A Peak Inside

I know I haven't been writing anything but puppy news, that's because my life took a very different turn a few years ago and my writing followed. My main blog is now Our Bit of Dirt.
After years of thinking all I wanted was a small garden, I came to realize what I truly love.

Homesteading.

For those that liked my writing, family or hilarity; feel free to drop by the new blog.

From new eggs to meeting our new hens.

To the amazing finds I've been able to snag this Spring!
Free tomatoes to a driveway full of bricks!

My life is full of new fruit trees, berries, grapes, potatoes and so much more!
I've met some truly amazing people along the way.
Learned more than I thought I would in a short span of time and have continued to find new loves!
Jams, jellies, wine and pies are in our fresh future!

Last winter I started repairing two of my quilts that are getting thread bare and have started to repair them.
We continue to build, add and grow new things.

In the last two years our lives have changed so very much - feel free to watch the crazy ride!

Moving Homestead!

Ever since we bought our home five in a half years ago we have been working on adding to it! Changing the weed choked over grown back yard into a multi use space.
As you can see from my first two blogs on our house to be back in 2010 House & House part 2 we have worked hard to create a viable space, one for us, our kids and our mini farm.

Over time this blog has been filled with all my drama! Family, friends, kids, outings, camping, trips, pets, projects, rants, movies, books, recipes and other nonsensical tidbits.
Trying to get any type of sense, or reason for my mash up was impossible. Good news for all, I am moving the main bulk of what I've focused on for the last few years - our growing urban homestead.
My gardens, chickens and rabbits - plus all my future homestead projects to a more focused blog.

So if growing things - animals or plants, composting, green houses, building the items your self or doing it all on a small bit of land on a very tight budget is something you are interested in please follow my new blog over at Our Bit of Dirt.

This blog, Blessed Rain, will focus on family and friends - I will warn you that I won't be posting here as often but its not going completely dormant.
You have been the best and the most amazing people! Thank you so much for your friendship and support over the years.

When we first moved into our home I couldn't imagine raising chickens or rabbits but couldn't wait to get my fingers into the dirt!
Now I can't imagine my life without them! We hope to add many new things to both our yard and our lives - bee keeping, aquaponics, a green house, rain barrels and fingers crossed learning how to distill oils!
See you there!

Our Urban Farm

We have the very large back garden where we grow the large things, zucchini, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, corn, peas ect. (The list is varied and changes yearly but those are the basics)

The upper photo of the lettuce is my wonderful and amazing grow box, showing only one of four sections. Its growing fabulous this year and I can't wait until I can start to harvest it sometime next month. We start it in March, replant it in summer and enjoy lettuce until late fall.

The lower large photo is my kitchen garden. The blog to how we made it is here. Last year we planted carrots, onions, dill, radishes and cilantro in it.
This year we've planted two large sections of carrots (raising rabbits has increased my desire for lots of carrots). We moved the garlic from the upper garden into the middle sections and they are growing amazingly!
Last years dill is coming up around the garlic and they seem to be growing well together! By the time the dill needs more room the garlic will be ready to be harvested (normally mid-July). So we will see how well it does when I pull them out.
The lower photo of the plants came as a surprise, this year when tilling our back garden we found wild scallions growing!
I've already chopped up a handful and cooked them up with pork chops! Very yummy!

As I blogged before (here) we have added meat rabbits to our family. These are the breeders so they have been named and will continue to be doted on. The kids have permission to fall in love with them (as we hope and pray they all turn out to be good breeders)
Hubby designed and built the hutch all on his own from mostly reclaimed wood we were given for free!
On top we built a grow box and are currently growing wheat grass for the rabbits! Up next we will be building the grow out boxes for the babies we hope to have later on this year when these four are old enough.
Fun facts about rabbits - the males are the sweet ones! With many species the males are dominant and aggressive - not so with rabbits! If you are looking for a pet rabbit, choose a male! They are the sweetest things ever, I ADORE Zorro! Such a love!

