How does your garden grow?

I woke up early this morning to get a little time in the garden before everyone woke up. Everything is growing so well with the warmer weather and a bit of rain. I tied up the tomatoes and cleaned up a few weeds. The plants are getting big enough that they are shading out the weeds now. We have been enjoying the lettuce, spinach, arugula, and snow peas so far. The basil and broccoli are coming along nicely too.

Our raspberries are awesome this year. We enjoyed a raspberry pie over the weekend. Berries and cream for dessert every day this week!

The red bee balm is out now and we are enjoying the occasional visit by tiny hummingbirds. The bees love these flowers too. I can't seem to figure out if these plants like sun or shade better. One clump of bee balm was so awesome one year but the next year the plants were tiny.

I am sending out my wedding birds today. They look so cute.

This is what childhood memories are made of...

We had a busy week with my sister and having a fun time with the cousins. Cook outs on the 4th of July, late night board games, walks in the woods, walks along the old railroad tracks, hide and seek in the graveyard, a beach day, movies, swimming in the pool, catching frogs, the tire swing, and a day at the amusement park kept us pretty entertained. I have two sisters and there are now 7 children among us. The kids really had fun together.

Today I am enjoying a quiet house but still missing our guests. The rainy day seems to fit my mood since I don't like goodbyes. I did have time to work on a few projects and finish up some too.

A sweet custom order robin's nest...



A custom made pair of needle felted turtles...



My biggest project for the week was a custom order pair of wedding birds with a cake topper base. I often got up early to work on these or found a quiet spot to work while the kids had fun.

Growing fast

I have been busy working on custom orders and cleaning house for my sister's visit from Utah. I did sit down for a break to look through the Treasuries on Etsy. Its been a while since I had any time to look. My needle felted penguin pair is currently featured in an Etsy treasury called Softly by treasurefield.



Our little chicks are growing fast and getting feathers now.

Fast moving storms

I have been busy attending to several custom orders I have and managed to finish this little turtle too. He is a little Eastern Box Turtle.




My two eldest came home from a morning appointment with braces on their teeth. They were scowling at me as if I was subjecting them to some new form of torture. Both are lisping and the younger one with a palate expander can barely eat -- poor thing. Sigh. If they only knew how much torture the expense of these things are.

An afternoon thunderstorm rolled through. I was attempting to batten down the hatches so to speak on the porch but the winds were so strong that everything was blowing around and the rain soaked everything. I abandoned that to huddle inside with the kids. A few moments later a loud crack was followed by the upper part of a tree near our house snapping in two. Sticks and branches were flying everywhere and water was coming in the house at the older doors and the newly installed air conditioners. A huge branch missed the newly set up pool only by a few inches -- so we are counting our blessings. We will miss the old choke cherry tree though. This tree provided one hook for our much loved hammock. Sirens were speeding up the road to some unknown disaster. After everything settled down we cautiously crept out to inspect the damage. I noticed a helicopter circling above not even a mile away. For nearly a half hour it continued its circling. This is where the sirens were headed so I wonder what happened. The evening news indicated that there was a possible micro-burst in our town.

A wonderful blog called Lily and Tulip featured my little singing bird from my Etsy shop. I love the layout of this blog and will definitely keep an eye on it.

A splash of cold water

The girls are enjoying the pool but the water is still very COLD. A lot of screaming is obviously required for pool play too. And often its when they are quiet in the pool that I get worried. As long as they are making noise I know they are still breathing! Of course I am watching them pretty closely when they are in the pool but I sometimes bring a book out to read and sit in the shade to relax.

A white hen and two chicks....

Toasting marshmallows

Last night we enjoyed our third Friday night craft get together. I brought a bottle of homemade blackberry/blueberry mead (made by my friend's husband). This was perfect with the chocolate brownies and chocolate covered strawberries that other friends brought.

The cut backs in school funding and the upcoming (next Tuesday) tax override vote was discussed as we worked. None of my children have teacher assignments -- nor will they get them until sometime in August when the final cuts in teachers are made. This whole process is so frustrating. I only hope that the town votes in the override or we will suffer with cuts in the town budget and fire and police. The class sizes are already going to go up and they are losing many teachers.

We spent most of the day outside doing yard work. The weather and the temperature were perfect. I mulched the vegetable garden pathways with relatively fresh stinky chicken manure and covered this with pine needles to hide the smell a bit. Next year when this has aged a bit I will shovel this mulch onto the raised beds as fertilizer. The older girls returned from a sleep over and I gave them some outdoor chores to help with. My sister and her children will visit next weekend and we need to get a so much done before they come. We also set up our replacement pool that my husband brought home from a friend at work. They no longer used this pool so I think this is perfect solution for us this summer. I think the older girls are a bit disappointed because it is only 42 inches deep but I promised them a deeper one next year.

We ended the day with a fire in our little fire ring. We toasted marshmallows and tiny hot dogs on sticks for dinner. Then the girls played a little softball with dad. My youngest was looking out for fireflies but we didn't spot any. I was surprised when she announced that this was our summer solstice party and of course there should be fireflies. It was probably a bit too cool for them yet.

Another pretty pair...

This pair of hens and chicks were finished this week. I just thought I would get a nice picture of them before I send them off to their new home. I picked up some new material yesterday that I am so excited about using to make more hens. I can't wait to start on more.

My project in the hen house turned into longer ordeal the other day. I moved out the old shutters and barn board doors we had been saving in there for lack of a better place to put them. This enabled me to do a much better cleaning job and assessment of the damage caused by intruders to the hen house. After a long day of it I was treated to a hen crowing in the outside pen. We have been without a rooster for nearly two years now but I have often suspected that I heard a few crows from the hen house. So now I know I'm not crazy. And she is definitely a hen too!