At Home…in Alaska

Archive for June, 2008

Officially posted 1/09/09

Chickens

6/1 2

6/2 2

6/6 1 (M) Also, found 3 outside. Believe they are from 5/30 & 31 or 1 might be from 6/3 (the days we let them out.)

6/7 2

6/8 1 (L)

6/9 1 (M)

6/10 2

6/11 1 (M)

6/12 1 (M)

6/14 1 (M)

6/15 2

6/18 2

Total = 21 Good Girls!

Wildlife

Night of the 9th or early morning on the 10th a bear tore off the rubber matting we had covering the cat door on the side garage door.

6/12 Went hiking in evening around Arm - bear made us leave earlier than anticipated!

Night of the 12th or early morning on the 13th a bear tore at a box we had put in front of the cat door to block it off from smaller critters.

In family news, we visited with my dad (who had just returned from VT) at G & J’s house in the afternoon on 6/18. His cousins BJ and Kathy were also there from VT up for my cousin T.A.’s wedding. My cousin S.S. (T.A.’s sister) stopped by with her children a bit later and then they all left for the Peninsula.

Again, a short update/review. Knifemaking still in full swing. Busy, busy, busy!!

Until next time,

Life is crazy busy. I must live it right now and write about it later. (Or not. ) The most you will be seeing from me is an updated sidebar for probably a week or two.

Blessings to all and I hope you are having a great summer!

Oh, and a…

-*-*-Happy Independence Day!!-*-*-

while I’m at it.

~Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥

Here are the books we’ve finished for our history reading since at least last fall. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these and normally it would be on our homeschool blog. But, that blog has been “down” for ages and I just don’t have the time or the inclination to get it back up and running again. I’m back to thinking it’s much easier to maintain one blog and lumping everything together. I’ll let you all sort it out. Don’t read if you aren’t interested in the topic…you know what I mean. I’ll have to dig into tables to find when officially I did my last “books finished update”…I’m thinking that between the beginning of last summer and fall some might have fallen through my tracking meter…but maybe not. Also, this list is simply what we have finished as history/reading read-alouds. It does not reflect the many many books we go through in a course of a week or even a day! Voracious readers here - even those not actually reading words yet. If I tried to track *every* book read (!!!)…well, it just wouldn’t happen! Anyhow, enjoy perusing through and hopefully you’ll find something good that you haven’t read yet. Or, if you have read one of the books listed, tell us about it!
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To show or not to show? That is a question we’ve pondered off and on…

My dh has decided that at this time we aren’t going to. For one thing, we make knives for a local company that does it already and we don’t want to be in direct competition with him. That would be like shooting ourselves in the foot…a painful and stupid thing to do. Plus, it’s a lot of work and we are already juggling quite a bit. We know another family that does many of the shows/fairs in our area (different products than ours) and it eats up their summer and most holidays. They are a larger homeschooling family than we are and sometimes I wonder how they “do it all.” LOL (That infamous lurking thought in all homeschooling family’s heads when we lapse into comparing ourselves. ) Coming back from my tangent, we don’t want that to happen either. The limited amount of time that we already get to spend hiking, etc. is very precious to us during these short summers.

Anyhow, that didn’t stop me from cruising through this site that has trade show display booths and lots of other neat business display stuff! If nothing else, I guess we could pass along the link in case those we know that do shows don’t know about it.

Just some more of my never-ending business ponderings…

Blessings,
~Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥

Here are some links to bloggers who love using an Ulu knife!

Bobbi

Ben

Angie

Tony/Mike D.

Tricia
(Her post is particularly funny!)

Name ???
(Language/Content Warning!)

What are you waiting for? Don’t you just want one for yourself? You know where to get one,…

Blessings,
~Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥

* Disclaimer: I do not know the entire content of the blogs associated with the above links and will not be held accountable for them. I have simply listed posts pertaining to the topic at hand and have mention warnings where my own moral values deemed it necessary. Use your own common sense and discretion in viewing the above posts and the blogs containing them. Thanks!

Okay, here are the new cloth pads I finished recently.

Again, these are from recycled materials and simply zig-zag stitched around the edge. My serger still isn’t up and running yet. It’s an older model that I don’t have a manual for and it has a broken piece that I need to fix. I’ve done a bit of looking online for a manual but so far haven’t come up with anything. So once I’ve gotten all that squared away, I think the pads will look even nicer. I’m definitely happy with them already though so no biggy. Also, the pads don’t have snaps on them and I do intend to add those as well. I have an old snap tool that dh has had for the longest time (inherited no doubt from his mother when she moved) that has been languishing in some leather crafting stuff of his in the shop. When I said I wanted to go to the craft store to get a snap tool, he pulled it out and showed it to me asking if would work. I don’t know at this point…I think I’ll still have to go to the craft store just to compare it, etc. It doesn’t have a brand name on it that I can see except the words “E-Z Buckle” which isn’t a brand I don’t think just the name of the tool of whatever brand it is (if that makes sense). The pads work ok without the snap - at least so far as I’ve just been home while using them and didn’t do anything too active such as hiking, etc. I’m sure I want the added security of the snap though so that research is amongst the top of my list of things to do.

