Summer is over, Fall is around the corner

@ I start back to 8 hour days on Monday...I have been going to school almost every week this summer in getting my room ready and shadowing my Assist. Principal during summer school to gain admin experience...but I have been able to go home as soon as I became tired, that will end starting tomorrow.

@ the school supplies had been purchased

@ the garden is maybe half done for processing

@ I am feeling much stronger, yet get tired quicker than I'd like

@ and hopefully Mim and I have a better understanding of each other


this Fall season will be quiet in comparison to other Fall seasons.

Mim is not participating in cross country running or basketball (as of now anyway) to take a break and to see if the past sports is what she really wants to do, so she will be more involved with our church's youth group in hopes she will find a better friendship circle than she had last year and maybe a non-sporting extracurricular or two at school.

Ve and Tuki will be skating again starting in September as well, so besides work everyday (of which I will be exhausted for a while due to healing from the surgeries), taking one administration class and continue preserving the produce from our garden, I think we will have a relatively quiet fall....I hope!!!!!!

July was a blur, August is a little clearer

Due to my surgeries (late June, early July) July was a foggy fatigue induced blur, but due to the help of my lovely daughters, friends and family we are doing pretty well. The girls activities were many this summer,

Tuki:
home school summer school
2 months of softball
Youth in College
Camp Invention
One month of swimming lessons
Ve:
home school summer school
2 months of softball
Camp Invention
one month of swimming lessons
Mim;
home school summer school
2 months of softball
One month swimming lessons
babysitting and lawn cutting jobs for the neighbors

Since August we have attended a Victoria Justice Concert, camping nearby the last few days and maybe visit a local large zoo next week. We have been taking weekly visits to my doctors for check-ups thus we have been trying to make each visit a little fun too.

 Victoria Justice concert

 Her opening act was Max Schneider from the movie "Rags"

 The happy girls (we attended one of the few days it actually rained this summer)...go figure :)

 Tomatoes galore, we need to pick just as they are turning red since the chipmunks also love tomatoes. We have been able to keep the deer out, but lost our corn to the raccoons and the cucumbers really had a bad year...all around it seems . Everyone around here says cucumbers didn't fair well, otherwise our garden has been and still is going strong.

 little canning going on every day...I actually am using a pressure cooker this year for the beans..something new for me.

 this is what our counter looks like daily, the chickens never did slow down in egg production....

 the garden...right side of photo is where the cucumbers are still holding on, but no real show

 other parts of the garden...we water two hours nightly due to the drought we are in.

 the wee ones at camp invention

 Ve's  balloon popping invention

Tuki's balloon pumping invention

A few family photos

 Me and my siblings (I just got out of the hospital yesterday so still very much in the recuperation stage)

Grandma Jill and the grand kids

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.....