The Little Boat

As I posted before, the Fish Sticks aren't always so eager to try new water skills when they are younger.  My Man purchased a training ski that he named "the little boat" so it would become the envy of the little ones before they gave it a try.  He tried reverse psychology telling them that they couldn't use the boat because they probably couldn't balance on it and it was just for really coordinated kids.  We started by pulling them around on it, which they loved and bragged to him about.

Stage 2 was pulling them behind the boat.  They were a bit apprehensive and almost started catching on to our trick, but then realized it was actually really fun.  Even our Campbell Cousin gave it a try.  Whew hew - point for parents!

It's Cousin Time

 We sure are having a great summer spending lots of time with our Campbell cousins from Turkey!!

 These are 2 cocoon cousins who pretty much got pooped out on our long boat ride.  They are asleep!

 We loved going under the big bridge that we usually go over.

 Who says 12 year olds aren't tough?

Peace out!

Before and After

Squumpkin

 With our new method of gardening, tossing composting materials over our garden area, we have a crazy compost jungle.  There's compost plants coming up everywhere:  tomatoes in the corn, cucumbers in the blueberries, watermelons in the black eyed peas.  One squash plant in particular had us baffled when it produced this large, green-looking pumpkin thing.  My niece said it must be a Squumpkin.  And so we made Squumpkin Soup which was delicious.

Over Abundance

 What would possess me to stay up until midnight the night I got home from my vacation??

Thank you, Nonie, for picking my 2 gardens 4 times in the week and filling my 2 fridges until even the butter keeper was filled with cucumbers.  I knew what to do with the squash, zucchini and blackberries, but what do I do with 200 cucumbers with more to be picked??

Attempting More

 Now that all of you think I am a horrible mother, throwing my screaming, scared 6 year old into a lake to try skiing, let me show you the flip side.  This post is showing you my 8 year old who just last year was the kicking, screaming Fish Stick being tossed into the lake to try skiing.  She not only is skiing well, but she begged us to allow her to try to slalom this vacation.  We were reluctant as she is a new skier but who are we to say no when she is such a rough case to try new things anyway?

She busted and busted and kept wanting to try again and again.

And she finally got up for a few seconds.  See?  The screaming is all worth it!!  Every boat on the lake was watching our little peanut of a daughter on those skis!

Just Gotta Try

FYI:  There will be no photos for this post.

On our vacation, we decided that Ruth was going to try to ski.  This is one of OUR water goals for her, but I promise you it is the farthest goal in her mind.  The scene went something like this.  My Man tossed me a screaming, kicking 6 year old into the lake.  I put her skis on while trying to ignore her screams and yells that sounded something like this, "I AM NOT GOING TO SKI.  I AM NOT GOING TO SKI.  GET ME BACK IN THE BOAT.  I WILL NOT SKI."  Then I whispered in her ear that she just might want to quit screaming and listen to my directions before the boat takes off with the rope in her hands. 

The rule was that she try as many times as needed until she could try without screaming.  She tried 3 times and came in with a forced smile.  We praised and cheered and made her feel like a big wig.  We finally got a smile but she was not interested in trying again for now.  Since I was in the water with her, My Man was the captain of the boat and the Fish Sticks were the cheering section, no one was holding the camera.  I doubt you would want to see a photo of our attempts.  It wasn't very pretty, but if you were within a 200 mile radius, you just might have heard her screaming!

Long Overdue Vacation

 My hard-working Man has not taken a week off of work for pleasure in almost 3 years.  Our family vacation was long overdue and this year we spent a week at the lake house.  It was so fun getting to relax, explore Smithville and enjoy the water together.

We discovered this great park.

Had a tournament with the big kids after little kids went to bed with foosball, ping pong, four square and air hockey.

Thank goodness I had a minor in college in foosball and ping pong.  It paid off, although I've gotten a bit rusty.

 

 

We enjoyed lots of fun on the hammocks.

We "made" boats and rowed with "oars" in our spare time.

We also played our guitars (some upside down).

And we worked on some water goals.  We already look forward to next year's vacation!

Hello Mother, Hello Father

You might remember our firstborn's letters home from camp last year.  This year he opted not to go to camp, and little sister who had just reached the age for camp, went instead.  Here are the 2 letters we received on the same day from Leah during her first week away from home.  My Man was right about her initial overconfidence.  It reached a breaking point soon after we left and didn't really cease until she ran into our arms 6 days later and didn't want to let go.  Maybe she was too young for camp.  Maybe she's not a good camp candidate.  Either way, I'm sure it was a learning and growing experience for her.  I will say that her big sister was a mother to her during camp and they seem to have a greater bond since returning home.  At least they didn't come home with green teeth from forgetting to brush for 7 days, right big sis???

Poutry Problems

Raising chickens, like having a big garden, has certainly been a learning experience with many mistakes along this way.  Let me give you some bullet points of our poultry problems in the last couple of months.

