May

Spring?  Most days are warmer now.  The deep snows are gone, with only a bit left in the shadows of the trees, along fence lines, and sides of buildings.  It's melting much quicker, turning the yard into a small lake. 

We frame in the water barrels in the pasture to keep the animals from dumping them.  They're against the chicken coop wall to collect rain water from the roof.  Emptying and cleaning will be more difficult, but dirty water is better than no water.  We fill the barrels daily with water from the puddles.  It'll save a bit of work later, when things start to dry up.

It's still too mucky and wet to use the horse cart on the trails.  The roads aren't much better.  We stay within walking distance of home.  We've adapted to walking though, and can cover a good deal of ground.

Construction begins on the greenhouses.  Then the handle snaps off the post hole digger.  Dad picks a thin birch tree and begins carving a new handle.

We tap the birch trees for sap.   We collect it every day.  We keep a pot on the wood stove boiling constantly.  It takes a lot of sap to make syrop.  I pressure can one jar at a time and store it in the cold room.

Grass starts to turn green.  I let the birds out to free range.  We start picking fresh 'greens'- weeds.

I plant my greenhouses with brassicas, carrots, beets, onions, radishes, swiss chard and lettuce.  It's still too early for tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers to transplant.  I start more seedlings in the house.  Sil, Lisa, and Nira start working up their garden space.  They all move their chicken pens over, and start working the areas the chickens fertilized through the winter.  Mom and Dad dig up their garden and plant cabbage.

It snows on Mother's Day.  Thanks for the gift, Mother Nature.  I hope that's the last of it.

Days get warmer.   Grass gets greener.

May 15th.  Wildflowers start poking up.  Mom and Dad go flower picking.  Dad gets a pain in his belly.  He lays down.  He takes tylenol.  The pain gets worse.  There's nothing we can do for him, except to make him comfortable and hope it passes.  No doctors, no medicine.  Dad dies early the next morning.  He was 66.  We are lost without him.

Days pass.  We cry.  We dig a grave.  We cry.  We bury him.  We cry.  We wait to wake up from this horrible nightmare.  We cry.

I cry all the time.  I go to the garden to plant or pull weeds.  I cry.  I stack firewood in the basement.  I cry.  I go to bed.  I cry.  I try to keep it together around the boys, but when I'm alone, I cry.

I plant the rest of Mom's garden.  She doesn't care.  It was Dad's garden.

#2 finishes carving the birch pole and fixes the post hole digger.  The men finish the greenhouse frames and cover the roofs with plastic.  There's not much left of the roll, so everyone is on their own to cover the sides.  Brother and Sil cut poles to cover the bottom two feet, and fill the chinks with clay.  Lisa does the same, except she goes up the full north side.  Diego and Nira find some tin in one of the sheds at northern neighbour's house, and use it for walls all the way around.

We are out of hay.  The pasture is still short.  We reinforce the fences.  We add another fence line to keep the critters in one spot and let the grass grow on the other side.  We move the cows and horses over.  We add another fence line.  We keep adding fence until the pasture is divided into 12 sections.  We'll have to keep rotating the animals all summer.

Sanya lets her horses loose.  Her paddocks are too small to feed them.  We find them in our yard one morning.  We shoo them away.  Husband goes to talk to her.  She figures they can roam free for the summer, and eat what they like, and she'll worry about hay next winter.  Husband tells her they can't roam free on our land, and we will protect our property.

We build gates for the end of the trails.  They won't stop the horses from entering through the trees, but they will slow them down a bit, cutting off the easy access.

It finally gets warm enough to plant the tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in the greenhouse.  We plant more brassicas, beats and mangels in the garden.  The beans, corn and potatoes go in.  I decide not to plant melons, since spring was so late.  I plant a few pumpkins and squash, but save most of my seed for next year.  We fill the rest of the garden with wheat, barley and oats.  It's less than half the seed, but we'll see what grows best in our short season, and save the seed to plant a full crop next spring.

We move the birds to the turkey pen.  We let them out to free range for a couple of hours every day, then pen them back up.  Two of the banties go broody, so I take them back to the new chicken coop and put them in the brooder boxes.  I let them set their own eggs for a few days, then sneak in at night and steal all of the eggs from one hen and replace them with eggs from the larger birds.  I add the stolen eggs to the other hen's nest.  This will keep the timing together so they should all hatch at the same time.

