Kid Tidbits & The New Family Van

My toaster has seen things no toaster should ever see like transformers, cheese, and ballpoint pens. I hate toasters and the way they just seem to beg for misuse by unattended children. I guess I'll plug the toaster in the garage and let the cheese burn off... 
  Layla (8) is the cheese culprit lol. At least she's at a reasonable cooking age, unlike Everett (2.5) who just burns toast and throws pens in, narrowly escaping getting burned. From what I gather she was trying to melt cheese on bread over the toaster and the cheese fell in. How do kids think of this stuff!?

 Yesterday I started cleaning out the upstairs seasonal clothes closet (an attic like room). This is a huge project and is going to take a few days. Each year by the fall and winter I get totally lazy and don't care the room gets trashed with clothes piled high, and then each spring I sort through everything and get it all organized again. I'm really busy trying to bag up giveaways, sort clothes by age group and hang up some stuff. Suddenly I hear from downstairs, "Mom the toilet won't flush anymore." The three youngest kids are in the bathroom together, ages 2, 4, and 6. Then I hear it half- flush four times in a row. I yell for them to stop flushing it and that I'll fix it in a little while. I know they can hear me. Then it half-flushes again. "Mom, it's clogged I think."
I say again, "I.Will.Fix.It.Later." Then it flushes again. "Yup it's clogged, mom." Then I VERY loudly yell, "DO NOT FLUSH THE TOILET ANYMORE I WILL FIX IT LATER! DO YOU HEAR ME? DOOO NOOOT FLUUUSH ANNNYMORE. DO NOT FLUSH IT."

The boys and Charlotte come out of their bedrooms a couple doors down smiling at me. They have been listening to me this whole time and all they hear is me yelling about flushing and not the other end of the conversation, and it is pretty funny. They laugh and I laugh and say, "Like how hard is it too just stop flushing the bleeping toilet!?!"

The TMI part:
I check the toilet a little bit later, which I knew wasn't clogged and sure enough it wasn't. They think when there's a messy poop and some sticks to the side of the toilet bowl (usually because Everett misses the water because he's little and has to lean forward) and all of it doesn't get washed away that it's clogged. They did this last week too. It actually makes me laugh because they act so "OMG the toilet!" about it.

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Penelope has crayons in the shape of animals and other things. They were handmade in silicone ice tray molds. Many of them are broken and so she likes putting them together so they look whole then she asks us if they are broken or not. This was cute at first, especially since she marks your guesses on paper. (She does this with crude jumbo tally mark lines and in no real order, but this is a great intro and beginning of data collection and graphing. Us homeschoolers value everything as learning!) But this has been going on for days and I don't want to guess if crayons are broken anymore, and actually most the time I can tell so I have to lie so she can feel good about tricking me. LOL. I want to tell her that I'm done playing this crayon game but she gets so excited when she 'tricks' you. She's such a 6 year old. : )

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Spring here means outside time, digging, planting, pruning, and lots of yard clean up. Ricky has been busy putting some fence up and fixing it so the chickens will stay in their pen. (We have some unruly hens that keep escaping and laying eggs at at least one nearby neighbor's house! 

 We have geese sitting on eggs and wonder if they are fertile! I avoided buying new animals this spring just barely. I think we're in the clear now. I refrained from bogging us down with barnyard  critters, at least until next year when the desire will start all over again! I'm now focused on the yard work getting done and the new baby coming. Each season seems to bring an adjustment to new schedules and expectations. We expect kids to help outside and we all have many added on outdoor chores. The kids even need to get readjusted to prolonged outdoor playtime; which is usually a welcomed thing by them, but not always. 

We are getting as many things cleaned up and done as we can before the new baby arrives. The list is crazy long and all of it -inside and out- won't get done. But we'll work until we run out of time. Since I'm going through the upstairs closet it also means I'm going through newborn clothes! Baby girl, baby boy...cooing over onsies and taking inventory on things we need (like newborn baby socks, cloth wet wipes, new baby blankets...maybe a new PRETTY ergo I've got my eye on hopefully...our other is so stained up.) And I'm daydreaming about some new things I want but might not need like new cloth diapers.

