Who Knew?

Find of the week: egg dye for brown eggs! Since this item hit our cart, G$ has been excited to give it the old Easter try. We boiled seemingly dozens of eggs a couple days ago, and today was the big day for turning them colors other than their lovely shades of brown. I'm pretty impressed with how effective the brown egg dye kit proved to be!



I have a friend who always comments on how we have so many pictures of the kids looking at the camera and smiling, "all at the same time!!" Well, it takes a few shots to get here--we just delete the others, hee hee ;)




Eggs in process! Pretty great colors coming from the tiny dishes of vinegar and dye tabs. Brennen left his final egg in to soak while we watched the movie Ferdinand (the kids thought this movie was hilarious; I liked the visual prettiness of it and the kind-heartedness of the "Little Big Guy.")




So . . .  Buck decided to try the included glue and glitter options on his special egg :) He later blew away the excess to reveal the letters *MOM.* I don't know if that was in honor of me, his mom, or my mom, but what I do know is that we were all covered with little pink sparkles by the end of the activity :)

 

Caelan used the glue dots to make cute little polka dot spots on her jewel-toned egg . . . then she intentionally covered herself with the remaining glitter, hoping to have sparkles in her hair :)

A very bright array of eggs--I wonder what the hens would do if they found one of these lovelies in their neighborly nest. They'd be wondering which bird ate the glitter, that's what!

And, just in case you have been concerned about the birds' hydration requirements given my earlier post about their updated watering system . . . yah, they never figured it out. Buck went up later in the day and poked a small stick through the chicken wire. The birds are used to the kids feeding them grass and such through the fence, so they all came running over to check out the "treat." Buck then used the end of the stick to poke at the water spickets directly above the chicken ladies' heads--oh, how the lights came on then! Drops of water from the heavens :) We checked again before bedtime, and they'd drained almost two inches of water from the bucket--like I've said all along, our birds are pretty brilliant 🤣

Spring . . . Chickens

Raise your hand if you're tired of reading posts about our chickens . . . haha, I can't see you, so I'll post some more :) Knowing that we have several out -of-town jaunts coming up this year, and that currently the chickens need four visits each day to tend to their needs--we decided to streamline, economize, increase our efficiency. Maybe that way our neighbors won't mind helping out with the farm while we're away ;)

This morning Buck and Graysen were literally *up with the chickens,* (though I believe they did not release them immediately) . . . sprucing up the coop. They pulled the former watering system (a rubber bowl we can't scrub clean anymore) and installed a clean water dispenser that holds, IDK how many gallons at a time. They also put in a Little Giant galvanized-steel food dispenser that holds about 30 lbs. of feed (regular feed, not galvanized-steel feed :). We're hoping these two items cut the necessity of feeding and watering to weekly, rather than twice daily.

So far, the food box is a hit. The water . . .  well, chickens aren't the brightest birds in the flock. We stood up there for quite awhile and watched them as the sun peeked over the back hill. So much for, "Your birds will find their water in minutes." Eventually, the chickens were willing to stand underneath the newly secured bucket. They scratched through the fresh layer of cut "hay" (wild grasses from our hill that Buck cut down for me in the fall) under the new water dispensing bucket. Honey Chicken was even brave enough to peck at one of the little spickets that make the water come out (she was the only one who actually hit the target--and then she ran away :) Hopefully the feathered ladies won't dehydrate before they get the system figured out. We put it right where their old water dish used to be, and we let the water drops stand out so they could find them . . . I guess if they get thirsty enough . . .

Oh, and one of Caelan's plans to completely cover our property with flowers is poking through the grass! See the darling little crocuses she planted last fall? Yay for spring flowers! There's a yellow one too, but it was keeping its petals closed against the cold, so I didn't take its picture. We are ready for some warmth and a dash of sunshine around here, but we'll take flowers--tiny, sweet, little flowers--as evidence spring is nearing.

Sloppy Joe, Slop-a, Sloppy Joe

Our family offered to provide the meal for youth group this week. Buck suggested Sloppy Joes, so I pulled out our cookbook and found his favorite version of the recipe. With a little help from our Google lady, "Okay, Google . . . how many cups is 3/4 times 8?" (Yes, I could have done the math, but we might as well use the Google for something she's not "sorry, I can't help with that yet" :)

Google proudly announced, "Six cups." I wasn't sure I heard correctly, so I asked again. Google repeated, "Six cups." Whoa. That's a lot of ketchup! Our eight-pounds-of-meat recipe also now called for a full cup of Frank's hot sauce, half a cup of mustard, half a cup of cider vinegar . . . and then there were the onions!


Gabby volunteered to be our chopper. Technically it was supposed to be one whole onion per pound, but we just went with five onions. Halfway through, we were both weeping in the kitchen with all that oniony aroma ;)

I couldn't fit three big frying pans of meat on our stovetop, so we went with two large and one small. Both girls worked on the browning process. Soon it was all simmering in the crockpots--if you include the sauce and onions, pretty close to 10 lbs. of Sloppy Joes!


