Quite a project!

Yesterday morning, my mom and I went through all of the old jars down in the basement (some of which were here when we moved here) and sorted out the canning jars from the misc. jars which we'll never use.  We put the reject jars in boxes and I hauled them up to the Ford pickup. Jacob and I also loaded up all of the bags of recyclables (cans and plastic bottles from the summer) and put them in the pickup to take to Napoleon (to the recycling center there). Our main reason for going to town was to weigh at the elevator so we could go get a tote of field peas from a farmer for our chickens to eat this winter, then of course, we had to go back to town to weigh again, once the tote was full, so we'd know what to pay the farmer... 

 

 Of course, when going to town, there's lots of other things to do too (go to the bank, post office, gas station, thrift store, and my mom took Jacob and I out to eat at Ruebens---my first time ever being there!).  We did eventually make it home with the peas! 

 

My dad hauled grain to Enderlin both yesterday and today. Andrew went to Bismarck to get chipboard for his house roof.

 

After unloading the tote of peas, Jacob and I went up with Andrew to his place to start tinning the half of his garage roof that was shingle-less. While my brothers worked on the trim, I picked up most of the apples that were under Andrew's tree.  They are a long-keeping type of apple and are nice and sweet now after the hard frosts we've had.

 

 Measuring...

 My job was to make marks on the tin where all of the screws would go (so the rows would be straight across)...

He looks pretty comfortable up there, doesn't he?

 Just as we were putting the first sheet up, our parents arrived to help...

:)

 

Mom cleaned up the shingle mess on the ground... 

 

 We got that side of the garage finished before supper!

 These shingles are the worst of all of them on the house, but they're all bad...  I'm not looking forward to working on the steep part of this roof!

 The work-shop inside the garage...

 Mom finished picking up the apples off of the ground and started picking some off the tree. I like this picture of her...  She looks so happy!

This machine is SOOOO helpful!

 

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This morning, as soon as the barn chores were done, my brothers and I went up to Andrew's place again and ripped the rest of the shingles (two layers) and tar paper off of Andrew's garage and the small entryway. (That's my boot---proof that I was up there...)

 Andrew bought 2 tools that work pretty well for ripping everything up...

 As the hours passed, the sun got brighter, and we shed more layers!  It was another gorgeous day!

 We finished this part before lunch, at which time my brothers went west to bale hay and I tilled in the garden and made bread, which Mom later baked.

 I went over and picked up the 3 neighbor children when they got off of the schoolbus.  They helped me tape these boxes together...

 ...and we started digging potatoes...

 Eventually, it ended up being me digging while my mom picked up the potatoes and the children found worms and dug holes.  Here's Amelia with her squiggly treasures:

After spending all of that time working in the great outdoors, I'm thoroughly tuckered again, as I'm sure the others are too.  It's a good feeling to work hard though and to enjoy the end result of your labors!