Cooking Mushrooms..

Last summer our neighbor guy Mike taught the boys how to find a certain kind of eatable mushrooms. He showed them where to look and also how to cook them. Well so far the boys have found 14!! They picked them, cleaned them, cut them up and cooked them before eating them :) YUMM!!!!

Taking turns cutting them up before frying them. 

Ready to eat!!! Great stuff boys!!

Rhubarb!!

My rhubarb on May 8th.. 

My rhubarb on the 28th of May :) Amazing what 20 days will do.. we have big plans for rhubarb crisp and someone told L about rhubarb pie so we're going to try that too :) 

Chicks are OUT!!! Finally!!

Due to a very wet cold spring we've had our chicks (meat birds) inside far to long. About 2 weeks longer then we normally do. But the weather just was not co-operating at all. The other night at 3 am I had a WONDERFUL idea and BONUS I remembered it the next morning. The 1st day we could do it was today so we did. We moved our layers out of the greenhouse several weeks ago and today we moved the chicks into and around it. They have access to grass.. and shelter!! And we can still use the heat lamps on those cold nights. 

L and a chick.. he didn't like catching them at all last year but really enjoyed it this year.. I told him we might make a farmer out of him yet.. 

The 1st chick in the wheelbarrow. 

Bringing the full load to the new pen. The kids are holding the lid on so no chicks can get out! We had to go through Maggie's pen and she got SUPER excited!! That blue wheelbarrow normally holds her sweet mix and she was pretty sure SOMETHING good was going to happen to her!! 

Taking the lid off. 

FREEDOM!!! 

Putting the 1st load in. 

L dubbed these the 'two headed Monsters' 

Taking the wheel barrow out after the last load!

                           

Finally all 187 chicks out in the green grass!! 

Our Garden This Year.. Update :)

We've made it a bit of an experiment. Measuring and keeping track of how much each persons plants have grown over a period of time. I took pictures too. We planted them on May 5th and this is what they looked like on the 13th. 

The kids plants and my zucchini are in the yogurt cups (next year we are going to do clear cups so we can see the roots!!) and the flat with a lot of green is my lettuce and the other is spinach. 

This was on the 19th.

Spinach. 

Lettuce. Needs watering, I think that we probably need to water more. I'm noticing that the flats need more water then the cups.

Yogurt cups of kids stuff.. The tall ones in the back are my zucchini the big leafed ones in the front and middle are the cukes and the smaller leafed ones are radishes.. the tiny ones are carrots. 

R's radishes and E's carrots.

Now on the 28th quite a few of them need transplanting into larger containers. We're planning on doing that this upcoming week as Papa will be gone all week.. he has 2 courses back to back in the 'city' this week and will not be home till 11 every night. So we are making a 'keep busy' list!!

We have also planted the raised beds out front. We planted corn (leftover seeds from last year) in one bed, peas (for fresh eating) in 2 others, one large and another small one because we had a lot of seeds left over. The last raised bed, large, has beans, also for fresh eating. We planted them all together last weekend. I raked the beds and made some farrows and the kids and I planted seeds. R helped cover them up as her idea of planting seeds is to take a handful and throw.. we let her plant the little raised bed of peas :) It is so nice to work that high up. Neither Papa or I hurt our backs planting or covering up. Then we covered them with the white fabric covers and completely  forgot about them. I'll have to go take a look today and see how they are doing. I'm not expecting much from the corn.. we did plant it a bit late for up here.. even if it is a short days growing type. Normally to get corn we have to start it inside. If nothing else we'll let the cow have it this fall.

1st Black Eye... guess who...

YUP Baby J got his 1st black eye this week.. If this is any indication he'll have a few more before he's ready for school!! He is such a rough and tumble little boy!!  It's the one on the left in the picture. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture at it's worst. There was a cut under his eye as well. He smashed his head on our couch while playing and did a great job on his eye. In this picture it's the brown/green spot right under the outside corner of his eye.

Wagon Fun :)

Baby J found a stick in the wagon and E was trying to keep it out of his mouth :) 

They had a blast!! 

Brotherly Love!

Baby J has been playing outside on the trampoline. Our trampoline is special : it sits on tires about 2 feet off the ground. Then everyone can get on and off easily and if you fall off.. well your not going to fall far. The kids love it, and so does Chip. In fact we often have to kick the dog off so the kids can jump. He doesn't jump on it but loves to curl up with a cat and snooze on the warm black top. 

