Father's Day Weekend

We had a very busy weekend last weekend. I was planning to blog the whole thing, but J beat me to it. It is amazing how a young lady can find time for that kind of stuff while the mom of many can't fit it in. (Plus I'd rather be sewing) She swiped some of my photos so I will swipe her posts. (Just click on the pink letters to see the pictures.)

Friday evening our church community group had a potluck. We always eat very well.

Saturday our 4-H club sponsored a horse show and we helped.

Sunday the oldest son of a dear family got married. It was a small wedding and we were honored to have been invited. We met this family when they were a small family of 6. I remember saying after knowing them for less than a year: "I will never have 4 children and I will NEVER homeschool, they are nuts". Well, now It seems kind of funny that I thought that. We have 6 children now and they have 9. The mom is still my hero in all that she gets done with a quiet and gentle spirit. So as we start the season of witnessing young people we have seen grow up I think I will cry more and more, tears of blessing. I teared up as Dustin stood beaming as he saw his new bride walk down the aisle. In my eyes he will be 10 years old (the age he was when we met) forever.

Eight of the nine children in this family have participated in restored to Glory Dance Ministry. The youngest is still too young. So it fit that there was dancing at the reception, this is unusual for the weddings we have been to within our church family. The children did most of the dancing, but Todd and I danced one dance and I got our on the floor with the children for a few. The host family has quite the collection of moves. The poor Norris children are not rhythmically gifted in the same way, but they kept up in effort if not grace. Unfortunately the flash on our camera is being weird and very few of the pictures turned out well . But I did get some pictures for documentation: The father of the groom and one of our pastors were both caught on film (wait it's digital, so how does that go?) I also have blurry pictures the groom's brother J.P. dancing with little T (he is on his knees). The younger boys were also bustin' some moves were to fast for my camera.and the mother of the groom participating in the last line dance. J.P. also lead a sort of Conga lineBride's Maids', flower girls and TIn the background here you can see a couple of the groomsmen This is the youngest of the family. She was adorable, but ready for this whole wedding business to be over.Finally J got out on the dance floor. She made this Sense and Sensibility Dress for the occasion. The bride shares my love for sewing. It just happened that all of the girls (including me) except one were wearing homemade dresses. And many of the men just couldn't miss the golf thing....I understand it was a big one. I am not sure why Todd, who hates golf, was there. He claimed something about bonding.

Monday: Since we had a social engagement on Father's Day and the blue gill were still biting in Rose City, Todd took Monday off and we spent the day fishing and sleeping and swimming. OK, I did the sleeping and the kids swam and fished a little. J read a book and kept me company while I snored. Todd, with some help, caught 40+ bluegill.

Chickens and young ladies

I snapped these pictures while I had the camera out taking pictures of our new goats. Who by the way have settled down a bit but don't like to be more than a few feet from each other.

This is one of our new Ameracaunas trying to figure out how to get back with the flock.

This is Esmeralda. The day we picked up the chicks she was walking funny and we thought it best to leave her with the 4-H leader and let her deal with the eventuality of her death. Well 2 weeks later she was doing just fine so she got sent home with us. She got picked on when we first put her in with the others. But after a couple days where they could see each other, but not pull her feathers out she go a long much better. She is smaller than the others, but if she lays eggs like the rest we'll be happy.

This is my friend George. Chicks grow and change faster than people babies and remember much less. But she will always have a place in my heart. N has chosen her to be one of her show birds for the county fair.

This is Whitey (G's bird of choice from this group), Phantom (N's bantam), and one of the no-name birds.

N found this outfit at goodwill and has decided that for the costume parade for rabbits and poultry at the fair she will be Elpheba from Wicked (AKA the Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz) and Zoser/Flops (her bunny) will be a winged monkey. In wicked he has a name,but I can't remember it, you will have to ask my Wicked expert.

Speaking of....

J stuck this silly pose as I walked by:

Then she sat down on a log with the pond in the back ground. I thought it would make a lovely picture. But she wouldn't smile. I asked why and she said she hadn't brushed her teeth and had food in them.

So she did a quick swish and clean her teeth the best she could. I couldn't see anything, but she is conscious of stuff in her braces that she is ready to be rid of.

In the end I got a beautiful picture of my eldest young lady.

Romantic Dresses

A few weeks ago I made M and T each two dresses from Jennie Chancey's Romantic Girls' Dress. I have made this pattern a couple times before. Sensibility patterns are very easy to follow. So I whipped up these dresses in a few days, but I never posted them. So here they are:

Todd has taken the children fishing recently. M thinks it is a great thing...time with Daddy doing what he loves to do. So when Todd thought he'd check on our little fish (we stocked our pond last spring) M was right there to help.

"Yeah, I got one!"

"Keep reelin' M, keep going"

"This is getting hard!"

"He's kind of small."

"Ooops, he swallowed the hook. Don't want that to happen, these fish have to grow to be dinner some day."




So Todd let M and T feed worms to the fish.




All out of worms. Bummer

So we found something else to do.

Dresses made from this particular pattern are very good twirling dresses

I think that was too much twirling for T






Chasing tadpoles and minnows

Last year we didn't have any wildflowers. I was sad. This year we have a ton! The girls love to pick, so we have many bouquets gracing our table. The things that are blooming and thus on our table are a flower that looks like a daisy, but stinks; white yarrow; and various variety of clover, much of which we seeded. Now that they are allowed to pick the wild flowers they are much better about not picking flowers in my gardens.

