Tired of everyone elses spring cleaning posts so I will post my own.

Everyone else's cleaning posts had pictures of lemons so mine will also. YAY!

There are some things that the modern world improves upon. Putting fiber into fruit loops is NOT one of these things. Thanks a heap Kelloggs. Also mopping. I bought a steam mop a few months ago because so many of my pals GREATLY ESTEEMED it. They should not have done that. Disappointment. Is there anything better for cleaning a floor than my microfiber cloth and spray bottle full of vinegar...NAY! I just cleaned my floor to within an inch of its life! Some people say, "getting down on your knees to clean the floor? Foolishness!" And to them I say, "Damn, Americans really ARE as lazy as everyone thinks." Seriously people. It takes less time than the steam mop and the results are not to be compared. So, mopping innovations ended at the invention (discovery?) of vinegar. The end. Now Blogging world, please enthrall me something other than cleaning posts! Here are some gratuitous clean inspiring pictures:

March, You Done Me Wrong.

It's March, My Peeps! Obviously. I probably should have started with, "March is almost over, My Peeps." But that's a little lengthy, I think you'll agree. The last frost date for our homestead is march 3rd-6th. Not so this year. Ho ho, what a tease you are, Spring Time. And by "tease" I mean, "tomato plant killing wretch." Seriously. What gives? 8 of my best starts...down the drain. Also snails have been a problem for the first time ever. When I find them they are all given a quick death by pecking. And I relish it. This is getting a bit dark...

It snowed in the mountains last weekend so we drove like 20 minutes down the freeway and were greatly rewarded. Jonas has been begging to go to the snow for a LOOOOONG time. He was not disappointed.

So, it is hard times in the garden. Hard times indeed. Not in a Charles Dickens/child labor/endless woe sort of way though. More like a nothing is sprouting like it should/frost is killing with reckless abandon/and also there are snails sort of way. Sooo...perspective I guess. But I refuse to plant any more sacrificial offerings to the frost gods...thusly we will be waiting for april.

Doldrums Be Gone

What ho, gentle reader! We have been crazy busy. Two kids. It is quite different, am I right? But hopefully this post will not disappoint. The summer garden is in the works but there will be no pictures of that today because, well, it's just gorgeous black mulchy goodness with seedlings too tiny to make out. The one pretty area of our garden currently is the rainbow chard growing along the perimeter of the chicken run, but two of the chickens escaped yesterday and ate many of the chard plants to bits and sat on the rest, so it'll be needing some time to recover. Those chickens, how they loveth their chard. Our winter garden did not amount to much. The lettuce never took off due to wonky weather, though we did get a fair amount of peas. Nothing to write home about. We spent most of our winter keeping the doldrums at bay with kid activities. There was much enjoying, ya'll. Behold!
We made sidewalk paint. Because we live in Southern California and can do awesome stuff like that in the winter. Conversely our gas prices...they art the highest in the country. So there are tradeoffs to be sure. To make sidewalk paint mix a halfish cup of cornstarch with a halfish cup of water (clearly the measurements are SUPER important) and divide between muffin tin concavities. Add food coloring. This stuff is the business you guys. Seriously.
Don't let the smile fool you, see the red eyes? It's from the screaming, which is how the wee-est one prefers to spend most of her time. She is quite particular. Ferberizing has grossly improved her mood...and thusly my mood.
On a rainy day we made car tracks out of painters tape and built houses and buildings out of every block we own. Twas fun, indeed.
Bubble snakes! There was a week in like...January? Maybe? When we went crazy with bubbles. Bubble snakes are really neat. You Cut off the bottom of a water bottle, attach a washcloth over the opening with a rubber band, dip the bottom in bubble solution and blow into the drinking end. Also, the business, you guys.
Caroline received this sweater for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa. She wore it to church one Sunday and people just couldn't stop laughing at her. But really, can you blame them? Oh the pointy-hattedness! It is too much. Check out the clenched fists and her pissed-as-hale expression. She is not one to tolerate mockery, no matter how adorable.

Homemade Baby Wipes- The Smart Person's Version -and also some stuff about beets.

Hello blog followers. What a relaxing weekend we've had. However relaxing weekends make for busy mondays. What a crazy cluttered house we now have. Caroline refuses to sleep without being held. She's been kind of a teething beast lately. So the housework waits and I guess I'll just have to snuggle her while blogging. What torture.


Meanwhile Jonas has books to put him to sleep.

I thought about doing a cloth wipes solution post but since this site just covers it so well I'll direct you there instead. I like the castille solution recipe. Target even sells Bronners soap now so there are no excuses.

