Ian's Red Ryder BB Gun

Ian's bb gun. It is my only gun besides my hand gun. It is my favorite gun. I dont get to shoot with it since we moved to the city. We looked at Lake Merdith but there were fences in the way. The bb gun is fun. I do not know how far it shoots,
but it is a nice bb gun.
and it cocks only one
time! and it is made
of wood and
metel!

Caelin's Gun, a Marlin .22 Long Rifle

I was proud when I got this gun. I had asked for one and on Christmas I saw a big box in the living room; that was it. I ripped it open. When I saw it I couldn't believe it. In a couple of minutes I was ready to go shoot something.

Pictures of Our Move to Borger

This was some of the corn we grew in our old garden

Some nice cacutuses (that is, if that's how you spell it :)

Morgan is soundly asleep as you may notice :)

Aidan looking out the window at the beautiful land.

This is the typical prarie scene...

it's so pretty, and quiet looking.

"I am comtemplating, I am contemplating."

"So Dainty"

Our Backyard

The Canyon

Back to Chickens!

Last night, we planted a late fall garden- I think we'll manage this time to get a little more out of our garden than the last 2... Our last fall garden died because of the frost :-P Than we moved before our spring garden had time to be harvested :'(. So I hope this one will at least turn out better. Our backyard of course has 4 fences going all around so we decided to put in two gardens- one in front of the right and left fence. Well there's a lady dog next door who Jack likes to bark at, when he barks, he gets right next to the right fence (where our garden is) so we have him chained until we figure out what to do with him.
Next project is to build a compost with some pallets. Daddy has been looking by dumpsters and in allies and lo and behold he found four (on seperate days of course) pallets. All that's left to do is build it and we're ready to go!
Gabby

School Again!

We've started school again jiggedy jig jig! I think we'll be doing a lot more than we used to this year. That's alright though- I'm looking forward to be on schedule! These prarie nights are hard! It finally gets dark at about 9:30 and at 8:00 in the morning it's completely sunatized haha.
I think for history this year we're learning about medevil times... so that's going to be interesting.
I don't believe I've mentioned that Morgan and I have started something on Mondays, we pick out a recipe and make whatever it is for supper- we only try new recipes. Last Monday we tried Chicken parmesan, mmmmmm... that was good but I think I was supposed to flatten the chicken breast- oops!
Well this is a short one- I'm actually needing to look for a new recipe for Monday that is coming up soon!
~Gabby

Life in the big city

We went to our friends house for supper... and their house was nice and cool! We've been running our house on window units which really does the job well, it's just we can't leave the window units on upstairs, and when we come up you all but suffocate and stumble around to find the button to the unit thingy.
But anyhow, I'm finding that city life is awfully boring compared to the farm. However, I have a bit of good news! Firstly we have a greenhouse in the backyard so I suppose we'll be making use of that come fall. Secondly, we found a chicken company that is run in Texas... somewhere... And we're getting ten of the Barred Rocks. We looked at the laws of Borger and we found out that you can have I guess most any animal in the city as long as they are contained and when are taken out they have to be on a leash. Yes, I'm looking forward to walking ten chickens on a leash down the street... Hahaha. And I know what the neighbors would be saying
"Those people from Tennesse sure are strange! I sure do wish that their kids would stop walking their chickens all over the place- my kids are getting idea about the guinea pigs!!!
~Gabby

Square root of chickens?

Now that we're here we are looking for some land to lease so we can get a cow and chicken and all... since we live in a neighborhood with backyard a bit bigger than our old garden, one gets the feeling of being caged in. But that's not to damper our agrarian culture. We are farmers living in a subdivision that have no animals and no garden. Hmmmm... we do have a head catcher and milking stool but no cow. All we've got left is a mutt who has torn down the badmitten net that I worked so hard to put up, and tried to tear down sheets of the clothesline (he got a good spanking) and he also tore up our clothes pin holder thingy ma bob, and a towl from a couple days ago. Needless to say he needing place to run around. Jack has always know four acres now something maybe a hundreth of that size is makes him depressed and naughty.
Daddy and I went to a couple of antique stores downtown to look around while Momma took the other kids to the city pool. (We got ice cream lol!)
We did piano yesterday and I came up with getting a marker board and sketching a piano note, or key, or symbol, and whoever raises their hand first gets to say what it is, you get a point every correct answer, whomever has the most points by the time all of the symbols they know have run out (or Gabby's patience) is the winner.
Ian learned a new song yesterday: Brother John. He was soo excited he kept playing it over and over again. It feels like days he's know that song. But he does really well with his fingers and he hardly ever misses anything.
~Gabby

It's COOL & BREEZY!!!

