1st Grade & Preschool Complete

It's strange how quickly a school year flies by. Here's Noah on the first day of 1st Grade:

 Fast forward nine months to the last day of 1st Grade:

 Noah has grown up so much this school year. He's become a very good reader, enjoys math, loves PE and recess. He never complained about going to school. He loved to see his friends and he likes all his teachers.

 I'm so thankful he enjoys school. He was upset the other night because school was coming to an end and he wouldn't be able to see his friends every day anymore.

 Hopefully, I can make good on a promise to have a few of his buddies over during the summer.

 He's also grown more freckles this school year.

 Noah developed the habit of going to grandma and grandpa's house for breakfast. The bus left the yard at 7am each school day, but Noah would get there by at least 6:30 to ensure he'd have enough time for breakfast. Today, Levi joined in.

 Today was also the last day of preschool for Levi. He spent two years at the Kinder Haus in Goessel and loved every minute of it. His teachers, Gayle and Aunt Pat taught him a lot - most of the time he didn't even realize he was learning. That's the beauty of preschool, learning and fun go hand-in-hand.

 We are so thankful for the four years of education Gayle and Pat provided for our boys. It's a bit sad to see our preschool days come to an end.

 But we know this silly little guy's ready for Kindergarten!

Levi declared he's now a kindergartner and Noah wants us to call him a second-grader.  My goodness, time certainly does fly by.

Soccer

Noah loves to play soccer. The boys in his class play at recess nearly every day. He thoroughly enjoyed the four soccer clinics he had this past month.

 It was fun to watch how much more coordinated and confident Noah was this year compared to last.

 He also had a lot of fun with his classmates.

 Levi had a good time playing on the school playground, running around kicking soccer balls,

 and playing with friends. Levi misses seeing Kreed, but the two of them had a good time running around together at soccer.

Garden View

Just in the last week we've had consistent spring-like weather. Last year by mid-May we had summer-like weather. Here's what our garden looked like on May 11, 2012:

 And here it is on May 11, 2013:

What a difference a year makes! Our potatoes are up, but only about five inches tall. We haven't even planted green beans yet. Our tomatoes and peppers are spindly and small.
I think gardening is an adventure and this spring has truly been an adventure. The onions, garlic, potatoes and lettuce have been through an ice and snow.  Thank goodness that seems to be in the past.

Chicken Barn Finale

The chicken barn....oh what a project it has been. It started out as a simple clean-out job. Ben and I decided it was something we could tackle. The half of the barn that had originally been for several hundred chickens, then hogs had largely been ignored for years. We thought it was time to clean it out. 

This photo was taken after we'd done considerable work to cut out hog stalls and Ben ripped down the old chicken wire and straw "ceiling". What a mess!

 This is how it looks now - a safe and secure chicken house.

The outside of this decades (if not a century) old building had been ignored for far too long. Calves that used to live in part of the barn had done a lot of damage to the windows and siding.

Here it is now:

We got our nesting boxes from my great-uncles farm:

 And a couple Friday's ago Ben and I (pretty much Ben) built the roost for our chickens. We hope it works as well in reality as we think it should. When the chicken poop has piled up sufficiently underneath the roost, we can pull the whole thing away from the wall to scoop it all out. Only time will tell if our plans work out.

 Before: 

After:

The only part that is not complete is the west side. The supplies are now on-hand, soon the face lift will be complete! 

Around the farm...

Photos from around the farm:

Strawberry Patch Cage

Tim and Sue are visiting this weekend and as usual when they visit, we put them to work. Recently, Sue posted photos on Facebook of a PVC and chicken wire cage they created to keep critters out of the raised beds in her garden. 

 Ben and I had been brainstorming about ways to keep the birds out of our strawberry patch and when we saw what Tim and Sue had created for their garden, we knew we'd found the solution!

 Our strawberry plants are about a year old. They aren't huge but they made it through this endless winter and actually have a few blooms. We're hopeful that we'll have a small strawberry harvest this year and look forward to more plentiful harvests in years to come.

 We were thankful for the sunshine yesterday but felt chilled all day due to the strong north winds.

 The finished cage fits our raised bed just right, and is lightweight enough for us to easily remove when we need to.

 Now we wait for warm sunny weather and hopefully lots of yummy strawberries!

Kindergarten Round Up

Levi had Kindergarten Round Up on Friday. He was very, very excited about it. He got dressed up, did his hair and spritzed some cologne on!

 He found his name tag, sat down and immediately turned silly.

 He worked hard to get the girl next him laughing....so much like his father.