Some Things We Love About Living Here

Sim is sitting in the fort on one of the buckets that Ephraim, Asaph and Zion use to make the snow fort bricks. Keeping him company is our dog Maple who we got from our good friends, the Stewart's. Maple is a Golden Retriever. To Sim's left, you can see another room.

The fort behind this one was made by Havilah. It is taller and is made out of snow balls, not bricks.

They all say that the forts can be ran into at full force and they do not get damaged. The children plan on building them up with more tiers of snow blocks and balls later today.

In the foreground is the clay house made of mud bricks. All summer Ephraim led the children in this project. Zion's uncle in Liberia used to hire him to build mud structures. The inner dimensions are about 3ft by 4ft by 4ft tall. In our climate and without mixing any hay or grass into the mud; the structure begins to break down.

In the background moving from left to right you can see the south side of our home and the chicken tractor (parked and somewhat insulated for the winter). Ephraim has built two chicken tractors. The first one was smaller and not as sturdy. It got picked up and blown across the drive way and landed upside down. The shocked chickens didn't figure out right away that their structure was gone. They perched at night in the same spot for a few days until one by one they moved over to the wrecked coop. That week before Ephraim rebuilt it, we lost at least 4 chickens to a coyote. I saw the bad, wild, canine running in a field. He looked fat and happy.

Next in the photo is the garden surrounded by a 8 ft fence (thank you Leon, Mr. Croteau and Ephraim), the goat barn that Ephraim built with a window, a yard and a lean to in the back for hay. Behind that he built on a snug little stall for the male goat after the female has her kid this spring.