Christmas

December 6, 2018

In October President Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints encouraged the women of the church to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year and mark the references to Jesus Christ. As I have done this I have found different reasons this was good for me. I have noted characteristics of Jesus and the many, many times some are noted, and explained. I have noted how truly loving He is. This past week I have noticed how awesome it is to read of His birth, life and death as we celebrate his birth. It is interesting that we don't just celebrate his birth on one day, we celebrate for weeks. It is great as his birth, life, death, resurrection and Atonement have such a profound affect on every day! I can not image my life, without his. Would I be overwrought with guilt at all times? Would I have the strength to do even a small portion of what I have done? Would I have any purpose to life? Would I fear death constantly? Would I mourn and grieve inconsolably for those that have passed on? Would I have any direction? Would I have family or friends in my life? Would I have any love, happiness, joy?
I am grateful for His life, His example, His teachings, His love, His Atonement, His Grace, His long suffer, His death, His resurrection, His words. I am thankful for Him. He lives!

Snow, Snow, wonderful snow

November 28, 2018
Snow, snow, snow
We have had several flurries, but today we got an ok snow. Enough to build snow/dirt men/women.
I forgot how much work it is to get dressed for snow and undressed, not to mention trying to roll balls in the leaves, dirt, etc. It was fun though and our daughter enjoyed picking sticks for arms, rocks for the eyes, and a carrot nose.

One Hen over the Coocoo's nest

November 16th
The new hens from a friend... One has decided she does not want to sleep in the coop. We expected to have to put them in the coop the first night or two, after the first night they went into the coop themselves, but the last couple nights one (Lady aka Dark Meat, the Black Sex Link) has decided she does not want to sleep in the coop. She prefers a Pine Tree at the edge of the property. Her wings are not clipped, nor are several of the others, so she can hop/flap/fly up the fence and settle on the top of the fence or in the tree. Three nights in a row I pulled her down and put her in the coop, but last night even though we searched we could not find her. Sure enough this morning she was back but on the other side of the fence, talking to her friend through the fence. I walked around behind her and she headed to the front of the coop area and got herself trapped between me and the Broody Coop. Using a box I lifted her over the fence and she took off across the field to join her friend (Bazooka aka White Meat, the Aracana). I will be interested to learn if she decides to do the same thing tonight or not.
November 28, 2018
After multiple nights in the cold and several frustrating hunts for us and rescue missions to get the chicken back in the field where the food and water is, we finally clipped "Dark meats" feathers. For those unfamiliar with this, this is similar to cutting a persons nails, where that person likes to use the nails. Not painful, just frustrating for the bird to not be able to flutter/fly. We only clipped a few flight feathers so nothing that should impact her ability to keep warm. She has now decided the coop is not so bad and is making friends with a couple chickens to snuggle up to at night.

Cheaper by the Dozen?

November 11, 2018

A friend of mine did not want to care for her chickens over the winter, she gave them to us. 

One is an Aracana, a smaller whitish bird, the other is a Black Sex link 

(FYI Black and Red Sex link are named such,

 because you are suppose to be able to identify their sex at birth by their color). 

My friend's family called the Aracana Bazooka, and the Black, Lady. 

My sweetheart and our son have nicknamed them White Meat and Dark Meat.

I have not taken pictures of them yet. 

They are pretty skittish right now and run when I come any where near them. 

Here are pictures of their breeds though.

Aracana

Black Sex Link

November 11, 2018

The playhouse has walls and spaces for windows. It is taking shape.

 It is amazing all the things my brother has done with it. He is very talented.

Bread

October 28, 2018

I have long enjoyed baking fresh bread, rolls, cookies, muffins and assorted other things. I do not do anything gourmet, just basics, but I enjoy it.
Lately I have been learning about other types of baking. Gluten free for my brother, and sourdough for my husband.

