Down on the Homestead - June 5 - 10th

**homesteadmamma** · 06-05-2005, 09:54 AM

Good morning everyone. Once again were expecting rain and lots of it. I'm really getting tired of rain. Right now, dh is downstairs fighting to keep the water from getting to our furnace. We have a sump pump going although its not as efficient as it should be I don't think. Also because of the high water tables, everything is so damp. And the long range forecast is for rain both Wed. and Thurs. I really do need to send some of this down east.

Not sure whats planned yet, other than helping dh. We might need to make a quick trip into the city to get a check valve.

Tonight I'm off to clean the post office and then read.

Have a great Sun. everyone.

**QuilterMom** · 06-05-2005, 12:24 PM

No, no!!!!! Don't send it down east! We have already had 5 straight days of rain and the sky is dark now threatening to pour rain again. Our pond is to the overflow point and we (and everyone else) have standing water everywhere. All this rain has pushed our humidity level through the roof - it's soooooo hot outside.

We went to Sunday School and they have changed the layout of the room we meet in (not really a room, but they make rooms with partitions). Of course when we got there, there were only a couple of seats to be had and in the hottest part of the room. Heat and I have not been mixing well still and before class even started we had to get chairs and go sit in another part of the room with me parked right under an a/c vent. Thankfully I felt fine then.

We actually bought a newspaper today so I'll sit down and browse through it in a bit and probably work more on ds's curriculum for next year. I got a bit more of science done yesterday and got all his spelling lists made up. I just need to do some word search puzzles online using the words to complete it now.

When we got home I cut some parsley from the garden and we took it to our neighbor across the road and talked to him for a bit. Dh will be working more on remodeling projects today. He got some of the drawers installed in the vanity he's building for the bathroom last night - it's really cool to see it coming together.

**DaisyLady** · 06-05-2005, 05:23 PM

It is very, very hot here! We have thunder storms in the forecast but no real rain until Tuesday. CJ, you can send "some" of your rain here as long as it brings a bit cooler weather

I spent all day yesterday outside spinning under a canopy at Dickinson Day www.manotickvillage.com There were pioneer demonstrations and the grist mill was grinding flour. A great day but very hot.

Today was quiet with church in the morning, some more spinning this afternoon and a quiet walk with dh. Supper tonight will be hamburgers on the bbq and salad. Ice cream for dessert

I have planned a very quiet week this week so that I can get caught up on things. While switching my files over to the new computer I accidently deleted my home management files (fortunately I have hard copies) so now I need to redo all my spreadsheet templates. I also have a sweater to finish for the store, a knitting class to teach and a private crochet lesson. No flute lesson this week though I do need to do some serious practicing. Looking forward to some peace and quiet.

Have a wonderful and blessed Sunday!

**Heather** · 06-05-2005, 05:46 PM

I'm with you Chriss......send it this way CJ or Kim!

They keep calling for rain but nope, supposed to be some tonight.....it is SO hot here, with the humidity it is 92 degrees

Humidity and I do not mix.

Delaney and I went to church this morning. The next two weeks there is no church as two local churches have their anniversaries so we go to them. And when we have ours they come to ours.

This afternoon we had a quick lunch and headed outside to empty the pool (we are emptying it, cleaning it thoroughly and filling it back up this year....too many leaves got in...we need a new cover over the winter) We are watering the garden with the water so it's a dual purpose. It's almost empty and then the boys will hop in and scrub away and hopefully we will start filling it up and leave it going over night. I headed into town to pick up chemicals for the pool, 2 water hoses and more clothes pins. We need 2 more hoses to reach the garden behind the barn.

DH just went to pick up pizza for supper...not a frugal day but in this heat....anything to not cook!!

**homesteadmamma** · 06-06-2005, 09:26 AM

Good morning everyone. I woke up to sunshine and the promise of no rain today. We went a whole day yesterday with no rain, although very cloudy.

Last night I headed into the garden and did some hoeing through the rows. It felt so good to finally be able to get out there.

Once the kids are up, had breakfast and started school I'll get some baking done. I need to bake bread along with some peanut butter cookies. I also need to do a couple loads of laundry and get them hung out on the line, especially while we have nice weather.

This afternoon I need to work on dd's quilt. I'm slowly getting all the blocks quilted and have almost one row with the blocks all attached. I'm really liking this method of quilting the top.

Tonight its over to clean the post office and then do some reading.

Have a wonderful day everyone.

**Heather** · 06-06-2005, 09:40 AM

Good morning!

I have a beautiful cool breeze coming the the window....ahhh! We had a thunder and lightening storm last night with a bit of rain. It rained for about an hour hard and then stopped. Better than nothing I guess but to look out you'd never know it had rained.

