Zechariah 13:9

And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God. Zechariah 13:9

Monday, May 28, 2012

Our Backyard Camp Ground

I think I post pictures of our Backyard Camp Ground each year, but it is our little get-away-stay-home place, and we always look forward to spending time there on our stay-cations.  With milking cows, this sometimes is the only vacation we are able to have.  A few years ago, we got a free pop-up from a listing in the merchandiser and the boys love sleeping in there sometimes.  We do not have the stress of packing to go away and we still have the luxury of showers and our own soft beds if we choose to stay in the house.  We have been lagging behind in preparing this area for the season and so on Saturday, the boys & I scrubbed the lawn chairs, benches, tables, etc. and left them in the sun to dry.

All set up for the Dry Laundry Concert!  It was the most airy concert we ever witnessed! ☺


Our camp site.....






The pool is up........

This is the 3rd year we had this pool and it was given to us from some friends.  We are still extremely grateful for the gift!  Every one enjoys it tremendously!

We have been finished with school for a few weeks and it has been wonderful!  We will have off til July and then it gets hot, the boys end up inside out of the heat and then I bring out the books.  Hey!  If they are going to be inside anyway, they may as well do something productive, right?   Right!  ☺ And so we get an early start and can then take off for days we want to do food preservation, or fun days in the Fall.  And actually, by July, we are needing some structure to our days and school has a way of forcing that to happen.

May the summer be kind to each of you!

Until next time...............

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Extent of Our Garden

First, I wanted to let all you folks that did not finish reading the post on us possibly milking water buffalo, that it will not work out.  To find out why, you have to read all the way to the bottom of the post.... ☺ http://beingtriedasgold.blogspot.com/2012/04/change-in-making.html

Our garden seems to shrink more and more each year.  We do not have rich, deep soil around the house, but a lot of shale, so a few years ago we started building up a small area in the yard with compost.  Last year, we planted 50 strawberry plants in that area and still had room for some tomato plants.  This year, however, Dave transplanted the strawberry runners into the remaining space and eliminated any room for anything else besides a small patch of lettuce and a yellow baseball plant.  Baseballs?  Never heard of growing baseballs?  It's the new thing...... heeeeheee


Usually, we planted potatoes back in a field somewhere, but each winter we had the issue of poor storage.  So this year, we decided to down size and try to grow just enough potatoes to eat through the fall.  I had come across a neat idea on the internet to grow them in barrels and decided to experiment with it.  Our milk house detergents come in plastic "barrels" so, Ben drilled holes in the bottom for drainage (or you can completely remove the bottom and set barrel on old carpet) and dug up some rich soil from elsewhere on the farm.  We mixed it with some sawdust, put approx.6 inches of this soil in bottom of barrel and "planted" the seed potatoes in that....



In a barrel this size, we only planted 2 seed potatoes.  If you plant them too close together, they will be crowded and produce tiny potatoes..



As the sprouts grow into plants and start peeking through the soil, you add another layer of soil.  This is continued until the barrel is full of soil and the plants are growing out the top.  The end result is to be a barrel full of potatoes.  We will see......



I purchased a huge number of 4 tomato plants!  I think I can handle that many ☺ and those ended up down at the house in tubs. 



And that is the extent of our garden!  We are hoping to someday put in a few raised beds, but until that time I will be looking for any extra produce that friends, family and neighbors may have to sell.  Keep me in mind and give me a buzz if you fall into that category.

Ben purchased 2 more composters this year and we already can taste that sausage.....


And did you know there is 40 calories in 1 tablespoon of raw milk cream?  so how many calories does that make in a batch of homemade ice cream made with pure cream?  Waaayyy too many!  Why are calories so yummy?



Until next time..................

Monday, May 14, 2012

His 46th Birthday, My Mother's Day

Like some of you already know, Dave is 9 days younger than me.  In those 9 days, he likes to tease me that he is married to an old woman and I tease him that makes me the boss for 9 days.  Hit the 10th day, he then is an old man and can gladly take back the boss position! :-)  Anyway, his birthday fell on Thursday, the day we had the end-of-year program for our homeschool co-op, plus Kelsey's were leaving for the mountains, so his birthday celebration had to be put on hold.  Friday, the boys got the idea to give him a surprise gift.  When he came home from work, they told him they had a surprise in the back of the van.  Upon opening the doors, he discovered fishing rods, tackle boxes, can of worms and lawn chairs.  We were all going fishing - SURPRISE!    I know the boys enjoyed Dave's "surprise", and he & I enjoyed as well. :)


We had gone fishing......