I have dabbled a little in each in the past, but yesterday I had a good baking day.  I made "San Francisco Sour Dough Bread" It took several weeks to grow a starter, then 3 days of mixing and waiting to have the bread ready. I think my sweetheart felt it was well worth it. I do think it turned out well and the loaf was gone by the end of dinner....

I have been learning about Gluten Free baking. Things like Grain vrs. Starch flours, the 40/60 ratio. I was mostly successful with baking powder/quick rise items like muffins and cookies, but failed over and over in yeast breads. I found a recipe online that is literally called "Gluten Free Bread that Doesn't Suck" There are a couple sites out there with it, with very minor variations, I actually did my own variations on it. One calls for a ground Chia seed, one an dry egg substitute, I used plain gelatin. It is intended to help with the texture of the bread. Having had so many fails I did not want to totally forgo it, but I had gelatin on hand and did not have the other items that can be used for egg substitute for texture. Interesting to me, there are eggs in the recipe but the extra egg substitute supposedly is still needed. The name told the truth. It truly was Gluten free Bread that did not Suck. It was pretty good. Soft and spongy. I love that the internet has several places with similar things, and you can compare and contrast and learn different things from each. For example the Chia seed variation suggested putting one loaf of bread in a pan in the freezer and defrosting and raising it later to bake so you only have one fresh loaf at a time, but can mix up both at the same time. They also suggested mixing batches of the dry ingredients all at once to make it faster to make other times.
The egg substitute variation explained why she used it and I figured out the Chia seeds must serve the same purpose, years earlier I learned you could used plain gelatin as an egg substitute and a  binder in gluten free cooking. FYI you can also use flax seed in a similar manner.
I also learned that when the bread seemed to be getting dark, it was ok, and that Gluten free bread needs 4 minutes of mixing, no more, no less, and lots longer to raise than many other breads...

Now I want to make Great Harvest Cinnamon burst bread. I read online you can make your own cinnamon chips for the bread (and to use in muffins) for less than the ones you buy and then you don't have to worry about it if/when you can not find them in the store anyway. I want to try to make the cinnamon chips and then the bread. YUM!!!

Maybe we can even make Gluten Free Cinnamon burst bread, that doesn't suck...

I should have taken a pictures of the breads... maybe next time.

Super Brother builds again

October 20, 2018

Super Brother is building a playhouse for our youngest child. He first built it as a modular frame in the shop then this past week has moved it outside and been assembling, framing the roof, and adding a door.  You would think he has done tons of things like this but really he hasn't. His super brain just figures things out.

Panther wins my praise

October 20, 2018

This past week our outside cat won my praise. She found a small snake out on a warmish afternoon and I came outside to find her defending us from it. We grabbed a chicken to eat the snake but the chicken just ran away. We let all the chickens out and tried to get them to go for it. They just wanted to play in the bushes. We got out romen from the fridge to lure them over to the snake. Even when we dropped romen right on the snake, they ate the romen and left the snake. Ugh. I know they eat snake because my sweetheart already fed them one and they fought over it. We even picked up the snake on a shovel and put it by the chickens in the bushes and they ignored it. Thankfully the cat killed it.

Harvest

October 8, 2018

We have been blessed with far more harvest than we expected for our first year here.

We canned Cherry juice, and made a little jelly

We canned about 10 quarts of apple juice/cider and hope to do a little more

We canned a few quarts of Tomato sauce and have set some other tomatoes aside we hope will ripen for use later

We froze about a gallon of salsa and used about a quart we had in the fridge

We got a few potatoes we have already used, I still hope to be able to glean some from area fields. (potato harvest is in full swing right now...)

We were blessed with raspberries from friends and canned, froze and dried some

We canned a little apple sauce
I have dried about 5 quart bags of apples and have about 3-5 more drying now...

I feel very blessed!

Super Brother

October 2, 2018

One of my amazing brothers has been staying with us and helping out with some things. He has fixed several things for me and has built a brooding coop and is now building a goat shed.
At the end of summer with everyone going back to school, I had just accepted progress would be halted or at the very least severely slowed. In comes my Super Brother and saves the days.
He is amazing and built a coop in a fraction of the time it took us and did it mostly alone. He is flying through goat shed building too. In one day he built a little stand for the goats to climb on. In between all this he is cooking, playing, fixing, and generally helpful in a multitude of ways. I am starting to wonder if there is anything he can not do.

