Elias - a little belated

An email from a friend reminded me that some of you haven't seen our not-quite-daily posting of facebook pictures of Eli, or heard from excited family...

Our incredibly sweet, cute little boy Elias Doug Schwegler was born just before 3am on August 17th. All went well with the birth at home, with no complications and a pretty great family experience. My mom, sister and 8-year-old niece Anna arrived in the afternoon and early evening of the 16th as I was having early labor contractions. We called the midwife in the early evening and she came with an assistant and a student around 7pm, had me change positions, and active labor started progressing from there. I did a variety of things from spending some time in the tub, the rocking chair, hanging from a rope, taking a midnight walk on the street, and lots of hanging on Jon. I started pushing about 1:30am and little Eli came out about 2:47 on the bed with very little mess. He had a slightly short umbilical cord so they laid him on my lower stomach and then had to prompt Jon and I to lift him to discover his gender ;-) It was a pretty surprising moment somehow, and has been a wonderful process with him ever since.

 He was a healthy 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 21.25 inches long, and after losing weight after birth, he is probably around 9 lbs now and nursing like a champ. Life has definitely changed, I'm lucky if I finish the chores with the goats and chickens, get the laundry hung, feed Eli and myself and exercise before 3 in the afternoon, but he is the sweetest addition to life at the farm. He is really calm, makes great faces as he wakes up, basically only cries to be fed or during baths, and is great fun to watch as he swings his head around to examine the blurry world around him.

In other news, the house is almost officially done! The exterior paint was finished Sunday and Jon's friend Eric is finishing up some beautiful paving stone around the deck as we speak. Jon also declared that he has no real weekend projects he wants to finish this fall so we can do some family hikes and things with the last of summer! I'm hoping we can get out an afternoon this week or weekend, and then we have a camping trip planned with climbing friends in Leavenworth in a few weeks and airplane tickets to see family in sunnier climes in October! Between those, doing some final fall seeding and getting the goats bred, it'll be the holidays before we know it ;-)


Happy end of summer to everyone!
Eli, Jenni and Jon

Many pictures...

But no baby yet ;-)

As soon as we put the chickens out on the pasture, we realized we needed a fence around the garden, so we built one, and here they are trying to find a way in. No luck so far...

Just a fun picture of one of the bigger goats trying to crawl in under where one of the smaller ones was hiding. 

Friday night my sister and I had a henna party with a couple of friends and a professional did my belly, as well as the hands and feet of the other girls. It was great fun, especially as the baby kept kicking out at the ticklish touch of the henna being applied.

We finally got our couches, big cushy latex ones that you can fall into but still get out of! They are wonderful, and are encouraging my laziness in these last few hot days...

The garden fence, around our raised hugelkultur beds, with tomatoes, sunflower plants, beets, pumpkins, collard trees, and some ornamental banana trees going so far. And then finally the paint is going on the outside of the house, a dark barn red and mossy grey green with the shingles, yay!

Also, the big day finally arrived when Jon got to park in his first garage! 

And finally, one of our chickens at least has started laying eggs, so Jon had a lovely orange-yolked smallish egg to go with his dinner last night...

Counting Down...

It's officially summer here, though I'm pretty happy with how little the temperature has been over 80 degrees, as I get really lazy as it gets warmer... But the count down is on, for finishing outside projects and baby preparations. I'm at 36 weeks today and all is well, the belly is growing, the baby is moving in a squished way rather than kicking out, and after 37 weeks we're home free as far as proceeding with a home birth with the midwife! I keep forgetting to take profile pictures, so here is a shot looking down at my belly ;-)

In other news, it was a big weekend at the farm because we finally got the chickens out onto pasture in the chicken tractor! We joked that it was a bigger event than moving into the house ourselves, as it has been a part-time weekend project for months and is not only possibly the most delux chicken coop, but in the end it will probably have a hydraulic system to lift it up onto wheels to be pulled by the tractor... Jon did a great job designing it though, with windows, separate doors to reach the nesting boxes and the food and water, and a cleanable floor under the roosting perch. The wheels and roof will get finalized before winter but the chickens are loving it for the time being, racing around the grass/weeds, hopping up the ladder and exploring their new coop.

Pre-Summer Update

Sorry it's been so long, but it's been a fun spring of outdoor projects (irrigation for the cedars behind the solar panels, planting guilds of helpful plants around the fruit trees, prepping the garden, weeding and planting the green roofs), finishing up house projects (trim, paving, exterior paint, moving equipment back to Expert), learning about pregnancy and infants (including a great pregnancy class that made Jon laugh and turn red just about every week), some hiking/snowshoeing and helping out with the climbing class, and getting to know neighbors and other families/homesteading people in the area. 

