If You Think You've Lost Me

It came to my attention recently that someone wasn't able to easily see and use the link I put in the last post that takes you to my new blog. If this has been a problem for any of the rest of you, I shall spell out the address for you: http://birrdandbadger.blogspot.com

Hope to see you all over there!

Away We Go!

Here is the Badger loading our moving truck:

We've spent waaaaaay too much time in these yellow Penske trucks (we like Penske because they're always nice and new and have CD players and take diesel fuel which cuts our gas costs in half.)

Goodbye, duplex. Goodbye, wonderful oak trees. Goodbye, new crop of acorns. Goodbye, prairie.

This is it for this blog. I have decided to call my new blog "Birrd and Badger" because, to quote a book I read recently, "all us gots is us." Our life is totally up in the air right now and our posessions are scattered, but we have each other, and that's enough. You can keep following our adventures here. Thanks for reading!

Rabbit Update

Our little Rabbit has been having the hardest time of any of us dealing with all the change in our lives. She has become very much attached to me lately because of all the anxiety she feels and she has a lot of sad moments, especially in the evening.

However, she has a lot of happy moments during the day, and we think she gets cuter by the minute.

I absolutely love the way she looks in this gorgeous blue sweater with her butterblond hair and her big blue eyes.

She also looks cute in pink.

Especially when she's dancing on the table.

Moving Fun

Moving is intensely hard and stressful. However, every once in awhile there are moments of pure fun and silliness along the way, such as when I packed up the armoire:

Since You Were Wondering...

I am in Utah.

It is beautiful. I am very glad to be here. My life at the moment is simultaneously extremely sublime and extremely difficult.

I have been dreadfully ill since I got here, but I'm getting better now. I had the worst ear infection I've had in years and I still can't hear properly. I even had to take antibiotics, which are always a last resort for me. But it was definitely a moment for a last resort-- I was curled up in my sister's guest bed in agony while my Rabbit be-bopped unsupervised around her non-childproof house and broke CD cases and photo frames and ripped keys off her laptop.

Oh, my goodness, there are so many stories I could tell right now! I could tell you about the magic fairyland we drove through on the way out here and the homeschool field trip we went on yesterday and I could also tell you a lot about my experiences with a shedding snake.

However, my internet access will be sporadic until November. I won't be able to do much with my blog, especially with photos.

I am very aware that I am no longer Little Birrd on the prairie. Some are waiting on the edge of their seats to see what I will call my blog now. I do not yet know exactly. I am waiting for inspiration. When my hearing's back and I'm sitting at my own computer and the creative juice starts flowing something wonderful will come into cyberbeing and you will all be dazzled and warm-fuzzied at the same time.

Until then, I remain yours faithfully,

Birrd

Freezer Surprise

Lately for dinner we've been eating a lot of what I call "Freezer Surprise."

What that means is that I unearth some strange frozen hunk of who-knows-what from my deep freeze and find some way to turn it into dinner.

Most of the time, it turns out really quite tasty. I had all kinds of treasures buried in my deep freeze.

Since the Badger lost his job on Sept. 11th, I have only purchased a couple of gallons of milk and a couple pounds of butter at the store. Everything else we've eaten has come out of our freezer or our canned goods stockpile. And I've baked a lot and ground a lot of wheat. I love my wheat storage!

And we've eaten really really well. I've never felt deprived or like I was "living on food storage."

Now, I must say that the night before this happened I had this unusual and strong prompting to go to Sam's Club and stock up on a few things. I'm very grateful I followed that prompting because those items have made this whole scenario a lot easier.

We've been so blessed. We still have tons of food. I could probably go at least another couple of weeks with only spending $10 or so at the grocery store. I just have to make sure I plan our meals ahead of time so there's time to do the extra prep.

Someone dropped off a bag of groceries, mostly snacks for our drive, on our porch the other night. It was so kind. I'm so glad to have some treats for the kids for the trip-- it's hard to eat out of your food storage, however bountiful it may be, when you're traveling.

I have a testimony that when you are trying your best to live a life of service to the Lord, that He will take care of you. I know that we are in His hands right now and I feel totally at peace.

Prairie Barn

Sorghum

I think the sorghum is ready to harvest.

Actually, I have no idea if it is or not. I just think it must be because it's turning brown on top. I have no idea what they use it for either (liquor? sweetener? animal fodder?), but they grow a lot of it around here and I think it's pretty.

Badger-Style

The Badger did my hair yesterday.

Do you like it?

I do.

Developmental Update

My Rabbit seems so big lately. In so many ways, she's not a baby anymore.

She sings, she jabbers, she puts tray puzzles together.

She likes to put anyone's shoes on and walk around in them.

She loves to color and scribbles on everything.

More and more she shows signs of understanding what's going on around the house and more and more she finds ways of letting us know exactly what she wants. And she definitely knows what she wants. As the Badger and I often say, "The Rabbit has her own agenda."

She's sleeping much better and going to bed at a reasonable hour.

It's so wonderful to see her healthy and normal!