Stella Reading, Solar Trench, & Fresh Apples

Sometimes Stella likes to get in bed, snuggle under some covers, and read a good book.

She usually grabs one of her dolls to read to, but this day she was all by herself. Quickly flipping through the pages, and being quite adorable!

What was the book she was so intently reading?

It was Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter. We just finished reading it, and it was scary. Poor Ma, Pa, Laura, blind Mary, Carrie, and Grace are close to death throughout half the book as they were under prepared for blizzard after blizzard on the South Dakota prairie. It gives me shivers to think about it. I started making sauerkraut and dehydrating apples.

Thankfully this trench is now covered...Stella made me very nervous when she was around it.

Tom figures he laid about 700' of pipe in this trench. It worked out well because right at the bottom we hit a nice sand/shale bed...that's the green you see in the picture. That will be very good for drainage. Why all the pipe you ask?

Well 400' was for the solar shunt, which is (simply speaking...because this is me talking and not Tommy) necessary mainly in the summer time to prevent over heating before reaching the house...or something like that. Then he laid the incoming solar hot water pipe and the outgoing solar hot water pipe, and the electrical wires to run the solar electric panel on top of the solar hot water panels to run the DC pump that pumps the hot water into the house and where it needs to go. Pretty awesome now that it is cooler outside and the house is staying a cozy 75F+ inside.

Reeve taking a flying leap over the solar trench...

The piping was then covered with sand from that sand pile. Kyle was very good at loading the sand into the wheelbarrow. He calculates that he must have filled 20+ wheelbarrows full...it was a lot of sand.

We had a wonderfully delicious crop of apples from our apple trees this year. Stella absolutely LOVED going out there and having her big brothers pick her an apple fresh off the tree.

Look at the look of pure joy and excitement on her face!

Then she was off to enjoy it in the very sandy black tub that was her pool...it was actually a foot rinsing tub before getting into the bigger pool, but Stella preferred this black tub to the clean blue pool. Ahhh...the days of summer! The pool is now drained and put away, but Stella (even in these colder temps) still prefers to go in the buff rather than wear clothes. She screams and puts on such a fit when we try to get her dressed, so naked she goes!

Today we are off to La Crosse (about 60 miles away) to visit the dentist for Reeve and Kyle. Both boys have a cross-bite and need to have spacers put on their teeth today and then on Wednesday we go back to have impressions taken of their mouths, so retainers can be made. Reeve is not happy that he will be missing school. We got his first report card...Straight A's...his lowest score was a 90% in math...highest was 101% in spelling. Go Reeve!

Small Outdoor Concert & Solar Pictures

Way back on our Anniversary (August 7th) we went to an outdoor concert for a hunger benefit. It was a small gathering, but the kids had fun dancing and listening to the music.

Stella is wearing a necklace that Tom gave to me on one of our earlier anniversaries...she loves to wear jewelry.

Stella made friends with a roaming dog...

The kids getting a closer view...

After listening to the music for awhile we all traveled to Viroqua and had dinner at a local cafe that specializes in serving local food. It was yum.
More pictures from our huge Solar Hot Water installation...getting ready to dig the trench and our neighbor digging the trench:

We've been trying to set goals around here. One of my goals is to get caught up on this blog...these pictures are still from August! Not a huge goal, but it's been bugging me.

(Above picture is of the back cabin on our Hawaiian property)
Another goal we set yesterday and that is to fly out of Seattle and finally move to our home in Hawaii on June 9th 2011! Why that date you ask? Well we can always hope for sooner, but that is the last date I saw that Hawaiian Airlines had tickets from Seattle to Hilo for $245/ea! After that the prices go up, up, up.

(Above picture is back cabin again...we don't have any still pics of the front cabin...video...but no still pics...and the back cabin kitchen)
Reeve's last day of school is June 2nd and the plan is for Tom to drive the Orange Astro pulling a trailer (full of Tom's tools and bikes and things to large to box up) followed by me and at least 2 of the kids driving the Subaru. We plan to camp a couple of days in Yellowstone, then drive on to Seattle where we will ship out the Astro and Trailer. Then we will drive the Subaru up to Vancouver and spend a couple of days visiting my family. Then back to Seattle where we will ship the Subaru and fly to our new home.