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On Saturday April 6^th we left the kids home alone to "run an errand" and surprised the kids by bringing home a 15 passenger van!!!! We kept this secret from them for 2 weeks and planned on surprising them the entire time! They love it and so do we. We took them for a spin in it, went to a favorite park, and had a happy lovely time gorgeous time.  We love our Excursion for so many reasons, but actually outgrew it one baby ago.  We fought getting a passenger van for so long! But such is life, if you have a gaggle of kids you need something to haul them all in. We can now seat  14 seat belted in! Already we tend to go more places together. Usually on a donut run just Ricky and I go with a couple kids and bring donuts home. Yesterday we all went together! So fun for us all to be able to pile in and we have tons of room! Now I’m car seat shopping. Life is so expensive!  

 When I pulled up to the house the day we brought home the van a bunch of kids huddled over to the window to see who was in the driveway and I totally teared up! I was overcome with emotion. This was a really big deal! This was going to change all of our lives. We already needed a bigger vehicle badly, but the new baby sealed the deal. We went from big family to jumbo size! At first they didn’t know it was me in the driveway (tinted windows). They just thought some stranger pulled up, and then they saw their dad pull up in his car too. I got out and slowly a couple of kids at a time wondered outside to see what we were up to. The joy on their faces was so much fun!

The kids riding in the van are SO quiet! Everyone has so much room and no one has to sit next to somebody if they don’t want to.  Ricky and I look at each other amazed…hardly any sound; just content riders. We love it. 

In other news I'm 33 weeks pregnant and feel awesome. 

Garden and Zoo (and even at the zoo we are drawn to the farm animals)

A patch of mint.

I love making garden signs.
Sage wants me to make a sign for our corn that says
"Farmed and Dangerous" and I'm totally going to do it.
We are really into parodies and word play. It's kinda crazy.  We use word play everyday and I think it makes us abnormal (but awesome). For example, when I'm digging up/transplanting hostas I'm found of saying: "Hosta la vista, baby" over and over for no apparent reason. It's fun. We also make up our own parodies from lines of songs on a regular basis and right out of the blue. What's awesome is that another family member in earshot usually adds to whatever kooky thing the other is spewing. It's good fun that is out of hand. Charlotte made me very proud by simply making a parody of this in the swimming pool at a fitting moment.

Helpers watering. Everett looooves watering. Sometimes I have him water just to give him something to do.

This is the baby hen's new pen. They graduated and moved away from the goose and guinea garden. Their new pen is inside our big chicken pen. Charlotte and I put this pen up all by ourselves! I had not realized how much I have learned about fencing from my husband! I had nearly forgotten that my first attempt (alone) at a fence years ago was a fail, now I did this!!  The baby hens are separated from the big chickens so the big ones can get used to the little ones. The little hens become part of the flock slowly and won't get picked on in a couple of months when we integrate them all. We move them into a protective house at night as there is no night protection here, but the dog house provides shelter from storms. 

The last two weekends we have been: fixing garden gates, seeing that the Japanese beetles are dying (organic sprayed last week), moving baby hens to start socializing with the big hens, making baby hen pens, watering, planting more herbs, planting sunflowers,  swimming geese, making farm expansion plans for next year with Charlotte and Ricky, enjoying life so much. We also have had creek trips, park trips, a zoo trip, and homework and housework to keep up with. It's a busy life we have created for ourselves!

 Two weekends ago Sage (12) split his first log.

I'm noticing that slowly the kids enjoy outside work more and more. This wasn't even anything I needed done, he just wanted to learn.

The geese admiring themselves in mirrors. 

Zoo Pictures

GOATS! We were making tentative plans for goats next year and now seeing the kids with them...
wellllll.... that just makes it even more of an exciting thought. 

We admired the goats the most of all

Everett totally fell asleep with his pop and it was sooo cute! He kept eating it and sucking it.
I got it away from him without too much trouble after I took some cute and funny pictures.

... It's such a big wide world ....

Home Gardens Under Attack: Support Home Gardens

Today I heard reports of two different households being told they cannot grow food in their front yard, even though no ordinance is referenced against it. 

• Missouri family told they can't garden in front yard, this blog is the family's "to document how Ferguson, Missouri’s Code Enforcement is attempting to enforce opinions, rather than law. " Picture below is of their amazing hard work and beautiful garden. (Please leave them a comment of support on their blog.)