Then come my ladies! I adore my hens! All 9 are well, we are getting 7-9 eggs daily now that its warmed up. We've been getting so many eggs I've started to sell them, 1-2 dozen a week!
Also I've added Mukluks, the latest in Chicken Couture - in spring and fall when the rain pours down (as it did ALL week this week) these are a must! 

My girls are the sweetest, fluffiest nutters! When hubs wanted chickens a few years ago I couldn't fathom raising them (he hadn't even mentioned rabbits!). Gardening, I was good with. I love playing in the dirt! 

Love the feel of earth, love fresh lettuce, carrots and our first harvest of garlic last year might actually last us until we can harvest in July - but I've been milking them along! We love garlic!

Raising chickens scared me! I was worried about the amount of care, time and health of taking care of them in such a mixed climate as Northern Utah has - bitter raging cold in winter and fiery hot summers.

They have been a joy!

I can't even believe it took me so long to get them! I don't know why more people don't have chickens in places its legal to raise them!

Next year (or the year after, life always throws odd things at us) we hope to add honey bees. We are also working on converting our small shed or even building a green house for an aquaponics system. Hopefully in the future we will have lettuce all year round, along with duck weed and fish.

So we have a bit of land, not much at all really, but manage to have a small homestead set up. The key is to take it one step at a time. I'm not overwhelmed with everything because we've slowly added one thing at a time.

Until next time ;) stay safe and healthy!

Meet our Meat Rabbits

The top two bays of the rabbit hutch

Yes, the title really did read rabbit. No, its no longer a popular meat here in the USA. However, for many years it was a dietary staple.
After getting chickens last year, my darling hubby decided we were also getting rabbits.

When I say decided I mean he started creating plans, figuring out where he was going to put them and then of course finding us local meat breeders willing to sell us a few young breeders!

Meet Stormy & Misty our Does

Zorro our Buck

My only chore is making sure they are fed, watered and then finding ways to cook them up!
This week we butchered our practice bunny. An adorable white bunny we had named Bonnie, until we realized that Bonnie was indeed Bubba.
I cooked rabbit for the first time! It turned out amazing! Here is a link to the recipe.

Now Zorro is only 13 weeks and the Does are only 7 so it will be several months until we can think about baby bunnies. For now we are going to finish building the bottom two bays of the hutch, Then build out the growing pen.

The wood for the hutch we received from a friend of ours, it used to be fencing but had been damaged. We were able to salvage much of the wood and create a beautiful hutch all at the same time.

For those interested, my husband and daughter are making a video of building the hutch. It will be posted to their blog in a few weeks when the bottom is completed.

As for us, we've been busy. We have several spring projects we are hard at work on and will be planting the cinder block garden this weekend. I already have lettuce growing and raspberries to plant!
Our chickens are all healthy, fine and laying! We got a full 9 eggs the other day so Spring is truly here!

Blessing to all, may your life be full!

Nesting Box Curtains

After a ton of Chicken Coop research - see my Chicken Board on Pinterest here, I realized that the pretty curtains I'd seen in other photos of coops were more than just decoration.

Here are links to my favorite articles on them:

7 Reasons to Hang Curtains
Chicken Coop Curtains 
&
Breaking the Broody

Now I put up the left side first since that where the majority of our chickens like to lay their eggs. It wasn't until the day after I had put the first set of curtains up that we had any of the stated issues.
One minor pecked at egg - the inner film was still intact so it was edible.
In the week following both sets of curtains being up, we haven't had any issues and I'm praying that continues.

The girls seem to enjoy them and they were a snap to put up!

Materials:
One torn old bed sheet
Staple gun
Staples
Scissors

Time: 5 minutes a side.

I took the material out, measured it by hand, cut, stapled, cut up the center and tied off the sides. Seriously that simple.

Now there are different ways to hang curtains, if you click on my board or even search using the words nesting box curtains you will see a variety of styles.
From what I've read I most likely will need to rehang a new set every spring. Time will tell. So far the girls leave them alone.

I will continue to save old sheets and clothing for random projects such as these!

