"Let every individual and institution now think and act as a responsible trustee of Earth, seeking choices in ecology, economics and ethics that will provide a sustainable future, eliminate pollution, poverty and violence, awaken the wonder of life and foster peaceful progress in the human adventure."
- John McConnell, founder of International Earth Day
RIGHT NOW, and then again tomorrow and then again the next day and on it goes day after day,
1/2 OF THE WORLD lives on LESS THAN 2 DOLLARS each day.
Psalm 27:4
One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
Do all you can and don't worry about the odds against you. Wield the miracle of life's energy, never worrying whether we fail, concerned only that whether we fail or succeed we do so with all our might. That's all we need to know to feel certain that all our force of diligent effort is worth our while on Earth.
Carl Safina, Voyage of the Turtle
Photo Opps with the dogs
Tuki and Ve after their Christmas Concerts yesterday
Mim at her game last night
Mim aggressively guarding (sorry for the dark photo)
We are busy weekly with basketball practices (Mim (every night) and Ve (2 times weekly)), basketball games (2 times weekly), skating practices (1 times weekly), school work and meetings. I will be taking a little break since my surgery will be this Tuesday and I will be out from school until the 7th or so of January, depending on how well I recover. In addition my next admin class does not start until Jan 25th, so close to 7 weeks of break from classes.
Funeral photos: Kent's 3 kids and 2 grandkids
my brother Jeff, his wife and daughter
my cousin Tas and her husband
The girl's trick or treating
Thanksgiving: the trio putting on their concert in the dress-up clothes...still the most favorite toy-dress up clothes
celebrating Tuki's 7th birthday
and N's 8th birthday
the girl's with their birthday cake
another shot of their singing
Above: When we were wee ones, youngest sis hasn't been born yet. Below: all of us with Santa
Kent with his 3 nieces 4 years ago. He was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy this past January.
Wow, where has October gone? I have many photos to upload and sometime soon I will do that. It has been a busy month with school, admin classes, the girls' sports, attending a conference and winterizing the yard and animals every chance we get. Immediately following October, on Thursday Nov 1st I interviewed for a Summer School Coordinator Position, naturally interviewed poorly, it was first in a very long time so I was really nervous. Hopefully now that I have one interview down for administration jobs, I will be more relaxed, especially since there will be more posted in December.
I had a student teacher the first quarter and now he has moved onto his high school experience, so in some ways things will get busier at school and in some ways quieter. I will be teaching for about 5 weeks and on December 18, I am scheduled for another surgery. I will be out of school for 3 weeks (one will be Christmas break) and then start up again, but probably dead tired for awhile.
Mim and Ve will be starting basketball in November and both programs will run until next March. Tuki will continue with the skating since she is still too young to join any formal BB team.
Tuki and Ve's birthdays are coming up in the next two months and Mim's 3 years home celebration will be this Monday, Nov 5th. This year has been a much better year with her than last year. I think all the pieces are finally falling into place and she is maturing.
We are hosting the family Thanksgiving this year since our usual holiday is Christmas and I will be moving very slow at that time.
Other than that all is well around here, busy as always during the school year, but we become use to the craziness that occurs during the 9 months of school.
While the rest of us stayed home and pulled everything ripe (again) except the peppers and beans (they are still going strong despite the cold weather) from the garden. Even though we are over the brim with food, which makes us all very happy, I will be even more excited once the garden harvest is done for a while (until next spring and then I will be rearing to go again)...
Tuki and the College Cheer Facilitators and the other participants. Of my 3 girls she is the only one who desire to be a cheerleader....
All the girls who wanted to be tossed over backwards were allowed to, and of course Tuki went for it
Held up on the shoulders of 2 college kids (sorry for the bad picture)
total so far: 39 butternut squash
We ended up picking 52 pumpkins from the garden (both kinds) unfortunately not all of them turned orange, but that is ok, all of the jack-o-lanterns will eventually be fed to the chickens and the pie pumpkins we will eat, and we picked over 20 orange pie pumpkins...
8 jacks so far, about 5 -6 more need to turn orange...fall picture in front of the cornstalks
Puddin Tane, the world's smallest Serama Rooster on our biggest jack we grew this year
Close up of the smallest and biggest :)
wide view
we checked out 4 different farms/homes with acres this weekend......someday soon!!!
Last night we had a freeze with frost on the ground in the am, so we harvested what is currently ripe, and I am hoping that the plants will survive tonight since it is to be even colder.
We picked 14 pie pumpkins (at least 4 or 5 more in the garden), 6 spaghetti squash (at least 20 more in the garden) and 18 butternut squash (at least that many more in the garden).
we picked all the green tomotoes to ripen indoors
and the last of the cabbage and now have 10 bags of freezer slaw ready for the winter
we also picked 4 quarts worth of green beans and canned some dilly beans (first time trying them) and we filled a Tupperware bowl of green and yellow peppers and froze 7 cups of them. I am cooking 4 pumpkins so I can make pumpkin bread tomorrow. Plus we are roasting pumpkin seeds tonight.
We still need to harvest the rest that I mentioned above, plus the jack-o-lantern pumpkins, carrots and continue with the beans and peppers.
There was a question posed on my comment section as to how long does it take us to harvest and process the garden produce. The longest is maybe a six hour day but rarely that long. Today, it took us 5 hours, harvest to preserve what I mentioned above. It takes a little longer when I am using new recipes, but I have my bean canning down to less than hour from nipping, cutting, washing and canning. It gets easier the more I do it and the girls are a HUGE help and I like the chore aspect of the garden. All four of use work together and we get it done fast.