As far as the pregnancy front goes, all is well, I'm measuring true-to-time 30 cm uterus for 30 weeks and the baby is moving around like crazy, sometimes kicking me in the lungs in a way that makes me gasp. We are waiting to find out the sex, though we have our guess ;-) Though it is a few days until official summer and the weather lately has been mostly very spring-ish, keep us in your thoughts as mid-August rolls around when I'll inevitably be late, hot and grouchy ;-) For now I can still do most everything, and get to enjoy feeling the baby's hiccups and listening to the heartbeat. 

Anyway, here are a few pics: We finally have grass and beautiful Iris (thanks Marilyn!) growing on one side of our front walkway, with the last pile under plastic on the other side, awaiting final landscaping soon...

Jon has been greatly enjoying showing the chickens the wonders of the world outside their garage-coop while we build a chicken tractor, including introducing them to the goats... We have four breeds and the range of intelligence is pretty interesting, with this breed now intimidating the goats and giving us a fun game of hide and seek last Sunday. 

If you didn't know, we have four goats now, my two babies Rowen and Harper who are 5 months old, and another couple of sisters (Kerala and Ofeibea) who are 10 months old, learning the ways of walking on a lead and slowly getting less domineering with the younger goats. 

Better late than never, right? I finally have the garden almost prepped. I am doing a hugelkultur bed where you bury logs to slowly decompose and act like a sponge for moisture as well as slowly releasing nutrients. A friend helped me cut up and haul a couple of fallen alders from our stream bank and I finally dug a trench and buried them today. We'll see what I get going, probably mostly some fall crops and food for the goats in the winter (mangel beets, pumpkins, kale, collards). When I realized how late I was going to be with the garden I started working at the CSA in Woodinville again for the summer so we're stocked with veges, and I bring home all the weeds for the goats, which they devour...

And finally, our last 'big' project to get done before the baby, a mondo chicken tractor fit for our eight chickens, with much design work by Jon and much handing of screws from me to Jon as he does all of the work. All it needs is another coat of stain, a roof and chicken wire, and then we'll have the chickens out on pasture. 

I hope you're all doing well and enjoying the beginnings of summer! Come visit if you're ever in the area :-)

Home sweet home and gaining family members!

It's hard to believe we've been in the house almost a month, it's been crazy busy with finishing up projects, getting supplies ready for goats and chickens, Jon working at Expert and weekends full of climbing class fieldtrips, SAR trainings and a long-awaited ski weekend with friends. So we're greatly appreciating a weekend at home, despite the grey weather and chance of snow in the evenings again! The house is wonderful though, even on a grey morning we haven't turned the lights on...

The view off the south deck to the goat barn...

We're mostly done unpacking; the gear room is getting the last of the attention.

And, big news, my mom and I went to pick up our first two goats yesterday! They are 2 month old La Mancha does, sisters, that I can breed in the fall and hilariously cute so far. They were a little freaked out moving into the new barn yesterday evening, without a herd of 20 other goats around them, but they are always happy to see us and chug down their milk, and bleat like crazy when we leave. We named them Rowen and Harper (both girls), and Harper is definitely more outgoing while Rowen hangs back a little and seems to have a little cough after she eats. They both learned to jump out the window this morning, thank goodness they didn't figure that out last night! We put up some wire covers and will keep them in the barn for now, until the weather is a little better and I move them out onto pasture and possibly get a milking doe later this spring for milk and more company. Here is Jon holding the feeder as they pull at it, such a race to get their share of the milk ;-)

We're in!

It's been a crazy couple of months, and we enjoyed a few weeks living at my mom's house after moving out of the apartment, with all of our boxes and furniture stashed in the shop at the farm. As of Sunday though, we're officially living in the house!




There are a few projects still waiting outside (goat fencing, finish rock on the path to the door and the basement window wells, etc), but we have only a couple of days of work left in the house! The kitchen tile will get grouted Friday night and the sink will go in, and then I will have a fully functional kitchen! Having used a Utilitub in the laundry room though for the last few days, I don't know how people live without one...

Despite all of our boxes, and our ability to fill the kids' rooms with outdoor gear, the house looks nicely sparse. We will slowly pick up more furniture but it is the busy season outside that calls first. We have plans to plant more than 20 fruit and nut trees, some other landscaping projects, get the garden prepped, and the goat barn totally finished. I have a couple of 2 month old La Mancha does waiting for pickup in Shelton, and hope to have a milking doe here in the next month or two! We're also safely (and healthfully) into the second trimester with little Schweglet, so the action should keep on rolling into August (and beyond)...

I hope you're all enjoying seeing the first signs of spring!