Fence & Chicken Feed Box

We found several different types of feeders to help keep the food off the ground. Many are extraordinary and creative.
We went for simple. At the moment the feeder works well and they can all mash in there and eat at the same time.
Winter time may bring about change but for summer this is working.

The other set of photos shows the before and after of the fence! I finally have a full fence to keep kids, chickens and our adorable dog from our vegetable garden!
Again all the fencing used for the fence came from the very large bundle we picked up for a penny a board at Lowes last year. $26.00 total and we are still doing projects with the wood!
Best sale EVER!!!
For those that want to know how to score that type of deal its not easy. Lowe's has both a cull section and a throw away section. We found two large flat carts to be thrown away, since management can't give away items even if they were going to write them off as a loss and throw them away, we were able to get them to agree to a penny a board. Still an amazing deal but it takes looking around Lowes almost every week, talking to the lumber guys and talking to management - frequently and nicely.
This is where it pays to have married a nice, polite man.
It also pays to bite your tongue when he's dragging you around the store for the 5th time in a month.

Back to talking about our garden so far this year we have corn, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, dill, radishes and watermelon growing. I may have one or two pumpkin plants but I'm not sure yet if they are going to produce anything.

This has been a full summer! Filled with house projects, chickens and kids.

We still need to bring down the chimney and convert the leftover box to an electric fire place but one weekend at a time!

Chicken Roof

We brought home our baby chickens in February. They were small tiny balls of fluff. They stunk up the house, caused me sleepless nights and in general drove me crazy - especially when they started hoping out of their box and attempted to either join me on the treadmill or get killed by the treadmill.

Thankfully, before any of them were hurt by my workouts it had warmed up enough (long, warm, crazy spring this year) for us to build the coop and take them outside.
While they were adjusting to life outside and they were still small enough to roam the mini night yard, we worked to build them a larger yard, a fenced safe area for them to spend the majority of their days. (We do still let them range free in the main yard as well)

What we were missing, a vital part to wintering our chickens here in Northern Utah was a good roof.
Now, there are a few (very few) homes here in Utah with flat roofs, I will let you in on a secret if you ever decide to move here - don't buy a house with a flat roof.
Its not every year that Utah gets massive amounts of heavy wet snow that never melts, but the one in every few years that we do - its serious.
With the new roof we also hid the heat lamp inside of it, using the staple gun to tack the cord to the wall holding it still.
In the winter we will have a hot rock to keep their water from freezing and the heat lamp on to keep them warm and toasty.
Now all we need to do is run a power cord from the house to the coop!

For those that are paying attention yes that is the same wood as the fence both behind and around the coop, yes its still apart of the original wood we snagged for $26.00 last year - we also finished the garden fence with it as well - but that's tomorrows post!

Uber busy!

I have been crazy busy the past few weeks. I've made a footstool, roofed the chicken coop for winter, built a fence and a feeder with the husband. Gone to Friday nights music & movie in the park with friends. Enjoyed rain and sunshine.
I've taken a myriad of photos. So what I plan to do is break them all up into small mini blogs.
This is the teaser.
I'm scheduling them so hopefully one a day will post for the next full week.

If you click on today's picture you can see the girls (chickens)  having a ton of fun.
We are now averaging 5-7 eggs daily and they are growing in size as well.
Each hen is starting to show their unique personality.
I did have to change one name. Instead of having both an Anne and an Annabeth, I switched Anne to Lizzie.
One day when we get new hens I will use the name Anne, but for now we want to uncomplicate things.

Tomorrow we are watching Box Trolls in the park with our friends Shayne & Sara as well as Lori & Neil. I love spending time with everyone!
Saturday my bestie and I are going to see Pentatonix and Kelly Clarkson - hopefully the storm that is supposed to blow in this weekend will have moved on - especially since its an outdoor concert!!!

The kids are determined to enjoy the last few days before school starts on the 24th and I am working on getting the house set up for another round of online schooling.
Sorry I haven't been updating as much as I used to but for some odd reason it feels like life has just taken off lately and I'm rushing behind it trying to catch up.
With that said - stay tuned!

