mom – Middle Creek Mama

1 year ago. . .

01/29/2024 Middle Creek Mama

1 year ago today Kaston was released from Children’s Hospital.

See, the day before he had been in a sledding accident. We loaded up the whole family + two of my best friends and headed to the mountain for a fun day of playing in the snow.

We were only there for a short amount of time before Kaston went flying to the hill and ended up hitting the concrete at the base of a ski lift pole.

I tried everything I could to position myself to catch him, but the ground was odd and there was no good way of knowing which way he was going to go.

We headed home. He vomited. We knew it was a concussion. We headed to the ER.

Mind you, he did cry and he didn’t complain.

Our local ER jumped right into action and got him in for a CT scan, which he even walked himself to. The scan showed our worst fear, a skull fracture and a bleed. There was no way for them to know if it was a brain bleed or blood seeping in from the outside of the skull. So a helicopter was called.

Thankfully there was a helicopter already in the area and got there within 15 minutes.

We watched as they loaded our boy and followed. What took them only 30 minutes, took us 2 hours.

Later, we found out that had it been another 30 minutes later, the helicopter wouldn’t have been able to fly him because of the weather!

My parents were waiting at the hospital for Kaston. They parked near the helicopter pad. I will always be grateful for how Children’s allowed my parents to be with Kaston until we were able to get there. My mom also was able to give them a lot of information, so there wasn’t too much chaos to deal with once we got there.

My mom kept me updated on every test that was done.

By the time we got there, Kaston was in an ICU room and just really hungry and thirsty, but unable to eat or drink because of the vomiting. It was a long night. They wanted to keep an eye on the bleed for any changes.

Around midnight or maybe 1 am, they moved us to another room and his eating restrictions were lifted. He had some jello and a string cheese.

The next morning, once the kitchen was open, he devoured some pancakes and strawberries 🤣

The doctors came in to review things and do their final evaluations and said he was ready to be discharged. Wh

What started out as one of the scariest experiences of my life, turned out okay. We were released before noon and he requested spaghetti for lunch. We stayed with my parents for a few days just in case anything changed and we needed to go back to the hospital.

Brinley was the best big sister through all of this 🥰

Things I learned –

WEAR THE HELMET – I don’t care what is going on, just wear it. I have spent countless sleepless nights, sick to my stomach because I didn’t make him wear one. My guilt and shame is astronomical. And let’s be honest, rough and tough little boys probably need them just when walking around. The day we got home, he tried to do a head stand and jumped off the couch 🙄

CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL IS INCREDIBLE – we don’t live even close to one, but they’re so worth traveling to. In this case, our local ER was wonderful, but that’s not a very common story. If you’re dealing with a kid and think you need an ER and live close enough to Children’s, just go straight there. They’re the best there is.

TRUST YOUR GUT – you know your babies better than anyone, trust that. I had a couple people tell me that Kaston was fine, just knocked the wind out of him. We knew better.

NEVER TAKE YOUR BABIES FOR GRANTED – we have a positive story, it ended better than I could have even imagined. When we heard the words “bleed on the brain” everything seemingly closed in and suddenly I was imagining my life without my sweet boy and I couldn’t take it. We could have lost our boy that day, but Yah saw fit to spare him. He was back to normal so quickly. I know there are so many families out there who didn’t get to leave with their children after terrible accidents. And all I can muster up to say is just don’t take them for granted, live in each moment with them and cherish every second you get with them. We get so caught up in every day life that we don’t usually have time to stop and just be in that moment with them. In those moments, his messy room was not an issue, his leaving the door open on cold days seemed so insignificant…all the things that I had ever been upset about didn’t matter, because all that mattered was getting to see my son again and Paise Yeshuah I did.

And today, I am reminded of all of it. I’m reminded that life is precious and so fragile. I’m reminded that everything could change in the blink of an eye. Like a vapor, all that I love and cherish could be gone. I am reminded that instead of life being completely different amd empty, we got another chance and now a whole year with of craziness and laughs and hugs and snuggles and life with this boy….and for that I am so grateful.

So I encourage you today, and every day, to hold those you love close. Stop letting petty things get in the way of living and loving. These babies are so precious. Go love on them a little extra.

We praise Yah for another year of life with this sweet, crazy, wild boy. We are so grateful he is here with us 🤍

His silly personality is the best and keeps us laughing 🥰🤍

Family

Did you know? 👀

12/16/202312/16/2023 Middle Creek Mama

With the recent harvest of my elk, I wanted to share something with yall. . .

Did you know that elk have ivory?!

