Tim Hawkins on the government

Here is the latest from Christian comedian and homeschool dad Tim Hawkins. I have to say, I agree with his sentiments.

The world needs missionaries

Our first bantam egg!

Yesterday the bantams laid their first egg! See how tiny it is compared to our other eggs the standard chickens lay? I'm not sure which of the bantie hens laid the egg, but it sure is cute. It was laid on the ground instead of in the nesting boxes, though. Now we have to figure out if bantams prefer a different type or height of nesting box.

The missing teeth

Adam, 6, hasn't lost any teeth for quite a while... until this week. In the space of five days, he lost three front teeth. I don't see how he bites without them!

Thank you, Martha Stewart

I had to bring a dessert to a church function yesterday, so I made these cupcakes. I got the idea from Martha Stewart's Web site, which is full of great cupcake ideas. I just dyed the icing a sky blue color and piped on little white dots. That was a lot of tiny dots! I was seeing spots before my eyes by the time I was done.

Another kid growing up

My son, Justin, turned 14! We had all our relatives and good friends over to help celebrate.



Justin has always enjoyed the Harry Potter books and movies, and we just took the kids to see the latest movie. So he requested a Harry Potter cake. I purchased the topper online and did the cake and decorations in the colors of Gryffindor (Harry's dormitory at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry).


Justin's little brother was just happy to have a new balloon!

Lime pickles

Every year one or two of our vegetables fail, entirely or in part. This year it was the green beans, which succumbed to the dastardly Mexican bean beetle, and the cucumbers, which simply didn't grow for some reason.


We harvested a few cucumbers though, and I was able to make one batch of pickles. My first pickles! I just made lime pickles since they seemed to be the simplest, but next year I will definitely do dill pickles and maybe some bread and butter pickles, as well. These taste pretty good, but Hubby has requested that I cut them thinner in the future.

Beware of government Web sites

I saw this posted over at Amazing Graze Farm and was horrified! Just by innocently logging on to a popular Web site, the government can own your computer and everything on it! They can listen to calls made on your computer and spy on everything you can do on it - legally. Beware!

Mutant tomatoes

The watermelons and cantaloupe came in all at one time. We picked everything above in one day! We had way too many and the weeks were too crazy to try and cut and freeze them all, so we ended up giving most of them away. The okra and green peppers are still producing.

We are having an issue with the tomatoes that we have never seen before. They are growing little mutant tomatoes!



Some of them end up looking really gross, like this one:


We are unsure of the cause or the solution to this problem. This is two years in a row we've had issues with the tomatoes. Sigh.

Last roosters standing

I think we finally have the bantam flock how we want it. We started in the spring with 18 chicks, and eight turned out to be roosters. One simply cannot keep that many males in one flock without pending disaster. The roosters will fight each other and the poor hens will end up exhausted and with no feathers on their backs. So one by one, we have found homes for all but two of the roosters. I just found the last one a home this weekend.

That leaves us with (as far as the bantam flock is concerned) 10 hens and two roosters. The roosters will be much happier with those odds. The roosters that remain include Albert, above, and the as yet unnamed young male below. Albert, so named after Einstein for his crazy hair-do, is a white-crested Polish and I have to say he has one of the biggest waddles I've ever seen on a bantam. The other rooster is a partridge cochin. They each have their own individual personalities and seem to get along quite well.

A creepy find

Yesterday my daughter and I were hanging out clothes when she found this spider on our clothespin bag. Let me tell you, it was huge. I wanted to save it to show Hubby, so we placed a baggie over the sleeping spider and kind of nudged it to get it to go in. We were surprised when it tried to bite the bag and left a milky looking liquid behind.

Interested to discover what species it was and if it was poisonous, we did some research. It turns out it is a neoscona crucifera, a species of an orb weaver spider. Here's a picture (much better than the one I took) so you can get a better idea of what it looks like.


We also discovered that while their bit is venomous, it is not that venomous. In other words, if a black widow or brown recluse were to bite you, it could possibly result in some very serious consequences. If the spider we found were to bite, there would be pain and swelling for a day or two, but then you would be fine.

Still, it was pretty creepy. Since it's not really dangerous and it does eat a lot of garden pests, Hubby released it into the garden.

Menu Plan: Aug. 10-16

I am ashamed to say that it has been way too long since I made a menu plan. A written menu goes a long way toward making our household more organized and efficient. And the fact that I'm not frantically looking through the pantry at 5 p.m. every evening goes a long way toward reducing my stress. And, last but not least, with a menu plan I can make a grocery list that is specific to exactly what I need. Therefore, I end up spending more on groceries when I am without a menu.

So why has it been so long since I took a few minutes to make a weekly menu? Life has been so harried and stressed lately that I haven' had time. But if I don't take time it makes life even more harried and stressed. See the vicious cycle?

With all this in mind, here is my menu for the week.

MONDAY - tacos

TUESDAY - spaghetti and garlic bread

WEDNESDAY - squash casserole, broccoli supreme and whatever else I can make from our garden gleanings

THURSDAY - chicken and dumplings

FRIDAY - chicken penne rigate

SATURDAY - breakfast for dinner (scrambled eggs, grits, liver mush, biscuits)

SUNDAY - roasted slow cooker chicken

Doggie update

Just wanted to update everyone on the new dogs. Ends up that Gracie is a mess. First we picked 39 ticks off her. Her trip to the vet (which was about $300) resulted in more bad news. Gracie tested negative for Lyme Disease, but tested positive for heart worms, whip worms and hook worms.

The vet placed her on antibiotics for anything the ticks may have been carrying. She also placed her on a 6-week regimen of medication that should get rid of the whip worms and hook worms. And the heart worms? Luckily, she was only in stage one, so we had a couple of choices. Pay around $1,000 for a series of shots and a 3-night vet stay, or put her on a 3-year regimen of medication that will eventually get rid of them. This is risky because, as the vet explained it, we don't know when in that three year period the worms will die. And if Gracie is being very active when they do die, she could have severe complications like stroke.

But since we don't have $1,000 to spend, we went with the 3-year regimen. The next step will be to get her spayed. Unfortunately, because of the heart worms she is at higher risk for any surgery, so we can't use a low cost clinic or anything. The estimate for the high- risk spay is about $400. That's going to have a wait a while, but I hope to be able to budget it in within the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, Gracie is learning to trust people and has great time playing with the other dogs. Bailey, the golden retriever, is doing quite well and we have all really come to love her. It's hard not to because she is so friendly. She does chew on everything, though! Bailey and the cats are still working on getting along.

I'm including this video of Bailey and Jack, the orange tabby, fighting for control of the hallway. The cat always wins!