Eggs, Girls and Life

I know its been ages since I've blogged (again) summer here has been HOT. Our garden is hanging on by a thread. Parts are growing well, while others are withering and dying.

The kids are having the time of their lives even as their school supplies have started arriving. To keep them on track they have been doing very light summer school and reading each day.

On to the fun and insane topic that I really, really find funny. Our chickens! First off a few of them are laying already - cute tiny half sized eggs. We just ordered their legs bands so I can finally start naming all of them - instead of the two names I had because they were the only ones I could tell apart from the rest.

Tiny egg next to a golf ball

Also side note - out of the 12 babies we bought 9 survived to adulthood. ALL 9 seem to be female. What are the odds of buying unsexed babies and finding they're ALL girls!?!
Hubby added another set of laying boxes since we ended up with more girls than we thought we would.

Now back to naming the ladies. Drumroll....

1. Lemony Snicket (yes male name but since my beautiful Americana looks like lemon pepper seasoning it works. Lemony Snicket pen name for Daniel Handler)
2. Henrietta (You can't have a flock of hens without this name. Don't argue with me, I'm convinced this is a must.)
3. Clary (Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare)
4. Hermione (Harry Potter by J.K Rowling)
5. Anne (Jane Austen's Persuasion)
Anne has been changed to Lizzie from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice having both an Anne and an Annabeth was too confusing for the kids. Later on down the road when the flock changes we will have an Anne again.
6. Polgara (The Belgariad & The Mallorean by David Eddings)
7. Vin (Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson)
8. Kahlan (Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind)
9. Annabeth (Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan)

I don't know if you can tell but I LOVE reading. There were a few names that we cut out because we knew they would be uber popular and/or no one would know they were from books.
Cut names were Arya (both from Eragon and Game of Thrones), Esther (Dickens Bleak House), Tris  (Divergent), Rose (Vampire Academy) & Poppet (Night Circus).

Not all of the girls but most of them

Summer seems to be flying past! Highlights so far include my amazing B-day weekend, 4th of July party at Shayne's, lazy pool days with the kiddos and my sister scoring an amazing job!
Hope everyone else is having an amazing summer!

Chicken Haven Complete

I'm sore and tired, but extremely happy that one major summer project is finally complete.
Sure we may tweek the top of the coop come fall, we may add another set of laying boxes to the other side of the coop, but for now at least, its done.

We lined the insides of the fence with chicken wire as well to keep them in and Patch out. He LOVES the chickens but wants to play, bite their necks, so he has to stay on the outside of the fence.

Update 8/8/15: Patch actually LOVES the chickens (not in a bad way) when they are together in the same yard the most he does to them is to try to gently herd them back into their smaller yard and out of his yard. We still have to keep them separate though due to his LOVE and OBSESSION with rolling in their wet poop!
Now they share the yard, he gets it in the morning to mid-afternoon and they get afternoon into evening. Thankfully this has been working for them all.

We really did a lot of work to get the entire area completed. Not to mention I ran out to have lunch with my bestie. I was trying to get to the ER before she was discharged but I didn't make it. On a good note - she's fine. Her arm is in a splint for a few days but she is recovering.

The chickens seem to love having some room to run around. They chased each other around for a while before settling into the happy task of eating all the ants that had been biting my hubby for digging a hole into their home.
My hubby was childishly delighted that the chickens were eating the ants - every time he looked over at them scratching the nest he would beam.

I can't wait for them to start laying eggs! Hubby wants to make custard, I want flan and everyone in the house adores breakfast for dinner!

Each year we have continued to work on more projects. Already we have this years garden half way started! The kids will get the last of the fencing wood to add to their playground - so even though the season for yard work has just started, we are well on our way!
To the outer chicken yard we will be adding a dirt bath area, a chicken swing, possibly a few perch poles and a small mini salad buffet. (That's a lettuce grow box with chicken wire over it so they can't get at the roots.)