T had a little trouble with a choice for bunch of flowers. This white yarrow really wanted to stay where it was,

"I love my sister"

First Horse Show

G has been taking riding lessons for 3 years now. Her passion for horses has only grown; even when she had to muck out stalls for lessons. This spring I talked with our 4-H leader to try to figure out a way we could make it so she could show. Actually, I started asking about M doing lead line with one of her daughters. M follows in G's red hair and passions for activity and animals. I thought that might be easier to make happen. Jennifer in her wisdom, said that it really wouldn't be fair to G and her hard work for M to show before G.


So we worked it out that M could do lead line with P Jennifer's oldest daughter on Fanny and G could do showmanship with Carly, Jennifer's second daughter's, T, horse.


Jennifer told M that she would be helping P with her horse for the show. Wow! did that make M happy. I think she asked everyday "When am I going to P's to help her with her horse?"


We managed to get a practice in at their house and one at the arena. We also had a mini practice and my girls got to help get the horses ready for the show (bath and brush).

Jennifer has been a horse-lady forever and a 4-H leader for a long time. She does a great job. Anyway, she has quite the collection of riding wear. So after the first practice we had a fashion show. Very fun. Sorry no pictures. Mary found a shirt to wear with her bright pink split skirt and T's helmet matches and fits. G found a black hat and jacket to wear with her black boots and khaki jeans...wow did show look grown up.


G has a hat that her grandfather bought out West and carried back on his lap in a cramped car in the late 1950's. She will wear it with pride, but the many years on the closet shelf has incurred some wear and tear. Mostly it needs reshaped. So before show season is over we will have that done.
G was so excited and nervous I don't think she slept well all week before the show. But it all paid off.


She put on her show clothes and was transformed from my little busy, rough and tumble girl to a sophisticated horse-lady. Wow. I barely recognized her. She carried herself with such confidence I rarely see in her. The only other place was the goat show ring last summer.


OK enough mommy ramble on to pictures:



No grandparents were able to come, but our church family was represented by the Schlitts from our small group. And our neighbor Mrs. Cooper brought her Granddaughter. G works for the Coopers feeding their mini horse (and a Morgan who was recently sold) and the cats and keeping the plants watered. What a treat to have them there.

Waiting for her class...kind of nervous.

My little and not so little cowgirls.

Showmanship is judged on how well the participant presents the horse, not at all on the horse. They have to do a pattern of sorts. The pattern was a little different for the levels for this show. G participated in the the walk-trot level; it is for beginners with only 1-2 years of show experience.

Her pattern was to walk to the judge, stop and set the horse while keeping the horse between her and the judge, then turn 90 degrees walk to a cone

Then turn and trot to the exit gate. Carly wasn't interested in going very fast. As they left the gate Jennifer had G make Carly do as she was told. Good learning for both girl and horse.

G got Carly to trot and went back to the trailer to let her rest. She almost missed her placing being called, but was brought to attention quickly enough to hear that she had earned first place!!! She said she teared up and didn't really believe it.

Great job G!!!

"Thank you Carly for being mostly good"

On the way to the ring. How P ended up alone with M and T and a horse I don't know, but they did great all the way to the other side of the arena.

Toes up, back straight.

In lead-line a small child usually 5-7 years old rides, but another experienced horseman is in control of the horse. They all get ribbons. It is a great learning experience.

They are led around the ring and have to change directions then line up to talk to the judge.

M had to answer a few questions for the judge. This judge was very patient and helpful with the little ones. M knew all the answers except she forgot the name of the horse. She said it was because she knew the mare had more than one name. Now she knows both. She also could answer a question she hadn't practiced and backed Franny up a step or two. In practicing for the show she had trouble remembering the color. Who has the color sorrel in their kindergarten crayon box?? So she kept repeating to herself, "sorrel, sorrel, sorrel," enough for her to remember and to drive her siblings nuts.

Happy with a job well done!

Showing off her ribbon. The white participation ribbon faded into to the lightly clouded sky. The weather couldn't have been better that day--partly sunny with a cool breeze.

My Friend George

Our 4-H club had the opportunity to incubate eggs and hatch some chicks. We wanted to add to our laying stock so we borrowed a rooster to fertilize some eggs for us. He was low rooster on the totem pole at his home so he was enjoying life here. We didn't enjoy his noise as early as 4:30 AM and as late as 1 AM. So when we had all the eggs we needed he went home.

There was a bit of a mishap with the incubator and only about 18 of 70 eggs hatched. N fell in love with a little black fuzzball and bought him with some birthday money. He came with 4 other chicks. So we brought home 8 baby chicks: 1 old English Bantam and 7 Americanas (the bread we currently have). We were also given 4 Rhode Island Reds from another club member. The club will be trying to hatch more, but we don't have the rooster to get more eggs. The one we borrowed isn't coming back anytime soon. And we only wanted 4-6 more laying hens (odds being that more than half the babies would be male and become dinner) so club members were generous in helping us build our laying flock.

The baby chicks came home when they were 5 days old. We tried to have them in the garage, but they acted very poorly so we brought them into the laundry room. I like having them in my office and got to know them a bit. One in particular would stretch its neck out to see who was looking at it. I started calling it George since is seemed curious.

I would get him out and he seemed quite content to sit with me as I drank my afternoon iced coffee and checked my email.

Not too long after these pictures were taken the chick smell began to overwhelm the office and they moved outside. George has forgotten who I am and runs for cover when any human gets close to the chicken tractor. Oh, well. The good news is that it appears that George is a pullet (girl) and I won't have to eat my friend. Amazingly of the 12 baby chick we brought home only one appears to be a cockerel (boy). Come October we may start a small egg business or more to my girls' liking a bakery specializing in rich desserts containing lots of eggs.