It's the country life!

As I was waiting for the water trough to fill for the horses this morning, I spent some time walking across the pasture and just looking all around. Most of my life I've spent dreaming of something better. More of this, less of that. But really, as I looked around, I don't think it gets better than this! Rich green grass, a bright blue sky with some fluffy white clouds for accents, a cool, refreshing breeze, warm but not hot... a hay field just over the fence, freshly cut and baled and safely stored away. Acres of fields and woods for the kids to play in. A huge, mostly level yard perfect for ball games and picnics. Relatively quiet country roads. Horses and cows contentedly munching the grass. Roosters crowing in the background. And glorious sunshine pouring in over it all.

And as I reflect, I feel tears starting to well. I'm so, so grateful. Last night, to be honest, I cried myself to sleep. I felt like such an incredible failure. The kids have done nothing but bicker and fight the last couple of days. The oldest has been resisting taking responsibility for himself. I've been doing a lot of cleaning, unpacking, decluttering, and basically moving in after 2 years of existing in this house, but it seems like dirt and clutter just gravitate back to the same old spots. It feels like an endless losing battle. School is starting very soon, and I need to finish getting everything organized and together. I'm not spending the time with the kids they want, doing fun things together over this summer break. The garden has weeds in it, and the green beans should have been picked but weren't. Several projects I was determined to get done this summer are still unfinished. I'm just not enough. I don't reach around. The demands on my time and energy are bigger than the resources at my command, and the pressure to perform it ALL is crushing.

But in it all, I still find gratefulness to overwhelm my reflective moments. More and more thanksgiving is replacing my old habits of doubt, worry, fear, and keeping up appearances. All the sermons I've heard and books I've read encouraging, even demanding, thankfulness meant nothing to me except one more thing I was doing wrong. One more failure. More discouragement piled on top of the already unbearable load.

So, where was the grateful heart hiding all these many years? 

It was hiding under the pile of condemnation. The feeling that I had to have all my ducks in a neat, smiling little row, and if I didn't, well, I wasn't a very good Christian. Obvious, right? 

Well, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Sincerely trying to do my best to look the way I was taught Christians look, to do what good Christians are supposed to do, was a slap in the face of the One I claimed to serve. My heart was distressed, sad, broken. I chased that elusive dream of perfection so hard, and never caught up. All the while believing God was disappointed, even upset, that I wasn't fully glorifying His name. Until I couldn't run anymore, and crashed. Then I was right where God wanted me. You see, He had a plan. He wanted me broken. He wanted me to see that nothing I could do was good enough. That my attempted righteousness was like filthy rags. Oh, He had saved me and cleansed me, no doubt about that! If I had died on the operating table the day Treasure was taken from us, I had full assurance and peace that I would be going Home to see Him. But life is a journey, and we aren't finished yet. The journey that I am walking had to bring me to a place to see just how little I could do to meet the demands I had been taught all my life were "Christianity". When that was stripped from me, I saw I had been chasing a mirage that did nothing to give life. And I gave up. I chose to face, and embrace, my failures, my brokenness, my hurts, my pain. He chose to cut the chains and give life. 

He is enough. His blood is enough. His love is enough. I don't need to do anything. Even resting in His arms... He is holding me. And then the thankfulness brings tears to my eyes. He doesn't need me to be perfect. He needs me to be broken. My failures and weaknesses are no stumbling block to Him.  They are a portal for His glory. 

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

My tears and failures so far this week are part of redemption's story. Part of reminding me the cracks remain. An answer to my prayer that I would not be filled with my self, my own importance, what I'm doing right, and the few accolades of men that have threatened to puff me up recently. How well I know it is the work of God, and God alone! He is the light shining through the broken places of this vessel of clay. Plus, I'm still learning how to put the expectations of others behind me and to set aside demands that look good on the outside but leave me empty and unable to do what is most important for myself and my family. Like I said, it's a journey. There's a lot of learning still ahead.

There is oh so much more to the story, believe me! The story of my journey so far has many facets. I will be exploring more in upcoming blogs, so if you want to get the freshest news you can sign up to have the blogs emailed to you after every new release, on the upper right hand corner I believe.

