School started Monday and we are slowly adjusting back to the realities of a scheduled existence.  Next week Girl Scouts will start up again for the older girls as well, and if I can swing it I’ll be signing Emily and Neve up for ballet as well.  We’re about to head into the thick of it, just as the summer heat is turning to “extra crispy” and my pool – owning friends don’t even venture outside during the daylight hours.

The first day went well for everyone (except my sister, who says that high school “sucks ass”), despite the early morning rise that we have yet to acclimate to.

Neve insists on doing her own hair now, which is still better than Emily who resents having to put a brish anywhere near hers.

For comparison, here’s last year’s first day of school:

Emily’s wearing the same sweater.  Nevermind it’s 800 degrees with  2,000% humidity.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the bus has no A/C.  They have quite a hot and sweaty afternoon ride.  Every day they get home red and lethargic, or – like today – the 10 year old has “two words for you mama” as they come careening away from the bus stop and into the group of other moms I have gathered with and she yells “It’s friggin’ hot”!!!

Combine that with the fact that little Oona says “butt-head” now and I am surely in the running for mom of the year.

Fortunately bacl to school means a little bit of back to sanity (if not back to exhausted).  Emily gets an allowance for chicken care and has been out at 6 every morning taking them out of the coop and getting them into the tractor.  Then she’s out again at 9 pm to put them back for the night.  They seem to be happier to be on a regualr schedule as well.

Since we’re on a spending diet now we have forgone buying cereals and frozen waffles and what have you and I have been making a real breakfast every morning; this has made for happy kids.  Every day is different and every day they are excited to see if it’s eggs, pancakes, french toast, etc.  This is good for me, because I never ate breakfast before unless you count 18 cups of coffee and the occasional donut.

It’s also quieter around here during the day with just me and Oona.  She’s back to napping again as well – the 6 am wake up call means she’s tired enough to go out after lunch.  I even managed to get a dress made.

It’s the Trapeze Dress from Weekend Sewing.  I think this is my third one; it’s also my favorite so far.

All in all it has been rather great this week.  The only bump was yet another escape attempt by Sherbert the Hamster, henceforth to be known as “Luckiest-ass-hamster-in-the-world”.   Emily got this crazy fuzzy thing for CHristmas, and it escaped that very day.  Right out of the cage, out of Emily’s room.  I found it later that night, downstairs, under the couch. A few minor scratches seemed to be her only trauma.

She’s escaped several times since then and usually turns up in Emily’s closet, Sushi staring her down, daring her to make a wrong move.  This morning, however, was different.  Emily came to me in a panic that she’s gotten out again and so I told her to sit with Oona on my bed while I foraged around for her.  I had just begum looking when Emily screamed “Sherbert”!  She’d walked by her bathroom on the way to my bedroom and there was the hamster, sitting on the bath mat, being watched very closely by a certain little Jasper cat.  And once again, she was completely unscathed.  Like I said, with 3 cats in the house (who happen to be top-notch mousers, btw) that is one LUCKY hamster.

I need that kind of luck.

And then there’s Oona, who is up to her usual tricks, getting into every darn thing she can and giving me no peace.  But she does make me laugh.

She likes to wear Neve’s glasses.  These are the glasses Neve wears when she “becomes” Mr. Smitty Harold, her middle – aged, male alter – ego.  She keeps me on my toes, but it’s worth the aggravation.

I pulled more pumpkins from the garden and there are at least a dozen birdhouse gourds growing.  I also have some weird large white squash that was supposed to be zucchini but is most definitely NOT.  As the weather gets cooler we have a lot of land to clear out and weeds to pull (always).  I’d like to get some blueberry bushes in teh ground for next year as well as some apple and peach trees.  Lots of work, yes.  First we need to get used to these early mornings, though.

Um, so anybody know any good cucumber recipes?  I have 10 quarts of pickles in my fridge and about 50 lbs of cukes on the counter, PLUS probably another 3 dozen ripening on the vine.  I’ve made (obviously) pickles, cucumber raita (which I love with samosas, tamarind chutney and naan, btw!) and I am thinking maybe some cucumber mojitos would be nice and refreshing……..but I am seriously buried in cukes here.  Please send cuke ideas!!!!!

The tomatoes, while so promising at the beginning, are doing less well.  In fact, I am having moderate luck with the cherry tomatoes, but the Mr. Beefy are going bad before they turn red.  They just get huge and green and then……die.  Between the weather and the slugs and goodness knows what else.  I picked a few good green ones and have them sitting in the window in the kitchen.  We’ll see how that goes.

I do have 2 big pumpkins out back getting bigger by the day and the zuke and yellow squash will no doubt be over producing before too long.  And the bail has provided me with much opportunities for pesto, thanks to Ruby the hen eating all of the beetles for me.  The bees seem to love the basil as well, but we leave them alone.  They’re the good guys.

