Happy birthday to a wonderful 15 year old

Do you know how beautiful you are to me?

Do you know the hopes and dreams I have for your life?

Flowers picked by her brother to decorate the table

Not birthday cake.. rather a milk tart :)

Fruit salad at her request.. I fancied it up a little ;)

Happy birthday sweetheart, I love watching you turn into a wonderful Godly young woman.

Everything's growing

 The flowers are growing beautifully....

The corn is growing, thirsty work keeping them weeded....

 Bandit is growing, as are the weeds....

The collection of farm junk is growing... (but this WILL be a nice little trailer someday!)

 and... the piglets are growing!

I love this life.

Monday Morning on the Farm

Butterbelle has to be tied up while we milk or she tries to eat the goat feed!

Piggies enjoying breakfast

Awww.. say hello to the piglets!

So cute and perfect!

After-milking mayhem!  Poppet is balanced atop the milk stand!

Pretty flowers :)  My clematis that was supposed to grow on that support died :(

Bounce sharing his basket with a kitten

Fruit trees and soft fruits

Our apple trees are growing wonderfully and look nice and healthy. Unfortunately our peach tree didn't fare quite as well. The area we planted it (30 feet from the apple trees) turned out to be quite waterlogged and the peach tree died. I guess that's why they say you should first spend a year on your property before planting/planning. Live and learn. The two varieties of apple we have planted is Honeycrisp and Stark Golden Delicious.


Apple tree one


Apple tree two

The grapes, blackberries and raspberries are also looking nice. We had to put fences around the grapes to keep the chickens from pecking at them and messing with the mulch. No grapes this year, but we're hoping for a good bounty next year!


Raspberries


One of the six blackberries


Dan spraying down one of the three grape vines

Our blueberries are very sad looking. I think the stress of moving them was just too much, plus they're really a "patio" variety and not suited for this area. Our feed store had a huge sale and I bought 3 blueberry plants for $1.50 each. One got uprooted by good old Ribsy and will probably die. I am waiting until the beginning of fall to plant them out. I also bought a clematis and two daylilies. All waiting for fall planting.

Memorial Day Weekend

Our Memorial Day long weekend has been quite the busy one. We decided to buy a dog run kit as a run for the chicks. At least this way we can easily break it down and take it with us when we move. It is 7.5' x 13', and 6' high and was quite easy to put up, everybody helped :)

Getting it located was a little bit of a mission, but we managed okay and finally got it where it belongs. We had to bury the one side a little to get it level, but all in all I think it looks great, and the chicks think they are the bees knees! Once they were released into it they ran around like hooligans chasing each other and attempting to fly all over the place. Funny chicks :)

Because of the roof overhang on the front of the coop and the height of the run, we couldn't have the run right against the coop, so we had to make a caged tunnel from the coop to the run. Hey, you do what you have to! LOL!

We left as much greenery as possibly for them to peck at, I'm sure it won't be long before it's all gone and just dirt.

I also took some time to plant the pots out front.... because of our huge tree I can only put in shade plants. I LOVE hosta, and got two different types.

I think I prefer the first one, but variety is the spice of life, or so they say! We've also reseeded the grass out front, so it should be looking real pretty this summer!

And, as always, Impatiens in the two big wooden barrels :) I also love Impatiens, so pretty.

I found a stripey pink one, pretty eh?


Well, that's our news for this weekend. We hope those of you in the USA have had a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend, and took a moment to remember the fallen.

Mother's Day

I am fortunate enough to have not just one or even two wonderful women to say Happy Mother's Day to, but THREE of them.

My mama - my biological mother. A lovely lady who understands me like no other.

My mother-in-law - I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful MIL. She made me feel like part of her family from the very start and I love her and the rest of my DH's family as if they were my own blood relatives.

My USA mama - a precious lady who started out as a family friend of my DH's family. She quickly became just as dear to me as my other two mothers.

Each of these dear ladies holds a very special place in my heart and I am so blessed to have them as part of my life.

I was terribly spoiled by my family for Mother's Day. DH let me sleep late and woke me at 9 am with a cup of coffee. Once I was awake my children came in with hand made cards (my favorite kind!) and little gifts from each of them. My hubby gave me a new quilting rotary cutting mat that has all the quilt template shapes on it. It's a nice size for quilt cutting.

