7 more days of school!!!

For the boys, it's 7 more days at Farmdale for good (i think).  We plan to transfer them to Lanc.Co Christian this coming school year.  It'll mean lots of changes, but the boys are fine with the move.   Which is ironic for me because they can be so argumentative on little things we choose for them, but on a big school move they were like "ok that's fine".   We are excited to have them in a smaller class setting, christian setting, and more flexibility in schedule and freer evenings.  We all liked our experience at Farmdale, but unfortunately there are changes taking place that weren't the best fit for us.  We are thankful to have gotten to know so many local people and we'll continue to be in touch with many.

We had a low key Memorial day weekend mixed in with a wedding reception at our house.  It was a pretty day Saturday during the reception, so thankful for the gorgeous weather.  Such a sweet couple, we were happy to give her the atmosphere she was looking for.
They made it look very nice!  It doesn't even look like our barn.

the bride made some games for the guests to play

Clay found a preschool friend, small world!

And for dessert- Rita's came! (Island fusion is a keeper)

Tuckered out after the wedding/sugar rush was over.

Sunday and Monday with no plans was such a treat.  Rod and i barely touched the 'to do' lists and just hung with the boys.  Found 3 litters of kitties, played basketball, kickball, mini bike, 4 wheeler, ground hog trapping, biking, campfire, gardening.  My favorite quote of the weekend was me overhearing Rod ask the boys:  "Hey boys, where's the scissors you used to cut the dead squirrel's head off?  I don't want mom to use it when she's cooking".  haha, what a life!

Setting off bottle rockets in the garden...there are no words for this bunch of boys

Except man do i love them

Salad dressings

We've been eating lots of salads here lately with all our hydroponic lettuces being ready for harvest all at once!
I love salad dressings, but unless you're buying the pricey, "all-natural" stuff, dressings really aren't good for you.  Check out this short link below: 


http://www.myredrabbit.com/myblog/5-reasons-you-should-make-your-own-salad-dressing.html

Ok, now I that scared you, here are my top 4 homemade salad dressing recipes right now.  They are easy to make and last a long time in the fridge:


Honey Mustard:
1 1/2 T Lemon juice
3/4 cup mayo
3 T mustard
3 T honey
1/2 T parsley flakes


Asian:
1 lime, juiced
8 T olive oil
8 T soy sauce
2-3 T sesame oil
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 T fresh grated ginger
2 garlic cloves, pressed


Caesar:
3/4 cup mayo
4 T grated parmesan cheese
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 T lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
add a bit of milk or water if it gets too thick


Poppy Seed:
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
2 tsp. onion flakes
2 tsp. poppy seeds
2 tsp. sesame seeds
1/2 tsp. paprika


You can mix the ingredients in your food processor/blender or even mix by hand.  Nice and simple.  Honey mustard and Caesar are our go-to's.  The Asian is nice for something special.  And the poppy seed is delicious as a dressing for spinach/strawberry salad. 

The past several weeks have been really full.  Certainly full of good things, so no reason to complain.  But it's hard to feel at peace when you look at the calendar day after day and see there are many, many things that need done.  This time of year is always that way, but I think it feels more intense this year due to Adam playing baseball, new church responsibilities, greenhouse, and end of the year school parties/trips.  We also have 3 big events (50 or more people each) here in May but that's not uncommon.  I think it's all the things combined that is making it feel like I need more hours!  But alas, I have a plan for next year at this time.  If the boys are playing a sport it will have to be a winter one, our women's retreat won't be in May, and I won't be a room parent, i'll just be on the committee which is less responsibility but can still be involved....There, that should help. 

Some shots of our life here of late..

My first cupcake cake.  It was for Adam's baseball team after their game.  Not my best work, i am aware.

Clay with batch #1 of bunnies, 11 babies!  (batch #2 had 5 babies, #3 had 11)

I love flowers!  And i really love having neighbors that sell them!  

How to keep them this eager to hoe in a month from now?

I think i'm ok with this

Harvesting cucs, lettuce, kale and swiss chard!

Mother's Day, watching the Make-A-Wish parade along Rte 222

A really funny motorized scooter/bicycle combo that a friend of Rod's built.  He and his sons drove it to our house from Marietta.  The power/gas comes from where Rod is sitting and the steering has to be done in the front where Adam is!

Hope you all are having a fabulous weekend, thanks for reading. 

