What’s Growing

Sunshine sure does a body good, but just look at what all that rain brought last week! I do believe my favorite color must be green.

Back Flower/Mint/Strawberry Bed

The hostas will soon take over.

It has been a struggle to get anything to grow on this hillside!

We got our garden planted on Wednesday. I can’t wait for everything to start sprouting! Right now we have radishes, lettuce, cabbage, beets, potatoes, onions, tomato plants, pepper plants, and of course strawberries up and doing well.

I can’t wait!

Hoping for lots of cucumbers and pickles!

Potato rows are popping up. I have already killed two potato bugs.:(

Thursday was Quentin’s birthday. Such a fun day. We had chocolate cake and quesadillas, and he got a new charcoal grill. Oh, how he loves to cook on charcoal!

Happy 39th B-Day, Quentin!

A yummy birthday meal!

I love it when he cooks!:)

I hope everyone has had a lovely week and has a blessed weekend!

Vicki

Just Pictures

Oh boy, did we have a rainy week! It forced Quentin to get some much needed rest that he would not have gotten otherwise. We did do some thrift shopping, celebrated my 34th birthday, and got in a little camping trip. I hope everyone had a nice week!  I love hearing from you guys!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Vicki

Madison made and decorated my birthday cake.

Quentin got me a few of my favorite things. The plastic tub is a camping sink.

Madison bought 6 little silkie chicks. She is hoping to raise some beautiful babies from them.

Camp Jellystone at Natural Bridge Va

Our campsite. This is as close to roughing it as we have ever come.

McKenzie really “roughing” it

Quentin Jr. too

Playing putt putt

The camp oven worked great. We baked biscuits with our supper and cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

Bambi. He’s loud and annoying, but we love him.

The azaleas are blooming

Our Week

It has been a lovely week. Not particularly a busy one. Most days you will find us just inching along. I have been patiently waiting and watching for our garden to come to life, keeping house, and concentrating on school.

Our spring/summer school schedule looks like this.

May- Breakfast, Science (together at breakfast table), Math(for Madison), Typing, Spelling, Lunch, History (together at lunch table), English

June- Typing & Computer

July- Math

We are taking off next week from school to spend time with Quentin during his vacation. I hope everyone is doing well and has a blessed weekend.

Here are some pictures from our week.

Vicki

Roasting hot dogs-yum!

Making waffles for the freezer

Celery growing in the window sill

Getting the picnic basket stocked for picnicing and camping

We are getting 6-7 colorful eggs a day from our 7 hens

Roasted asparagus fresh from the garden

A beautiful azalea from my mother and father in law-thanks! (I think it might have a maple tree growing in it)

Quentin Jr.’s Mother’s Day picture-I love it!

Our Happy Little Barnyard

Seems spring is having a hard time making it  into our neck of the woods. Our mornings and nights have been quite chilly.  But that’s okay; everything is greening up, and I am enjoying it nevertheless! The birds are singing, and laundry is being hung outdoors.  I look forward to my morning walks browsing through the garden to see what peeked through the earth while I was sleeping.

The chickens and goats are enjoying the fresh growth even more than I am. There are chickens chasing bugs and snipping the tops off of fresh grass blades and laying me fresh, healthy eggs. The goats are munching on a bit of this and a bit of that and leaning over the fence to nibble off fresh leaves from the blackberry vines. Willow is growing wider, and her udder is filling up more and more each day.  She is a pregnant Nigerian dwarf which can give up to two quarts of milk a day. Nigerian dwarf milk also has a very high butterfat content. Fresh eggs daily and the hopes of getting fresh milk make me glad that we have given the goats and chickens the majority of our land.

A few of our pastured chickens

School is still moving along nicely. McKenzie finished up math on Wednesday and Quentin Jr. today. Keepers of the Faith is a fun little club that we have done before and started back the beginning of April. It helps school along as my kids don’t mind doing reports and art work when they are working on their awards. This month we worked on memorizing the books of the Bible and did a study of Virginia. Madison worked to earn her goat charm, McKenzie worked to earn her Pets charm, and Quentin Jr. went hunting twice to earn his hunting pin.

McKenzie happy to finish up her math book.

Madison’s goat and Virginia charm that she earned for her bracelet.