While researching cloth wipes and how to make them I found a lot of intense multiple layered/topstitched/fancy pants homemade wipes tutorials. No thanks. Have I mentioned that the pregnancy was taxing? I think so. I was not up for that. So what I did was cut up an old flannel receiving blanket (with which we were overrun) into 16 squares and serged the sides. (I do not have a serger so when I say serged I mean I used some serge-like stitch that my machine has. And when that became too time and thread consuming I switched to just zig-zagging around the square twice. I am nothing if not efficient.) The cloth wipes work very well and hold up great in the wash. This is the way to go. Do not waste your time with all of that topstitching nonsense. Old baby washcloths also work great. Don't over-think it. Why people feel they need some fleece/flannel/hemp monstrosity to clean a baby butt is beyond me.

I should also mention that we have two spray bottles, one with the solution and one with water. Spray the butt with the solution, wipe, spray with water, wipe, done. This is my method. Others prefer just soaking the wipes in the solution and leaving them in a wipes container. Do what you want. As long as you use the wipes within a week you should be safe from funkiness. I also recommend using essential oils that have antibacterial properties like tea tree and lavender oil to further quell any of the aforementioned...funkiness.

What else is new you ask? I've discovered how wonderful raw beets are in smoothies. It's also fun to juice them. Yesterday morning I juiced some beets and found Jonas licking the juicer spout after I'd moved on to blending. Yum! My father-in-law (who is often dubious of the things I eat) saw the smoothies and said, "so you've just started drinking blood then, huh?" Yep.
I'm excited to go buy some beet seeds this afternoon and plant them. How fortuitous that they are in season.

My Life: Be Jealous.

I'm alive! It's the truth. Though just barely (no not really, I'm fine). Since having Caroline my life has not been the picture of health that I wish it to be. I wound up in the emergency room a while ago with bad chest pains. It wasn't great. They immediately ruled out any sort of heart problems rather quickly, which was good. But it took the doctors another 10 or so hours + a switch in hospitals + x-rays + blood tests + a cat scan to rule out a blood clot in my lung. That was terrifying. Every person I saw kept reminding me that it "could be fatal." Thanks Hospital staff! Like this stabbing pain in my chest just isn't terrifying enough. They were great though.

We took Caroline to the hospital with us since she refuses to take any sort of bottle. And that was all I could think about the entire time: Caroline won't take a bottle! What is Greg going to do?! Greg, promise me that if I die you'll make your mom retire and watch the kids! I will not have my children raised in daycare! I used to work in daycare! Some of those people are monsters!

Yeah...it was a fun day for Greg too.

So what DID I end up having? PLEURISY! And no, not the lung-filled-with-blood-and-fluid kind, just your simple inflamed lung kind. Thats me. Keeping up the tradition of contracting old people diseases while still in my twenties. I normally enjoy great health with random bouts of afflictions normally reserved for the 50 and up set. I'm looking at you Shingles.

So what else have I been doing lately besides not blogging and resting my old lady lungs? Well...

-Making myself an accidental super glue glove while attempting to glue part of a kitchen drawer back together. Seriously my hand was covered in super glue. I'd be lying if I said it didn't have it's benefits.

-Playing hangman. Jonas's favorite new game. Meanwhile trying to stave off his incessant questioning about why the game ends in a person hanging. "Uhhh...it just means you lost. Pick another letter."

- Planning ways to keep Jonas entertained (see above). Two years before this kid can start kindergarten and he can read, do simple math, and recognize each individual state by shape alone. A few weeks ago I awoke to him teaching himself how to read the names of the states by cross-referencing a US placemat and a 50 Great States book from the dollar section at target. He's pretty much a genius. I am learning so much from him! Did you know that Delaware was the first state? (You did? Well I didn't! Thanks a lot Highlands Elementary School.) I told Greg I plan on getting Jonas a bunch of anatomy books from the library. We could have a little Doogie Howser on our hands people! A LITTLE DOOGIE HOWSER! I think we can all agree that this is very exciting and likely. (sarcasm).

- Feeding the She-Hulk...though perhaps string bean is a better nickname since she's not so much husky as she is long. FYI: Yankee Doodle is her actual nickname. Anyway...she literally eats every hour on the hour some days (and nights). Meanwhile women I associate with talk about stretching their babies eating schedules to three hours and four hours. I'm against schedules for wee babies. They're hungry! Let them eat! ...This may be why I consistently produce chunky babies.

-House shopping! We're still in the super fun stage of finalizing our loan and looking at cute houses. So I'm pretty excited. Though I've had to give up on the dream home to beat all dream homes so everything else will inevitably come in a sad, sad second best. It was beautiful. On 16 acres. COMPLETELY off the grid. We could get a cow! It had a creek running through it. A CREEK! Sadly the creek was part of the downfall. The house was down a long dirt road...the creek ran through part of the road...if it rained the Mr wouldn't be able to get to work...sadness now consumes my every waking moment. Not really. We're house shopping! And the house that is right for us is bound to come our way. I can feel it! Meanwhile I will dream of retiring to the dream home to beat all dream homes. A CREEK!

