A Project in Process

We have all been working hard around here to make the pool area safer, cleaner and function better.  One of the big projects involved turning an old, unworking, hot tub into a kids pool.  The next generation is coming up and I am tired of fishing kids out of the middle of the silly thing.  Also, cleaning it was a nightmare because of the different levels and little corners.

It started out looking like this (well, once we drained the swamp):

This mess got pressure washed and scraped with a wire brush, then rocks added to the middle:

Next came the big concrete job  :)  :)
                               (normally their concrete jobs look more like this)

First you gotta fire up the old mixer.  I think it is older than I am.  It is a good thing George keeps anything and everything.... and keeps it working :)

Add a little concrete and water, mix and dump.

Devise a high tech concrete delivery system.... 

Lots of advice on how to properly spread it around.

Looking for a nice, straight.... or kind of straight... board.

Yep, it works  :)

Floating it out with a little advice from the peanut gallery....

I'll help Papa!

You are never too young to figure out how to finish concrete around here.

.....or a little instruction from Dad...

It is all ready to be cured and painted.... The process will take a couple of weeks.

The baby obligingly slept through the process.

Then, time to move on to the next project..... the never ending fence fixing.

 

A semi-finished kids pool.  Somehow water got in there.  I have no idea how that happened.  Dad planned to put the final coat on with the sand mixed in so it is not slick.... all possible kids are frantically scooping water out.

Cindy

Today we were farmers

....and loved every minute of it.  The kids started at the raspberry patch...

Then we planted seeds - corn, sunflower, winter squash and my favorite squash which got forgotten in the regular rows, so I tucked them into a space in the cucumbers that did not germinate well.

Watering, weeding and mulching are ongoing.

Checking out the new Mama Hen and her chicks...

The "chicken salad" garden is working out well.

A long day of gardening and swimming leaves you pooped!

And a picture of the new baby from yesterday.... just for a treat!

Cindy

From Spring to Summer

Our seasons shift again as the garden is in, the pool is up and running and we move into maintenance on the farm.  Still a lot of work, but not as much.  That means I move into my other love.... swim lessons and my sister moves into her other love.... setting up classes for her school.  I am pretty sure the BT kids can look forward to their history classes this year.  She has been watching Glen Beck's Founder's Fridays and is reading like crazy and fully involved in teaching original document history in context to every kid she can get her hands on.  I am pretty sure our kids are getting a dose over the summer.

Sign up early this year.  I understand they are limiting enrollment.  :)  :)  :)

Thank you to my daughter and daughter in law who helped me shift back into "Teacher Cindy" mode.  I dipped my toe into swim lessons yesterday with just a couple of 2-3 year old sweethearts and a few older kids that know me well.  This session is not really for the kids, it is for me.  Every year it is important to reassess what and how to teach swimming - can the lessons be more effective - think outside the box - is there a different technique, make it more interesting, move them along better, introduce some new concept?  The next 2 weeks will help me develop that.  I probably should have been thinking about this for the past 6 weeks, but it just didn't work out that way this year.  I was busy developing a new appreciation for farmers and how hard they work.

Over at The Bee Hive, Mama Mock has documented the past few years of swim lessons.  I re-read them and smiled.  To be honest, I headed to her blog to lift a picture, but instead, was reminded all over again why I teach (well, OK, I did lift the picture from her blog :)  Baby Bee was with me yesterday and we just did a LITTLE work.   I start out every year full of compassion, then watch the news, hear of a bunch of unnecessary drownings and get a lot tougher.  :)  Anyway, enjoy the stories.

I Heart Sonora

Swimming Success

Round two minus one

I have always thought that doing a two week session, teaching M-W-F would be the best way to run lessons.  It almost never works out that way and I have never given it a fair shake.  I am taking notes on this mini-session to see if it works out better.  Usually the logistics of that don't work out for many parents, but I want to start out and see how effective it is.  It might be counterproductive - you never know until you try.

Thank you to the parents for hauling your kids there and letting me practice with them.

Why do I teach swim lessons?  When my daughter was two, her best friend fell into the pool reaching for a toy.  No one knew she was out there - she had opened the door at her Grammie's house on a Sunday afternoon and slipped out.  Our good friend, her father, was napping on the couch, woke up suddenly, saw the door cracked open and knew she was out there.   He yelled, ran out there and she was floating and blue.  He amazingly remembered enough CPR from high school to revive her.  A helicopter landed on the street and hauled her to ICU for a couple of days.  She recovered, but it made a vivid impression on me as a very young Mom.

Since then, it was always a priority in our life to get our kids swim lessons (and for me to keep updated on CPR).  If we couldn't afford lessons, I traded whatever I could.  Eventually I ended up trading swim lessons for lesson instruction.  My friend taught me how to teach swimming.  I used to go up where she runs swim lessons and work for two weeks.  She would teach my kids and train me - we would talk over how to do it this year..... and I taught little guys under her supervision.