DH will leave around noon for work, I have his meals and baked goods packed, all I need to do is pack his bag with his clothes. This morning we are going up town to the local hardware store to purchase another air conditioner. We have one in our livingroom window and are getting this one for upstairs. It gets SO hot up there and when the heat gets in it takes so long for it to get out, even if we have a few cool days. The kids end up sleeping downstairs and I stay upstairs just laying there, not moving hoping to get a slight breeze through the window.....I think this will make us all feel better as we will be more refreshed in the morning and we can all sleep in our own beds.

The pool is filling up as I type this, it'll probably be full by this afternoon. Delaney can't wait to jump in.

I'm going to be doing some tidying this afternoon, every Monday is the same around here...I seem to let things go over the weekend and then have a mess to clean up on Monday...should plan better.

Oh, and last night we picked up more wood shavings and chips from the cabinetmaker in town. There was enough to put in between 5 rows of strawberries. This is working out wonderful, he wants to get rid of them and we are keeping the weeds down in the garden with them. We will be picking up approx. 12 feed bags every 2 weeks.

Have a great day on your homesteads!!

**Mom23boys** · 06-06-2005, 09:57 AM

Good morning homesteaders.

The skies are cloudy here with a chance of rain. The humidity is awful here too. I wish it would rain maybe to cool things down a bit.

Did a little cleaning this morning. Laundry is going as I type. Did my work-out and took my shower. The animals are all feed for the morning. I already took Chris to strength and conditioning training.

I think I will wake Dakota up and see if he wants to go to town with me. We will make a trip to the library. They have the children's summer reading program going on. They give the children treats each week....coupons for free ice cream, etc.

I didn't bring Richard home yesterday as planned. When I arrived at my mom's (meet my sister there), I saw how happy he was to be there. They all told me how hard he had been working and all the new skills he has learned. My unlce is on vacation this week, so they will be able to work all week on the racecar. I decided I would go ahead and let him stay this week, but I told him he has to come home next week.

I was glad to hear how hard he was actually working. My sister says he comes in every night with grease all over him. She makes him head to the shower...lol!! I know if he was home he would be in his room playing video games, so this is good for him.

I weeded the garden yesterday when I came home. Then we went to softball practice. I think I need more practice...lol.

I hope you all have a great day!

**QuilterMom** · 06-06-2005, 11:09 AM

I woke up to guess what........... rain. 7 days in a row now and more headed our way this afternoon and tonight. I tried to send it your way Heather!

I was really sick last night, but am feeling better this morning. There is a situation going on that ds and I have been hurt by and I know that it's weighing me down. I know losing so much of our garden is weighing me down more than I realize as well.

We're getting started on ds's tiger notebook today and finishing up our school year this week. Ds also starts VBS tonight. He's not thrilled that it's 3 hours long (normally they are 2 hours to 2 hours and 15 minutes long). He has been going back and forth for days as to whether or not he actually wants to go. It's really 4 hours long if you count the dinner for an hour beforehand, but we won't take him to that because I'm sure the menu will be all sorts of stuff we don't eat. LOL

I have a load of laundry to put away today and another load to wash and hang to dry.

Have a great day!

**forestdale** · 06-06-2005, 04:43 PM

It's raining here too. I love it as we have a severe drought.

Good morning everyone.

DS got his Canadian visa yesterday.

I went to our capital city yesterday to get my eyes tested and to order new glasses. I got a pair of matt stainless steel ones, they sound horrible but look great. I can hardly wait to get them next week. And what a frugal goddess I was with them. The lens were paid by our private health insurance and I got the frames @ 50% off. They had free frames there too but none of them had warrenty so I thought if they broke I'd be worse off, so I went for the 50% rack.

While I was in that mall, I wandered around, had my hair cut and watched people doing there shopping. No one looked happy. I wondered why they bothered. I resisted all temptations, although I did see a very cute pinky/mauve sweater I really liked, but I didn't buy it.

I wasn't so frugal when I got home again. On Saturday I started defrosting a small freezer we have. I moved most of the meat to another freezer but then forgot all about it. Someone closed the freezer door and I didn't realise what had happened until I went to the freezer yesterday to put in some meat I just bought. There were still two shelves of meat in there - now all gone to waste. I think I lost around $30 worth

Today I'll be baking, cleaning floors and sewing. I also have a couple of shrubs to plant out front but I'll have to wait for a break in the showers to do that.

Heather, it's great you're getting those wood shavings. What meals do you pack for your husband to eat on the road?

I hope you all have a wonderful day.

**DaisyLady** · 06-06-2005, 07:25 PM

Good evening homesteaders,

CJ, thanks for sending the rain our way. It came in fits and spurts along with some thunder and lightening. It hasn't gotten cooler though, it's actually gone up a few degrees but we've had some wind today.

