!!

 Andrew also ran the Appleseed booth when none of the rest of us were there to do so.  This picture must have been during one of the workshops, as this place was usually buzzing with activity!

 This is where I volunteered to help!  :)

 The G. family (that's Miranda's family---although she wasn't there, as she was enjoying the sunny beaches of Cancun!) has done the meals for NDHSA almost every year that the convention is held in Jamestown.  My mom came in (that's her and I on one side and Mrs. G on the other) and helped this one morning (we sliced up about 30 blocks of cheese for the hot sandwiches we assembled later in the morning).

 The S. girls, M. girls, and Emmy also helped in here...  We had such a good crew!  (That's me at the end of the line, dividing up a large pan of Harvest Hotdish into 19 servings...)  We made up approx. 200 lunches each day.

 Friday evening's entertainment (a man who was very good with doing illusions)...

 My brother again... 

 The next 3 pictures are courtesy of my new friend, Emmy...  She went with us to the Pizza Ranch fund-raiser Friday evening, so it was nice to get to know her better there!

 Andrew snapped this picture of us--for us.  :)

 I'm so glad she took this picture (although I didn't know she did until she sent it to me!).  :)  Here I'm talking to my friend, Jordan who was in that accident with a train a couple weeks back...  (That's Jordan's mom talking to the baby she's holding.)   She's doing pretty well, considering...

After we had everything cleaned up Saturday evening (both booths), we went over to join many families at the Gladstone Inn for fellowship and food.  We pulled in our driveway around 10:00pm that night.

I LOVE going to the convention!  I've gone most of my life and, even though I'm not home schooling and won't have any siblings being home schooled after this year, I'll probably still attend to help out and to spend time with friends we only see once or twice a year, and to be encouraged/inspired by the messages God gives the speakers to share with everyone...


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Please be in prayer for 2 young men from 2 different home schooling families that we know.  Both of them work out in the oil-fields of ND and both of them took a bad fall within the last week, one of them breaking bones and the other hitting his head and being in a coma and needing surgery...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And what's happening on the farm these days---and with life in general?

Well.......................

Any day now, we're expecting the calves to start arriving!  So glad most of the snow is gone.

The guys are getting their grain-cleaning rigs all ready to go!

I started giving our seedlings chamomile tea, as a friend told me that's what they do to strengthen them.

Dad and Andrew went to a farm nearby on Monday and bought some peas for our laying hens.  They then set up a small mill that I can use to grind the peas...  Hopefully with the extra protein, they'll start laying more than 1 egg a day soon!  Thankfully, we only lost 2 hens over the cold winter.

I ordered a 5 lb bag of Erythritol sweetener (THM approved) and started experimenting with it by making a batch of chocolate peanut butter cookies.  I liked them quite well and, when I got home last night, they were all gone, so apparently others found them tasty too. :)

With the sale of my calves, I am now completely OUT OF DEBT for the first time in 7 years!!!!!!!  To celebrate, I bought my family some ice cream---and also purchased some expensive, very high-quality cod liver oil and butter oil for myself (from "Green Pasture": http://www.greenpasture.org/public/Home/index.cfm ).  Ha ha!  :) 

Oh yes, and I also placed a large order of freeze-dried food through our friend, Virginia with the company, "Thrive Life" (http://www.thrivelife.com/).   I REALLY like their strawberries in our homemade yogurt!!!!  I'm considering hosting a Thrive Life party for Virginia, so if anybody is interested in attending, please let me know (corabeth87@gmail.com).

ALSO, my childhood friend, Kjersti has started selling truly natural skin/health care products through a company called, "Radiantly You" and I've been experimenting with some of the products for the past few weeks.  You may wish to check it out at: http://www.radiantlyyou.com/common/clientCustom.asp?UID=1000&SectionID=1&guid=C842D46E-F3C6-4628-A236-4DD198EE4AB5.

Yesterday, I babysat most of the day; then got to see/visit with Paula when she came home; then went over to Lauretta's for milk and ended up staying for supper and visiting with her and her siblings late into the evening.  It's so wonderful having friends so close to home!

A friend of mine recently shared with me the music of Abigail Miller...  If you have the time to listen to some encouraging Christian music, you can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUWps6IzAls&list=PL450113B08000520E.

I also wanted to share about a book I've started reading.  It's called, "Wrestling Prayer" (http://www.christianbook.com/wrestling-prayer-passionate-communion-with-god/eric-ludy/9780736921657/pd/921657).   So far, it looks like just the book I've been praying for!!!  ;)

And now, dear friends, I have bread baking and yogurt making on my to-do list, so I'd best get to it! 

May the Lord bless and guide you all.~


 

Pictures from the calf sale!

We returned last night (late) from a wonderful 2 days spent at the ND Christian home school convention in Jamestown.  It was SO great to see old friends again and to meet new ones yet again!  :)

 

I don't have energy to post pictures from that event tonight, but will share pictures that I took on my phone at the calf-sale (or as Johanna and Tracy Jo called it, the "Cow show")...

The girls...

 My mom is fond of "my" little girls too! 

 "Want some?"

 

Making funny faces!

 She especially loved seeing the WILD calves!

