Registered

It was Tuki's and Ve's registration tonight at their school. Photos are of them in their new classrooms. Ve ahs Ms. Sager and Tuki has a brand new teacher Ms. McCarrier.

Yahooo

received all my tax credit in the mail today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Uneven Score

Nature 3-----------Me 1

I will say that the natural world beat me hands down this year. I always try to work with it, and yet attempt to be at peace with it. After all it is way more powerful than me and I want to work along side it and not in direct conflict with it. This year nature didn't meet me half way.

Score 1 for nature:
The continuous thunderstorms in conjunction with my backyard swamp beat us time and time again. We rethought our chicken area, and had purchased and shoveled gravel/sand to fill up the inside coops to prevent flooding from the rising water table. We are currently getting quotes for a "v" pitched roof to place over 3/4's of the 3 small joining coops.

In addition the flooding of the garden, specifically the tomatoes.

Score 2 for nature:
recently a juvie red-tailed hawk has found a quick easy meal in our chicken flock. I lost two birds within one week (last week) due to this bird. At first I wasn't sure who I was dealing with but then after some investigation I discovered the hawk's whitewash (poop) and a feather from the red-tail. So I decided to research what a red-tail fears since I really wouldn't have shot it even if it wasn't illegal. After all I can't blame a wild animal that has found easy pickins.
So for 2 days now the girls and I have been stringing vinyl clothes line adorned with colored flagging to create a continuous movement in the run. We have also been rotating 3 of the dogs to spend time in the run so that their presence would spook the hawk. I also purchased BOLT (the girls named him), a coyote decoy that we move around 2 times daily for the live effect. So far so good, but I still plan to string about 400 more feet of the line to equal the total of 1200 feet of a line shaped like a spiderweb.

Score 3 for Nature:
My garden, So far I have lost cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and beans to the deer and rabbits and chipmunks. I am in deep thought as to what I plan to do next year. I have noticed the deer won't walk through the viney plants, so I plan to plant all my viney plants on the periphery of the garden and plant the sought after plants on the interior. I also plan to erect with Mim's help a 6' foot fence around the garden instead of the 4' netting since we know that this area of my yard is highly productive, even with wildlife raiding it daily.

Score 1 for me:
The heavy rain helped produce mega gourds, more than I have ever produced in my life. We also produced 4 muskmelon, 6 pumpkins, too many to count cucumbers, summer squash and tons of butternut squash.
We haven't harvested any carrots yet, but am hoping for a good return.


The new gravel flooring the in the big coop

The new flooring in one of the small coops

our very busy chicken run to discourage the hawk

dipper gourd


apple gourds

butternut squash

one of the pumpkins - this is the largest one cannon gourd

and another dipper gourd

tomatoes falling over due to the excess rain and saturated soil

sweet pickle relish - a new attempt by me since we have already canned 38 quarts of dill pickles

Mim's Intra-sqaud race

Thursday night was Mim's Cross Country intra-squad race. She placed 15th out of 73 girls and her time was 16:25 for 2.25 miles...a 43 sec improvement over last season in the same race. I was so proud of her, she felt good and she deserved it for running so many summer miles.

Today, we also registered her for 8th grade. It went much smoother than last year.....

Tax Return

Received my letter from the IRS in the mail today. I will receive all that I am owed and will receive it before the 2011 is over....finally!!!! whew, sigh of relief!

I update more in a day or two.....

Note to self

"Seems like the only thing in life we can control is our attitude, and dang if life don't try to control that, so stop letting it"


and


"There is no major secret to success in life, the secret is the will. If you have the will to do it, then it will be possible."


so get arse off the pity train and get the "will" ON!!! (this is to me)

Nothing

The girls spent today, tonight and tomorrow morning at a friends. I stayed home alone. I miss them, choked up when I sent them off, but I will have to admit that I did N. O. T. H. I. N. G. today (except animal care) and boy did that feel GREAT!!! I can not remember when was the last time I did this, but I am also looking forward to seeing the girls tomorrow..

Turned 48 today

and to celebrate we continued to clean the basement (it is looking real nice BTW) and canned 8 quarts of pickles. I also went to the doctors twice. Once for my weekly allergy shot and once for an examination of a lump in my right breast. On Monday, Aug 8 & Tuesday Aug 9, I will be having a mammogram, ultrasound and meeting with a surgeon to discuss the possibilities from the results of Monday's appointment. I figure since 2011 has been such a banner year, I might as well celebrate my birthday with a lump....I call this year a one step forward, two step backward year....and naturally it down poured rain all morning continuing to flood my yard, garden and chicken pen. I will say the highlights of today have been a handmade birthday card from Tuki, a store bought card and a bag of snickers from Mim, and a good heart pumping workout this morning.

Sorry this blog is such a downer lately, I just can't seem to find Polly lately and lately I am tired of trying to find her. LOL

In addition the girls are attending VBS (Vacation Bible School) in the mornings all week. Mim is a student helper for a kindergarten class (she says she hopes to be a kindergarten teacher so this will be a good test for her) and Ve and Tuki are attending their own classes. The lesson on Monday was Gratitude and today's was Compassion. So far, they are loving it!!!