Enjoying Fall and Preparing for Winter

September 30, 2018

I have spent the last week enjoying "Fall". It is chilly in the morning but afternoons are nice.
I have bottles 10 quarts of assorted Crab Apple Juices. It is kind of fun, they are Pink.
I started what I hope will be two large bottles of Apple Cider Vinegar. I have long read about making your own and now have apples to spare to try it.
I have a large box of Apples to use, waiting for me in the Shop, and more crab apples on the trees.
My super wonderful brother fixed my dehydrator yesterday so I hope to dry some apples in the coming weeks.

Yesterday we spent the day Preparing for winter.
My Sweetheart chopped more wood and put the last piece of tin on the Main coop.
In the past week my super talented brother made me a brooding coop, for the hoped for brooding chicken to raise babies in the spring.
My younger children and I cleaned up fallen apples. (I am hoping in future years to have a winter pig to feed the fallen apples too. Would that make Apple bacon? Just kidding:)
It just felt like a super productive day, finishing off little things left over from summer and preparing for cooler weather to come.

As I watch potato harvest in full swing, I am hoping we can find a farmer around who will let us glean a few potatoes from their field after they are done harvesting.

Today at church I got to be part of a lesson. My part was on the Sabbath. I related the Sabbath to Celebrating Christmas and suggested that maybe we could "Celebrate the Sabbath".
Things like on Christmas we have special foods, on the Sabbath we partake of the Sacrament, but might also choose to have special meals...
On Christmas we might have special PJ's or Sweaters, on the Sabbath we might have "Sunday Best" clothes. In Sacrament meeting today one of the young men who spoke talked about maybe wearing our Sunday clothes all day to help remind us of the day.
We prepare well in advance for Christmas, maybe we should prepare ahead for the Sabbath, at least on Saturday, and maybe starting Monday Morning, or even Sunday afternoon for the next Sabbath.
We have special traditions and things we do for Christmas, perhaps we should develop special Sunday traditions.
We Celebrate Christmas to show love for our Savior and our family, shouldn't we Celebrate the Sabbath for the same reasons?
On Christmas we exchange gifts. There are gifts of the Sabbath, ones we can give to our Lord and ones He offers us.
It was really good for me to have time these past weeks to think about these things. Now I need to figure out how to apply them in my home, family and my personal life...

Easter Egg hunting

September 18, 2018

When we got our first chickens we had a few issues with getting some to lay in the nesting boxes. The Buff Orphington especially liked to lay hers in the field. We thought that was solved but a couple days ago I caught her trying to make a nest in our hay shed. Today the Rooster crowed right by the shed then the same chicken came out of the shed, on a hunch I checked, yep, she laid her egg there. Silly chicken!
We might have to keep them locked in their area until noonish to see if that helps make sure she lays in the coop.

5 Seasons

September 16, 2018

We all know there are 4 Seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

At times Idaho seems to have 3 seasons: Winter, Spring, Fall. 

Some years Summer seems to be missed.

It seems that our small town might have 5 seasons: 

Winter, Spring, Summer, Dust, Fall

The farmer who owns the field behind us said he burns his field about every third year. 

 He kindly warned us the day he was going to burn the field,

 so we could close the windows to keep the smoke out.

We did not expect that a week or so later,

 the wind picked up all that ash and deposited a bunch on our property. 

Sadly I did not expect that, and a fair amount came in,

 before I got the windows shut. 

Even with the windows shut, 

every time the door opened, 

 we got another layer on the kitchen counter.

I spent the week cleaning up the ash.

Saturday thought I had finally gotten most of it cleaned up...

Saturday afternoon had wind advisories, and we got another layer of dust, 

thankfully, mostly minus most the ash that was deposited the previous week. 

