An Update from the Homestead

 

My children have turned into well tanned, summer lovin’ monkeys.

Mary is enjoying our newly opened local library.

Danny is riding his bike without training wheels.

Sarah is cute as can be, turning into a big girl quite suddenly.

Sam is climbing and jumping, dancing and giggling, getting into everything except his toys and keeping us all in smiles.

The garden is producing yummy foods, carrots, green beans, peppers, squash, zucchini, cucumbers and eggplant.  No ripe tomatoes, yet.  My zucchini is giving out due to some twisted little bugs that want to ruin my summer cooking plans.  Is it too late to plant more?

Cheeseburger is growing and enjoying her pasture more every day.  We like this, because giving a calf a bottle every day is starting to get old.  Moo.

Our chickens are doing well.  We still have 15 out of the 16 we started with.  They are growing, no longer resembling little fur balls of chick cuteness.  Eric built a super chicken coop that we can move with the tractor.  They love it.  Well, actually they hate the moving part.  They love the eating fresh grass and bugs part.  They aren’t big enough to fend off the cats yet, so they aren’t running loose during the day.  Looking forward to yummy eggs.

The great experiment of going a/c free is going well despite the heat wave of 90 plus temps.  I messed up today and didn’t turn off the kid’s window fans, allowing hot air to be pulled into the house most of the day.  Still, we lived.  It only hit 85 degrees in here today.  Totally survivable.  It really didn’t even bother me except when I was standing over the sink washing dishes in hot water.  That was a bit much, but I turned on a fan in the kitchen and all was groovy.  I’ve been resisting the window a/c unit, just trying to see how well we can do without it.

Supper tonight was sweet corn from a roadside stand, green beans from our garden, sour dough bread from the local Amish bakery and lunchmeat and cheese from another local store.  Yum. 

The kids enjoyed a tractor ride before bed.  Most people just read stories…

I learned the importance of checking (very cautiously, mind you) the pockets of little boy pants before throwing them in the washer.  Acorns and apples look funny after a wash and spin.

Starting to plan and freak out over next year’s homeschooling.  A second grader, a kindergartener and a little one who wants to go to “pretty” school.  Going to be a lot of work, but I think my wonderful MIL is going to pitch in a bit.  We are going to study 6 week long units, starting with trees.  Then, we’ll take a week off before starting the next 6 week study.  It’ll be fun! 

That’s our life.  We are enjoying the simple stuff.  We are working and playing, laughing and crying.  It’s good.  Thanks for stopping by.