We've never produced food for an expected crowd of 40 to 50 middle schoolers to teenagers before. Buck and I were a little worried when we saw the teen boys piling three to five sandwiches on their seemingly miniature paper plates. Maybe it was like the loaves and the fishes in the Bible, but all the chips, veggies, fruit (well, maybe not the fruit), cookies, and Sloppy Joes stretched to feed the crowd. We even had about half a pound meat mixture leftover (we'll give the veggies to the birds--I can't do *hand*led food the next day :/)



Among the topics of discussion in small group that evening . . . if you could stay one age forever, which age would you choose? One girl in Gabby's group said, "19--I've never been 19 before, but it sounds like it would be a nice age; you'd be sort of done with school, and you could still be with your family . . ." Another girl says, "28--because you wouldn't have to be with your family, and you could do whatever you want, and you would be still able to play sports." Gabby says, "67--because you'd be retired, and you wouldn't have to work anymore, but they STILL pay you, and you get to travel, like my grandma does . . ." The first girl says, "Oooh! That sounds great; I pick 67, too!"

The conversation swung around to me (the girls were insistent that I get my turn), and I said, "29--because I'd have all my kids, and my husband, but my metabolism would still be intact." :) After the others girls had answered, we moved on to discuss the Bible passage 2 Corinthians 4. Verse 16 stood out: "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day."

As the girls wrestled with what this means, I said, "It's a miracle passage--even though our bodies are getting older on the outside, our souls are becoming younger and newer as we learn more about God."

The youth pastor's wife added, "Our bodies grow until we're about 25, and then they deteriorate--they start falling apart."

Suddenly the "28 forever" girl popped her hand in the air and said, "I want to change my answer!" It was so funny. She's a fairly quiet kid, so those wheels were turning :)

The youth pastor is presenting some thinky stuff--getting the kids to consider what's more important in your life than God (what stuff do you try to do on your own that [you think] He's not a part of, how do your reading/music/online habits/friendship choices affect your connection to God, are you reflecting Him when you walk out of class, punch a kid you're mad at, disrespect your parents? YP's making the kids squirm, trying build some character there, help them see the kind of people they want to be and how they can start being those people now. It's good stuff! Fueled by Sloppy Joes ;)

Bears, Bears, and More Bears!

The girls can add Louisiana and Iowa to their list of states to which they're shipping bears! A high school classmate of mine asked Caelan and Gabby to sew eight memory bears in honor of her departed brother, as a gift to family members who miss him. Working with t-shirt fabric was different than the girls were used to, and they had to add some accent fabric already in our collection to make the short supply of t-shirts stretch. But they managed to work together to produce bears that are already very much appreciated (even though they're still stacked half as tall as the ceiling in my clothes closet :)



Her brother was a big Iowa Hawkeye fan!

Front and back of the "polar" bear :)

Deer Beware

Bright and early on an absolutely freezing "spring" Saturday morning (after not a lot of sleep from the slumber party contestants, the other two of whom we've just learned tested positive for strep today, ugh!), Brennen and Buck set out to attend Brennen's hunter field day. Already, he'd worked for a couple months completing the online portion of the course. Now, he just needed some hands-on training in gun safety, rules and regulations, oh, yeah, and donuts. He was pretty excited about the donuts. "I ate three! One was a long john, what? I was hungry!" Buck was also excited about the donuts--much more so than the crockpot hotdogs they received for lunch.


I'll be honest--I don't know a whole lot about what all they accomplished at the hunter field day, so I'll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves. I do know, that this course was significantly closer than the course the girls took with Buck. I also know that Buck and Brennen dashed out of the house without checking the weather--only to find themselves standing in a mini snowstorm in hoodies. Ahhh, springtime.


















It is true, I've never taken the hunter safety course myself. But, I have listened as the kids worked on the study questions, and I think I picked up a few tips. For instance . . . never stick your finger in the barrel of a gun.



Oh, ummm . . . well, for sure NEVER look down the barrel of a gun!! 



Right. Well, maybe this was the "what not to do" portion of the demonstration? Like I said, I wasn't there . . . :)

Although sleep deprivation might have played a noticeable role in instruction following, Brennen did manage to buckle down and score very well on his test. He only missed four questions and Buck said two of them were definitely tricky. As a result, the deer shall shudder as the mighty hunter takes to the woods and fields this fall :) I've already got the cabin reserved for youth hunting season times three!


If you look closely, you'll see the snow flakes. They didn't stick around, at all, like most of the rest of the world around us. Our little weather pocket just blew the storm off and away to the north like it always does.

Boiled hot dogs--lunch of champion hunters! At least the plates are cool-looking :)

That Awkward Stage

Everyone goes through it . . . that stage between being a cute, fluffy little chick, and a sleek, well-feathered adult. In the meantime--you ugly!

Our little birds are three weeks old and losing their fluffy feathers. We haven't clipped their wings yet, and they flutter and fly all over the dog kennel enclosure. They like to perch on the food tube, and in their water dish--gross. We bought them a "Chick Stick" to provide nutrients and entertainment. They are still quite entertaining themselves--and messy, very messy.

