babysteps

Mostly good stuff! We're still living out in the boonies in Oregon on our little farm... the animal population has grown quite a bit. Hubby is still in law enforcement, but now has seniority enough to not ALWAYS be stuck on the lousy shifts, lol! My DS is now almost 17 and starting his senior year of high school AND his freshman year of college in the fall (dual enrollment option at his high school, it's such a blessing!). DDs are now 13, 10, almost 9, and 7. And back in January of this year, we learned that even though *we* thought our family was complete, God had other ideas... and baby #6 is due in about two months. I'll have to give a longer update a little later, we have a busy morning ahead of us...

I still see a whole bunch of names I recognize!! It's been way too long, but I finally wandered my way back over here. Thank you Cat for helping me get my password sorted out!! Now.. time to go poking around and see what's changed...

Peaches. I've already done straight peaches in syrup and peach jam... I need to do a search on peach recipes, because hubby just brought me a few more boxes...

My understanding is that this works *mostly*... but not 100%. I'm pretty sure my daughter's aracaunas don't have green-blue ears. LOL. But my Buff O's and RIR's *do* have pinkish-brown ear tufts and lay pinkish brown eggs, and my one weird Silver Hamburg has white ear tufts and lays white eggs. (And lemmetellya, when you've gotten used to brown and green eggs, getting a white one just seems weird!)

So I know Stephanie noticed I was gone... did anyone else? I don't quite know what happened... my password was working fine, and then suddenly it didn't. And it was RIGHT in the middle of getting the garden planted, so I wasn't online much anyway, so I decided I'd get back to it when I had time... yeah. You know how *that* goes. SO... a nice long update, since my last blog entry was when Philip graduated which was a million years ago (or at least it seems like it!) The garden is planted and doing great. Except for the beans, which something is pulling out as fast as they sprout. I think it's birds. We finished up our Awana year and I'm enjoying the break... I love the Cubbies, but OHMYGOODNESS they are exhausting! And then Elizabeth decided she wanted to do a market lamb for a 4H project. Oh let me TELL you about that week. So. On Monday, in the pouring rain, we went and got a 4 month old wether. Elizabeth named him Toby. On Tuesday we discovered that he could jump over the gate of his pen. Caught him, put him back. Added another rail to the top of the gate. On Wednesday Elizabeth came in from feeding him and announced "Toby has his grain bucket stuck on his head!" Rescued him from the grain bucket. Didn't get pictures. Pity. On Thursday, some friends came out to shear Toby and brought us another lamb. Because, you know, sheep get lonely if they're all alone. This one is just borrowed from them till after fair... when Toby gets sold, Suzy goes home. Suzy, by the way, is only about 2 months old and about half Toby's size. This is an important detail. And Rachel has decided that Suzy is hers till she goes home. Friday morning, though, was the highlight of the week. At 6am I wake up to hear a sheep baaaaing right outside my bedroom window. Hmmm. The barn is NOT right outside my bedroom window. Oh crud. I shot out of bed and pulled clothes on. Ran to the barn and checked the sheep pen. One sheep. Not two. Oh CRUD. Came back to the house as Betty was coming out. My MIL had heard the baaaing too, and was quick enough out the front door to see Suzy disappear into the horse pasture. Our horse pasture does NOT have sheep-tight fencing. NOT GOOD. (At this point I think I should add that because Philip is working night shift these days, we stay up veeeeery late at night. So please keep in mind that he and I are both running on less than three hours' sleep.) Philip and I grabbed a sheep halter and ran down into the horse pasture. Which is TWENTY ACRES. Of blackberry bushes and poison oak, mostly. At 8am we came back to the house, soaking wet (at least it wasn't raining that day, but everything was drenched from the rain we'd had the whole week) and without a sheep. We did, however, find some wool caught on the barbed wire fence at the back of our property line. Ok. So Suzy has left the property. I got Cathy (the gal who we borrowed Suzy from) on the phone. One of the fabulous things about living in a small town is that everyone knows everyone else. Cathy works at city hall, and was able to pull up names and phone numbers for all of the people who own property north of us and let them all know that we had an escapee 4H lamb. Then she came out to our place and she and I started hunting again. At noon (yes, it has now been 6 hours) we quit, having talked to all of the neighbors who were home. Cathy went back to work and I decided to try to salvage at least a little of the school day. At 4:30 one of the neighbors calls me. Someone has spotted Suzy. I call Cathy at city hall and let her know. She pulls up aerial maps of the area, and we decide to meet at the property where the sheep looks like she's headed. And at 7pm, THIRTEEN HOURS and SIX AND A HALF MILES later, Cathy, her husband Rick, Philip, Elizabeth, and I manage to catch Suzy. When we finally got her home we take a good look at the sheep pen. Suzy, who is much smaller than Toby, had managed to squeeze UNDER the bars of the pen. That issue has been remedied. So that was last week. THIS week we had to take Toby down to the fairgrounds for the official Weigh-in for 4H. Now, we don't have a truck. It's on the "to get this year" list. We *DO* have a trailer that I can pull with the van. But the trailer is open at the top, which isn't safe for hauling an animal in. So guess how we hauled Toby to the fairgrounds yesterday? IN MY VAN. I learned a few things from that. First of all, sheep don't corner too well. Each time we went around a corner or came to a stop, he fell over. (Which was highly amusing, but I digress.) Second, sheep are very vocal when they aren't happy. Third, the guys at the fairgrounds aren't used to seeing a sheep in the back of a minivan, and they react in quite funny ways. And Fourth.... Sheep poop a LOT. *sigh* Glad to be back!!!!

