Fermentation complete: Celtic Solstice and NYE '13

Rainy morning.

My typical hour of cleaning, organizing and moving my classroom turned into THREE today!  Mind you, it wasn't all spent cleaning, organizing and moving.  I was about 5 minutes away from wrapping up my hour of tidying;  I was walking back into my 'old' classroom, and my Superintendent was showing the room off to our newly hired middle school math teacher.  ((It will all be 'official' Monday night at the School Board meeting.))

I am sooo excited!  I was super impressed with her at the interview and we hit it off immediately.  So, once the Sup was finished up with her, she and I spent an hour and half gabbing the morning away.  I'm sure I overwhelmed the dear thing!!!!  LOL.

It was nearly noon by the time we arrived back home, so Cass and I ate up a quick lunch and then set off on our daily task.  

Me:  ongoing laundry

Her:  more of her bedroom decluttering

I decided to finally take a long-deserved break and I ventured downstairs into the quilting space.

Celtic Solstice had fermented long enough on the basement floor!

A few hours were spent piecing MOST of the center together.  Three more long seams, and the center will be finished! 

In good ol' leader-ender fashion, I literally was piecing together another quilt top into rows too!  The New Year's Eve 2013 blocks had also fermented long enough!

Happenings around the Ranch

No, we don't live on a ranch, but we sometimes refer to our lil' place as the Skattebo Ranch.

The morning routine has been established.  I typically wake around 5:30-6:00 and enjoy blogging/FB time with a cup of coffee.  The girls get wakened at 7:00, and we leave for summer school at 7:45.  

The two youngest attend summer school from 8:00 - 4:00.  WHAT a full schedule for them!!!! Archery, weight training, touring our town on bikes, art, and then an afternoon of science, more art, outside games and swimming lessons.  Cassie participates in some weight and agility training every morning 8:00-9:00, while I spend some time in my old & new classroom; decluttering, cleaning, organizing, and moving.

By 9:30, Cassie and I are usually back at home, having a morning snack, before embarking on our task for the morning.   The garden has been claiming most of our time lately.

The last of the seeds have been planted..... (SO I THOUGHT!)

While just "taking a look at the corn," I started hoeing the weeds around the stalks seeing that we loaned our tiller out to a friend for a short time.  {{I really am looking forward to having it back -- parts of the garden are starting to look like a lawn!}}

The little bit of hoeing turned into a full-fledge TRANSPLANT operation of corn plants.  As typical, not all of the seeds sprouted.  In the end, nine rows (~30 yards ea) of corn were condensed into five.  The four emptied rows will be tilled up and replanted;  this will be the third (and final?) planting of corn for us this year.  On Monday, Cassie and I planted four more rows of corn for her "little" garden plot (yup, her rows were ~about 30 yards long, too).

But now---at least the corn rows are looking a bit more lush than before! :)  And we'll have more corn.  {{yeah, I'm sure I'll be revisiting this post come September, saying...IDIOT!  Didn't you realized how long it would take to harvest all of this corn???}}

I started "looking around" the corn at 10:00....

... I was quite surprised when I came inside for a quick lunch break and the clock read 1:30!  My stomach is usually a better timing device than that!  Truly!  11:30, and my stomach is typically moaning and groaning, "feed me.  feed me."

While eating my sandwich at the table, THIS GUY rolls into the driveway!  Oh boy.  More work :D

Short version:  last year, we ordered a load of wood because the price was right!  Over the crazy snowy winter, our neighbor was having difficulty getting wood shipped (something to do with loggers unable to get into the woods due to all the snow).  Our neighbor processes wood for selling to others, so he was hurting for some supply.   We had barely TOUCHED our load last Fall, but had plenty of processed wood to last the winter, so Paul and neighbor worked out a deal.  The neighbor could have his hand at the entire load from last summer, and when time came to order a spring/summer load, he would simply put our name on the order as well.

Today was the haul day. 

Not having been around logging all my life, I found it interesting to see how all of that wood gets unloaded.

What a little contraption!!!  And 45 minutes later... we was rolling right back out of the yard, emptied.

The chicks were all mesmerized by the noise of the unloader too.

