Category Archives: Kids

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A Leap of Faith

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I mentioned a little while back that things have gotten tight around here and I was worried about how I was going to continue to care for the animals.  I was really thinking I’d have to find good homes for everyone.  Really, though, that would have made me miserable and the kids miserable as well.  I would have been worried sick over them for the rest of my life. Not to mention the fact that this is what makes life worth living – caring for these animals is my life’s calling and I can’t give up now.

Now, don’t think I am putting my own selfish need to have them before their health needs.  Far from it.  Instead we are about to attempt a big change.  If it works it will benefit us all enormously. We’re going to make all necessary repairs and upgrades to put this house on the market.

It’s been a good house for us and in some ways I do really love it, but we are bleeding money into a too – large mortgage for land that we can’t make full use of.

I don’t really know how well this will work, considering market saturation here and the fact that we owe about the same as what we can ask for it.  But we’re going to try.  If we can’t buy a small farm then we will try to rent one for awhile.   We’ve contacted our realtor extraordinaire, my uncle Rick.  He’ll make sure this house and the land are 100% perfect before listing it.  We are so lucky he knows the game so well and he knows us so well, because the whole process makes me a nervous, neurotic wreck.

Once we take this step, the next few months are going to be hard.  There’s a lot of fixing to do, and a lot of cleaning to do.  Worse yet, that cleanliness has to be scrupulously maintained.

I don’t even know HOW I am going to manage the animal pen.  You’ll probably see me doing a lot of stressing and whining as I try to hold it all together in the name of making things better for our growing family.

I will be keeping my eyes on the big picture as much as possible; focusing on sweet nuzzling goat faces and happy chickens.

Not to mention hot llama breath on the back of my neck as I wander out with feed and hay every day.

Bear with me while we go through this process, because it won’t be easy.  I’ll be asking for a lot of moral support and reminders to stay on track.

See you on the other side.

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Summer Food

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We’re at the height of summer food enjoyment this weekend.   For two of these I can thank Susie – she pointed them out over on her blog.

The first one I made this week- Stained Glass Jell-o.

It was marvelous and easy.  Try it here.

Then last night I tried another of Susie’s suggestions : Slow Roasted Tomatoes.  Or, as Maddie and I prefer to call them, Slomatoes.

Holy.  Good. Lord.

They were so incredible I died.  The End.

I put them over some penne with fresh pesto and it was heavenly.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Paul went out and bought some tomatoes in bulk for this.  I didn’t get any pictures because I needed to eat them.  Maybe next time!

Next up, deviled eggs.

I like to mix my hard – boiled yolks with fresh mayonnaise (yes, I make my own mayo), a little bit of dijon mustard, some poultry seasoning, a splash of sugar, a splash of salt, and a generous bit of dried dill.  Emily likes it when I sprinkle the finished eggs with a little paprika.  Then you can serve these with some lovely pan – fried chicken.

I mostly followed the recipe in the Pioneer Woman Cookbook, but instead of frying them in oil, I fried them in melted butter-flavored crisco in a cast iron skillet before the whole oven finishing. Divine!!!!! Completely fat – free and fiber – full and healthy!!!!

Not.

Oh well.

And since we”re on the subject of totally healthy, you can finish off your meal with my easy Ambrosia Salad.

I can’t guarantee you’ll win any gourmet cooking contests with this, but the kids love it.

Just mix up some canned or fresh crushed pineapple, some mandarin oranges, maraschino cherries, sweetened flake coconut, mini marshmallows, cubed apples, and vanilla Greek yogurt.  The quantities all depend on your preferences.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go figure out why my butt’s gotten so big.

Happy weekend!

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Scenes From A Holiday Weekend, Part Two

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As promised, here are the rest of the pictures I set aside for posting. Keep an eye out for Emily’s new blue hair streaks.  It was rather a pain in the butt to accomplish.

And now, since my stomach is still not quite better, I am off to lie down and finish reading Nineteen Eighty Four for book club.  Hope your 4th was fun and food filled!!!

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Scenes From A Holiday Weekend, Part 1

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We literally took 1500 pictures this weekend.  It took me quite a long time to go through them all, and then it was tough to pare down to what was getting posted here.  There still ended up being too many for one post, so I’m breaking it into two.  I’ve also been felled by some sort of stomach bug so it’s been slow going today.

We had plenty of family around and with the pool finally complete there was no excuse to not have fun.  There were watermelon margaritas (incredible!), grilled foods of all kinds, raw clams and Tres Leches cake.  The best part is that the kids have been outside all day and they fall asleep easily at night.  All that sun and fun tends to wear you out!

This is also the first summer since we’ve lived in this house (about 5 years now) that we’ve actually been able to make good use of the deck.  It’s always been so hot we don’t want to be anywhere near the outside world.  This year, however, it doesn’t seem too bad out there (this would be thanks to the pool) , and we happily have been dining al fresco every evening and sitting around the fire pit late into the night.

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A Happy and Full Solstice

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The girls and I celebrated the summer solstice by trekking out to a nearby mountaintop to pick peaches in the insanely hot sun. How else do you celebrate the first official day of summer than with summer’s quintessential fruit?  I tell you that was the fastest 30 lbs of fruit we’ve ever picked.  We just wanted to get back into some A/C!!!

Even after much snacking, we were left with this:

So we made these:

Grilled peaches with fresh basil to top some grilled chicken.

Pocket – sized peach pies.

