Friday, December 21, 2007

Kitchen!

Well it's finally that time. There looks like actual there might be a kitchen in the near future. The floor is done, the walls are painted, the cabinets are put together, the plumbing is in. In the last week I have gotten two blessings from the heavens (and hard work by Mike and Dad) I have a temporary sink and a running dishwasher! It's the most amazing thing to be able to rinse a dish off without struggling. And even more amazing is the ability to put the dish in the dishwasher and not have to look at it! I LOVE IT! I've put some pictures below and will try to get some of what it looks like right now with the cabinets in. We are currently shopping for a new stove and trying to decide upon counter top. Can't wait...

I have been on a serious hiatus, so an update for you:

We had a lovely holiday and then vacation to Florida with the whole Moore clan. Disney with Samone, Joe and Walker, not to mention Mike was a blast! Pictures below. The camera died for good on vacation and we have decided on a shiny new one that we will order soon. I'm in my second semester of Portuguese and all is going well so far. Mike was rather happy to have been successful in his hunting endeavors. He got two does on the last day of the season. We have venison in our freezer for this year, yum!

The next item on the docket is the next Make & Freeze. This time there are 14 people participating. Wow! Hopefully it goes just as well as last time or better.

I also am beginning planning for a little birthday celebration for Mr. Keenan. Waiting for the big anniversary as well! Can't believe it's been a whole year. Busy busy....

December & January

Thursday, December 6, 2007

In November, the snow starts to fly, piling up ankle high.

Come December, it's up to your knee, still a bride's a bride-to-be. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Thanksgiving in Ohio was great. It was a long and late drive down on Wednesday night, but nice to be able to ride along to Cleveland on Thursday. Thanksgiving dinner at the Stephenson's was full of fun, love and excitement. The excitement came in two types, firstly Nick and Juli are PREGNANT! Secondly, Aunt Debbi and Uncle Bob brought all kinds of glass and pottery to give away! It was so much fun. The goats and chickens weren't far behind, supplying eggs and chevre cheese to the masses.

The rest of the weekend was filled with a visit to the Zoo to see the "Wild Lights", over 3 million lights were up. It was so neat to see all the animals taking naps, or in some cases with the nocturnal ones, up and about! We also had an early sibling Christmas as we will all be apart this year. I got a fantastic salt and pepper shaker set from Patricia that were chicken feet! I love them. Also Christy and Doug found the most gorgeous butterfly pin for me in New Orleans. Mike got a great jacket from Christy and Doug as well. Momma and Poppa Keenan will be running the roads to visit all of us for individual Christmas celebrations this year. We're up first with a December 15-16 Keenan Christmas.

My first Portuguese class is almost over. I have done pretty well I think. Eu fala português muito bom! Can't wait to have a break though. Have a lot to catch up on, including working in the kitchen.

The kitchen re-modeling is coming along, slowly but surely. We have most of the floorboards replaced and are going to have to order filler in bulk to fill all the cracks and holes! I am taking a day off on Monday, so I can have 3 days to refinish the floor. Hopefully, I get it all done!

Lastly, I organized the 3rd successful Make & Freeze. The menu was 10 dishes. With many more people than last time. 12 different people were making all or some of the dishes! And from experience I can tell you shopping for that amount of food isn't easy. It also draws a lot of odd looks and questions when you pile 45 lbs of brisket and 30 lbs of ground turkey in a cart that is already full!

Well the camera is back in semi-working order. Check out the new pictures... the album also includes pictures from our October Columbus Zoo visit courtesy of Momma K.

Zoo & Thanksgiving 2007

Monday, November 19, 2007

Another Month Nearly Gone

The year seems to be flying by because we still haven't slowed down yet. November brought about a very lovely birthday weekend for me. I got some great presents for my blooming little farm. A cute new egg basket, books on keeping dairy goats and backyard chickens were all exciting additions to my book shelf. I also got gorgeous new black pearl earrings from my wonderful husband! We had a nice quiet night out with friends and shared family birthday dinner the next night.