When I came downstairs the children had two lots of handpicked flowers waiting for me. Aren't they lovely? I especially like the simplicity of the first arrangement.

After a quick breakfast of fruit we left for the historic farm museum. I LOVE it there. There are two different homesteads there, the one is from the 1860's and the other from the 1890's. We usually start with the 1860's farm, but this time we decided to start with the 1890's farm. It has a fully functional Barn, Blacksmith Shop, Farm House, Coop, Garden and Fishing Dock.

After that we broke for lunch. We had a picnic in the park. Fishing sandwiches - yum!

After lunch we toured the 1860's farm, also fully functional. It consists of an Orchard with bee hives, Cow Paddock, Pig Pen, Cabin (tiny!), Barn, Root Cellar, Coop/Shed, Sheep Shed, four crop fields, School House and an Ice House.

It really is a wonderful place to spend a lovely day.

My DH always insists that I not do ANY work on Mother's Day, so I had the day off from everything. He and the children really treated me like a queen all day, it was wonderful and I feel truly blessed to have the family I have.

Life is almost back to normal! :)

Well, our houseguests have left and our children really loved getting to know two of their cousins!

We were so lucky to have a really good snow the second day after they arrived, so the two boys could experience their first snowball fight, snowman, sledding, etc. Great fun!

Here is a group photo of the whole bunch of us. A lovely lady sent us money for a family outing so we all went to Amazing Jakes which was GREAT fun for everyone! The adults especially enjoyed the Go Karts, even "Ouma" rode once or twice :) Thank you my dear friend for treating our family, and being part of creating some very special memories!

Today was "Take Your Child To Work Day" so DD7 got to go this time much to her delight.

It was the first time she got to participate in this day, and she's still there with DH as I write this, and thoroughly enjoying herself!

At lunch time the rest of us drove out there and had lunch together at a buffet restaurant and then all the other children got to tour Daddy's work as well.

In taking the children to DH's work I again avoided any highways. I get ridiculously panicked when I have to drive on a highway/freeway. I don't know why, but I was glad to find out today that I'm not alone in this fear. Fear of road travel is called Hodophobia, but I'm more fearful of highways/freeways, especially either merging onto a highway or having other vehicles merge onto the highway in the lane I'm in... I can't even stand it when DH is driving and I have been known to close my eyes when there are lots of cars merging onto the highway (when DH is driving, not when I'm driving! LOL!) How to get over it? I don't know.

Anyway, enough of that. We had a lovely lunch and the children really enjoyed seeing where DH works, I think that's important for them to know and see.

Our garden is coming alive and all the bulbs that were here before we bought this house and coming up everywhere, it's so pretty! Here are a few photos from yesterday:

Well, that's all for now, I'm sure everyone is enjoying the return of Spring and getting those veggie gardens started!

March 20th marks our first day of Spring here in the US! Our weather was sunny and wonderfully warm and our lovely hens chose to celebrate the occasion by each laying an egg! That's right THREE eggs today! The one on the left is suspected of being a double yolk. We'll find out this weekend when we crack them all open for Saturday breakfast!



We chose to celebrate the start of Spring by planting flower seeds.


The children all got to choose four different flowers from my apparently never ending flower seeds supply.

DS4 chose to plant a wildflower, a black eyed susan, a blue morning glory and cosmos.

DD7 chose to plant a marigold, blue morning glory, forget-me-not and a pink morning glory.

DS9 chose to plant a shade wildflower, forget-me-not, morning glory and marigold.

DD11 chose to plant a daisy, cosmos, forget-me-not and a snap-dragon.

DD13 planted a sweet-pea, snap-dragon, phlox and foxglove.

Exciting stuff! We also went out to start gathering supplies for our chicks which will be arriving at the start of April. In the next couple of days we'll be getting delivery of topsoil and aged manure so we can start filling our raised beds.

Spring is wonderful. I think I love it so much because it gives us just a small taste of how amazing it must have been when God created the world. To see each new and lovely thing.

When you plant a tiny seed in the ground and witness a new plant growing from that tiny seed and how perfect the whole process is.. you're witnessing the awesome beautiful power of God.

In moments like these,
I sing out a song, I sing out a love song to Jesus,

In moments like these,
I sing out a song, I sing out a love song to Him.

Singing I love you Lord, Singing I love you Lord,
Singing I love You Lord, I love You.