Things are going well, if as crazy busy as ever. Kohen and I have both adjusted to our new school, though he still misses many of his friends. Isaiah loves his new day care, and has done well with the transition.
I can say that I love teaching sixth grade. I also love the convenience of working so much closer to home. The boys and I only travel to Virginia one day per week, and that is for violin lessons, and errands.
Nate is staying busy with plenty of varied jobs. Roofing, log restoration, and building. We still have to roof our house and plenty of projects to complete around here, but it's tough when he is working seven days a week! My parents are making progress on the garage/apartment they are building next door. Right now the boys walked over to "help" so I have five minutes to blog!
Animals are doing well, though we are again struggling with deer liver fluke infecting the sheep. I've lost three since July- two ewes, Shrek and Splash, and one ram lamb. The breeding stock is now on a five week rotation of the only two wormers available that kill adult liver fluke. The animals being raised for meat only have one or two weeks until processing, and I do not give any chemicals to our meat animals, so I'm crossing my fingers.
We are currently at 15 pigs. Lyle, Gertie, Gwenie, and pigs we are raising for meat. Last week Nate made a trade of boars, one of our young red wattle boars for a berkshire. He definately stands out in the group! Black and white with erect ears compared to the dark red and floppy ears of the red wattles. The plan is to do some crossbreeding next year. The May litter has a few more weeks of growing before processing, but I'm getting anxious. We are finally purchasing a large pig feeder so I don't have to crawl over the fence with buckets twice a day. Will lighten the labor load as the weather changes.
Speaking of weather, it has been beautiful. Isaiah and I even enjoyed a boat ride/lunch with Carlsons on the lake yesterday. I know that soon it will be a memory so we are trying to enjoy it as much as we can. The amount of waterfowl that have been passing through on the river is amazing. I love doing chores in the morning as they are beginning to take off from the water.
The picture above is Northwestern yesterday. We have the ewe flock in an area along the river that has some brush, and they have never been in before. When I checked the sheep yesterday morning, Northwestern was sporting a bright orange fishing lure firmly attached to her fleece. Mom and I were able to remove it before it worked its way to her flesh. One hazard of the area that I hadn't planned on!
I'm behind on posts, but still trying to get some updates done. September brought the first homecoming for the North Woods School Grizzlies. This school year two local schools, Cook and Orr, were consolidated into one. For this school year school is held in Cook while the new facility is being built four miles north of town. 
