Happy July Birthday!

Last year I decided that Jeff needed his birthday changed! It is the day after Christmas and I could never celebrate him properly. So this year and last our family has made July 26 Jeff's Birthday. We were supposed to go to an old-fashioned wheat threshing and hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it was down pour so we have to take a rain check for the adventures. He still got some extra attention - and the "chocolateyst" cake I could find. I searched for the chocolate cake recipes until I found the Honey Bunny recipe from BettyCrocker.com. Jeff likes his chocolate to be definitively chocolate, so I did just that. The girls helped make and decorate. And then he wanted to pick up some items he'd won from FreeCycle - which we ended up coming home with a free dinner, pasta maker, and men's socks...oh, yes, and a new lunch box - that was from Kmart! The man like free and he likes to shop!

Good-bye

We tried to save one of our chickens, but to an avail. Two got out of the coop and the neighbor dog came an got Cecil and the one pictured - there are four roosters that look the same so it never got officially named. Jeff ran after the dog and got this one out of its mouth. I tried to help it, but I think there were internal injuries.

Black-Eyed Susans

This summer at the library there are weekly activities for the children's reading program. We have really been enjoying that - balloon art, magic show, and tomorrow we actually go to make kaleidoscopes. The girls love the flowers in front of the library.

Summer Adventures

Here Jubilee took it upon herself to "de-screw" and then "re-screw" her play phone. She started with Daddy's big electric screw driver and then decided to go with the hand-held one.
The bottom picture was when I washed our sand - yes, I washed it! The cat used it as a litter box apparently and it smelled horrible. So we dumped the sand on a blanket and hosed it off and then the girls pretended they were at the beach. Hopefully there is nothing too unsanitary about that! :)

Summer Portraits

I took these in the back yard recently. The girls seem to be growing so much to me!

How does your garden grow?

The garden is growing! The corn is alreading 5 feet. The tomatoes are ripening and the zuc, watermelon, and cucs are practically like weeds. I dont water it, but wait for the rains, which the Lord has been so good to bring. I have dried grass under all the plants so the water doesn't evaporate so quickly. I am proud of our first try! The bottom picture shows the baby chicken coop turned over on top of the bean plants. We found some fuzzy, yellow bug eating the leaves and stuck a few chickens in there to eat them.

Dr. Doolittle

On Sunday morning before church Jeff went for a walk. He brought home a surprise...a little bird. It was laying on the side of the road and had one eye missing. So the rescue started. We sat the tiny bird in the tree near where it was on the side of the road seeing if the mama would come back for it...when she did not we took it in. We have "him" in the cat box the roosters came it (isn't that confusing). We have him nicely bedded and feed him wet chicken food and water from the medicine dropper. When I open the box to feed him, he opens his mouth wide waiting for me to fill it. He will sit so quietly with absolutely no fear - probably because he never was taught. So, I have added songbird rehabilitation to my resume...along with chicken rescue - as one of our chickens needed some saving this week...Cecil is doing just fine, he got out and the rooster found him before I did. The big rooster just about pecked him to death. But he is just fine now. No need for textbooks yet, our homeschooling is full of spontaneous lessons.

Blackberry Surprise!

On Saturday we went to the River again to fish, picnic, and swim. We tried a different part of the river, and it turned out to not be a very good place to fish or swim. As Jeff was casting a few times the girls and I went for a walk further down bank to see if there was a better spot for swimming. We didn't find any, but all of a sudden Jubilee said, "Look, Mama so many blackberries!" We praised God for saving such a blessing for us. We filled half a little cooler full of ripe blackberries. The best part was that they were very easy access so we didn't have to fight thorns. We picked until we couldn't see any more ripe ones! We didn't catch a fish that day, but we sure came home with a surprise! I ended up making a bunch of blackberry syrup so we can fill our muffins with something different!

Scavenger Hunt

We participated in our church's family scavenger hunt. It was so much fun!! They gave us a list 100 things to find around town, and we were to take a picture with us and the object. (Here we have Jeff and the girls with a satellite dish and me and the girls with a FedEx box.) After our half hour was up we gave our chip and our pics were downloaded. Over dinner, all the families saw each others' finds on the a big screen.

Chicken Business

These two fellows joined our flock about 2 weeks ago. One is a turken - he has a "naked neck" as no feathers grow there. They free-range the yard eating my tics, so the first useful act accomplished by our birds! They do not play well with our growing chicks (the whole pecking order is very clear) so they will become dinner soon - that is, after they fatten up on all the bugs!
Jubilee has make friends with Chip - our milk-chocolate-brown hen. She waits for Jubi and will just sit so quietly in her arms. This is very amazing for us to see as the others want nothing to do with any of us.