So for a fence that cost us 26.00 dollars (1 penny per piece of wood) I think we got quite the deal! I adore the cull section of Lowes!
Next project is the kids playground, planting the rest of the garden and then dismantling our fireplace chimney - but that's another story!

Chickens, Coop and Fencing

Last week we got half of the fence done. Tomorrow should see the end of the battle! We really need to get the outer day area fence done - our little chickies are almost full grown! They need the room to run around! Hubby and I are excited for the weather forecast, tomorrow is supposed to be 70 deg and sunny! A good day for the amount of work we need to get done.
We also need to plant the corn that hubby started indoors and is now several inches already!

Also my lettuce is coming up and I am very excited! Home grown lettuce is much yummier and sweeter tasting than what you buy in the store!

The small painted pink boards are for the coop, to panel around the edges, tucking in the chicken wire and will hopefully give it a finished look.

Today we took a rare break from school work for a quick play date at my bestie's house. 

The kids swung on swings, jumped on the trampoline, played with Patch and then after they had run themselves ragged they crashed and watched half of Wall-e. 

I love having some time with my BFF. We don't get enough time to spend together and just talk about random things.
She is 100%, one of my favorite people in the entire world! There isn't anyone I would rather spend time with, chat with, shop with, tell secrets with or sing with. Joy, pain, love, sorrow, we've been together through thick and thin.
I don't normally gush so much, but today we crossed yet another TMI threshold that we hadn't crossed before (which for two very blunt spoken women is saying something).
So here's to TMI, friendship and a future that we can't even begin to imagine!.


Also I am down to 205 pds Yay!

Easter Egging!

Last night when we went to lock up the house for the night, we found two buckets and two kites on our front porch. They had notes addressed to Prissy and to G'man! Indicating eggs had already been laid down and were waiting for the kids!

We'd been Eastered! A surprise Easter Egging!

Now before you wonder - yes I am that lucky, and yes I have some very amazing loving people in my life, as well as in my kids lives!

This morning while the kids hunted eggs, mama and papa hunted the givers! Our very good friends Shayne and Sara played Easter bunny and gave our kids much more than just candy! They have been smiling and feeling so very extra special today!

Also we finished painting the chicken coop and worked more on the outside fence. They are getting so large they will need to be able to run around the day coop soon!

Yesterday and today we worked on backyard projects. Hubby tilled the entire back garden. We fixed the tiller and ran into my besties sister - which is a whole other story.
Due to the amount of spring work we've been trying to get done, we had a very simple quite Easter dinner.
Here is the recipe and photo of dinner!

Whether you celebrate Easter or Passover I pray today was blessed and full of love.

Tears, Friends and Projects.

Saturday morning I attended a funeral for Louis Damolaris.
You may not know this about me, but I suck at lying, bright cheery words and false hope. A very good friend of mine chose to let me spend this time with her, knowing full well that I'm not the best at cheering anyone up.
You see both her and I, have buried people before. Early deaths, shocking deaths, painful deaths. She and I both know that tender sympathy and kind words are hollow.
Instead I sat next to her and cried.

Afterwards we went up to one of her favorite places and had waffles.

In typical, lets be a brat moment, I had the staff call out for Hot Stuff when our food was up. Her daughter is now embarrassed to be seen with me. (Love you Megan!)

We spent the rest of the day together with my best friend Margie. We ate, chatted, laughed, made fun of people and each other, yelled at traffic and watched Insurgent.
We didn't try to forget or avoid sensitive topics, we didn't try to paint pretty pictures of the future, we just spent the day together.

Sunday started off with a... broken window that we are positive the Wa-Um must have broken. The Wa-Um is our son's imaginary friend/monster. The Wa-Um has been blamed for everything since my son was two years old. Since NO ONE told us that it broke or how, it MUST be the Wa-Um again.
Dang! I really hoped that when we moved, we'd left him behind.

Our chickens are growing quickly and are adorable. So far they are very quiet and well behaved.
My bestie though has taken to calling me the Chicken Epi Lady. While I adore her, I am thinking up future pay backs for this one.

