1750 Family

I actually did this layout one snowy cold day this winter but forgot to post it. For the top trim piece, I used some of the material that was leftover after I made Skyler's dress which she is wearing in the picture.

This is a part of our lives that we seem to have less and less time for -- reenacting the Pre-Revolutionary War days -- but it will always be a part of what defines us and made us who we are. We have learned to appreciate all of the luxuries that are a part of people's lives these days and how much more difficult life was back then even though society has romanticized "the old days." Would I want to live back then? A part of me truly would. However, the early deaths because of war, disease and dangers we never even have to think of is something that makes me glad I am living now instead of then. But the simplicities and hard work of a time long gone are something I wish were more a part of today's society -- and so where we can -- we try to incorporate those things into our lives now. Because of this we carry and hunt with our flintlocks and that will never change. Hunting with a flintlock means we have one shot and one shot only to make an ethical kill -- so we spend a great deal of time practicing regularly in order to make that one shot count. Also, in keeping with this lifestyle, other than when we go out to eat (which is also very rare) we eat almost exclusively wild game. It is a VERY rare occasion when we stray from this. We also have, for the past 2 years, cut, split and stacked the wood that solely heated our home. This is something that we almost always do as a family. We each have our chore. Paul runs the chainsaw and I haul the wood to the truck. Skyler helps by making the wood stack in the back of the truck nice and tight so we can haul as much as possible. We then unload the truck at home and Paul splits wood as I stack. The manual labor is something that both Paul and I love and we have a warm home to show for it. So although we have the luxury of a truck instead of a team of horses and a chainsaw instead of handsaws -- we are doing our part to keep alive an era that has unfortunately become too far gone for many people to grasp.

Last Day of Squirrel Season and Our Weekend

Monday was the last day of the Illinois squirrel season -- a sad day at our house. Squirrel hunting is always a good excuse for us to enter the woods from August 1 until now. Paul had to work part of the day, but Skyler and I were home so we decided to head out to the timbers to look for squirrels. We came home empty handed - but had one close encounter with a big red squirrel -- he just wouldn't stay put long enough for Skyler to get situated and make the shot. However, we had a great time tryin' and we were glad to have gotten some hiking, scouting and exploring done at the same time.






Recognize this face? I was so excited to get to see my buck's face one last time. A friend of ours used my big buck's cape to mount this huge buck. I was glad to see that the cape went to good use and it really was great to get to see my buck's face again!


Our Valentine's day consisted of A LOT of ice fishing -- the picture of Skyler is from when she was plugging her ears because I had just screamed when my big bass broke the line JUST as I was pulling it out of the hole (I think the plugging of the ears is a little overkill -- I didn't scream that loud ;-).

Skyler is the Ice Fishing Queen -- she easily outfished both Paul and I and continually declared "I love to ice fish!"

Paul had a lot of luck in the beginning while I got nothing so I was able to help Skyler put wax worms on the hook and untangle lines. She takes her own fish off the hook for the most part. I finally started getting some fish at the end (including my big largemouth bass) while Paul wasn't getting any bites so we traded off and he helped Skyler. I think Skyler was catching 2-3 fish a minute during the best times and about 1 fish every minute during the slow times. It was super fun! So this means that when most others went out for Valentine's supper -- we were all cleaning fish. Skyler kept us entertained by giving the fish we hadn't cleaned yet CPR. The fish would occasionally jump and she was sure she had brought them back to life. Skyler also used one of the fishes tails to "paint" the puddles of slime over all the fish. I wouldn't trade our Valentine's Day for anyone else's!! ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day

Mark Twain once said:

“Love seems the swiftest,

but it is the slowest of all growths.

No man or woman really knows what perfect love is

until they have been married a quarter of a century.”

Since Paul and I have been together going on 21 years,

I can attest to the fact that the above quote is quite true --

I'll let you know for sure in 4 more years.

To those of you, like me, who started the day off making heart-shaped pancakes to start off a fun day, I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day! Now, off we go to ice fish!!

