How To Know Spring Is Here....

Some people look for the usual signs of Spring... like Tulips coming up, grass greening, trees budding, birds singing, baby chicks hatching, and baby animals being born.

Not me.

Here's how I know if it is Spring....

Is my baby in mud? Check!

And is she lacking pants and shoes? Check!

And there you have it. Now I know Spring is here. Thanks Baby! :)

Speaking of Herbs...Wish I Had Some Comfrey AKA Knitbone!

My youngest daughter broke her index finger Friday! She's almost 6, and a daredevil at that, but it wasn't anything dare-devilish that led to the break. She was running laps in gym class, lost control of her feet, and hit the wall. Truth be told, at the time I was more worried about the lump on her noodle than I was about the hurt finger. I was on duty at the school and I iced both. Her head was fine. The next morning though, her finger was very swollen, painful, and bruised. So off to the ER. The middle bone in her finger is broken clean through. She has a plastic splint for the broken finger and it gets "buddy" wrapped to her middle finger. She isn't thrilled about the wrapping, but she is tolerating it well. She took a nice bath today and got to take it off for a bit. Afterword, she sat and watched a movie and kept her wrapped fingers on ice and elevated. She's a trooper!! :)

I was just thinking it would be nice to have had some Comfrey on hand to make a poultice. So far in my research, it seems to have many uses - treating breaks by encouraging healing is only one of them - so I think I may be growing it this year.

And in my 16+ years of being a parent...this is our first broken bone!

Light Bulb Moments....

I love light bulb moments! And I love my friends because that is where I learn so many great things!

Today I was speaking to a friend and she told me how she handles Christmas presents for her children....

Something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read.

Wow. You would have thought she had just told me the secrets of the universe, I was that excited inside! As I was wrapping my children's Christmas presents just now, her method was on my mind and I felt the need to take a break and blog about it.

I have a hard time not going Christmas crazy. As much as I wanted this year to be different, I got caught up. Again. I love my kids and love making them happy and there are just so many neat things to buy for them! Yet I also want them to grow up balanced. Since I find it very challenging to myself to stay balanced, you can imagine my quandary. And understand my failure!

A guideline such as the one my friend told me about sounds like it could be a wonderful solution to both keep me in check and to teach my children. Knowing my boundaries would help me to stay on track. Setting a budget along with it would really help! And the lessons for my kidlets...some of which could be less materialism, more focus on what they really want and enjoy and with less to take care of perhaps that could also mean more appreciation and taking better care of what they do have?

I also thought it would be nice to add a fifth category...Something to give. We need to work more on that too.

So, it is pretty much too late this year (unless I wanted to do a LOT of returning, which I don't!) but I am definitely going to be promoting this for next year. And maybe over the next year I can convince my kids that this is a GOOD thing! :)

Do you have a method to your Christmas gift giving madness, especially when it comes to your children? What do you think of this method? I would love to hear your thoughts!

You Simply Must Check It Out!!

My friend, Breanna, has three wonderful blogs going and I'd love to share them with you!

This one, her original, has a lot of neat stuff. Delicious yarn photos (she spins and dyes and knits!), pictures of neat places she has visited, her beautiful children and family, pugs, some neat crafty ideas, and more. Go on, have a look-see!

This one is one of her new blogs and it is about FREEZER COOKING!! :) I really want to get into doing this. She has some great recipes up. Check it out!

And last but not least, she is a preschool teacher. She was my youngest daughter's preschool teacher last year and I give her an A+! She's a wonderful teacher. She has recently started a blog about Montessori activities . It's new, but one you'll definitely want to follow especially if you have little ones!

So there you have it. If you are getting hit with this winter storm as we are, go grab a cup of cocoa (Or coffee for you in particular Coop Keeper Jayme! Or decaf tea in my case because I mixed a packet on cocoa in coffee just a bit ago and I am on caffeine overload!), snuggle in your warm robe, and go check out Breanna's blogs!

My Son Got a 9 Point Buck....

During youth deer season my son got a 9 pointer...took him down with 1 shot!

They are hunting again tomorrow...hope to have two more by the time they are through. We processed the deer ourselves (and let me tell you, this is pretty new to us!). I just about cut the tip of my thumb off because hubby sharpened the knives. I do not like deer burger, so we cut the back straps into steaks, then other cuts into bite size chunks to make grilled kabobs (we made some the other day marinated in Italian dressing and it was amazing!) and/or stew meat. The rest we are using to make jerky. My husband had a batch of jerky in the dehydrator right now and the house smells delicious! Happy hunting!

Oh, The Busy Life and Being Sick Do Not Mesh Well!!

The sun is shining today! That is a good thing. I have been fighting off the crud and now I have some weird thing going that I initially thought was my gallbladder but now I am thinking it is Costochondritis - which is an inflammation of the rib cartilage, probably related to the crud and coughing.