I had a productive day today. I did groceries this morning, then I chopped up some rhubarb that my friend gave me and put it in the freezer, vacuummed and dusted the family room and did some decluttering. This afternoon I caught up on my filing, made some changes to my filing system and installed some software on my computer to replace the spreadsheets I had been using for my finances. I also ordered a new program for my recipes, menu planning and shopping lists. I can download the shopping lists to my pda. (I also accidently erased the old one and it was a download from the internet which of course I lost the registration info for too

My knitting class is cancelled for tomorrow. No one registered

Which means I get a bonus day off. It's supposed to rain all day so I will try to get some cleaning done.

Supper tonight was honey garlic sausages, cold pasta and vegetable salad and

for dessert.

Now I am off to do some knitting.

See you tomorrow!

**QuilterMom** · 06-07-2005, 10:15 AM

Finally I wake up to sunshine! We have a 60% chance of rain this afternoon and evening though.

Ds had a good time at VBS last night and dh took me out to eat. I had no idea that was his intention so of course I was dressed grungy, had my hair pulled back in a ponytail, and had on no makeup. He got home from work about 10 minutes before we had to leave to drop ds off so I didn't have time to fix myself. Our anniv. is tomorrow so I told him I guess that was our special dinner a couple of nights early. LOL We stopped by Home Depot in hopes of finding a paddle fan we liked to go between the kitchen and dining room, but they didn't have any that would match our decor.

Today is more finishing up school for ds and we'll work on his tiger notebook more.

**homesteadmamma** · 06-07-2005, 10:24 AM

Well Kim, I woke up to more rain. this is getting ridiculous. Besides, its suppose to now rain for 3 days straight.

btw - Happy Anniversary.

Michele, Happy Birthday.

What am I doing today? Hmmmm not sure. I didn't get the cookies made yesterday, was to busy doing laundry, baking bread and weeding the garden. So I think I might make cookies today. Its cool outside so has long as it stays cool I just might bake.

This afternoon I'm working on dd's quilt. I have 8 blocks quilted, one complete row put today. Thats only 12 blocks to quilt and 4 more rows to put together. Its coming along. However I don't think I'll get it done by the 18th.

Tonight its off to the post office and then home to play games with the kids and then read.

Have a wonderful Tues. everyone.

**Mom23boys** · 06-07-2005, 10:58 AM

Good morning!

Happy birthday Michele!

I need to water the garden/plants today. I also want to spend some time reading one of the books I picked up from the library yesterday.

I plan on baking some cookies and bread today. DS#2 loves fresh baked bread. I do too.

Not much else planned today.

**dmvezina** · 06-07-2005, 11:07 AM

Good morning. The weather has been gorgeous here!!

Well, we've been having a really hard time with Ryan yet again. He was suspended from school yesterday. He threw a chair at & tried to punch his teacher!! Then at home it just got worse. He was punching me, throwing things at me, hitting me in the head with those lincoln log toys & pulling my hair. DH and I decided that we feel he needs to go back to the hospital, but his therapist feels this is "willful" behavior and no meds or hospitalization will help it!!! Ok, so now what are we supposed to do??? be patient she says!! oh my, I don't think I can anymore!!

Well, anyway, I'm getting ready to head out the door for dd's therapy appointment.

Today I need to do:
one load of laundry **done
vacuum
scoop the cat box
mop
mail coupons
make muffins
wipe down cabinet fronts
clean kitchen lightswitch
clean stovetop & range hood
clean kitchen canisters
sweep cobwebs down from kitchen
make a treat
do some kitchen zone work

Breakfast was blueberry pancakes, yogurt & a banana
I have no idea what I'm making for lunch with Ryan here. I wasn't planning on it!

Dinner will be sweet & sour ham over rice & broccoli

Well, I must get going to the appointment.
I hope everyone has a good day!

**Strawberry** · 06-07-2005, 03:58 PM

Good afternoon!

My dd and ds#2 arrived home last night with good news and bad news. The good news was that dd's team won first place in the first aid competition.

The bad news was that ds spent the night in the hospital with what ended up being a major allergy to codeine. He has taked codeine before and was fine but this was a close call. He had been swimming in the ocean and stepped on some barnacles and made a mess on his feet. The next day they were still very painful so he was asked if he could make Tylenol with codeine he said yes and twenty minutes later he started to feel funny. He was shaking, couldn't breath, had a rash, fever, and was very sleepy and lightheaded. He doesn't even remember getting to the hospital or people yelling at him to keep him awake. At first the nurses thought he was on drugs or overdosed on something. Last night after getting home I had to take him to the walk-in clinic because his feet were very swolen, painful, and he was running a fever. I thought maybe they were getting infected. They're not, so that's good but he's still feeling dizzy and lightheaded. Never a dull moment in my house.

More good news

Dh's eye scan yesterday had positive results. His vision is improving and there is no long term damage.

I should make bread today but I not sure if there'll be time. I need to take dd out to have another picture taked for her visa for Russia.

I'm hoping to lock myself away for a couple hours tonight. I need some unwinding time. Hope you all have a great day!