::lily - 11th birthday::

I had very strict instructions.

No theme.

No baby stuff.

All planning must be cleared by Lily.

It's nice to see her become independent.

She set so many rules I was a little surprised I got to do anything.  But she is growing up, and I am proud of the little person she is becoming.

This party was fun.  

She and her friends had a great time enjoying each others company.  

I tried hard not to over do anything. 

The girls arrived at 1pm.  At 1:30 my sister inlaw and I loaded them up and drove them to a local art studio.  While we were gone Emma was in charge of setting the treat table. 

Did I ever fall in love with this cake.

Click Here and Here for what Lily picked as inspiration cakes

My cake lady has a facebook page now - CHECK IT OUT!

She is so talented and reasonable.  

It was very windy this day so we had to make some changes to our back drop or the whole thing would have blown away.  

I think Emma was very clever with what she came up with.  

 Custom donut holes from our local donut shop - Titus.  

These were cheap and adorable.

I only ordered them a few days ahead and all I said was - make them bright.  

The treat table had all things that Miss Lily wanted.  

I didn't get a good picture of the grape kabobs we had, but they got devoured. 

The art studio we went to is called A Space to Create.  It was kind of pricey, but it was nice to have some of the pressure taken off.  The project they made was really cool.    

They colored on shrink film with sharpies.  

Cut the edges some.

 Then melted them with a heat gun.  

The result was a Chihuly glass like sculpture.

The teacher gave them a really great talk about the artist before they did the project, so they learned something too. 

Just being in that amazing studio got me excited about wanting to make some serious art.  

We had a little time left over so we took these girls to the park near by and let them burn off some energy.

Then we brought them back out to the farm for some cake, treats, and presents. 

It was so windy we had to come inside for candles.

 This little girl is getting so pretty. 

Q looks afraid.  

We had a tween lounge set up on the porch.

Miss Lily loved all her presents but she got some robot fish she really loved.  

Q and my nephew Caleb really loved the fish.  They couldn't leave them alone.  

The cleaning crew was very helpful with popcorn.  

Max stole two balloons and tied one of his army guys to them.  

He had a grand ceremony of sending his army guy into service.  

And my kitchen afterward.  

How was it letting go a little and not controlling every aspect?

A little sad.  

I realize I have a bunch more girl themes I never got to.  

So grand babies better be ready.

But really it was great to see Lily push back against me for control of her own life.  She is supposed to.  It makes me happy to see her be so independent. 

::sunday funday - spring mill park::

 

Josh works every Sunday and I am off every Sunday now days.  

Yet I work every Saturday.  

Sunday is really my only full day with the shorties.  

I am trying to take advantage of this by making it #sundayfunday

Last Sunday we headed down to Southern Indiana to go to Spring Mill Park.

This place is awesome.  

For five dollars you get all the fun of a state park - trails, nature center, play ground, etc.

But they also have a great pioneer village with many different activities.

Q was in a mood where he did not want to be in any pictures with Lily and Max.  Every time I tried I got this.

He was totally obsessed with the door handles in all the cabins.  

Such a mechanical minded kid. 

My kids can sniff out an art project for 100 paces.

They found one in the leather shop and all three actually worked on it.

But then I tried to take a picture of them together.  

Q denied his people.

Till suddenly he agreed to have his picture taken. 

Spring Mill has a huge working mill that we loved.  

The top two floors are a museum that the kids really enjoyed.

Of course my boys couldn't just look at things.  

They had to find a place to do some bad stuff. 

Another group picture attempt denied by Q. 

Yet he would not leave the steps till I took this one. 

Great minds at work. 

We had to buy the corn meal that was made at the mill.  

How could we resist?

Lily loved the corn husk dolls. 

They loved walking in the gutters, but Q had to lead. 

The wood shop had all kinds of different joint set up.

Lily loved it.

They had a garden set up that just about killed me with how pretty it was.  I need this stone arch. 

Another attempt at a picture together. 

And another...

They found this waterfall and spent 40 minutes putting leaves in the stream to watch them float down stream.  I was shocked that no one fell in. 

 

Of course Max had to climb.

And ice creams where enjoyed by one and all. 

::chicken farmer Lily::

 

Last year we bought a few red hens to keep big mama company since she found herself the only chicken on the farm to survive the foxes that year.  Those new friends of hers are sweet - not as sweet as her - but sweet.  Early this year Rural King had some really cool breeds of chickens.  I had to bring some home, which left me with a nice little flock of pretty ladies and two accidental roosters.  My rule with roosters is that they can hang out till they start attacking me or the kids, then they go in the pot.  The two roosters are Aracauna - which means if they where hens they would lay blue eggs and since they are roosters they carry the genetics for blue eggs.  Roosters are bossy jerks so I had moved them out of the hen pen and was letting them free range.  About two months ago one of our red hens went broody.  She sat in her nest box constantly and only left for very short food breaks, then rushed back to sit on her eggs.  She was sitting on blanks because there was no rooster in that pen.  Yet - her hormones and instincts where driving her crazy trying to protect and hatch those eggs.  