The Kitchen garden is done! We've filled in the dirt, separated the sections, and I finished planting it today! Now all I have to do is weed, water and wait. 

I hate wait.

I have to go now, hubby is calling me to help fix the window and he really, REALLY wants me off the computer! 

Early Easter, Dirt and TMI

Hubby's work once again did the Easter Egg hunt for the kids! We did the 4:30 hunt, but due to how many employees they have, they also did a 5:30 hunt as well.

G'man went nuts and came away with more candy than I think any other kid got - his bucket was FULL.

Prissy was just happy that she got to take a photo with the Disney Princesses!

Both kids have enough candy to make them sick for at least a week! Easter isn't even here and already I'm wishing the candy far far away!

My sister ended up in the E.R today and will be going in for surgery to remove her gallbladder soon.

Prayers for her health, safety and finances are greatly appreciated! 

My kitchen garden dirt (half topsoil/half compost) arrived and needs to be shoveled into the bed area.

We are hoping its enough dirt - if not we may need to buy more.

I think between the pile and the rest of our own compost pile we will have enough. Hubby is slightly worried.

He is such a perfectionist - I don't know how in the world he's managed to be married to me for so long and stay... somewhat sane?

My grasp on sanity slipped years back - if I ever had a hold at all.

I am still working out daily and still losing. Its slow but I'm seeing progress! 

Also in a weird, what the hey, TMI moment I got a new tiny cute torture device called an Epilator. This is a mechanical tweezer machine that rips the hair out of your body. The first minute or so is quite painful - it fades and you are left with incredibly smooth arm pits and legs.

Seriously my body hasn't been this smooth since I was 12.

If you want to have smooth skin for swimsuit season and can handle a little pain, you should look into one!

Cinder Garden and a Lovely Mess

Saturdays always start out rough for me. G'man will come in and wake us up - early. He doesn't know how to sleep in. Hubby once awake can not return to sleep - EVER. I adore this man, but this is a serious failing.
At this point in the morning I always burrow into the blankets and try to pretend the world doesn't exist. I am accomplished at this.
Hubby will make coffee and then return to tease, tickle and finally drag me from the bed. Its our game - don't judge, we end up giggling like kids, while our kids judge us loudly.

Yesterday during the burrow stage I got a message from my friend Sara! They wanted to meet for breakfast!
Hubby knew something was up when I jumped from the bed and started dressing - by choice.
20 min later and we were sitting down to eat with our long time friends Shayne and Sara.

After breakfast we head out to Ikea - today is the day I get a new mattress! Also I don't have photos but my hubby fixed the microwave saving us a few hundred! (Ladies always marry someone handy!)

We found a firm foam mattress and had the two store employees laughing. I guess we aren't the normal type of people who try out mattresses. No one else laid down, rolled over, bounced and kicked each other... some people are just boring.

We headed home much poorer than when we set out, but very happy.

After dumping our old mattress in a dumpster nearby we headed home to attack our backyard projects.

First off the kids (mine and ALL the neighborhood kids) decided to help paint. We will need to repaint the lettuce box and pull the pink paint from Patches face (the girls got him).
Our neighbors are moving, they had TONS of cement retaining wall blocks in their driveway for a project they never got around too - to make a long story short we helped them clean up their driveway and we got the blocks!
Hubby is making a new kitchen garden for the small veggies right next to the kitchen!
Dirt for this area will arrive Monday afternoon!
Yes, I am spoiled. No I will NEVER find someone who spoils me as much as he does.

I adore project days! Also I LOVE the new mattress! Its hard but still comfortable.
I am still at 208 but am getting loser in my clothing so I am sure that once again I am exchanging fat for muscle. My arms are sore right now from all the lifting. Each one of those blocks weighs between 80-100 pds EACH.

I have to run now - I have dishes, a quick run to the store and then a friend is coming over!
Let the good times roll!

Chicken Coop and Fun

It will be after 8 pm when I'm done writing this post - and I've finally sat down for the first time since 10 am!
If I hadn't been working out for the past two months there is NO WAY I would've made it through today!