I am always willing to share my progression list, ideas and techniques if you are interested in helping your own kids become "water proofed"  - Can a 2 year old actually swim?  I am expecting my grandson to be able to get from one short side of the pool to the other by the end of the season.  Baby Bee should be right there with him.  However, both have the advantage of being around pools and lakes all the time and parents that know how to teach them.  He did great yesterday and probably wondered why Grammie was being so easy on him.  (It was cold!)

The "Treasure Box" is making a reappearance this year - loaded up with Raw Revolution Bars, agave sweetened suckers, molasses sweetened candy - organic and non-GMO.  I just can't do the candy bars this year after studying health issues all winter.

I'm looking forward to seeing so many of you at the pool. 

Best of Health to you
Cindy

Quail Update - The house around the corner

Quail Update from Arleen:

Our quails are hatching, slowly but surely.   Her are a few pictures of our adventure so far.

The size of the eggs.

Very small. 

Don't use the chick feeder! 

We have a dozen chicks in the brooder.  We have Cortunix, California Valley Quail and Georgia Bobwhite.  I wonder who tastes better..........

The Great Quail Adventure

As of last night, six quail have hatched.  they are tiny, lively and cute.  The reason for raising quail is the feed to meat ratio.  I guess they convert grass and bugs into meat a lot quicker and more efficiently than chickens.  I am excited to see how this works out.  I think we butcher them in about a month.

Farm Life

The past several weeks have been really intense - good, but intense.  Here are a few pictures from throughout the planting season.  We are almost done planting and are now mulching.  We are up to 105 chickens and are ready to butcher.  That is next....  as soon as we get the details worked out.  There are 6 ducks in our menagerie and two pigs.  The green feed in the orchard is working out great and our "chicken salad" is giving our cooped chickens lots of greens in a steady way.

There are a bunch of quail in my sister's ever expanding incubator.  The first one is pipping out, probably tonight.  By tomorrow we will probably have a bunch of quail.  I don't even have a vague idea of how to take care of them, but will soon figure it out.

There are 60 chicken eggs in the incubator at this time.  Since we decided that 15 is the limit for one Mama Hen (otherwise the little ones get suffocated) we are trying to train a couple of other Mama's.  One is working out nicely and I'm looking for another little house and have the next Mama picked out.

We ended up with over a hundred tomato plants.  Thanks to all who took my extras.  They were overwhelming.   We also have in onions, garlic, potatoes, sweet and hot peppers, cucumbers, 27 varieties of melons, beans, peas, radish and lettuce and will be planting corn soon.

The raspberries are just ripening up and the kids have been on the strawberry hunt for days now.  I have little bunches of strawberries all over the place, and if you hunt, you can find some.  It is a lot of fun.

The guys have been working like madmen on a road realignment project and a big house foundation, but they have shoved a couple of things in around here.  Fence fixing is ongoing and we did a lot of work on our pool.  It is quite old and needs work - always.  We pressure washed, drained and painted the pool and shortly they will convert an old, non-working hot tub that was attached into a kids pool.  By the way, that was a royal we.... I really didn't help at all.  My sister is the ramrod of that project and boy am I glad it is almost done :)  It will be more efficient, safer and a lot cuter than anything I could come up with.

Hope everyone has their garden in.  We are working hard in ours.  Everything is popping up and growing like crazy.  I can't wait for tomatoes!

Showing off a beautiful granddaughter!

We love baby ducks!

There is always time for a bike race!

This is the "chicken salad"  Different seeds planted in these old raised beds and as they grow, the chickens can eat the greens, but the plants live.  It is working really well.

The house and run for our Mama Chicken...

Training up a second Mama Chicken in this house.

A little repair work on the step.

I am really not helping.... just checking it out.
Patching and painting are not my thing at all.
I really admire anyone who can do this type of work and I WISELY married someone who is great at it.  Twenty nine years and counting!

 Let the painting commence!  A little tile work and it is just like new  :)

This mess will become a neat kids pool with some gravel, some concrete, some paint and some tile.

We collected about 50 million polliwogs to feed to the ducks and worms in the pool cleaning out process.   We also collected several buckets of very nice leaves laced with lots of algae and used them to mulch the potatoes.  We begin refilling the pool Wednesday.  I can't wait!

Loving it!
Be healthy and well
Cindy

Baby Pictures

I wanted to show off our beautiful, sweet, new granddaughter. 

Everyone is healthy, happy and well.

Grammie is REALLY HAPPY!

Babies are a blessing from God  :)

Cindy

Baby is HERE!

The newest addition to our family is on her way.  They have induced our sweet daughter in law and we are praying for a safe, healthy, sweet delivery.  Our grandson is here sitting on Papa's lap having a little Julie's Organic blackberry ice cream.  We have sunshine on one side and rain over our head.

We enjoyed having our little grandson here and he had a full day of puppies, chicks, ducks, tractor rides, baseball, kitties, egg gathering and other fun stuff.  It is a sweet day!

This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!