Z has real-life anime eyes.

It's been raining a lot...

This is a picture of our pond earlier this year when we considered it fairly full:

This is a picture from this afternoon. Notice the river of water running off behind the trees...

then across our driveway...

Thankfully, our trailer, the house, the chicken coop, etc. all sits high and (mostly) dry...

House Progress

I have been chastised for not posting enough photos of the house. Here it is. Still need to frame out the front porch roof and brace the eaves and some other areas before we can move forward with the roof... But we're getting there.

Easter Morning

This is a picture of Dragon playing with the (dead, headless) little rabbit he killed Easter morning and brought to me while I was hiding eggs. It was not the rabbit Chris caught a few days earlier. That one is still in a cage in our garage, and now Chris is afraid to 'release it back to the wild'.

This is a picture of Z right before the hunt. Her face says it all. Joe and Z have been running a fever off and on for the past several days, so needless to say, Z wasn't too enthused about the egg hunt.

Heifer Fever

It happened again. I looked at Craigslist and saw a little heifer for sale in the area, and now I am plotting to get it. All I need to do is convince my husband that this IS a good time to get a heifer and obtain money separate from the house fund to purchase it.... (fingers drumming together in thought)

What's Growing On?

I don't think I ever posted a picture of the coop with plants on top... Well, here it is. You can't see it very well in this photo, but the dianthi (?) are blooming! I might actually get an iris bloom soon as well. (I am still planning to put more up there, as it looks a little sparse.)

It occurred to me that when the original farmers on this land built the barn, they must have cut down most of the oak trees on the property to do it. I don't think there are any sizable oaks on our property, though there are a few on the neighbor's land along side the driveway. So last fall, I gathered some acorns and stored them in the fridge for the winter. I planted them in a couple pots sometime in March, hardly expecting any of them to germinate. So far I have four little saplings I plan to put in the ground somewhere soon! Then I just need to make sure Chris doesn't mow them over.

I have most of the garden planted: Lettuce, beets, radishes, carrots, onion, chard, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and beans. What I am most excited about are my peas! I have tried growing peas a few times, and haven't had much luck. But these are thriving. This picture was taken a week ago, and I think they are about twice as high, now. If I manage to eat one fresh pod from these vines, I will call this growing season a success.

An Easter Bunny

As Chris was mowing yesterday, I heard him yell, stop the mower, then go running toward the trailer. Soon, I saw him running to the shop. I was fairly certain nothing terrible had happened to one of the kids, but it seemed something was urgent. As I walked toward the trailer, he came sprinting out of the shop, donning a pair of gloves. He started searching behind the yuccas, and a second later, a little rabbit came tearing out across the lawn. Chris gave chase. Zip, zap, back and forth, through (and around) the fence... until the poor little guy gave up a pathetic squeak and Chris rose from the ground triumphant.
Little rabbits are so cute. The kids were delighted to get to see one up close. And you could see Chris's heart melting. So, of course, they all want to keep the rabbit, and here I stand with my heart torn, thinking about this terrified, little animal (SO cute) huddled in the corner of a box wishing for all the world it was back outside hiding in a clump of grass under the wide, blue sky.

Relay for Life!

I am participating in a fundraising event June 17th for the American Cancer Society called the Relay for Life. It is an all-night, relay-style walk, symbolic of the fact that 'cancer never sleeps'. You can read more about the event here. For those of you who would like to help me reach my (pathetic) fundraising goal of $50, please follow this link to make a tax deductable donation. If 10 people donate a mere $5, I'll have met my goal. It would be really great to raise more money and make that goal look silly. So donate now! If you choose, you can also dedicate a luminaria in memory or honor of someone who has battled cancer to help light up the all-night event. Thanks!

Yesterday, Chris was off work, so he worked on framing up the dormer walls and putting up the ridge beam, all of which he got done by himself with only minimal help. By the end of the night, we had a template for the rafters ready to go, and after Finley's soccer game this morning, cut and slapped up 16 of them with ease. Then came the tricky part: the valley rafters. When it comes to a carprentry challenge, I always ask myself, "What would Tom Silva do?" He has tricks that make things easier insead of harder... like transferring instead of measuring angles. So after picturing Tom Silva up on our roof, I had an idea. After propping one boards up on the roof and tracing the lines for the cuts, we took the boards back to the shop where I stared at it for a good while trying to figure out how to cut angled angles. Our chop saw was not quite big enough for the task. I decided on the circular saw, blade set at the appropriate angle. Then I used the jigsaw to cut the perpendicular cut so the rafter would fit into its corner. We hauled the board back up to the top of the house, and miraculously, it fit! We cut the other valley rafter, and Chris screwed it into place, while I looked on, rather pleased with myself. Until... We started looking at how the rafters would come meet the valley rafter, and we realized that we had placed the rafter to line up flush with the top wall plate... not the top of the rafters. Oops. Two hours and several other obstacles later, we had the valley rafters up again and were ready to call it quits. And while I sat here typing just a minute ago, I realized we had made yet another mistake... The valley rafters will have to come down.

Dusk