The floorboards have arrived for the kitchen! Mike and I have gotten some work done on the floors, but it has been slow indeed. We are doing the best we can with the time we have. Hopefully once I finish my Portuguese class for the semester we can get the floor wrapped up. And move on to cabinets. Kitchens are definitely hard projects.

This week we will traveling down to Ohio for Thanksgiving with the Keenan's, Dodd's and Stephenson's. I can smell the turkey and pie already and cannot wait to see everyone again.

We finally weened Bell from milk drinking. We are now milking 2 times a day and
with all the excess milk our cheese making is hitting new highs! Our second experimentation with Chevre was an absolute success. We also made another batch of feta and plan on making more chevre today to take down to Ohio with us. I also tried my first round of cottage cheese. Not quite sure how that turned out yet. I think that once we taste it tonight it will definitely need some tweaking. I will have to get pictures of all our beautiful cheese up here soon.

Excited for the long weekend! New pictures below.......

11/19/2007

Monday, October 22, 2007

October is nearly gone

October is nearly gone and I haven't written a thing! Well here is an update, late as always.

On the good news side of life: the big transaction I was spending millions of hours on at work has completed! I have definitely learned a lot from this first multi-million deal. Can't wait to do another! (well maybe in a year or so)

The new chickens are laying eggs. We have went from 5 eggs a day to an average of 13!

Vernors is accidentally pregnant! Almost as unexpected as Bell & Heineken upon their arrival. Apparently those that quoted me the 3 month mark for bucklings to be able to reproduce, WERE WRONG! Also, I would like to quell the idea that does go into heat in late October. That also IS WRONG! hehe. Oh well, new kids are coming our way in January-or-so.

The kitchen has not been moving too quickly. But, we may have found boards that we can use to fix our 100 year old floor. Very exciting news, to me! Also Mike has started some of the plumbing deconstruction. One of these days, we'll get there.

On the bad news front: the saddest item I have to share is the loss of Heineken. Unfortunately, he got a urinary track blockage and ended up bursting his urethra. It was a very sad day when we took him to the vet and he had to be put down. I'm a little shook up and I have to admit panicky about the new "little Heinekens" on the way. Just worried that I could lose another one little one and that makes me sad. Heineken and his cute jumping skills will be missed very much.

Thankfully the only other bad news I have is the death of our camera. Silver Lake and the sand, I think, has done it in. So, that means no new pictures! It has been with Best Buy for 3 weeks. I will not start my rant and rave on how ridiculous that is, let's just say that I am frustrated and Best Buy will not be seeing anymore business from us!

Off to Columbus this weekend to visit Mom & Dad Keenan and hopefully, weather permitting, a zoo visit.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Fall is coming...

Fall is coming, well maybe it is already here and I'm in denial, but oh well. I'm not really ready for Fall and all of it's pretty leaves and crisp mornings.

On one of our last super warm weekends, we were fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of it. A fantastic trip to Silver Lake was in store for us last weekend and it definitely turned out to be just that.

Three buggies went up to the dunes and all three came back. To our surprise, not really broken at all. We had such a nice time with Brett, Jeanna, Renee and Will. Can't wait to get the dune buggy tuned up even more and head back up next summer.

We also have squeezed in some work on the kitchen in the last few weeks. Check out the progress with the Silver Lake pictures.

Another adventure this weekend as all of the planning I have been doing for the Make & Freeze group is going to test & tune. We have the first Make & Freeze (where a group of us get together, make a bunch of meals that we can then put into the freezer for future use) this Saturday. I'm excited that it will cut down on the food prep time in our busy household. Plus it will be a fun day!

Silver Lake 2007

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Auntie - Nephew Trip 2007

Well, after a small amount of contemplation, I decided that of course I love my nephews as much as my niece. I concluded that in fact I wanted to do a trip with the boys as well. We had a great time this last weekend taking a trip to the Pigeon River Country State Forest Area in northern Michigan. Here is a link to the beautiful area, Pigeon River Country Association.