I realized yesterday that it's been a year since we started trying for a baby. How quickly time flies. Man alive did that pregnancy do a number on me! Every day I feel a little bit more like my old self. Jonas and I have started planting the winter garden. We make all of our bread again. Some of the wash gets hung on the line to dry (mind you not all, I have a three month old you know!). We've started using cloth wipes in addition to cloth diapers. So easy! Why didn't I do this with Jonas? We're back to green smoothies for breakfast. We walk places. We do pilates. I've discovered the many virtues of Bon-ami cleanser. So yeah. Life is getting back to normal and it feels amazing! Congratulations on making it to the end of this super-post.

The one where I complain about my new, wonderful life.

I've titled this picture, "Baby with finger mustache." And as you can probably already tell this isn't go to be a REAL blog post...just me rambling...yet again. Holla!

Holy crap having two kids is hard. It really makes you start to question the sanity of people with three, four, etc. AND I'M GOOD WITH KIDS! I remind myself daily that it'll get better. Someday the laundry will be done. Someday I won't have a tiny screaming person attached to my boob every second of every day...and I'll miss the hell out of it. But right now all I can think about is how nothing seems to be getting done. Jonas has suddenly turned into a crazy person. His new favorite phrase is, "I don't care." And he's suddenly decided to start wetting the bed every.single.night. Oh, and totally peeing his pants in the middle of Barnes and Noble. Awesome! Here's to never cleaning out the car and thus being able to find a wrinkly pair of brown pants for your kid to wear into target so you can buy infant tylenol because your hulk-ette is already teething! Yay!!! What happened to my sweet little three year old boy? He broke a lamp the other day...then threw a hotwheels at my head...then dropped a bunch of rags in the toilet. I get it. Kids act out. But I miss being able to make juice and muffins every morning and spend the day hanging the wash on the line and reading picture books. I'm just sayin'.

On top of everything we're also having our roof completely re-done. It's super fun. Caroline really loves the loud banging. I'm pretty sure the workers think I'm a child abuser based on Jonas's recent penchant for unprovoked, blood-curdling screaming. Oh, and they've seen my boob at least three times now while walking past the sliding glass door, the one with the broken blinds, because as I mentioned earlier...the wee one feeds constantly. How I love that adorable pig-child. Seriously she's cute. Though I'll probably think otherwise tonight at two, when all she wants to do is party.

In other news the chickens started laying eggs. Also, I've started doing Zumba in an attempt to get rid of this baby sag. Though the amount of chocolate I consume these days surely negates such attempts. I bought a bunch of new clothes at the thrift store the other day...because nothing fits. SURPRISE! The newer, bigger clothes don't fit either! What the crap? I sat down and cried...this was also the day Jonas started melting down. Coincidentally ALSO the day the hubs was at comi-con...Boy did he come home to a barrel of laughs! We had egg sandwiches for dinner and I've taken to wearing elastic waist skirts. How's your life lately?

Caroline Camellia

So after 36 hours of hard labor -no joke- Thirty.Six.Hours. That's what I get for insisting on a VBAC. I'll be honest and admit that at one point I told the nurse, "screw it, let's just do a c-section." BUT! I said that because, 1: I had been in labor for a really long time. and 2: Because the best doctor ever was going to be leaving soon and the doctor from hell was going to be replacing him and I'd be damned if that woman had anything to do with the arrival of my child. Seriously, she was evil. She yelled at me, I yelled at her, nurses yelled. It was a super pleasant birthing experience. But thankfully, after hearing the story from one of our nurses the best doctor ever agreed to stay late and deliver our baby no matter what. See what I mean? Best doctor ever! If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have gotten the VBAC I was hoping for. Anyway...don't I look wonderful? This picture was taken around hour 32 or so.

Our tiny girl is here! The nurse's first words upon her arrival were, "wow she has a lot of hair on her lower back! Luckily it's blonde!" How lovely. Also, it's not blonde, it's brown. Here's hoping it falls out!!!

And by "tiny girl" I mean, huge girl. I guess the Mr and I only make one type of baby. Slightly smaller than her brother, Caroline weighed in at 9 lbs 3 ounces and 22 and a half inches long. The longest baby our nurse had ever measured. We heard someone exclaim from the hallway, "that's almost two feet long!" Yep, that's our baby.

At first her face was quite swollen, and she looked identical to Jonas when he was born.

But now that she has recovered from being born she's starting to look like her own little person. Though she still looks a lot like Jonas...and just like my little sister Kellie, when she makes her grumpy face.