Blesssings,
~Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥

We have been in “remodeling mode” around here for quite some time. In our discussions about walls and windows, I’ve been telling dh for the past few years that I want to replace all the blinds in the house with wrought iron curtain rods and curtains. (I know that’s more of a “redecorating” issue than “remodeling” but it all ties in…bear with me. ) Our living room used to have wooden blinds…the originals from the seventies. Dh took them down about 4 years ago because, when drawn up, they blocked about 2 inches of his vision out the window (he’s quite tall). I wanted to do the curtain thing then but he wasn’t keen on it and wanted me to wait on it anyway due to him wanting to repaint, etc. He wanted to just put up some temporary cheaper *thinner* blinds until we could come to a final decision and had the work done that needed to be done. It’s been 4 years. Then, we took down the vertical blinds in the dining area not too long after that because they were really worn and ugly and we just happened to have been given a set of “regular” blinds that would fit there…again, temporarily. Now, a set of blinds in the living room broke last year. Dh cut the strings so they wouldn’t be lopsided and we’ve lived with just twisting those open and closed instead of drawing them up and down. Eventually, that set started to lose slats and started to look really bad. Recently, the “new” blinds that had been hung over the sliding door had a string fray and so we were living with it half drawn when I even bothered to draw them on that side. (I wouldn’t have bothered to draw that one at all if I weren’t so desperate to let as much light in as possible…it’s Alaska remember? The Land of the Dark for more than half the year. ) Thankfully, it was the side that was just window not door. Well, yesterday, something happened with another set of the blinds in the living room. (We have four windows across that wall.) I don’t even know what it was. I heard one of the girls call to me saying something about the boys and the blinds and before I could address it…almost before I could turn around…dh was removing that blind as well! Then he says to me, “Don’t you have some curtains we can put across here.” !!!!! I won’t mention the lack of memory on certain details of said topic… I just told him no I didn’t have any and would think of something.
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a knife making family when your 3yo dd is playing with her dolls and this is what you hear:

Girl Doll - “Daddy give me a piggyback.”

Daddy Doll - “I can’t. I’m making knives.”

Girl Doll - “Okay. Those knives hurt you?”

Daddy Doll - “They did hurt me.”

Mommy Doll - “Oh dear!”

Daddy Doll - “Take me to the doctor!”

Mommy Doll - “I can’t. I’m busy.”

LOL LOL LOL

Now, while our knives are extremely sharp, we can count on one hand the number of times dh has had a serious injury. (We are *not* counting the times either of us have been “knicked” by them though… ) And, I’d never refuse to take him to the doctor/hospital if he asked/told me to!!! That silly little girl. LOL One of those times though, he did ask me to stitch him up…and I said, “I can’t!” Aaaah, the wonders of duct tape!!!! (I’m not kidding! ) If it really were a matter of life or death, I’m sure I *could*…like if we were out in the boondocks with no one else around…and the local firestation wasn’t but 5 min. or less up the road…or we didn’t have friends or family that were highly trained nurses, etc. Sheesh. It’s just neither of us likes to go to the doctor or have unnecessary medical bills and are “do it yourselfers” in as many areas of life as possible. Did I mention duct tape?

Yeah, it’s an interesting knife making life we lead.

Blessings,
~Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥

Isn’t this beautiful?! I would love to keep it for myself.

Blessings,
~Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥

I got on the freebie band wagon this past month. Thought I’d share what came in the mail for us.

In this large family, trial sizes aren’t going to go very far but I had an idea that prompted me to start this craziness. We have a “car box” as we call it. It is a small plastic tote in which we keep emergency supplies but it can also double as an impromptu snack/picnicing/camping box in a pinch. A few items it contains: flashlight and batteries (although I’m going to eventually replace these with a wind up flashlight - which we all have anyway but keep in our own various packbacks/purses/bags), matches, soap, sanitary hand cleaner, small pouch first aid kit, ½ gal. of H2O, plastic cups and utensils, etc. It also had quick emergency food type items that had gotten used up and I hadn’t replaced yet. My bright idea? Start filling it with food and other types of samples that could come in handy in pinch! One type of cereal freebie will not satisfy 7 children…but 7 samples will. Shampoo samples, handy wipe samples, pain reliever samples, etc….all small and fit great and you don’t need much as they are for “emergencies.” Perfect! So, with a handful of exceptions, most of what is shown above has made it’s way into our car box. Now the children can’t wait to go on a road trip and dig into the surprises!

That’s my frugal tip for this week! Do you keep a car emergency box? What do you have in yours?

Blessings,
~Tamara
♥ oxoxox ♥