Here it is cool, dry, and there is a good breeze blowing. Isn't that nice instead of a hot 100% humidity in the air and abosloutley no breeze whatsoever and the hot sun is blazing down on you? Well maybe I'm exaggerating but it's nice to be home!!!
We went to the park tonight after supper, and momma and I took maybe a 1/3 of a mile walk around the park, so that was fun... and on the track there was a huge caged building with "moat" looking sorta thing and there was two black swans, the poor girl swan... one of it's legs was gone, but she had lots of little swans swimming around, and they were soo cute!!! Ever seen a baby swan? They are the sweetest little things in the world! And their eyes are adorable. Why can't we look like swans? Lol.
We've been reading a book by AVI, it called Crispin and the Cross of Lead. There are three books, Daddy has read me the first and second books, and now the third is out which we'll HAVE to get. We are now reading them to the other kids, and I think they are enjoying that! It's a good time to sit and knit my scraggly socks! Ha!
Well I certainly miss seeing my friends in Tennessee, speaking of which Happy Birthday Willa! I don't know when it is except that it's in July! And Happy Birthday miss Emma! Yours was in June... sometime.
Gabby

Morgan's interview comedy

"So Morgan Ann, what do you want to talk about?" (Gabby)
"I don't know." (Morgan)
"Can I write by myself Gabby?" (M)
Absoloutely not." (G)
"Why?" (M)
"Your dainty little fingers would shock the computer." (G)
"Oh." (M)
"What do you want to write about?" (G)
"I don't know, I didn't say anything."
Morgan gives me the look! (narrator)
"Okay... Anything else?" (G)
"Nooooooo!!!"
I've been elbowed by my a little sister. She is stamping her foot, yet she does not talk.
"Come on M&M, say something."
"No!!!"
"What are ya'll doing?" (daddy)
"I'm writing down everything Morgan says." (Gabby)
"I'm not going to say anything."(M)
"You just did!"
"AHHHHHH"
"Do you want to say good-bye?"
"Yes."
So thus concludes the comedy interview with Morgan.
~Morgan and Gabby
P.S. We've got about another interview like this done with her... I get a kick out of them. HAHA

We just came back from Amarillo visiting a church, then we ate with the pastor and his family at his wifes mothers house, the house was so pretty... Makes me want to go clean my room and repaint everything!!! I rarely find a kitchen I really just can't get enough of looking at, actually I don't think I have ever felt at home in anyones kitchen... sounds strange? You'd understand if you went in the pastors wifes mothers kitchen- Mrs. Morris, but this kitchen was cozy, and roomy at the same time, and it was springy, all the decor was trimmed in yellow. It felt like it had a touch of a "nana" (that's what all of the grandkids called her) So we had a good time. Has anyone tried blackberry cobbler blue bell ice cream? Thanks Mrs. Morris for introducing me to that...
I guess I'll do a little bit of teaching piano today. When we moved in there was a baby grand piano sitting in our living room corner! The dixons left it here for us. Now I'm giving beginner lessons to Morgan, Ian, Caelin. I've enjoyed teaching them but... really I've given them only one lesson each, and played a piano card game with them. But however, I WILL get to it today, but I've said that every day to kids since Wednesday.
~Gabby

Good Morning!