And speaking of chickens, our rooster has begun crowing.  At first he sounded like a cat being strangled, but he’s been finding his voice more and more and getting more of the “cock-a-doodle-doo” sound.  It cracks Oona up, and it cracks me up when she imitates him.   So far he only does it during the day, which makes me quite happy, thank you very much.  I don’t want to bug the neighbors.  I do find it amusing to listen to and am surprised to find I rather enjoy the sound.  He is kind of a territorial little brat, though.  Today I went to get Ruby for her daily bug eating and when I grabbed at her Mr. Roo pecked my hand pretty hard.  It didn’t hurt too much (it’s kind of like being pinched) but it left a mark.  Then he proceeded to crow the entire time I had Ruby away and didn’t stop until I brought her back.  They still all run from me when I go to transfer them between tractor and coop.  Dummies.  Their herding instinct is pretty good, though so they don’t wander too far and always head for the safety and familiarity of the coop.

Right now the older girls are with me in laws so Oona and I are on our own this week.  It’s been lovely and quiet.  I’ve completed a few sewing projects (will show in a future post) and begun cleaning the bedroom of horrors since Emily and Neve aren’t here to stop me.  I also went and bought their school supplies today.  And no, I don’t mean their clothes and backpacks.  I mean the $200 list of supplies the school demands we send in with each child every year (crayons, tissues, paper, glue, hand soap, scissors, dry erase markers,  ziploc bags, you name it).  This of course does not include the many times during the year they’l be hitting me up for more money and other items.  What actually makes me mad about this is that on top of this the school board still doesn’t pay the teachers enough and all of the special programs and extras (like music!!) keep getting cut out and everyone keeps voting “no” to raising school taxes even though the school gets very little aid from the state. Ah, don’t get me started.   Let’s just focus on the fun part of today – I brought home a new dvd – “Coraline” in 3-d.  Hooray!!!

Our overdone coop is complete and in place, waiting for the fencing to be put around it so the chicks will have a nice area to roam around when they’re not helping de-bug my garden.  We’ve situated it at the back side of the house where there clearly was supposed to have been a deck built (there is a door in our living room that opens onto a good 8 or 10 foot drop).   It’s a fairly sheltered spot weather – wise and I think as close to the house as it is it will help deter some of the predators a bit.

There are advantages to having a big Bobcat.  Even though it hardly ever functions properly.  I’m just sayin’.  Paul built the coop in the garage and then hauled it into place via heavy machinery.  The red was my idea – I like it.

Getting it into place was a tad tricky considering the slope of the land in the back.  We also scared away a bunch of blue – tailed skinks during this operation.  Having them around is a good thing – they’ll feast on any termites that might decide to set up residence in your home.

Ta da!!!  Chicken palace!  (See the “door to nowhere up there between the two big windows and to the right of the hanging birdfeeder?)

Why Yes!  Room service and maid are included in this luxury suite!  And look!  Snacks!  Those little ants that unwisely decided to converge on the food dish were dee-lish!

Finishing touches aside, this project is done! And speaking of dee-lish, check this out:

I have been on a bit of a cooking and baking jag of late, and this was one of the successes.  The crust is from Smitten Kitchen, the pastry cream is from the Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, and then I just sliced up some strawberries to top it.  We polished it off in no time!  I can’t wait to make more, but I am sure my waistline doesn’t really need it, considering I’ll end up eating more than my fair share of it.

The last gfew days have been slow in the kitchen though, due to it being abnormally busy around these parts for a rainy week.

Sunday we went to the ice park in town for a birthday party and the girls spent a good 2 hours skating and goofing around with their buddies who live just across the road from us.

Let me tell you, I adore these girls (and their parents!).  They are so well behaved, and it really rubs off on my girls so that we can have easy play dates with no one fighting or whining or crying.  What a relief!  You know.  Until we get home and their evil streaks reappear.

Wednesday we went for a walk and picnic with them and Oona insisted on walking all the way down the trail rather than ride in her stroller, and since she has squeaky shoes (“Wee Squeaks”) all we heard was squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak. She had so much fun, and really wore herself out.

She fell right to sleep as soon as I put her in the car to go home.  As it turns out, we left just in time weather – wise.  Just after we got back to the house we had a nice bit of hail.  Fun fun!  It’s been chilly and raining ever since.  I’ve been working on getting all of my leftover fabric scraps in the green range together for a quilt that I hope to get to one day before I am old and senile (Senile may come first at this point, between the kids and the animals).

Jasper’s not making it easy.  Mostly because he decided to have bloody diarrhea and need to be taken to the vet.  I had to leave him overnight (all night without my boy!!!!!) for tests and observation and he came home very happily today – all medicated and waiting for some lab results.  It’s always something in this house!!!!