Our Monarchs from Caterpillars to Nose Hangers

My apologies about being so lax on my postings. I've privatized the blog now, and I can have up to 100 readers. This way I know who is reading about and looking at our family pictures. Not a big concern, but now I can finally talk about Hawaii without our neighbors or some of our customers getting overly concerned. We've told a lot of people, but since we do not know exactly when we will be moving we don't want to tell the whole world just yet.
Right now it looks like Spring/Summer 2011. We wish it were RIGHT NOW!
Catching up...I've posted 122 pictures to our Flickr page...which is also by invite or only visible to Family & Friends of us on Flickr. That was easier than posting all 122 pictures to the blog, and I think it might be easier for you to print the pictures. I haven't written any details on the pictures yet, but I plan to do that. My computer time is fairly limited these days :) The link to our Flickr page is here. If you are able to see this blog, but you can't view the Flickr pictures, then just send me an email.

Okay waaaayyyy back in the beginning of August Kyle went on a mad mission to find Monarch caterpillars in our yard on the copious amount of milkweed we have let take over...just so we could have lots of butterflies flying about. Monarch caterpillars are very particular little fellows and they will only eat milkweed.                      

When Kyle first found them (he found 5!) they were sooo tiny we could barely see them. We made net houses that hang from our center beam so we could watch them grow.

And grow they did! In the beginning we only need to pick fresh milkweed once a day. Kyle or Reeve (sometimes me & Stella) would go out and find the most tender looking leaves. Then those caterpillars start to eat, and they eat, and they eat. Pretty soon we thought they were going to be as large as a dinosaur!

Stella got a real kick out of watching them eat. We kept telling her that they were baby butterflies. She could climb up onto this chair to watch. I know, I know...climbing chairs is "dangerous", but it's over carpet (for the most part) and there is NO stopping Stella from climbing!

When they have gorged on milkweed for about a week...and I do mean gorge...towards the end we have to pick the milkweed several times a day and clean out the castings...so when they are done eating, they travel up the net to the top and find a suitable spot on the cardboard to "hang".

They somehow attach themselves and move into a "J hook" position. It really looks like they are praying and chanting because they kinda gently move up and down. They do this for about a day and then they shed their skin and face and antennae and form a chrysalis. It is hard to see in the pic below, but there is one caterpillar in the "J hook" and one that has formed the chrysalis.

They chrysalis is truly amazing and I was not good at capturing the details on it. There are shiny golden and black bead dots decorating it. They remain in the chrysalis for a little over a week.

Then the chrysalis becomes transparent and we can see it turn black. It doesn't take long after the color changes to black for the butterfly to break out...I'd say less than 5 hours. When we see the change we watch it constantly and have seen them emerge...I never have the camera quite ready and it is really hard to take a close up picture through the net.

When it does first happen their wings are still all folded up and very very wet.

Then they slowly unfold and start to air out. We know to wait about 30 minutes before we take them outside for pictures.

This is Kyle's favorite part! The butterflies are super friendly at this stage and they will walk all over you without flying away.

Little Stella was amazed!

She did not want that butterfly on her! She did love to see them on her brothers.

There are LOTS more pictures of butterflies on the kids at the Flickr page.

Now I'm off to wake up Reeve and get him ready for school! Kyle gets up too, and if Stella is up then we all walk to the neighbor's house and they drive him to school (they teach at the school).

Sand Pile and Solar System

Well I took a month off because I've been adjusting to our new family schedule, and it's all centered around Reeve going to public school. He's in the 5th Grade now, and although he was pretty bored at first he is really enjoying the whole process. We all get up early and walk him over to our neighbor's house. They teach at the school and give Reeve a ride each morning, and then Reeve takes the 50 minute bus ride home.

At any rate, Reeve's new schedule, and Kyle's home schooling, have thrown me a bit off.

Her are some sand pile pictures. Tom ordered a truck load of sand for the solar pipe "ditch" for where the pipes go underground from the the house to the solar hot water array.



The pictures speak for themselves. Reeve and Kyle both had a blast. They love to get dirty.

 Below are pictures of the solar hot water system...now fully functional. This was when there were 8 panels in place, now there are 10!

 Reeve helped test the system by running cold well water through the panels and it came out the other end over 200F degrees in minutes!

 Stella loves the water, and had to get wet...this was not the 200F degree water, thankfully!