Yea! I got on the blog! Now I've got sis to do things with. As you may notice, we changed the blog background, and according to Morgan it looks like a school blog. I was looking for a little change in the background since we moved I thought it would be nice to, well, change, so to speak. And I was going to do something simple... but all plans always end up changed right? Yup, but I liked what we found and maybe I'll stick to it, unless someone expresses an pessimistic opinion!
I finished a book that belongs to a series called the Preachers Daughter. It was about an Amish girl that loved painting, and if you know Amish, they don't allow anything like that- at least in the old order. The girl- Annie, has a pen pal who is an "Englischer" and an artist! So they draw and send them back and forth to each other, so on and so forth. But it's a really good book, and now I have to go tear up the garage (filled with stuff that doesn't exactly fit in the house yet) and find the second book to the series! And of course it would be 102 degrees today. l
I forgot to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! We gave her a surprise birthday on Thursday... Is today already Saturday? Goodness gracious, time doth fly. I drew momma a favorite picture of Aidan when he was two, and we also got her a blessed pink toolbox filled with pink tools- very feminine don't you think? And now that we have a back porch, Daddy bought a rocking chair from Cracker Barrel. We invited a few friends and all... now someone needs to come and help us eat up all of the sweets left over!
Aidan came in earlier sobbing that "he took my cookie away!"
"Did he eat it baby?"
"Uh- huh...."
"Who ate it dear- hopefully not one of your brothers!"
"Jack ate my cookie!" the whole scene was pretty pathetic, obviously Jack snitched the cookie. It was funny- at least to the older sis, however it's not always fun having a dog eat the cookie you slaved over meant for PEOPLE. But I hope Jack gets a stomach ache over it.
My latest project has been making scottish socks. I'm not sure how it'll turn out but hopefully it won't look like a beginner just made a wraggly pair of ugly green tubes! HA! Since daddy is going to do a festival sometime in September I suppose, I wanted to see if handmade tubes- excuse me handmade scottish socks will sell. If they do I could make a good living off something like that- and I enjoy knitting anyways.
We set up a badmitten net a few days ago. And when I say we that means Gabby looked over all of the directions and put together a sorry looking net that the dog bit and made fall down. But it's usable and we've had fun playing. Mother, Caelin and I all played in the heat of the day while the sprinkler was on and took turns getting the shady side of the net, and every ten minutes jump through the sprinkler.
I found the rest of my shoes that were hidden away in a box. At least I packed my usual church shoes in a dresser, so I was prepared. The rest of the children has had to go to church in crocs! I've enjoyed that immensely!
Momma found Scattegories is a garage sale and hopefully we'll be playing that after I finish this paragraph. Off to play a board game- ttyl!
~Gabby

My Goodness!

My goodness! Has it been this long to write? I'm really terrible at this sorta thing, my poor journal too! ha! I'm really unfaithful, but I'll just put out the standard excuse: I've been sooo busy lately!There is so much to write about this time!
We moved to Texas... about almost sorta 3 weeks ago, and things have settled down and the house actually looks somewhat graceful. Our old friends used to live in this (anctient) house and we visited them here a couple times. I mean, it's already strange walking into a house that you'll be pasting memories in, but now we're going to paste memories over our friends memories. Do you know what's even stranger? This is the SECOND time to live in a house they lived in! We moved into a house that their parents owned right after Katrina... they told their parents about us and they let us move into the house until we got back onto our feet. Strangely, our friends lived in the same house and I really don't why except that they just lived there then they moved and we lived there. Quite a couincedence... or however you spell the word... Ya'll know what I'm trying to blabber right? I'd look up how to spell it but I'm on a timer... Maybe tomorrow. Ha! Like I'd get on the blog two days in a row!
But anways, it's been very hard to say goodbye where we lived for about ten months. Sometimes I thought it was heaven then other times... nevermind that! But we chopped trees down there and tried best we could to keep a fire burning in the winter, and our poor chickens! One of our last weeks in TN, we shot all of our many, many, male chickens. We would have eaten them but it wasn't worth the rubbery meat that they gave so... Caelin and Daddy got out their guns and... shot all of our chickens that woke me up at five o clock every morning so to speak!
But now we're here and maybe I WILL get to write tomorrow!
~Gabby

Our Lovely Life

I love this picture of Morgan.

The Garden Life For Kids and Young Adults

This was just a random thought I've had and always wanted to write it down.

We are much like plants. When the seed (us kids) is given to the right person it will do well. The person, if concerned for the plants well being will plant it inside the home to take care of it, away from the cold garden. When the seed is strong and it's roots sturdy, it's let into the garden to finish it's growing. The owner still helps it along in life, sometimes the owner will put it in a rocky area (incidently), and of course, the rocks stunt it's growth. Quickly the person removes the obstacle completely, to secure the plant before it's ruined or influenced. The plant learns to enjoy a shower of water (only when needed, because too much of something good is bad) and accepts that weeds are a part of life. BUT if a plant gives way to the weed it becomes small or even dead! And it's harvest is either small or none.
We of course are the plant, the owner our parents. If our parents are concerned how we will grow, they start us IN THE HOME. Inside the home, we learn to allow our roots to be moved to different places, from harmful company (weeds) to less rocky soil. Of course we must make room for the roots of our brothers and sisters, and learn to be patient for our water (blessings) and thankful for them too! But like I said, too many good things can spoil us! Also put up with our share of rocks. Now knowing what to look out for, like bad influences, we are set into the garden to grow spiritially and help others. It's different now that we've matured and grown, it's not as easy as it looked, growing in the garden with so many temptations. But we know right from wrong perfectly well and whom to associate with. Our parents still point out mistakes and transplant us from areas that aren't safe. Parents don't always make the wisest choices, they sometimes let us what we want to do, which isn't for the best. If any time we make a mistake they completely remove the problem causing troubleso that we will be kept innocent and clean. We readily accept the blessings of water and are forced to accept weeds- those little things that can cause sooo much trouble. Sadly some people give way to weeds and becomes part of the world . People look at us and we have nothing to show for our life. No good plants of our own, or good works.
As you can see it is your responsibility to make sure your children teach their children to teach teir children etc. to be wise and stay away from the weeds and rocks of like, and to mold them BEFORE they grow too much and CAN'T be fixed.
Which plant are you?
~Gabby

At Centervilles City Park theres a Civil War Reen-actment. Us Lindsays are all going to go!

