Jonny's Woodcrafts

With Christmas only a few weeks away, Jonny has been busy working in his shop making ornaments and other woodcrafts!  He now has a website where you can go and order some great Christmas gifts for your family, friends, and you! :) 
Check out http://jonnyswoodcrafts.weebly.com/ and order today!

Reindeer Ornament

Snowman Ornament

Enjoying Fall

What a nice long fall we have had - and the colors are so beautiful.  Every time I go for a walk, I have to stop for a moment and just enjoy the beauty of this season - my favorite time of year.

The puppies are growing so fast.  They are chubby little guys! :)  They remind me of little pigs. :) lol  Princess is such a great mom.  She is so very gentle.  I don't know how she climbs in and out of the whelping box without smothering or stepping on anyone.  The pups will be 4 weeks old this Sunday and will likely be out of the whelping box soon.  They are so much fun!

Here are a few fall pictures from the farm. :)

Harvesting pumpkins

Big Tom

Jackson watching over the boys (they were digging potatoes) while enjoying the shade from the apple trees

Puppies Have Arrived!!

As you can see by the lack of recent posts, we have done more farming than blogging this summer!  But we have really enjoyed  a much slower pace this summer.  Since we are no longer doing the farmer's market here at our farm, we have had to relearn how to grow food for just ourselves.  Needless to say, we gave some produce away. :) 

As much as we enjoyed having the farmer's market here every Friday, we are confident that the decision to move on to other things was the right decision for our family.  Selling produce is a lot of work.  And when Mike was elected for county commissioner, we knew we had to cut back on something.  We are still raising pastured chickens and turkeys though.

Since it has always been our goal to have a family business, we decided to start raising Great Pyrenees dogs.  We are now entering our second year of breeding dogs.  For us, it is more rewarding than growing produce and much less labor intensive. Like our other business, it is something our whole family can do together, and the children love it!  Emily even gave up her bunny business so she could put all her efforts into the dog business.  If you email us about a dog, you will most likely get a response from Em.  She is great at marketing our dogs and interacting with customers.  Ben and Jonny help a ton behind the scenes.  They both help with grooming the dogs and spend time interacting with them.  There are dishes to scrub, pens to clean, and dogs to bathe - plenty of work to go around. :)  Emily prepares breakfast for all the dogs in the morning.  Then they all work together feeding the dogs.  Our dogs diets change based on the season they are in - pregnant, nursing, or breeding, so not all the dogs are eating the same foods or the same amounts.  It sounds complicated, but we've got a good system down.

So the good news....drum roll please....Princess just had her second litter!   Princess went into labor last Sunday afternoon.  The first puppy was born at around 1pm and the last puppy was born around 9:30 pm - twelve puppies!  She did an awesome job - just like last time, with no complications.  She is a great mom!  They are all fat and happy.  If you are interested in a puppy, you can view them via our puppy cam.  It is on 24 hours a day!  Just email us for the link.

Here are a few pictures that Mike took today (puppies are one week old). More pictures to come soon on Housman Farm Pyrs.

 

Farmgirl's Journal ~ Meet Beauty!

This is Beauty, our latest addition to Housman Farm Pyrs!!!  We picked her up in Wisconsin on Sunday and are so excited about her!  Just a quick slide show I put together from a photo shoot with Beauty yesterday! Right now Movie Maker is acting up and I can't see anything until I publish it on YouTube, so it's not perfect, but enjoy! :)  We sure are enjoying our new pup!

Spring Piano Recital

Here is a video of the boys and I (Emily) at our Spring Recital.  Jonny played a fun version of "Home on the Range" (this was a really difficult song, but he worked really hard on it and did a great job!), Ben played "Mysterious Private Eye" (we call Ben "Bentoven" because he learns his recital songs in about 2 weeks...wish I was that good!  ;-)) and I played "All of Me" by Jon Schmidt (The Piano Guys) and "Pirates of the Caribbean" by Jarrod Radnich (surprise at the ending ;-)). 

I (we...Ben and Jonny too!) feel very privileged to have such wonderful parents who have paid for lessons for me for years (almost twelve, to be exact!).  I enjoy piano soooooo much, so thank you Mom and Dad!!!!!!!! :)

Enjoy ;)



                        

Farmwife's Journal - May 2nd

April has been a busy month on the farm!  What's new, right? :)  The month started out with a trip to Idaho for my sister's wedding.  We had an absolutely wonderful time there with family and friends.  There was a group of 12 of us on the same flight heading out to the wedding.  It was fun!
 


At the airport.  This was Ben and Jonny's first time on a plane.

Idaho here we come!! :)

Pilot and Copilot! :)


 

Right after we landed in Idaho, we drove to Whole Foods in Boise and bought our groceries for the week.  Then we headed to the house at Tamarack where our family would be staying.

