Friday Morning

It's been an extremely dry and windy spring in Kansas. But this morning it was cool and calm outside. Ben took advantage and burned a bunch of small piles of brush I'd raked up weeks ago. 

 It was a beautiful morning! I stood by the fires to keep warm and soak up the sunshine. :-)

 That dry weather I mentioned? Yep, not good for the wheat.

 It's supposed to be thick, tall and lush at this point - ideally receiving an inch of rain every week. Ha! An inch of rain....that hasn't happened, and those days of 100 degree heat we had this past week didn't help. We'll see what happens between now and harvest...but it looks like a very lackluster harvest is ahead of us.

 Oh Harold. Always ready for an adventure...rarely do we actually meet your expectations.

This was our last Friday before the boys are out of school for the summer. We won't have such a quiet Friday morning to ourselves for the next three months. I write that with equal amounts of joy and sorrow.

And the Garden Grows

The 2014 gardening season is well underway at our place. We decided to scale back this year, just gardening in our main garden area and sticking to only the veggies we eat the most. 

 That means I didn't plant any pumpkins, cantaloupe, watermelon, zucchini or squash. The pumpkins, cantaloupe and watermelon all need lots of space to spread out. But they also need to be surrounded by chicken wire to protect them from the ladies.  Going to all that trouble for this final year of gardening in this space just didn't seem worth it. Plus, I usually spend a lot of time hunting down squash bugs in the pumpkins and with the house well underway we decided that spending lots of time in the garden might not work out very well this year.

 We planted lots of potatoes and onions (although only about half of the onions actually came up!). I also planted some lettuce and spinach. The lettuce was ready to cut this week, but the super-hot temps (100 degrees in May? Give me a break!) turned it bitter. I cut it all off tonight and hope that the temps in the coming week will bring a second growth that we can actually enjoy.

 The beans have sprouted, so have the cucumbers and we're waiting on the okra to appear.

 Ben made me some fantastic (and sturdy!) tomato cages out of cattle panels.

The plants are off to a decent start - now if we'd just get some rain I could stop watering the garden!

House Progress

This post could also be called "Crooked Photos by Tina" apparently I forgot to pay attention while taking these pictures.

 From the outside it doesn't look like anything's happened with our house, but looks can be deceiving! 

Two weeks ago we met with our electrician and did an initial walk-through. That next week the HVAC and electricians were on site. Last Friday, we spent the morning with our kitchen cabinet maker and made final design decisions on our cabinetry. That took quite a while, with some serious thinking, imaging and measuring, but in the end I think we came up with great solutions and a kitchen we'll love.

 This past week the HVAC crew and plumber were on site.
We also got a tiny bit of rain, the first rain to fall on/blow in the windows of this house. That says something about how dry it's been around here....

 This is the part of the house building process that I was told would go slow, and it is. But I don't feel impatient about it. It's enough for me to know that we're moving forward.

 Today Ben and I met with our window/door guy at the lumber yard to go over exterior doors. There are a lot of options with doors. We left with three books and two sets of samples. We also got to see our new windows! They're in Hesston and will come out to the house next week!

After that we went and looked at appliances and got our heads and eyes filled with information, options and dollar signs. Sigh..... Thankfully, we don't need to make purchases anytime soon. We have time to think and shop and save our pennies.
So while the outside is still sporting the fancy Dupont plastic wrap - including that sharp turquoise roof - lots of other good stuff has been happening inside!

Levi's Field Trip

It's school field trip season and this year Ben went with Noah's class and I went with Levi's. 

 Ben and Noah went to Tanganyika Wildlife Zoo in Wichita on a cold, windy and rainy day last week. This week I went with Levi on a hot and sunny day! This Kansas weather - you just never know what'll happen next!

 Levi and his friend Betsy wanted to walk around the zoo together. So Betsy's mom and I followed them around! Sometimes their buddy Trey was with us, too. Betsy wanted me to take a picture of them at every animal statue we came to. I think I have about ten pictures of them on animal statues. :-)

 We had a great time at the zoo. The weather wasn't too hot and the breeze helped to keep us cool.

 The kids were excited about every animal they saw and were happy to feed these fish.