*  Freckles, our Peking Duck, was beheaded by a predator one night.
*  Aflac, Freckles husband, seemed lonely so My Man bought 3 baby Peking ducks to keep him company.
*  When the ducklings were older, Aflac tried to murder the young drake by sitting on top of him in the water, pinning his head down with his beak until he couldn't breath. (Google confirmed this behavior.)
*  Aflac was given to a friend of ours who has a farm.  He is now alone and happy.
*  Within days of Aflac leaving the Fish Farm, one of the other ducks began having seizures (Google confirmed this too.) and within 1 day was dead floating in the pond.

+  After processing 50 chickens for meat, the 3rd batch of 25 got splayed legs.  This is when they are chicks and their legs just turn into rubber bands and cannot support them.  This meant that daily we would have to dispose of several baby chicks that we discovered dead.  Our brood of 25 gradually went to 7.  We found out that broiler chickens require a high amount of protein in their food.  If they don't have a special high protein feed, especially early on, their legs cannot support their growth.
+  We also realized the hard way that the chickens eat less of the high protein food and therefore we were purchasing 2 to 3 times the amount of chicken feed that we really needed to buy.
+  After considering the bedding for the barn, the feed for the chickens, the processing fee, the gas to take them to be processed, not to mention the many hours of tending to keep them fed and cleaned, our chickens are like GOLD!  It would have been much cheaper for me to buy a $15 organic chicken at Whole Foods!

#  We also purchased in the spring 19 chicks that will be laying hens and 1 rooster.  We ended up with 5 roosters (guess that sexing concept isn't always accurate).  One week we noticed that each morning we had one less hen.  Then one morning we saw our unruly Blue Tick Hound carrying one across the yard and feasting upon it.  We now understand the meaning of the term "flew the coop" and therefore saw the need to put a "roof" on the chicken pen.  More time and more money.  Oh yea, and we started using the shock collar with more consistency.
#  And since our last batch of broilers was only 7, we just added a few roosters to be processed so we wouldn't be added among the cock fighters in our area.

Moral of the story?  I'm not sure.  We've learned that ducks can have seizures, that they can be murderers from jealousy, that chickens can fly higher than we thought and that their brain size is equivalent to their intelligence. The good part is that I need to buy a new freezer to hold 57 chickens grown organically that we will enjoy eating throughout the year, but the sad part in all of this is that I own 17 chickens and I still buy 3 dozen eggs each week.  Go figure.

Summer Bounty

 Eight years ago My Man and I with 3 little Fish Sticks went to the local farmer's co-op with a list, a graph and a plan to plant our first ever garden.  All we knew was what Grandma and Papa had told us and what the "how to" books from the library taught us.  Over the years, we've learned a lot and made some mistakes along the way.  When it's all said and done, I love my garden, BUT I hate weeds.  I start strong in the spring but by the time the hot and humid TN days come in July, I'm hating every stinkin' weed that is taking over my garden and feel overwhelmed with maintaining it.  I have never planted a fall garden because by August, I'm ready to let my produce be picked and consumed by someone else.

This year is different.  We gardened organically with a new-to-us method.  Back in the fall we started preparing our hard rocky soil with layers of compost material, mostly spoiled hay.  Over the winter, we continued spreading the leaves, clippings and hay and by the time spring arrived, we were ready to plant.  The weeds are so minimal and the produce is bigger than ever.

We also expanded our fruit garden and planted vegetables there as well.  Maintaining has been very doable and most of the time very enjoyable to this busy Mama.  

These are some of the biggest squash plants we've ever had.

Here's our vegetable garden a few doors down at Grandma and Granddaddy's house.

I had no clue my cucumbers would spread out so much.  Pickles anyone??

And the best part of all is my little Fish Stick helpers.  What joy it brings me to hand out huge cucumbers picked straight from the garden and see them eat it all up, skin and all.

My mom hooked me up with a lady recently who writes articles for the Nashville paper, covering cooking stories from our area.  Check out this site to read the article about our garden from this past Sundays paper.  I liked the article as it makes me seem much more wonderful than I actually am.  :)  Who can't look better on paper?

Something's Missing

When the girls return, they will see something missing in Roofie Poofie's mouth.

Are You Ready for Some Football??

I told Caleb he could have a big birthday party this year like AB did, so the day after his birthday, we hosted 15 boys to our house for a game of football.  Half of the boys were from school and half of them were from church.  Tim painted off the yard, got out his whistle and officiated the game of shirts and skins.

 We ate tacos and nachos and put candles on chocolate chip cookies.

 When I started singing "Happy Birthday" I feared I might have to sing a solo assuming that 12 year old boys would be too embarrassed to sing.  I was very wrong!!  They sang so loud that the walls shook and my ears throbbed.

 The peanut gallery stayed close to the shade and the ice cold soft drinks.

We are so grateful for good Christian friends for our firstborn and the love of football that made the day so much fun!  Happy 12th Caleb!