Rabbits, Chicks, and Ducks... Oh my!

Today, we all went to Columbia and headed to Tractor Supply! They had some chicks for sale! And ducks! And rabbits! I think we all presumed that Aidan would be taken with the ducks but... he loved the rabbit. They were those pink eyed, soft white fur kind of rabbits. Sooo soft. They were 10.00. The ducklings were I think 4.30 and the chicks (pullets) were something like 2.00. I think everyone enjoyed going. But you know that in Dixon the price on the chicks are 50 cents? We wanted to go there but the last time Daddy went they didn't carry rabbits- or least not yet. And we knew we wanted to get one so we went to Columbia. We're planning on the next time we go to Dixon to get some 20 chicks. I wish I had a picture, but not yet. I bought a girl and boy duckling so I can look forward when they grow up to having ducklings to sale. I hope it's ok to let ducks and chicks grow together.
We finally got eggs!!! It was funny because we had just gotten home and Caelin went to show his duckling (christened with the name Ranger) our hens. So as we were unloading everything we heard Caelin yelling. Momma took off thinking he found a snake. Little did we know... anyways Caelin was yelling his head off and finally we were able to make out the word EGG. So everyone ended up yelling their heads off. Lol, what a sight.

Being a Homemaker

Titus 2:3-5 The elder women likewise, that they be in such behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, nor subject to much wine, but honest teachers of honest things. 4That they may instruct the young women to be sober minded, that they love their husbands, that they love children, 5That they be temperate, chaste, keeping at home, good and subject to their husbands, that the word of God be not evil spoken of.
Isn't that the perfect guide for teaching daughters? Perfect.
Doug Philipps made an audio book called What's a Girl to Do? We bought it and it was wonderful. He has a lot of really good audio books. I really need to listen to it again and take notes. He mentioned the above verse that I typed.
We'll be going to town tomorrow. Aidan is turning 3, and every birthday, we take really nice pictures. I don't like it when I have to get my picture taken.
Miss Abby Lovett is turning 11 on the 10th. I already have her present ready. It actually turned out quick and pretty. Happy early b-day Abby.
~Gabby

Tea Party

The tea party went well Saturday. All the gals got here and we headed to our bathroom to do up our hair. It took about 2 hours to get everyones hair done! We enjoyed it emmencely. After that we opened presents- of course, I HAD told them not to bring any! Thanks for my presents girls. About then the sun was beginning to go down, so we headed over to the hill overlooking the highway where we could face the sun. We headed there with our heads held high- at least, as best we could with a million bobby pins stuck every where! I wonder what the people that were passing on the highway, thought when they saw 7 girls posing with cameras, on top of a hill as the sun was going down! Oh well. I had made 2 cookie cakes the day before so they could each decorate their own little piece, and also so we could take one to the church. We made our own icing and it was soooo good. We also colored them pale green, cream and brighter than I meant to, blue. So after that we admired our hair, and pictures, and cakes, and we admired the simplicity of having a tea party rather than a spend the night girlfriend type of party. I think it was just wonderful having such wonderful ladies come and spend time together and talk, drinking tea and eating our sun chips. :-)

Progress

Morgan went up a level in chrocheting! She made a purse. It's actually small enough to be a phone holder. Morgan and I are proud of it. I finished a black and white diomand shawl last week. It turned out really comfortable and I got a lot of compliments.
This Saturday, is my birthday. I'm having some young ladies from church come for a tea party. We're going to get all dressed up and do up our hair. I 'm looking forward to it , and eat finger foods.
Our chickens are getting bigger. They are very good looking (for chickens) Actually, they'll be laying eggs here soon. I can't wait. This is there 23rd week on the farm. Our friends told us that the 23rd week is always when their chickens start laying. So we are very anxious.
Gabby

Hello From Morgan

Hello from Morgan. I did dress up and danced, I went outside for only a little, because it was cold!!! I did phonix with Gabby, and I made presents for our next birthdays. We are going to probably play UNO! That's my favorite game and sorry. I like to crochet now and I'm working on a bookmark for mama.
Morgan