As the other banties go broody I move them to the new coop, into the brooder boxes, until all six have a broody banty nesting.  The rest of the banties are on their own to raise what they like outside.  Three go missing, nesting I hope.  One continues to hang around the other birds.  I add the days eggs from the other birds to the banty's nest when I move her.  Banties are great, but there's more meat on the larger birds.

The trails dry up enough that the men can get back to the lake in the horse cart.  They go fishing in groups of two or three, forage for puffballs and fiddleheads, and cut more wood.  They travel down different trails each time, looking for more lakes, different trees, raspberry patches.  We draw a map on the wall and make note of everything they find.


Nelly calves, but the calf is still born.  Husband, #1 and Diego go looking for a replacement calf.  At one of the neighbour's they find a farmer whose cow had twins.  One is not doing so well, so he lets them take it in exchange for 10 chicks when they hatch.  He doesn't have enough pasture to keep all of his cows either, so Diego makes a deal to let some of them graze at northern neighbour's, and keep one for beef in the fall.  The farmer will try to walk them over. 

Sanya's horses are running up the fence line at our house when they return, irritating our horses.  Husband goes out to shoo them off, but Diego stops him.  If they're running free, they're free for the taking, right?  They manage to catch three of them and Diego walks them home.

Nelly is very disagreeable with the calf, kicking it every time it tries to nurse.  We end up bottle feeding it with Mildred's milk.  After several days the calf, Murphy, figures out that Mildred is more agreeable, and starts nursing off of her.  We let Nelly back in the pasture with the other cows.  I am amazed that Mildred is able to feed all three of them. We keep Mildred and the calves in the side yard.

Our milk supply drops again, but that's okay.  We milk just enough for tea, breakfast, and a bit of butter, and let the calves take the rest.  Since we can't store the butter long, I just take the cream off the milk after a couple of hours in the cold room, put it in a small container and shake it up.  It's more of a chunky cream as we use it than real butter.

Mom is upset that her grass is getting so long, which makes the bugs worse at her place.  We aren't about to go wasting gas (if the lawn mower even works) and 'hay', so we offer to bring Mildred and the calves over to eat it.  Then Mom gets upset about the poop on the lawn.  Then Mildred walks through the garden, and Mom gets real upset.  We dig out the old solar electric fence charger, and are surprised to find that it still sort of works.  It's not a very strong shock, but it seems to do the trick for Mildred, so we fence in her yard.

We take the horses back to the creek pasture to 'mow' the lawn around Lisa's place.  Brother and Sil's place gets mowed when we're there with the horses.


Everyone is busy, foraging all the time, drying weeds for winter, planting, digging, weeding.  Everyone comes to visit and borrows the wheel barrow, helping to clean out the barn as they take home manure for their gardens.

Husband takes apart some old bicycles, wheel barrows, and a wagon, and builds a water cart, a manure cart, a tool cart and a horse hitch.  The hitch can be moved from one 'implement' to the next without unhitching the horse.  It seats one.  He takes the side cutter off the old tractor and loads it on the horse cart, along with some bits of scrap metal, and takes it up the road to the fellow who builds cutters.  The sound of the generator is deafening after silence for so long.

The fellow who builds cutters will get started on ours in a couple of weeks.  He needs more parts and gives Husband a list.  He wants beef in the fall for trade.  I worry about how we're going to keep producing beef of our own if we keep trading off all of our calves.

Spring is short lived and soon it's hot and dry.  Summer seems to have arrived.  We haul water from the creek several times a day.  We do laundry at Lisa's, hanging it on the clothesline at home.

The townsfolk are moving out into the fields and bush, staking claim to land outside of town, digging gardens, setting up camps where they will spend the summer.  Three families choose our road for their base, one is actually on Mom's land on the far side of the ravine.  They're a young couple with two young children.  They seem harmless enough for now, and self sufficient, so we let them be.

