Jemima and Jeremy

Friday our neighbor stopped by. We started talking about the power outage we had earlier in the week. He was surprised that we did not have a generator. he had a second one that he wasn't using and told us we could have it for a good deal. Todd checked it out. Turns out that the generator came with 2 ducks.
I guess these 2 ducks were not getting along with another two he had and he wanted to separate them. At their original home they used to live with chickens, the chickens left (to our freezer) and the ducks took over the hen house. They had never been on the pond. They loved it.


Now they are free to roam. They have stayed pretty close to the pond. They are eating all the time. Hopefully, they are eating things we don't want. Like weeds, algae and bugs in the pond. They also like the grass.

It turns out that Todd was told that I wanted ducks. I don't remember telling anyone that. I did think it would be fun to watch ducks on the pond, and it is. Watch what you think out load around your children. Now the three little ones are fighting over whose ducks they actually are. The ducks do not go near anyone so I am not sure why any particular child would want to "own" them. They don't cuddle, they even swim the other way when you get close. Oh well.

Sticking with our literary theme I named the girl (we are assuming they are a male female pair) Jemima from Beatrix Potter stories. Jeremy just goes with Jemima. I can't tell them apart and we just call them "the ducks". But it is fun to give them names.

I hope I can get one of the children to build them at little lean-to. They didn't like the hard rain we had Sunday.

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 swim of 2010

Believe it or not it was over 80 on April 2. I considered it an April Fools trick that it was so warm, there fore I am expecting more snow.

For some strange reason Todd actually put on his suit. He waded in a few inches and decided that it was too cold. But G overcame his rational thinking and got him in...

For a few seconds.

New Additions

The chicks have grown and grown. We lost 4, so we have 6. Many of them have names but not all. I am starting to see the pecking order. Blondie or Meg and one of the ones with a striped head seems to be the bosses.

They have started to fly. They get as far as the top of their home. We have added more "lids" for the tub. Next weekend Todd will make them a chicken tractor home.

Saturday we brought our goats home. G was beside herself with excitement.

We did not bring home the boy we thought we would for multiple reasons, but we did bring home the one I thought was the cutest at the Carmen's. He is a Nigerian dwarf named Hugs. He was a bit uneasy about his new home...or maybe is was the 8 humans surrounding him, especially the small, loud excited ones. He seems to have settled into his new digs. He got his name because when he was very little he liked to be held. He still loves to just sit on your lap. His job is to be a companion to Heidi. Goats can get lonely, depressed and unhealthy if they are alone.Heidi on the other hand is normal wild crazy goat kid jumping on the walls, climbing on backs, and chewing on anything and everything. Heidi will be bread this fall and we will have babies in late winter and milk in the spring.

We have Chicks!

The little fluffy kind, not the little girl kind:

We have 10 Aracaunas. I am surprised how different they all are, we might even be able to tell them apart. They will eventually lay a variety of colored eggs--sometime in September I think.

N has started naming them. It is hard to come up with 10 names at one time.

barn and misc

This is the west end of the barn you can see the outhouse and the old "bathroom" remains. During the summer you can not see through the tree line here. The upstairs or loft o f the barn is still used for storage and sometimes the children play here. It is a MESS! but not a priority to clean up.

While I was taking pictures of the girls new dresses D had to get in on the photo shoot with May.

I use my Pampered Chef 4 cup batter bowl at least 3 times a week...well, I did. It got dropped and shattered into a million pieces. I have been told that if you send in the piece that has the company name on it they will replace it. the biggest piece I found was about 1" square and had no recognizable markings. Bummer.

First Swim

I didn't think it would be so early, but Saturday was warm and sunny and the kids thought it was TOOO HOOOTT. So I said they could get wet. They didn't stay in very long, but cooled off.

G's new friend Taylor was there to enjoy freezing. J was inside working on a new dress that she got done for church.