Hello from Ian

Hello from Ian. I'm writing a book. It's about our dog Jack. He's the Head of Farm Security! Jack protects the chickens, and barks and growls at trucks that go down our road, and he sleeps under the lean-to on a pile of hay. Jack is brown, with a long curvy tail, and big eyes. When he was little he had really really big eyes. When we got him we all said his eyes looked sad. But now he is bigger, and likes to run around.
Today I'm going to work on catequism, and maybe go outside, and write in my homesteader journal. It snowed a little tiny bit outside. I want it to snow really really big so we can make an igloo! It is my little sister's turn to write.
Ian

Rainy Days Teach Lessons By Gabby

Today and yesterday has been rainy and dreary. Morgan Aidan and I cleaned up the shed daddy built. We keep straw, and our tiller, and tractor, bicycles, and our wood in there. Anyways, we cleaned it up really nice, and played house. Morgan made beds with the straw, Aidan gathered wood for the "fire" and I enjoyed being with them. Of course it had to start raining. So we stayed under the shed and kept the "house" straigtened, and made our straw beds, and had soup. The "soup" consisted of bark and nutmeat, straw, and water. We got the water by putting the dog and cat's tin buckets under the flow of the gutter. It started thundering and Aidan began crying, so of course, we took him inside. Morgan and I stayed out under the shed and continued " keeping house." After a while we figured since it was lightly hailing we might should return to our REAL home. I thought that was a very speacial time to spend with my littlest brother and only sister.
After returning to our cozy house, Morgan and I started crocheting. There is something about crocheting with your sister on a rainy day. Morgan was discouraged because she just couldn't get her stitches right like her big sisters. She said that "why should I do it anyhow Gabby?" I said "Because it could very well help you in life." Of course the next qestion passing out of her lips was "Why?" I thought a second and thought of why in the world I had said that. "Because Morgan," I said slowly "when you're older your future husband will probably want a wife who is industrious and can show that she can work hard to learn something new. If you quit now who knows what you might quit when you're older!" She looked shocked. I said "Of course it doesn't mean no one will want to marry you when you're older because you quit something years ago! But just that when you have something else hard in life to learn, he'll be able to see that you can stick to it and face it. But how can you do that if you quit at everything when you're very little?" Morgan looked relieved and more detirmined.
A couple hours later she showed me her new and improved stitches and said "Isn't it pretty Gabby? I'm making a bookmark for momma!" She is still working on it now but I wanted to tell the world of her accomplishment and it how it taught me lesson too!
I also wanted tell my nana that I'm very thankful that she taught me how to crochet when I was Morgan's age, and how she taught me so well and kept patient like I'm teaching Morgan now. (I know you needed lots of patience to teach me :)

Hello

Hello from one of us Lindsay children. I'm Gabby Lindsay the eldest of 5 and loving the job. All of us children are sharing this blog. We - Me, Caelin, Ian, Morgan, and little Aidan are happy to be able to say we have a blog like mom and dad.
We are homeschooled on a little 4 acre farm. We HAD 26 chickens...once, but we ran over some and also our dog had an extra few meals, but now we have 19. There is a picture of one at the top of the page. Our dog is 1/2 Lab and 1/2 cocker spaniel, making it the very cutest pup ever seen!
I planed on working on the first entry earlier but we were cutting logs since lunch today. Each person had his own job in the forest. Caelin likes to weedeat the thorns which are very, very numerous and get under our skirts and scratch our hands. I like to chop down trees, Ian seems to do well at the saw, and Morgan had procliamed that she loves raking (all her siblings are very relieved that someone enjoys that type of work.) I guess being a almost 3 year old, Aidan hasn't established much of a interest excepting getting in the way and being cute.
Our farm is in Centerville Tn. It's actually on a cliff so 3 sides of our yard you look down below to the road or a valley. We actually moved here about 6 months ago. Time flies. As I said, you look down on a valley on one of the sides of our yard, and it looks like your on top of a short steep mountain. We plan to slowly over time chop trees down in the valley and then the grass will regrow and we should have a whole lot more land for our dream animals. Right now we have chickens, a dog, and a cat. But apparently animals seem to be scarce right now int the middle of winter.
If there was any animal we could have right now it would be a cow- or a pig. I'd prefer a cow for milking but they are so very expensive. One that's milking is $1800! So we'll more than likely get a heifer and watch it grow up. A pig would be nice to. We've read in Joel Salitin's book, that pigs will till up to 3 ft. deep and while doing the work for you, they'll manure the to be garden! Not to mention BACON!!! And ham, and sausage, and best yet it will all be OURS. No one elses. The big food companies shall not ruin this Thanksgiving dinner! :)