And peach cobbler.  There are still pleeeenty of peaches left.

After dinner al fresco we made a fire to roast marshmallows and play word games.

I hope the longest day of the year found you all enjoying the sun with your loved ones.

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Out And About

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Or, as we like to say, “Oot and Aboot”.

Yesterday we went and got our library cards.  I’d never been to the county library here – I’d always gone to the one in Charlottesville, but it’s quite a hike and there’s never any parking.  As it turns out, our local one is pretty great anyway.  Emily and Neve both came away with books they were excited about, and I even scored a great deal on used books for sale.  Check it out:

The soft cover ones were 25 cents and the hardcovers were 50 cents.  I couldn’t resist the lamb one, since it looks like a Southdown, my favorite.

Neve loves this hamster book she found.

I was also happy to see the library carries a lot of the books we’ll be reading next year for home school.  The craft section sadly was rather pathetic, but you can’t win ’em all, I guess.

The temperature was a little lower today than what we’ve been dealing with so I decided to do more than just the standard cursory check on the gardens, and I was pretty happy with what I saw.

The tomatoes are doing well.

There are little butternut squashes starting to grow in.

And corn!!!  I have corn!!!!!!  I really can’t wait for that to be ready to harvest.

My nasturtiums are doing very well this year.

So is the cilantro.

Other things are thriving around here, too.

Plenty of deer pass through to drink from our stream.

Our stream happens to be home to these guys, as well.  That’s about a 4 inch long crayfish that was swimming around out there this evening.

Dragonflies are likewise in abundance.

Unfortunately, with the cool critters some the not so cool.

This guy was hanging out on the back deck.  Until I shot him full of this:

And he wasn’t even one of those big ones.

Now if I could only locate those two huge frogs that are hiding out in my garage before they die in there.

It’s Wild Kingdom around here for goodness sake.

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Still Playin’ Around

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I’m still having fun with my camera.  I haven’t discovered half of what it can do yet, but I can’t help taking pictures of everything around me.  Which means there’s about a milli0n pictures of the cats, the kids, etc.

Like this one of Sushi, who has recently taken up sleeping on Neve and nibbling on her nose, fingers and toes all night long.  This makes Neve very grumpy and she has decided that Sushi must be dreaming about eating sausages all night.

There’s many more of Jasper cat because he loves all the attention and enjoys posing for pictures.

Oona begs to have her picture taken and it’s hard to get one of her acting naturally rather than making funny faces or contorting into some weird position that she thinks is hilarious.

Most of the picture – taking has been happening inside because it’s only 10 bajillion degrees outside and the humidity is so bad it’s like walking into a sauna.  Maddie and I got fed up waiting for the excavation of the pool site to be completed so we headed out with gloves and shovels to get the ball rolling ……

but it was just way too hot and we were miserable.  I think we lasted maybe 20 minutes and got next to nothing accomplished other than drenching ourselves in sweat.  Where can we find some good, reliable, cheap labor around here??????

So, we still have no pool.  And because of this, and despite the heat, I keep telling myself that summer hasn’t really started yet.  We’ve had no days of swimming and nights of s’more roasting, no firefly catching, no picnics out on the deck, nada.  Hopefully we’ll get there before August.  Maddie goes back to school on the 9th and she’ll be really upset if the pool isn’t done by then.

I’ve been working on some frou-frou chiffon petticoat skirts for the girls, and let me just say…it has to be the worst sewing project in the world.  I detest it.  Yet I seem to be getting better at it at least as it drags on.  Pictures to follow soon.

I have done no knitting, despite wanting to very much.

BUT.

I did make an acquisition relating to all things wonderful and fiber – related.  I’ve gained part custody of this:

My friend Kim’s loom!!!!  She’ s had it hanging around for years, but lately it’s just been gathering dust.  So for now I get to try my hand at weaving until she is ready to get back to working on it.  Not that I really need anymore projects, but how could I resist??????

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It’s Goat Balls

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Clearly I can’t just have one post about balls this week. 

This evening while on the phone with my brother I was walking around petting the goats and stumbled upon…something.  I picked it up and my suspicions were confirmed.  Dessicated goat testicles.  One of my boys has apparently come all the way through the castration process.  And to show just how evil I am, I immediately had the idea to place it in my husband’s hand.

Now, just to show how evil he is (or that we are collectively) he recovered quickly enough from his revulsion to form an idea AND catch it on video. 

Here, my friends, is the meanest video ever made and posted on the internet (okay, maybe not…)  and as awful as you all no doubt will think we are, somewhere out there I just know that my uncle Jamie, at the very least, is laughing out loud right now.

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Bacon – Wrapped Dates of Deliciousness

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The other night at book club my friend Diana made these.  They were devoured in 2.4 seconds.  Okay, I exaggerate.  But not by much!  She explained how easy they were to make and I had to try it myself.  All you need are dried, pitted dates and bacon.  Wrap the dates with the bacon, stick them in the oven at 350 and bake for 30 – 40 minutes depending on desired amount of bacon crispness.

It’s the perfect balance of salty and sweet.  Plus, it’s bacon.  Paul agreed we could probably wrap his shoe in bacon and it would be delicious.

Emily left today for a camping trip with the Girl Scouts.  She’s going to have a blast, and I am thinking about teaching Neve how to crochet while she’s gone.  I’ll have to find Oona a fun project as well.  Maybe she can learn how to do laundry.