Along the topic of chicks... Big Mama had been given one more day to decide if she was going to sit on the eggs we've been leaving in the nesting boxes.  But, she was still out wandering around with her hen friends.

With 19 eggs neatly organized in the nesting box, I decided to gather them up and play Mama Hen myself.  For those of you who have chickens -- do you find that all of your hens have a favorite box too?  ALL of our hens (mind you, we only have 4 right now) use the same nesting box.

The duck eggs led to zilcho babies :(, but I'm going to give this egg incubating one more try with chicken eggs.  I've been reading up a bit more on incubation -- I think part of the duck-egg zilchness was because we waited too long to get the eggs in the incubator.  These chicken eggs have been laid within the past week, so.... let's see if Steve and the girls have been getting along ;)

Like my little path along the floor taking me to the incubator (on the table) ??? ;)

SOON, Celtic Solstice... SOON you will get some work time.

Another animal we've been seeing around lately :)  I dare say that this is one of Paul's bees....

Parts of the garden are SLOOOOWLY starting to take shape...

Wittle-bitty carrots....

cucumbers... we have 12 plants this year.  The pantry is completely OUT of dill pickles!!!

... onto my tomatoes......

:(

To let you all know:  I'm worried.

It's been cold.  

And wet.   

Here's a variety we produced from seeds we dried and saved from some heirloom tomatoes a neighbor gave us two years ago.  They will make BIG, BIG, full pound+ tomatoes.  We have three planted.

A new variety that I'm excited about:  Red Oxheart.  But, they are CERTAINLY taking their time to grow big and lush.  I hope it warms up soon to give these guys a boost!    We have 10 planted.

{{BTW, it's raining.  Again.}}

Another new variety this year:  Abe Lincolns.  Gah!  See how yellow those leaves are?!??!!?   These plants really need a break from all the water.  We have 8 of these planted.

There's more garden to show -- eventually.  Right now, it's really a bunch of brown dirt without a lot of green.  

Days filled

Morning #2 of summer school.

If you will notice, 1 minute ticked by between the "I'm not ready to be awake" to the "See, I'm out." pics.    Last night was a late one, mostly due to a nasty nasty wind storm!  My girls were a bit freaked -- I was too, for that matter!  Paul, of course, was working, so I was fending the family's safety by myself.  Radio stations, TV stations, and Weather.com all said Wind warnings, but no mention of the "T" word for our area.  I still wasn't set at ease -- that wind was downright scary.

Since sleep was the last thing on my mind, I continued working on decluttering "my side" of the bedroom.  Can you tell which side that may be???  ;)  (Hint:  I sleep on the side that houses the alarm clock and lamp)

Other than a little damage in the garden, the wind storm treated us okay.  Cassie and I fixed up the garden this morning by resetting Paul's black covering around/over his cabbages, and then we planted the final seeds for the season:  5 more rows of corn.  

And then... one thing lead to another:

Walking around front, we pulled weeds from an eye-sore flower/bush bed.  I've been meaning to demolish that area;  it's about the only part of the property that is simply a nuisance for me to care for.

In the midst of that project, Cassie and I started uninstalling the 4 tires that we've had as play items near the swing set for years.  

Which then had led to Cassie bringing the tractor over to pick up the tires and pulled weeds

Which moved me to get the lawn mower out to trim up the edging of the eye-sore and mow down the weeds that had overtaken the tire area

Which continued into an hour long lawn mowing (it didn't need it, BUT the trim job was now shorter than the rest of the lawn----badabing.....)

BUT, after about an hour, I turned the machine off.  It was making a "funny" noise; as if the left blade wasn't attached correctly--loose.  SO, I wasn't about to push my OR Cassie's luck since she was going to finish up the mowing job for the next couple of hours.  Nu-uh.  Safety first.

Once noon rolled around, we had a quick lunch, and then I set her off into decluttering her closet while I worked on decluttering the laundry room.  We both had an incentive of BEACH TIME @ 2:00 if we accomplished a good portion of our decluttering task.

Good.  Lord.  

Clutter, clutter, clutter!  

And of COURSE, I have no pictures to show of anything.

And then, the rest of the day flew by at the beach, a lil' shopping mixed in, a quick meal on the grill, and then back to the beach for Cassie's softball practice.  LOL.  Yup--- great softball practice, right?? ;)

8:00 -- it was finally quieting down at the lake.

