The Fall Garden is in!

The summer garden is producing well. We have been enjoying it's abundance. Today we ate tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, carrots, blackberries, peaches, and peppers from our yard. Oh, and a duck egg. One duck is a female and one is a male. Our female, Tulip, has been laying for about three weeks. During that three weeks she has only missed two days. Hooray for Tulip!


We started the fall garden last week. This is our new sourdough experiment. We made our own "seed tapes" using tissue paper with sourdough for glue. I'll have to report on how it works when we know more. So far, it made life MUCH easier. It is so much easier to "plant" carrot seeds at the kitchen table than bending over the dirt with mud caked hands. I cut out the tissue and the girls took turns marking it at every inch. Then we glued the seeds to a square of tissue (we do square foot gardening and a square was easier to seed in my mind than one inch tapes). Each square holds 100 carrot seeds. (That's a lot of carrots. So yummy.) When the "glue" was dry enough, we took the sheets out and laid them in the garden. We sprinkled some dirt and sand over them and covered them with shade cloth. Now they should grow if I don't forget to keep them watered.


I lucked out and found starts of Kale, Cabbage, Collards, Lettuce, and Mustard Greens at Walmart. I have looked around every year to find fall garden starts and nobody ever has any. I was very surprised. They look a little leggy, but I bought them anyway and planted them. Hopefully the shade cloth will help them live until cooler weather arrives. (I actually have learned to cook greens this past month, so we will eat them this year - Go me!)

We also planted peas around our peas tower. I haven't ever had any luck with fall peas before but I keep hoping that this year will be different.

The Many Faces of Bets

Happy Birthday to Grace!

Grace turned 5 yesterday!






Pretty much everything that could go wrong for a birthday did, but she didn't seem to mind too much. First her present didn't get here in time. Then I destroyed the cake trying to get it out of the pan. Dad was late getting home from work, dinner was even later. She wanted to go swimming for her birthday so we did, for a few minutes. Just as we were getting ready to leave the pool some boy tried to drown her twice! He said he was trying to "help" her when I asked him about it. It sure didn't look like he was helping her to me, nor did it feel like much help to her. I still don't know the whole story.

The good news is she lived through it and made it home to eat the destroyed cake that Randy managed to salvage and do a pretty good job of hiding the wreckage with frosting. Her present arrived this morning - it was scriptures, a blue quad with a button. We took them to get her name on them today - she picked rainbow and cursive, it's very beautiful. She likes them and is happy to finally have her own set.

Happy Birthday, Gracie!

Go Boy!

Caden really got into his promotion. This morning he came into my room and told me he let the ducks out - something I hadn't gotten around to yet. Then, while I combed my hair, he cleaned the bottom half of the full length mirror. Later he told me he climbed up high and put scissors away. It's great when kids see a need and fill that need! (But perhaps we need a new location for the scissors.)

We Did It!

For the first time in history I actually completed ALL my Monday jobs on Monday!
(Usually it takes until Thursday.)
This morning I posted a new schedule and let the kids know that they are valued members of this family and they were all being promoted in rank. Now everyone works until everyone is done.
Grace and Caden washed dishes. Robyn did laundry, cleaned bathrooms, and mopped the kitchen. Colin did duck water, cleaned the patio, emptied garbage cans, and vacuumed ALL the carpet. I supervised, filled spray bottles, helped where needed, fed Betsy, and changed the sheets on the beds. Fantastic!

Happy Birthday to Robyn!

Robyn turned SEVEN years old today. Wow that went fast!

Her dad surprised her with a new bike in the living room when she came down for breakfast. It is beautiful with streamers and everything. He also got her some new socks because all of her old socks are very holey.


She decorated her butterfly birthday cake herself. Caden was very willing to help her eat it. He wants it to be his birthday again tomorrow. Birthdays are fun stuff!


Grace provided the music to "Happy Birthday." I'm afraid it didn't help our singing. The song still sounded like it usually does - pretty bad. I'm reminded every birthday of when we sent Darron a tape on his mission of the whole gang at Thanksgiving singing Happy Birthday for him. When he listened to it, his companion asked, "What IS that?"


A few things about Robyn:

She really likes blue socks.

She is a great babysitter.

She loves to do laundry because she has to climb the walls to hang up Randy's shirts.

She is always the first one with her jobs done.

She has amazing endurance when she runs and she's fast too - she takes after her Daddy.

Her mother loves her very, very much!

Bathtime for Betsy

Betsy's baths are always a family activity. Everyone loves to watch Betsy. She was having a great old time splashing in the tub. It frustrates me that I can't capture how cute she really is on camera. She is so beautiful and perfect and adorable and wonderful.....

Bouncing babies

Here are some random pictures of my "babies" in their bouncer seats. Aren't they cute?!!

Chased by a Duck

This is our duck Gold. He is chasing me.

Go Gracie!

Randy took Gracie's training wheels off yesterday. She's a big kid now!