days fly by

I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. Spring is a busy time out here on the prairie and I’ve got a lot of balls in the air. Life is moving quickly these days. I’ve been meaning to post about this thing or that, but as the days fly by, I’m finding that it’s hard to spend time at the computer. So here’s some of what I’ve been wanting to share….

On Mother’s day, the guys put the fence up around the garden for me. I needed the fence before I could plant anything. The girls were enamored with the the newly tilled soil and there was no way I was putting anything in the ground until I could keep them a safe distance away. (I did manage to plant potatoes in barrels this year. I’ve never done that before, so I’ll let you know how it goes.) Once the fence was up I put in 18 tomato plants and 38 pepper plants. Then the boys helped me put in green beans, lettuce mix, radishes, carrots, beets, 3 types of cukes, zucchini and eggplant. If you’ve got the room…. The chickens are not so happy about the fence though. Here’s Dali and Blah cruising laps looking for a way in. I’m glad I pushed to get everything planted because now we’ve had so much rain that I can barely walk around the yard. I can’t imagine what it would be like digging in the mud.

The boys are spending what ever time they can out side. The poor chickens must suffer the daily snuggles. They are accommodating for the most part. We have three girls sitting on eggs right now. We tried to candle the eggs the other day and it looked like a few will be hatching soon. I would guess there’s at least a dozen babies on the way.

On the home school front, we are through most of our 4th and 6th grade curriculum and have moved on. I’ve hosted a bi-weekly letterboxing activity, which has been a lot of fun. It will lead into geocaching for the fall. The boys have some fun projects lined up for the summer starting with 4-H camp at the beginning of June, followed by a weekly lecture series on programming Arduino. We are going to continue with Math and Spelling through the summer as well, but pull back on everything else.  It is summer after all.

I’ve spent some time in the craft room, but everything I’ve been working on is for long term projects. Here’s a mini dictionary I’ve been painting for over a month now. I know myself well enough to realize that if I go ahead and start it before the pages are all painted then it will never be finished. I’ve been very patient up until now. Just when I think I’m done I find a few more pages and I can hardly wait to have at it. That is something I will definitely share.

I’ve also been making resin pieces for jewelry. I’m still learning about jewelry making and have found that there’s just so much to it, so many options that it’s hard for me to settle down and create. I’ve become more of a tinkerer lately. I bought some molds off of Etsy and then made a couple of my own. See that green bee medallion? That’s from a vintage makeup case. Cool, huh? I’ve also been experimenting with raw brass and how to finish it. I’ll post more on that later.

Lastly, I picked up a waterproof camera to play with for the summer. I did a lot of research and ended up getting a Casio Elixim G1. It also shoots movies and has a bunch of presets. I love that I can take it into a waterfall or to the beach and don’t have to worry about it getting destroyed. I picked up the camera adapter for the ipad (now named Paddy in our house) so I could download my movies and photos directly. I made the mistake of assuming that I would be able to edit the movies in iMovie on Paddy, but nope. That only works with movies shot on the iPad. I’m sure that a fix is forthcoming and I’m having fun playing with it on our morning walks and now there’s no place that’s off limits.

One Comment

So many fun things going on. Can’t wait to see what you do with the book.

Cindy

5/15/2011