News from the south isn't great.  It seems in some areas whoever has the biggest guns gets to be the boss.  It's sad really, in a time like this when we all need to work together for the future.  People are still leaving the cities, moving into the country, squatting on any open space.  Unlike here, where the trees and forage are plentiful, there the concrete is plentiful, and absolutely useless in these trying times.  People are being killed all the time, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  There is news that the working windmills in one area have been taken hostage by a group of thugs.  They figured they deserved the power for themselves.  No one knows what happened to the guy who was fixing them.

Day 15- The Return

Husband woke me early this morning.  They made it there and back ok.  The trip was relatively uneventful.  There were a couple of road blocks set up, but most people were friendly, just looking for goods to trade.  It seems everyone out and about has armed themselves.  We're now living in the wild, wild north.  They had a bit of trouble on the return trip, it seems the northerners are ok with people headed south, but not as kind to southerners headed north.  They had to explain several times where they were headed, but no gunshots were fired, so they consider it a good trip.  There were people out fishing at every lake and stream they passed, a few people with signs, 'Will work for Food', and plenty of hunters on the back roads.  The military is guarding the city of Barrie- probably for lack of anything better to do, but they were also friendly.  They just want visitors to know that no nonsense will be tolerated.

They stopped and refuelled from transport trucks in the middle of the road, and refilled all of our gas cans by siphoning fuel from abandoned cars.  We should be ok for quite awhile, so long as we're careful with it.


Husband goes to bed and I get up and make my tea.  I want to go and see the girls, but they're probably sleeping after their long trip.  I have more butchering to do today anyway.  It's warm already, and the sun hasn't risen yet.  I think I had better start canning while I butcher.  I'll do the ground beef and the stew as I cut today, and save the roasts and hope for a freeze.  I go downstairs to get a box of jars.  I don't have that many left.  If it doesn't freeze soon this could be a disaster.

#1 gets up and uses the outhouse.  He tells me we're out of toilet paper.  I send him out to the trailer to get what I have stored in there.  He finds two 24 packs- that's all there is.  Life is going to get very interesting in the next little while.  Luckily I'm the only girl here, so I decide to start using cloth for wet and keep the paper for the icky stuff.  As I dig through my material bin, I figure I better start on hankies too.  I'm not sure how many boxes of kleenex are left, but I better wean everybody off of them before bad colds send everyone scampering for kleenex by the foot.

The rest of the boys are up and eating breakfast- toast and jam.  That's the last of the bread again.  I get them to start two batches of bread while I cut the cloth.  It seems like we should be relaxing, the stress of getting the girls here is over, but there's just so much to do!

The boys do chores and find me a couple of small bins for my 'tissues' and 'wipes'.  The wipes go to the outhouse.  I leave the tissues in the bathroom, for lack of a better place to put them.

#1 gets the horse cart ready and goes to pick up Mom and her laundry.  I go down to the creek with them and show her what I've been doing.  I gather up my laundry from yesterday so the lines will be clear, but she'd rather use her own lines at home.  She also has plenty of soap still, so doesn't bother with the lye water.  I leave her there with #1 and walk back to the house, picking weeds as I go.

#2 and I get started on butchering.  We make good progress today, finishing the last two quarters and ground beef.  It's not perfect, and we leave more fat on than normal, but we're eager for this job to be done.  There's still tallow to render, and stock to be made, but the hard work is done.  We set up the smoker and put two small roasts in to smoke overnight.  I have no idea how these will turn out- I've never smoked a roast before.

I take frequent breaks from the garage to switch things up in the kitchen.  At the end of the day I have all of the stew meat and half of the ground beef canned.  The roast and steaks are spread out in the freezers, where things are still cool, but not as cool as they were when all of this started. 

#1 takes Mom home with her laundry to hang, then unloads our laundry in the house when he returns.

Husband gets up and we go to visit Brother, Sil, and the girls.  They're sitting around the fire pit when we get there, discussing what to do with themselves.  They have a good selection of supplies now, but they're still missing so much.  The trailer is nice as a vacation spot, but pretty cramped as semi permanent living quarters.  They need more food for winter, though Sil has a nice collection of weeds dried out as well as her canned goods.  They'll need meat.

The girls are in a bit of denial.  All they had been focused on was getting here.  Get here and they'd be fine.  Except now they're here and the world is still upside down.  They want to read, listen to music, play on computers, and shower.  Luxuries of the past, at least for the moment. 

