Enjoying Life and Working

Everything is going great here on the farm. Flowers are blooming, although this time of year we are battling June Beetles. 😞

The lily in this flower bed I planted a few years ago and it never grew. Well now it did. It is beautiful. 

Garden is growing wonderfully. We have got green tomatoes, peppers growing like crazy. My DIL is excited about her one watermelon vine that she planted. The others never came up, so we are hanging on to this one as much as possible. The broccoli and cauliflower are done. We did not freeze any. We have just been eating it fresh. The girls have gotten a taste for it and like it some especially dipped in Ranch dressing. I have purple cabbage left and it is doing great. I picked a few squash and zucchini this morning. I am so pleased with how the garden is doing this year. It want be long until we will be harvesting our first two rows of corn. 

With the last of the green cabbage, I am trying my hand at fermenting sauerkraut this time. I watched several YouTube videos and found the best one I liked. All I did was cut up my cabbage, put into gallon jug or if you have a crock, that is great, you add salt to the cabbage to bring out the moisture. Now, you have to be careful with the salt. You can start out with 1tsp salt per head of cabbage. If you need to add more, add gradually. Taste test as you go, trust me. I started out with too much salt and had to add more cabbage. You will need to punch down the cabbage until the water comes above the cabbage. The cabbage has to stay under the water in order to not get mold. You can use a dowel or your hand to punch down the kraut. Then in order to keep it under the water, you will need a weight of some kind to keep the cabbage down. I used ziploc bags with water in them. If you are using a crock of some sort and it has a wide opening, you could probably find a saucer or plate even to use as a weight. You can even use some rocks or brick wrapped in a ziploc bag. Then cover it with lid and then a cloth. Keep in a cool, dry, dark place for two weeks. Then start taste testing and stirring. You can ferment longer or as is. When it is done fermenting, you can move it to the refrigerator and eat out of it. However, I want to can mine for longer shelf life. I will pack it into jars, and add more brine if need be, and process in water bath for 15 minutes. I'll be sure to post the process of that. 

Things just got real for Dallas. All Sr's had appointments for their Sr portraits for the upcoming school year. We are choosing to have our DIL'aws mother do our casual pics. This formal is for the year book. She will also do us another formal for him seeings though he has a hat ring around his head. 😞

We are not sure how this school year is going to go as of this moment with this pandemic. They have come up with two options for our district. Students can either continue virtual schooling or return to classroom. The thing with returning to the school is there will be so many restrictions like desks being apart, wearing masks, which I know my kid is not going to do. I can't wear one either due to hyperventilating. Just yesterday our state governor put us under state of emergency again and here we go again. Just when things were starting to get better. I don't understand why its ok to riot and loot and be shoulder to shoulder and not wear masks and the CDC not say a word, yet we can't go to school, work, church, etc without them coming down hard on us. It will end when election is over probably. OOOOPPPPPPSSSSS! Did I say that out loud? Oh well. Enough about that, that is a whole new soap box and I'm not even gonna get on it. 

Dallas is doing good with his PT for the Marine Corp Program. He loves it. He is also liking his summer job on weekends. He is working for a guy doing Hydroponics. I am hoping he can learn alot and then teach me. 

Dear hubby tried his hand at making cheese one day and he did a superb job. 

I was so excited to get this in the mail thanks to my sweetheart. This is a set of books that started me on my journey teaching our boys how to read. 22 yrs ago, dear hubby bought me this set for

Dakota

when he was born. Then I used them with

Dallas.

Then, I made the mistake of passing them down to someone who didn't keep them like they said they would and I lost them. Thanks to E-bay we found another set. I absolutely love these books and will never pass them to anyone again outside this family. I will be using these to teach all my grandchildren.

Over the weekend, dear hubby took  the boys on a much needed father sons fishing trip for Fathers day. I believe they had a very good time. They are not much of picture takers, so I only got a few. Their fun time is competing to see who can catch the most fish. Dad wound up winning, Dakota was 2nd and I think Dallas just got tired of competing after a while. He is like me, we have a little trouble figuring out how to work each different kind of baits. All in all, they had a blast. 

Meanwhile, us girls had a time here at my house. Much needed girl time. We invited Brylee, Dallas' girlfriend to stay with us. We did crafts with the girls, swam, cooked, did yoga, manicures, pedicures, walked them through the garden to see everything, needless to say, they were excited to see everything growing and their hard work paying off. 

When the guys got home, they were truly missed. These girls ran outside to Poppie.

One day dear hubby and I took the boat out, cause we could. I let him fish which he is in his element, I soak up the sun, which is my element. 

We had the girls spend a night with us one weekend. We played outside, we read books, we colored, and the most fun, I let them make a fairy garden. They had to show Poppie. They were so proud.

This little girl loves to look at birds and flower books with me. 

I hope everyone is doing ok during this pandemic and all this other crazy stuff. Just try to remain safe and use common sense. I wish we could go back to the days when we could all agree to disagree and not get offended and still be friends. I wish we could teach real history to our children but some where down the line that all got erased from our history books. We need to fall on our face before God and cry out to him in this time.  

Bio

Taking A Pause

Today we took a pause from working on projects to spend time with family. My Momma and Daddy came to eat with us as did our oldest son with his family for Father's Day.
We always try to get together the Saturday before because that Sunday they can spend within their own family.

Dakota had to go back to work and then Dallas had to leave to go to work. 

After everyone left,  we took a much needed nap. 

After our nap we just wanted to get back outside.  Dear hubby took care of the yards and I reported some herbs I finally just broke down and bought as plants since obviously I can't get them to grow from seed. 

Last night we paused and went out to eat with them and then we took the girls to a little fair in town. They could only ride one little ride but it was enough for Atleigh to say she was not having fun and wanted off. To be honest, me and mommy did too. We were getting dizzy and our supper was fixing to come back up. I'm not as young as I use to be. 🤢🤮

Projects, Birthday and Flag Day

We have had so many projects going on the past few weeks. A lot that's been on our list for almost two years. We have created new beds around trees and our flag pole. Freshened up old flower beds. We always host a big 4th of July cookout at our house. So we have been trying to kick it into gear and get ready for that. 

We have been working tirelessly. When I say tirelessly, I mean it. We fall into bed at night. I'm so glad my sweet hubby knows when I need to take a break and rest. I love it when we work together. We make a good team. Our garden is coming right along. We had to get in and do a little weeding and tilling. 

Well, there went that manicure. 

My mother and I painted these gourds last year and my sweet hubby finally got them hung for me. I already have a blue bird family in one. 

My sweet little buddy turned 3yrs old. She is a Gmaws girl. 

First harvests of the garden. Hubby grilled us some cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower one night along with some chicken. Our tomato plants are getting green tomatoes on them. We have little romas too. 

We got our swimming pool up for our little girls. 

Every Princess needs a castle. 

This is Poppies girl. She has to be where   he is and doing what he's doing. 

We celebrated Flag Day.

I love it when this man grills for us 

We have got so many more projects to do around here but I'm so glad to be getting them done. 

It's time for me to fall into bed again. Sorry this post has been short but sweet. We are somewhat getting back to normal around our town. Thank Goodness. However, our country needs lots of prayers at this moment. I have spent more time in my Bible. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. You can lead an unbeliever to the Bible but you can't make them believe. You can spread knowledge to people but can't make them grasp it. Lord Jesus Help Us.