8:45 -- arrive home.

9:00 -- sit down to eat dinner!  LOL.

9:45 -- ship two youngest girls off to bed.

9:55 -- youngest girls ZONKED!!!! 

I love summer!

First week of summer vacation

Yes, folks -- school let out for the Summer last Monday already!!  Already.

I was kinda surprised at the LOADS of excitement the girls were holding back that morning, too.

At least Caitlyn was showing me some eyeballs.

So now, the routine of waking at 6:00, eating, and heading out to the bus by 6:50 are now behind us for awhile;  soon to be taken over by 7:00 wakenings in order to head out the door for 8:15AM summer school schedules.

I'm not sure who or when our bus drivers started the annual ice cream treat bus stop, but pictured here is Trish, our bus driver.  Instead of traveling the normal route, she stopped off at the ice cream place with her posse and helped all of them order up their ice cream cone flavor of choice.  Each night for the last week of school, a different bus stops to celebrate with their kiddos.  How cool, right???

So now, the schedule of summer vacation takes over.  One week into it, I'm kinda wondering how this summer will be different than the others.  This is the first year that Cassie is too old to participate in the summer school class offerings, so she is going to be staying with me for much of the day while the other two head off.  On the schedules this summer's mornings:  archery, intro to weight training, tour the town, photography, learning to tie knots;  and the afternoons are known as "stay-n-play" this year. Small groups of science, swimming, arts-n-crafts will take the kiddos through various stations of Day Camp activities, mixing in time for swimming lessons to boot.

We've scheduled an hour each morning for Cassie to hit the weight room;  all the while I'll probably work in my classroom gearing up for the big changes to start my new school year in a couple of months.

And then... gardening.  laundry.  cleaning.  {{at least to start off the summer!}}

Paul's bee keeping mentor (our neighbor) has been taking him through the ropes of bee keeping;  the girls helped decorate some new boxes to increase the height of the hives.  And of COURSE, she arrived the moment I needed to jet out with Shadow (dog) for his appointment, so I wasn't able to get any action shots.  Soon, though.  His hives have kinda reached the "not much to do" stage.  The bees are doing all the work.

The day of the duck hatching came and went, and went, and went.... with nothing to show for it. :(  

I've been reading up on incubating more and more and have some theories as to why nothing came of these eggs.  I'm saddened, but not overly so...

... because about a week after starting up the incubator, Mutter (aka: Muttduck) started sitting on a nest. We are hoping to see some lil' ducklings come week's end :)

Steve, the rooster, has transitioned in with the hens very nicely!  It's been over a week, so a couple of days ago, we decided to "leave the eggs" for a few days to see if Big Mama (front right) will try sitting on them.  She's our brooder mama! :)

And naturally, I've tried to find my crafting time, but seriously... this past week was filled.  Two days alone (Wednesday and Thursday) were filled with road-tripping around the entire northwest region of the state, looking for a truck for Paul, while the girls stayed home to clean their rooms.  (Ask me if they are finished yet!?!?!?!)

Truck hunting was a success... at the last minute... on the leisure ride home... on the backroads. 

All of that time in the van allowed for me to make some great  progress on the lazywave Fall Ripple afghan I started a couple of months ago.  The picture doesn't justify just how well the colors match my Asics shoes!  

And after six months, I finally finished up all 121 blocks for Celtic Solstice!  I found three turned blocks after analyzing the picture.  This will be the first project I try to tackle to the finish line this summer.

 5:20AM was the wakening time for me today;  I'm sure much of the summer will be the same.  I'm not sure why my body wants to wake up that early -- I'm just going with it.

The new man in town!

A couple of months back, we lost our rooster :(  We're still uncertain what caused his death.  Every year, we've lost members of our flock due to predators, but we have some hens that are brooders, so we've always simply let nature takes its course and replenish with new babies hatched from our hens.

However, without a rooster----- :(

Last week, one of our brooders started sitting on eggs.  Oh, Big Mama, girl.... those eggs aren't going to produce anything.

Therefore, I started a conversation about Big Mama with a coworker who also has chickens.  

Hallelujah---they have an excess amount of roosters!!!!