We talk about the space issues first.  We decide to build a log cabin lean-to on the front of their trailer.  It'll mean ripping apart the current extension, but it'll give them more space and hopefully keep them warmer.

As evening approaches the temperature starts to drop and I hope for a freeze.  Even a few degrees below zero would help the freezers so much at this point.

We have a quick beef soup for supper and call it a day.  Everyone is tired all the time.

Day 14

I slept well for the first few hours, then tossed and turned the rest of the night.  I'm up before dawn, but I wasn't going back to sleep anyway, so what was the point of laying in bed?  I take the oven off the woodstove and check the jerky.  I think it's a little overdone.  Overdone is better than underdone though.  I make tea- no coffee today.  The dishes are really piling up again, especially with everything we used for butchering yesterday.  The rain barrels are getting low, so we'll have to haul water from the creek when we pick up the laundry.

The boys are up early too.  We're all stiff and sore, with several more days of butchering ahead of us.  I put a pot of water on to boil for the dishes, and another filled with bones for beef stock.  I chop a few carrots and throw in some chives.  At least this nice weather is keeping the herbs and weeds growing.  The beef stock and weeds will make soup, along with a few potatoes,  for lunch for the next few days.

We eat pancakes for breakfast, then the Bigs join me in the garage after chores.  #1 lights a fire under the smoker outside and leaves it to get hot.  We cut up one of the front quarters, dividing the shoulder into 12 roasts.  We start another tray for ground beef, cutting the brisket and meat off the ribs into it.  The Bigs work on grinding it up while i start trimming the fat off the roasts.  The fat goes in a bucket to be rendered into tallow later.

After packaging the meat and laying it out in the freezer, we break for a late lunch.  The soup won't be ready until tomorrow, so for today we just eat bread and jam.

After lunch I check the smoker.  It seems hot to me.  I add some cherry wood chips to the coals underneath, then layer the meat on the racks.  I close in the bottom of the smoker with gravel and dirt and hope for the best.

The Bigs get the horse cart ready.  This will be their first time driving without their father around.  They tie the other horses alongside so they can all graze at the back while we're there.  I fill two more ice cream buckets with ashes, nesting them inside of other buckets so there will be lots of lye water on my next laundry day.  I find another piece of PVC pipe to take for a water filter.  I'm not planning on using it for drinking water, so I'll fill it at the creek.  I take some material and elastics to put it together.  The Bigs strap one of the empty rain barrels onto the cart to bring water back to the house.

We go around by Sil's to see if she wants to come with us and do some laundry.  She loads a couple of baskets and adds them to the cart.  I notice she has weeds drying in their shed.  She brings a bucket to pick more.

At the creek we discover that something has gotten tangled in the clotheslines.  Laundry is knocked down everywhere.  Most of it is still clean and dry, but I have to rewash some of it.  I layer rocks, material and sand in the filter, then fasten material over the ends.  We scoop water by bucket into the filter and fill the bathtub for laundry.  The boys keep scooping water to fill the rain barrel while I wash.  It'll still need to be boiled and filtered at home, but at least it looks clean.  I dump the ashes out of the bucket that was already there, and refill it from the two I brought with me.  I cover all three with water and leave them inside the cabin.  Sil does her laundry.  The two of us ring out the bigger stuff- jeans and a blanket.  I still don't think it's worth the effort involved to ring it out. 

The boys fix the clotheslines and check the fence.  They can't see where anything would have gotten in, except through the creek.  Hopefully it won't happen again.  They add a few more small trees to the fence, starting a lower line on the fence.  If we can make it secure enough, we'll be able to bring the cows down instead of watering them if it doesn't rain soon.

We pack up the dry laundry and get ready to go.  The horses seem like they would like to stay awhile, but we drag them out anyway.  We'll bring them back tomorrow.  Sil and I walk beside the cart and pick weeds as we go.

The cart jerks to a stop and #2 grabs my .22.  I figure he's spotted a partridge, but to my surprise he shoots a fox.  Nice shot and good riddance!  Shiloh freaks out over the gunshot and breaks her lead as she rears.  Samson, the horse from the neighbour, looks shaky too.  We wait for Shiloh to stop running and calm down before #1 attempts to grab her.  She's not too disagreeable, because as much as she wants to run she also wants to be back with the other horses.  We'll have to start doing cap gun training with the two of them.