She, not unlike Jonas, skipped the newborn phase and went straight to 3 month old. So many cute little newborn outfits went completely to waste. Here she is in her 3-6 month clothes.

Jonas absolutely loves her! While riding up in the elevator to see her in the hospital he said to Greg, "I think she will be sooo sweet." He was right. When she cries he's quick to respond by patting her and saying, "Oh you poor little baby." Who knows where he got that one. Another phrase he uses at least daily is, "look at how tiny her little booty is!" So complimentary.

Now we're all just relaxing at home. Enjoying the Mr's paternity leave and eating my weight in food every day. Because guess what? I CAN EAT AGAIN! and it is glorious. Jonas asks me every day when I will be skinny again. The other night at dinner he announced excitedly, "you're skinny now mom!" Then amended his statement to, "well not that part (motioning towards my stomach) but your feet are skinny...just your feet...and your toes." I'll take what I can get.

The nurses and everyone involved in Caroline's arrival were WONDERFUL!!! With the exception of Satan Doctor, mentioned earlier. Caroline's full name is Caroline Camellia. Camellia like the flower. Her middle name was decided on in the hospital at the last minute, but after two weeks (yeah did I mention she's two weeks old already?!) I still like the name so it worked out. She had her two week appointment yesterday and has exceeded her birthweight by 9 ounces so she's well on her way to being a chunk like her brother was. Better start building up the arm muscle!

P.S. Remember how I thought I'd have tons of energy and time to do things after the baby arrived? Well I wasn't completely crazy. Jonas and I planted a late summer garden earlier this week!!! Hooray!!! Now if the tomatoes could just ripen before it gets too cold.

Pregnancy, Gopher, Rooster...Our Lives of Late

If I really loved you, gentle reader, I would dig through my bag packed for the hospital, find my camera and take some pictures to post. But I don't forsee that happening. So how about a photo from days of yore. Look! My garden used to produce food! This is from last years garden. Unfortunately there's no current photo to compare and contrast, mostly because I don't usually take pictures of dead plants. Just imagine 70ish square feet of mostly naked soil with dying plants in it.



I think we successfully killed the gopher. Either that or he got bored and moved to the neighbors yard. But not before he was able to eat and/or destroy everything. What a curious gopher he was, he left the strawberry plants alone (yet tunneled under them enough that they're barely hanging on) but he ate all of the onions and almost all of the garlic. Funny, since those are the plants recommended for keeping gophers away. FAIL! Anyway, there are no new mounds appearing, which gladdens me. I'm slowly moving the strawberry plants to the opposite side of the yard and mourning the loss of this years bounty. Maybe after the baby is born I'll find time to plant some stuff. HA!

Which brings me to the next topic: this kid is still in me. It makes me rather cranky sometimes. I'm so tired of having the same conversations (with strangers) over and over and over (and over) again. I want to be able to go shopping and not have to talk to every. single. person. "no it's not twins," "no it's not triplets," "due june 14th," "it's a girl," "2nd baby," "thanks for saying I remind you of a zeppelin." I ran into a fellow pregnant woman at costco earlier this week, she's due the 18th but is having a scheduled c-section tomorrow. TOMORROW! Damn her for having her baby before me, especially since she only looks like she's 6 months pregnant. I realized after I got home from costco that if I hadn't fought the doctor for a VBAC I'd probably be having MY baby tomorrow. So I only have myself to blame. I still really want a VBAC...then again I also really want to eat food again, and not have to wear my husbands largest shirt because absolutely nothing else fits over the zeppelin-esque belly. See what I mean? Cranky.

One of our chickens is a rooster. Did I post this already? He has found his voice and then some. He crows incessantly from 5:30AM til 7PM. I'm really surprised none of our neighbors have attempted to kill him. Then again there's a peacock farm on the edge of our neighborhood, and those things go all night long. Especially during mating season, which we are in the throes of. So maybe one little rooster isn't so bad. Our across the street neighbors actually like the peacock farm, they say, "it's like living at the Wild Animal Park." That will be my defense for the rooster, "it's like living on a farm!" I've tuned the peacocks out for the most part and only really notice them at 3am or when we have company over and they ask, somewhat startled, "what the crap was that sound?" The rooster is slated for our dinner table anyway, in about a month. Jonas is excited. When I asked him what he wanted for lunch today he said, "how about we eat the rooster, mom?" He's asked me on several occasions to explain to him the slaughtering sequence. What you do first -chop off the head. Where the organs are -inside. Where inside -all over. What you do last- chop off the feet. Why- so you have something to hold them by while you pull out the feathers. This prompted a response of "I don't ever want to grow feathers mom!" Which prompted a discussion of the differences between birds and mammals. Ahhh the education of a homestead life. I'm pretty sure he'll grow to need therapy.

