Painful

It was painful but I just threw 8 dozen of the older eggs back to the chickens to eat....we have so many, and we get about 2 dozen daily..

Summer happenings

 Tomato's are flowering, below                               above west end aiming the camera at the east end
We have been getting the ideal situation this week, rain by night and sunny by day, GREAT growing weather......

 The east end minus the feed bags and hay mulch instead, and this side is weeded, we are still working on the west end....

 Another lovely shot of the east end...love the garden!!!

 goofy pix of the girls

 Mim with glasses and naturally she hates them

 I think she looks very good in them

 Tuki with multiple face paintings from our 3 day weekend at last week's Energy Fair

A house wren nest on one of the nest boxes on the garden fence...If you look closely you can see the female feeding the nestlings








Ve with the newly shaved Einstein

Summer Update

Today we ate our first lettuce and chard (first time trying it) from the garden. I also measured the corn and it is suppose to be "knee high by the 4th of July" and it already is knee high so we are about 2 weeks ahead of schedule.


Tuki is busy with Youth in College for the next two weeks in the morning, Mim and Ve are doing home school summer school and and I am shadowing my Assistant Principal for summer school to get some administrative experience under my belt for a few hours each morning.. Softball continues to occupy our evening two days each week... tonight Mim has a double header thus she will be playing softball for 4 hours straight. 


I am scheduled for a surgery next week...I will explain later, probably when I am laid up in the hospital for 6 days. Anyway I was required to give up coffee and today is my first day without the kick start....the morning was rough but doing well this afternoon...even with our really hot and humid temperatures...


We started to clean Ve and Tuki's messy messy messy bedroom.....yikes!!

Chickens are still producing more eggs than we can store....I am thinking they will slow down in about 4 weeks....I hope.....


Ok that is all for now as we continue to enjoy our summer.....

Radishes all around

We just finished mulching the rest of the garden with the straw and we noticed that some of our radishes were ready....4 to be exact, but not bad since we planted them May 14...one month ago, so we ate our first produce of the year and anticipate more real soon....BTW, this is the first time we had been successful with the radishes....so YEAH for us.

We also went to the eye doctor today....Tuki went wanting glasses (school stated her eyes needed to be checked), she didn't need them, Ve went wanting glasses, was far sighted, but the doc feels it will correct itself in the years to come, so we will keep an eye on her, and Mim went NOT wanting glasses, but her astigmatism is so bad she needs glasses...yet another woe in her teenage years, the horror of being seen in glasses. I just need stronger bi-focals since I had to keep taking my glasses off to read anything WITH my current prescription of bifocals...sucks to get old as well as being a teenager.....

Summer fun

I took pictures around our yard again

 One of our Chinchillas- Hopper

 His buddy Cadbury

 Some of our Serama Chicks

 Some more

 The chicken coop outdoor run...chickens really wipe out all the green vegetation

 so we built a grass garden tonight (read the idea on-line). The grass will grow through the wire, the chickens will eat at it, but will not be able to pull out the roots thus allowing the grass to continue to grow. The two turtle tubs in the background are for the ducks.

 our garden, tomato row with straw placed to combat the weeds. Since I have tilled the chicken manure in, it has really fed the weeds as well as our veggie plants

 

this is the other end of the garden, another idea of placing feed bags held in place with rocks between the rows to combat the weeds, another idea from on line and since we have nearly a million feed bags, we gave it a try...DON"T LIKE IT...the bags move too much even with rocks as anchors and it just looks ugly, so we will be getting more straw bales for this end a s well. It takes about 9 - 10 bales of straw....

 another view that includes the beans as well as the tomatoes, and knock on wood, so far no wildlife damage to any of our plants...YEAH!!!

 more softball pics-Ve

 Tuki

 both at last night's game warming up

 in the dug out

Mim has now also joined a team and last night was her first night as well...it was a long night but enjoyable to see all my girls enjoying themselves!!

Last Day of School

for me and the girls were done 2 days ago. So now on to summer. Mim graduates to 9th, Ve to 3rd and Tuki to 1st for the next school year. So all are doing well. I did receive their end of year reading levels, Tuki's DRA is an 8, (which is at mid-year 1st grade level), Ve's DRA is at a 28, (which is at end of year 2nd grade level) and Mim 's lexile is around 448, (which when translated to DRA is around 28 - 30, also 2nd grade level).

So with this knowledge in hand I have prepared all three girls a summer school regime of each to read every day, with spelling and also reading comprehension activities. All are starting at the 1st grade level, with the exception I told them that I expect Tuki to only get through the 1st grade activities, Ve to get through the 1st and mostly the 2nd, and Mim to fly through the 1st and 2nd and work harder at the third grade level. We will see how this goes, but I will admit it is always an eye opener to me, even though I know Mim is low, to realize how truly low her reading and comprehension level is.

Once again, it is rough on kids to come home so old and attempt to make up lost education time AND learn English at the same time. Since I have sat down with the girls and showed them their reading levels, I will have to say Mim has been reading nearly non-stop since she has made it her goal to develop her comprehension and get her reading level higher. Obviously, Mim doesn't like it that both her younger sisters are close to her level, but it is also a reality check for her since she almost daily insists she understands perfectly what people are saying and what she is reading. The truth is hard to take, but it is also the tool that pushes a person to make changes for the better, and Mim seems to have have embraced this idea, for now anyway....

Ve and Tuki were in a Talent Show at their school