Last night my daughter had a sleep over, at which of course no one slept. This morning we hit the ground running!
Thankfully I made a filling breakfast of scrambled eggs, turkey bacon and toast. Oh and COFFEE!!! Massive amounts of yummy Cherry Chocolate Coffee!

First off we finished adding the chicken wire to the chicken coop, made their ramp and then brought the little buggers out of the house and outside for the first time!
After that we ran off to Lowes for more supplies. At this point they should just give me stock in their company.

We aren't fully done with it, but its fine for spring/summer. We may add a second set of laying boxes on the other side and we will be adding windows to it tomorrow.

A few months ago Hubby and I found the most amazing cull lumber at Lowes (returned or damaged items for WAY cheap). We were able to buy two massive cart loads of cedar 6 ft. fencing for 22.00!
Now we are building the outer fence for the chickens with it! We have two sections up today and will finish one wall tomorrow.
This way they will have a day area for them to range, play, and eat in, as well as, an inner safer area for nighttime.
I never ever thought I would be a chicken lady, but hey life's an adventure right?

Not mine, not mine, not mine, not mine, mine and mine - top large ;)

At least these guys think so! 

They had a ball playing together today! The girls decided to use chalk to make them... something.

One girl wanted to look fierce, another pretty, colorful, hilarious... each to their own.

They were together, they were playing and they were enjoying life! What else needs to be said?

Kids in the Garden

This summer has flown by! My last post was about the grow box, we are on our second planting in the grow box!
Our garden this summer has yielded some fun and yummy food! I took some photos of the garden and the kids in the garden today. (neighbor kids included)

Three types of tomatoes, three kinds of lettuces, two types of squash, carrots, watermelon, two types of pumpkins!

This year is the first year I actually made pickles! 

(neighbor gave us the cucumbers!)

E, lil'E, Prissy & E
lil'E, Prissy & G'man

Fall has proven to be just as daunting since we pulled the kids from a brick and mortar school to an online public. My girl Prissy is repeating the 4th grade due to 2 bad teachers in a row. Leaving her FAR behind her pears but being pushed forward by a school system that adores the words, No Child Left Behind, but can't follow through.
Our kids are now enrolled in Utah Connection's Academy - in the one month that we have been in this school, its proved itself to be a much better fit for our duo!

Today with the neighbor girls help we took a small video of G'man and E playing Linus and Sally in the Great Pumpkin. Then I played around with the camera and took some fun shots of the kids!

We have had a fun and crazy summer! Lagoon, Comic Con, Weddings and lots of great days with good friends!
I will try to post here more often!
Right now I am still juggling getting used to helping two kids with lessons and getting them used to self regulating - this is a slow transition but this school offers so much more! So far my kids are in a type and computer class. They will be in a language class and they can take music!
All dedicated, great classes through the school starting NOW in grade 3 for my boy not grade 7!

Thanks for staying with me - even when I have been MIA so much the past year!

Root Canal and my Grow Box!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152313677024507&l=8113614559437479119
If that link doesn't work click this one.

Prissy had a Root Canal yesterday. We tried to take care of this when it was just a cavity but being my sweet princess we ended up in the ER, then in the allergist's office and then finally at Rocky Mountain Endodontist, paying to have her knocked out for a Root Canal.
Somehow she takes the most normal things and turns them into a very complex procedure!

The link will take you to the after video of her in the car waking up - its hilarious!

Also my sweet hubby made me a grow box! Today I was able to finish getting it planted!
I am super excited about this! We also have the large garden in the back tilled and ready for planting! Next week I get to start on that large project!

I have 3 types of lettuce and a spinach growing each in their own section. We used pavers to separate the box, allowing me areas to hold onto and kneel on when digging out weeds and cutting out salads!
The soil is a special garden blend half top soil and half compost, we had to wait two weeks just to get the dirt for the project!
Also the plastic is 6ml plastic sheeting found at Lowes or H.D in the paint department. I read many reviews from other DIY gardeners who have used this for greenhouses and they adore it.