We had a very adventuresome weekend. We camped at Pickerel Lake. A very nice "rustic" campground. The lake was pretty and Sunday morning Walker and I spotted two loons. Saturday we went on an ambitious 6 mile hike on the Shingle Mill Pathway. It was about 2 miles too long for my companion hikers. After many breaks and one shortcut we made it. We encountered only a little of the wildlife, but we did see many signs of them. I did a very excellent job of not looking terrified when I realized that I was in 99,000 acres of wilderness with two small boys and lots of bears. (See the picture of the bear track! We saw a lot of them. Yikes!) Sunday was filled more hiking and swimming. It was a terrific weekend.

This week will be filled with lots of work on the kitchen. I will definitely post some new pictures soon, because we have walls again!! Hooray for the drywall.

Auntie - Nephew Trip 2007

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Kitchen Progress!!

Well the kitchen just might get done one day. We had a big weekend of demolition thanks to our great friends, Nate and Denise. They were an enormous help in the major undertaking of busting out all the plaster & lath walls. Hopefully we can get the re-wiring done next week and then it's time for drywall!!

Check the pictures!

Kitchen Re-Modeling

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Goodbye July

Goodbye July... and off to a busy start for August.

We had two fantastic weekends in a row with the Ohio relatives! First Mike's parents joined us for a visit before Momma Keenan has to start back to work. We spent a lovely weekend together and crowned it with an exciting trip to the Mackinaw Bridge and the Soo Locks. We made the Keenans into Fudgies and treated them to their first UP experience.

The very next weekend we took a day off of work and traveled down to Sedwood for Cousin's Weekend 2007. To say that we are proud of ourselves might be an understatement. A half barrel of choice beverage consumed in a little over 24 hours was an accomplishment! We had lots of fun Dodd family bonding. Can't wait for CW '08!

The garden is exploding with produce. Summer squash, peas, beans, cabbage, peppers, carrots and lots of other good stuff is appearing! I'm excited that the sweet corn will soon be ready and I can't wait for the first tomato to ripen! Tomato sandwiches... yummmmmmmy!

August will continue our busy summer as Samone and I get ready for our Annual Auntie-Niece Trip. We will be off to LA this year to visit the final American Girl store! Then we have two more weddings for the season. Check the new photos below.

Click on the picture to see the album.

July 31, 2007


Thursday, July 26, 2007

Memorial

A small memorial to the chickens that have moved on to the big chicken coop in the sky.

We had a rodent (of some type) get into the coop and take off with 3 chickens. It puts our loss at 4 for this year including Lucy.

A small tribute to the great chickens that didn't make it. We shall miss you.

Tribute to Spice, Sugar, Salt and Lucy...RIP



Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Busy 3 Weeks

Well it certainly has bee a busy last couple weeks. We went to Josh & Leyna's Wedding. Then Down to Myrtle Beach for a little Bachelor/Bachelorette mayhem and then Will & Renee's Wedding this weekend. Whew!

Unfortunately my grandmother also passed away and we had to deal with funeral and wedding at the same time. That was certainly stressful.

Both weddings were absolutely beautiful and we had a great time at both despite the added stress at Will & Renee's.

We also got the chance to make something of all our extra goat milk! A very tasty and successful wild blackberry ice cream was made and feta cheese. The feta actually hit tragedy last night. We discovered that we had left it out at room temperature for too long with no ventilation. That made for a moldy mess that had to be chalked up to cheese making experience for the next time around.

We also got a little surprise when Juliet decided to crow last week. Please note that he is officially re-named Jules and does not like discussion of his former life as a girl.

There were other untimely endings in the last few weeks also. Lucy, one of the chickens, met her maker. She got picked on by the larger chickens and couldn't recover. This is only our third chicken death in the family and we are sad to see her go. Also the Suburban saw the end of the road. Something terminal in transmission / transfer case was the end of it.

All in all it sure was a busy time! I've added some highlight photos below.
July 11, 2007





Monday, June 18, 2007

People should not drive with casts on their driving foot!