Our boys are special too, they love to love each other. On this day L had brought Baby J the cat to 'pet' which Baby J thinks is the most fantastic thing!! I'm pretty sure the cat did not think it was a fantastic thing. L did try and show Baby J how to be 'gentle to the kitty' but as you can see from the cats quick exit, I'm not so sure Baby J was successful. I got there JUST too late to get a picture of Baby J and the cat. Instead of the cat to play with Baby J got his brother L. L loves to play with the baby. He was the 1st one to make him laugh and he has him in fits of giggles almost every day. He makes funny faces, tickles him, plays whatever he is playing around with Baby J and includes him in his games. On the trampoline he jumped gently and got cascades of giggles. J and L have a special bond as well, being only 15 months apart they have pretty much always been together. The 1st few times J went to AWANA L really did not know what to do with himself. He quickly figured it out.. talk. J was the big talker in the family (of the kids anyway.. Papa can out talk us all) until he starting going to AWANA once a week.. now I've got several big talkers and one littler talker (R, age 3, who still needs translating regularly) and J can barely get a word in. No wonder Baby J yells, he wants some air time too. J and L are still best buds and do EVERYTHING together.. now that L is riding his bike they spend hours every week racing up and down the drive way. Last year L stopped racing because he always lost.. but this year they are much more even and he gives J a ride for his money :) The only thing they don't do together, well not all the time, is school work.. and that will change as L and E start school early August, and AWANA which L has gone to a couple of times and really is not sure if he wants to go next fall. He's not a crowd person and quite frankly I don't blame him a bit.. neither am I.

Brotherly love is one of the strongest there is. I love to see it sprout, grow and bloom in my children, all my children. 

 All for One and One for All. 

Growing kids, making memories :) 

And Blogging so I don't forget them. 

Peepers :)

We got our chicks about a month ago now and I still haven't taken a SINGLE picture of the kids and the chicks.. And now the chicks are a month old and white and no longer cute so there will be NO pictures of the kids and chicks this year. Oh well.

 Baby J had never seen chicks before and he got that WOW look in his eyes when he saw his 1st one. His little blue eyes just glowed!! Then he did a very typical baby thing and tried to pick it up by it's neck. lol. I was holding it so I manage to rescue it before it was damaged and showed him how to be very gentle with it instead. He really liked to stroke it's head and smile and drooled with pleasure. Yup he's still a drooler :) The other kids had seen chicks before of course but they still love to hold them and pet their downy heads.

No one got pooped on this year, which I believe is a first!! Nothing can put you off chick cuddling like a fresh poop RIGHT on your hand, arm, leg or whatever. I'll never forget the look on J's face when he got pooped on.. pure HORROR!!! Then he cried!! I laughed so hard I cried. Then I wiped it off and explained that chicks have to go sometimes too..and that he was just fine, he could wash when we got inside.. but the damage was done.  After that E would NOT hold one at all as she was determined NOT to get pooped on!! Little R who would have been just about a year old then just placed her hands very firmly behind her back and shook her head!! L really was the only one to hold chicks again that year.

We got 200 CC non sexed this year as Papa wanted to try them again. We got them from a new hatchery and a new farm store, both of which we will be doing again! I actually had HELP to bring my two boxes of chicks to the truck.. Something that has NEVER BEFORE happened at the old place. It may not seem like much to you but when you have 4 kids, and a cart and 2 boxes of chicks getting out of the store, the building, across the parking lot and into the truck is a serious challenge. Which btw is what happened two years ago.. and they had PEOPLE who WORKED there standing there watching me. Can you say TOTALLY unimpressed?? Last year Papa brought them home as he was home because we'd had a baby 4 days or so before :)

So far we have some 'runners' which we are unused to seeing after several years with just cockerels but for the most part we are pleased with them. We lost about 10 the 1st week which is also unusual for us but, as we remember, normal with the non sexed. Unfortunately they are still in the barn as our weather has been TERRIBLE this spring. A lot of pouring rain and cold temps.  We've had a few nice days but the ground is still soaking and the nights cold. And it's suppose to rain all weekend but we might give them a pen around the barn anyway just to start getting them used to the weather as they have to leave the barn eventually. Nice weather or not.

Some More Pictures of the Scout.

Driving :) Just a few hours under it and Papa had him moving.. not far but moving. 

L loves to stand on the top of the scout. Here he's showing off his muscles :) 

 E likes to drive.. but takes it a bit more seriously then R. 

All 4 of them crawling all over it! J loved the radio and flipped around the stations a lot. 

R loves to "drive' and SING at the top of her lungs.

 There is a radio in the scout and Papa had it on while the kids crawled all over it and they had a BLAST!!

Our IHC Travelall pulling the trailered Scout. Looking good Babe!! 

2 Wheeler!!

L is our newest 2 wheeler!! He took to it like a duck to water. Papa did help him a little bit and now, gee is it really almost a month later?, he's a pro.. Standing up to pedal, turning corners!! He loves it. In this 1st picture he's on his own little bike which is really too small for him but he really loves it and thinks J's bike is "just too big Mommy.' 

These pictures were taken April 23... our yard looks a lot different now. For one thing the SNOW is finally gone and for another the grass is GREEN!!! YAY

He did try J's bike though as Papa thought it would be easier to learn on. He did ride it too :) J thought it was really funny that L made a little huffing sound the whole time Papa was helping him ride on two wheels until Papa told him that J made that SAME sound when he learned to ride on two wheels :) E can't WAIT to ride her bike on two wheels, mostly I think because she would really like a pink helmet. 

I love the smiles on this picture. Papa smiling and L is smiling. I love to see them smile.