Also a little wiser we shut the windows quickly,

 and minimized the dirt coming in.

I think this year more than most, 

I will be looking forward to snow, to hold down that dirt :)

Good bugs

September 14, 2018
Our youngest child has long loved Ladybugs and often tells people as they leave not to step on any ladybugs or rolly-pollies. We have an abundance of lady bugs, much to her delight.
Our chickens love to eat grasshoppers and crickets. We have plenty of them too, one of our sons and our youngest child like to catch them to feed the chickens.
Lately we have seen several Praying Mantis, both green ones and brown ones.

In other adventure

Our youngest has a grand time catching chickens. 

She loves collecting eggs and checks several times a day for them.

She keeps as apprised as to who the Rooster has mated with. 

(I did not think about the fact that having animals would be teaching this to her:)

Yesterday she was super excited when she got a very shy chicken to eat from her hand.

Our children were upset when I mentioned that the one that is still lacking a significant number of feather is in danger of freezing come winter and it might be a good idea to have her butchered. 

She is the ugliest, yet favored chicken because of her personality.

Two of our daughters decided she just needs a sweater for the winter with a neck scarf...

(It is really a thing, look it up online)

They tried taking a sock and cutting the end off to cover her neck.

It did not go well. They got it on alright but it is not tight enough to stay up.

I am interested to see what they try next.

The chicken have been allowed to free range some.

The Rooster and the youngest chicken (Malibu), 

(My sweetheart says she has a teenage crush on him) 

were adventuring together and tried to check out the shop. 

They were not happy when I shewed them out.

It did feel a little like chaperoning a dance, 

and having to find those sneaking off by themselves.

My poor sweetheart was not happy when Crazy Malibu,

 somehow got herself lost on the far side of the fence,

 and was running herself into the fence trying to get back in. 

He had to go around through thistles to try to chase her back to the gate.

Sadly he was wearing flip-flops at the time 

and did not think to come back to swap shoes until it was too late.

I was not thrilled when the chickens discovered my little garden,

 and helped themselves to some tomatoes. 

Thankfully, I have enough for us to eat and to share,

 and don't expect enough to can this year.

We have a series of compost piles we have been running this summer

 to kill off weeks under

 and to build up some good soil to go in raised beds for next year.

The chickens decided to help us turn them 

and dug in them so much,

they flattened them all out.

We were kind of confused at first as to how the piles got so flat, 

until we let the chickens out 

and they headed over and started digging there again.

It is fun to see what they get into and see their personalities.

Growing the Flock

August 25, 2018
Yesterday we decided to grow our flock a little.
We found 4 chickens on Craigslist. 2 were older, but 2 are younger. The 2 younger ones were the ones we wanted, they should start laying anytime now and should hopefully be laying next year. If we are really lucky we will get some baby chicks from these, and our other girls next spring.  That is the real hope...
We got 2 Barred Rocks. One is older and our children named her Grilled, the younger one I name Malibu (as in Malibu Chicken, Malibu Barbie and Malibu an escape/vacation destination because when we went to pick her up she escaped and led us and her previous owner on a wild chicken chase through their neighborhood.). We also got a 2nd Buff Orpington that our daughter named Baby Nuggets (our other Orpinton is called Nuggets). We also added a Rex Sex Link named Buffalo (as in a type of spicy chicken, I like that name better than the original name our daughter picked of "Burnt")

The pictures are not great but you get the idea.  Malibu is CRAZY!

Grilled has already layed us an egg. Buffalo and Baby Nugget are pretty afraid of us.

I hope these new girls settle in ok.

Funny note:

Our first chickens include two we named KFC 1 and 2. 

2 was missing feathers when we got her and is still in the same condition. She is a pretty sorry looking chicken, but in many ways she is the smartest! Our son catches crickets in a jar and takes them out to the chickens. KFC 2 is the only one who has figured out how to stick her head in the jar and take the crickets out. Once she gets one the crickets just cower in the jar, free for the pickings but the other girls don't go for the jar, they try to steal them from KFC 2. Sometimes they are successful, but more often than not, she gets to eat most of the crickets while the others are confused.