Belated update

Summer, as you may have guessed, has been a busy season of life for us! With three little folks growing up SO fast, it's hard to keep up with just them, never mind house and jobs and normal life. Which has also been taking our time and energy.

Our garden decided to not do anything this year. With the house in a different spot, it seemed most convenient to move the garden as well. We didn't have time to properly prepare the ground, due partly to a very wet year, and then the grass grew. It's been growing much more thickly in the garden then it's even pretending to do in the yard, and with it being wet I wasn't able to really do much about it, till it was too late. Our corn is only knee high, and tasseling. The tomatoes never grew after I set them out. But the carrots and peas are doing well, and I'm still hopeful we'll end up with a few zucchini and maybe some cucumbers. The garlic is looking fantastic, and that reminds me it's about time to dig it up! The flower gardens are looking quite nice, though, so I'm enjoying the food for the soul...

 

Work on the house has been almost to a standstill, with so much going on outside. We finally have all the landscaping done, and are preparing to tear into residing part of the house, hoping to get that project done before it thinks about getting cold. Meanwhile, I spent a few hours yesterday cleaning lumber out of Leanna's bedroom (lumber waiting for us to work on our upstairs bathroom, which will be awhile yet I'm afraid) and getting it girlified. Thanks to Grace for sewing up the curtains for her! It feels so much more finished, even though we still have flooring to put down, and Leanna's tickled pink. Or is it purple?

Leanna's bedroom 

The new railing and gutter on our front porch.

 

The Princess enjoying the porch

 

 Another project we've had is chickens. Jere finally broke down and let me get some laying hens, and we are also raising another batch of broilers. The broilers will be put in the freezer sometime next week, and the pullets are running around making our yard feel really homey. There's just something about the pert little layers foraging around for bugs and other tasty tidbits that makes a place feel so comfortable. Guess that's what I get for growing up around chickens! (Dad, can I blame that one on you?!) And our other animals are still around, mostly. Bossy had another bull calf a few weeks ago, and Buster, our two year old steer, is about to go in the freezer. Button, the heifer from last year, is getting big enough that she should be able to have a calf next spring. Our faithful Mama Cat had raised a litter of two kittens before being hit on the road last week. But we had just picked up 3 more kittens (one for each child) the week before, so our cat population actually went up. Both of our lady dogs look like they're going to be having puppies in late August, so that will up the work load for a few months. I'm super excited to see Tundra's pups--they should be nice ones!

 

A pullet and young cockerel taking advantage of the lovely day.

 And last but not least, look for a post next week as we begin our school year!

Lots of activities

Oh goodness, where do I even begin? It's been way too long since I updated on our lives!

 

Back in May we took a trip to northern Minnesota to see one of Jere's cousins get married. That was a lot of fun! Somehow we both love the north country, and the smells and feel of spring in the north does not have any comparison. We made it a pretty short trip, but squeezed in a lot of visiting with extended family we haven't seen for awhile. Sorry, I don't have any pictures--somehow the camera just stayed packed away this time. Part of the reason being I had my hands pretty full. We had just been working at potty training Leanna for a week, and she was doing well enough that I allowed her to not wear diapers. Gulp. My baby is growing up!

 

With the cooler, wet spring we had this year, the garden didn't get in till later than I would have liked. We cut down the size of it, and I was able to get it ALL planted this year! Here are a few shots of Jere letting the boys help him with the tilling:



 

 

While the boys were hard at work tilling, the Princess was playing on the swings. She's infatuated with swings, and would happily swing all day if someone had the patience to push her that long!

Another thing we got done was the roof over the deck. Yeah!

(Acutally, this picture is already outdated--there is now railings across the front, and flower baskets, and retaining wall below.)

The end-of-the-school-year party! Eliott finished Pre-school, and Jaron finished First Grade. Well, actually, he finished his second grade math, history, and health as well! Go Jaron!

