Video Games and Chickens

This is where Momma spends most of her out back time (with the chickens!). They are plenty of entertainment for the kids also. Momma is trying her hand at raising chicks the natural way, (lettin' momma hen do it!) It makes us proud when parents are sittin' around complaining about their kids playing too much video games, or sittin' inside watchin' t.v. all day, to think that our children know where their food comes from. From my own experience growing up, I was at a higher capacity of learning during these younger years. It's a shame that I was inside using that capacity to learn how to get to the next level on my video games. I'm not saying that video games don't have their place, I just don't believe they should be such a large part of the foundational learning that we get as children.

 There's so much knowledge available in these days we live in, that it's hard sometimes to know what we should learn, and what information is just disposable. For instance, How many of you know how to make sugar from sugar cane without looking it up on YouTube? That's okay I didn't either. But it's so easy folks in third world countries know how to do it, with what we would call primitive devices! If they are primitive to us how come we can't do it. we might have all the information in the world at our fingertips but we know very little about living. Me and Bubba are starting at square one in our attempt to make cane syrup. once we perfect cane syrup then we will move on to the good stuff, RAW SUGAR!

Fall Cleaning (in the garden)

          We have had lots of heat and lots of rain this summer so the garden has been left to itself and has grown into a nightmare.  Seriously, it was super bad (you'll see in the picture below). : )  But it hasn't been as hot in the last week or so, so we had an itch to get some garden beds cleaned up and ready to plant again.
          So, here is a before picture of some of the garden beds... They were cut down short with the weed-eater earlier this week, but before you see this I hope you're sitting down (you probably are).. it's that bad!  ; )

     
              Here goes..

        Okay, well I'm glad that's over.. and now I get the bravery award for showing you that.  ; )  Told you it was bad.. I wasn't kidding!

        Anywho, we started the afternoon off with a friendly family competition to see who could get their garden bed cleaned out first.  You know, turning a task into a game and/or a competition makes the task more fun and it even gets the job done quicker!  : )  We decided to play our "game" boys vs. girls.  The boys, Jesse Jr. and Dad, had the bed closest to the camera (with the tallest grass on one end).  It was our tomato garden in the spring and has wire around that tall grass.  The girls, Charity and I, had the middle bed in the picture.  You can't see it, but there is wire laid over top of that middle bed (to prevent rodents from digging in it).  So these two beds were a little more complicated than just a normal tilling, but we managed to complete them both in a little over 10 minutes.  **Whisper**->(Us girls won, just so you know.) ; )

And here is what it looked like when we were complete and already working on the third bed.

Weeds now heaped up next to beds in a garbage can.

          But us girls did have an advantage I must say.  I used a tool that the boys did not have for cleaning their bed.  A "hand tiller" maybe it could be called.  ?  I'm sure it has a name, but I just don't know what it is.

So, here is our "secret weapon" (the hand tiller) and suggested tools (gloves) for clearing a garden bed.  We used this pretty much for the rest of the beds.

      We had the littler girls, Faith and Hope, working on the third bed while we were having our competition, but they weren't too good at pulling the roots and so they pretty much gave up.  : (  We gave them this bed for a reason though.  Daddy wanted them to find some surprises in this bed.  (The third bed was full of Sweet Potato Vines.)  Once we finished our first two beds, Dad and the big kids didn't mind doing the 3rd bed and finding lots of Sweet Potatoes.  : )  Harvesting is so much fun! : D  God blessed us with a bounty of Sweet Potatoes today!

 Charity and Jesse Jr. enjoyed filling a crate with the potatoes and spraying them clean. They can't wait for me to make Sweet Potato Casserole now!  : )  By the looks of this picture, I'm not sure they will wait!  He He

    We did some other beds today also and had some more exciting finds, but I'll have to share that with you on another post. ; )  Hope you enjoyed!

      Please share some things about Sweet Potatoes or cleaning up your garden beds.  We'd love to hear from you!  : )

Our fall garden

During the summer our garden was let go.  It was too hot to get out and me being pregnant didn't help.. so we didn't get outside much.  The weeds went crazy and the yard was just a mess! (Well, the mess still is around all the time here, but it was even worse.. I think you get the point).  : )

Once it started to cool down a bit and I got some more energy we started clearing out our garden beds and planting some things.  I do believe Jesse was the first to get the "planting bug".. I think he cleared the first bed.  One evening it was so nice and cool I just went to town clearing out bed after bed (I think I cleared 3 out of 5 that night).  Anywho, the results are wonderful.  Now we have some garden crops starting to grow.

But first we needed to make the garden area "chicken proof" to keep our seeds from being scratched up or eaten!-Which has happened in the past..

We spend less money on chicken feed when the chickens can "free range" in the yard, so the fence was important.  The barrier is nothing fancy, just things around the yard used normally for garden trellis' and shade did the trick.  It's not the nicest thing to look at, but it works and it didn't cost us anything to do it.

Our chickens are happy to be able to run in the rest of the yard and we are happy that they can't mess up the garden.  : )

Screens we used to shade the plants have worked nicely for a fence.

                                     Here are some of the things we are growing this season....

Trying potatoes in tires this time!

Tomatoes and "volunteer" sweet potatoes.

Another angle of the tomatoes and sweet potatoes.

Bush cucumbers and cotton.

Beans with tepee and strings to climb.

Oregano (in front) and rosemary (in back).

Wheat.. haven't weeded, but it's kind of hard to with wheat at first.

Banana trees we have grown for years with no fruit.. hope that changes soon.

I forgot to take a picture of the bed with carrots and green onions, but it looks kind of like the wheat bed.. it needs weeded bad because it's hard to tell the difference on the green onion side.

