This Week at Our House #21

Time runs together right now. Though I keep very busy and often am not sure where that time went. It rained the whole week straight. It started last Saturday night and did not stop until Thursday. Thursday we had about 5 hours with no rain. Thursday night, we had huge thunderstorms that blew out a burner on the stop top. I'm guessing, we had a power surge. I was standing beside the stove when it happened. Friday, the sun came out, and I got the laundry mostly caught up on. Saturday, I spent four hours getting my gardens weeded, and the beans and the large tomato bushes staked up and off of the ground. Some of my garden is looking really good, and other parts, not so much. I need to change one section, so that it will drain better. I have been working very hard on this year's garden. We will definitely get a lot of herbs and a lot of

tomatoes. Some of the watermelon, some of the corn, and the butternut squash are looking the most promising. Some of the turnips are looking good too. The potatoes are harvested and did terribly. We had three frosts after they had sprouted. Ruth, Kate, Johnny, and Adam went about their own business all week. Kate did the grocery shopping with me. I think it may be a year or more before I can bring kids to the stores again. The grocery shopping always takes several hours with the driving, the shopping, the loading, the unloading, and the putting it all away. I wish we had a second fridge or at least a chest freezer.

While out, I bought Kate another parakeet. She loves her birds. Rachel has her little to do list that she is supposed to complete each day. She does not like growing up and being responsible. She would like to just play like Susan all day long now. Anya likes to draw all day long and does not like being interrupted from that. She told me on Friday that her choice of activity is completely legitimate and I need not bother her to do chores. Joseph spends a lot time on the computer drawing. I wish he would stay away from the computer more. Joshua has been building legos a lot. Arwen is my companion for animal care. I made a pen in the garage for the young chickens. It does not

have an easy in and out, so Arwen goes in to hand me their food dishes and to plug and unplug the heat lamp. In another month, these chickens should be able to join the rest of the flock. But, I think I will find a way to make the pen more permanent and more accessible as it will be a good place for mother ducks and hens to hatch eggs and any future baby chicks or ducks. Susan is very interested in dates, days, months, and time. She confused John when she asked if they could do the time-is thing. She was asking for him for the time of day.

Sam's finally talking a lot more. I have been a little worried about it. He's always understood well, but his pronunciation is horrible. He puts a 'b' in for pretty much any sound he can't say. So this is bis, and Gideon is Bideon, etc. Gideon's a little monster. I'm hoping that this precocious one year old will turn into an easy two year old, as he acts two now. He opens doors, climbs up things, works on figuring out locks, and watches where we put things so he can go back and get them when we're not looking.

On Thursday night,after Arwen, Susan, Sam, and Gideon were sent to bed, at their normal bedtime, they

This poor kitty had 3 dead premature kittens.

didn't go to sleep. When we went to check on what was keeping them awake, they had caught a frog and were sitting in the hall outside the bathroom.Gideon was in his crib, happily watching them. (Sometimes frogs come into the house through the plumbing. I think it is a country living thing.) They had filled a bucket and a cup with water and were moving the frog from the bucket to the cup. When Ruth found them, Susan had a toothbrush and soap and said she was going to clean the frog. Ruth safely moved back outside the house, but all the cats were sitting there, so who knows if that frog survived. Anya pointed out that we rarely have frogs on the back windows anymore and she believes that's the cats faults. The chickens eat frogs too.

This is my kitchen garden. It's growing by leaps and bounds

the beans and the tomatoes are really growing

this is about four weeks younger than the kitchen garden

this is my youngest garden planted 6 weeks after the first

This is the second garden. With some newer smaller watermelon plants

the potatoes are harvested, the butternut squash has some young buds. The corn goes to my knees

This is the 3rd garden. I hope to see a lot more growth in two weeks. You can see the food compost in the background. I'll dig that into the garden after all is harvested for next year.

We have 4 girls and 2 boys with these Pekins. We're excited to have 4 egg layers and hopefully future mothers