And the Eating is Good!

There's nothing better when the garden starts giving you it's first offering. While other people I know have already started eating from their gardens, early radishes and lettuces, even corn, we have only just harvested a few early onions and snow peas, and recently, broccoli and shelled peas.

I made a stir-fry using broccoli, onions, and snow peas from the garden the other day and it was just fantastic. Someday it would be nice if the beef came from the homestead as well, but until then, I'll enjoy what I got now.

The shelled peas had a bunch of heavy pods hanging, so I decided it was time to pick some. This is the first time I've grown shelled peas and after this first picking, I can see I definitely won't have enough to freeze. I'll have to make note of that and plant more next year! What I picked today was enough for a meal and they were so, so sweet and tender.  I could have easily eaten nothing but those peas, but instead, I made fettucine, chicken, homemade alfredo sauce and the peas, lightly steamed.

Even better than picking the peas is a husband that sits with me and helps me shell the peas! It was a beautiful day, not too hot and sitting in the shade, watching the kids play in the pool while shelling peas was a nice way to pass the afternoon. I sure got lucky having a husband like mine to play house with!

And All is Well

The double birthday party went well. Family came, celebrated, ate, and left.

And the best part, my girl is home with us again!

I had visions of getting photos of her running out of the car and hugging her siblings, smiles on their faces. And you know what? That's exactly what happened, minus the camera! But that's ok, I'll always have that sight in my memories, of my children running to hug each other after a week apart.

Happy tears are running down my cheeks right now. I just love those kids so much! So, so much!

Grandma and Grandaddy came early, before everyone else, and we got to catch up a little bit with each other. Evelyn came home bearing small gifts for everyone. She was full of little stories of the stuff she did and I was able to get pictures off Grandma's camera.

Here's one of her when she was on the phone talking with us.  Some of those phone calls lasted an hour, and she had to get comfortable.  Oh my, she looks so much like a teenager here:

Can't you just imagine those future phone calls when she's older and talking with boys??

Anyone know how to stop time so I can keep her little?

She's different some how.  A little older, a little wiser. It was her first time staying at some one's home and seeing how they are around their house. Different eating and sleeping habits. Different lifestyle. She was surprised to see Grandma and Granddad's "office" which was the dining room table, normally cleared off and spotless when we're there, but turned into a desk with the laptop, mail, and piles of papers when it's just the two of them.  Helped her to see that we aren't the only ones who clean up before company comes!

She got to look through the family photo albums and hear stories of her dad from their point of view. Not just Daddy telling stories but *his* mom and dad telling stories about him. 

Grandma and Grandaddy got to know her better, too. To see that she is a smart young girl, reading any book she can get her hands on, able to hold conversations, and play games. They saw snippets of personalities in her that reminded them of Great-Grandma and Great-Grandad. They found an early picture of Great-Grandma Helen when she was in her 20s, maybe, and wow, Evelyn looks just like her. We'll be getting a copy of that picture soon and I look forward to trying to get her to pose similarly and keeping both pictures side by side. Evelyn's middle name comes from G.G. Helen's middle name, so it's really neat that she has this resemblance to her.

It's lovely having four children again to tuck into bed and kiss them all good night.

All is well... everything is just as it should be again.

A Piece of My Heart

Sorry this space has been so quiet lately. Partly because I have nothing to say that feels new and fresh and not a repeat of something I've said before. Also because it's just so busy here. Isn't it summer? Aren't these days supposed to be lazy? Well, maybe for the kids, but for this mama here, it's as hectic as ever.

One never realizes how much one depends on someone until they're gone. In my case, my oldest girl, Evelyn, has gone to stay at her Grandparent's house for a week. Oh, those first few days were just so sad around here. The younger girls weeping and missing Evelyn so much. They are taking turns sleeping in her bed and counting the days for her return (tomorrow!). 

I know it was hard for Evelyn, too, to be apart from us. She called every night and every morning in tears, filled with homesickness. I wanted to drive those two hours like a crazy mother to rescue her crying baby and bring her home. We almost did, halfway through the week, thinking maybe 4 days was long enough. But we kept the car keys on the hook, took deep breaths, and repeat after me: "She will be fine. We will be fine." And she is. And we are. One tiny step closer to the day when she flies away from the nest, but I won't think about that now.

She still calls daily, sometimes twice, and now they are happy calls, full of chatter and what they did that day. The little ones jump up and down, hardly containing their excitement at being able to talk with Evelyn on the phone.

At home, with Evelyn gone, the first few days was lots of talk about boredom. "I'm bored!" Sylvia would cry. "There's nothing to do!" Gretchen exclaimed. They sat and moped and missed Evelyn's leadership and ideas of games to play. Eventually, they developed their own rhythm together and learned to figure out ideas of their own. I brought out the embroidery stuff and they both sewed pictures-- for Evelyn!  Gretchen has learned to play with Sylvia instead of teaming up with Evelyn and leaving her out. The girls are also paying more attention to Peter, helping him more, when before it was mostly Evelyn tending to Peter.

Peter has always marched to the beat of his own drum, so it almost seems like he doesn't miss his big sister. Almost. He gets upset seeing one of the girls sleeping in Evelyn's bed. He protests and demands they get out of "E'lyn's bed!" He'll see something and point out to anyone nearby that it belongs to "E'lyn"!

It's been good for all of us, this little separation. We've discovered how much we value Evelyn's presence and her help, her leadership and her guidance with her siblings. Her sisters have learned to do things on their own, rather than depending on someone else to tell them what to do. Her absence has, indeed, made our love grow stronger for each other.

She comes back tomorrow, to a birthday party for both her and her little brother, Peter. Not a surprise party-- she helped make small party favors, but she won't see us decorating the house and get a peek at the cake. It will be a wonderful party and the best gift will be having her home again!

