This isn't really that exciting but I thought I'd share how we are progressing on our house. We put in a culvert this past week. When I say we, I really mean Leonard and his dad, of course! This is required by the county to go under our driveway. It has to be 40 feet long. We had a neighbor dig the hole for us and Len and his dad brought in gravel. It's not much to look at but to me it says that we are moving along - even if it is slowly! :)
It's a Husqvarna 455 Rancher chainsaw. Thanks to the love and support from SEVERAL family members, we could afford it and he is now the proud owner of this new saw. I don't know which delighted him more, the saw itself, or the fact that his wife bought him the saw. Anyway, he says THANK YOU and he really likes it! I figured that if we are going to live on a tree farm, he better have a good saw. 
It was good to see them all. My grandparents live on a beautiful farm with a large orchard. 
It was good to be there again! 
It seemed like a pretty messy job and we wondered what it took to be able to graduate from the guy standing in the mud with the shovel to the guy standing on the platform running the drill.
It did not go as well as we hoped. They found some water around 100ft but it was only 1 gallon per minute. Not really enough to run a house. They drilled to 160ft that day and then they hit some clay. The problem with that is that the clay was collapsing in on itself and wouldn't stay open. That is when the drill foreman told us that they would have to "case" the entire well until they either hit water or granite. This nearly doubled the cost of our well and it didn't even guarantee we would find water. We were sick. But they recommended that we keep going - after all, if we want a house, we need water. The next day they came back and started casing the well that they had already drilled. They worked all day and one of us was nearby pretty much the whole time. and then around 5:00 they hit another layer of basalt. This was good and bad. Good because water is often found in basalt. Bad because they thought they would be hitting granite so it meant that they had no idea what was on the other side of the basalt. It could be more clay or the basalt could go on for a long time. It is really hard to "case" basalt so they had to decide what to do next. They all slept on it and in the morning decided to continue casing through the basalt. This was hard work and took a LONG time. For example, the previous day they had run 260ft of casing and on that day they only ran 40 ft. BUT the good news is that they found water in the basalt! Half way through the day they found about 5 gallons a minute. Not great but good enough to supply our house if we had a holding tank. By the end of the day they had found about 15 gallons a minute. That will be plenty to run our house and water our lawn! We were so happy! The tension around the farm had been so thick you could taste it! We also said A LOT of prayers for good water. We were relieved to finally find some. Plus, we got the invoice today and it wasn't as bad as we thought. Thank you United Crown Drilling Company! You guys did great!
Here is a picture of the finished well and my happy husband: 
Here are some pictures that the kids took with the camera while they were bored watching the drilling!
Hiawatha Bike Trail
For the 4th of July we decided to take the kids on a bike ride. Bike riding and running are SO popular here. There are designated trails everywhere and there isn't a day goes by that I don't see someone running or biking on my way in to town. We decided to take them on the Hiawatha Trail. You can see more about it HERE. We had been on the trail before but it had been about 11 years so we thought it was time to go at it again. The trail used to be an old railroad. It has about a 3% grade so it's a pretty easy ride. At the bottom you can ride back up or you can hop a shuttle and get a ride back to your car. You have to wear helmets and headlamps. You go through tunnels and across huge bridges. It's awesome! I recommend it to anyone traveling through the Idaho/Montana state line.
Neil and Kay have a bike trailer that we used for Miranda. They also decided to buy a tagalong to have on the farm. They figure we'll get lots of use out of it with all the grandkids. Kanyon rode the tagalong behind me.
I have to say that it was awesome. It took a little getting used to at first but then I hardly pedaled the whole ride. He seemed to be pusing me along the way! It wasn't much exercise for me though! Kaydra rode her bike and probably had the toughest ride of all of us. She had to pedal twice as fast to keep up with us. She was a trooper though and did really great!
This is before the ride:
Here is a picture near one of the tunnels. They are all about the same other than the length of each one varies. There are signs at the opening of each tunnel telling you how long it is. That helped me decide if I would need my light or not.
The Taft tunnel is right at the beginning. It is 1.8 miles long and pitch black inside. Thus the headlamps. Kanyon was a little scared and started whistling so I enjoyed "Mary had a Little Lamb" while we rode along! The trestles are huge and so awesome. We loved to be able to look down on the trees. It was beautiful. As I said, I highly recommend it!
Here are some pictures of us at a trestle. What a view!
This next one is Miranda after the ride. It's hard to tell but she is covered in mud. On the way through the "Taft" tunnel to our car it was really wet and she got all the mud that spun off Len's tire. She was so good all day, hardly a peep out of her until she went through this tunnel. Then she was saying "mama, no no" through the whole thing. It wasn't until we got through to the other side that we realized why she was upset! 
It was a good day. That night we let the kids do some "poppers" in the yard and then we drove on the hill to watch the fireworks in town. We were a little disappointed because although Coeur d'Alene puts on a pretty good show, it wasn't much of a comparison to the Idaho Falls one - even Leonard said so!
Miranda's tooth
Now on to the sad part of the post. Yesterday, after dinner, Len gave Miranda a bath. She was all finished and playing with the kids when we heard a thump and a scream. Never a good sign. She did one of those cries when you wonder if they will pass out because they are not breathing for so long. Len was comforting her and Kaydra said, "What's wrong with her tooth?" I got that sinking feeling in my stomach. Len said, "Oh man! She chipped her tooth!" So yes, my baby girl is now a regular red neck, country girl. She chipped her right front tooth.
I know that it looks like I am torturing her - and I was. I HAD to get a picture for the blog! We are waiting to see if she damaged it bad enough that it will die (turn black). Hopefully she didn't and then when she gets a little bigger they can file it down and it won't be so bad. If it does die, then it will have to be pulled and I will have a toothless daughter until she is in second grade :( I feel so bad. It's not really noticeable until she gives you her cute "cheese" grin. Then you can see it really well. I guess I really am raising country kids!
As a side note, some of you may have noticed a kitten in the picture with Leonard at the new well. We walked over there today to take the picture and we found two kittens. We are pretty sure that someone just dropped them off. They followed us to the field and to the well so we thought we'd bring them home. 
They are both males (no more kittens) and the kids were really excited. However, I have just learned that Kanyon is allergic to them. He came inside sneezing and rubbing his eyes which were all red and swollen. I have given him strict instructions not to touch them anymore today and to wash his hands any time that he does touch them. We'll see how that goes!
Ahhhh, I can finally relax tonight knowing that my blog is updated!