 

Finally at Tamarack Resort!  Here we are having a very late dinner. :)

And a soak in the hot tub at around midnight :)

Nadine and Billy were married in a mansion on a mountain....it was incredible!  They met at Tamarack resort in Idaho where they both taught snowboarding.  They were married at this same resort.  My parents rented a huge, beautiful house at the resort for the wedding and most of the family stayed in the house while in Idaho (since most of Nadine's side is from Minnesota).  Everyone had a great time and thoroughly enjoy the beautiful state of Idaho!  Here are some pictures of the trip.



We spent most of Friday making food for the wedding.  My mom had it all organized and everything went very smoothly!  She is amazing!!  Here is Em and her cousin Grace making sandwiches in the beautiful kitchen at the big house.



Here they are again at about 1am, after the groom's dinner, making chocolate covered strawberries.

 

 

This is our good friend Cindy.  We were so glad she was able to join us for the wedding!  The whole family just adores her, and she was a huge help!!  Here we are making cheesy potatoes (at 1am) for the family brunch for the day after the wedding.

My mom and Cindy

The Aunties cooking in the kitchen

We can't forget Uncle Richie!  He spent hours cutting onions for us!!  What a guy!!  And his sinuses were completely clear when he was done! :)

Love this picture of me and my sister kissing our dad. :)



My parents and my sister and Billy at the groom's dinner.

 

Saturday morning we joined the bride in getting our hair done.  It was so much fun!  This is Emmy's hairdo...isn't it beautiful?

Here's my do.  I think it's called a waterfall braid.

 

Then Billy showed up at the hair salon with flowers...had us all crying.  Mr. Romance!! :)

Aren't they cute?  My mom gave Nadine the t-shirt.  "I'm the Bride" :)

Cindy, Auntie Mary, and I worked together to decorate the cake with flowers.

Setting up for the ceremony.  There were about 80 people invited.  My sister wanted a small wedding.


 

Waiting for the ceremony to begin.

My Dad walking my sister down the isle (driveway).  Dad is choked up...Nadine is the baby in the family.

The ceremony was so beautiful!  I cried through the whole thing!  Here Billy is putting her ring on.

Mr. & Mrs. Billy Wagner!! Yippee!

The sign above the fireplace

Cutting the cake.  My mom made the cake.

Me and my siblings



My siblings and their spouses



Our family at the wedding (minus Brandon who was unable to attend).  Don't my farm boys look sharp! ;)

The view from the big house

Ben and Jonny were pool sharks by the time the week was over. :)

This is the house on the mountain that our family stayed in...so nice!  It was just down the road from the big house. 

The kids were in our hot tub at the crack of dawn every morning. 

Our last day in Idaho. :(

Leaving for the airport. :(

We rented a car and thoroughly enjoyed our drive through Idaho....well, OK...the one lane roads with sheer cliffs that dropped down to the river weren't always super fun for me. :)  Thankfully my husband is a good driver.  Here are a few pictures from our travels.

Farm Girl's Journal ~ Lambs!

The sheep are officially due today - the 15th.  Rosie decided to go early, though, and had her lambs sometime early Saturday morning (I missed the birth - *sniff sniff*)!  She's a 1st time momma, but had twins!  They are so cute.  The girl is just 5 pounds and the boy is around 7.  They weren't doing as well in the beginning (Rosie hasn't quite figured out this mom thing yet!) but after some TLC, (and some dropper feeding for the girl, bottle feeding for the boy!) they were making lamb bounces in the pen this morning. :-)  We have two, possibly three (not sure if the third one is pregnant or not) more ewes to lamb.  Yay!

The boy :)



The girl - sooo tiny but she's fattening up now :)

The boy again ;)



Any name ideas for our twins?

Goat Kids & Syruping!

 

Blondie gave birth to twin bucklings last Wednesday!  :)  We were hoping for boy and girl twins because we were going to name them Billy & Nadine after my Aunt and Uncle that just got married.  But...Blondie had different plans, so it's Billy & Willy.  ;-)  Billy looks exactly like his dad, and Willy takes after his mom!  Blondie went into labor early Wedneday morning, I noticed her acting strange when I went out for chores, and voila! we had twins within about an hour. :D  I'm hoping to get the birthing video posted soon, but I'm having some trouble with movie maker, so we'll see.... :)

 

 

The run is starting!  Ben & Jonny tapped about 100 trees about 2 1/2 weeks ago and the run has been pretty good.  There is about 3 gallons of delicious boxelder syrup sitting on the counter right now. :)

 

 

Dad straining sap

Jonny is really excited about this! :)

Jackson guarding us all while we collect ;)



The boys & I heading out to collect from the trees by the road

Jonny & I

Jonny collecting sap

Me collecting :)