The last few days were spent butchering all the pigs here on The Hobby Farm in Minnesota. I love raising them and dread butcher time because it is so much work. It is such a relief when everything is all packaged and in the freezer. the 3 pigs weighed 335, 332 and 275 pounds. I have some porkchops that weigh almost 2 pounds a piece. I always feel exhausted after its all finished and today is no different. Just a couple more weeks and I will be in Louisiana with Melissa. The days are ticking down now to the day she will be up here in Minnesota and we will be running the hobby farm and gardens together. I can't wait.

                                                                         

This is Melissa for a change, I wanted to get something up here since I'm fairly quiet.  So much has happened in the past 5 months, it's hard to know which end is up sometimes.  First, I would like to thank everyone who donated and sent thoughts and prayers during my time with the flood.  I honestly do not know what I would have done without all of you. I lost everything but I was fortunate in so many ways.  As you know, my Knight in Shining Armor came to my rescue once again bringing the travel trailer down.  I cannot tell you how much I love living in here.  I could honestly do this full time.  It has everything I need, if I were not moving to MN after the house is done, I would find some land here and just live in a travel trailer.  I absolutely LOVE it!
The house is still sitting and waiting....I JUST received the insurance check (5 months later), once it clears the bank we will start ordering the material to repair the house.   One step at a time.....slow steps but we're getting there! 

Welcome to the Northern Seclusion daily (when possible) blog. Both Melissa and I will be posting things here. I can not make a video on everything we do so it will be nice to have a place to write a few things down when needed. Now that the Northern Seclusion YouTube channel is growing we also just started a northernseclusion Instagram. Somewhere to post pictures from both here in Minnesota as well as from Louisiana. Melissa is now living the RV Life and loving it. I hope she posts some things about that as well. Thank you for reading this and I hope you stick around for more.

Joe