13 minutes 40 seconds

That's right...that was my mile time last night. Although, I know this isn't impressive to all you svelte runners out there but it is a huge deal for me! My usual mile time is about 15 minutes. There is a mile run in DW's city coming up at the end of April and I've got to get ready for it. Today, I am feeling like a Superstar!

Why?

Why does Starbucks coffee taste so much better than the coffee I brew at home. I even use Starbucks coffee at home? What is their secret? What do they put in there? Is it the little cup that I'm in love with? I kept my cup from a recent Starbucks visit and rinsed it out. The next day after brewing my own coffee at home I put it in the cup to see how I would feel about things. Nope, not the same.

This issue is bothering me for two reasons. 1. Since I moved out to the country I don't make it to "town" as much as I used to. This means way less visits to Starbucks. 2. EJ and I have been taking a course at church called Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. With my new found budgeting skills I have to think before I spend. Geez, accountability! I have already changed my order from a mocha $4.04 to a black coffee with room for cream and sugar $2.02.

Any Barista's out there who can let me in on the secret? I want to brew this tasty concoction at home! :)

Humor Me

After yesterday's post with the hunter orange stocking cap I had to take and post this picture. You guys hardly ever see me on this blog and when you do I subject you to that fantastic shot!?! Anyway, as you can see, hair and make-up are my friend! :) There I feel better now.

11 hours without power

The storm was beautiful but incredibly inconvenient! We lost power off and on last night and then lost it from 9am - 8pm today. Fantastic! What do responsible parents do in a situation like this. Well, wrap everyone up and head out to play in the snow, of course.

Obviously, I was not concerned with fashion at this moment. It was freezing and I grabbed the closest stocking cap. It just happened to be hunter orange! Bubba was ready to roll as soon as we said "Snow Boots!" He had lots of fun helping Daddy do chores even in the cold!Wubba on the other hand was saying, "Momma" as in "Hold me! It's way too cold out here!" As you can see he found a better spot on Pop's lawn mower. His Thomas Train snow boots sure are cute!Poor flowers!
Coal says, "I'm going home to live with Grammy & Pop"
Speaking of Grammy & Pop, thanks for buying a generator! This little beauty (okay, not little, it weighs 175lbs!) saved the day!
We spent a lot of time hanging out and being silly in the house today. Wubba brought out these shoes for me to put on. Bubba said, "Mommy, these are your princess shoes! They are for grills (girls)." I happily put them on and I have to say I was stylin' in my pink flannel PJ pants and these hot momma pumps. I put these shoes to good use and danced with the boys in the kitchen!

This little buckaroo was looking good in Daddy's cowboy boot.
Thankfully, the generator allowed me to fire up the 'ol microwave and warm up some meatloaf and bake potatoes. Look at that tasty salad! We weren't roughing it at all!

At the Zoo

When the four sisters were growing up we noticed that our folks were always coming up with songs that we thought were made up. In our defense, Pop was always making up songs too. A talent I find myself perfecting as I age.

Anyway, as he would hum and sing a few bars from a song we would all go, "Dad, did you make that up?" "No, it's a real song" he would say. Sure enough, some time later we would hear the song on the radio!

Tonight I was standing in the kitchen singing, "the zoo keeper is very fond of rum. At the zoo" EJ gave me a crazy look and said , "What are you singing?" "I don't know" was my response "Mom and Dad used to sing it." Then EJ mentioned perhaps I might not want to sing about "rum" in front of our kids. My bad.

Later that night, I called Pop & Grammy and told them about the incident in the kitchen. They immediately starting singing...

Grammy: "The monkeys stand for honesty"
Pop: "Giraffes are insincere"
Grammy: "And the elephants are kindly but They're dumb"
Pop: "Orangutans are skeptical Of changes in their cages"
Pop & Grammy: "And the zookeeper is very fond of rum"

I love my parents. :)

In case you are wondering...it's a real song.

At the Zoo
by Paul Simon

Someone told me
Its all happening at the zoo.
I do believe it,
I do believe its true.

Its a light and tumble journey
From the east side to the park;
Just a fine and fancy ramble
To the zoo.

But you can take the crosstown bus
If its raining or its cold,
And the animals will love it
If you do.
Somethin' tells me
Its all happening at the zoo.

The monkeys stand for honesty,
Giraffes are insincere,
And the elephants are kindly but They're dumb.
Orangutans are skeptical Of changes in their cages,
And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

Zebras are reactionaries,
Antelopes are missionaries,
Pigeons plot in secrecy,
And hamsters turn on frequently.
What a gas!
you gotta come and see
At the zoo.

BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES!!!

We are preparing for a winter storm with blizzard capability. Fantastic! We have covered any of the plants that are above ground. What a weird turn of events. It is almost April and we are preparing for a blizzard.

Hang in there my precious onions!!!
The boys and I took Daisy out to go potty (she is still stuck in her kennel). Anyway, it is FREEZING cold out there. The wind is blowing so hard!

Oh man, I better remember to turn the heat lamp back on for the chickens.

I made sure to buy enough bread, milk & juice. Important staples for toddlers!

One more thing...Daisy had her stitches out today. The Vet says she looks great and he won't need to see her for four more weeks. When we go back in they will take the pin out of her leg. She will have to go under anesthesia again.

We will be sure to take pictures of the storm!

My Garden Must Be Cute...

I can't wait to get my little signs in the ground. Oh, that's right, there is supposed to be a blizzard tomorrow. Guess I better wait for a while.

HELLO!!!

Wubba loves talking on the phone. He picks up the phone and just jabbers away. It is a major bonus if I call someone for him and he can hear them respond. (thank you to his patient grandparents and aunts) In this pic he is holding my cell phone up to Bubba's ear. How kind of him to share the pretend phone call with his brother.

Coal embraces country life...

The most gardening done yet...

So Saturday we needed to get some more things done on the garden before it got much more warm. So we were out both Farm Chick (FC) and I and the cowboys. This is the first time we were going to try to do all of this together. I have done most of the gardening on my own while the cowboys were playing or FC was doing various other things. So now we were all out there getting our hands dirty. To get ready to garden, I put the gate up and put some toys in with the tires for the boys. I had especially built this area for us to keep the boys in and NOT in the garden stepping on stuff and digging things up...etc. So as you see it here is how it sat for most of the time that we were out there because the littlest cowboys thought that since his mommy was there that he had to be right at her heels. This didn't make for a good time for FC and I.

So I had to take matters into my own hands....I parked the tractor just outside the fence and look who was playing, just sitting on the seat for around 2 hours of his Saturday!!!

So we planted green onions (sets) pictured here... red and yellow...around 120+ of them.
Here's another picture of them...with the eldest cowboy. He helped us pack them into the soil, and put them into the valley.

Then we also planted regular onions and lettuce. We planted around 132 onions by my count, I did them in staggering 3 rows here. Right next to the lettuce that we planted also, which is between them and the peas. They look soooo good now just standing straight up and already there. We even have about 30-50 onions left over that we could plant later if we wanted to.

We then planted 7 strawberry plants and a blueberry plant in our raised bed that you can see in the background here. So we now have 9 different things in the ground growing. OH AND WE HAVE PEAS that have germinated! WAHOO!!! I won't have to plant but a couple of things in April, and then another 9 things in May. So we'll have a break for a while. However tomorrow we get our drip system and I'm sure that I'll be more excited than a 4 year old on Christmas eve when I get home tomorrow night, ready to set it up!

Keep posted on the updates on how that goes!

First Pair of Wranglers

Bubba is so proud of his new Wranglers! Aren't they adorable. I have to say I got a heck of a deal on them. I found them at a used clothes store for 5 bucks. In the past year Bubba has really grown tall. He's not a baby anymore! Jeans he used to wear are falling down around him because the waist is too big. Wranglers fit the bill!

Daisy's Do

Daisy came home on Monday. She is on strict "Kennel Rest" for 6 weeks. She isn't allowed to be out of her kennel unless she needs a bathroom break. She has to be on a leash so she won't take off on a run and break her leg again. She is always excited to get out and wants to party! You have to hold the leash tight and encourage her to settle down. She is on a pain pill and an antibiotic.
Here is Huck telling his sister how much he missed her. Then in the next picture he insults her new hair cut.DW hooked Daisy up with a bigger Kennel! We put her there during the day and then at night we put her in her usual smaller kennel. She is already bored and this is only the end of week 1!

Sometimes we kennel Huckleberry next to her for an hour or so during the day so she isn't lonely.

This weekend EJ is planning to set her kennel out by the garden so she can watch us work. We are all glad to have her home! :)

Gardening Part XXVIV

OK so you all saw in our last post that I spent hours hoeing up 4 30' rows for potatoes. So I talked to my mom, who plants potatoes every year and has for years. She said that a good estimate is that I could expect to get around 10+ potatoes from each hill...I have 4 30' rows and I planted the hills about 6" apart, so that's 120' of every six inches apart, that's ~2,400 potatoes!!!! WOW! Well, there's some meals that will be put on the table becuase of some hard work. I'm all about providing, if you know anything about me. I'm always trying to find more/better ways to provide for my family!