 Sisters~

They were ready to go home after 3 hours of the sale.  We did eat at the sale before leaving though...

 "My" fellas...

I think I said it before, but we are ever and ever so grateful to God for such good prices this year!!!!!

Best sale EVER!

Wow---we feel so blessed! The calf prices were the best we've EVER seen!!  This will be so helpful with all of those bills that keep rolling in...  :) 

"Thank you, Lord!!!"

I did babysit today, so after naps, I took the girls with me to the sale and they enjoyed seeing all of the action!  Johanna kept calling it a "Cow Show".  We were there for almost 3 hours until the calves sold.  The girls were very good, although they did get tired at the end and were very ready to go home.  Johanna even fell asleep on the way.

After dropping the girls off at their place and visiting with Paula for a little while, I dropped something off at Lauretta's house and then was SO happy to see a MOOSE!!!!!  I keep hearing of other people seeing them in the area, and have seen pictures, but at last I saw her with my own eyes.  :) 

I received a belated birthday gift in the mail from a friend, so that was just another addition to the lovely day.

It was such a wonderful day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I got home, I packed quickly as most of us are leaving in the morning for the annual N.D. Home School Convention in Jamestown.  :)  It will be wonderful to help out again and to see SO many friends and meet new ones.....


May the Lord bless you and keep you!  I plan to post pictures of the sale---someday.  :)

Sale day tomorrow!!!

 

My family and I spent a good portion of the day sorting, loading, then hauling the majority of our (nearly) yearling steers and heifers to the Napoleon salesbarn.  God kept us all safe and we're so grateful!  Those animals are pretty large and heavy!!   If anybody is really curious and wants to see them sell tomorrow, you're welcome to join us there OR to watch the sale via the Internet!  (http://napoleonlivestock.com/)

 

In-between loads (my dad and Andrew hauled the calves to town), I transferred these pictures over from my camera and uploaded them here.  I took most of them on Monday...

 

This is the "New" tractor my dad bought recently from a dealership in Watertown, SD:

 

 My dad, loading yet another load of corn to haul to town...

 I spent a couple of hours in the greenhouse, cleaning out the old dead plants from last fall...

 ...so it will be ready for new plants this spring.   Oh yes, happy SPRING everybody!!!

 My brothers decided it was time to put their toys away...

 We went up to Andrew's place for a while that afternoon, mostly to show my mom around as she hadn't been there in a long time.

 Andrew has always loved weeping-willow trees, and now he has one of his very own.  :) 

He says he bought the place for that tree.  Ha ha!

 My mom and I also started some of our garden seeds

 (peppers, tomatoes, cabbage...) indoors on Monday and repotted some house-plants...

Yesterday, I spent the whole day babysitting (until late into the evening, as both the girls' parents were busy working)... 

Here is Tracy Jo with her daddy's binoculars:  :)

 We built a huge zoo-castle, complete with stairs and slide...

 Oh, and this picture is of some leaves up at Andrew's place.  I thought it was neat how the snow was melting right around the leaves and they were floating in water!

Well, friends, that should catch you up to date pretty well.  I'll try to get some pictures of our calves selling tomorrow, if I'm there at the time that it happens!  I LOVE sale day!!! 

 

God bless and guide you all.~

 



Catch-up picture post!

 

Some of these pictures are old already (a lot of the snow has melted now), but I'll share them anyway.

 

Cleaning out the driveway after a windy night...

 The snow-blower that Andrew bought and fixed, then used to clean off the ice-rink...

 Waiting for the "new" tractor to arrive...

 Johanna and I built a cabin!

 Tracy Jo put a rock on her head and called it her helmet.  :)

Wheeeee...

 It was 60 degrees outside that day!!

These next few pictures are from this last Saturday evening at the G's house...

 For this activity, the girls were a team, as were the boys.  Each was given a limited supply of tape, wax paper, cling-wrap, and toilet paper....  Then, in 20 minutes time, each team was to decorate a member of their team as some sort of a statue.  Can you guess who we did?

 The guys...

 Lauretta, helping with a torch... 

 (Andrew and I picked up Lauretta, Josephine and Thaddaeus and took them along for the fun.)

 I hope you can guess who Krystal was now!  :)

 Our final "Creations"----the Statue of Liberty, and a gladiator?  What a pair!

 It was lots of fun to see and talk with my Miranda friend again!!!  I love that lady!  She's been such a true, loyal friend these past 11 years.  :)

Yesterday afternoon, we had friends (parts of 2 different families) come over for another time of fun and fellowship!  We played a LOT of ping-pong.  

 

Andrew, wouldn't it be easier playing with your left hand?  ;)

 Tom and Andrew played against---

--- Thaddaeus and my dad for several games.  That was pretty fun to watch! Later, some of we ladies joined in on the action, but I don't have pictures of that...

 Tom's serves were very hard to stop!

 Father and son...

 After supper, we played a few indoor games...

 Virginia brought along one of her favorite games (Ticket to Ride) and, as we also have that game and only 5 people can play on one board, we had 2 games going...  

Later, we played "I Doubt It" and "Taboo". 

I thank the Lord for this blessing of dear friends and neighbors!!! 

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!"  Psalm 133:1