And then one evening we got out the waterslide, a gift from Grandma Hendrickson while we were in Colorado, and the children had a blast getting wet. Thanks, Mom!

Tundra was begging to join them!

What a pretty girl!

(And she, Lord willing, should be having a litter of puppies in a month and a half!)

Then, the BIG news! What fishermen I have! Jere took the boys fishing in a private pond one evening, and the boys each caught a huge rainbow trout! They were pretty stoked. Only, they discovered they liked eating other kinds of fish better than trout... I think their Mommy had better learn to cook fish if this is going to be how they roll!

Happy Birthday Big Boy!

I know, this post is LONG overdue. But, our big boy turned 7 on the 14th! Can't hardly believe I'm a mother to a 7 year old, but it looks like it's fact. :-) Wow. At his request we had some family for supper, and I made an ice cream cake for the first time. It wasn't the prettiest cake I've ever made, but it was yummy!

Here's the birthday boy and his cake!

 

One of the gifts...

 

That looks like fun!

 

Great-Grandma B. blessed us with her presence--here she's taking a peek at the newest little cousin.

 

Eliott enjoyed the box the grader came in!

 

The next morning we had a Lego party and put together one of the Lego toys Jaron had gotten.

 

 

We've been keeping EVER so busy these couple of weeks. Jaron finishes all his school but math this week, and is scheduled to finish that up next week. We're all excited to see the school year coming to a close for another year--though my excitement is mostly because we should be getting next year's books in the mail this week, and once school is over I'll hopefully be able to find time to plan out next year's lessons! Hooray! We had our last science class gathering Sunday evening, and I'm hoping to do something similar again next year, so I have that on my mind a lot too.

 

We've been spending a bit of time working in the yard, trying hard to get the landscaping done so we can plant grass. The garden is finally plowed, now it just needs to dry up enough to till so I can get my plants in the ground. The garlic is already about a foot high, and I'm really glad we made the effort last fall to plant it. The tulips we put in the flower garden didn't survive the winter, but the ones we temporarily planted in the regular garden did. I hope that doesn't become a habit, as I'd like to have the tulips by the house! 

Goal this weekend--met!

After such a tough week with the sick puppy, I was afraid I'd never get finished what I wanted to do! But, even though it isn't quite the goal I had set at the beginning of the week, it's still done. The laundry room and kitchen are both painted! And I even have time to spare... well, not really! There's still dishes to wash and laundry to fold and if I braved the pouring rain and mud I could get another can of paint and start on the trim. Wouldn't that be exciting?! With painting the entire main floor the same colors on the ceilings and walls, I'm ready to break out the color! And hope it meshes to look like I want it to! Yikes...

Jere faithfully worked at the plumbing and finished up with that yesterday. He was so excited about having a working toilet in the new house he hollered to me across the yard to tell me! I went to applaud his work, as he finished up something else in the basement, and narrowly escaped getting soaked by water coming through the floor in the bathroom. Here, the toilet hadn't been winterized when the other folks left the house, and it has a HUGE crack in the tank. So, now no toilet till we can get to Menards again and buy one... Well, at least it will be ready to use once we do get it! And still no running water, since we have no working faucets. BUT it's all ready once we get the new faucets in place, and so it shouldn't be too much longer now!

We also pulled the onions, and dug about half the carrots before it started raining. The onions are SMALL this year, very disappointing. But, at least I planted two double rows, so there's still some volume there. And we got something, despite weeds so thick Jere had to take the machete to them so I could even find the onions... Got a few beets as well. And now we just have to finish digging the carrots, dig the potatoes, and wait for a killing frost to dig the sweet potatoes. Besides eating a few fresh peas and a zucchini or two, and a few tomatoes, that's the extent of our harvest this year. Oh well. Hopefully next year we'll not be QUITE so busy? Maybe? I'd REALLY like to be able to have a nice garden again!

For anyone wondering about Chase, she almost seems back to normal. Maybe a little wobbly at times, but she's acting perky and running around and she just looks like she's feeling better. Whew. What a blessing.

Rain!