 Welcome Home Evelyn!

Birthday Banner

I've seen birthday banners every where on the 'net.  Either homemade or commercially made. It's a really sweet idea and one I thought I would do myself, but just never got around to it.  

We had a birthday banner made from construction paper with letters cut out to spell 'Happy Birthday' and taped to yarn and we hung it up every birthday. Peter is now in his paper tearing stage, so it recently got destroyed. Evelyn's 10th birthday just came and went, and in true procrastinating fashion, I whipped up this birthday banner the night before her birthday.

It was a cinch to make. Took under 2 hours.

I had a bunch of lovely fabric sent to me from a blog-friend (Thanks!) and after making a cardboard template, I cut out 30 triangles, sewed them, flipped them inside out, sewed again to give the triangles a better shape, then sewed them to vintage bias tape.

Such pretty fabric, all flowered.

Each triangle is reversible with a different fabric on the other side, as demonstrated by Archie the cat.

"Aren't I, I mean, they beautiful?"

And here's the birthday girl, newly 10, all wrapped up!

Happy Birthday Evelyn!!

We love you!

Can You Tell...?

..we have some hillbilly ingenuity in us?

Either that or I watched Goonies a lot as a kid?

The pool is set up and now comes the task of procuring more than 6,000 gallons of water to fill it!

It's supposed to rain all day, so we wanted to try and capture some of that rainwater and divert it into the pool.

See? Ladders propping up old gutters left behind in the pole barn.

Some old t-bars weighing down the first gutter, delicately sitting on the frame of the barn, with the sledge hammer actually keeping it from sliding! The gutter sits on top of the greenhouse and the t-bars keep it from sliding off.

That's hillbilly gravity-defying skill at it's best!

Water from the first gutter drips into the second gutter which is sitting atop a log and broken cinder block set into the first rung of the ladder.

 Water flows into the third gutter sitting on another ladder, finally dripping into the pool.

Not a bad set up. Looks crazy, but every drop helps to fill up the pool!

(pardon the mess. pretend you don't see anything but the pool and the hillbilly gutters! thank you.)

We are going to rig up a better gutter system around the pole barn so that all the water will flow into rain barrels, which will then be used for topping off the pool and watering the garden. We were pleased to see there were plenty of old gutters left in the rafters of the pole barn, much more than we originally thought. Looking forward to coming up with a rainwater-catching system using what we have!

*edited to add:

The hillbilly gutters added over 400 gallons of water to the pool! Obviously not enough to fill the pool, but 400 gallons!!  Whoa! 

We had the pool water guy come out and fill it; one trip = 2,000 gallons.

3 trips total for 6,000 gallons and he couldn't even put in the last bit because the gutter system added so much water-- way more than we ever expected!

We are now using the water collected in the rain barrels for topping off the pool and it's all working out great! Not once, have we needed to use the hose!

 

Whoa... !!

A lot of Barbies, yes?

I woke up to this audience of Barbies one morning and it was an eye-opener!

As in: "Holy cow, do my kids have a lot of Barbies!"

I think it's the first time I've seen them all together like this and there is currently a ban on the kids getting any more Barbies!

In my defense, most of these came from yard sales or thrift shops and very few cost more than $1.

They've agreed to part with some of these and narrow it down to five Barbies per girl. I can't imagine how they'll whittle it down to just 15 dolls, but I'll make sure they do and sell off the rest at a yard sale.

The Abominable Snowcat! Aaaiiiieeee!!  Run for your lives!

Cooped up Coop!

After a lot of slow-poking, putting it offing, getting around to it latering..I finally fenced in the chickens! Nothing fancy, just wire fencing, 1x2 mesh; 4x4 posts, for the gateway; then t-bars and trees, for tacking up the fence.

The gateway. 4x4s set into concrete.

The view to the right, two hundred feet of fencing all the way around. The yellow ties on the fencing was put on after we put up the first panel. The chickens were running into the fencing trying to get into the coop. After I added the bows, cut from a plastic bag that once held dirt, the chickens could see the fence better and found their way around it, and into the coop.

Andrew's friend Jim brush-hogged this area for us last Spring, when I first starting doing this project. Yes, last Spring! Bought all the materials then let it sit on the back burner until finally completing this project last week!  Andrew has been burning, burning, burning away at all the weeds that grew back and made it really nice back there.

Truthfully, I think it took so long to finish the fencing because I didn't really want to fence them in. I like having the chickens out, watching them scratch in the yard, or in the front driveway. Their chicken ways fascinated me and I hated the idea of locking them away. But they were getting into things-- my rhubarb patch, the garden. And they pooped all over the sidewalk and patio area. Killed all the flowers planted around the house by digging into the dirt for their baths. And besides, after the harvesting of the fruit and vegetables, they can be let out again and enjoy freedom. They won't be cooped up all the time, I told myself, when I finally made the gate to shut the chickens in.

All they need now is a tin cup!

The gate is a simple frame made from PVC pipes, then covered with chicken wire. Held shut with a chewed through nylon leash, but still useful with the latch on the end.

Since they've been on lock-down? It's pretty nice. I still feel kind of bad about it, but it's great not having kids that were scared of the rooster, therefore scared to go out the door without a chaperone to guide them through the chicken gauntlet hanging out by the back door. Even after clearing a path, there was hesitation to run through and after 10 seconds too long, the chickens regroup and.. "Attackkkkk!!" Sure got tiring escorting multiple kids multiple times every day. Rescuing a kid too scared to move, panic in their eyes is something I don't miss one bit. I still plan to let them out come Fall, after harvest, but by then, there should only be one rooster left and he'll be too busy playin' with his ladies to worry about the kids.

Another project checked off my list!