Here I'm showing you my anal retentive side of me with the tape measure at my feet I'm marking with a hoe where about to plant the cauliflower (every 2'), so in a 28' strip I have 14 plants. With the measuring tape I'm able to make sure that I don't plant them too far apart or too close together. Notice my hard working helper in the background!

My youngest got in on the fun tonight by helping me with the potatoes early on (along with his brother) and as you can see here the cauliflower. On the potatoes the boys would go dig their grubby little paws into the bag and dig out a cut potatoe and then I'd tell them where to put them. After that they both helped pushing the dirt into the valleys over the potatoes...how fun!Another view of me getting dirty planting the cauliflower.
Here's a pic of both the cauliflower on the right and the broccoli on the left.
This Saturday we're planning on more fun with the garden, so be ready for more installments of GARDENMAN!!!! Da da da da! (to the sound of a superhero soundtrack...)

Some St. Patty's Day Farmin'

Ok so here's the trellis that I built for the peas. Again, there's t-posts with 2x4s lashed to the top of them. Halfway nailed in nails to tie the line to. I ran the line both horizontal and vertical to create the grid.

Here's another view.

Today I got off work, just a bit early and hoed my potato rows. The veggie bible that I have read said to put them 3-4" deep, so I dug the trenches about 3' apart and 3-4" deep. This is pretty tough work. It'll be gratifying in the end though. As I grow older I have become more and more willing to do really hard work to get to the end I want. Not that I didn't do hard work or laboring work when I was younger, in fact most of my jobs that were summer jobs were hard labor jobs. Now I just really am enjoying more of this kind of work.
I also took and planted my broccoli plants! Don't they look great!??!! It's now also nice to have some things growing ABOVE the ground! Makes it look even more like a garden. I'm a little nervous about myself because I'm rather impatient and have a hard time waiting. I realize now God is probably up there thinking..."ha ha ha, EJ has this great idea to plant a garden, this is going to be really funny to watch how he deals with the waiting...I hope he grows and learns to be better." If not Him, then I know my lovely wife will be saying that!

First planting of the season!!! WAHOO!!!

So I set out to plant some peas today. I didn't have much time and needed to get two 30' rows from bare ground to in the ground and watered. I had a "helper" who wanted to bring another assistant along with him. I kindly declined the assistant's help (the dog). However he was REALLY ready to get into the garden...a place in which I have been rather protective of since we put up the fence so as to NOT disturb the soil before planting since I had tilled it...oh.....about a million times! Then a million more with poo. "Don't step in the dirt" was a very common phrase coming out of my mouth for the whole afternoon.

So we set out...he on one end of the garden "raking" it to perfection for some later date, while I to work on the peas. So I put steaks on the ends of both rows with lines run between them to mark where the peas would be planted. This was done after I had raked the area to a nice level plane. Then I took my nifty "row hoe" as I'll call it...it looks like a hoe in the shape of a piece of pie. This dug a trench for me to put my pea seeds into. I read on the KSU research and extensions website that you're supposed to plant them 1-2" apart...for 30' that's alot of seeds...for those of you who are mathematically challenged that's 180-360 seeds per row and 360-720 total! LOTS OF SEEDS! Here's a pic. See how nice and straight and neat they are?

Then I packed them down and built my trellis. I had T-posts driven in-between the two rows then I had 3 10' long 2x4s that I lashed to them. In those 2x4s I had nails about ever 8-12" sticking out of them. I then created a grid with my line to create the trellis for the peas to grow on. Rather inexpensive if I do say so myself!

Then I had to water of course, I don't have my drip system in yet, so I had to use a fan sprinkler to water them with. I do however have the system on order and it should be here within a week. You will of course hear all about it when it gets here. To help with the watering and the drip system, Pop is getting the well working again so that we can use the well water to run to the garden! YAY...today the electrician was here getting well house power. Now all we need is to get the pump a goin'. Here soon we'll have the garden running on all gears...it's kinda weird to finally have some seeds in the ground and some plants actually starting to come up.

The last thing is that the eldest buckaroo and I prayed over the peas and asked that God would bless the garden, the peas, and all the plants that would be planted in there. We asked that he would bless the people who work on it, the people who eat the food it provides and the animals who eat what's left (the chickens). How cool to get my 3 year old talking to the LORD ALMIGHTY about our garden!

Jeremiah 29:5-6 This is the LORD talking...

"Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease."

How cool...