July 2014

This month started out pretty horrible.  I had strep throat.  Once I was feeling better, I hurt my back while pulling weeds in the garden.  I literally spent over a week sleeping and lying around.  I feel fortunate to have independent children, a hubby who is able to take a day of vacation anytime and a wonderful doctor friend who will see me in her office on her day off and again on the weekend.  I wouldn’t have been able to get better as quickly without  her!   That week did a number on my brain too.  I haven’t recovered from that lost week yet!

If you come to our house, Nola Mae will want to show you the big hole in the garden.  There once was a large rock there.

This hole keeps her busy and entertained.

Another source of entertainment in our yard.

Waiting for fireworks.

Mr. Ernst baling his hay in our field.

Counting Mr. Ernst’s marshmallows.

I love this smile!

Our big boys went to North Dakota with Grandma, Grandpa, uncle and cousins.

When they called me from North Dakota they told me they could spend all summer there because they were having so much fun.

All four kids together after the big boys came back from their trip to North Dakota.

Henry has this great friend, Micheala, who he sat next to in school, they played together, helped each other with projects and giggled a lot together.  Micheala invited Henry to her birthday party at the pool.  Every day we counted down the days until the day before the party.  Henry helped me pick out the fabric for this bag to give to her, because she LOVES pink!

The weekend came…Eddie came to help Jack cut down the huge oak tree that was leaning towards the house.

Helen counted about 120 to 130 years for the age of the tree.

  Jack and Eddie did a fabulous job dropping the tree away from the house and garage.  Jack put his chain saw in a “safe” place.  The tree landed perfectly on our wood pile and did not damage the chainsaw!

 The video on facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202381381878986&set=vb.1326037913&type=3&theater

We have an awesome firewood pile.  Charlie thinks we won’t have to make firewood for a couple more years.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him we make firewood for future years, not the coming winter.  This wood is what we will burn, not this winter, next winter (2015-16) and hopefully some will be left for the following winter (2016-17).

The weekend was over…On Sunday night, after reading our bedtime story, Henry asked me again, “How many days until Micheala’s party?”  At that moment I realized we missed the party, it was yesterday.   The poor boy cried himself to sleep.  I called the mom and made an ice cream date with Micheala.  We picked her up and while we were in the car Henry had a whoopee cushion and kept  blowing it up and squashing it.  They were giggling so hard it just melted my heart to see them having such a great time.  While at the ice cream shop they talked and talked while just sitting on the riding toys.

Fifty-five pounds of blush and bing cherries ($1.66/pound).  We ate almost all of them except for a quart size bag of them went into the freezer.

Five days later, eighty pounds of blueberries arrived.  I paid $2.25/pound.  The kids were slacking this year and only ate about fifteen pounds before we made one pie and froze the rest.

 There are wonderful times in my life when all four kids will play nicely together, not often, but it does happen.  They went down the path to the edge of the field and played for a very long time.  I can’t remember how long but long enough for me to keep wondering “What in the world are they doing?”  Finally, this is what I saw coming up the hill.

And then something like this happens…Henry and I picked raspberries one hot afternoon. While we picked Henry and Nola Mae weren’t getting along.  They were mostly fighting about who would get my next handful. I sent Nola Mae to a shady part to eat her raspberries. Henry was still kind of mad at her so he said, “Nola Mae I hope you eat ALL your raspberries! And then you poop, raspberry poop, on your head!”

 

Our lotion girl:  Thankfully this mess was outside.

 My sewing projects:

I made this wet bag for a friend who uses cloth diapers.

And this Didymos Winter Lillies wrap was made into a ring sling for another friend.

 I dyed this in June and sewed it into a ring sling this month.

and this one.

My first minecraft creeper inspired pillowcase.

My dyeing projects:

Charlie designed the glue resist on this cloth to cover his desk.  He wanted rainbow colors, which I used to ice dye it, but it doesn’t look very rainbow-ish to me.  When he saw it for the first time he said, “Awesome!”  I was holding my breath because it didn’t turn out like I expected.

I made this ring sling for a friend who loved the ring sling I made last month in the same colors.   This one turned out a little darker and just as beautiful.  We traded this ring sling for a new bike for Robbie.

Robbie with his new bike.  I think we got the better end of the deal!

 This is a picture of “testing my patience”.  I have learned that dyeing stuff takes a lot of patience.    All of those items in the bags first sat under ice for over 24 hours, then I gently put them into these plastic bags for 12 hours.

Then they needed rinsing with the hose, and then rinsed in the washer for many rinse cycles.

 Once I dried everything in the dryer I hung them on the line to get a good look!