Back at the house the boys put the horses and cart away, then check the chickens to make sure they got the fox before it got lunch.  They bring in three eggs.  I am so happy with that!  Sil and I jar up the dried weeds and lay out the fresh ones.  The Littles put away the laundry.

The beef stock is ready to can, so I pull it off the stove and put my canner in it's place.  Sil pops empty jars into the pot of boiling water while I strain the stock from the bones.  I get another pot ready and pour a few inches of stock into it.  We pull the meat off the bones, along with the carrots, and put it into the second pot.  Sil tosses in two good handfulls of weeds.  The Littles peel a few potatoes and chop them up.  The soup will sit on one of the side grills overnight to keep warm.  Sil pulls the jars back out of the boiling water and I fill them.  We fill the canner and let it pressurize.

I check the meat in the smoker and it seems to be drying.  The smoker is still hot, so I don't disturb the fire.

We all walk over to Mom's to check on her.  She's kept herself busy stacking firewood most of the day.  The boys get her some water from the spring and she asks where we've been getting water from.  I tell her  we've been using rain water and getting water from the creek.  She wants to go with us to do some laundry tomorrow.

We all walk back to our house for supper.  Hamburgers tonight, with fresh ground beef.  I check the smoker again, and it's cooling off.  The meat looks to be about done anyway, so I take it in the house to cool.  I set the oven back on the woodstove and put in the last tray of meat to dry overnight.

We play cards for awhile, then Mom and Sil walk back to Mom's.  Sil will spend the night there.  We're all tired too, and decide to call it a night.

Day 13- Good News

It's a beautiful sunny day today.  It'll be perfect to do some laundry.  I'm sure everyone must be needing more socks and underwear by now.  I think I'll take the laundry to the creek rather than bringing water up to the house though.  I make coffee, tea, and relax with a book while I wait for everyone else to get up.

Once they're all up and about, I tell them my laundry plans.  If we take more baler twine down there, and move the tub closer to the creek it should make laundry much easier.  The boys gather up all of their dirty laundry.  It's a mountain.  As long as the cabin's empty at the back though, anything I don't get done today can be kept in there.  I load up Husband's & my own laundry.  I almost forget the plunger.  They gather up baler twine and grab a chainsaw.  They'll cut firewood while I do laundry.

Brother and Sil stop by.  They're headed into town to try phoning the girls again.  This time they're happy to hear that the girls and Friend made it to the cottage.  Friend is recovering from his bullet hole nicely, since his mother's a nurse and has managed to stitch him up.  They stop back at our place and tell us the news.  Brother, Husband and Dad will leave tonight to go and get them.

We have a quick breakfast of toast and jam, and then head for the creek.  Once the tub is moved it's a breeze to fill and plunge the clothes.  Getting them to the line is a bit more work, but thankfully the Bigs do the carrying for me.  They set up three more lines so I have lots of room to dry everything.  I will need to bring more ashes next time.  Towards the end I don't think there's much lye coming through in the water.  Still, everything is cleaner than it was before.  I think another water filter attached to the tub would be helpful too.  The creek can get pretty mucky at times.

Husband and the boys have filled the cart with firewood.  Tori is grazing happily.  The grass is fairly long here.  We had always meant to fence it, but hadn't got around to it.  We decide we might as well, to give the horses more room to graze.

Husband and the Littles take the firewood back to the house to unload while the Bigs cut smaller trees and straighten the treeline.  They come back with hammers and nails.  We use the small trees as poles and nail them in place.  The area is still open at the creek but I don't think the horses will try to cross it.  The entrance is open as well.  It'll need a gate.

We reload the cart and Husband let's #1 drive it back to the house.  #2 digs some post holes for the gate.  When Husband and #1 return the three of them drop fence posts in the holes and build a gate.  It looks pretty good to me.  The Littles and I reload the cart and then we all go back to the house.

After unhitching Tori the Bigs walk down with all of the horses and leave them in the new pasture.  They pick weeds as they walk back to the house.

