Summer Madness...

Ah.  The lazy days of summer.  Fishing...

Catching up with friends... (Hi! Marissa!)

Relaxing by the pool...  HEY WAIT A MINUTE! That pool is in the new shop, by the new garden, in front of the porch so new I haven't posted pictures yet!!!  Frankly, people, I'm wondering just where the hell my summer has gone, already?!

Oh.  That explains it.

There are not enough hours in the day.  In the month.  In a year.  I miss blogging, but frankly who has the time.  I've taken pictures, or asked Meg to as I ran by, but they sit in a camera somewhere, waiting...

Waiting for the laundry to be done, the peaches to be canned, the blueberries to be frozen, the tomatoes to be dried, the blackberries to be jellied, the carpets to be shampooed (again and again...) The shop to be finished, the shed to be cleaned, the lawn to be mowed, the garden to be tended, the porch to be screened, the chickens to be fed, the kids to be educated... (and let's not even talk about the basement.)

You get the picture.  How things can snowball in the heat of summer, I do not understand.  Al works two jobs.  I work one.  We're still homeschooling, and are back to the books for the 2010-2011 school year.  I'm taking classes online and working on becoming a certified preschool gymnastics instructor.  The girls are active in gymnastics in their own right, and there's still the farmers market, this blog, my neglected website, piano lessons, computer lessons, FCE, the senior center, and our farm, for Pete's sake.  I'm learning the hard way to say no.  I simply can't be in all of these places at once and expect to get the girls school work done and done well at the same time.  Coffee with Sherrie on Tuesdays is a must, it's how we both stay sane.  Past that, school is having to come first. Around the house?  Our motto is more camp, less farm.  Now we just have to figure out how to make that happen.

On the positive side,  local food for us is now a fact.  Eggs, milk, cream, butter, goat cheese, fruits, veggies, flour, pork, beef, chicken, & honey.  Oh, and beer.  We now go to the big grocery store once a month, and it's for mostly non-grocery items.  Whole food must agree with us.  We're all very healthy, and ~bonus~ I've lost ten pounds.

So, as usual, life is good here, life is busy, and life is messy.  I just have to figure out how to fit blogging back into it.  Later.  Maybe much later.  Take Care.

Shop & Garden Update

This  is what our garden is looking like these days.  I gave up on paved paths this year and concentrated on weed control instead.  After putting down weed cloth, I spread some straw and called it good enough.  It's working great.  Off on the right there you get a hint of the other big change in our yard this last week.  Yep.  Shop-action.

Here's the new view from the far end of the shop looking back towards the house.  We turned the carport into a pool cabana for the summer, and honestly, it's working great.  Note the flowerbed in progress with the concrete deep sink in front of the garden fence.  Hopefully it will be a fountain some day.  

(the sink, that is...)

Ok, so if you come a bit closer to the house you get a much better view of the shop- action.  Mr. Incredible put up a wall a day by himself last week.  To give you the scale of the whole thing, those are 12' foot bays between the posts.  60' total including the carport.  This picture all shows you how much light is coming in through the 3 skylights on the roof on the north side.  I went in tonight and thought the lights were on.  Oh,  but there aren't any lights out there yet.  This thing ROCKS ladies & gentlemen.  

(and so does my hubby... of course.)

 So now we're standing up under my clothesline near the front porch.  

Looks good, doesn't it!?!  You'd never guess this was a homely old greenhouse when we moved in.  

(Note how small my Yukon XL looks off to the left there...)

Finally, here's the view from the front steps.

Great, isn't it!?!

Way to go, AL!

(woot woot and all that!)

They don't call you A-1 for nothing!

Garden Updates...

This is what the garden looked like in late May, after we moved the 2 kennels.

Here's the fire pit I threw together in an afternoon to have a marshmallow roasting spot.

And, here's the tent pitched right in the driveway so me & 5 girlies could sleep under the stars bug free.  Good times, people!

Still loving eating local!

I may not be posting much about it, but we're still eating as locally as possible.  This was our spring table at the market.  YUM!

Crazy June storms out over the lake.

Never rained a drop at our house though!

VBS Fun...

I spent the week of VBS in a covered wagon with Vicki and the little people.  We had so much fun!  So did our kids, but they were in a different building than me, so alas, no photos of them...  Good Times!

Little Bit

Sometimes being the youngest isn't easy.  

She makes up for it with a BIG personality!

Homebrew Reality Check...

Before you say, "get a hobby,"

Be sure you know what you're getting into!

Kitchen Chaos.