• In Kansas Woman Sues City of Tulsa For Cutting Down Her Edible Garden Denise Morrison said she has more than 100 plant varieties in her front and back yards and all of them are edible and have a purpose.

This comes just one day after I told Charlotte hypothetically, "We'd move if something happened and we couldn't have chickens here, like if our area suddenly had an ordinance against them." I carried on, "I love having birds, and if we couldn't have them we'd put the house up for sale immediately while we worked towards saving more money to move, then within two years we'd be gone. We won't live somewhere where we can't grow and raise our own food; it's un-American"

To live in America and be told you can't grow food on your own property is incomprehensible. Time for me to wake up, because it's the reality some people are living with. We once lived in a country that tried, even advertised, to get people to grow their own food. Being self sufficient was encouraged as was: canning, storing, growing and keeping chickens. Today people and our government are so accustomed to shopping at supermarkets, importing food, paying taxes, regulations and restrictions that people don't do much for themselves anymore in the way of food production. Providing for yourself is a great skill to have, but it's becoming a lost art. Growing your own food not only helps people eat healthier, it's also better for our environment (for one there is no transporting of goods to stores). Growing-your-own teaches many skills and fosters hard work and perseverance which is great for self esteem and motivation. This leads to a feeling of high self worth. People who garden have less stress, tend to be happier and live longer. People who garden get exercise and soak up vitamin D from the sun while they work in their gardens. In 2009, a study reported that three-quarters of U.S. teens and adults were deficient in vitamin D.

When I see people who have gardens visible from the street it makes me happy, I actually look for people's gardens each year. I admire the gardens of complete strangers as we commute to and from home. I show them to my kids. I talk about them. One down this way has a metal pan hanging from a clothesline to deter birds and a lawn chair an older man sits in. I love that he watches his garden grow from his chair. One the other way has a plot so big and rich and full that I'm green with envy every year. At the end of the growing season it's tilled up before we even buy Halloween pumpkins. They keep it in wonderful shape. In the spring, before I can even think about tilling, their garden is tilled up again and waiting for seeds. Yet another garden is near the elementary school; they cover it in black plastic each off season with about eight cinder blocks on sides and corners. I watch for gardens and applaud them as I see them. When I slow down as I pass these gardens my family hears, "Look at that garden! It's a good one!" In fact, I totally just did it today on the way home from swimming.

People getting out in nature and doing what's good for their families and themselves should be encouraged on every level.

Old ad's from the past:

This poster was part of the publicity for a brilliantly mounted campaign to encourage the use of homegrown foods. Because commercially canned goods were rationed, the Victory Garden became an indispensable source of food for the home front. The Victory Garden was a household activity during the war and one of the most well received of all home front chores. At its peak, it is estimated that nearly 20,000,000 gardens were grown and about 40 percent of all vegetables produced in the U.S. came from Victory Gardens. By the end of the war the Department of Agriculture estimated total home front production of over one million tons of vegetables valued at 85 million dollars. Source

Spring Turns Into Summer

Grilling

I love grilling because the oven stays off and the kitchen stays cool, there are less dishes and clean up, and it tastes good. We love grilled pineapple and veggies! In search of a healthier version of hot wings I invented (with the help of some online suggestions and searches) a fry-free non breaded grilled hot wing. The recipe will be posted on my food blog later today. 

I love when the little kids take pictures of me because I get to see myself from their point of view. 

Harvest

We are enjoying lots of fruit. The blackberry bushes are heavy with fruit, it's really exciting to see them flourish. We bought all our raspberry (thorn and thorn-less varieties) and blackberry (thorn-less) bushes from www.gurneys.com two years ago, I think. I'm so very happy with them I plan on planting more for sure. There is something so amazing about planting a 3-7 inch twig into 

the ground and watch it grow delicious berries.

                                                                         

Poison Ivy

The poison ivy has gotten way worse on us both. We itch, bust mostly we have rashes, headaches and we are tired all the time. We had to cancel our all day trip away and swimming plans for the rest of the weekend because Ricky breaks out too bad when out in the heat. His rash and energy level don't do well if he does anything other than than hang out on the couch. (Ha, the perfect ailment for him on a 3 day weekend, lucky guy!)