Finally, a post with pictures.

This blog has been sorely neglected. Not unlike everything else in my life lately. Basically right now we're all just focusing on keeping our heads above water until this baby comes! I seem to have delusions that I'll be able to get so much more done once she's out of me. While the crazy vomiting that was ever-present in the beginning of the pregnancy has subsided I still have a love/hate relationship with food. I love it. It hates me. I feel sick all of the time regardless of what I do or eat. Obviously the only solution is for this kid to come out. Luckily that is quickly approaching!!! Less than three weeks til the due date, and less than four weeks til the mandatory scheduled c-section (lets all hope she comes before it gets to that point!) This wee one seems far more eager to arrive than the last one, then again she could just be a tease. Doc says the baby's shaping up to be about nine pounds. She seriously doubts the baby will get all the way to ten the way Jonas did. I've heard such promises before. Jonas was supposed to be, "8 pounds at the MOST." Whatever, I've got no problem with nice, big, sturdy babies.

And now the promised pictures.

Here's a picture of how fat I am these days...and by "these days" I mean, like a month ago.

Here's a picture of my kids face with marker all over it. Dry erase does not come off little kid skin as easily as one would think.
Here is a blurry picture of a doll I made for our friend's third birthday.
Here's a doll I made for our other friend's fourth birthday.
Full body shot. The little cape comes off. Adorable, right?
Here's a table runner I made my mother-in-law for mother's day. I've been meaning to make this runner for forever and I finally got around to it.
A little bit closer picture of the fabrics used.
Here's what the easter bunny left Jonas.
Here's Jonas thrilled with "easter hunting," as he calls it.
Here's Jonas actually hunting. We practiced hunting for about a week before easter actually came...and continued to hunt long after.

That's our life lately. There's actually a lot more lying on the couch and sleeping than is pictured here, but you get the idea. Our chickens are doing great. We call one Houdini Chicken, because she manages to escape from the run no matter what we do. They eat scraps like champs and somehow managed to completely destroy their seemingly indestructable waterer. So there are trade-offs. The eggs should start rolling in around August. The garden is not to be this year. Which KILLS me. We have a gopher. I hate him. We bought poison but have yet to stick it into his hole due to lack of reassurance that said poison won't toxify the soil. Toxify? You know what I mean. He's eaten a large chunk of what was planted. I pulled out several plants and fed them to the chickens just to spite the gopher. I really do hate him. Jonas hates him too, and asks every day when we are going to kill it. I have doubts about how healthy this is, but the kid's pretty upset about his pea harvesting being cut short. And lastly, we're all recovering from a horrible cold that Jonas spread around our house. When it rains it pours. This happens every time I let him ride in one of those shopping carts with a little police car on the front. Seriously. Every time.

Our Baby

It's a girl! I know I could have posted this a long time ago but decided to keep everyone in suspense. Honestly though, the reason I haven't posted until now is because I pass out at about 8 every night. She's sucking the life out of me!
We're very happy that this one is a girl, since she will be our last, and it's nice to have one of each. We have absolutely no idea what this child's name is going to be. I have names I like, the hubs has names he likes, there are even names we both like! We just can't pin it down to THE name. I hope she's a red head, I deserve to have a child that looks like me, since the boy is so clearly the spitting image of his dad. Down to his toenails, no joke. I've been told he has facial expressions that are similar to mine, but it's not really a consolation. Those paternal genes are hard to break. It's ok though, he's cute...like his dad.

Pregnancy Slogan

Here's a new pregnancy slogan I came up with today after church. Pregnancy: the only time people think it's "socially acceptable" to say things like, "wow I'm so glad you're fatter than I am!" I admit the slogan is still a little rough around the edges, but you get what I'm trying to say.

People keep saying crap like this to me. To make it worse OTHER PREGNANT WOMEN keep saying crap like this to me. The line from the slogan was actually said about a month ago. Today another pregnant lady flattered me with, "You're really poppin' out a lot more than I am these days." Thanks.

The saddest part is I am way smaller with this baby than with the last one. Hopefully that means this one will be smaller. Nothing against ten pound babies but...they are HEAVY! Especially when they hit 20 lbs by the time they're 2 months old. Trust me, I've heard enough jokes about how my breastmilk must be heavy cream (from people who I'm only mildly acquainted with) to last me a lifetime. Seriously you wouldn't believe how many people said something like that to me. They all thought themselves very witty. Uhhh...please don't comment on what you think my breastmilk is like, it's awkward. Boy I'm cranky.

I'm Back!