Tomorrow evening we will celebrate with Kelsey's, and Dave's food request is home-made ice-cream made with all cream.  Pure grass-fed cream!  Wanna guess how many calories will be in a bowl?  Never mind - don't tell me! :-)

Mother's Day
Any holiday or special day (besides birthdays, Thanksgiving & Christmas), seems like just another day to the boys.  I am never offended when they don't do anything special for Mother's Day, for I know they love me and would defend me with their lives.  They have their special ways of showing me that fact all year long.  Well, come evening on Sunday, they were late in coming in from chores and it was such a nice evening, I decided to go in search of them and possibly convince Dave to take a walk with me.  I rounded the corner of the silo and caught them red handed!  They had just got back from picking flowers from along the road and I surprised them.  I was not suppose to see what they were up to. 
Uriah came running over to me with this bouquet of daisies and said that those were from him and that I should smell them.  I did and was shocked that such pretty flowers could smell so awful.  Now, I had a moral dilemma.  I did not want to tell Riah that the flowers stank and hurt his feelings, but I didn't want to lie either.  So, I tried to skirt around a response and just say how pretty they were and how special that he thought of me.  Well, here he was playing a joke on me and he looks at me and said "but, mom they smell like crap and we are just going to throw them away!"  They did smell exactly like cow manure (or crap in boy's language)!  I still laugh thinking about it!  It was so funny!  Here they originally had them in the center of the big bouquet and then realized how their smell ruined the whole thing. The rest of the flowers were beautiful, plus smelled wonderful!  Dave also picked some small branches with wonderful smelling locust flowers for me.  He knows I love honeysuckle and these smelled very similar.  Here are the "stinky" daisies... 

The final bouquet delivered by the clowns :).   I find out later that George got the whole idea of picking flowers for me by observing, out the milk house window, a car pulled over alongside the road and a woman getting out to pick some purple flowers.   Reliving the whole incident today, I laughed so hard I had tears running down my cheeks.  First, the look on Dave's face as I rounded the silo, next the stinky flowers, then thinking that they thought of me while watching another woman pick flowers....  Being a mother to these boys is anything but boring, but I wouldn't want to live without them!

The wonderful smelling locust "tree" for my sink window sill....


It was a good weekend and a Mother's Day that I will definitely remember for years!

Until next time..............




Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Thankful For Another Year

As we get older, we realize more and more that another year is something to be very thankful for.  Life is short at it's longest, but we can take each day and enjoy it to it's fullest.  Today was one of those days!  My sister offered to make lunch for my birthday and it was delicious! It was shared with my mom, sister, her daughter, our daughter Kelsey and the her girls and our 3 youngest boys. 
This is my mom, sister and I....



Dave surprised me with 2 dozen red roses...♥  Love him to pieces!!  He said he went in to buy me a dozen and they told him it was "buy one get one free", and he just couldn't resist!  ☺  Oakley was here with me this afternoon when Dave got home and her response to seeing the roses was priceless!  Her eyes got real big and she sucked in her breathe in surprise!  She sat at the table just gazing at the bouquet.  For only being 2, she enjoyed them as much as I did.

This evening, Kelsey and mom brought supper over - I had picked for the menu - a big salad, chili and fruit salad - that's it!  Needless to say, the boys were very upset that I did not pick cake and ice-cream, too.  Another delicious meal! 


One of our favorite games (well for some of us anyway) is "occupation".  So, we played a few rounds of that.


The Weidenhammer women....


And to conclude the day, I had many wonderful birthday wishes from my facebook friends.  Thanks everyone!  It was a good day - even though it is now only 4 years to the young age of 50!  I think it really must be 60 when a person is considered "over the hill", wouldn't you say?  ☺

Until next time....................