The Newest Family Members

This cute fix brought to you by Wannie and Ellie.

Ellie came to us in December, and was immediately adopted into the hearts and lives of the family. We are just watching her, but for an indeterminate amount of time, while her owner family is traveling the country doing missions work. She is such a good dog! She barks loudly at strangers when she is outside, and she sleeps when she is inside. She has endless patience with the littles, a trait which any dog in our family MUST have.

The only thing I have against her is the endless and profuse shedding: but really, my floors needed more frequent sweeping and vacuuming anyway, right?

Big Kids' Fish Pond

WIP Wednesday is brought to you by Miss Rose and Joman.
This is their Koi pond, which they designed, dug and built themselves. Their young friend (and helpful advisor/digger) across the street had built one at his house, with encouragement from another friend up the road who had built one and raises fish there.

That's peer pressure for ya. :-)

This picture was taken on the first day I ever saw the pond. I had no idea that when they said they were building a fish pond, that they meant a 7x4 foot, 36" deep, lined pond with all the trimmings, plus a planned (and now mostly dug) garden area surrounding it.

The pond is now home to three happy orange-and-white Koi, and the kids plan to purchase some butterfly Koi when the weather plans to stay warm.

Thanks kids, for sharing your WIP, and thanks, Deb, for the blog idea. :-)

Tasha Tudor Day 09

Tasha Tudor Day is annually, on the 28th of August, which was her birthday.

Tasha Tudor is a fairly new discovery for me. As a matter of fact, I read a book about her garden a very long time ago, but I just didn't "get" it, and sent it back to the library, forgetting all about Tasha.

But recently, I came across the book again, as I was preparing my own garden. This time, I was hooked -- by her garden, her lifestyle, and Tasha herself. What a singular person Tasha was!

When I discovered that today was the anniversary of her birthday, it seemed like a good time to help the children experience a little of the Tasha magic.

In the morning, after breakfast, Daddy took the children for a long walk in the woods.

While they were gone, I ate my breakfast of homemade yogurt, homemade granola, and strawberry jam the neighbors harvested and canned. I brought out the tablecloths and picked what seems to be the last straggly flowers of the season. Not much to look at, but we'll miss them when they leave us in the fall, just around the corner!

When the family arrived back home, we ate a light lunch of Cream of Chicken Soup, Cheddar Cheese Rounds (Tasha's receipts,) grapes, and orange juice.

Then we set to work on making some small soft furnishings for the dolls' house. Roks (5) learned to "embroider" a pretty tablecloth for the dolls' table, and the older two children and I made tiny braided rugs to keep their feet warm.

Daddy and Bert worked outside in the garden, tidying up and weeding around the flowers. Roks joined in as soon as he was finished stitching and fringing his table cloth.

They have a lovely pumpkin growing in spite of devastating bug/fungus attack, and had three watermelons.

We thought it would be a great idea to let the chicken ladies into the garden, to eat the grass growing up around the end-of-summer-season veggies. They did do a lovely job of eating lots of clover and grass -- but also helped themselves to several cucumbers, quite a lot of celery, and two of the watermelons.

Daffodil, a Buff Orpington

Bessie, a Plymouth Rock Barred, and Ruffian, an Araucana.

Tigger, an Araucana

Truckster and Tigger, side by side -- Araucanas.
We have two more Buff Orpingtons, another Araucana and another Plymouth Rock Barred.

We collected up the eggs, one blue, one green, and three brown -- and took them inside, to make a tasty custard for dinner dessert. We collected a huge brown egg a couple of days ago, and we used it too. When we broke it open, it had two full-size yolks. Good work for a young chicken lady.

In the late afternoon we had a small tea-break, with homemade hot chocolate and marshmallows. And we worked on our projects, finally getting them finished a little bit too late for mamma to make dinner. So we had fried chicken and mashed potatoes and green beans, but not homemade. :-)

After dinner, we ate the silky-smooth custard (Tasha's receipt,) courtesy of the lovely chicken ladies, topped with a drizzle of home-produced maple syrup from our neighbors' maple trees.

Tasha Tudor Day was quite a lot of fun for everyone.

But oh! the house is messy!

The Girls in the Back Yard

The 9 girls are living happily in the backyard.

Rose and Joman faithfully cared for them, each day cleaning out their boxes and feeding and watering them while they lived in the house. Daddy and the older children constructed this area for the chickens to live outside.

I don't know all their names or if they even all have names. Well, I know a couple of them have names. But I have some suggestions. How about, "Madonna," "Gwyneth," or "Perez Hilton?" (C0mmenter Tubs also suggested, "Barbara," "Whoopi," "Joy," "Elisabeth," and "Sherri." Good thought. I like it.)

Aah, but that may require the kind of education my children are not quite ready for yet.

Chicks and Chickies

Baby Chicks and Chicky Babies are sort of similar.

Cute, soft and fluffy, with soft little peeps and chirps.

The difference between them is, the Baby Chicks grow really fast, but not fast enough.
Chicky Babies grow much more slowly, but still....way too fast.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Miss Rose finally got to start on her 4-H project.Bert, our true animal lover, was instantly head-over-heels.Baby Gater also loved the little chickies.We chose two Plymouth Rock (barred), three Buff Orpingtons, and four Araucanas.Araucanas lay pretty blue and green eggs.
All the little chickies in the house got lots of loves today.The little chicks are only newly hatched. Already, they know how to eat and how to peck each other.
I hope they survive. Do you think they feel nervous?
How about now?