Some of you may have noticed that I took a brief (four month) moratorium from this blog. It's because I've been a little bit preoccupied. Puking my guts out. Who doesn't love four months of that? The Mr and I (and Jonas) are expecting baby number 2! The last and final child. No WAY I'm signing up for this again. Last week I overheard a pregnant woman say that women who are sick when pregnant need to, "just get over it." It was all I could do not to strangle her.
It's been hell to say the least. I keep going back and forth between which is worse, the overwhelming sick feeling/constant malnutrition/dehydration bit or being utterly useless. For four months I haven't been able to do much of anything, which can wear on a person. You should see my house. You should see my garden. I, myself, am afraid to look in the chicken coop. The Hubs has been AMAZING, doing laundry, housework, shopping, learning to cook, being my constant nursemaid, cleaning puke out of the carpet and all with nary a complaint. What a stud I married!
My in-laws have been great as well. If not for my sweet, sweet mother-in-law poor Jonas would have gone without much of a halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas because goodness knows I've been in no shape to cook or make a costume. She also scrubbed my kitchen to within an inch of it's life, made us dinners, shopped all over to find whatever I wanted, took Jonas so I could rest. And that's just the beginning. I'm so grateful to have married into such a wonderful family, and to live so close to them.

So that's been my life for the past four months, just gestating away on the couch. But now I'm feeling much better, fighting the tail end of a crazy cold and constantly snacking so I don't puke but it's miles from where I was. I'm so ridiculously excited to be able to clean my house and get back to life as it should be. Jonas has been begging me to plant peas with him in the garden. The kid loves his peas.

I don't mean to complain, I've really learned a lot this past season. Mostly about myself. Not the least of which, how blessed I am. And to blatantly steal from Modern Family: I wouldn't make a very inspiring disabled person. Seriously, I've really taken for granted what a gift it is to be able to work, to vaccum, to plant a garden, to cook a meal.
So in conclusion, we look forward to welcoming another bundle of joy in mid June! We find out what the sex of the baby is tomorrow!

Happenings and Lentil Stew

"MOM! I caught a chicken!!!"

It's been a crazy few weeks aroung here. Jonas andthe chickens got sick last week. Separate illnesses. Jonas had a flu bug, most likely from sticking a child strap from a grocery cart in his mouth. YUM! And the chickens had Coccidiosis. Which, as it turns out, is horribly gruesome. The inside of the coop looked like a bloody horror film. I hunted down some Corid (albeit for cattle, but I diluted it in their water and it worked like a charm) and now the girls are back to their old, noisy selves. Still no eggs.

The garden is winding down. Jonas and I are out there every day (per the usual) clearing things out and prepping for the winter garden.

I may (or may not, who can remember these things?) have mentioned that the Mr and I are going to be trying for another baby. Jonas is NOT happy about this and makes no bones about it. He tells me almost daily, "I do not want a new baby to come to our family. Just me!" There are different variations of this. Boy is he in for a rude awakening. But I digress. The reason I bring up the impending pregnancy is that this week I am doing a detox in preparation for it. It's going splendidly! It's not an intense detox or anything, no lemon/syrup/cayenne/water craziness going on. Just super healthy, raw stuff. Well, ok, raw food and beans. Because lets face it, beans are good for you and I'm not going to exclude them. I've been having green smoothies for breakfast, salads for lunch, lots of fruit, and tabbouleh and things for dinner. I'm not playing this detox hard and fast so don't judge me. I had lentil stew last night. It was WONDERFUL! So here's the recipe. Obviously I made a few changes to the recipe so it would be "detox friendly." Veg stock instead of chicken and no bacon. Enjoy!

Chickens

We finally got our crap together and our chickens are here! They are even more awesome than I ever imagined. We only have two right now. Two Rhode Island Reds from my pal Ingrid. (Thanks Ingrid!) We plan on adding one more pullet later.

Jonas named one Brownie -because it's slightly browner than the other chicken. And he named the other Ginger -because it's the name of the main chicken on Chicken Run...and he's a little bit obsessed with that movie. But the name ginger totally fits because the chicken is burnt orange in color.

This kid LOVES the chickens. I'm starting to become slightly worried that he thinks he's a chicken, at least on some level. The chickens roll in the dirt, Jonas rolls in the dirt. The chickens scratch in the compost, Jonas scratches in the compost. The other day he came inside asking for a new shirt...because his current shirt was soaked with filthy chicken water. Oh yeah. He drank it. We monitored him closely for signs of chicken induced diseases for the first few days, because I'm just a little bit paranoid. More than once I've caught Jonas chasing them around with a scrubbing brush (terrorizing is probably a better word) saying that he needed (NEEDED) to brush their hair. What am I going to do with this kid?

The chickens seem very happy. They run to us when they hear our back door open and follow us all over the garden. They finally found the compost today, after exploring the yard for several days. Chicken Heaven. Their favorite place seems to be underneath one of the green bean teepees. Go figure. And their favorite treats are the sprouted legume/grain mixture I've been giving them, and tomatoes they find on the ground.