Yes, this cold, wet spring has been a blessing! After the hot, dry summer last year, the moisture coming now was sorely needed. With a slow thaw, the moisture has been able to sink in as much as possible, instead of running off over frozen ground. However, I am anxiously watching the forecast, hoping (vainly so far!) for several days in a row that will be warmer, and DRY. I can hardly wait to get the garden worked up and my early crops in! We actually dug around in the muck on Tuesday night and planted a row of potatoes. :-) Yea, I'm anxious to get gardening! My plants in the house are getting anxious to be outside too. Several of the tomato plants are too tall to fit under the grow light anymore. Normally we move them outside to a cold frame when they get that big, but not yet this year. We've simply used windows laid over straw bales before, but this year straw/hay is so expensive it's not practical to do that. I need to build a real cold frame I guess! We have the parts, just lacking on time. Surprise, right?

Heges in Mexico, it looks like you sent the chipi-chipi our way today! Soft drizzle and swirling fog, and that wet, penetrating cold. Makes me think of you, wondering if you have sunshine!

We're having a bought of colds running through our house lately. Seems most of the winter we kept them at bay, but I ran out of my favorite essential oil that has been helping so much, and we got hit pretty good. Sore throats, sinus congestions, light coughs, and just feeling tired. Thankfully so far no fevers or chest congestion. It's not really any wonder, with the weather the way it is and nasty colds going around.. and around... and around in church.

Sorry no pictures this time. :-( I haven't been having much time with camera in hand recently!

Spring is coming! Maybe?

We were very excited to see running water this week! Of course that means ice and slush and mud, but it also means that spring is soon to come. With the temps in the 40's a little, and sunny, we could even let our fire go out during the day and stay warm! I always like that time of the year. :-) Well, sadly, the running water froze in place Sunday evening, and we got more snow. And yet more snow today. Things still look mushy in places, as though there's water underneath that snow. But it's supposed to get up above freezing again toward the end of this week, and we're all looking forward to that! 'Specially as Jere is now done in the woods, and will be working at the mill for awhile. We're looking forward to having him back for lunch again! :-)

Other than the weather, this week was pretty much the same old. We got a few days ahead with Jaron's school, which was really nice. Hard to believe in about 8 weeks we'll bring our first "official" school year to a close! That's exciting!!! And then it will be time to plant the garden... I did get my tomatoes and peppers planted this week, and the onions are doing well. For some reason this year most of my spreading petunias died as wee plants. I'm used to losing one or maybe two, but I only have 3 left, and one of them isn't looking too happy. Oh well. The regular petunias look fabulous, so not sure what went wrong.

On Saturday we were doing some shopping in La Crosse, then went to Luke Widowski's benefit supper in Wautoma. It rained and rained and rained some more! And I discovered my shoes had a hole in the sole. Meaning, wet feet for me. Oh well. Guess it's better to have it happen now rather than later when we're camping or something. :-) We missed a turn on our way home from Wautoma, and got home rather late. Then we were faced with Daylight Savings on Sunday morning, plus Jere had the first message at church and I had to make food for a fellowship meal! McBains invited us for the afternoon, so we took them up on that. We left in fairly good time as the weather was supposed to be turning nasty. And it did. We at first drove through rain, then sleet/freezing rain, then heavy snow. Praise the Lord we made it safely! But again, we got home late. Not a good idea trying to adjust to the new time. But we'll just take it easy for a couple of days till everyone's clocks reset. :-)

Life stays busy!

As many of you are aware, we just put our house up for sale. And that usually quite quickly brings the response: "So, where are you moving?" The long and short answer is, we don't know yet! We do have our eyes on a couple of places locally, but a lot depends on when we sell our house, what we sell it for, and how the Lord leads us meanwhile. Please pray with us that God would lead us clearly, and brings a buyer for our place! I just added a new page to the blog (to the right of where it says "Home" just above this section) to help us in advertising our house, so feel free to share the link to that page with anyone who you think might be interested, or know someone who is.

