June Through July! My, Does Time Ever Fly!

June started off with me already up at girl's camp!  This year I was asked to help with camp by serving as a stake first level specialist.  It was a great learning experience!  And as usual, it was great to get home.... and get some sleep! 

Camping in Missouri is so different than what I grew up knowing to be camping.  First, there isn't any green grass where I've camped... and especially, there is no such thing as mowed grass!!  Even though it isn't rugged, surrounded by evergreens, with the air lacking in oxygen, it is really pretty!  The girls opted to try cooking turkeys in our reflector ovens, and everyone cooked biscuits and muffins in the reflector oven boxes next to the fire. 

I had wonderful youth leaders who managed everything sooo well!! 

It was a wonderful experience!

All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl.  It also makes Jack rather boring too.  One Monday evening in June, we packed up hambugers and ran up to Nine Eagles on an impulse.  It was a good impulse and we had a great time!  The burgers were great, the water was fun, and the sunlight was perfect for pictures!



By the end of June we managed to complete the downstairs bathroom in our Nebraska house.  Just in time to show it of to my parents, and Grandma!  We hadn't seen Grandma in six years and this was Gracie Anne's first time meeting her.  After she warmed up she had so much fun talking to Grandma and showing her all of her toys!



This is a bloom from the old rose bush next to the front yard gate.  They do have some charm to them!!



Here is a shot from the gate up the road.  Tim is getting the mail.  Our wonderful neighbors, Ruth Ann and BW are so sweet to think of us and mow the strip of grass next to the road!



While the Grandparents and Great Grandma were here to visit, we squeezed in a quick trip to Nauvoo.  It was a beautiful day along the Mississippi!

We also had an amazing experience to rescue this little puppy from off the middle of the highway.  He was starving to death and couldn't stand for more than a few seconds at a time.

We cleaned him up, fed him and named him Gilligan.



However, within two weeks it became apparent that Gracie Anne was not yet ready to be a dog owner.  A strange "sibling rivalry" came to be and the two were at each other constantly.



A friend of ours helped us find a new adoptive home.  She places rescued and abandoned animals.  She interviewed lots of people and we decided that a young couple who lives 1/2 mile from a dog park would be the best dog owners ever!

So we all cried, said our goodbyes and sent our Gilligan on his way.  We were told that the first meeting was beautiful.  He ran right up to his new mama and crawled up into her arms.  We miss him terribly, but we just know that Gilligan is in good hands and is being loved and spoiled rotten! 

Something Fishy is Going On!

Today was an exhausting day in the garden.  However, we have some great raised rows and plantings to show for it!  This is the new strawberry patch.  We've planted 75 plants.  They will not produce this year because here, we need more growing time.  Spring comes a lot later here than it does in California!  We will pinch off any blooms and allow the plants to get established.  They will also put off runners so we should have a very full patch next June!

Here is the garden plot.  We are raising rows here as well.  Last year I raised a few of my rows and the plants produced so much better than those that were planted on flat parts of the garden.  With all of the rain, we should have planted rice last year, but instead most of our garden drowned!  I think we would have made a killing!!  It'd certainly be a novelty crop here!  The potatoes, peas, lettuce and onions have been planted.  We planted Candy onions and Red Candy Apple onions.  They do really well and are such good onions!  I hope they do well and aren't in too late this year because we are most definitely hungry for some garden food!

So as I'm cleaning things up, I turn around and find that all of my kids have crawled onto the apple cart with their fishing poles.  They think they've earned it!  And I'd sure be a meanie if I said they hadn't!

Upon arriving on the north side of the farm we are greeted by Juliet, our goat who thinks she is a puppy dog!

She wants to get in on the action as well.  She started baaaaing out orders from the moment we arrived and did so until she got bored and went back to the pen that she snuck out of and left poor Uncle Doug crying all by himself.



Sigh!  Getting so sleepy sitting in the sun and listening the birds and the water.  But alas, the catching wasn't great.  Avery's fish wasn't big enough to keep so its time to go home, make some dinner and check everyone for ticks!

Spring!!

We went to the north side of the farm to see about moving the cow, Gladis, and Stanley, the horse, into a new pasture with tall green grass!  Can't believe how quickly the grass is growing already.  Things weren't terribly chaotic, although Gladis did attempt to run away again.  She didn't get very far because she didn't have a sidekick to go with her.  You should have heard her bellowing around the yard and you should have seen her jumping around and swinging her head around in her disappointment!  She finally submitted, however, and joined Stanley, who wasted no time going to work on the yummy green grass!

On our way home we happened by Joe's place.  I was there to talk to him about my chickens, who are in need of a new home now that we are back and forth between here and Nebraska.  When I pulled into the yard he told me he had something to show us.  He brought us through the barn where one of his giant work horses was eating a snack, and into a back pasture where he had three mama sheep who all lambed this morning.  There were eight little babies to ooh and aaah over!  A set of twins and a set of triplets, to be precise!

This evening we will be loading up our hens and taking them over to Joe's.  We'll be buying eggs from them this year.

S-s-s-s-nake!!

I really don't like these, but was actually excited to see signs of life... the kind of life that usually isn't out during cold weather.  Which means that we are nearing the time of the year that warm weather abounds and cold weather is just a really bad memory that we are glad we aren't having to live through anymore...

Pruning, Some More...

It is that time of the year again, where we all try to prune as much as we can and hope that what we actually get done will be enough!  This last week we made pretty decent progress in the Avery Section, our youngest bunch of trees.

 And as it goes with most mechanical type thingies on this farm, they don't usually like to start up when you need them.

So while the Apple Farmer worked on Snappy - our pruning thingy -  I tooke a picture of Taffy digging for rodent type critters.  Don't worry, I didn't take a picture of her eating them....

And before too long -

I found myself on the top of the orchard looking down on creation...

(oooh, the literary technique of allusion...  my kids will be so proud)