Also for those that want an update on the hubby we still have no clue what is causing his headaches, good news though is its not life threatening.
We are going to talk to his regular doctor about seeing a, ear, nose and throat specialist.

This month is shaping up to be very busy! We started out with the root canal and grow box, we have an 8th birthday (G'man), Easter and our 12th Anniversary coming up!

Spring break has been filled with tons of work, stress, bills and fun - hoping yours has been wonderful!

3,4,5 - Anniversary Week Continues

For first time readers - Today is our 10th anniversary. To celebrate my hubby took 10 days off, to see the full idea and read about the first 2 days please visit here.

Day 3: Start the kids playground together, also family movie night.

Day four: Innuendo day (thus the flowers above - really hard to photo twisting words)
Out of all the days thus far, four was the funnest!

Day Five: Stared one way and became another.

First I got a super cool box from my sister.
A b-day present for Littleman & a green cleaning set for me - she's noticed on my recipe blog all my home made cleaners and wanted to support me.

I made a huge batch of home made laundry soap see recipe here.

Made dinner then sat down and as a family we watched, We bought a zoo. (cute show)

After that we were going to watch old home movies - our wedding, kids baby videos and so on.
That was cut short by a massive storm front that moved in. Hard rain and 70 mph wind.blew out our power.

Luckily both my husband and I love candles - so we are always prepared when the lights go out!
After losing power we lite all the candles, grabbed a few blankets and found an old abbot and costello program to listen to on my hubby's cell phone.
The kids fell asleep on the couches, and my hubby and I walked down memory lane.
All in all a beautiful night.

When Adults Bully

Tenure

Its not a dirty word, and yet at times, it is.

Tenure for teachers is important. The government is a numbers racket. To keep from getting lawsuits claiming that they were firing or laying off people right before retirement - or wrongful firing they put in safe guards to protect their jobs against a numbers cut (and other reasons).

I get it, really I do.

However, there also needs to be a peer board or panel that CAN FIRE a teacher who has truly crossed the line and no amount of hiding behind the words Tenure can help.

 

What brings this question/ rant up? This (most recent) news post about a young autistic boy being bullied, ridiculed & harassed at school - not to mention not being taught.

Teachers bullying Autistic/normal children.

One father. One son. Three teachers/aides. Lies, hurt, abuse & now red tape.
Here is the story of a father who knew his son wasn't violent - or any of the other things the teacher continued to say. So he sent his son to school with a audio recorder.
6 1/2 hours of vile, nasty and plain evil were caught and recorded for everyone to hear.
What happens? Red tape. They were able to fire only one of the aides and moved the other teachers to another school or district. Tenure you see - protects even the worse of the offenders.

The dad is calling for a no tolerance teacher bullying bill to pass legislation.
Here is the story link, here is the petition for the bill, & the facebook support link.

My solution is quicker, more brutal and very very short term.
These teachers need their photo & name plastered on the web, any parent whose kids are taught by them need to complain to the school.
After being bounced around from school to school - they may not lose their teaching licenses, but they will lose places to work - especially places with children.
Any adult that callous, that mean, that heartless - should never ever work with children.
Legislation will protect the children of the future - we need to protect the children of today.

No child or parent should ever have to go through this.
We need to do more than "pass" the word along, or sign a petition - we need to get active.
Every parent out there needs to meet - talk with their child's teacher (I know both my children's teachers and this year they both still like me - its a miracle).
If something doesn't feel right - talk to the school office about sitting in for a day.
Ask if another teacher or office staff can check on the class once or twice a day because things don't make sense.
GET INVOLVED.
No one else is ever going to protect or watch out for your child better then you will.

This is about a special needs class - this time. A few months ago it was a jr. high school boy in a normal classroom recording the bullying on his cellphone.
It can happen in any class at any time.


I will post update's about day 3 & 4 tomorrow later today- sorry but its been a very long day and I am starting to hurt again (slightly) in the gallbladder area - off to take more nasty medication.