The Ahlgren Family: Hoophouse

"Hi!"

A lots been happening and things are growing and changing around here!

We put up another hoophouse! You'd think that after our previous experience we'd abandon the idea. (After the first one I declared "greenhouse" to be a "dirty word" in our household.) But we've got A WHOLE LOT LESS wind here than at our "Wedding House" and we were able to get a much higher quality hoophouse. We really enjoyed putting it up together! (I personally liked it a lot more since I wasn't "enjoying" morning sickness during it all this time!) Lilian was a hoot when she was out with us! She cracks us up! The funniest thing was when she found the instruction manual for the impact wrench and she started "reading" it! She would make all kinds of sounds and even point at certain words and get a serious face and emphasize them. That was funny in itself, but she did all this while walking around with it right in front of her face and she kept stumbling and running into things, but it didn't phase her! She is so funny!

Hanging out laundry. You can see our view of the hoophouse from the house.

A beautiful storm that passed by one evening.

We planted eggplant, cucumbers and okra in the hoophouse. Lord willing we'll have okra at least a month before everyone else. The health food store said that we could sell at least the okra there! Which leads me to the next exciting thing; we are

USDA CERTIFIED ORGANIC

Praise the Lord! :D Now we get to put little stickers on our produce, yeah! ;) Haha! It that difficult to get our certification, particularly since this land hasn't really been used in several decades.
The garden is doing fine, particularly since the Lord sent rain at last! It's quite obvious that our soil needs more organic matter and goat fertilizer, but that will all come in good time! Here's Lilian after she'd been helping me in the garden!

One less rabbit to eat the garden!

The goats are all alive and well! Lord willing we'll have some kids in July, if I'm remembering correctly! We expanded their electric fenced area to about 10-15 acres that my hardworking man has just cleared and then we also let them out of the fence every day. So far so good!
My adventurous husband has joined our local Volunteer Fire Department! He's been on four fires and one medical call! So far so good he's loving it! Just pray for him to stay safe and to get good training and equipment! This is him after a fire in the wild-land fire suit he was issued initially. The next picture is him on his way to a fire in his bunker suit.

Since we got rain we were able to burn some of our piles from the 15 acres of ceders my Man's cleared!

My handsome fella all dirty from clearing!

My sister came and spent a weekend with us! David helped her with some web stuff and Lilian put in her two cents! We really enjoyed the time with her!

We've started getting the shelving up in our pantry and it is SO nice! I am very thankful to have it!

And the biggest new thing (or perhaps it's the smallest) is that the LORD has blessed us and

Ahlgren Baby Version 2.0 is on it's way!

WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

We got to announce it to my family two years (to the day) after we announced that we were expecting our first! :D We are so excited and thankful for this little blessing! Lilian will be such a fun big sister! The other day we were talking about how the next time the organic inspector comes out we'll have two children, and I commented that it sounded so strange! My husband wondered why I thought it was strange and I said, "Because I've never had two kids before!!!" It'll definitely be an adventure, and one we're more than happy to have! We love each other so much and it's a delightful blessing to watch that love grow! Some nausea and loss of appetite has been a bit of a killjoy, but this too shall pass away and we can't wait to hold our new little one come January! We would appreciate your prayers that the midwife we were so blessed to have for Lilian would be available for this baby too!

First official picture of the FOUR of us taken the day we found out for sure!

"The LORD has done great things for us;
whereof we are glad!"
Psalm 126:3

*This is just a small reminder to pray for the those who recently lost loved ones and property in the tornadoes and storms in the South.

Needless to say, a lot's been happening around here since we last updated in March! That would be the reason for not updating! ;)

To cover it all: God is gracious and good, we are blessed in FAR too many ways to even remember, we have waaay too much fun and adventure together and we're thankful for every moment together!

Now, for more details.

April

We got a 20x40' high tunnel greenhouse the first week of April. We conquered the adventure of assembly by ourselves with prayer.

We had a freak wind storm with 80+ mph winds.

We lost the greenhouse.

We definitely see God's hand in it all! The tomatoes, peppers, and okra that we'd planted in the greenhouse are ALL still there and thriving!

And what a blessing they are! Using our fresh bell peppers and tomatoes I made the best omelets I have ever tasted the other day. I'm not boasting on me, I said they tasted good, that's the Creator's doing, I didn't say they looked good!

One huge accomplishment was finishing quilting our quilt!

Now I need to put the edging on, but I lack motivation there because I'm not sure how to do the corners.

Some dear friends of ours gave us their old riding lawn mower! That's been a real blessing! My Beloved loves to have a healthy good looking lawn and it's been much nicer for him to have the riding mower instead of a push mower. It's been great to have and has brought tons of laughs and adventures, because sometimes it a little stubborn while turning!

May

My sister and I spent the day with our good friends Christine and Karen. David had meetings so we went to the mall and walked around, had lunch, and caught up on all of life's adventures! It was a blessing to get to spend that time together!!!

We've done lots of work in the garden and are praising the Lord for the harvest. Our sugar snap peas did excellently. We've also planted lots of new trees. It is so delightful to work together on the land the Lord has given us to "dress and to keep", Gen 2:15. We're very thankful for the wisdom passed down to us from friends, like Mr. Morris. We know we're doing well when we can keep up with him, at least in planting times! My diligent and driven darling is very thorough in researching all kinds of information (about everything!) concerning gardening. He is quite knowledgeable on gardening so I love learning from him and laboring together to optimize the whole works!

