First Harvest

Finally after the second try and lots of cold weather up here, we have our first harvest of the year...zucchini of course and a head of lettuce. Isn't that what grows best in most gardens? My problem with zucchini is that the only thing our family really likes it in is zucchini bread and zucchini cake. Anyone got some really great ideas for preserving it and what to make with it? I have shredded it and frozen it in the past which works ok but you sure gotta squeeze all of the liquid out before you can bake with it.

Someone to greet me every morning

I have a new friend. Her name is Pippa. She is pretty young, only about 5 months old and there is something strange about her looks....

Well okay, maybe not so strange if you are a chicken...Anyway, for the past couple of mornings, Pippa has been showing up bright and early on the porch off of our dining room. It is hilarious to watch her peck at the window and turn her head side to side trying to look inside the dining room. When she isn't satisfied with that view of life in side the big house she proceeds around to the kitchen window and hops up onto the window sill to see what is going on in the kitchen.

You gotta wonder what is going on in their little heads sometimes.

Never a Dull Moment

,One thing I can say about living out here in the country...there is never a dull moment. We are borrowing three sheep from one of the girl's friends to keep our fenced pasture mowed down. Well, one day a couple of weeks ago we spent a fun Saturday in town doing some fabric shopping. When we got home I got busy changing baby's diaper and in comes B#2 running and crying. Oh no! What now? The running in crying has been a common theme around here and usually means something is dead. This time, however, it meant that the three borrowed sheep were GONE! Someone left the gate open accidentally while trying to chase some stubborn roosters who were going away that day. So with baby not quite diapered I called B#3 to come and finish up, told the other little ones to stay put with her and ordered everyone else to go sheep hunting. We must have sounded quite odd to anyone within hearing distance as we all wandered around calling, "here sheep sheep". All praise goes to the Lord that we found all three of them across the road in the "98 acres", as we call it. Then came the fun part of trying to lure them back by shaking grain in a bucket since they were scared of us. B#2 finally wrestled the lead sheep and pulled while a couple of us pushed all the way back down the hill to our property. The other two sheep gladly followed. Boy were we tired and our family friend, Katie, was able to go back to the fire station and say that she got to herd sheep today.

Then last Saturday, while helping a friend at a garage sale, B#3 called to tell me that a car had crashed through our front yard fence. I decided I should head home to see what that was all about. Sure enough part of our front fence is busted up and the guy didn't even stop to tell us he did it. According to the neighbor, he just checked to make sure his car wasn't too damaged and then took off. I thought maybe he might come back later and fess-up but here we are a week later and no sign of him. Add it to the list of things to fix around here. Now we have one more opening to worry about B#7 getting out of.

Hopefully all will be quite on the Western front on this sunny Saturday. Happy 4th of July to you all. And don't forget to pray for our nation, it sure needs it:)

Going On's

Baby is getting so big. He is almost 15 weeks now and he smiles all the time. What a sweetie he is!

The big girls had a good time making this Lincoln Log village. Guess you never outgrow Lincoln Logs.

Big sister, B#2, helping B#7 make a huge mess with bubbles.

Fishing and frogs!!!

Gardening, take 2! The chickens got into our garden so we had to replant. Not a very cost effective garden this year, maybe next year.


Sewing and Herbs. And where is that B#3? She always manages to escape the camera.

The Moby

I have a love hate relationship with baby carriers. I see so many moms using them and I think "that's the one", "that one will work for me". With B#7, I bought a Moby wrap in a beautiful chocolate brown(one of my favorite colors). I would get it out week after week and try to figure that thing out while the girls laughed and called me a Jedi from Star wars. With B#8, I bought a typical padded sling type baby carrier with a lovely toile print on one side but boy does that thing hurt my back. Age maybe??? Anyway, a few days ago I was having this same discussion with a good friend who is expecting and I lamented to her my Moby story. She promptly told me that she had a great video she would email to me. I had already sold my beautiful brown Moby on Craigslist but after watching the video she sent to me, I went to borrow a friend's Moby. I love it...I don't know what my problem was last time but this thing is great. The girls wanted to try carrying B#8 in it so here are a couple of pictures of B#4 with him in it. Now I gotta get one of my own before my friend has her baby in a few months:(

Look! No hands

Putting in the garden

We finally got our garden area tilled, thanks to some good friends who loaned us their tiller. We are very new gardeners so we go out every morning hoping to see some new sprouts from the seeds that we planted. Not knowing too much about gardening, I am always worried when everything isn't up and growing as fast as I would like it to be. And I am not sure how gardening is supposed to help save money as we seem to keep having to buy stuff for the garden. Maybe next year?!?!


B#6 trying to keep the sun off her head and neck. Good thing we had this bonnet in the dress-up bucket.

B#1 and 2 working in the corn rows

Doesn't it almost look like B#4 is going to chop off B#2's head?

Little B#7 got to wear one of the girls pretty hats to keep the sun off himself.

Dad worked on getting a fallen tree out of the creek area so the grass could be mowed there. And where is B#3 in all of this? I am not sure. Maybe she was the one with the camera?!?!

Parental Rights

A parent’s right to raise their children as they see fit is a time-honored American tradition, but today it is being threatened. The Supreme Court’s Troxel v. Granville decision in 2000 undermined a 75-year heritage of Constitutionally-protected, fundamental parental rights, which 8 of the 9 justices abandoned. At the same time, a growing body of international law fuels activist judges to legislate foreign standards from the American bench, while treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child would subject parental decisions to government oversight and international review.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (MI-2) has proposed HJR-42, the Parental Rights Amendment, to stop the erosion of parental rights in American courts while simultaneously defending our laws from international invasion. Please, visit parentalrights.org to learn more about the Amendment, and to join their email network by signing the petition to protect parental rights.