They do! There’s not many sources of ivory that are native to North America, but elk have one of them.

They have ivory teeth! But not all of their teeth.

Elk are ruminants, which means they have a ruminant digestive system, have an even number of toes, and don’t have top teeth. . . .except for their ivories.

Some people call them whistlers. Some folks called them buglers. I call them ivories or just elk teeth.

I have quite the collection of teeth from over the years. I think I’ve collected enough of them to practically be a dentist 😋🤣 I’m for hire. I work cheap, but you have to sign a waiver (I’m kidding, mostly).

I’ve seen many pictures of Native women’s dresses adorned with ivories and they’re just so beautiful!

Others use them for jewelry, which is also beautiful. I hope to have a ring made with one of my teeth eventually! But for now, my collection just sits in a bowl 🤣

The ivories in the photo are from the cow I harvested last week. Cows have significantly smaller ivories than bulls.

I know some might find it odd, but I love them! Every set of ivories I have remind me of a special hunt and the sacrifice that a beautiful critter made so that I may live.

Family

Elk Down!

12/16/202312/16/2023 Middle Creek Mama

The kids and husband got to accompany on my elk hunt 🥰

December is my favorite month, but not for the reason you’re probably thinking.

We don’t do Christmas, we don’t do trees and lights, or the sweaters and cookies (anymore). . . What I love most about December is cow elk season.

I am not a trophy hunter, though I do have a few heads on the wall (not monsters by any means). I strictly hunt for meat. And friends, if you’ve never had an elk steak in your cake hole, you’ve not truly lived.

This year I was blessed to get a crop deprivation tag from my husband’s grandmother. While the powers that be are trying to make people think the elk herds are suffering here in Southern Colorado, anyone with a pair of functioning eyeballs can see that they’re thriving. Some of the old timers I’ve been blessed to know tell stories about how elk weren’t even in this part of the country until the 80s when the department of wildlife brought in elk from Yellowstone and from the Vermejo in New Mexico, which is actually really close to us as the crow flies.

My husband’s grandpa would talk about how he remembered when the first walk started showing up at their ranch. It was cool to see at first, but now they’re a nuisance.

Anyone who has ever built a fence can attest to just how big of a nuisance they really are. And don’t get me wrong, I LOVE elk. I am still very much that giddy, childlike person in awe of these critters. I will never not exclaim ELK! every time I see one 🤣

But these days we have an entire herd on the ranch. They’re not always there, but when they are, they tear up fences and eat valuable grass that we need for the cattle. And in our part of the world, we just can’t support both cattle. So every year we are given an allotted amount of crop deprivation tags by the game wardens/Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

ANYWAYS. . . I got an elk.

It’s been cold here, so we quartered her and hanged her in the shed out back. I have been chipping away at quarters while my husband has been at work. I also had some wonderful friends come help me this week! We visited and laughed while the kids played and my friend’s husband and I cut away at meat.

My daughter also an amazing helper! She jumps right in and helps trim the dried bits on the outside!

Side by side comparison of a pronghorn shoulder and an elk shoulder! This elk was huge.

It brings me great peace of mind and joy to have all this in my freezers. My family will eat healthy all year long with this!

Here’s a time lapse of my daughter and I working on one quarter of the elk. This was a shoulder. I typically send all shoulder meat to the grinder.

We absolutely love elk meat. We eat it for almost every supper.

We eat more ground meat than anything else, so that’s what we make the most of when butchering.

We ended up with about 25 lbs of tenderize steaks. I have a tenderize that attaches to our grinder. It makes the steaks into cube steaks. We use this for chicken fried elk steak, fajitas, stir fry, and burritos…and whatever else I can think of to throw it in.

We got 4 bags of tenderloins. Elk tenderloin is about as good as it gets. There’s 2 tenderloins on critters. I cut them in half. I like to cook them “whole” rather than sliced into steaks.

We 8 bags of backstrap. Backstraps are the pieces of meat that run along the spine on the “outside” (if that makes sense). Forever, we sliced these into steaks. But one year I was lazy! I cut one into four chunks and tossed them in the freezer. When I cooked one, we fell in love. The way I cooked it, it turned out like prime rib 🤤 it was SO good. So now I also keep these “whole” rather than slicing into steaks.

We saved about 15 lbs of meat for my dad to make brats with. My dad really makes all the best stuff.

This cow was so meaty. She had meat in places I haven’t ever seen on elk before. She had a full on brisket, too! I was able to pull the whole brisket off to also give to my dad. He has it in a brine for corned beef…I mean, corned elk, which he’ll slice for sandwich meat.

I just finished up with vacuum sealing the burger!