Come Along With Me....

We wake every morning, happily, to look at this sweet little face.

The Princess is One Month Old today!

She is just as sweet, huggable and snugglable and kissable as ever.

Oh, we love her so...what did we ever do without her?


I've been a bit under the weather, but with some antibiotics from the doctor and some extra rest on the weekend (thanks to Daddy who proficiently kept the house running while I recuperated, and who did such tedious chores as dishes and vacuuming, and homeschooling, and feeding little ones....) I am feeling a little better today. I thought it might be a good day to bring you along, to chitchat a little...since there is nothing exciting happening around here...just the same, good-but-usual tasks.Lots of laundry from the weekend. I don't mind laundry. The washer does all the work for you -- you give it nasty smelly dampy bits of fabric, and it returns lovely-smelling clean clothes to you, with no effort from you at all.

What is there not to love?

I like to iron too, at least, when it's pretty linen bits and pieces.

What's not to like?

The children did most of their schooling on their own today. I didn't intend it that way, but I was a bit foggy on what all needed to be done, and quite a bit out of sorts and out of routine. In the end, they did well, and Miss Rose helped Jr Spragus do his work as well.


I do believe Jr's favorite subject so far is math, which probably has to do with the fact that we use jelly beans as manipulatives. He counts, adds, subtracts, and makes patterns with his daily ration of jelly beans, before he gobbles them up.

Again, what's not to like?

Our schoolroom is already collecting an assortment of interesting projects and discoveries.
I was very grateful to see a neighbor had thrown out an entertainment unit to be picked up for recycling. We recycled it right into our schoolroom, and it went straight to work as a holder-of-books and displayer-of-treasures.

Mamma had bought some lovely local broccoli, for a broccoli waldorf salad. While preparing the broccoli, Mamma found a bright green caterpillar, which naturally became the next science experiment -- the children looked it up in the field guide, to find that it was a cabbage white butterfly caterpillar -- and put it in a jar with some of its own tasty broccoli to munch on.

Two days later, someone found the little caterpillar hidden under the rim of the lid, having already made its chrysalis.

Now, the anticipation of watching the little green beastie become a pretty white butterfly.

After school, and after chores and tidying, the children are free to play outside on the swing set Daddy and Grandpa and Grandma put together in the back yard.

Usually, there are several other children besides ours out there too, and the swingset gets quite crowded and busy.





I decided to take a walk around the yard today, to show you what is out there, and to enjoy the last remnants of summer. The plants are looking a bit overblown and frowsy...coming to the end of their flowering and fruiting season.






The square-foot garden overgrew its confines, so we plan to use the raised beds perhaps just for strawberries next year, and grow an in-ground garden for the rest of the fruit and vegetables. Daddy made a good job of repairing and rehabbing this picnic table. There were two identical tables in this spot, alongside the house, but their supports had rusted and rotted, and the benches fell off. The paint on the table surface had pitted and peeled. Daddy found that one support from each table was salvagable, so he dissassembled the tables, refinished the metal supports, stripped and restained the wood, and put it all back together again.


I haven't gotten as much use out of this hammock as I would have liked to this summer. I was rather afraid, being so far pregnant, that if I got in , I wouldn't be able to get out again -- and now I'm too busy with life to get in it. If I got in now, I wouldn't WANT to get out again. :-)

The children really enjoy it though, and make use of it regularly with all their friends. It is the spectator seating for games of badminton and baseball.

One thing that is certain around here. The bugs will never die out.

I picked some lovely tomatoes and peppers from the garden earlier in the day, and had a fresh, warm tomato cut up with some cucumber and onion, and a drizzle of olive oil and vinegar, for lunch today.

I have to tell you a little story about that.

Miss Rose had been commissioned to make lunch for herself and the boys while I was tending to the Princess, and she made hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, and opened a can of pineapple rings. This is a favorite lunch of all the children, so there were no complaints.

I put some brown rice on to cook for myself, since I was trying to avoid the calories that come with mac n cheese and hot dogs ;-) , and added some seasonings and spices while it cooked. I served up the rice with the tomato salad on the side, and scrambled an egg to go with it. Pretty soon I had eight eyes jealously looking at my plain, low-fat meal.

I was bewildered...what kind of children would rather have brown rice and salad than a big plate of canned fruit, processed meat and boxed pasta?

I am not sure who they belong to, but I will know better next time....

This pretty present is from Mammam to the children, and especially the Princess. Jr Spragus and Woby have gotten the most enjoyment out of it so far -- it is a truly lovely gift! Thank you Mammam!


Here, I placed an unwilling Woby for scale.

A very, VERY unwilling Woby.

Who was stinky not only in attitude, but in actuality.

Fortunately, there is a surefire way to fix a Woby's stinky selves, and so we popped him in....

...and Jr, too, who had just come in from playing outside. We try to take precautions because there is a lot of poison ivy outside.

I will leave you with a look at dinner...the garden produce, which went into a very tasty made-from-scratch pasta sauce, and was served up with some homemade garlic toast and vegetables -- followed by a fresh apple crisp with ice cream. And a cup of tea. And then a mug of milo (thanks Hannah!!! We found the same kind at Jungle Jims and are well stocked now, thanks to you!) and a few graham crackers. :-)

Good night!!