Most of our pictures from the last month are of plants or farm activities. :) Not too surprising since it is almost our busiest season of the year. The fair starts this week. We have been getting our rabbits all cleaned and ready for the show.
Baby A really likes getting into boxes and cupboards. The big kids pulled him around in this box and he loved it.
He is less sure about my herbal concoctions... this one turned into children's elderberry syrup. I think it's delicious. Hopefully, he will too when/if he needs it.
Baby A loves playing with cars, monster trucks, and tractors. He also enjoys sending all of those wheeled vehicles down the slide into the sand box
Hubby is almost ready to shave his beard. We thought we would have some fun with it first. Here it is dyed with henna. We later overdyed it with indigo, but I do not have a picture of that yet.
Baby A and Big Brother S have been making a new fort in the library every couple of days. They love hanging out together talking about monster trucks and tractors.
We have had several very productive family weeding days this month.
Baby A is already getting the hang of hoeing a row.
One of our self sufficiency successes this month was harvesting our lawn. We let it grow for about 4 weeks (6-10 inches tall). Then hubby mowed it with the tractor. We "tedded" the grass (aerated and turned it over so that it would dry evenly) and then gathered it up with our new lawn sweeper.
We gathered 10 big bags from our first "lawn harvesting". I wish we would have figured out the lawn sweeper part of it earlier. That is really what made it possible. (I was raking it by hand before and it was too much.) I think we will be able to harvest one more time this summer and maybe once this fall.
We harvested about 150 lbs of potatoes this month. These two helpers love doing that as their garden chore. It is like hunting for buried treasure.
We had a lot of extra 4H classes this month. Reviewing all the things that the kids learned throughout the year in preparation for the fair.
In addition to harvesting our own "hay", I learned from a book called "Rabbit Production" that I can feed our rabbits 50% weeds with no ill effects on their growth. That is really helping cut down on our feed costs. We are giving pellets every other day and weeds on the alternate days.
On a stormy day we picked 12 quarts of blueberries with our friends. So no photos of the picking. I made 8 quarts of blueberry pie filling. A couple jars did not seal and we *had* to make some pies (haha).
Sometimes my garden helpers are not excited about the task at hand. Here we were harvesting radish pods.
Fourth of July week, daddy's parents came to visit. We took a lovely hike, minus the poison ivy which was all along the trail. We found minnows and crayfish in the creek.
Grandpa J "Pa" and Grandma S "Gramma" (according to Baby A) read lots of books and played with little piggie toes.
We also went to the Air and Space Museum. It is always so interesting to hear about the history and current technology for flight.
Daddy successfully landed our space shuttle in the flight simulator there.
We went to a church fourth of July picnic and pool party. We saw the fireworks. Baby A thought that they were "bunder" (thunder) at first.
Daddy had a little mishap while trying to fix the base of our sliding door....
And another funny moment: I sent brother S outside to hose out the coolers :) And this is what I spied him doing instead. Hmmm. Farm kids.
