Laboring on Labor Day

 Since we spent Saturday in Amish country and yesterday at a church picnic, we decided to make this a working Labor Day. JD is the heavy laborer of the day, since he started putting ledger boards up for our future screened in porch and deck. The plan is that he and Gabriel are going to do the prep work and the finish work, but the Amish are going to come frame it in the middle. We loved our screened in porch we left six or seven years ago and have been excited to get to the point that we can build another.

My entire plan for all last week was to be ready to start school tomorrow and I'm only partially ready at best. I'm planning a "What We Are Doing This Year" post in the next few days, but I will say that I'm pretty thrilled with the free down-loaded school planning pages that I found at www.timberdoodle.com/schedule. I am hoping that it will help my little students be more responsible for their work-load as they check off their daily requirements. 

Gabriel and I went and picked up these cool old school desks today. They are affectionately being labeled the ADD desks; one is going in the sun-room and one down-stairs, so if someone (like a 10 year old boy) is having a hard time focusing, he can retire to somewhere quieter to finish his assigned task. We have been practicing this the last few years, but now they will have a desk instead of a book on their lap! Of course the desks are quite exciting today since they are new, but all that will change in a week or so. 

Aside from school planning, I did plant broccoli, carrots and pumpkins this morning. I'm estimating that my pumpkins won't be pick able until mid-November, but I can still can them. 

When the Amish are finished with our deck, we are going to have them price fencing our pasture. I think the grass is finally at a decent enough place that we can consider a cow and we've had the fencing stacked for at least two years. We have been planning on a dairy cow for several years since raw milk is so, so much better for you and very expensive to buy. While I'm excited about the idea, I'm also pretty nervous at the idea of adding two milkings a day to our current list of demands.

Call me weird, but I love days that we all stay home and work; a few of my shopping-prone daughters don't agree, but farm work definitely builds more character than the mall!