We've had a few predator run-ins. One morning after letting the chickens out of their coop I went inside to fetch laundry to hang on the line. When I returned there was a hawk watching the chickens from our garage roof. I threw a zucchini at it and it flew away (anyone who says they're overrun with zucchini isn't thinking of ALL it's practical uses). Then THREE more hawks flew out of our neighbors trees. We haven't seen them since but SHEESH! That night a skunk sprayed our coop. The chickens were safe inside but oh my. Who knew that skunk spray smelled like fire at point blank range? Tis true. Mercifully the smell had completely dissipated by the next morning.

In other news...remember my last post, how I rambled on about the strange weather? I've since decided that this blog has magical powers because it has been 100 degrees outside EVERY DAY SINCE. What is that about?

So how are your lives lately? I was having a facebook conversation with my friend Siobhan the other day about chickens. I told her Jonas and I had spent the entire day outside watching the chickens, interspersed with bits of hanging laundry on the washline. Siobhan also has chickens and totally gets how awesome they are. "We're livin' the dream!" I think is an exact quote from that conversation. And we totally are! And while the phrase "livin' the dream" is fine I read a line on another blog today that I like even better, "life right now is dope as hell." Indeed it is.

Summer So Far

I've been a lame-o again. I can't even remember the last time I posted on this blog...and I lack the motivation to go and look at the previous post. Anyway. I've been extremely busy -isn't everyone?

Well over a month ago I went camping for a week with a bunch of girls from our church. It was quite an experience. These were my cabin girls for the week. Sometimes they were awesome, sometimes they were downright rotten. But I loved them through it all. At the end of the week they were awarded the "Night Owl/Party Cabin" award if that gives you any idea of what the week was like.

Here's a shot of me and my pal Cous Cous (no,not her real name) waiting to go home. We were ready.

Camp was fun, but back on the homefront this has been happening every other day. Keeps me busy canning and pickling and roasting and dehydrating and freezing.



The southern california weather this summer has been the strangest I can remember. Perhaps strange is the wrong word, but "cold" doesn't exactly fit either. Anyway, it's been the coldest summer since the 1930's. While not frigid by any means it's still unseasonably cool. 70's most of the time, when it's usually in the 90's and 100's. The plants are loving it. The tomatoes haven't had a bit of blossom drop, there was a small bit of blossom drop with some pole beans but they're back to normal already.

At the beginning of the season I planted equal numbers of small red and yellow tomato plants. Red and Yellow jelly bean tomatoes and red and yellow pear tomatoes. I didn't keep track of which was which, and only planted out the strongest seedlings. I don't know what happened but EVERY SINGLE small tomato plant is yellow. Even the volunteers. Maybe they just like the weather better, or the soil, or the yellow plants are stronger by nature. Whatever happened we're up to our eyeballs in yellow jellybean and pear tomatoes. What a hardship:)

Here's a shot of our sunflowers! I have a spot of soil that is riddled with fusarium wilt. It's hard to find things to plant that are unaffected by it. Sunflowers are one of those things. So voila I planted a bunch of black oil sunflowers to feed our impending chickens. They look beautiful! This is not the best of pictures, they obviously need a good watering. So just take my word for it. Oh, and the bees LOVE them. Hooray for pollination!

Speaking of chickens... Here's the coop we broke down and purchased. I'm VERY happy with it. While the other coop we received is AWESOME, it needed some work to be chicken ready, and a run, so we just bought this, though we'll probably be keeping the other one as a place for baby chicks when the time comes. Anyway this new coop...LOVE it! Love the size and attached run and pull out tray for cleanup. While the run is small it shouldn't matter too much since we plan on free ranging the chickens and the run will only be used on specific occasions. Plus it's the perfect sized chicken tractor for our yard. The benefits are just endless. Can't wait for the chickens! Can't wait for the eggs. Can't wait for the weed and insect control. Can't wait for the MANURE! Stay tuned.

Simple Gifts

We are truly blessed people here at the homestead. Seriously. If we want for something it appears. Almost like magic. Almost. But it's not magic, it's our kind family, or neighbors or fellow church goers.

Our washing machine gave up the ghost yesterday. Out of nowhere, it just decided it had had enough of laundry. I hear that, am I right ladies? I had to wash and wring all of the laundry that was midcycle when the washer quit. Of course it was a load of jeans. Sheesh. I have learned the hard way that women of yore had MUCH stronger hands than I. But the father in law called this afternoon and a new one will be here by friday. Amazing? I think so.