Another thing that has happened recently was that Jere was asked to be on the SALT-Haiti board. SALT is an organization that loans money to people in poor countries such as Haiti, and has it structured so that they actually have a very high success rate in people being able to actually support themselves after a time. SALT gives their clients a lot of teaching on saving money, paying back their loans, building a successful business, managing inventory, and even touch on health and family issues. One woman who was involved in the program, who had two children and no husband, is now able to pay for her children to go to school, with the money she is earning through the business SALT assisted her to start! (In addition to paying off her loan, and being able to buy decent food.) She stated to the rep who interviewed her that she has her dignity back. We are excited about the opportunity to help with such a successful, helpful program!

Jaron finished his K5 math book today, and tomorrow begins First Grade math! We're all excited about that! He is doing exceptionally well with his school work, and is reading very well for a 5 year old, I think.

I have started a handful of plants already, in preparation for hoping to garden still this summer. (That, of course, depends largely on what happens with selling our place.) The onions and petunias seem to be doing well, and I should be working on getting more seeds into dirt today yet. Spring isn't too far around the corner anymore!

A slower week

At last, we were able to slow down a little over the last week. It was so nice to be able to stay caught up with laundry and dishes! Due to our hectic January, Jaron is a few days behind in school, and we're working at getting him caught up too. I was able to sew a quilt top for Leanna, and last night passed it off for Jere's grandma to hand quilt for me. Both the boys have crib size quilts given to them when they were babies, but Leanna never got any, and she's outgrowing her baby blankets! This was a fun project for me, the first quilt top I ever finished!

Something we've seen a lot of over the past week is SNOW! It snowed and blew a couple of days, creating some drifts and also some bare spots--real fun at times with fresh snow over the ice left by a couple days of rain! But it seems like every morning now the last while we've awakened to a few fresh inches of powdery puff, clean and pure. Along with that is temperatures averaging in the single digits above and below zero. Perfect February weather!

Everyone is remaining well so far. I'm amazed sometimes with the amount of sickness I hear about, that we haven't really gotten much of anything this winter. I'm very grateful, and sure won't complain about that! We thank the Lord, and also Young Living Essential Oils. It's wonderful the Lord gives us plants and such to help boost our health.

Another this we did this week was start some seedlings. I know, it seems pretty early, but every year my wave petunias just seem a couple of weeks behind what they should be when I go plant them in our window boxes. I thought I'd try planting them earlier yet this year, and hopefully will have them flowering by the time to plant them out rolls around. I also started an entire flat of onions, by FAR the most I've ever tried planting. We just eat so many onions... I'm not sure where we'll store them all in the fall, but I guess we can always give them away too!

Not sure exactly what's on schedule for this coming week. More school, and everyday things, for sure! Hopefully it will be another quiet-ish week so we can work some more at just keeping up with everyday things. God bless you this week!!

Corn and other yummies

OK, Anita, I don't want to make you too jealous--but you will be able to eat some when you're home in a few days!

Here are a couple shots of the summer's bounty. YUMMY! We've been eating corn on the cob till I'm nearly sick of it, plus putting some in the freezer. But oh, is it ever good!

Seems like we're overflowing with a fruitful, abundant harvest. We praise the Lord for it! We're eating cantelope and tomatoes and peppers and corn and beets, and enjoying an abundance of flowers as well. The green beans are getting over-ripe due to lack of time to pick and process them. Oh well, there's worse things!

Re-arranging

Well, we'e been doing some re-arranging in our house. It's been a BIG job! The first priority was to move Leanna into a room of her own. She was getting to be a light enough sleeper that we couldn't walk through our bedroom while she was sleeping lest she wake up. Which was not a good thing when she went to bed before we did at night, or I needed to run in after a hanger or something while she napped. So we cleared out the storage room of all except the big shelves where my canned goods are stored and the changing table/dresser, painted the ceiling, put up a new light fixture, and moved her in! She was NOT at all happy about the change for the first couple of times I laid her down, but she's already accepted it and is going down nicely as usual.

Leanna's new room

The still-storage part of Leanna's new room!

