Blogger is not being nice

Blogger won't let me show you Annie Jumping off the diving board or Elsie caught in the act destroying an entire loaf of fresh made bread.  Blogger wants money from me for posting pictures now.  Not sure why this happened or how to change it, but it makes me mad.

Not done but finally functional!

 After scrapping and chiseling, then drilling and adding rebar...

 The concrete was poured.

Today it was freed from the mold and we can now walk up our front steps!  If only the basement stairs went this fast.  Only kidding, I'm so impressed with my husband right now and so glad he is mine.  Thank you Texas I love my new front stairs and can't wait to see them finished.

Golf?

 For Father's Day Annie and I took Texas to play Golf.  Please note I have never played or even watched golf.  We went to a litle family course and I was surprised to realize it's actually fun. 

It's going to take me a while to get the hang of it, but Annie is awesome!

Missing something

 Paint and repairs all done, the front porch looks amazing, now we just need front steps.  This might take awhile seeing as how the plumping for the upstairs bathroom sprung a leak and Texas is busy getting that all sorted out.

 We put the flower boxes back up today, and they make the front flower bed look sad.  We need to really tear the whole bed out and put in new soil.  That will have to wait till next year though.

Garden update

Elsie has discovered a love of the garden and I have suddenly found myself in need of Elsie proof garden fencing. She has an insatiable appetite for tomatoes, this morning alone I lost count after 23.   Aside from tomatoes she loves snacking on radish beans, lemon balm, and fennel. 

 Elsie helping in the Garlic patch.

 Overall we had a late start around the tree trunk due to the incredible amount of digging required to get at the roots, but it's all coming along fine now.

 I did a boarder of flowers around the outside of the stump where the soil was to shallow to handle vegetables. 

My rhubarb which is on it's first year is taking over.  I tried to pin it with fennel which has kept it from growing out to much, but once I pull the fennel it will open up. Perhaps I will leave the fennel.

 

This is obviously not plants, but I am so excited to have more than 6 diapers.  We now have 23!  and it has changed my life.   As part of my preparing for baby number 3 I'm stocking up on diapers. Bring on the dirty diapers new baby, I'll be ready.

Curb appeal

 Remember the duct tape across our front window?  It was there for what seemed like forever.  Well we are moving on with the next stage of our front yard improvement project.  Unfortunately very little thought was put into the timeline, so now I am without front steps for an undetermined amount of time. 

 Texas was having too much fun during the tear down to hear reason.

 

 And this would be the snake who has lived under our front steps the last two summers we've been here.  Sadly, he had to find a new home.

Golf Camp is cool

 " I love Golf," Annie.

Texas and Annie working on her swing. 

Texas and I had the most fun last night, watching Annie at golf camp. There is something so cute about 10 little kids carting around their golf bags and putting across the green.  I don't play golf, I actually have no idea what your trying to do other than get the teeny tiny ball into the equally teeny tiny hole somewhere in the ground.

I'm just glad that Annie loves Golf camp, and is enjoying her summer with very little effort on my part. 

Yes, A patio.

Believe it or not, we have a patio.  Texas finished it this last weekend.  I'm a little slow on the posting, sorry.  So far we only have two grown up chairs to put on it, but we're working on that.  Eventually we get a patio table with chairs, but I'm in no hurry.  Just glad one more project is complete.

A patio?

 Texas had his dad come over this week to help us get ready to put in a patio.  I'm so excited about this patio.  Hopefully it won't get to hot as soon as we're done.  

 Grandpa Frisch with the girls.

 Grandpa Frisch had to get out his brick laying tools to help us fix a few spots in the concrete.

Texas spent a lot of time stamping in the gravel.

Sand for the patio.
The girls will be so sad when they find out this sand is not for them.

 Elsie's new favorite past time is picking all the vegetables in the garden, ready or not, she's gonna pick em.

Annie being attacked by the Chard.

Outside

 The tomato plants have reached past the 9 foot mark and are still going.  We've gotten to eat a few here and there, but in about two weeks we should have enough to start the first round of canning.  I'm glad I jumped the gun on these this year, seeing as how I'm behind almost everywhere else.  Texas and I almost have the tree stump roots chopped out where we can get them, but it will take us a long time to remove the whole stump.

Banjo is tired of baby chicks.  They no longer seem to be very interesting, and honestly I'm tired of them too.  They take a lot of extra care, that I don't really have the time to give them.  Thankfully, Annie is charge of most there care.   Sunshine and Lemon drop, just better not be roosters. 

Neighbors, Babies, chickens and more babies

I lost track of life again, and with all that's happened the blog is well over due for a few updates.

 Update 1:

Texas and I have our own room now and the girls have moved in together.    So far I've gotten to sleep in the new room half of one night.  Elsie is not going through the night without nursing yet, and in fact has regressed to only wanting to nurse.  Sippy cups and bottles no longer hold her attention at all. 

Update 2

 Our neighbor had recently revealed his dark side and we were forced to move our chickens around.   All things neighborly, he got the worse end of the deal and we now have two chickens in our freezer.  The best part is, Texas got to come along and help me slaughter/clean the birds.  He's gotten far more comfortable with handling the birds.  He even took part in cleaning off the feathers, still avoiding the gutting, but give him time.
We got two new baby birds from Tex's cousin Chris.  They were so cute they prompted us to loose the two older mean reds, so we could keep them. 

 Emily holding the new babies, Sunshine and Lemon Drop.

 Me holding the recently deceased Reds.

Texas, cleaning feathers.

Update 3

No pictures for this exciting news, but Texas and I are having baby number three.  Due sometime in January.  Update 1 had nothing to do with update 3, but I'm now wishing we had finished our room a lot sooner.  Update 3 and I will be staying in Annie's old bedroom once he or she arrives.  And finally Texas does not have to resort to sleeping on the living room floor to get a decent nights sleep.

Kids everywhere

The Girls.  Our little neighborhood block is full of little girls.   Oddly we have only two boys to the 8 girls that run up and down the street.  They run, dance, sing, play and do all things chicken related they can think of.  It's a circus, and we love it.  This summer is promising to be full of unorganized fun, with a lot less driving around than I thought.

Raiders of the Lost Arch

 There most be something magical about Indiana Jones, because these girls were enthralled.  You'll see by reading the comments that Annie talks a lot during a movie, she unfortunately gets that from me.  I also clap hysterically and laugh out loud a lot.

"Is that really gonna happen?" Annie

"Double Triple traitors.  They are the worst traitors I ever had." Annie

 

"It's good that that fell down, they can build stairs and it leads to another bad thing." Annie

 

  

 "EWW.  That looks bad.  It's like creepy and cool at the same time." Emily

 

 Maybe it's the snakes?

Little Nature Girls

Nesting:

Meet Emerald, the girls adopted baby bird.  She loves to be hand fed tiny worms and crickets if you can catch them.  The Ukelele is her music of choice and she fancies grass beds, and high up places. 

 As you can see she's quite distinguished, always holds her head up high, 

in anticipation of more worms. 

 She avoids the baby who at this moment was playing with a metal screw 

(promptly taken away)

 and prefers the comfort of small hands

or a home made nest crafted by her loving caretakers.

Need a bigger spoon?

 

This kid cannot get enough Kefir!

The Birds

 All over the Island of Kauai are wild Chickens. They are in the park, on the beach, hanging out at the Walmart, right outside our back door.  It was the coolest thing Annie and I had ever seen.  It made me want to let a flock of chickens loose at home.  Unfortunately there are too many predators here for them to survive.

 The roosters are stunning.

 Then there are the peacocks.  They were all over the pace when we went to the luau.

This one had a thing for Annie's dress.