We have soup for lunch, beef again, and then Husband goes for a nap.  It'll be a long night.  The boys and I start on butchering the cow.  The weather has me concerned.  It's been warming up, and we might get an Indian Summer after all.  That's great for working in, but not good for the hanging meat or the freezers.

#2 saws through the back half of the spine, and we get started on cutting the steaks.  #1 starts the generator to run them through the meat saw, rather than sawing by hand.   We cut all the meat off the ribs and run it through the grinder.  I don't usually make ground beef, figuring I can buy ground pretty cheap, and I prefer a good supply of stewing beef, but this year we won't be buying, so we need our own supply.  Grinding is much faster than trimming all of the fat off for stew anyway.

I cut 8 pounds of beef off the flanks for jerky and  mix up two different recipes.  The Bigs set up the smoker, which we've never used before.  I'll start some in the oven overnight as well.  We'll see which method works best.

Husband gets up and cooks us up some delicious rib steaks for supper, and I swear, this is the best beef I have ever tasted!  I have the urge to go out and give Dorie a big hug.  She does mighty fine work!  At the end of the day I lay the steaks and hamburg out across the top of the freezer, over other still frozen food.  I hope it'll freeze.  It's at least cold enough that I'll have a few days to decide if I need to can it.

Brother arrives and he and Husband walk over to Mom and Dad's to get the truck ready.  Mom has packed them some soup and sandwiches for the trip.  I send along some apples and cookies.  It's barely dark, but they expect the first part of the trip to be uneventful.

I am completely exhausted from a hard day's work.  I hope I'll be able to sleep rather than staying up worrying all night.

Day 11- Construction

I am a big sleepy head this morning.  I wake to the sound of what seems like a million people in the kitchen.  I don't want to go out there.  Smitty stretches beside me.  He's going to need out right away.  Puppy bladder.  I grab my housecoat and jump out of bed.  When I open the door he's right beside me, growling.  I look at the mob.  Everyone is eating pancakes.  I squeeze through a bunch of kids, wave at everyone, and make my way to the door.  I go straight outside with Smitty.

Husband comes outside after a few minutes.  "Are you okay?  Everyone thinks you're mad at them now."

"You know I don't talk when I first wake up.  There's too many people in there."  It's a nice day, surprisingly warm.


Sil hears me as she comes outside.  She laughs.  I think she's the only other person here who understands my need to be alone in my own head in the morning.  She hands me a cup of tea.

"Thanks", I say.

"No problem.  No honey though.  I didn't want to open it in front of all of them."

"Thanks."

I drink half my cup of tea before the kids start coming outside to play.  Once they're all outside I figure I can deal with the rest of the people in the house.  We go in and sit down.  Nira tries to hand me pancakes, but Husband takes them.  Food when I first wake up makes me want to puke.

Brother and Sil are anxious to get started on the truck.  I know they're anxious to head for Huntsville.  We're all hoping the girls have an uneventful trip.

The Bigs are going to go to the back with Diego and Nira to work on their cabin.  I tell them to get the bathtub out of the pasture and take it down with them, the one that the plug came out of and won't hold water now.  We have three old tubs that we use for water troughs.

Nira is excited.  "A bath!  Oh, I can't wait to have a bath!  I didn't think we'd be able to do that!"  I was thinking of laundry, but ok, I guess bathing's a good idea too.  She can do whatever she wants with it really.

The Bigs take my quad and trailer to load the tub.  They toss in a couple of buckets, some pop bottles, baler twine, chainsaw, and come back to the house.  They load the roll of plastic and a staple gun.  Nira and I go out to the trailer and pull out an old pot, a frying pan, some glasses, silverware, knives and a spatula.  We add it to the trailer.  I tell her to pack up their clothes and put them in too.

"We can't move down there yet!  There are no walls!", she looks like she's going to cry.

"You can do laundry down there though.  In the bathtub."  I don't have an extra plunger, so she'll have to find another way to agitate it.  I go back in the house and look at the box of laundry detergent.  There's not much left.  I decide to give her a bucket of ashes instead.  She might as well start out with lye water.  I take an ice cream bucket and poke holes in the bottom with a knife.  I fill it with ashes in the basement, then put it inside another ice cream bucket.  I take it out and add it to the load.  The trailer is full.  They're all ready to go.

