Shrine of The Snowshoe Priest - Bishop Frederic Baraga

Have you ever driven by local sites and monuments, in your area, time and time again and never stopped your busy life to visit it?  We have many times!

The many times we've driven to Marquette, we've passed the Bishop Baraga outdoor monument site and have always been in too much of a hurry to stop by.  Well, before Marti headed home, we decided we'd act retired for the day and visit this local monument - WOW is it impressive! The statue is 35 feet tall and weighs 4 tons...and it floats above your head on a cloud!  It is wrought brass, has snowshoes that are 26 feet tall, and he holds a 7 ft cross.  Bishop Baraga, born in 1797,  built five major missions during the 1840s in the Keweenaw, mostly working with the Indian population. 

Fr. Frederic Baraga - The Snowshoe Jesuit Priest

Historical board for the site

We have to go into the Ojibwa Reservation to get to the site

Typical of the Catholic Faith - you can light a candle for a cause or someone

 This statue is HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the view from the bluff edge from in front of the statue - it was a very windy day.

Don't be like us - take the time to visit your local historical sites...don't wait until someone visits you to take the time off to learn about your area!

Progress at Cold Comfort - And it Feels GREAT!

For as long as Mark and I have owned this farm, we've had dreams and goals for Cold Comfort.  Just cleaning up the property was not good enough for us.  The house was first priority and we accomplished those goals last fall with getting windows repaired and sealed, trim painted, and patio created - making it our home. 

 The second priority was the barn. WELL, two days ago the new concrete floor was poured on the north side of the barn, the troughs were filled on the south side, and the pooper scooper wall (which was removed) was filled with stone and mortar.  The mason was so good that, when he finished, the patch was very hard to detect.

This is the finished floor.  It has a smooth but has a rougher finish than a garage floor so the animals with snowy, wet feet don't slip and fall. 

The next step is to get the water away from the edge of the foundation of the barn so the floor won't heave again next winter.  Mark has hired a excavator to come in and assist him to remove all the soil around the barn, lay plastic and insulation down, and then slope the soil away from the edges of the barn.  With the HUGE roof on the barn and the HUGE amount of snow we get yearly, the more water we take away from soaking beneath the barn, the better.

The final step will not take place until next summer - we want to see if the first two steps are successful and the floor doesn't heave over a UP winter. At that point, we'll do the final step of repeating all that we did inside on the lower barn to what we call the upper barn, which is about 1/3 the size of the lower barn.  That space will become two very important workshops - one for Mark and one for me.  These work spaces will become the farm hub spaces so we are not wasting so much of our time walking back and forth for tools and stuff that we need...it will be housed where we need it.

Mark deeply researched building heaving and we THINK all this will work but since we've not done this before, we need all your prayers that all Mark's hard work will be successful so we can move forward.  We've been told that if this works, the barn should last another 100 years or more.  I'll post photos as they excavate around the barn so you can watch it come together.

Wish us luck.

Wonderful Visit with Family

On July 5th, we met Keva, Mitch, and the girls in the Wisconsin Dells to pick up the girls.  We met for dinner and then drove back with the girls for a few days while Kev and Mitch vacationed throughout Wisconsin before arriving at the Cold Comfort Farm on July 10. 

I thought I'd share, in photos (Mitch's and Keva's) and videos, some of the time we spent together:

Our first evening we went to dinner at a restaurant where the food and drinks arrive on miniature trains; we highly suggest it if you vacation in the Dells.  The kids LOVED it!  If there were no drinks or food to be delivered, toys are loaded on the trains....Mark picked up a toy for the kids to play with and Sophie (the child who strives not to get in trouble) told Popi to, "Put it back, or he would get into trouble!" 

Mark taking toys off the serving train

We had a grand time and then went next door to play in the arcade.

Food train that delivers food and drink and the track is installed all around the restaurant

The first morning the girls were here, we took photos and texted them to Kev and Mitch saying, "GOOD MORNING MOM and DAD!" 





The kids had a blast running around the farm yard, (free range kids but using walkie-talkies), playing with the rabbits (see the video below) and cats (photo below), and just playing free and easy in the beautiful sunshine and light breeze.

The cats were either sitting in the window watching the kids or resting and being loved, petted, or chased (Claira) by the girls

Claira in Rory's old summer hat chilling in the car...

...or being a fashion diva while watching cartoons...

...or riding on Popi's shoulders!

That's me on the belt - in the top window

Keva and Mitch arrived right as we were assisting our neighbors, Steve and Melissa, hayed one of their large fields.  Mark's job was unloading the hay bales from the wagon and loading them onto the conveyor belt.  Mine was to stand in the barn loading window and guide the bales as they came off the belt and make sure they transitioned onto another belt, which carried the bales deep into the barn loft.  We unloaded 1,034 bales and tossed them into the barn loft to age. That is only a portion of the hay that we will process.