This was a white sheet that I will make into a quilt for Robbie.

 

This was a white table-cloth.

with matching napkins that I dyed.

  We have a trombone player!  He is very happy to be done playing the piano.

 

I have had this sign on my fridge for many months.  I was reminded this month how very important this is for everyone to follow (adults and children)!  I hope you follow this advice too.

October 2013 – Month 10

Fall is one of my favorite seasons.  For many reasons…cooler temps, beautiful colors, yummy apples, my fall projects are so much fun, and winter is almost here.

We (mostly I) picked all the apples off our trees.  One of my biggest fall projects is to make applesauce.  I am hoping a lot of these apples will get eaten!

I waited to pick the last batch of apples after a few good frosts.  I needed to wait until most of the hornets were dead.  The hornets were horrible around the apples.   If I didn’t pick up the windfall apples every day they would be covered with hornets.  I found a few of these apples still on the tree where the hornets ate everything but the skin.

This fall I placed an olive oil order for my friends and family.   I bottled up about 12 gallons.

Toddlers in our house are hard on glasses.  When Henry was two he flushed my glasses down the toilet.  Nola Mae recently did this.

My second favorite fall project is planting garlic.  This year I planted 3 1/2 pounds of garlic = 340 cloves.  I expect to get more than 11 pounds of garlic next summer.

My garlic space, before picture.

After tilling and raking those nasty weeds.

Since garlic planting takes me about three days to get done because of the distractions I have.  Nola Mae watched the chickens taking dirt baths in the garden and she would copy them

And so did Henry.  He came into the house to show me how clean he was after his dirt bath.

Almost done!

My best helpers!

Charlie has had some trouble with a boy in his class not being nice to him.  It has gone on since last year.  The first time I was aware of him was last year in 1st grade.  On morning I walked Charlie to his locker and was hanging out.  This little boy arrived and as they were taking off their coats he  called Charlie some horrible name I think it was “stupid idiot”, right in front of me.  I was shocked and told him what I thought about it in the nicest way I could come up with.

This month this boy drew a very nice picture of a dragon and gave it to Charlie.  The nicest thing he has ever done to Charlie.  I was excited about that.  Charlie said he just wanted to throw the picture away because Kris isn’t nice and why would he want to keep anything from him.  I explained to Charlie that if he did something nice back, like draw him a picture or write him a thank you note maybe Kris would feel some love and try being more kind.  Charlie was not excited about that at all!    He wrote this:

Kris has been more kind to Charlie but not 100% of the time.   Charlie is watching him, calling him on his behavior and is making sure the teachers are aware of the times Kris hurts someone.

This month was the last time I hung the diapers on the line to dry.  My last load took three days to dry.  And the sun is definitely not strong enough to do any bleaching!

One of our kind neighbors gave us a basket full of goodies with directions and a note to pass the Boo-ed on to another neighbor.

I asked the boys what neighbor we should do this back to, they suggested the newest neighbors that we haven’t met yet.  We waited until it was dark and dropped this basket of goodies off on their door step.

 

Nola Mae’s way of playing Legos with Robbie.

Nola Mae at 18 months:

Aunt Carol made this beautiful dress for Nola Mae.

Nola Mae hiding the deodorant container that she is playing with.

I have made kale chips for me and Nola Mae to eat.  One batch was a little oily.  She must have felt the need for some moisturizer.

I am not sure how the bowl of applesauce got on her head and face, well and everywhere else.

Nola Mae likes to put on the boys’ underwear and likes to try to catch chickens to hug them.

Henry went with Jack pheasant hunting in North Dakota:

They were gone for eight days.  Henry had a wonderful time.  I am not surprised because he didn’t have to share Papa, Grandma Hanna and Grandpa Rob with any other kids.

Charlie actually missed Henry.  When they came home Charlie ran out to greet them and carried all their bags into the house.

Baby wearing:

Nola Mae has learned to multi-task like me.  Dishes while wearing her baby.

     

 

Henry came home from school sad and tired.  He brought me a wrap and asked me to put him on my back. I told him I wanted a picture of us so I could remember this because he is getting really big.  As soon as I got the camera out his sadness turned to silliness.

  How can I bottle up this sweet little girl who loves it up on my back?

   

I have sold two ring slings this month.

A friend bought this one for Robbie and Charlie’s past gym teacher who they adored.  Even though I made this before I knew who it was going to I packaged it up with a little love and sleepy dust for Mrs. Bourget and her son.

I sold this ring sling  to my first “stranger” customer that I met on Facebook and it went far away, Arizona.