Yes, I SHOULD go to the Dr but, argh, I just don't want to! Stubborn and silly, I know. My husband told me to quit acting like I am 10 years old. :) LOL And I am the QUEEN of self diagnosis. Not that I am always right, you remember the recent ER trip that I thought was a massive heart attack that ended up being anxiety? Other than THAT one, I am usually right. And God love the Internet for self diagnosing! :) And I am such a total 'wait and see' type too. And then there is the long sordid story of insurance and everything where we live being out of area, having to drive two hours to get anything covered, blah blah blah blah blah. I am just not in the mood! I have things to do!

Thursday my sister is being induced to have the twin babies. Hooray!! :) Thank goodness I am off Thursday!!!!

This week and weekend is booked up with school home coming festivities - the parade, the football game, every day is a different theme for spirit week, and the homecoming dance Saturday which my oldest daughter is going to. My youngest daughter is on the dance team for the half-time show so she has practice this week.

Then the next weekend is my oldest daughter's sweet 16 party which I am in the process of planning.

I am trying to keep up! :)

Today I have been taking the time to go sit in the sun for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. All the latest research is talking about vitamin D deficiency and the impact it can have. And really, I DO feel better! I think there is something to that. Most of my "spare" time lately has been spent napping since I have been sick...the sun is doing me some good.

Oh, and my hubby is laid off this week. He was off last week too, but will be back to work next week! :) But since he has been around he is a lot of help and has saved the day with me not feeling well. He's a wonderful man.

We have been getting between 10 - 14 duck eggs per day. I have been giving a lot away, and I think I am going to try selling them. The guineas are great too...they love life in their new coop and they are getting so big!!

Alrighty, I am signing off for now. Back to your own busy life you go now! :) Thanks for stopping in and I am wishing you peace and happiness and HEALTH! :)

Three and a Half Eggs.......

My son went out to collect duck eggs this evening. He's how it went....

Him - Mom, guess how many eggs I found?

Me - How many?

Him - Three and a half!

Me - Huh? Was one broken?

Nope, just tiny! It is adorable! Do we have a tiny duck hiding out there amongst the Dirty Divas?

And he is way excited to eat that tiny egg for breakfast tomorrow! :) I still haven't had a chance to eat a duck egg, maybe tomorrow morning, but my son has and he loves them! He said they are way better than a chicken egg. That made me smile! :)

Much more to update about my follow up trip to the Dr today and the Guineas. But for now I am hitting the tub with some lavender Epsom salt and then heading to bed. Big hugs to all of you and I wish you a peaceful night!

Help!!! I Need Some Parenting Advice......

Kids quitting activities is the subject. When my daughter wanted to quit soccer a couple of years ago, which she thought she would love, I had her finish out the season because she had made a commitment to her team and she never had to play it again. My 7th grade son wanted to play football, so he is, but after loving it at first, now he says he hates it and wants to quit. When I ask him why, he throws out some reasons like his uniform pants are too big (I can alter them!) or he doesn't know the plays (So study them!). The thing is, he tends to want to quit things. He plays the sax and wanted to quit it this year. I didn't let him and he hasn't complained about it at all. I did let him quit summer school because it wasn't necessary, I signed him up to keep him busy and he hated it so after a lot of thought, because I did not want to give him the impression that quitting is taken lightly, he didn't have to be there so I let him quit. When he wanted to quit the sax, he told his sister that I would let him quit because I let him quit summer school. Ugh!

So my thinking is that they haven't even had their first game yet. I think he should finish the season, which isn't very long and the middle school team he is on only has like four games. If he still hates it, he never has to play again but at least he gave it a full chance since he wanted to play in the first place. Then again, I hate for him to be miserable and waste time that he could be using for something else more fulfilling. But perhaps the underlying message, which would be to follow through on commitments, is more important. Then again, maybe I am thinking too seriously about this and over thinking. :) I also think that maybe hubby or I should talk to the coach.

So what do you all think? How do you or did you handle your kids wanting to quit something? What would you do in my shoes? And where is that darn Child's Owner Manual when you need it? :) Parenting is definitely the toughest job in the world. Yet also the most rewarding! :)

The Suspicious Minds Of Ducks....

The Dirty Divas are suspicious by nature. It's a duck thing. Or maybe it's a Diva thing.

Anyway, they were VERY suspicious when I replaced their little cut off mineral tub spas with a kiddie pool. They wouldn't even come out of the coop. They would come up the ramp, see the pool, and then go right back in. And repeat. Finally, they got brave and came outside. They'd eyeball it, then forage, and move a little closer, and forage and eyeball it some more, and forage some more, and move a bit closer. And over and over and over until they FINALLY went to check it out and poke and peck at it.