Winter Fun

Thought I would post a picture showing my 2 favorite people in the world! We took Skyler out this weekend to get her new rifle sighted in (yep, it says Skyler on the side of the stock). I am so proud of Skyler for being such a trooper! It was super cold for this type of activity but she kept with it and made several great shots. We hope that this rifle will help her in harvesting a deer this coming year. There will be MANY more days of shooting this year for all of us, like always, so that we will know that she (and we) can confidently and ethically harvest a deer. I have so many pictures I want to scrap from hiking, sledding, skiing, shooting, etc. -- but I just can't get motivated.

Skyler has been so patient following us out into the timber on an almost daily basis -- hunting, hiking, scouting and exploring. I am pretty sure she has put more miles on her feet than most people 3 times her age. We occasionally give her a break - but not often. I sometimes look over at her when she is trudging through the snow and almost want to laugh. We have gone from the tiny 1 month old baby who we would hold in our arms so that we wouldn't miss out on our timber activities - to this strong 9 year old who can hold her own against most adults in the timbers. She has come a long way!!

Worldwide Publication Holds my Photos

A couple months back I was fortunate enough to be selected to have a photo shoot for Lewis Machine & Tool, a local company who manufactures weapons for military, law enforcement and civilian use worldwide. They wanted a woman who hunts and knows how to hold a weapon. I thought this would be a "once in a lifetime" opportunity so I said I was game. The 2010 catalog is now in print and can be viewed here:

http://www.lewismachine.net/media/2010_LMT_Catalog.pdf

My photos are on pages 19 and 30 (or 21 and 32, depending on how you view it). Thought I would share my 2 seconds of fame ;-)

Advent Stockings

I had planned on posting this earlier but haven't had much down time lately. This year I started a new fun tradition for Skyler. It is simple. I bought 10 Christmas socks and used numbered clothespins to attach each one to a piece of string. As we count down the last 10 days until Christmas - - Skyler gets to open a "stocking" each day. I just put a simple item in each sock but Skyler is really excited to receive them! It is something fun that seems to extend our Christmas celebration. Thanks Ali for your inspiration on this one!!

My latest venture

In addition to rabbit hunting today with Paul and Skyler (nope, we weren't successful - only got to see one rabbit who was too wiley for us) we got to spend a good port of a beatiful day enjoying the timber. We love being able to "see" where all of the critters have been - because of the snow.


While Paul went bow hunting for deer tonight I worked on my latest venture. The natural expansion of my photo art is that now I have been matting and framing people's pictures/artwork they would like to hang in their home. Here are some I have been working on and I have about ten more to do (sorry for the awful pic - I took this tonight with the flash and it made it look weird). I am learning as I go and certainly wish I had started out with the knowledge I have now, because now they are going much smoother, quicker and look better than my first tries.

Also worked on many Christmas presents. I made tutu's for each of my little nieces to open for Christmas in addition to other gifts.

Also, I cooked up our pheasant meat tonight and we all agreed it was delicious!! Gotta get some more of them critters before the season closes!

Pheasant Hunting

Had such a fun time today! Skyler got out of school early today, but before she did, Paul and I had the morning off and we had a date morning - so we did what we always do - we went hunting. This time it was pheasant hunting. We had an awesome time hunting behind two great dogs (Jack and Ginger - a little confusing at times - as you might imagine - someone is yelling at a dog - I think they're yelling at me. . .). This isn't the first time I have hunted behind a dog named Ginger so I am starting to get over it. Wow, we got GREAT exercise. We were plowing through snow and grasses that were very THICK and as tall as me for about 3 hours straight. SOOO much fun! I have to thank Paul for including me when a lot of husbands would have enjoyed a day out with the guys to themselves. I finally connected on a wild pheasant after years of going along on hunts - I am usually the last to shoot - if I shoot - and the birds are usually too far when I do shoot. This time I was a quick draw! :)


Great news! I finally found my camera (yep, again - as some know this is the 2nd time I have lost my camera) - so am able to post some of the photoart frames I have been doing. I don't have pictures of all of them - and some were for Christmas presents and I have to be careful which ones get posted -but here are a few:

Frieden

Gina

Zeitler

Red, White and Blue -- Gibson

I was so honored to get to do this photo art for the name Gibson. This is made for a couple who has faithfully served our country and, rightfully so, are very patriotic. Since I have a soft spot in my heart for those who have given so much so that we can all have the opportunities we have - - this one is special to me.