I've been thinking about teaching myself some basic piano but have been procrastinating actually doing it because, well, we don't have a piano. It's a dying art it would seem. In our church congregation I think there are two people that play. So they're stretched pretty thin when it comes to playing for meetings. As I've mentioned before I'm partially in charge of the youth in our ward. We always sing acapella in meetings because nobody plays. How sad. A few weeks ago a lovely woman in our ward came up and offered to give us her 90 year old baby grand. She's the wife of the man who gave Jonas the classical music guys. Anyway, it's the cutest piano you've ever seen. I am in LOVE with it. Now to get it to our house.

And the last blessing, that arrived just today. A CHICKEN COOP! As I said in an earlier post we've recently received the go ahead for chickens. On Friday my husband's boss, who also lives around the corner from us -and across the street from the inlaws- offered to give us his chicken coop. He built it himself and I am impressed. He and the hubs brought it down today and it is a thing of beauty to me. I took pictures but, alas, they won't load since Greg installed some sort of somethin' when he got a new camera for his birthday. Boo. But the pictures will be up soon. And you can all voice an opinion on what color I should paint it. I'm thinking yellow, but don't let that sway you.

Anyone else out there feeling blessed?

Hands Down Most Awesomest Free Knit/Crochet Pattern Site EVER!

I was reading a blog post a few days ago by a woman who lives in CALIFORNIA. She was very concerned about the impending winter (uhhhh...). To the point that she couldn't enjoy the beautiful weather we are enjoying. I'm sure you are all as befuddled as I am...impending winter, it's june! Also, winter in so cal, not that terrifying...quite balmy actually. So she's probably a bit nutty. My husband probably thinks I"m a bit nutty too. Here's why. A few days ago I started crocheting something. Nothing out of the usual there. The hubs asked what I was making, and when I told him it was a sweater his response was...OOOOOOOK. He left off the "weirdo." But I knew it was implied:) But what better time to crochet (or knit) a wonderful winter sweater than while you're enjoying crappy summer television?! Also, sweaters don't crochet (or knit) up fast people! So by the time I'm done it'll be time for wearin'! Perfect.
I searched and searched and SEARCHED online for the perfect sweater pattern. Nice crochet sweater patterns are hard to find, and if I'm gonna put the effort into it, I better be flippin thrilled with it, am I right? After stumbling through lots of free sweater pattern sites I finally hit upon this beauty and I HAVE to share it with you. I don't know why I didn't find it sooner but it is heads and tails above the other free pattern sites. Seriously it makes the other free patterns look like something the cat dragged in. I practically bookmarked every project, and there are hundreds! My absolute favorites are all knit sweaters but I'm just not advanced enough in knitting yet to attempt an adult sweater. But crochet is another story. While this is my fave.
I also LOVE this little number and it's what I finally settled on (sans the buttons, I've got different buttons in mind. And it's not grayish but off white) It's great because I plan to be expecting our number two little bundle of joy come this winter and I think this sweater will accomodate that nicely.
So enjoy the site! You're welcome.

Summer Time

Sorry about the lack of posts. Summer is a time-thief. Jonas and I spend almost the entire morning in the garden these days. I LOVE that. We come in around noon so he can eat lunch. Though he's always too full of sunberries and green beans and cucumbers and tomatoes to eat anything so I don't know why I even bother.
Proof of Jonas snacking away on green beans.
The plants growing around the new citrus trees are growing taller than the trees. Is that a problem?
Lemon Cucumbers. LOVE them. Jonas and I eat them like apples, right out in the garden.
The sunflowers are all about nine feet tall! The birds in the yard love to land on the leaves and peck away at them. At first I thought grasshoppers were eating the leaves. Turns out the sparrows find them delicious. Who knew?
The long island cheese squashes (seed purchased from seedsavers.org) are coming along nicely.
We'e getting zucchini in all shapes and sizes these days. The cross pollinated volunteer zukes are all pear shaped (none pictured here). But they all taste the same so who cares?
We've been sneaking some time in at the beach also.
Jonas is completely OBSESSED with classical music. At first the hubby and I were proud, now we're just over it. He begs to listen to it ALL DAY. EVERY DAY. And when he's not listening to it he's humming it...loudly...to a grocery store clerk. Or "meeping" it as seen on the muppet version of ode to joy. Anyway, the reason this picture is relevant is because a nice older gentleman in our ward heard that Jonas loved classical music -because we were at his house and Jonas was going on and on about beethoven and "bastian bach." So this nice man gave Jonas a set of plastic classical composer busts. Jonas calls them his "classical music guys." The Beethoven one has an angry face, per the usual. So the other day I look at Jonas who is sitting in his highchair making this face and I ask him if everything is ok, to which is replies, "I'm making my Beethoven face, mom." Duh. That kid is a crack up. Or as he says, "a crack out."