Down at the camp the Bigs and Diego get to work cutting trees for the walls while Nira and the kids unload the trailer.  They can't lift the tub, so the Bigs do that for them.

Mom and Dad come over.  Dad, Husband and Brother start working on the truck.  Dad has to hot wire it, and fiddle with a few things, but he gets it running pretty quick.  They take it to Dad's to load the fuel tank.

Mom, Sil and I walk down to Diego and Nira's camp, picking weeds along the way.  They have a good pile of logs cut already.  I open the roll of plastic and spread it out.  It's 20' X 100', so it'll cover one side and the roof in one strip.  We all work together to get it up and over the top.  #1 staples it into place while Diego and #2 keep cutting trees.

We women walk down to the creek and scoop water.  The buckets are heavy and I wish the boys had dropped the bathtub closer.  I shove a plastic bag in the drain with a rock and hope that the tub will hold the water.  I take the ashes and pour water over them.  We pour the rest of the water in the tub and go back for more.  The water is holding when we get back, and the water has dripped through the ashes into the second bucket.  I explain to Nira that this is lye water.  It's what soap used to be made with.  It's stronger if it sits longer, but it should work for now.  I pour it in the tub, then pour more water over the ashes.

"Throw your laundry in and slosh it around."  Nira doesn't look impressed.  "Or you can keep wearing them until they stink bad enough to run around naked."  I take the baler twine and walk away.

I find a couple of trees that look like a good spot to hang laundry and tie the baler twine in place.  I tell #1 I need a laundry pole.  He finds me a small tree with a fork in it, cuts it down and trims the branches off.  It's about 8' high.  Perfect.  I stick it under the baler twine and use it to lift it up higher in the middle.

#2 shows Diego how to notch the logs to fit together.  They start on the back side of the cabin, with no windows.  I watch them put the first three logs in place.  Then I tell Diego to take the clay they've been digging up and smoosh it in between the logs.  That's actually a good job for the kids, and it'll give Nira more laundry to practice on.

#1, Sil and I cover the ends and remaining side of the cabin with plastic, then cut out the door and windows.

Mom, Sil and I walk back to the house to make lunch.  It's leftover beef soup today, with extra weeds and a few more potatoes.  Sil takes the dried weeds off the plant stands and stuffs them into old jars.  Then she spreads the fresh weeds out to dry.  Mom washes a bunch of dishes for me.  We leave the soup on the stove to simmer and walk over to Mom and Dad's.

The men have the fuel tank in the box of the truck and bolted into place.  They're debating whether to put the box on or not.  The box will hide it, and keep whoever's riding in the back warmer and dry, but it'll also block their view and might prevent them from being able to get a good shot if needed.  In the end they decide to put it on, out of sight, out of mind.

The truck is ready to go.  We walk back to our house for lunch.  Everyone else is already there.  They're waiting outside this time though.  We eat lunch together.  The Bigs are going back with Diego and Nira to finish the cabin after lunch.  Mom, Dad, Brother and Sil all decide to go back to their places.  I invite them all back for supper.

Husband and I decide to cut firewood for the afternoon.  The woodshed is filling slowly.  We cut from the lot across the road.  It's not our land, but it's close and convenient. Afterwards we decide to walk to the back and see how things are progressing.

The cabin looks pretty cozy when we get there.  The walls are all up and the kids look like they're having fun, running back and forth with their hands full of clay.  They've got one side done.  Diego has the windows installed.  The Bigs have built a door.  They're standing in the doorway wondering how to attach it without hinges.  We tell them it looks good.  The kids are excited.  They want to sleep in it tonight.  Of course for them, it's like camping in the woods.

We go inside and look it over.  It's only 12'X16', so every inch will have to be planned carefully.  We talk about a loft for the kids to sleep in, with a bed underneath for Diego and Nira.  They can both be built from logs.  The other end of the cabin will have to be the kitchen, and left empty for now, until we work out the stove situation.  I wonder if the cow hide would be strong enough to hold the door up.  Husband doesn't think so, but rubber would.  We have some old tires that can be cut up and nailed into place.

