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.