She now comes running and will follow our son with the jar.

Looking back, feeling blessed even amidst some failures

August 23, 2018
Looking back over the past couple months I feel so blessed. We took a big leap from "city" living to going out to the country, and trying new things.

We have had a few failures.
We tried to set up our grey water pipe with a hose. finding fittings for it was a challenge. Then the first day it was finally set up, it backed up into the bath tub while our 3 year old was in it. She was slightly traumatized by it and the next few times she bathed she had to be reassured it would not put "that yucky stuff" in her bath water.
Not so much a country thing, but a new house thing. Our 12 year old was showering for the first time and we were running a load of laundry and suddenly noticed water leaking downstairs. YIKES. We had flooded the basement of our last house the first month in. Thankfully this time the only "guest" was our exchange daughter. After much stress and searched it turned out to be as simple as she did not put the curtain in the tub right and the water from the floor was just seeping through a space in the wall/floor under the baseboard.
We bought a pallet buster to be able to up-cycle pallets for free wood. Maybe we just don't use it right, but it is not as easy as seen on TV -- duh. It was lots of Youtube videos, but apparently still not to be trusted. Though we will still use it some, we will not use it as much as I wish.
Our sad tragedy with the baby birds, me having to be the one to find the snakes (my children laugh they can sense my fear), losing our first barn cat -- possibly to a Hawk/Eagle/Owl/Falcon...

Still feeling so blessed. We have a coop up and producing. We have learned a lot. We have had a lot of time together. Our 3 year old is blossoming here, our 12 year old is too amidst some preteen mood swings, our 16 year old is proving to be a hard working genuinely nice and helpful guy, our 18 year old got to try new things before heading off to school, Our other older children might think we are a little loony doing all this, but are still generally supportive and having had them visit we feel reassured that it would not have been the right life for them but the Lord knew it was the time now...

We are so much farther now than we expected to be at the end of our first summer in so many ways.
We can see the Lord blessing our feeble efforts and helping us do so much more than we would be able to do otherwise.

End of summer projects

August 21, 2018
Last week we did three end of summer projects.

Reclaimed wood laundry poles.
We looked at buying laundry poles and they were 100 or more.
We built this one for less than $10 with eye bolts, line and screws

Front step hand rail
Again looking to buy the parts was over 100, but we just used reclaimed wood and screws and paint we already had.
It is not fancy, but it is functional.

Chicken feeder and water post. 
We might need to alter the buckets if the chickens do not figure them out.
The feeder has a bolt out the bottom is suppose to be tapped to release grain.
The water bucket has "chicken nipples" for water.
We need to take away their other waters but until this week is was too hot and
we worried they would not figure out and get sick from not having enough water...

Predators, chickens, snakes, husband and son

August 12, 2018

This morning as my husband went to let the chickens out he heard and saw a hawk. 

The chickens recognized the call and ran to where they consider their "safe" place. 

I have to wonder about their intelligence. 

Under or in the coop would be safer but they went over by the fence,

just in the shade of a tree, not actually under the tree.  

They all have survived so I guess it is fine. 

There do seem to be a large amount of predatory birds around here. 

Fun to see until you have to worry about your animals. 

We think one might have gotten our outside cat. 

She stopped coming for treats and we have not seen her for a couple weeks now. 

She was pretty scrawny. 

It could have been other things too though. I don't think we will ever know.

While I was coming back from bringing leftovers from breakfast to the chickens,

 I saw a snake. 

It was only a small one but startled me enough I stood there and yelled snake, snake.

It was between me and the house. I was afraid to even try to go around it

 for fear, we would both chose the same path. 

My sweetheart and a couple of the children came. 

Our son used a large stick to scare it out of hiding, 

and them my hero husband used a shovel to chop it then feed it to the chickens. 

They liked the treat. YUCK! 