We inherited a couple new dressers while in MN helping my folks with their rummage sale. We plan to sell our bedroom set in order to have room for these other dressers, as a few pieces in the set are not meeting our needs for maximum storage capacity per square foot of floor space taken up. So in the midst of moving Leanna out of our room, we also moved our big chest of drawers out and brought a family heirloom in to replace it. Plus the book shelves and desk from the storage room was transferred to our room to make room for the crib. It was a job getting it all arranged, but in the midst of it all our bedroom got a thorough cleaning which it badly needed! So, now it's time to get all the odds and ends into new spots, or just dispose of it, which is getting to be a bit of a challenge. Plus there are some thing that never went back to their places in the kitchen and living room after the remodel project (which isn't quite done yet either!) and that must be worked at too.

Any day now we'll be harvesting buckets of green beans and cucumbers, in addition to the zucchini and red beets and cherry tomatoes we're already eating. We can dig potatoes, carrots, and garlic any time. The corn has tasseled and the muskmelon is started to show some netting on 6-7 inch fruits, with the watermelon close behind in size. Bell peppers aren't quite ready yet, but the jalapenos are, and the tomatoes are starting to get an orange hue to them. Of course the peas are done--and plowed under. Lettuce is also finished for the heat of the summer, but I soon want to plant some more for a fall crop. Summers meals are always SO yummy and healthy! Oh yes, we got a box of peaches too. We're eating a lot of them fresh, plus I froze some and made pie with some. Thankfully I didn't need to can any this year as peach prices are high. But I can hardly wait for the blueberries to come in!!! That's my favorite time of all. A whole 10 lb box of blueberries, and we can eat as many as we want fresh before they need to go into the freezer to await blueberry pancakes and blueberry cheesecake and all sorts of other goodies.

We decided to start feeding Leanna a few solids, ever so little and ever so slowly, but Jere started it the other day feeding her his fresh piece of peach and she absolutely devoured it. So I tried siting her in her chair and feeding her little pieces of peach to help keep her occupied the other day. It kept her occupied alright, but I don't think she actually got any inside that time!

So that's the story of our lives for the moment. Seems everywhere we look there's more things coming up we need to do or be at or help with, so there's no fear at all we'll be bored. :-) But God is good, and I wouldn't trade life with my little family for anything!!!!

Life keeps moving right along

I'm not exactly sure where to start. We've just been busy! The little ones are growing up, and the garden is growing in leaps and bounds. Leanna started sitting up from being on her tummy last week! That really makes her seem more grown up. She seems like such a big girlie. . .

On Friday I pick 4-5 gallons worth of peas and spent the day shelling them. The boys helped some, and I did school with Jaron while my hands were occupied. This is the best pea crop by far we've ever had from this garden! I picked 6-7 gallons today, and am guessing there's another pail full that will be ready in a couple more days. Today, though, I'm getting some help with the shelling as Anita plans to come for part of the afternoon. I'm really looking forward to that! The first potatoes we put in are flowering already, and it's more than high time to put the tomato cages up. But we're also busy with getting ready for Micah's wedding on Saturday, and other activities that of course go along with having family together. Plus last Saturday we spent most of the afternoon at our nephew's birthday party. Well, so goes summertime!

I'm assuming the next time I update it will be with pictures from the wedding things! Till then, God bless you!

Sunshine and fresh peas. . .

The last few days the weather has ben absolutely perfect! Warm, sunny days without being too hot, blue sky with big, fluffy white clouds, green grass, and stuff coming up like mad in the garden. Yes, the weeds too. . . :-( But I killed a few of them today as I was out picking peas. :-) Jaron and Eliott helped for awhile, then got bored and found other things to do till the picking was over and it was time to shell. They both came to help shell, and loved it! Jaron commented that he likes to shell peas more than he likes to play! Combine that with a long conversation on learning to work and the consequences of not working, on the shady deck with the wind chime singing in the backround, and Eliott's chubby face wreathed in smiles as he "popped" his own pea shell open all by himself. Well, life just doesn't get better than this! Wish I could have had someone peek around the corner with a camera so I could show you all about it. . .

