Spring 2014

It has been a busy two months here.  Jim broke his annual tradition and did not put out the tomato plants just before the final winter frost.   However, he did put them out just before the day we had gusty 50 mph winds so the end result was the same.  Coincidentally, on that day he also finished assembling a darling little pre-fab greenhouse.  After the windy day, Jim remarked it clearly was designed to be an indoor greenhouse. 

Before the 50 mph winds

and after

Our luck has been somewhat better (depending on what the goal is) with fowl this year.  All six of our ducks and the five chickens from last year survived, in spite of our Christmas attempt to roast them in their coop.  Jim made some adjustments to the little red barn he built several years ago – cutting a door in one wall and building an attached A-frame chicken yard with the help of brother-in-law Josh -- and moved the birds out there.   In fact, they’re doing so well, Jim brought home 13 more chicks from Atwoods in March, and then four more a few weeks later.  The juvenile birds graduated this week (thank goodness) from their confinement in a stock tank in the garage, under a heating lamp, where they had been taking turns roosting on the water dispenser and pooping in it.

Home Sweet Home

As for the ducks, we have a mix of males and females.  We know this because my nephew Jacob, who is in fifth grade and was visiting on his Spring Break with his family in April, would announce ecstatically multiple times a day, “THEY’RE MATING AGAIN!”  The heads-up was hardly necessary since all of the kids’ noses were already plastered to the windows to witness this fascinating (and apparently, hilarious) spectacle. 

So, obviously, the ducks are laying eggs.  We’ve incorporated the eggs in our cooking, for lack of anything better to do with them, although I can’t shake the feeling they’re somehow vulgar and morally questionable, on account of the show during which they were produced. 

The ducks kept climbing into their drinking water ...

So they got a stock-tank pond.

Dinner and a swim!

We had our first real Spring Break this year, since someone was here for us to enjoy it with.  Luckily for them, my sister, Sally, and her family arrived for the perfect Kansas spring week where they got to experience not only winter-bare trees and dead, yellow grass, but also a few random oppressively hot days, mixed with snow and freezing temperatures later in the week.  

Gracie and her chick.  It's even still alive now!

Making Aunt Amanda's birthday cake.

The finished product.

Fun!

We took a road trip to Mansfield, Missouri, where the guys stoically endured a tour of the home of children’s book author Laura Ingalls Wilder.  In exchange, we girls agreed to visit the Springfield Bass Pro store and everyone agreed on Silver Dollar City in Branson.  At the Wilder home, the boys’ favorite site was the public bathroom that had great big picture windows looking right into the stall area.

One of the Wilder homes.

The boys' favorite site at the Wilder Home.  Nobody told them to not pretend shooting each other out here.

Aunt Amanda and Gracie

Jake and Woody in the infamous coffin.

Dad and Lucy

Jake and Jack

Meanwhile, Josh has found his Silver Dollar City souvenir.

Woody and Jacob got on famously and Woody asked one evening after they left, “Mom, when will I un-miss Jacob?”  I guess when I un-miss seeing my sister. 

Sal gets some target practice in.

So Josh does, too.

Group Photo

Jack is wrapping up seventh grade, and looking forward to his first experience with Space Camp at the Kansas Cosmosphere in June.  I just found out we have to get him up-to-date on his tetanus and MMR boosters.  Heh heh.  I wonder if I can still get away with just showing up with him at the doctor’s office the day of the shots, and then taking him to McDonalds for ice cream after?

Woody is sad winter is over; he refused to put away his plastic snow fort brick molds (one of his Christmas list items), and also when I went to get some steaks, a hard-packed, baseball-sized ball of ice fell out when I opened the freezer door.  It was the last snowball of the season which Woody cheerfully informed me he was saving so he could nail Jack when the time was right.  In other news, he recently announced, “When I grow up I want to be an engineer.  And a mechanic.  And a casino owner.”  It’s difficult for him to put effort into school this late in the year so I wasn’t surprised to hear the following from him as he composed an essay on patriotism: “I like this country because it’s the land of opper … oppertoon … chances.” 

Poor Betsy has to put up with so much: she is the only six-year-old who ever had a baby sister follow her around wanting to do whatever she is doing.  While this is fine when one wants to jump on the trampoline while wearing inflatable swimming rings (don’t ask: they just do), it’s not so precious when the baby sister yells random answers to all the addition flashcard problems, or feeds your pet rabbit an entire bag of rabbit food at once, or says bedtime prayers first.  When Lucy gets started, she goes on and on, thanking God for so-and-so’s bedroom, and the chicken that died (I swear there was only one, and it died last fall), and eventually she trails off into other lengthy commentary, while I drift off for a short nap.  Betsy groans, “Mom! She’s telling a story again!” and sure enough, Lucy will be recounting her version of the day’s events, which clearly is more interesting to God if embellished with a few random details from the boys’ latest Dungeons & Dragons episode.

Recently, Jim and Lucy were looking over old vacation photos, and they came across one picture of Betsy brushing a pot-bellied pig at the petting zoo.  Jim said, “Awww, look!  It’s Betsy with Aunt Amanda!” and Lucy nodded wisely and said, “When Aunt Amanda was a cow!”

Betsy with Aunt Amanda "when Aunt Amanda was a cow."

Jim's second attempt at a green house: no kit, no plans, no problem.

TA-DA!

I guess that's it for now.  Hope you all are enjoying the spring!