(side note - if you know how eggs are fertilized skip this.  A chicken lays about one egg per day.  She does not have a uterus to grow a baby like we do.  She lays her uterus and sits on it.  The baby grows in that egg from conception to birth.  Many people get confused about how the rooster gets in on the deal.  The male and female chicken mate in the traditional way - its actually fairly dramatic as the rooster holds the hen down and she screams the whole time.  It only takes about one minute but it is very violent and ugly.  Once he has placed his sperm in the chicken that sperm would join with the female egg cell.  That collection of cells would still be inside the hen and the hens body would surround it with a yolk and nutrients and finally a shell.  Then she would lay that chicken egg.  Remember - she does this almost every day.  It would be like a human having a full menstrual cycle every day.  Then that fertilized egg has to be sat on and kept very warm and humid till it hatches about 21 days after it is laid. Got it?  Google it if you need more deets.)   

Lily was fascinated by all this.  She kept begging me to let the hen hatch her eggs.  No amount of bird and bee's conversations could make it clear to her that those eggs would never hatch.  Finally it sunk in - then she changed tactics and begged me to put the rooster in the coop with the hens.  She asked for a book off Amazon about raising chickens.  She started a notebook tracking what eggs where laid what day.  She started writing on the eggs with pencil.  She had me with the notebook.  We worked together and caught our prettiest rooster and let him in with the girls.  We got rid of all the eggs before him and I let Lily keep three of the best eggs laid during a few day period.  Broody, as we where calling her, was very happy to have some eggs to nurture.

After careful research on her part she built a chicken nursery from on old rabbit hutch turned upside down.  It was actually very clever.  One evening, about 10 days after we removed the rooster from the pen, Lily gathered up the hen and her eggs and moved her in to her new digs.  Then we waited... and waited.  We experimented with candling eggs, which is where you shine a bright light through the egg to try and see the baby inside.  I knew we had at least one that was working, but I thought the other two where duds.  Every day Lily ran out to check her eggs.  She was so excited and I was so nervous.  I was just about to go to a chicken breeder and buy her some one day old chicks that I was going to put under the broody hen and pretend the hen had hatched them when one day after school Lily found this...     

 A baby!!  A real live baby.  

Lily has a little cell phone for emergencies and she text me the first picture she has ever sent me to show me the new baby.  

I was so relieved.  I wanted this to work for her, she had put in so much effort.  

But we still had two eggs that Broody was sitting on and they didn't look promising. 

 I just kept telling Lily, "At least you got one!"

Then the next morning I saw this!!!

 Mama started to teach baby how to eat while she was sitting on another egg that was hatching.
Already a multitasker - so proud. 

Papa was walking around feeling very proud of himself.  

And when the happy farmer came home from school she now had two babies!! 

 There is still one egg left under Broody.  We will candle it tonight, but I think its a dud.  Of course I obviously have no idea what I am doing.  Maybe I will just let Lily handle it since she seems to have the magic touch. 

::august is giving me a whooping::

Remember how I said that I wasn't going to do any major stuff around the house?  I was going to just hold to the norm?

Guess what?  That's not happening.  

My parents have decided to move to lake house as their permanent residence.  They are in the process of selling their old house.  My mother had a huge playroom closet where they kept all our toys.  She and I have been going through it.  I sent most of the girl toys to my cousins - I couldn't deal with just giving them to good will.  I needed to know they went to a good home.  I kind of felt like Andy in Toy Story.  I loved these toys and they can't go to the trash.
 

But that still leaves one billion Play Mobil's and a huge train set.  I needed those.  I spent almost every day of my childhood on the ground playing with those Playmobils.  My emotional attachment to them is so strong.  Plus, I think the boys will really enjoy playing with them.  Josh gave up his day off to truck up to my parents house and we brought home a trailer full of toys and supplies.  I had decided that I was willing to store most of the kids toys in the attic just to make room for the Playmobils.  Yet while driving home Josh and I came up with another idea.  Lets trade rooms with the kids.  We will make the big Family Room (where we actually watch TV and keep it pretty neat) into the Play Room.  Then the old Play Room can be turned into the Living Room - a place for grown ups to watch TV.  You have to walk through it every time you go to the bedrooms, and we really made the kids keep it too clean to have it be a good Play Room.  You can't have an epic Play Mobil play session if you have to take it all apart every time you get it out.
 