We all walk back to the house together, and cook up a stir fry with yesterday's partridge, lots of weeds, and a pot of rice.  Mom, Dad, Brother and Sil join us.  Everyone is full and happy.

Brother and Sil will go to town in the morning to call Friend and see if they made it.  I have a stack of books that I want to take into the library.  We decide to give Tori another work out and take the horse cart.  Nira wants to go too, so she can pick out some books and check the store for supplies.  She and I will ride, with the others in the cart.

I finish another book before drifting off to sleep.

Day Seven

It's been a week without power.  We're doing ok, all things considered.  I'm not the first one up today.  I find #2 in the kitchen, with the stove warmed up and tea in the pot already.  He doesn't know how to make coffee, so I show him.  Husband gets up next, and then the rest of the boys.  I make pancakes again, and make them stick with blueberry sauce.  We can't have four open jars of jam with no fridge.

I check the water bottle I left outside the day before.  It's starting to freeze.  I take it down to the cold room and put it in the cooler.  I set out another bottle, so I'll be able to switch them every day.

Husband and the Bigs are going to work on the outhouse today.  They think there's enough press board for walls, and they'll use logs and 2X4s for the bench over the hole.  There might be enough tin for the roof.  I tell them to wrap the whole thing in plastic as well.  I'm glad I bought the roll for the hay shed that isn't finished yet.  I regret that we never made it to the lumber mill for another load of 2X6s.

The Littles start bringing in their toys.  I tell them to take them all up to their room and clean their room up as well.

I put the crabapple juice on the stove to boil, then set up my strainer to squeeze the pulp through.  I'm busy for awhile, chopping the last tomatoes, an onion, celery, etc.  This batch will be catsup.  By the time I get it on the stove to cook, everyone is in for lunch, and I mention hanging Casper.  They don't look thrilled about it, but agree that it'll cut down on hay consumption.  They make sandwiches.  I start three more batches of bread.  I'll take some to mom in the morning.  I take a couple of little hams out of the freezer and put them in a pot to boil.  I take the crabapple catsup off the stove and set it aside.  It can wait til tomorrow.

The Littles finish cleaning their room and bring down a mountain of laundry.  Oh joy.  Most of it can wait, but everyone probably needs some socks and underwear washed.  I send #3 out for a bucket.  I fill it half full of hot water from the stove, put it in the bathtub, and pour in a bit of laundry soap.  I use the plunger to suds it up a bit, then start sorting through the laundry hamper.  When the bucket is full of assorted underthings I start plunging it.  After about 5 minutes, I pull some out and look them over.  I think they look pretty good, so I yell for another bucket.  The wet things are transferred and  I start another batch while the water's still warm, and toss in a couple of t-shirts.  The water looks pretty rough when I'm done this batch, but I throw in one pair of jeans at a time, and do a pair for each of us.  I take them out to the clothesline and hang them up.  I don't bother ringing them out- they'll dry, they'll just take longer.

This washing doesn't make much of a dent in the laundry pile, but at least we'll have a few cleaner things to wear.

Husband goes to get the tractor after lunch.  I roll out the bread while he's gone.

The Bigs gather up chains and come-alongs, hatchet, hammer and knives.  We cut Casper out of the herd- they're all standing by the gate eating hay- and out into the yard.  He knows this is weird, we're usually chasing him back into the pasture, not the other way around.  Husband shoots him, and he drops on the spot.  I cut his throat.  We chain him up to the tractor and take him down the trail to our hanging trees.  #2 and I work on gutting him while Husband and #1 get the come-along hooked up between the trees.  Husband uses the hatchet and hammer to break through the pelvic bone.  They hoist him up and we finish pulling the guts through.  They lower him back to the ground, chain him back to the tractor, and into the garage he goes.

He's too big to hang in one piece, so we cut him in half from the third lowest rib, and hang each half.  Then we skin each half.  It's well past dark when we're done, and we're all cold, tired and hungry.  The hams are well done, but I didn't start any potatoes.  We decide to eat the ham with beets and call it a day.  I put the oven over the stove top and put in the first batch of bread before we eat.  I pull it out and put in the second batch after supper.  I sit and read while I wait for it to finish.  Finally the third batch is in.  Once it's done I go to bed, exhausted.