THE BIRDS!!!

You know the saying, "Birds of a feather flock together?" Well, if that saying has any truth to it, then we've got problems! We've had a few encounters with birds today. It was really pretty enjoyable, you know, all that nature stuff!

THE BIRDS PART I

Joey came running up the driveway yelling, "I found a chick, I found a chick!" At first, I thought one of our hens had hatched a clutch of eggs (Wishful thinking. My hens are too busy eating all the broccoli out of the garden to do anything else. But I digress.)

Upon closer inspection, we saw that Joey had a baby killdeer. The fact that both the mother and father were frantically calling and pretending to have broken wings about thirty feet away might have helped with the identification!

Of course, we made Joey put it back where he found it. We're sensitive, earth-loving, people...after we took these pictures. I'm sure that the chick is now happily re-united with its parents, warning all of its siblings about the dangers of the great world beyond the nest.


THE BIRDS STRIKE BACK
(Not really. I just thought that sounded like a good second title)

Daniel is holding a hummingbird. I'm not sure what type it is. I'm hoping the family's resident expert on all things hummingbird (Abby) will leave us a comment and tell us what kind it is. We took such a great picture, I'm sure she'll have NO problem identifying it!

Here is a better picture. They are amazing little creatures. Beautiful, teensy-weensy things. They also have quite a bit of audacity and spunk! And they don't like to hold still, thus the not-so-clear pictures. This is the second time we've caught one in our cabins in the past week!

Well, those were our encounters with our feathered friends today. I guess I could throw in a few pictures of the chickens to go with the bird theme, but I'm holding a grudge against them right now. In fact, I'd better go check the garden and make sure the broccoli is still standing.



Posted by: Mama

Follow The Yellow Blog Road

Hello! If you hadn't noticed yet, I (Katie) posted a wonderful blog about our recent remodel of our little cabin. But...I posted it on R.G.'s political blog instead of this one, which is dedicated to our life in the Ozarks. Oops!

Well, just "Follow The Yellow Blog Road" and click on the Southern Nationalist link to the right and you will see "The Great Remodeling Adventure".

Thanks for putting up with me in my blogging infancy!

Katie

The Ice Storm of 2009

Last week we experienced for the first time an Ice Storm. To put it honestly, it wasn't all that bad, except for the bitter cold, hard and slippery terrain, and lack of power for a couple days. The worst effect of the storm was the fact that our water lines froze when the power went out, and it took forever to get them thawed. We did have plenty of drinking water, but we had to haul it up from the Spring. We now have power and water back and are enjoying life getting back to normal.

Matthew made chocolate snow ice cream

Daniel prefers vanilla snow ice cream.

The kids enjoying their frosty treat.

Joey and Sam drawing in the snow

Matthew doing something to a truck

Daniel's Alter-Ego. Chad the Snowboarder.

Trees Covered in Ice

Our dog Daisy

The fence.

Samuel with an icicle

Rachel and Sam by the creek.

The Spring never froze, in fact it was flowing better than ever after the storm.

Fence Building

Y'all,
Here are pictures of our new fence we are building. By the way, I was busy WORKING at my job while these pics were being taken. I put the wire up, but didn't get my picture taken.

Samuel with our first bull.

Looks like we'll have to AI for a while.

These are backwards, but this is the finished product minus hanging the gate.

Matthew cut these cedar line posts off our property.

Daddy and Daniel measuring an H brace.

Setting a corner post.

Using the auger made digging easier. Daddy ran the tractor, Daniel hung on the auger, while Matthew guided it.

Still digging....

Here is our Ford 8n Tractor our Uncle left us. It was built in the late 40s and is still working great.

We've been tagged!

We have been tagged by Grandmama and the Franklins in an attempt to make us FINALLY post on our blog, and it succeeded!

Now, 7 things about 7 people in our family:

1. Mama is wrong-hand.... I mean left handed haha. When she was a teenager she subscribed to a magazine for lefties where you had to read from right to left.

2. R.G. is perfectly normal with no interesting attributes.......

3. Matthew can sound more like a black person than Jesse Jackson.

4. Daniel currently has a slice on his upper thigh from a chainsaw....... too bad he can't show off the scar..... but wait!!!!! Speedo man is coming out next summer!!!!

5. Benny got us in trouble with the school board in Florida because, as he said it, "we don't go to school".

6. Andrew was the biggest baby, at 8lbs 8oz. He likes drawing and he obsesses over mammoths, bulls and elephants.

7. When Rachel found out Samuel was a boy, she started crying, but a few minutes later when she held him she didn't mind anymore.

We are now humanely, painlessley, quietly euthanizing the "tagging" monster, as we have no-one left to tag. (R.G. now goes out back with a pistol and shoots the tagging monster in the frontal lobe of the cerebrum)


RG

Our Spring - by Daniel

When we moved to Arkansas, we thought we might have to haul water in a tank to our property. When we got here, we found out our spring would pump enough water for our family! We helped the Pollocks (good friends from Florida who helped us move) build a cistern around the spring and hooked a pump to it, ran the pipes about 100 feet to the cabins, and then we had water!

Well, I sure am thankful that the Lord blessed us with a good spring and we didnt have to haul water.

Daniel

First Real Post

Howdy Friends and Family,


This is my first real post on my personal blog, and I am using mama's camera on her cell phone, so the picture quality may not be the best. However, I hope y'all enjoy the update and the pictures.



What we've done lately:




Well, my two younger brothers and I have been working 5 or 6 days a week at different farms around here, and with a family we go to church with, so we have been real busy. Our work varies from building fence, throwing hay, working on tractors, logging, splitting firewood, and various other jobs. The Lord has been good to us, and given us plenty of work. Come winter time, I have been offered a job at the local feed store, as our line of work starts to slow down, I'll probably work there.




The rest of the family has been holding down the fort here, taking care of the animals, the garden, and everyday life. This past weekend, Daddy was here, so we got alot of work around the property done, and I have some pictures of that.

We are getting some more chicks in later this month, alot of layer pullets, and a bunch of broilers to replace the ones we just butchered. The Lord has given us many new friends that our in our church, and one of those families has a chicken slaughtering operation set up that we can use in return for help slaughtering their chickens. It sure beats doing them by hand. Our friends, the three oldest boys in our family, and a couple other friends did over 300 chickens - slaughtered, packed, and ready for sale from 9am-2pm. Talk about quick......


Well, I have ten minutes left to post this, and add pictures, so that's all I'll write today.

P.S. I also have a few pictures from the "Defending Your Faith Conference" in Branson, a Vision Forum, and Answers in Genesis conference.

Gabriel (A buddy of mine), Matthew (My younger brother), Peter (My cousin), and me after the conference in Branson.




My cousins and I playing music at a friend's house.






Stricklens, Grandmama and Grandaddy, and us.




The whole Frodge clan minus Uncle Jay, Aunt Ashley and Savannah - after church.













Some of the trees we felled. Most for firewood, a couple for the sawmill.

Mama with some of our tomatoes.

Daniel Dodgers' (Our nickname for our slightly over-descriptive younger brother) homemade shelf, he felled the trees with a fork, and carved it with his fingernails. He killed kodiaks to use their teeth for the pegs.

Some of us cousins playing music in Branson.

Our Faithful BBQ Smoker. We've smoked many a chicken, pork roast, ribs, and beef roasts on it,
and we can't wait to try our venison on it come deer season.

Our chicken pen, converted from a hog shelter. It works well
for us, and we just finished building a brooder in half of it.

Our pig, a hampshire barr. We have it in a movable pen, down along the creek bottom.
I'm hoping to show it in the county fair this year.





The End