I have to say I am grateful for my sweetheart, son and the chickens though!!!

Cosmetics

August 8, 2018

This week we have been working on a couple projects.

The coop was painted and decorating began.

Our children liked the idea of stealing the name of the coop from a favorite chicken spot.
They are debating some sign about eat more cows...

Even our 3 year old got into painting


We have also been working on a pathway out in front of our home. 
There was a partial cement walkway and a small stone square by the side porch, we connected the two with stones we found on the property.

Chickens

August 4, 2018

The Chickens are here!

We had the coop mostly secured (though not finished) Friday 

and found free Chickens on Craigslist Friday night.

Saturday we picked up and our children named)

1 Buff Orpington (Nugget - & company)

1 Black Australorp (Teriyaki)

2 Unknown brown ones -- they MIGHT be Buff Leghorns or ISA Brown (KFC 1 and KFC 2)

1 Barred/Plymouth Rock (Barbie)

1 Wyandotte (Q -- I originally thought  it was two Barred Rocks so together they are BBQ)

1 Rooster from a friend who had 2, but only wanted one 

(the Rooster is named Kylo as in Kylo Hen, yes we know a hen is a girl, 

but to me that is part of the humor of the name. 

One child really wanted one named Kylo Hen)

Left to right: Barbie, Nuggets, Q, KFC 2, Teriyaki, KFC 1

Kylo

These are older chickens so we don't expect lots of eggs, 

just practice caring for them.

We are excited for the adventure!

Chicken coop

July 28, 2018

We have spent a few weeks working on building a chicken coop.  

First we built a base inside the shop, then we added pallet walls....

We put on three of the upper doors, and created our own latches for them, 

built a set of nesting boxes, set up for roosting bars...

Today we put a pressed board roof on it.

We have a lot to do still, but it is taking shape.

cleaning entrance
this side will have roosting bars inside it

side cleaning entrance, opposite nesting boxes

chicken entrance
This will let the chickens out into the field

Nesting box door

Nesting boxes, inside a side door

Inside the coop from the roosting door entrance

My Sweetheart and son spent several days taking apart, digging up, repairing and moving some of the existing fencing. Both to reuse what we had, and also to move it closer to where we wanted it.

The plan is to run it roughly from the corner of the shop to the corner of the chicken coop (with a gate by the shop). The from the other side of the coop to a post that is roughly in line with the shop. It is a little off, because the sturdiest post was a little past the spot we wanted it, but it did not make sense to move it.

Post between shop and coop

Fence Posts, on far side of coop and shop

 Today my sweetheart attached wheels to our daughters bunny home so she could move it easier herself.

Bunny Wheels

Cherries

July 18, 2018

This past week we tried out using the cherries. We did a little Cherry Jelly.  

I read about Cherry syrup that could be used on Ice Cream, Pancakes 

or mixed with soda to make a cherry drink. 

My sweetheart loves Cherry-limeaid so we tried to make some. 

I read you are suppose to cook down equal parts: cherries, sugar and water. 

I did closer to 3 cups cherries, 2 cups sugar, 2 cups water, then after straining it, 

mixed it with equal parts syrup and soda, and the juice of a lime or two. 

 It was a hit so we made more. 

Today the girls picked A LOT of cherries and 

we canned 7 quarts of cherry syrup and put another couple in the fridge.

The cherries are about gone now, but my sweetheart can enjoy it a little longer.

Now I want to try to make homemade cider :)

I guess I will have to wait until fall to try that though.

Miracle turned tragic

July 12, 2018

Today while pruning an apple tree my sweetheart found a birds nest with baby birds in it.

We moved onto another tree to leave room for the Mom to return to her babies in the nest, 

then found this...

Moving on to yet another tree, we made a mistake taking down big dead branches 

above our heads with a rope, and accidentally pulled down a nest with at least three young birds in it.  Two looked ok, one looked injured but alive.  