Yesterday he finished extending the fence to my guinea and goose pen and adding a gate, it wiped him totally out even though it only took him an hour. He broke out horribly (way worse than the picture above). I made a slippery elm paste and rubbed it all over him. It helped take the swelling down. 

I swear by slippery elm bark. It is good for so many things, but for anything skin related if it's: red, raw, weepy, blistery,  sore, crusty or wet then slippery elm bark is your cure. I used it on chicken pox and it was amazing. When Layla was a nine month old baby with chicken pox she ended up getting them so bad on her face she had deep blistery wet pits. They were very deep, wet and weeping. I sprinkled or dabbed dry slippery elm powder on her constantly and it kept them clean and dry.  Slippery elm has antibacterial and anti fungal properties, its soothing and can help with itchy and soreness.  She once got impetigo, too, and it totally cured it where most would have needed to go to the doctor. 

Ricky's now crashed out on Zyrtec (allergy pill). He said it already seems to be helping the swelling around his eyes. If he gets any worse we'll take him to the Walgreen's Take Care Clinic. We've always had great luck and helpfulness there. 

                             Guinea Fowl        

 Guinea raising has been totally satisfying! We have worked hard on taming them! They are not totally tame (I'm not sure that's possible), they are however just skittish enough that you remember they are a game bird, but they are mostly calm and easy to be around without them getting spooked much. I was thrilled when I was working in the garden and they came near me! I'm able to easily herd them into their house each night, which his really fun and neat! I had read guineas like routine and we have them on one. They are really a lot of fun. I see them out my kitchen window guarding the garden, eating bugs and grain, and visiting their house several times a day. I also see them admiring themselves in the several mirrors I put around for them. I love them and think of them as pets more than any fowl I've ever had. For the first time I got to see their watch dog instincts kick in as they freaked out squawking and carrying on when we started using the weed eater the other day. It was hilarious. I think we have two females and one male, but it's very hard to tell. They have gotten big very quickly!

Goslings snuggling up in the grass

Quickly and effortlessly goslings are becoming treasured pets. Charlotte lays in the grass and they hobble over and lay down with her! Its darling! 

They follow the kids around a little and they occasionally graze on grass themselves and take offers of weeds the kids hand feed them. 

Learning about nature and making new friends

Quiet Outdoor Spaces 

Shhhhhhhh. Mom's quiet time. 

Poison Ivy

There's a lot of interesting things we've learned about poison ivy lately... Ricky and I are both having reactions from pulling some up. I started noticing HUGE poison ivy leaves coming out from every which way all along our driveway and chicken house area. I was impressed I noticed what they were. We cleaned them up on Sunday, I wore gloves but Ricky didn't. 

Did you know you can get rashes, blisters, Etc. anywhere, not just where the plant touched you? And you actually don't spread the rash to other areas of your skin, or to others by scratching or touching your rash/blisters. 

Did you know you can "break out" for a week or longer from it? I've had new small itchy spots start to rash up several times a day everyday for the past three days. I thought: you get exposed, you get a rash, it sucks, the end. NO! Not so. You can go days or over a week (or about ten days -but as long as several weeks) getting new rashes or blisters that itch like crazy. Two days after exposure I thought I was in the clear, not so!

Did you know many people don't react the first time they are exposed? Apparently the more you are exposed the worse the reaction each time. Ricky thought he was immune all these years, but it turns out he is not. 

Genetics play a role in how severe your reaction may be.

You can have headaches and a general feeling of unwellness (and diarrhea, nausea) from exposure. You may have to see a Dr. if swelling occurs or if the reaction gets progressively worse. (Ricky has the headaches and doesn't feel well, he also has a slight flat bumpy rash starting on his face) This can also be a sign on a systemic reaction that may need treated. 

Kids under 3 don't generally react to it (although I see two spots on baby Everett). Some places online say kids under 11 don't usually react too strongly to exposure. 

I'm glad we just have rashes, not any fluid filled blisters. Some of the raw bleeding looking photos online look scary! I look more like I've scratched tiny chicken pox marks on my body. Ricky has a very flat non itchy rash. He doesn't itch at all, only me.  Still, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the WORST reaction possible) I rate this a 2. Maybe a 3. But I'm pretty tough. 