We ended up with 70 lbs of ground elk!

We like to mix beef fat into our burger, which also helps to stretch it further. Elk is very lean, so adding some fat into is always a good idea.

I also saved out about 2 lbs of burger for supper tonight! We had frito chili pie 🥰

Now we are packing for a lovely little trip to the Bahamas! Stay tuned for all the shenanigans that ensue with that! 🏝🐷🥥

Do you hunt? Do you butcher/process your own meat? I’d love to hear how your family does it!

Family

A family who hunts together . . .

10/19/202310/19/2023 Middle Creek Mama

Last week I got to take the kids out with me on an antelope (pronghorn) hunt. My husband was at work, so it was just the three of us. Then later, my brother in law stepped in to help.

The kids were so very excited to get to go on a “real” hunt and it couldn’t have been a better set up for us.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any field photos with the kids, because that’s just how it goes sometimes. But they were just so stinking cute in their camo!

However, the real fun and work began at home.

Every year we turn our homeschool/room into a butcher shop for all the critters we are blessed to turn into food.

The kids are such great helpers! These antelope are so small, there wasn’t much they could help with when I was cutting on the quarters. But they are both fabulous grinder operators and we decided to gring all of this meat for breakfast sausage. So they got plenty of grind time.

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We are so grateful that God provided this delicious, healthy meat for us! We ended up with about 20 lbs of breakfast sausage. Tomorrow, we will vacuum seal all of it up and get it in the freezer 🙂

We find hunting to be the most cost effective way to provide meat for our family. We are blessed to usually get an elk or two and a mule deer every year. We always do all of our own processing/butchering, which also helps to cut down on costs. With a quick price breakdown, we estimated that this little antelope cost us around $2.70 per pound. Again, we made it all into breakfast sausage, minus the baskstraps. Keep in mind that this is organic and grass fed meat (because, you know, they’re wild 🤣). So, when those buzz words start getting added to labels the price sky rockets! We did add in about 5 lbs of beef fat, because these speed goats are so lean. Hunting is just our favorite and best option to keep meat in the freezer. It gives us great opportunities to spend time together and make memories and we get to eat the best and healthiest meat around ❤️

Do you and your family hunt?

Do you butcher your own?

Homeschool

Best Homeschool Planner!

08/31/202308/31/2023 Middle Creek Mama

*some links may be affiliate links. By clicking them, I may receive compensation.

Planners are hard! I’ve been through so many. I think at this point I’ve thrown away just as many as I’ve actually used all the way through!

I am a planner person. Or at least I want to be 🥴 but when they don’t meet my needs, I lose interest and just stop using them.

I found A Simple Plan Homeschool Planner at Mardel. I LOVE Mardel and am blessed to have one a couple hours away! I try to source asany homeschool supplies from them as I can. I even was able to snag these awesome baskets to help organize a very large cabinet in the camper! *none of the Mardel links are affiliate! I just love their stuff 💕

Last year, I used the dated planner. It was beautiful! It had earthy/deserty tones and just everything I wanted to look at.

This year, I went with the undated version. We’re homeschoolers, we don’t always keep a strict schedule, so it’s nice to be able write in our dates.

This planner has everything homeschool families need! I am so impressed with how well organized it is. It has spots to keep track of multiple students’ schedules, places for lists of supplies needed, even a place to track the costs of curricula and such! When I say it has everything, I mean it.

Each month starts with beautiful scripture, a prep page for the month, and then a full monthly calender.

Next, it has weekly homeschool scheduling. It is set up for a 5 day week, and each day has 6 subject places.

I organize our subjects by: Morning Basket, Reading/Language Arts, Math, History, Science, and Extras. Our morning basket isn’t really the traditional “basket” that homeschool moms have been posting about recently. It’s more just our family time. We have family prayer time, a devotion, and then we will be doing a family study on The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The study is from Home and Haven and is from their Fall Bundle volume 3.

I like to color coordinate our days. Each kid gets their own color and then everything we do as a family gets another color. It seems small, but I let the kids pick their own color and it’s always a fun thing for then and gives them a bit of ownership in their work each day.

Now, one thing this planner does not have is weekend days. Every now and then I do wish it had weekends on them, because we do some activities I consider school. I just write them in the notes section on the side. This really is strictly a planner for just school. It works perfectly for us.

They do also have student planners. My kids aren’t quite old enough to utilize them, but I am looking forward to when they are.

If you like this planner and would like to purchase, I would be awesome if you used my Amazon link! Best Homeschool Planner! I do receive a kick back from it. However, if you would rather purchase through Mardel, that’s okay, too! Either way, I just wanted to tell everyone about this planner. It really is the best one out there for homeschool families!