Now, you know I had this little duck fairytale in my head that they were going to just love the pool, know exactly what to do, and jump right in. Uhhhh...yeah. Didn't happen. There was a lot of neck straining trying to reach the water for a drink. I felt terrible! Poor things straining to get a drink...what kind of duck momma am I? I told hubby that the ducks is dumb. I know! That was not a nice thing for a mother to say about her ducklings at all!

But then, then they FINALLY figured it out! I was so happy. They love it!

Like the ramp I built with a plank and some fire wood?

Hey kids, while were in the van want me to tell you a story? Great!

Once upon a time, there was a slightly odd woman who got 16 ducklings and named them The Dirty Divas.....

Oh, no. Please. Not THIS story again....... :)

Will This Make Me Look More Beautifuler?

Yesterday my 5 year old.....

...made this for me out of a piece of felt, large safety pins, and jingle bells.



She told me that I am already beautiful, but if I pin this on my clothes and wear it around, that I will look even more beautifuler! Think it will work? :)

Mr. Tough Guy.....

My son is getting ready to turn 12! Officially a pre-teen....where does the time go? But he isn't afraid to sport an Eric Carl 'Hungry Little Caterpillar' tattoo - not as long as he is flexing his muscles anyway. :)

It has been a busy week! With school getting close to letting out for the summer, there is a lot going on. It has also been gorgeous out, with the exception of yesterday when we had a tornado warning. Luckily all is well and the worst of the storm passed to the north of us. Before the storm I did get some potatoes planted, again. I would say about half of what I planted the first go round came up and the rest rotted in the ground. I suspect we may have planted some a bit too deep. We also got the rest of the onion plants in the ground. I was disappointed to find that my white onion plants had all dried out the nothing. Darn it. The red ones were still good, so in they went. My sweet potato slips came yesterday too, so I got them planted. I also learned that I CAN GROW MY OWN SLIPS!!! Did you know you could do that? I had no clue!! Next year I will definitely do that. And my own onion plants. And my own seed potatoes (God willing!)

The beautiful pink azaleas I planted last year are officially dead. My parents came over earlier this week for a school program and mom brought me some of her extra daylillies, so I will replace them with those. My older two kids were both in the school program playing their instruments and my oldest daughter was in a small production of Grease and did awesome! They did two Grease songs and choreographed dance moves. She had a bit of a solo for the end of Summer Nights and she sang beautifully! She said she wasn't even nervous like she used to be before preforming...good for her!! :)

Youngest D was home from school today after climbing in bed with us at 1:30 in the morning with a slight fever. I couldn't get her to take any fever medicine, so I sponged her with a wash cloth. That drove her out of our bed and back into hers, she did not like being sponged! LOL :) She is doing better today. I hate to see her not feeling well, but it is about the only time she slows down enough to be a complete snuggle bunny.

I planted Zinnia, marigold, and mammoth sun flower seeds yesterday too. My tomato plants have blooms! And are still not in the ground. I was hoping to get them in yesterday but by the time hubby got home from work and disced, the storm came and we were off to the basement. We had 3o minutes notice before the storm hit, so we were able to baton down the hatches. I do look forward to having the raised beds next year - one of the big advantages is that they will be smaller and more manageable that the garden plot. Plus I will be able to cover for moisture control to get early spring stuff in when it needs to be. And less weeding. The list of positives goes on and on.

The Dirty Divas are still doing awesome!

And my camera is throwing a fit and only letting me have 7 pictures on it at a time. I am not sure what the problem is with the memory card. So I haven't been taking many pictures. I wish I was because this is the BEST time of year if you ask me! So much going on and everything is beautiful!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Signs From Above....

Well, first the Weeping Willow got plowed over by the bull. And really, I had been thinking of moving it or something anyway because of our eventual plan to build raised beds in that area of the yard. Then yesterday evening hubby was mowing and FIL had just got done with his mowing and came and helped hubby finish up so he could take the kids fishing sooner. However, FIL did not realize that the foot tall twig sticking up in the yard was a Lilac bush to be that my mom gave me last year from her Lilacs. So he mowed it over. Darn it.

But no, I shall not let it get me down! I will just take it as a sign that we are destined to build raised beds for the vegetables. It would have had to have been moved too.

In other news, it is finally not been raining! Things are drying out and hopefully I will get some stuff planted. I did plant flower seeds in pots yesterday evening. I made a vow that I would not spend any money on flowers, so that means I used seed saved from last year. Zinnias and Marigolds to be specific. Today I plan to seed the rest of my flower beds. I also hope to get my seedlings planted over the next few days if the rain stays away. We have a slight chance each day after today.

The ducks are getting huge and they are definitely in an ugly duckling stage! They are getting feathers all over and are pretty awkward looking, but soon they will be beautiful. Their voices are also changing! No real quacks yet, but I am sure that will happen soon. They remind me of pre-teens. They are so fun to watch. I don't know what it is about them, but they are so relaxing and entertaining.