One blessed momma

5K

My first ever 5K race is in the books.  The day was fun, and to finish this thing that i never thought i'd do felt great.  But the real story is in the training.   I ran on and off during our winter of polar vortex's, but really trained hard the 3 weeks before the race.  I had many ups and downs with it, mentally mostly.  Many thoughts of 'who am i kidding', 'i am not a runner' and 'i'm not even out my lane yet and i need to walk' took place.  But there were exciting milestones too, like when i ran to Rod's parents house with all the hills, only walking twice, and running a full 3 miles for the first time on Easter Sunday with some cousins with only sneaking in a little walking when they weren't looking.  Those accomplishments kept me going and gave me hope that i can do this.  

I had to push through some physical issues as well, sore knees and a black and blue toenail, from it rubbing against my shoe!

I finished, without walking, in 28:55.  

The boys were a part of my training.  They often rode bike with me on my route, usually one at a time and they talked and depending on the child, encouraged me.  

There are 3 more 5K's this year that i plan to be a part of.  I hope to be able to maintain my endurance now, and not run every day but run a couple days a week so i don't have to start at ground zero again for my next race!    

Another April Birthday!

Rod's birthday last night ended our April bday celebrations, it was a rainy evening which was ok since he wanted to do a cookout in the greenhouse regardless of the weather!  So that's what we did.  Grilled some bbq ribs, had corn on the cob, watermelon, buttered noodles, and cake.  He's not hard to please!

We had a few baby bunnies join the party.  We have so many baby animals right now, including baby mice that we found in the garden shed, which by the way if you've never seen newborn mice they are the size of my pinky fingernail.  for real.  i would have had no idea what they were if i hadn't discovered big mice in that same area the week before.

Back to the birthday.  This is a strawberry 'bombe' from Pampered Chef's recipes.  A tasty change from the usual ice cream cake roll that i usually do for his birthday.

Happy birthday Rod/daddy!

Funny farm update

This place has been keeping me hopping!  So far so good with the bees.  There is still a lot to learn but little by little we are gaining an understanding...Bees are amazing, they just know what to do.  They don't need us that's for sure.

I did another hive inspection today.  We've done 3 so far, and the 2nd one our experienced cousin came over and walked us through it.  basically we are looking for signs of the queen or in our case the queen herself because she is marked and is easy to spot.  They are beginning to build comb which we can clearly see, and we also look for workers to come back to their hive with bright yellow on their back legs, which is pollen.  That's a great sign as well.  During hive inspections you should also look for eggs within the cells of the comb.  I could not tell for sure that I saw that, but the cells were very crowded with busy bees.  Hopefully Queen is laying eggs, I want to check again for that in a couple days.  Some of the cells appeared to have honey in them already. 
The boys have not gotten stung yet, I am surprised.  They go right up to the hive and while I'm doing hive inspections in my 'space suit' they are right beside me with no protection other then a ball cap, if that. 

Look close in the mid-right area and see a bee with pollen in her 'saddle bags".  A cool sight

Our queen is marked with a bright green dot.  That was worth the extra 3 dollars :)

Building their comb

Another new thing from here is the birth of 11 baby bunnies, to ONE momma!  She's a new momma, and is still on the small side, so for her to have 11 at one time, and 4 days later they are all still surviving, is a miracle!  

Bunny mom of the year: Corn (yep, Ben named her Corn)

I noticed right away, even before knowing how many were in there, that the bunnies were extra small.  They are still very small, but are starting to get fur and are very spunky.  I hope they all make it!

On to the greenhouse.  The produce seems to be growing slowly, but nothing has died yet so that's worth mentioning.  We have our 2 main systems maxed out with lettuces, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  Our 3rd system will get set up this week with Ever bearing strawberries.

Cucumbers in the bucket system - the white string hanging at the sides of each bucket are for the plants to climb and we'll clip them up as they grow.

Tomatoes....

And if you are still with me, lastly i'll mention our chickens.  We have 10 layers that are close to one year old.  They lay for us faithfully, but they also eat their own eggs faithfully, so we started checking several times a day for eggs to give them less time to peck and eat their eggs. 

They love to finally have green grass!!

Next Tuesday we pick up 25 chicks, "fryers", that we will raise for 7-8 weeks and butcher.  We've never done this many before but we did butcher a handful of chickens last year, so at least we have experience with the butchering.

No pictures of the cats but we do have one that follows us around.  The rest are smarter and kind-of do their own thing.

This is much better then being couped up in the house all winter!  So thankful for spring, but rainy days here and there are welcome too.