I am still going back and forth to my mothers house helping her sort through her stuff.  Grad School also starts back up next week - guess I better make some time for that.  Plus my garden is totally neglected right this second, which just seems to happen some times.  I'll get back to it ASAP.  With the prospect of a lake house to run to on my days off I am really trying to talk myself into keeping the garden small next year.  (Yeah right!)  Ok - maybe just SMALLER.  Making it small may be beyond my ability to contain.  Small isn't really my gig.  But can't I just buy my sweet corn and melons?  Do I really need to grow them myself?
 

The good news is my weight loss journey is still trucking along.  I am on week 6 of the "Couch to 5K" program.  A few more weeks and I should be running 5k's.  This is huge for me.  I have never been a runner and I am feeling a bit proud about this forward progress.  I still fall off the food train sometimes, but I am doing much better with it.
 

The older three are back to school and already in the groove.  Max is learning easily and being a little bit of a mild behavior problem in class.  Too much talking and playing.  Basically exactly how he is at home.  Lily is getting invited to lots of different events and activities and it is nice to see her social circle growing.  Emma is nested into high school and excelling as always.  Mr. Q is still every inch of the emotional turmoil that is age two.  He cries and looses his mind when ever we leave him.  He has the worst stranger danger of our entire crew.  Youngest little rainbow baby has no chance but to be rotten. The kids are rocking it out.   

On the farming front, I am still trying to sell the fainting goat.  No luck yet.  But it will come.  My champion sheep, Annabelle, has been traded back to her breeder for a spring lamb.  I will miss that little girl so much.  I had gotten too emotionally attached to her.  If she was a pygmy goat I would have kept her home as a pet forever, but they really need high quality animals like her in the gene pool.  I hope we can buy her back some day as a retired old grandma.    The goats are totally crazy and ever time I am in the barn I fall in love all over again with my Nubian doe.  Such a noble little creature.

::edamame - or just plain soybeans::

Look at these pretty babies!  2.4 lbs of beans from 2 ounces of seed.  I am in love with this new seed company that I ordered from last year.  It's called Territorial Seed Company - link here to see the soybean variety I grew.  I even like their catalog - its a great company.  The hardiness of what they sell is hard to top.  I planted these babies around early May.  They where in the ground for about 77 days from seed to dirt to harvest.  They where in the back row left half of my cottage garden.  A space about 3 feet wide and 15 feet long.  Soybean are very touchy - you have to keep trying them till they taste right.  Then harvest them all.  I just pull the plants right out of the ground and go sit in the shade while I pull the pods off.  For these beans it took me about half an hour.  Easy quiet work - great for listening to Disney podcasts. 

Yum.

 

Meanwhile, before I even went out and harvested them I had a pot of water sitting on the stove on high.  It takes my old electric stove FOREVER to boil water.  Sure enough - even after about 45 mins it still was just starting to boil. You need a big pot and enough water to cover how ever much you are going to blanch.  Blanch is simply boiling a vegetable for a few minutes before you freeze it.  The Nation Center for Home Food Preservation says, "Is it recommended to blanch vegetables before freezing?   Yes. Blanching slows or stops the action of enzymes which cause loss of flavor, color and texture. Blanching cleanses the surface of dirt and organisms, brightens the color and helps retard loss of vitamins. Blanching also wilts or softens vegetables and makes them easier to pack."  After you blanch something you have to cool it quickly in an ice bath.  I fill one side of my sink with cold water, four trays of ice, and three cooler packs. 

Now we blanch.  Three full minutes.  I count it out in my head and force myself to not multitask during this time.  It's too easy to forget about them.  Then I dump them right into my colander.  

Then I run them under cold water for one minute.  Just to try to start cooling them a little before they go in the ice. 

Next they take a polar plunge when I put them in the ice bath.  I leave them in the ice bath for at least ten minutes or more.  I want them to really be cold before they come out.  I take them out of the ice and I let them drain in the sink for a few minutes before I dump them on a towel to dry.  I use a second towel to pat them dry or they will be too wet for the vacuum sealer.  I let these guys get about one more hour of air drying time before the next step. 

Which is the vacuum sealer.  I double seal the first end, vacuum seal the second end, then add another seal to the second end.  I want to make sure that if one seal fails it has a back up.  It only takes a few seconds more for each pack and is well worth it. 

These 2.4 pounds gave us five freezer packs and one serving of fresh edamame.  I am glad to have them but that is not nearly enough!  Next year I need to triple this amount, or higher!  

 

I then put all five in one large zip lock so they don't just randomly float around the freezer getting lost.  I think I may not have needed to freeze them because they may be gone with in the week.