Spring was an exciting time...a time for new life. Our goat population began to grow, to double, and more. Some of the nannies had twins and triplets...we considered ourselves to be really blessed by the increase. We learned that a nanny can be impregnated by more than one billy, at any given time. One time, we had three different breeds of billies and a nanny had triplets - three different types - beyond a shadow of a doubt. We raised the billies that were born, until they were large enough for a meal...the nannies we kept for future milkers...this was all a part of "life" on a farm and something that we all had to come to grips with.

There were times, like when we decided to take the kids off the nannies, right from birth, and then we had to bottle feed them - it was heartbreaking to tear them apart, but once we all recovered from it, there was the solace, the comfort we got from bottle feeding the kids...they were cute little things with their shaky walk and their "tweeking" little tails...cute, too, when their little horns began to grow - back before we began cauterizing them, so they wouldn't grow. But, with knowledge comes always wanting to improve on something...and, ultimately, the purpose for going to the "wilderness" gets lost...we began to put the natural chores and improving on them, ahead of the real reason why we had gone to the "wilderness" (to be in a place where we could hear and obey what the Lord was speaking to us).

That Spring, there were many new chores for the men; one of which was to dig a root cellar out of the side of a hill, not too far from the Tabernacle. We had started the farm with an old Massey Furgeson tractor, and now had a newer and more powerful tractor (just until we had all the virgin land plowed up, and then we would switch to horses - so we wouldn't have to buy any more gasoline). It sure came in handy with this monumental job - the root cellar. We were going by the pattern out of a living off the land, book.

When the hole was finished, the men logged some spruce out of the bush and dragged them up to the root cellar; these were to be the roof; to complete the roof, they put heavy plastic wrap down, piled dirt on top and then sod. All of this would be good insulation, keeping the heat of summer out and also the cold of winter; it would have to be kept at a certain temperature, inside, for the root crops that would be stored there - we also built shelves to put canned goods on.

There was a narrow shaft built, from the outside of the roof, down into the root cellar itself - this had a piece that opened or closed, depending upon whether you needed to more hot or cold, to regulate the temperature. One man was given the responsibility of the root cellar; he was the only one who went into it - and that was usually once a day or less. It proved to be an excellent arrangement - our root crops held very good until late Spring, when we again had vegetables.

There was a convention back in Ohio and some of the brethren wanted to attend it; they asked to use our school bus for transportation. It served them well; they went there and then to West Virginia (where some of the people had come from); they bought a lot of supplies, including bolts of cloth - that kept somebody busy sewing for a long time.

Our bus was used one or two more times, for trips to Invermere, B.C. I think it was for mini-conventions. We never did get to use the bus again; and about 3 years later, it was decided to retire the school bus and it was sold. Because the farm had insured the bus for 2 years, they decided to keep the money, that selling the bus…brought: but later, decided to give us half.

Here it was the first week in May; the temperature had been going up rapidly. We had all planned ahead, and on a certain day, all of us were going to go out and pull buck brush; this bush grew everywhere and it was hard walking between the cabins and the barns; there was the consideration also, that snakes could hide in it. At the time, we didn't know we were so far North, that there were no snakes and no earthworms (because of the ground freezing up at such a deep level, and also the hoarfrost).

When we planned an "event", NOTHING stopped us. So, while the temperature was climbing, we were pulling...most of us didn't have hats and the sun really beat down on us. We had a thermometer outside our cabin door, and I noticed that it was over 100 degrees; surely that couldn't be right, not this far North...so, we just kept pulling. We spent the entire day out in that sun...a lot of us got headaches, and Joe got sunstroke. He was on his back for a couple of days. This was the day that more people arrived from Pennsylvania; they must have thought we were "spiritual" working through that heat, or just plain "nuts"...they never said; but they knew enough to stay in the shade.

A few years later, some of the small children began carrying sticks around, wrapped in blankets (like dolls); they would beat them with other sticks. I think we saw it for what it was - that's the only way the small children could relate to us adults...all we did was spank them.

We had many teachings about how we had to spank them until that spirit of rebellion was broken in them. One time Joe spanked one of our boys until it was apparent that no spirit of rebellion was ever going to leave. He had never been too keen on spanking because I had spanked too much, and by the time he got home from work (back in the States), he had all he could do to calm both them and me down. This time he had spanked (with a belt), one of the boys, until he didn't know if they were alright - and asked me to see how that one was - it really hurt him to have to go that far (and still nothing happened, the attitude in that one wasn't changed at all); he never hit any of the children that much, again.