Last night, in the rain, Dom (son of coworker) drove the tractor down to our property and delivered our newest addition!!!  He's one of the smaller roosters they had had.  I understand their decision completely! This lil' guy wasn't getting much action on their property, and was most likely bullied by the bigger badder roosters.

Well, buddy!  Welcome to the Skattebo Ranch!  

Three of our hens are keeping their distance so far...

But White Mama seems to have attached herself to him already :)

We are calling him Steve.

Shortly after losing our rooster, Paul made a small purchase of 5 Rhode Island Reds and 5 ..... Plymouth Rocks (I think).  The chicks are now about 12 weeks old.  When we first started raising chickens years ago, all of our purchases were pure breeds, but over time.... we were producing mutts.  Eventually, the same well happen with these 10;  Steve is a mutt himself.  No biggy.  We aren't breeders;  we simply enjoy the eggs, and the girls enjoy them as pets.  

RSC-14 and 2014 Running updates

Yep, yep...it's been awhile since ANY project has seen any time from me lately.  In fact, it took me about 10 minutes to tidy up some clutter of odds-n-ends that have needed my attention ... and then to remind myself where all of my RSC blocks were stored!
 
THEN -- I needed to head to Angela's RSC page to catch up on what colors I had missed....

The rundown:

January - Blue . February - Pink . March - Teal blues

On March 17, I had made up the teal block for the month, but never blogged about it.  Actually, I don't think I ever blogged about February's pink block either.

A few different times of random quilt-room moments, I pulled out any purple scraps that I had, but wasn't too happy with what I saw.  I didn't have much.  

HOWEVER, this morning, I cut up ONLY the scraps I found and used 'em up.  I avoided cutting into a collection of FQs I bought.

April - Purple

There are a good amount of repeats, but... only scraps were used.  **shrug**  I'm okay with that.

May - Green

The last day of May was yesterday, but one day behind isn't terrible :)  May -- checked off the list too :)

And here they all are playing together.... 

Notice the brown??? -- I had some scraps scattered around, so I organized them and got 'em done too.  I would imagine SOME month down the line will be brown.

The month of June is calling for yellow.  However, since the skies have cleared up around here a bit after a stormy morning, I'm ready to turn the sewing machine off for now in order to get a run in.

Ah yes----summer!  The season for running! :)  The time to sign up for races and challenges.  

My BIL felt he needed a kick in the pants, so he and I (and hopefully other family members) are starting a Monthly mileage challenge for June. 

And THEN, I saw a post on FB for a 100Miles Challenge for the month of June.  It's a bit insane for me to physically manage 100 miles from essentially sitting on the couch.  I HAVE run 100 miles in a month before----last March when I was in the midst of my marathon training.  BUT, walking is allowed during this challenge, so.... I can do that!  I can mix it up!

Plus, if I hit 100+, I'll be all that much closer to Kevin's house (virtually speaking---check out lower down on my right sidebar to see progress) :)

Happy Sunday everyone!

Brace yourselves! I sewed! On a school night!

Do these blocks look familiar?  If you've been following Kevin's QOV Block drive, they certainly should :)  I contacted him a few days ago saying that I simply was not going to be able to get them into a top before sending them his way by June 1, but tonight.... I DID!  Holy moly!  I'm more surprised than anyone at this move ;)

So now, they have been sewn into a quilt top, pressed, bagged and packaged up already to hit the mail tomorrow.  His block drive has been an amazing success!  He's amazing, right???

And then there's the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014.  April's color was purple, and would you believe that I truly didn't have much of ANYTHING in purple!?!  Back during the first weekend of May, I was at a Math convention in the southern part of the state, so I hit up a JoAnn's fabrics on the way home to stock up on some purple FQs.  Once summer hits, you can bet that I'll get caught up on April's purple and May's green! :)

Paul received another few packages in the mail a couple of days ago.  Clearly, more beehive fixings -- I'm not exactly sure how the hives all work, but he attempted to educate me in some terminology and process.

He created more "supers" tonight in order to build up his current 4 hives to a next level.  I am to understand that the bees store the honey in higher parts of the hive, while they "brew" in the lower levels.   I don't get the whole process yet, but... I'm glad he does (and that he has a mentor walking him through this new hobby.)