Homeschool

Back to School!

08/29/202308/29/2023 Middle Creek Mama

Is it that time already?

It hardly seems possible that it’s time to get back in the swing of things. We have had a lovely summer break full of fun and a lot of work. We are in transition from our house in town to a camper at our mountain property! It’s been whirlwind of “what should we do?” and “oh boy, we’re really doing this!”

It’s been great though! We are settling in well in the camper and are learning how to organize and make life work in such a small space. We are loving it!

Having said all of that, I want to touch on curriculum for this year.

Brinley is 8 and going into 3rd grade. Kaston is 5 and will be working his way through Kindergarten (he started some Kindergarten work during last school year, so he’s starting where we left off). We have already started review work, just to ensure they remember things from last year and to make sure they’re where they need to be, as we are starting new curriculum for a few subjects. We have traditionally used all Masterbooks for all subjects, however, we are switching things up this year to meet the needs of each kid.

This year, we went with The Good and The Beautiful for Brinley’s Language Arts. We have discovered she is struggling with dyslexia of some sort. We have been having evaluations done to see exactly what we are dealing with. She has improved greatly in her reading skills over the summer, I just will feel better to have an exact diagnosis to know how to better help her. While tossing options for curricula back and forth, I ultimately decided to give TGTB a chance. We have been working through their Booster C card set to make sure she’s is on par to start Level 3.

For math, we are sticking with Masterbooks. Brinley really loves following along with Charlotte and Charlie and was adamant we stick with them! Following along with their story keeps her engaged and motivated to push through. I really appreciate that about Masterbooks’ math!

For Kaston, we are doing The Good and The Beautiful for both Language Arts and Math. He is a challenging kid. Nothing interests him more than guns, hunting, cowboys, and cattle. So, when we find, say, farm related curricula, but its filled with cutesy, cartoon critters, he will not engage. He wants nothing to do with “little kid” type stuff. When we received his Language Arts from TGTB in the mail, he groaned! But after looking through the books and seeing all the wildlife, he changed his attitude and can’t wait to get started.

I chose Masterbooks’ America’s Story 1 for both kiddos to participate in. Just flipping through the books, I can tell we are going to love it!

We will be doing God’s Design: Life for Beginners from Masterbooks for a science that is more on Kaston’s level, but both kids will participate. We also have a Mammals Science unit study from TGTB, again, both kids will do.

One other thing I’ve decided to add to our curricula, is this Fall Bundle from Home and Haven. Their Bundles are absolutely darling. This bundle includes an 8 week study on Laura Ingalls’ Little House in the Big Woods. We have been reading Laura Ingalls books all summer, so when I found a family study that went along with one, I jumped right on it. There are tons of great activity sheets for both kids’ development levels and even a cooking section that mirrors recipes Ma makes in the book! We (probably mostly me) are excited to get started on this one. I am in the process of having it professionally printed, as well. I will make another post about that!

Other things I want to include this semeseter are Fall Feast studies (Biblical Feasts) and an Exuma critter study. We are headed to the Bahamas in December! On the Exuma website, they have a “safari challenge” that challanged people to get photos of their top favorite critters around the islands. So, to keep things educational and exciting, we are going to be studying one Exuma critter per week in the weeks leading up to our departure for vacation!

*none of the links I posted are affiliate links. I get no compensation for your clicking on them! They are just products I believe in. If you do check these products out because of my suggestion, let me know! I want to hear if you love them as much as I do!

Family

Hey Yall!

01/22/2023 Middle Creek Mama

Welcome to my blog! I am Katie, the middle creek mama. I am a stay at home mom of two kiddos. My husband is a project estimator for a construction company. He handles our shenanigans like a champ. We are a Jesus serving, homeschool loving, slightly feral family and we are so glad you stopped by our blog! We aren’t quite a homesteading family, but we hold a lot of the same values near to our hearts. We have critters all over the place and keep our family fed with elk and deer. We value food preservation and homemade meals. We believe in working hard. We try to live as healthy and clean as possible. But most importantly, we put God above all else and give Him all the glory.

So what is Middle Creek? Middle Creek is the creek which flows through our land on which we plan to build our future home. We have been kicking ideas around for a couple of years now and we think we are now in a position to start that transition.

As time goes on, I hope to fill this blog with homeschool advice and encouragement, cooking recipes, Bible encouragement and studies, backyard critter info, and I hope to share the process of building our place up at Middle Creek along the way.

Thanks for joining us!

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