Poison ivy is weird!!!

UPDATE 1:
Ricky did have take allergy pills, it seemed to provide some relief for a while. Two weeks after exposure rashy spots that had started to fade started to come back in full force, and this time with with warmth and more swelling. He went to the Take Care Clinic at Walgreen's (so fast and easy and they are so nice there) where he was prescribed steroids. He is on the mend, but it has been pretty sucky. He can't go outside because for more than 15 minutes or makes the rash flare up.


Update 2: He had to get on a 9 day steroid medication. He went to Walgreen's Take Care Clinic and they prescribed him that because the swelling was not going away. It's now been a week since he's been off steroids and all is well again. The swelling started going away at one point, but then came back...so it was time to go in.

The Guinea Garden

 It's sometimes fun when plans don't totally turn out "as planned." We decided to keep the guineas close to the house so that I could enjoy my bug eating pets. So we also started making raised beds. Ricky likes what we've done so far so much that he wants three more beds this year. We have scrap wood to make more. These pre-cut and drilled cedar ones we got on sale years ago and just now had the perfect time and place to use them. So this is the progression of the 'guinea garden' that is neatly placed outside one of  my kitchen windows.

Outside my kitchen window we planted a cherry tree, to the right there

This is Everett who climbed into the new Guinea house right as we were finishing it up 

The whole area in progress. I'm building a roof top herb garden on the guinea house,  I lined it with a blue tarp. We added reed fence along the top of our existing fence it to help keep the Guineas in (even though we clipped their wings) and for an extra seclusion feel. 

The boys hauling dirt into the beds from the chicken pen

First day on the loose! I love 'em!

In progress. I have it all planted now. Basil, chamomile, lemon balm, cilantro, marigold flowers 

Hungry-yummy baby!

The first wonderful raspberry harvest is starting! All my raspberry and blackberries are taking off like wild fire. It's awesome!

The kids spreading out some bags of topsoil we added

Some of my tomato babies getting ready to go in the ground. I took VERY awesome care of them this year to see how big I could get them. These are the best starters I ever had --the extra care and attention helps them  thrive so much! I plan to sell tomato plants at our local farmers market next year. 

This is with the green garden fence and gate up. I made this gate myself, I am super proud of it. It's the first thing I ever sawed and screwed together -totally built from scratch. It's super sturdy! Ricky was impressed :) Then I painted it cute. 

This was a totally unplanned outfit. Too funny.  I love it!

Guineas like to look at themselves so we have mirrors everywhere, even in their roosting house. 

Expanding the Strawberries & Getting my Guineas! Spring is in FULL swing...New Garden Space Coming Soon!

 Our currently over crowded strawberry bed is to the right of the boys working below. It's a beautiful thick bed that desperately needs an expansion (at least 200 plants are in it now). It's really a challenge to plow down a spot to garden (without the use of a plow) on our land. The soil is awesome, but we are over run with crappy grasses and stubborn crab grass. After two years of hand weeding and mulching this was the first year that weeding our strawberry patch isn't necessary. I win! I succeeded; the strawberries crowded out the weeds! Strawberries are good at that, but without effort on our end (me and the kids weeding it two years straight) our patch wouldn't look as good and thick as it does now. My husband complimented me about it, too. Actually it was when he did that I realized we need to expand!

After mowing this spot on the lowest setting to get the grass as short as can be we are spreading chicken manure out over it. (I said we... I helped too! :)

Now it's topped with old wet straw I got a deal on; only $2 a bale from craigslist (instead of $5 at the store)

Now a layer of damp cardboard. (I left it out in the rain)

Now some landscaping fabric to hold everything in place. This is an extra expense but I had some in the garage. It is really helpful though but you don't have to have it. If you don't have it then make SURE you keep it wet or you will have cardboard blow away.  

Now we let it "cook."

To help kill weeds/grass I use a method called lasagna gardening. You use layer after layer of material to decompose into the ground, kill weeds, and create a rich yummy environment for planting. People layer leaves, grass clippings, manure, boxes, burlap, newspaper, Etc. Eventually, and pretty quickly, you create a perfect home for huge hungry earthworms. Keep your lasagna garden wet and it will do it's magic. 