Quentin Jr.’s Virginia drawings

I hope everyone is enjoying some fresh air and sunshine. Thanks so much for visiting. Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Vicki

 

 

Our Lil Homestead

Things have been busy around our little homestead. I didn’t know how much I had missed the sunshine and warm weather. It has been a joy spending the past couple weeks in our garden beds weeding and planting seeds. Lettuce, cabbage, spinach, radishes, beets, carrots, and cucumbers are in the ground. Potatoes will need to be planted soon, and everything else will have to wait until mid May. All 5 of our strawberry beds are weeded. They are 16 ft. by 4ft. and were full of weeds. I think I saved them from being choked out, and they are greening up nicely and starting to bloom. I hope to get a bumper crop of strawberries.

Strawberry Bed

Another

Our silkies have been setting, and we have one new baby so far. This chick came out of an egg that had been stuck to the mama chicken. She wouldn’t let us get it off. She is now carrying around half of an egg. Madison wants to keep most of the babies to add to her flock. It is fun watching the mamas care for their babies.

“Egger”

Our other spring chicks have really grown a bunch. They are out of the ugly stage and starting to look like real chickens.

Beautiful spring blossoms are appearing. Our peach tree has already bloomed, and the flower beds are graced with pretty tulips. Of course there are dandelions blooming in abundance, and we have made dandelion syrup.

Tulips

McKenzie’s Primrose

creeping phlox

There has been more fence work going on. We are now all fenced in except for the gate that needs to be installed across the driveway. I am glad it is almost complete.

I am still working on getting pictures to make photo gifts for Mother’s Day. This week we tagged along once more with the boys when they went fishing. I concentrated on getting pictures of McKenzie this time.

My favorite picture of McKenzie.

And,of course,  springtime on the homestead wouldn’t be complete without kittens. Bootsie delivered these this morning.

Homestead Kittens

Have a blessed weekend!

Vicki

Spring Has Sprung!

We have been enjoying some really nice temperatures. The grass is greening up and flowers are blooming.  I am so happy to be hanging clothes out and working in the sunshine.  We got our ditch dug, started on the fencing, and put our home on the market. Now I am ready to move on to better things like gardening.

fence runs on property line. You can see the back of our home and carport in the background

fencing is hard work!

A nifty drain thingy that we installed

Daffodil blossoms

Hyacinths

Plants make me happy!

 

 

On Sunday I tagged along with the boys when they went fishing.  I want to do a canvas of the kids for Mother’s Day gifts and thought it would be easier if I concentrated on one person at a time. I started with Madison.

Like Father Like Son

My favorite picture of Madison

We have also been learning new things in the kitchen.

Scalloped potatoes that didn’t come in a box! They were so good too.

Yummy cinnamon rolls

cinnamon raisin bread. leftovers were so good toasted for breakfast.

We are super excited for camping season and can’t wait to go. We got a camp oven and want to try it out soon. We are all going to camp together the second week in May, and the boys are going to do a hunting-camping trip also. Turkey season opens up this weekend here. Quentin Jr. hunted on youth day this past Saturday. He saw a lot of turkeys and even took a couple of shots so he is excited to get back in the woods.

Can’t wait to try it out!

That’s all I can think of to write about right now. After school we are going to head out in the sunshine to weed strawberries. I hope everyone is enjoying springtime!

Vicki

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Easter!

Our weather is finally starting to shape up. We are very thankful for the warmer weather. On Saturday it was nice and sunny. We were able to work outdoors and soak up some sunshine.

Bear playing in the sunshine while I clean his cage.

We are still battling opossums. One got closed up in the chicken coop Saturday night. Luckily we only lost one chicken. The opossum had to be shot and we were able to relocate one last week without killing it. I am not sure how many there are.

School is still moving along nicely. We are hoping to finish up math by the end of this month. We are taking off Tuesday and Thursday this week. Quentin is off and we want to finish getting the rest of our yard fenced in along the property line. We also need to put a drain pipe in our back yard and cover it then plant grass. We hope to put our house up for sale by the weekend.

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!  Sunday we went to an Easter play at our neighbor’s church then spent the rest of the day at home eating and resting.

Our Easter Eggs

We made a sunflower cake with Peep chicks.

A visit from the Easter bunny

Have a great week!

Vicki