I turned one year older in May, and my precious Beloved made my birthday very special and memorable! He has such a servants heart and I am so honored and blessed to be his bride!!! We love and treasure each other so much! And my family had a fun party and our friends the Wilsons made the occasion very special too!

David caught his first freshwater fish!!! :)

He caught several others that evening too!

We helped our neighbors butcher some chickens again!

It was very fun working together! David is a hoot with the chickens! He gets 'em all relaxed and ready. :)>

On Memorial Day weekend we were able to have our friends the Wilson's spend the night with us! They've been very hospitable to us and we've spent quite a few nights in their home, so it was fun to get to return the blessing!

My Uncle, Aunt, and brand new VERY FIRST cousin visited from California for Mother's Day! It was really great to get to spend time with them and with the rest of the family!

Dad, Mom, and their first nephew Austin. They'll be great grandparents someday!!!

June

Gardening, gardening, gardening. We've been doing lots of that. My dear family came out one evening for supper and bean picking!

We had a ton of green beans and were very thankful for their help in the harvest! We also had a lot of fun working together!!!

Enough green beans were picked to send a grocery sack full home with them and still have enough to can (for the first time! and with the canner provided by God through David's oldest sister and her husband) 9 quarts!

Although that's minuscule compared to our neighbors sixty something quarts, we were delighted to have any green beans at all! We have also had the opportunity to share a booth at our local farmer's market with our neighbors!

That's been a lot of fun! David even brought one of our Cayuga ducks the first Saturday!

Folks sure enjoyed that!

We got another set of chicks to replace the ones that we purchased in February because they were all eaten by predators. We've been feeding these sea minerals and they are doing incredibly well!!! They're maturing quickly and have had no problems like sticky bum or bleeding when they molt and get their feathers so they're not picking on each other as much! It's been a blessing! My creative husband designed and welded an electric chicken house for them.

The house can be electrified without harming the chickens because they will never be grounded. A chicken will jump into the house, avoiding all grounding, where as a predator will step one foot at a time up into the house while being grounded by his other feet. ZAP! Predator is scared out of his fur and the chickens are alive to lay eggs etc.!

July

A Watusi cow joined the farm for 6 days! She showed up in the pen with Annabelle, eating our sea minerals and enjoying the company.

After searching for her owner to no avail, they found us and tried to load her up and take her home. It didn't work. She's now roaming the neighboring 134 acres.

David and I tried to herd her back into our fences but that didn't work. It was totally worth the effort though, as we two lovebirds got to go back to the spot overlooking our homestead where we got engaged 2years and 2months ago to that very day!

We celebrated the 4th with our beloved neighbors and many friends. (click to view the whole group.)

My frugal and visionary husband did the calculations to determine that $1 can buy you a piece of land roughly the size of a dining room table(seating 8+) at $1500 an acre. Because of this practical mental picture, we've been having fun teasing about how much land you drink when you get a coke etc. So, because of this, it was decided between our neighbors and ourselves that we would not waste the money God had entrusted to us on fireworks.

When one has a vision of things to accomplish, it makes "sacrifices" such as that something to have great joy in. But, (you knew that was coming) we did decide to buy ONE firework, at half price, making it about $o.47 per person. It was the best firework we'd seen all evening! :) We have since determined that we will only purchase gun powder type fireworks for wedding celebrations and we'll partake of the non-gunpowder type daily as we enjoy loving each other through life! ;)

Blackberry picking is upon us. My folks have a "secret" spot that we went to last year and got a ton blackberries (and scratches!)!

So, we've been making plans to go again this year and reap the bounty! Lord willing, we should be able to get three good pickings off of this one spot. And we're looking forward to it! It's amazing to see how the Lord has made the ground to bring forth fruit for us to utilize. One little piece of land can produce so much if well tended! "(15) And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it... (18)And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him..." Genesis 2:15,18

The Lord has definitely been blessing David's work! It's amazing how the Lord provides! Thank you to everyone who has been praying for that! I'm very blessed to have such a diligent and hard working husband, be it work on the farm or web design!

I guess another thing that we've been up to is volleyball! Lots and lots of it! I love watching David play! He's amazing out there! On some occasions I'll look over at him and he's suddenly flying about 4ft. off the ground! That's my Man!!!

There's a whole lot I've missed,but you can see a few more of our adventures on our neighbor's blog. They've been such a blessing to us opening their home to us and taking us under wing! We're "The Neighbor Kids". We have SO much "Good Godly Fun" and Adventures with them!

I guess that's about it, except for the BEST and MOST exciting news that we have saved for last. There's a billion different ways to say it, but I guess the simplest and best is to say that...

The LORD has richly blessed us and we are expecting our first precious baby, due in December!

We are so thankful and excited! Our family is definitely excited about it too! We're roughly 20weeks along and everything is going just fine! And before you ask, we're not "opening our presents before Christmas" and finding our if it's a boy or girl. It's way more fun and adventuresome to wait til he/she is out to find out!!!

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 1:28

You can look at this picture to prepare yourself for Decemeber! Hehehe. It's our nephew Micah.