I think this is about the latest spring we’ve had yet.
Although I do recall previous June’s being ‘not-so-lovingly’ called “June-uary” around here.

It seems it’s been crazy weather EVERY WHERE this spring though. So many places hit so hard.

With a couple of nice days here, it was time to get planting! Hubby, four of the kids and I, hit the local shop on Sunday to pick up shingles for the roof of our new porch, and some flowers.

We took a look at the ‘ready-made’ pots and hanging baskets, took one look at the prices, and decided to d-i-y (do it yourself). We d-i-y quite a bit around here! We like it and it saves a ton of money! Ready made is always so much more expensive.

We picked out enough flowering plants for 4 hanging baskets, and 2 large pots. When we divided what we paid, it was the same price per each, as it would have been for the cheapest baskets they had ready made, BUT, those had cheap flowers in them and only one type of flower per basket.

We didn’t want the cheap ones, we wanted the pretty ones with LOTS of color and variety! And that’s what we’ve got now!

I even splurged on some Calla Lily’s, one of my favorites! I’ve never bought Calla Lilly’s for myself before, they were always too expensive, but these smaller ones were very pretty, and the price was alright since I just bought two. One for each larger pot for the bottom of our deck steps.

I can’t wait to watch them grow!

This basket doesn’t look like a whole not now, but I expect within a few weeks with some sun and a little rain, we’ll be seeing some overflowing going on!

For mother’s day, my son had taken me shopping for some plants. I finally found something that thrives in our dark flower bed next to the house.

Hostas! I don’t know why I didn’t think of them before. I had hostas on our previous city lot, and they always did great in the shade. I guess I was always too busy thinking ‘flowers’ to even think of simple greenery. So glad I have something pretty in there now. I have two, but I think I need one more. They aren’t cheap though!

Remember I mentioned that I have no garden, and how silly that seems on a five acre hobby farm?

Well, I now have TWO gardens. Hee hee. They are small, but I think they are awesome anyways. To put a garden in here, we’d need to build a fence, a very high fence. We have a lot of deer, and rabbits. Because we’ve had our home up for sale, we just couldn’t see putting the money into a large garden area if we were just going to be moving anyways. However, 4 summers later, and still no garden, and still no sale, I wanted at least SOMETHING this year.

In the city, I had a big garden. Isn’t that funny?

So we’ve been discussing at least making some garden beds, but wood isn’t cheap either, if you want to do it right!

When hubby was tearing down the back step, he turned the two side steps over, and what did he find? The steps were made like boxes! TWO boxes!

How perfect! I know the lettuce is all a little cramped, but hey, you make do with what you’ve got and I’m not complaining!

We put Sunflowers, two tomato plants and a pepper plant in the other box.

I know it’s not much, but at least we’ll have home grown salads this summer!

I’ve got lots to be thankful for this week so finding seven things should be easy!

First, I’m thankful for my husband. I witnessed him falling yesterday, with a ladder, and my heart just about leaped out of my skin!

He was fine though, and for that, I’m also thankful. VERY thankful! I don’t know how someone falls like that and doesn’t end up with an injury. Even his shoe came off!

I’m thankful today that Teagan slept through the night last night for the first time in 3 days. He was sick, from both ‘ends’, and I was up with him quite a few times each night taking him to the bathroom. That’s very unlike him. He’s really good about sleeping ALL night long and not whining until morning, even if we sleep in! Poor puppy. He’s all well now though and now he’s a whopping 2 pounds 9 ounces.

I’m thankful again for my husband, and my son, because they work so hard to make sure we don’t have to spend thousands a year on heat.

These logs all came off a building lot. Joshua received them for free for a day’s work from a local excavating company. Not bad! We’ve got 3 winter’s worth of wood now I believe.

I’m thankful for helpful children. Helping Daddy.

And helping one another. And having fun doing it. 😉

I’m thankful for innocence, that my 11 and 13 year olds still know how to play.

Once again this week, I’m thankful for my husband’s hard work. He’s rebuilding our back step.

It’s going to look SO nice when it’s all done!
This is what he was working on when he fell with the ladder!

Lots to be thankful for this week, but every week really.

*Sunday Seven. A day to be thankful!- What are YOU thankful for this week?
If you’d like to play along, post seven things on  your blog then leave a link for all of us to come see! Or, simply leave your seven right here in the comments.

Julia is determined to take over Homestead Emporium one day! The sooner, the better, as far as she is concerned!

I keep trying and trying to slow her down, but she’s just having none of that! Yesterday, I finally told her, after her twin sister begged her one more time to PLEASE come and play with her, that she really should, just go and play!

She finally relented.