We hit a few garage sales Saturday morning. Since we are pinching pennies and squeezing George til he screams (I just really love saying that!) I am going to try get as much of the kid's school clothes for this fall as possible from garage sales/consignment shops. So far I have found a few really nice things. I also found some canning jars for cheap.

Oh, and the potatoes have sprouted!!!!!! Since this is my first time planting them, I was completely thrilled! And one of my tomato seedlings, a Sweet Million cherry tomato, is starting to get blooms. They'll be so happy to get in the ground.

The kids did catch a few fish yesterday evening so we had a yummy fish snack. They were so proud of themselves. I am very proud of them too. :)

I'm sure there is more to ramble about, but it is Monday morning and my brain hasn't fully clicked on yet. I'll get pictures of ducks and stuff up soon. I hope you had a wonderful weekend and have a Happy Monday!

The Duck House is Done and The Dirty Diva's Have Moved In! (lots of pics)

This is the duck house and the junk out front on the left is the stuff I cleaned out of the two rooms we are using for now.





















This is my little helper dragging the hoe for me so that I could dig a little trench by the water pump to put rocks in to hopefully minimize a huge water mess.

This is the water pump. Thank goodness it is there! It would be a major pain to water the ducks if it wasn't! I didn't take a picture of the finished room, but I dug the hole, put the rock in, and laid straw over the rest of the floor. It looks great!

Uhhh...where did my helper go? Oh! There she is!



Can you see her now?




How about now?

We all love that creek.


Ok, so while she played, I worked. This is the cement pad in the area where the duck yard will be. I was thrilled it was there, it is a great place to put the swimming water to help keep down the mess they will make.





And the finished product. This is the yard area from a distance. BEFORE....

And AFTER....

Didn't my totally awesome and talented husband do a fantastic job? Thank you honey!! I love you!

We decided to fence and then electric fence around the fence. Can't be too safe with dogs, cats and coyotes around. The fencing and electric fence were all things that were already around so we didn't have to spend any money. Hooray for that because we have none to spend! :) LOL

The Dirty Diva's enjoying their new yard....

If you look very very close you will see that they are getting their tail feathers!!
And their new ramp to go in and out....

Wait a second...something is just not quite right about this duck....

(That there is farm fasion at its finest! :) LOL)

And here they are enjoying their swimming water. We'll probably give them an old kiddie pool that we have stashed when they get bigger. For now they are happy with these.

A view in their kitchen/living room/bedroom inside the house....

In other news, we have been having severe thunderstorms. Right now we are in a tornado watch. Since it was time for the seedlings to be out of the greenhouse, we moved them to boxes and put them on the deck so we could keep them outside until we plant, but that would also make it easy for us to bring them in when it storms. We put the greenhouse under the carport to keep it from getting torn up. It'll get stored until we need it again. Here are the seedlings earlier this evening.....

And as I was typing this the wind kicked up something fierce so they are in for the night. They'll be pleanty of time for them to get pounded by storms once they arein the garden. ;)

Ok, I have got to get some sleep! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Might As Well Face It...She's Addicted To Mud.....

Ummm. Yeah. I think the pictures say it all.

The Ducklings Are Here!!!

We got the call this morning from the post office....come pick up your box of peeps! :)

Andy puppy was excited to eat....I mean MEET them....

And just like any newborn when they get tired, they pass out! I thought we killed them because they would just kind of drop! Nope, they are ok. Just tired babies. Now I will be doing middle of the night "breathing checks" on 16 tiny ducklings....

And like other newborns, they love food! They caught right on to eating and drinking. And they LOVE water!

My youngest daughter has already named three of them. I have no clue how she will ever tell them apart....

But one thing is for sure....it is DEFINITELY love.....

What's in Your Crockpot?

This week my crockpots are my absolute most bestest wonderful friends! I have a deadline to meet which means I am spending a lot of time working toward that goal. However, life must go on, and my family must eat! :)

I discovered this wonderful blog not too long ago, A Year of Crockpotting , so in preparation for this week I researched recipes and made sure the ingredients were bought and ready. It has made life a whole lot easier this week for me, and the hubby and kids are loving the new recipes!

I don't have time right now to tell you the ones I have tried, deadline and all, but I wanted to do a quick check in and tell you that if you are in need of some time saving yummy recipes to use in that magical kitchen tool the crockpot, check out that blog!

And have a great day! :)

Random Pictures - Crazy Hair Day

The school has Spirit Week here and there with a theme each day for a week. My son was already due for a hair cut, so he wanted a Mohawk for Crazy Hair Day....

Of course, it had to be blue...that is his school color!

By the end of the day he was back to short not crazy hair again. :)