This was my first attempt at double matting. The undermatte is red so there is a trim of red around each letter and the main matte is blue. I also cut out the small box below the letters so the word Patriot shows through. Sorry for the bad picture, even under the best conditions it is hard to get good pics of these orders because of the glass on the front - - but also, I have lost my decent camera, which had pictures of a bunch of photo orders I wanted to post :-(. So this is my attempt to take pictures with Skyler's digital camera which has seen better days.

Happy Thanksgiving Week

My "flowers" from Paul :-)

Paul came home this morning after duck huntin' (2nd time in his life) with the guys (I TOTALLY wanted to go and am SO jealous. . .they got 2 Mallards - but I didn't beg very hard cuz I ALWAYS want to go hunting and figured poor Paul deserved a little time w/o me on a hunt). Anyway - he said most guys bring their wives flowers, but he brings me feathers from his kill. Thanks bud! They really are beautiful (pictured above)!

We have been pretty busy these past few days. Thurs a.m. (Thanksgiving) Paul went duck hunting for the first time in his life and I ran the Turkey Trot Race in downtown Davenport.
My friend Renee and I ran 5 miles at 9:00 a.m. (which for those of you who don't remember, Thurs morning had 20 mph wind gusts and the temps were in the 20's). Since the race started down at the Y by the river - the wind whipping off the river made it really cold waiting for the race to start - but once we started running - it didn't take long for us to warm up. I finished the race in 45 minutes (my goal was to finish between 45-50 minutes). It isn't the best time by any means - but since it is the first time in my life I have ran 5 miles (I didn't train for more than 3 miles) the fact that I ran w/o stopping is a win in my book.

Once I got home from the race, I ran to the grocery store, bought the very LAST thawed out turkey they had along with a ham and ran home to make our Thanksgiving meal. This is the first time we have been home as a family on Thanksgiving - and although we LOVE to go to Paul's aunt's for her wonderful cooking - it was also nice to be home and have a meal there. We had turkey, ham and all the fixin's - and everything was great! Skyler helped me make the pies as well as the ham and turkey before she had had enough.

When I was cleaning up after our Thanksgiving feast, I realized that our glass stove top was broken and needed replaced. A replacement cost as much as a new stove, so on Black Friday I ordered a new stove that had a HUGE rebate from Lowes. We went and picked it up on Friday night and Paul initiated it by boiling a skull on it right away.

We didn't brave the stores on Black Friday - craziness avoided! I did some purchasing online of the same items they had available on sale in the stores - with free shipping!! So the thought of getting out with all those germy people didn't seem too fantastic to either Skyler or I. Now all I have to do is wait for the UPS man to come to my door and I will have a good portion of my shopping done - - all from the comfort of my own home - ahhhh!!

Saturday we had our Thanksgiving celebration with Paul's family - so from noon 'till about 7:00 - we were in Millersburg.
Here is our family picture.


Today - since Paul went duck hunting again - Skyler and I spent the morning decorating the inside and outside of our house for Christmas. I LOVE Christmas and Skyler loves to help me set everything up.

The following note was written by Skyler:
I got 3 eggs from my chickens on Friday. Saturday, there were none but then today, when Skyler went to see if there were any more eggs, there was one more!!:-)Then,lucky me,Skyler asked me if she could go and see if there were any more eggs about an hour later. I said that there probably weren't any eggs this soon. After she came back, I was surprised to see that the chickens had laid one more egg! So we now have 5 eggs in 2 days!

Spent some time working on my Photo Art orders in between times and have several ready to deliver.

Coe
Klimpel
Meeske

Tucker