She says she much prefers to spend her time with adults, and working, then watching tv, going on the computer, or even sometimes, more then playing.

I think she enjoys the feeling of accomplishment she gets from her work.

I really can’t blame her. We’re all very different. Some prefer work, some prefer relaxing, others prefer play. Yet, we all need to learn how to balance it all out.

Our son is the same way. He has ALWAYS loved following his Dad around from the time he could walk. If Graydon was mowing the lawn, Joshua was out there following every zig zag across the lawn with his own little toy mower.

Eventually he grew up and swapped out the toys for the real thing. Now, at almost 18, he can’t keep up with the job offers from friends and neighbours. Some weeks he works 7 days a week. Others ‘only’ six, and only because he had to finally say “no” and take a day off!

Gotta have SOME fun, but for some of us, work is part of the fun!

After much practic, this week, Julia mastered the serger.

She’s been practicing the facial mitts she cuts out. Her goal was to be able to do them entirely on her own, from choosing the fabrics, to cutting them, to now sewing them!

This week, she passed into ‘professional’ sewing skills with these mitts, and they will be IN the shop!

Today!

All hand made, by Julia, from start to finish!

She’s very proud. 

I’m very proud.

We both hope YOU will be very impressed, with her work and pleased with your new facial mitts when you receive them!

Come check out her mitts, and our other new items today at 11am pst, 2pm est!

http://hyenacart.com/HomesteadEmporium/

I had my camera handy yesterday since I needed to snap some photos of custom orders.

I figured I’d snap some ‘non-business’ photos as well!

Yesterday my hubby brought all three of the younger girls with him to run errands and the older two were both at work, so I was all alone. Elsa was pretty excited because yesterday was her ‘pay day’ from helping her Daddy on a job! She’s feeling rich now! I’m proud of her for sticking with the job from start to finish! It took a whole week, and Graydon said she worked VERY well. Stuck with it, and never once complained! When you have a child with some special needs, the questions about how they will do in life as adults, never leaves the back of your mind. Every task she completes is a bonus. Every task she completes WELL, and HAPPILY, is a HUMONGOUS bonus!

It also sets your mind just a little more at ease about that child’s future. She’s 13 now, and doesn’t have quite so many years left to prepare for adulthood. She seems to be doing well though. 🙂

I posted photos of the ducks, when they were ducklings. Here they are hanging out with the hens yesterday.

I’ll be glad when the rains stop. It’s great that everything is now nice and green, however the mud, for the animals, isn’t great at all.

One of the Muscovy ducks is in the background, on the pool. We have two of those as well.

Whoever says you can’t tame chickens… well… they’ve never met any of ours. As soon as the kids go in there and near one, it will sit right down and wait to be picked up.

For lunch, since it was just me home, I made myself a nice big sandwich.

Home grown left over chicken on whole wheat with sprouts and cranberry sauce.

I swear one day, not only will the chicken be home grown but the bread will be home made, the sprouts will be my own and dare I say I’ll even tackle making my own cranberry sauce in the future!

I have grown sprouts many times, but just can’t seem to keep up with it lately. They are SO easy! I should share a ‘how to’ some time soon for anyone who has never tried it.

The bread making, I used to do that too. I’d stuff as many grains as possible into my homemade breads! My eldest sister taught me how many many years ago, when I was only at two children, or maybe it was right before or after number 3?

I made our own bread for a couple of years after that but once #’s 4 & 5 came along… and then the business… well, I just need to figure out a way to either clone myself, or create more hours in a day, or the most plausible but probably the most ineffective, live on 4 hours of sleep. hee hee

Then I’d really be rolling!

How productive I’d be on 4 hours sleep? That, I’m not so sure about.

After lunch it was time to pick up Alesia from work and time for me to get some more work done.

Once hubby and the kids came home, Julia spent the rest of the evening in the studio working with me. She’s been learning how to serge! She started by serging my fabric ends before I wash fabrics that tend to fray, like flannels.

*photo from my phone taken another day.

This week she’s been practicing on mitts and cotton balls. She actually did many mitts just as well as I could, and they will be put up in the shop on Friday! That means she did it ALL. From cutting, to serging! I’m so proud of her, but most of all, I love that she is proud of herself!

These children just grow up way too fast! The days move by much too quickly!

I just have to share some of these photos again of the ducklings from last spring!

We all wish we could get some more this spring, but since our house is for sale, we felt it best to hold off on buying any more ducks, or chicks, this year.

However, because we hate to constantly put EVERYTHING off because we “might” move soon, we are allowing Cocoa to keep some of her eggs right now.

Remember Cocoa?

I swear she’s the cutest duckling ever.