STEPHANIE!!!! YOU GOOF!!!! Ok, y'all, it's Stephanie's fault that this is a "featured entry".... so everyone throw pancakes at her now! LOL... Gotta go get ready... busy day today!

Today is going to be an exciting day for us! My dear Husband is graduating from the Police Academy today! For as long as we've been married (almost 14 years!) he has been in the construction field, in one way or another. Most of those years he has been a Building/Home Inspector... which he is *good* at (he got Inspector of the Year in 2005) and which he loves. But of course the last couple of years, the construction field has really suffered... and combined with a God-led change in our location, hubby needed to find a new career field. He actually started working for the Sheriff's Dept back in October, but was required to go through 6 weeks of Academy training. so the past six weeks have been very very busy ones for him... and long, lonely ones for us. The Academy is *just* far enough away from our house to require him to stay there at night. So for the past 6 weeks, we've only gotten to see him on the weekends. But (happy dance) he graduates TODAY!!!! So I and the littles will go up there in a couple of hours, get a tour of the school, and watch the graduating exercises... hubby is also in the color guard so this ought to be very cool... and then we get daddy back! And he has the next 4 days off from work, so we actually get some time with him before he has to go back to his regular work schedule. Color me happy!

AAAAAAAND, I managed to somehow turn off comments to it too!!!! LOL Oh, this blogging stuff is gonna make me Comments are turned on now... heeheeheehee!

Y'all could have TOLD me that the link to my other blog wasn't working. Ah well... When someone as computer-illiterate as me attempts something as intricate as that, it's bound to turn out bad. I shoulda known. So I'm trying to decide if I ought to bring a bunch of my entries from over there... to over here. I *have* learned how to copy/paste. I could probably even tweak the dates so that they're accurate. (well.......maybe. I could TRY, anyway) Gotta think about it. Oh, um, welcome to my blog.

Originally Posted By: Homemaker You really would rather have your husband get you a load of manure dumped in your yard than jewelry for your anniversary! Or a load of concrete blocks to make a new raised bed... Or a grain mill... Or a greenhouse... Or a dehydrator... Or some goats... Or... ahem. Sorry. Honey, I hope you're reading this!

*giggle* My mom HATED the Scholastic book catalogue that they would send home from school every couple of weeks... by the time I got home, MOST of the books were circled, even though I rarely got to actually order from it. My favorite books as a child? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Let's just call it "Nearly every book in the children and youth sections in the Salem Public Library". There are some that I *still* come back to and read, even as an adult. The Little House books, the Five Little Peppers books, any book by Francis Hodgson Burnett or LM Montgomery or Louisa May Alcott, the Pollyanna series, the Heidi series, the Doctor Dolittle series, the Narnia series. There are literally thousands more, but these I still have on MY shelves. Some of them I'm on my second or third copy... because I read them till they literally fell apart. Tho' I'm a little easier on books nowadays... Those are the children's books that I still read. Shall I start in on the grown-up books that I read? It might crash the server again...

Uh oh... I went to look at the pictures... once in a while I like to remind myself *why* I prep... and at least one of the links doesn't work. The picture that's suppose to have drinks emptying out gives me a "Welcome to Mrs. S's new forum" message and bumps me back to the main forum page. When you get a chance, Darlene, you might wanna take a look and see what you can do... ETA: Looks like that's the *only* picture whose link is wonky. So no big hurry, just a heads up.

Ewww Ewww Ewww Ewww Ewww....

I *SO* didn't need that mental image... Westie, you know we love ya!

I love that the picture came from a website named "What Not To Crochet" ... LOL!

How about... if your son is in Boy Scouts, as he works on merit badges, you have your daughters complete the requirements too. Because Girl Scouts aren't the same... So far the oldest girl (8) would qualify as a 1st class Scout, the middle two (5 and 4) would be tenderfeet, and the youngest (2) can say the scout motto and slogan.

AAAAUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Leah, where do you FIND all those pictures???? I haven't laughed so hard in weeks!!!!!!!!!! babysteps, trying to breathe again.........

Originally Posted By: serendipity Your unknowing dh looks around at your stash and asks if we became Mormon when he wasn't looking! (yes this happened to me, lol) I had one similar... when we moved from Idaho to Oregon, several of our friends were helping pack us up. One of the guys took one look at my canned food shelf, (dh built it, it's similar to this http://www.organize.com/soupcanrack.html but made of wood and MUCH bigger) raised his eyebrows, and said "I see you've been taking after the neighbors!" (We lived in a predominately Mormon neighborhood at the time. Good people.) My response, "Gotta blend in, y'know!"

Has anyone seen Nana? I've been really enjoying going through these budget plans of hers, but I notice she hasn't been on to update them for a few months. Did I just miss something, being new and all? babysteps

Hey, I know what golden treacle is! *pats self on back* I'm torn between showing this list to DH (See honey, I'm not the only one!) and hiding it from DH (There are more of us out there! Yikes!) babysteps