 I was surprised (even if I shouldn't have been) and impressed with the never-ending energy the kindergartner's had.

 Our group gathered together for a presentation by a zoo volunteer. She helped the kids learn about how they keep track of animals, even ones that seem to look exactly alike. It's always interesting to watch a class of kids sit and listen.

 Levi asked me to take this photo...Betsy's enthusiasm for photos was rubbing off on him.

 Then we loaded up on the bus and headed over to Botanica to eat our lunches and explore the Children's Garden. Just before playing in the garden, the kids learned about soil, and what a plant needs to grow.

 The Children's Garden was a busy place with several other schools there on field trips too. It was quite warm in the garden (lots of trees made for no wind) but the kids didn't seem to notice.

 They had a great time running from one area to the next, exploring every nook and cranny they could find.

 Some kids got soaked at this fountain, but Levi just wanted to get his head wet.

 Awww, that feels better!

 These two goofballs had me laughing all day long.

 It was fun to see Levi interact with his friends and get to know his classmates a bit better.

Hot Soccer

The Rec Commission in Goessel offered a soccer clinic and our boys were quick to sign themselves up! They both like soccer, but Noah favors it more than Levi. Like really organized parents we missed the first two sessions because they weren't on our calendar. High five for us! 

 The good news is that we made it to the remaining three sessions - although two of those were the hottest days on record for early May. Saturday morning was beautiful! Noah even started out wearing a long sleeved shirt.

 Sunday afternoon was HOT, crazy hot, but the boys didn't really seem to mind. They got lots of water breaks and still had a great time.

 Tuesday evening it was nearly 100 degrees out, too. Nothing like a heatwave in early May.

 The boys learned new soccer skills, practiced some they already knew and had fun.

 When we got home on Sunday we busted out the swim trunks, sprinkler and umbrella to help them cool off.

 The umbrella really seems to up the "fun" factor for some reason. I think it helps keep the cold water off the boys...but that's just my theory.

 Thank goodness for cool water on a hot afternoon.

Levi

It's been a joy to watch Levi grow and learn this school year. He enjoys trying to write, and he continues to surprise me with his reading skills. He has moments of complete orneriness, complete stubbornness,  sweetness and humor. 

He always shows us everything in his backpack - dumping all of it out on the kitchen table. On this particular day, he decided to gift me with his earth worksheet, lucky me! :-)  How the planet earth came up on this worksheet is beyond me. Maybe it was simply an old worksheet that he was given to color on....yep, I bet that's it.

We sure do love this little guy!

Sunday Evening

Sunday evening was lovely, not too windy (a break from the strong winds we had for days before and after that), and warm enough for us to enjoy being outside. 

 I thought it'd be fun to walk around with my camera and see what I found, a few things surprised me.

Feathers on the grass...never a good sign. Sunday seems to be Chicken Death Day here at the farm. Nearly every chicken that's died over the past year has been attacked on a Sunday. It makes sense, Sunday is the quietest day on the farm...leaving the door of opportunity open for coyotes. 

 And then we spotted this guy in the middle of the farm yard! None of us had ever seen a beaver in person, let alone on the farm. He didn't like Harold but didn't seem to mind the curious humans and chickens.

I wasn't surprised to find Noah...but sometimes I look at him and just marvel at how big he is. How can he be 8? I LOVE his freckles, love them. And those teeth! He's slowly growing into them.

 And then! We saw this lady with her feathers all matted down and nasty looking. We wondered what in the world had happened to her?!

 She actually had feathers missing! We think one chicken fell prey to a coyote or fox and this one escaped. And we continue to think Harold is innocent because he never gives us any reason to think otherwise...except that he doesn't seem to be a very good watch dog. Oh the mysteries and drama that seem to follow these feathered ladies around.

 The guys were on the lookout for more piles of feathers...

 Thankfully they came up short. So now our adult chicken count is at 14 and our chick count is at 28 (one of those randomly died this week, too).

The chickens are in their barn, safe and sound, squawking hopefully at us to let them out. If only they were smart enough to know that we're keeping them in for their own good. Sometimes the circle of life just isn't that much fun.