Our workboxes…..

Thanks to our wonderful friend Monica we have finally found a system that works with helping us feel like we have some sort of order in our homeschool.

We are now using a workbox system, not perfectly but we are using one none the less. What I have done is velcro pictures of a subject on each drawer and that is where they can find their lesson for the day. The bottom three or four drawers are missing theirs due to my 11mth old destroying them! Anyway, there is a coordinating card for each child with coordinating subject in the order I want them done ( this does not usually get done in order by the way).

They have a card for each day of the school week and when they are done with a subject or a day they flip it over.  There are many more subject pictures and activities that I can add to their daily cards. If they are to ask for my help I can put a card on there for them to come get me. This really is supposed to cut down on the time I have to hoover over them, hasn't yet, but I have hope! Anyway I will post later about this in more detail and how the kids cooperate for the long haul. :)

Our Chickens

O.K. so the chickens are supposed to be free range! But what do you do if something is snatching them out of the corn field for dinner?

So our blessed chickens that have given us so many tasty eggs are now caged. At least till the corn is harvested and we can keep an eye on them. It is a very large cage mind you.

Today we harvest.

So today we are going to pick our greens. I am going to freeze the majority of them for over the winter. I will have a recipe section for all the foodstuff I mention later on! My husband and I had a discussion last night and we are decided that the back part of our land will be used for raising animals. Prob. BUFFALO. I'm super excited about this considering I could eat buffalo every night. These are huge creatures though, so much research has to be done. :)

Our goal is to become as self sufficient as possible here on our farm as we can. Eventually we may like to teach other families ways to do this. We have only just begun. We are not even getting eggs yet from our spring chicks or honey from our bees! But we will!

I think we are going to plant a mixed fruit orchard this fall. Plus we have already planted strawberries and raspberries, and we have a ton of wild mulberry bushes here on the farm. The mulberries have already started budding!!! They should be ready next mth. I will make syrups, jam, and cobblers out of them. I froze a lot last year and just ate the last of them in a cobbler last month. So that's it for today, I have to get these kids going! We have baseball and girl scout awards ceremony tonight! I'm still tying to figure out how I want to organize this blog so it will come by tying! Just like everything else around here. Have a good day!

Getting Started!

Well, today is the beginning of my posts and I'm not sure I should add one more thing to my plate, but I have wanted to write for a very long time so here it is. Planning and starting a farm is busy business with kids and a baby underfoot! So today I may look in on the chickens and pick my greens from the garden. We are doing school (well they are) as I sit here and type. The house is semi clean, the laundry is done, and meat is unthawing for dinner. So, it is a good time to introduce myself and the purpose for this blog to everyone who may be interested. :)

My name is Jessica and I have three children for now. My husband Bryan and I moved to a small town called Amanda near Lancaster Ohio a few years ago from a ritzy town up north called Powell. I started dreaming about having a simpler life and raising my children myself instead of shipping them to school or a babysitter everyday while I go to work to help pay for the lifestyle we were used to. God really started putting on my heart the quality of life we could have if things were simpler. Well I took the bait and started to do some research first about homeschooling. Then, farming, self sustainability and just about anything else that goes along with a simple lifestyle! I think Bryan thought I had lost my mind, considering he (with his bare hands), had just built us a 3,200 sq. ft. house in one of the the best school districts in the country! Not to mention, we had just spent I don't know how many of thousands of dollars on my education to become a registered nurse. Which I was now finally working as and making a good amount of money even part time. Needless to say eventually God started working on his heart too after many of angry moments of disbelief of my new reading material and sutle hints! :) To make a really long, incredible story short, we searched for land and was able to pay for almost 40 acres with the money we made on the sale of our house!

My wonderful, talented, and Godly husband built us, yes, another house on this beautiful land. We do plan to start a self-sustaining farm with chickens, bees, goats,( we have these) and we are currently discussing buffalo! Our goal is to grow what we need and sell the rest to make a little extra cash to help with me staying home with our children. We realize that home schooling is not for everyone, and it would have NOT been for us if I had not been called to do it. This is not a blog to convince anyone what is right for them, but a blog to display how this way of life works so perfectly for us.

One more thought for today, I believe God is directing Christians (and why he showed us) to learn to live without depending on the world for our every need. To enjoy the technology and some conveniences, but to be able to survive just fine without it, if something terrible goes down.