Rory saw her first "real live deer" during this visit. She was surprised that her dad hunted these animals, even though she told him that she wanted to go deer hunting with him. She is not used to animals other than cats, but is getting a taste of farm animals from her visit here. She helped me feed the rabbits, clean their cages, and she fell in love with Cream, our mother rabbit...and Cream fell for her too. She asked me to take a picture of her and place it in Cream's cage so that Cream will not forget her and know her when she comes back. I told her that some animals have a smell memory and she may know her from her smell when she comes again.

                                                                                During Kev and Mitch's visit, we visited local areas, Marquette, and Copper Harbor.  Below are Keva's photos, not mine, of some of the local scenery.  Kev and Mitch both are much better photographers than I am

 

The sound of the water pounding and retreating on this beach actually sounded like water over bamboo - it was the oddest but most beautiful sound...I could have sat and listened all day!

Lake Superior shore

Sophie - our little sand angel

Marquette's Who Tree

Kev, Mitch, and the kids left this morning and even though we are tired, it's a great tired.  We enjoyed their visit very much and I hope they enjoyed the farm.  

My sister, Diane, and her grandson arrive next week, so we'll have some time to rest before we have another child to entertain.

Man Plans and God Laughs

Ice Cream, Cream for short, was due to have her Flemish Giant babies today according to the lady we purchased her from....but either her previous owner wasn't correct about the breeding date or Cream can't read a calendar!  Well, the people who know me well, know that I think God has a sense of humor and he was laughing at our "plan" over the last few days!

Now on to our plan -  Since Mark finished taking out the barn floor and the cement mason will be arriving within the next week, we figured we'd give Cream one day with her nesting box and then move the cage to the pole barn, where it would be quieter.  And Mark was making lots of noise in the pole barn building our potato box and watering system for the garden, so when he finished those projects, we knew we only had a short window of time to move them before the litter arrived.  WELL, We blew that one!

You're suppose to insert a nesting box into her cage three days prior to her due date - and thought we were doing that but within about 12 hours after the nesting box was placed, she started building her nest and promptly had her litter.  The babies were so quiet that we didn't realize they were born.   

So, we put her out in the yard ring pen for some exercise and then started to move her cage, and as we were moving it into its place in the quiet pole barn, we heard baby bunnies squealing.  OMG were we surprised!  We were VERY careful with the pen, but even though we were, we had two bunnies fall out of their warm nest.  Everything I had read said to leave well enough alone for the first 12-24 hours and see if she puts them back, since they were just outside the nest. 

Yesterday morning I went out to Cream's cage to check on the brood - one of the two was not breathing and the other was still alive and still squirming slightly so I petted Cream (she was very sweet and inviting), gave her a rabbit treat to make her happy, and picked them both up.  I felt REALLY badly that our move caused the death of one of her litter; however, rabbits notoriously lose almost half of each litter - everything from deformities, failure to thrive, naturally falling out of the nest, being stepped on by their mom, to even being accidentally being bitten if they are too large to be born and the mom bunny tries to help pull them out. We had another problem in our plan - Mark, Marti, and I were suppose to drive to Marquette yesterday to return some large items to the Loews and pick up some other important items.

Since my family raised bunnies as children, I KINDA knew what to do.  I reached into the fridge for goat's milk (the best substitute for rabbit milk), warmed it to room temp, grabbed an eye dropper, cut a swatch of fleece fabric and grabbed a little box with stuffing to use as a nest and we jumped into the truck for the 1.5 hour trip to Marquette.  I figured if we could get the little one warm, get it to take some milk it just might survive.  Marti and I took turns warming the little one by holding it in the fleece cloth in our hands - that was more important than the food.  It finally started to wiggle wanting to be fed.  We had to stop for gasoline so Marti took that time to try to get it to suck some of the milk from the dropper...it took about 4-6 drops.  We felt better but watched it sleep, stretch, snuggle into the warmth...this little one wanted to live and seems to be a fighter. 

To make a long story shorter, it survived the day (it took milk three times) so when we arrived home, I washed my hands, carried the little one out to the cage, gave Cream a treat, rubbed my hands into her deep white fur for quite a while to pick up her scent, picked up the baby with my bare hands for the first time, rubbed the baby all over with my scented hands, picked some of the fur from the nest, rubbed that fur all over the baby bunny, and then placed the baby into the nest with the other babies.  The entire nest of babies went nuts squealing - I think it was because this one was colder than they were...you all know what it feels like when your spouse comes into your warm bed and puts his cold feet on your skin...I squeal too! 

Well shortly after that they all calmed down and Cream seemed OK with the addition.  This morning I checked the nest and all seemed to be wiggling, stretching and climbing over each other to get in the inside of the pack - I think she has seven or eight babies.  Three black and the rest white/pink.  I took the photo practically standing on my head in her hutch.  I know it's not a great photo - I'll get a better look at all of them tomorrow when I clean the nesting box.  I'll let you know then.
Life is very interesting when you are rabbit ranchers!