Amish Trip

When Elijah woke up this morning, I told him that I was heading to the Amish and asked if he would like to go. At first he said, "only if you are going to the swing-set maker". I told him that I wasn't, but I was going to the flee-market to get baby chicks. He said them, "I'll go! I only like to go if you go to the swing-set maker, buy candy or get baby chicks."  He then told me that he wanted his own baby chick and he will keep it in his cubby by the front door.  

Six kids and I headed out as early as we could this morning while JD remained home to work on the screened in porch ceiling. We purchased 20 new baby chicks. We bought the last couple of silkies and polish, then some Leghorns and cool black ones (that I can't remember the name of) that lay black eggs. Selah has been anxiously awaiting her own baby chick for the last few months.
 

Monkey see - monkey do; the big monkey should know the likelyhood of being pooped on, but they both lucked out this time.

When we took the babies out to put them in the baby cage, we saw nasty grubs in the chicken food that was given to us with the chickens last week. We started scooping them out and giving them to the chickens.

The chickens gobble them the minute they see them move. Check out that goofy looking white Polish chicken - isn't he a show stopper? He can barely see past the feathers in his eyes and walks like a drunk.

While we were in Amish country, we hit the farmers market. I'm thinking grilled zuchinni tonight.

Ben informed me that there were apples growing on the pear tree and nuts on the peach tree. Upon further investigation, they are actually pears and peaches - surprise!

baby pears

Elijah would like to show you his father's new toy. Yes, we bought a humongous back-hoe. The plan is that we clear a few acres and complete a few other projects; then we will sell it to recoop our money....(that's at least the plan JD sold me on).

Groundhog Weekend

I feel like this weekend was a re-run of last weekend. JD ended up making two trips to a friend's house for trees and a trip to the Amish saw-mill. Although we were done with the wood trips, we were blessed with free big trees to make posts out of, so about three more trips and our fencing stash should be done. Speaking of Amish, my tomato plants I bought from them are still going strong. It's amazing how many tomatoes I've gotten off three plants. I'll be buying my vegetable plants from them again next year.

I am half way through Julia's braids. The Zulu knots lasted a few more days than I expected, but we needed a hair-do that will get us through next weekend. I really want to get better at corn-rowing. Here's Julia having a hair break.

It really isn't Julia that requires so many hair breaks. It's this little guy. He isn't impressed with his Mom focusing so long on someone that isn't him!

JD and I spent quite a bit of time today on the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace budget. We have definitely increased our expenses drastically the last few years with our international adoptions and our new house. So, after putting all our expenses on paper today, it turns out the kids are way expensive! I obviously already knew this as it seems every cent we have goes to one of them for something, but it seems so much worse now that it's on paper. Another big expense in my life is all these animals. Mind you, I rarely intentionally go and get them, but I find them around town and lately they get dumped in my driveway. We really don't even do vets anymore; I get everything rabies shots and spayed or neutered at the low cost clinic, but I still feed them all and put FRONTLINE on all of them! I still have two kittens from the dumped litter to get fixed this fall! Here's Kaden enjoying Elijah's attention. You know he's a good kitty to put up with Elijah's "petting."

The good news is that next weekend won't be a re-run; we are going on our annual "back-to-school" mini-vacation. I am really praying that my neck improves a ton this week!

On a P.S. happy note - I found my missing teacher's manual! I offered a $5 reward, but found it myself. It was on the piano shelf, folded open, blending in with the piano books. I'm just thrilled to be back on track for school tomorrow.

Farm Update

It seems a stretch to consider our land a farm these days as I've gotten rid of the goats and now I'm phasing out the ducks. We'll have nothing but dogs, cats and chickens for a while. As soon as we get our field fenced, we are going to get a dairy cow and a few pet goats, and then it will seem more "farmish" to me. Things are still progressing though. Last year, and the three years before that, we had literally no grass and this year it seems to be coming in and thickening up some. Although there are still bald patches, there is enough that JD actually mowed it for the first time with the bush-hog that we bought off the side of the road at least a year ago.

The area in this shot was our old front yard. Last year, when we moved the house, there was no grass, but amazingly it's growing this year.

Here's my beloved ducks that leave for their new home on Monday.

The only reason they are leaving at all is because they don't grasp the concept of stay off the patio, or even please don't poop on the patio. They have acres to roam and two baby pools to swim in, but they insist on pooping all over the patio each and every day. Even though I hose it down everyday, it's never clean enough to let Elijah down on it. See those spots? This was taken not long after hosing the whole thing down!

Here's the advantage of not having goats this year; I've been able to plant flowers and vegetables and nothing has eaten them.

Today we took our second to the last load of wood to the Amish saw-mill. It's all from the path that the utility company cut down to put lines into our rental home. Although it's been a lot of work to get it out of the woods, load it, drive it, pick it back up and stack it, we have plenty of cut boards for our cow fence. Here's the new trees going......

the kids running at the Amish saw-mill -

and last weeks trees coming home today.
The fun part about our trip to the Amish today was talking to a carpenter about making a big A-frame swing-set for the kids. There is fierce competition for the two swings on our Costco playground, so I inquired about just just a basic frame with four more swings. He is going to give JD a price quote next week.