Anywho, she’s all grown up now.

We just have her and Shivers from the original four.

Some may recall that 3 of the 4 ducklings were boys.

Once they grew up, the three of them began fighting over Cocoa. So we had to re-home 2 of them.

It’s too bad they grow up so fast!

They are just too darn cute as babies!

If Cocoa and Shivers are successful at raising a couple of babies, I’ll be sure to snap lots of photos.

And I’ll be sure to share them here!

As I was browsing some old photographs, I found these and it made me long for summer!

We were visiting a nearby lake one day having a picnic lunch and swim.

The kids got a little silly.

These are from a while ago, September 2007 actually. I guess that’s more then a ‘while’.

Time flies much too quickly! Elsa’s grown a little since then. Just a tad.

The younger three were not the only ones being silly.

Shhh…. don’t tell Alesia and Joshua I posted an old photo of them having fun.

But it is silly Sunday afterall!

Saturday Six.

Six things, each Saturday, that I am glad for. It’s good to ponder on those things we’re thankful for in our lives.

Today I’m thankful for:

The smell of freshly cut grass. It means the rain stopped long enough for it to be cut… finally.

I’m thankful for the flowers blooming in my flower beds, as few as they may be. Each one is pretty anyways!

The daffodils, even though they are now dying, because it only means warmer weather should be on it’s way!

The business being busy. As much as I wish I had time to plant a great big garden, I know the blessing of the business is something to be VERY thankful for.

For veggies. Even though I don’t have time to plant a big garden, I will MAKE time to plant a little one. Even in small planters. It WILL be done!

And most of all, today I am thankful for Julia.

A couple of weeks ago I shared on facebook that she found a tick on her arm. I pulled it out and immediately researched things, especially Lyme disease.
After a few of you shared how you never had symptoms of Lyme disease after a tick bite, but have Lyme disease now, my husband and I realized we would rather be safe then sorry and take her into see the doctor rather then play the ‘wait and see’ game.

The doctor said it was VERY rare that she would end up with Lyme disease and that in his 17 years as a doctor here in our area, he had never had a single patient with it.

That was good news, but we wanted to be safe anyways. Although we are VERY careful not to use meds when not needed, we felt this was different. The twins have never had antibiotics in their lives (maybe once as babes??), our kids just don’t get sick a whole lot and we can  usually treat things without intervention.  They might get a flu once a year, but it only slows them down for 24-48 hours and they are back to normal again. We are hardly EVER at the doctors. We take them in about every 3 years, just to say hello and have our doctor check all five of them over. Even then, our doctor keeps telling us we don’t even have to bother with that, but I like to anyways.

All that to say, we’re not the type to rush our kids into the doctors for every little sniffle.

This was different. Lyme disease is something that stays with you if you end up with it. Julia has WAY too much ambition, too many desires in life, all physical, to risk her being plagued with fatigue and flu like symptoms for years and years to come.

The doctor agreed that it wouldn’t hurt to put her on an antibiotic. He also put my husband, who had two marks just like Julia’s on his arm, on antibiotics as well, since we were quite sure he had also been bitten. Much better to be safe, then sorry.

So all was well, the tick bites went down. No rash, no redness, no symptoms.

Then Thursday Julia wasn’t feeling real well. She’s such a trooper though. A tough little nut. Even though we had a ‘short notice’ showing and spent 3 hours cleaning, she never complained.
I wondered about her not feeling well, but also knew the antibiotics can be hard on the stomach and figured we’d wait and see if that’s what it was.

The next day she complained her neck was swollen and she felt worse. Then she got a fever. Her last pill was last night.

She woke up this morning and she still had swollen glands, her eyes were feeling painful, her head hurt, she was still feeling hot, and she just felt overall not well.

I did some more research and learned that these were all ‘possible’ symptoms of Lyme and that it should be treated more aggressively, with antibiotics for 14-30 days. Not just 10 days.

Since it’s Saturday, we had to take her to the walk in clinic. Thankfully the doctor agreed that with her symptoms, we should continue the antibiotics. He put her on a stronger one, and made it an adult dose, for another 10 days.

I sure hope she’s all clear after this! Eleven years of age is MUCH too young to worry about something like this following you the rest of your life.

So today, I’m thankful for Julia. Thankful for the doctor as well, that he didn’t fight us on this, and listened to our concerns.

Maybe it’s all coincidence. Maybe her fever has nothing to do with the tick bite. But having 7 in our home, and her be the only one sick? We’re not taking any chances!

*Saturday Six- What are YOU thankful for today?
If you’d like to play alone, post six things on  your blog then leave a link for all of us to come see!