I ordered 50 new strawberry plants and I'll transplant some crowded ones over, too. I'm going to have them growing in thick all over again! :) Eventually I bet I turn the left corner of this fence and make more strawberry room right on down the other side. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. ;)

Meanwhile on the Mini Farm

 (I recently read that in my county any land with livestock on it is classified as a farm, so I totally call my place a farm now. And with 41 birds on their way to my house and 29 already here I'm going with that.)

We got our first guineas! (They are keets; that is what baby guineas are called.) They are 2.5 weeks old and wild as heck. You have to hand raise these birds or they will be completely wild and run away and/or roost in your trees. So since they were kept wild in a pen we have a bunch of retraining to do. So far we hold them for a half hour at least three times a day. They shake and are really scared, but we calm them down after about 10 minutes of holding. The kids have managed to have them sit on their laps without having to hold them close and tight the whole time. We are not making much progress yet, but if we really, really work hard they will become pets who come to us and eat millet as a treat from our hands. They will eat bugs from the garden without hurting the plants (most do anyway) and if trained properly they will roost in a house instead of in the trees. I'm thinking about making them a smaller but more secure outdoor version of the brooder house /potters bench we made. If not then we'll just train them to roost with the chickens at night. Hopefully we'll get them trained. 

Love those little stripped heads!

The Pet Chicken

We acquired a pet chicken from our friend Dixie. He's the craziest thing. He's SO tame. The chicken is too young to intermix with our full grown flock so it hangs out with the kids, stays in a separate pen, or hangs out in our house. Yes I said our house (not very often though). However, he sleeps in a cat carrier in the kitchen. It's super tame. lol. This chicken came to us with the name Leo, but everyone in the house calls him something different. I call him Chicken Little for some reason. The past two nights when we went to let Chicken Little out of his pen he had already escaped it. He was waiting in the grass near the back door. We open the porch door and he hops right inside. Very cute. 

In May we welcome new birds to our flock: turkey, geese, some meat birds, and some new chicks to raise for laying hens. Busy, busy spring at our house. In fact Ricky and I agreed that after this weekend no more weekend plans until June; we are just too busy: tilling, planting, building stuff, putting up fence, Etc.

I'm really excited because I've waited a really long time to expand into having turkey, weeder geese, and a real nice permanent garden area with pet guineas and it's all starting to happen! Other things that I've put so much effort and patience into are doing well too. The strawberries for one, but also we have huge thorn-less raspberries and blackberries that are just exploding with booms. I planted them from just little 2-4 inch sticks in the ground two years ago! I think we'll have stuffed bellies full of them! One of our peach trees is doing outstanding and is 15 ft tall, the other is doing great but is smaller. Our pear tree that was lopsided and spindly looks like a real tree this year with a nice shape! Pear trees are not know for nice shapes. Our four apple trees look better than ever (they are still only 3-4 feet tall). We got them on clearance three years ago and they were on clearance because they looked sad and it was August. lol. Our blueberry bushes are not doing well, but they are alive. I'm thinking about buying bigger more established bushes from a organic blueberry farm. Probably not this year though. This year I really feel like so much of my work the past three years is paying off. It's nice. We're on our way to a nice little 1 acre homestead. We'll just keep working towards more and more... I have a lot of patience.

I had this great idea to put up a fence off from our chicken pen with a gate. This way I can let the chickens in  the garden during the spring and fall to eat weeds and seeds before and after the growing season. This will drastically cut down on weeds! Then during the growing season the guineas will have the full duty of weeding and debugging the plants. It's a nifty little system that should work really well. I'm really happy about this plan. This spot here is about 40x40 feet. I also plan on making it awesome with a privacy fence made from lattice and some garden furniture and a shady spot to sit. 

Click any photo to enlarge them

And while on a picture posting rampage I fixed up the hen house (new curtains) and planted some new plants.  Had a duh moment when I added a bench to sit on across from the house and near the chicken pen (not pictured). Ricky and I just stand around over there and watch the chickens. Not anymore! This not pictured bench spot is also a direct view of that future garden plan pictured above.