I made this ring sling for myself by ice dyeing it.  I have only worn it a couple of times – once for this photo and one day while running errands in Waupaca.  I have more ideas and wouldn’t mind selling this one so I can make a new one.

Do you know someone who is having a baby and wants to enjoy the benefits of wearing their baby?  I can help!

Other posts for this month:

Robbie’s Favorites, age 10

This Moment – Planting Garlic

This Moment – Long Bike Ride

Project 365 Week 43

Project 365 Week 43

Project 365: Take a photo a day and see your life in a whole new way.

10/24/11 (Monday) – I don’t have a single photo for today!

10/25/11 (Tuesday) – This is the final touches on my garlic patch.  The planting took much longer than I expected with all the wonderful help I got from the boys.  Henry helped me weed the spot, till it, rake it and then we were able to plant about 150 cloves.  This process took us about two weeks.  After it was planted it rained for many days and the wind blew like crazy.  So I was unable to spread the straw over my patch.  In that short period of time from after it was planted to the time I was ready to spread the straw the patch needed a little re-planting…Robbie, my biggest gardener, noticed that the patch was clean of weeds, tilled and raked.  He figured I didn’t get to the planting yet.  So he took his cultivator through my planted garlic patch to loosen the ground so it would be ready for planting.   We walked through it we found many cloves dug up and some cut and damaged.   We re-planted as many as we could find.

Spreading the straw was the best job for Henry.

All done!

I am praying that I will have a good garlic crop next year!

The last of the brocoli for us and the rest of the plants and brocoli flowers went to the chickens.

10/26/11 (Wednesday) – Henry and I packed the car for our trip to North Dakota.  Henry wasn’t interested in carrying anything out to the car for me.  He wanted to get strapped in and leave “NOW! Kota!” is all he would say until he was screaming and crying because we weren’t leaving yet.  (This was about four hours before our scheduled departure.)  I called Jack at work to talk to Henry.  Henry seemed to understand more after talking to Jack that we couldn’t leave until Papa came home from work.

10/27/11 (Thursday) to 10/31/11 (Monday) –  We arrived at the Russian Slough in the middle of the night.   The boys and I finished our night sleep in the car and woke up at sunset.  When Robbie woke up he told me he was going to catch a pheasant with his hands and eat it for lunch.

Our first hunt was around Grandpa Rob’s farm, The Russian Slough.

Robbie did indeed catch a pheasant with his hands after Grandpa Rob injured it.  Robbie fell in love with the rooster and didn’t want anything to do with eating him for lunch.  He carried him around wrapped in a sweat shirt.  Robbie stayed at the house for the afternoon hunt because he didn’t want to find another bird that he would love.

We had other exciting “boy” activities throughout the weekend…smashing soda cans with water in them with the splitting mall.

 I don’t have any photos of them playing with fire, exploring the land, getting kite strings tangled and stuck in the power lines or the big boys (adults) shooting other things that explode.

I took Henry’s baby blanket along and made progress on basting it and quilting.

Kite flying is a must when we are at the Russian Slough the wind is perfect almost every day!  Cousin Eric was the King of Kites!

Our boys missed one day of school to make this trip.  Uncle Eddie’s kids missed two.  We made time for homework.

A lot of cooking and baking went on…Sarah made these donuts, pumpkin and apple pies,

dinner rolls,

and homemade ice cream (two nights in a row).

One very important tradition is that Sarah publishes “The Sunflower” newspaper everyday.

I believe this is after a couple of days of hunting.  Our hunting was amazing with birds everywhere!

I couldn’t resist breaking one of my blogging rules – Do not post photos of dead animals.   Not once but twice in this week’s post, can you find the second photo?

Henry and I are “sneaking” up on the birds at the Cedar Creek property.  This is one of my favorite places to hunt out of all of Grandpa Rob’s land.

Minor trailer troubles on the way home.

Finally we arrived home on Monday evening.  The start of our unpacking…

900 photos were taking between Jack and my mother-in-law during our trip to North Dakota.  Thanks to them I had many photos to choose from and to share on my blog.

Robbie’s Special Place

Robbie’s Special Place

(Robbie’s five senses.  Written in first grade.  I have left his spelling.)

I hear the toall gras swaying.

I smell cinnamon rolls baking.

I feel the hot steam.

I see my Granma putting frosting on.

I taste the cinnamon rolls when I came inside.

The Russian Slough is in North Dakota where Grandma and Grandpa have a house.  We go there to vacation and hunt pheasants.  This is truly as special place for all of us.  A special place where all the grandchildren will have many wonderful childhood memories.