That's about all in this garden section of the yard.  We do have some other things we are growing in other parts of the yard too that I might blog about later.  I always am inspired and excited to see other peoples garden.  Though not super spectacular, I hope you enjoyed the tour and are motivated to grow something too!  : )

A new addition to the farm..

Well, it's been a while since I have written anything.  I have been very busy with raising 4 kiddos!  ; )  We have started a new homeschool curriculum this year, been preparing for a new baby that is on the way (due in about 2 more months), we have recently started our own tree business and added some lawn care in, and the list could just go on.. but anywho, you get the point.. we have been really busy!!!  : )
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We have some new and exciting things going on around our "little farm" and so I thought I would share them.  The newest member of our "farm" is a little gal I like to call "Dinner".  : )

I find that I call it "HE" and "HIM", but Faith is very particular that I say "SHE" and "HER".. Because, "It's a GIRL mom". : )

We got her earlier this week and we are enjoying this addition to the "farm".  We plan to raise her for about 6 months and then "take her to market" (hence her name).  This should be a neat way to save some money (we all LOVE bacon) and learn more about farm life.  This was the plan from the beginning, so the kids know ahead of time this will not be a "pet" for us to keep (once again - no "pet" name).  She isn't very nice, so this might help also.  This is a new experience for us, but we are up for the challenge.. she did just lick Charity's hand through the cage today though..

This cage will work for a short time while she's little.

She has already given us a workout too!  The day after we got her I found she had escaped from her cage!  She was rooting like crazy and had made a mess of part of the yard.  Thankfully she just stayed in the back part of the yard where the rabbits are and didn't tear up the rest of the yard.  I really do like the idea of having a pig for tilling a garden bed, especially after seeing what she had done in such a short amount of time!  God's all natural land tillers.  : )  Plus she would fertilize it too, but that's another topic.  It took a lot of running around, but the kids and I got her to get back into her cage.  We MUST remember to put the extra clip on the bottom of the door!

Yard after it was tilled up by "Dinner".

But then it happened again two days ago!  Someone must have forgotten to clip it back again!  We waited for Dad to come home this time. : )  It was a silly time running around back and forth in the yard trying to get her to go where we wanted her to.  Jesse (Dad, not Jr.) had made a "lasso" out of some rope and was seriously trying to get it "on a leash"..  What silly times to think back on and remember!  It was probably an hour before we finally got her put back in her cage.

She almost looks cute here.

So our new "FARM-ly" member is keeping things pretty interesting around here.. ; )

We are building her a pen out of free pallets.. I will try to update when the pen is complete.

Making more room around the house

So I have been on a decluttering kick for a bit now.  I have plenty of hoarding moments, so these decluttering spells are so refreshing.  I decided that the play kitchen in the girls room was taking up too much space.  I hated to see that fun toy removed from play (hoarding tendencies) : ), but realized I didn't have anywhere else for it to go either.

It's already in front of their bookshelf (not convenient).

When you open up the side table it takes up even more space!

It's cute, but I have found an alternative!
I know that this will not be the case for many people, but I realized that I have something around the house that isn't being used, and is somewhere else (out of the girls room) that could be used for the same purpose!  We purchased a wood burning stove several months ago and never have found a place to put it (being in Florida I can't see us using it as much as I dreamed when we got it).. so in the mean time I didn't want it getting ruined sitting in the yard or out in the shed, so I had my hubby put it in the laundry room (the only available space - out of the way - that I could think of at the time). 

Well, I just recently cleared some things off of it and decided this was the perfect "play kitchen" alternative!  : )  So I went and got some of the play pots and pans and let the kids give it a test run.

They can use the oven for playing and storage!

I hung the potholders above the stove on a hanger.

The new play kitchen looks like a hit!  : )

Now if I could find someone to give the old play kitchen too, then the girls would have a nice open space in there room.. let's just imagine for a minute what that would be like...  : )

Have to find somewhere for it to go!  This is so much better!  Less really is more.. I have to keep repeating that to myself.
If I get brave enough I might share some other decluttering projects.. my before pictures are pretty bad though.. Jesse Jr. said, "You don't want anyone to see those pictures" when I told him that I took some before pictures of my bedroom!  : )  It really was that bad!  We'll see.. you may just have to use your imagination on that one!  : )
Hope this idea helped to spark some creativity on how to use some other items in your home and let some other ones go.  Especially if your like us and could use the space!  : )

Sock folding changes

Just the other day we were watching a Duggar video and the younger kids were matching socks.  I saw the oldest girl (Jana) show them how to fold them.  It was different than I usually fold our socks so I thought I would try it.  I did and I liked it.  So I thought I would share with others.  Maybe you already fold like this.  I might just be the only one that this is new to.  : )

This is a pair of Jesse Jr.'s socks.  I could have looked for a really clean white pair, but this is real life, so you get to see the more realistic pair.  ; )

And this is how I would normally fold the socks.  I would just fold the top down and the feet would be floppy.

But the new way - you fold the pair in half first.. like this.

Then you fold the top down over the whole sock.  Which makes a small little bundle.. like this.

This just seems more compact and I like it.  : ) 

Maybe this will help other families who are looking for new ways to tackle the laundry or make socks take up less space.  I know that sometimes its hard just to find the matches though, let alone get them folded and put away, right!  : )

Slipped up today

I gave the kiddos those yogurts in a tube today.. and it wasn't the first time we have had these, but Hope can only get so much out of the tube and then she needs help pushing the rest up to the top to eat.  So here comes Mommy to help push the yogurt up the tube.. I guess I gave it too much Mommy muscles and my hand slipped right up the tube supper fast and the yogurt went flying out the tube!

Charity's such a great actress for the picture!  : )

Oops!  I'm so sorry Hope!  I love you!  We all "slip-up" sometimes.. he he.. I know.. it's corny, but what can I say!  : )