We didn't know what to do. Everyone says that if you touch them the Mom won't come back, but we have an outdoor cat that is sure to hunt them.  We carefully put the broken nest and some straw in a box, and put the box up as high as we could. 

We tried to find worms but failed. 

We remembered some baby chick food that our agent gave us as a housewarming gift. 

Not knowing what else to /do we poured a pile of that in the corner of the box and hope it helps.

Sadly we may have to have funerals later for the birds.

I feel so bad. If another animal had caught the birds for food it is ok, but we just made a mistake, 

and our mistake may cost three young lives.

Yet another reason, this is just not the best time to prune trees.

We will know better now and will be more careful.

Tragic lesson learned.

Love it and hate it

July 9, 2018

Today and this past week we have worked on identifying some of the plants we have.

We were thrilled today to discover one of the trees seems to be a pear tree! yum!

One seems to be a sour cherry tree. Maybe it is just not ripe yet, 

but Emma and Matt said the very red fruit was pretty sour

I am pretty sure this is a Nanking cherry bush

 (a little like currants, but with pits rather than tiny edible seeds)

Emma says it is pretty sour too.  She likes it.

Now I want to try to do something with these red beauties!!!

I am not a cherry fan, 

but the thought of not trying to do something with this bonus blessing makes me sad!

 (Update July 10, 2018 - We picked a few of each cherries and cooked them then strained them to make this jelly. It doesn't taste 1/2 bad. Not so much cherry as sweet with a touch of sour jelly. 

I plan to make biscuits for breakfast to have with it. So fun that it came from our yard!)

We also for sure have several apples, and one or two that might be crab apples or possibly just another variety of apples. 

I look forward to their bounty in the fall!!!

We are so blessed to have the potential for all this fruit. 

I wanted to plant trees and berry bushes right off, but with time and money constraints,

 we decided to postpone until next spring. 

We did order a few raspberry and strawberry plants on clearance, this past week.

I am hoping that will not end up being a waste of money, if they are dead instead of dormant.

Today I also found the first snake. Yuck, why me? My daughters loves snakes!
I think it might have been a baby gopher snake, but I am not really sure.
 I don't generally want look at snakes enough to identify them.
Even the pictures are kind of creepy to me...
It looked black and white to me.
I thought it was just a branch by a thistle I was going to pick,
until it moved in a definite snake wiggle. YUCK

My son made sure to tell me when yellow touches red, your dead. There was not yellow and red...
Not helpful!
How do I tell if it is a rattler before it rattles and tries to kill me????

Pets

June 30, 2018

After our daughter left her younger sister watching the bunny a couple times, that led to harried hunts in the bushes, then under the car, we decided the bunny needed an outdoor enclosure, sooner rather than later. We built this one. My sweetheart had the idea to make it to both go up against the cage, but also can be flipped over and taken anywhere in the yard to use on its own.

Nutmeg can get to grass and weeds under her feet but also likes treats fed to her. the mesh makes a great holder for snacks.

We have a 12 year old cat that mostly stays inside and has mostly scared off mice in the house, but we wanted a "barn cat." We live in the country, surrounded by grain fields. Mice are a given, but I don't have to like it. Saturday our son chose this cat to live in our shed and hopefully hunt mice for us. He named her Senorita Escondida fluffy pants/fluffita, or Keda for short.

She is a brown tabby and very snugly with our son.

Fruit and flowers

June 29, 2018

We have a few trees that are bearing fruit. Yeah!!!

This looks like a future apple to me.

I will be interested to see what this becomes.
It looks like a berry, possibly for the birds?

I don't know what this is to become, but I will be excited to find out.

This one had pretty pink blossoms and now has reddish fruit.
It will be fun to see what it becomes.

I know the thistles can not be allowed to stay, but the flowers are pretty.
One night with scriptures we took turns reading a verse they naming something we could do with thistles.
I suggested bouquets to all our friends and family. Would you like one?
Other ideas were bed stuffing, weaving the fibers to assorted things, or using the seeds as sort of a biological warfare, yikes.