We ALMOST added two more babies to our crate--we stopped by the feed store and they'd received an accidental double order of baby birds--1,000!! There was a batch of teeny gray puff balls who will grow to have bluish, purple feathers--cool! However, they would be too young to add to our flock before our trip north, so we had to pass. Man, they were cute though! :)

Liberty's current "look" makes me think of those ladies who wear the gigantic feather boas around their necks :) Maybe it's still fashionable in the chicken world?

The Old Switcheroo

If our kids had their way, they'd probably half live at their friends' house and visa versa. Newsflash: homeschool kids are BUSY, ha! So when we moms plan a get together for our crews, scheduling is often a month out. Such was the case in this slumber party switch. Our girls there, their boys here. But you never know what's going to happen in a month, especially when nine children are involved in the equation. Nevertheless, the girls eagerly planned every detail of their side of the event via non-stop text messaging . . . and the boys bought laser tag guns :)

Then came the dreaded week-of-the-switch notification that the other family had a feverish kid over the previous weekend . . . nooooooo! We played it day by day, hoping (and I'm sure there was some praying :) that all would be well, so the slumber party could continue as scheduled.

Well, as you can see from the pictures, it all worked out! I even understood when my friend S, signed, "I get three girls--you get four boys--haha."

The boys kept themselves plenty busy! Wii Sports, dinner (I got to use my new Chip and Jojo dinner bell triangle . . . true the boys were just downstairs, but it was fun to ring it anyway :), football and some sort of catch the red rubber ball game outside; they helped with the chicken chores, then came inside for a zoo tour, a board game--wishing away the hours til it got dark, they helped Buck unload a car full of groceries, had a snack, and then finally it was time for laser tag!

Buck and I saw neon red, blue, and green lights zip by the windows as we watched Live PD downstairs, so we knew the boys were fine :)

And what were the girls doing during all the exuberant play taking place at our house? They drew pictures together, made Oreo dessert balls, watched Beauty and the Beast--and then watched it again in French . . . I could almost hear my friend S laughing in the background as my girls text-messaged updates to me ;)

At 8:50 p.m., the boys decided they wanted to watch a Star Wars movie--they chose one that runs two hours and 15 minutes long! Normally, bedtime is at like 9:15. Normally, they would watch a movie on the TV. Normally people would have more than one TV in their house--but that's not our style :) Instead, four big boys crowded around one tiny Ipad screen (thanks again, Uncle C!) onto which Caelan had digitally loaded any movies in our collection that had such codes. The girls watch these movies when they walk on the treadmill, because the treadmill has a nifty little Ipad holding tray--who knew? :) For the next two hours, the four boys squinted to see all the action in Rogue One and leaned in to hear the action above the baby chicken noise to their immediate right, ha!


Finally, Buck could keep his eyes open no more. He headed off to bed, and I did too, except I wasn't about to go to sleep until the slumber party crew had drifted away to dreamland. Instead, I sat up texting S about how our kids were named, how Buck and I met, how I broke my ribs on a mountain, etc. etc. Buck said, "Tell your friend it's time for bed." I said, "But I can't go to bed until her children are asleep." Buck said, "Snore . . . ." (he falls asleep very quickly ;)

At 11:49, I turned out my light and joined the already sleeping party--of five guys. I'm just now realizing that the only females in our entire household collection were myself and the four baby chicks. Oh, but it's funny--S's husband would have been the only guy in a house with six girls and a girl dog, too!

The next morning, I, bleary-eyed, pointed out the breakfast cupboard, and said, "You know how to make oatmeal? Good. Help yourself." At S's house, her husband was *The Pancake Man,* flinging pancakes from a pan to the girls who tried to catch the flying breakfast food with their plates . . . their morning routine was way cooler than mine :)

Buck and Brennen left super early to get to Brennen's Hunter Safety Field Day . . . so G$ and his guests decided to play laser tag--in the house! Hmmm, well, I cleaned around them, then suggested they go out and build with the giant blocks in the garage (I discovered this morning they were using a crowbar to hold a piece of AstroTurf in place of a roof on their structure, aughh!!) After completing their blocks-of-doom construction project, the three remaining exchange members came in to play Hullaballoo--recently rediscovered in a closet, after we feared it had been given away. Da-da-dadadadada-dadadadad-DA-DA . . . it's back and going strong! So, the old switcheroo ended in a hullaballoo, and everyone had a great time :)

Workout Session During a Lesson

Our guitar teacher came up with a pretty nifty way to keep the boys busy during the girls' guitar/piano lesson--an elliptical machine! The boys were enthralled . . . "Try to get to 400 calories," guitar Perry said. Oh how they worked to reach that goal :) "I'm going to add a gym membership fee to your lesson," guitar Perry joked. Now wait a minute! Ha! We actually have a deal worked out where he cuts us a $5 discount for bringing him lunch at lesson time. It works out great, because we always have leftovers to share--okay, not always, but usually!

By the time the boys were up for their music lesson, they'd burned some decent energy (and calories--ha!). I like creative solutions to teaching situations :)