Well... it certainly was an exciting week. For those of you who didn't hear I was in a car accident last Wednesday, June 13th. I was sitting at a stoplight, when a lady rear-ended me at approximately 35 mph. She was wearing a cast on her driving foot and got it stuck and couldn't hit the breaks to stop! Here is a good lesson; be aware of your capabilities. I got some severe whiplash and I am still recovering. My car on the other hand, hasn't recovered yet. She has to have some work done this week or next week.

Mom and Dad Keenan came up from Ohio for a visit in the nick of time. They were already planning on coming for a visit but were an enormous help while I was laid up from the accident. Momma K did so many chores for us around the house and took very good care of me. It really ended up being a great visit, even though I was injured. I was asleep for most of Thursday, but I was home and more awake Friday. I had a great time spending the day with them. Momma K took some great pictures of the goats and garden.

Saturday, I thought I felt 100% better so we washed goats and did lot of other things around the yard. Boy was I wrong. Sunday, I realized that maybe I should have taken it easy on Sat. Still healing up and trying to not take any painkillers or muscle-relaxers.

Click on the picture below to see the album.

June 18, 2007



Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Names - We have Names!

It has been an eventful and busy weekend. We have some names. The little boy goat is officially named Heineken. Since Pepsi and Vernors are named after soda pop, we thought we'd switch to the hard stuff for our first kids. Plus I think we both needed some of the hard stuff after the shock of having twin baby goats!

Additionally we have some new chicken names.

In a prior post we learned about
Juliet, Lucy, Ethel, Bandit, Huey, Dewey and Louie.

We now have Spice and Bertie. I will have to do a photo shoot of all of the new chickens and post them with names.

Click on the picture below to see the album.
June 12, 2007

Friday, June 8, 2007

Emergency News Flash!!!!

Much to our surprise, Mike & I became the proud owners of two more goats!!

Pepsi was pregnant and we didn't even realize it! She had always been bigger than Vernors and we just thought she was fat. Last night we found out she was actually pregnant and we have twins! A little boy and a little girl!

See the pictures of the adorable new additions to our very quickly growing family!

Click on this photo to see the album.
Baby Goats!

Monday, June 4, 2007

Back in the"Blogging" Saddle Again

It has been an eventful 2 weeks. The garden has definitely benefited from the sun and the little bit of rain we've gotten. Saturday I picked arugula, loose leaf lettuce and spinach and there were a full basket of each. The peas also got a little pick me up with some trellis made from sticks and twine. The peas look much happier now that they have something to climb on.

Hilary visited Michigan for Labor Day (CORRECTION Memorial Day) weekend and came out to the house to hang out with the goats and all the new chickens. She named one of the Bantam chicks Bertie. Fantastic name I think! We also found out that Brian & Erin, Mike's friends from college, are having a baby in December.

This last weekend Mike spent a full day celebrating bachelorhood for Nick Atwood's upcoming nuptials. And the most exciting thing of all was a trip IKEA! A new kitchen was fully designed and purchased. Woohoo! We will definitely be posting our kitchen remodeling progress through the next month. We have to paint the walls, refinish the floors and install new cabinets. Whew, sounds like a lot of "rewarding" work!

Here are pictures of the goats, Hilary's animal adventures and a night out with Chris & Nicolette.

Click on this photo to see the album.
June 4, 2007

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

First Blog - A Pictorial

So, I have resorted to trying a blog. We shall see how it goes. I may need coaching and encouragement from Christy and Doug to keep this up!

The main reason for this new blog is to keep family in the loop, so I thought I'd begin with a pictorial of some new things in our life.

First up - the garden that I have been working so hard on and e
njoying.


The lettuce, spinich and other greens are going to be ready this week!


Next are the new chicky-babies.


The older chicks are goofy looking. The new ones arefluffy and cute. We have some names for the goofy looking bunch. There is Juliet, Lucy, Ethel, Bandit, Huey, Dewey and Louie. Looking for more names. Got lots more to go!

Will try to post some pictures of Pepsi & Vernors soon!