Our dear wee threesome after Saturday night baths. Look how brown those boys' arms are! Guess they must be spending a lot of time outside.

Our Leanna, all dressed up in her Sunday best. She still takes the cake for the happiest baby I've ever met!

Every day life these days in pictures

Here are some pictures I just got today. Seems like life flies by so fast, and I thought it would be fun to just get some snapshots of everyday things! Hope you don't mind LOTS of pictures this time. :-)

The front flower garden all planted and mulched and ready to grow! Those white flowers are wave petunias and will eventually COVER the entire flowerbed. Remind me to get some more pictures come late summer so you can see how it does!

Our 47 chicks. We lost 4 total so far, much better than last time! And yes, that's Kodi leaping up in the background. He was all excited and hoping I'd come let him out of his kennel.

The garden almost planted! All I have left to put in is the corn, cucumbers, and watermelon. The garlic (far left) was planted last fall, and the peas (the 2 rows with chicken wire trellising) was put in during the warm spell we had in March. I'm expecting it won't be too long till they're blooming and we'll have fresh peas!

Jaron enjoying spring!

And Eliott doing the same!

Flower in the hanging basket I just got. They're stunning!

A hummingbird that showed up while I was snapping flower photos. Nice to have the camera handy! I know the color isn't the best of the bird, but it was fun to get that picture none the less. :-)

And we're THIS close to fresh strawberries!!!!! YUMMY!

Jere's dad and brother harvest the hay on our land. I love the smell of fresh cut hay.

And last but not least, Leanna!!!! She was seriously acting like she was going to crawl today. She'd get up on all fours, and kind of work her way forward. Not the classic see-saw crawl yet, but oh so close! However, she can still cover ground. Watch out for this li'l go-getter!

Picnic!

We decided to have a picnic for supper tonight! After being gone most of the day doing various things, and after a couple rough nights in a row due to colds, I was wiped and resorted to hot dogs and canned baked beans! I took the boys' special little table to the front yard where we have some shade in the evenings, Jaron rounded up their "new" little chairs, and so we had a picnic. At 84 idegrees in the house, well, I wasn't too interested in doing much inside till the sun went down!

Some of the items bought while running errands today were parsley and a maple tree. I planted the parsley right away, as well as a few things I had in the cold frame waiting for warmer weather. I still can't be sure that it won't frost, but the mint, cabbage, and wave petunias should handle that OK I think. I'm hoping it stays dry long enough to get the tree planted tomorrow, and so we can work up the garden some more next week so I can finish getting most of our things in. We've already had one spattering of rain this evening, though, so it doesn't look too hopeful. . .

Did I mention last week we got 50 broiler chicks? Call me crazy, but I can't stand eating store bought chicken after eating the home-grown ones most of my life! We've lost 3 or 4 now I think, not good but still not near as bad as last year. At least with doing 50 at a time we only have to do it every other year! :-)

Sickies. . .

Now it's not just Leanna battling a nasty cough, and copious, sticky congestion. Eliott is too. :-( Por little fellow is also running a low grade fever, something Leanna never had that I could tell. So we're dousing them both with garlic salve externally and garlic internally, and Eliott is taking Vit C and drinking lots of Apple Cherry juice too.

Outside in the last 24 hours we've had heavy rain, freezing rain, sleet, drizzle, freezing drizzle and snow. Not necessarily in order. Right now it looks like it's snowing and sounding like rain or ice as well. Jere's folks are on their way home from Mexico, so we're hoping the roads don't get bad for them!

Today I'm spending some time getting my pepper and tomato seeds started, as well as a few other things. It feels like spring should be just around the corner once the potting soil comes out! Thanks to the mice who raided the sunflower seed heads we should have gotten rid of and didn't, there are sunflower seeds all through the potting soil. When I started my petunias a few weeks ago there were sunflower popping up all over--I must have pulled 30 or so out once they started growing--and that's after I thought I'd picked through the soil when I put it in the seed trays! So this time I went through the bother of baking the potting soil to kill those nasty sunflowers--hopefully we won't be seeing any of those coming up this time!