Make a splash at your Library

We are big supporters of our local library. Each summer they have a summer reading program. The boys are young enough that they are still in the "read to me group." Each book read must be written down along with the number of pages. The kids get prizes for completing certain goals. The library also recognizes the person that reads the most books and most pages.

The Library hosted a water fair on a Saturday. They had stations for the kids set up, duck pond, bubbles, bean bag toss. I was running a station so the boys were there all day with me. They had a lot of fun playing with the bubbles.

As for our results, I read about 60 books to the boys. The winner was over 700 books. We happen to know this family and had invited to go to the Amusement park with us and that was considered frivolous. Now I know why, they were spending all their time reading. Either that or the mom picked out the skinniest books she could. Oh and the prize was a pass to the Amusement park. I wonder if they used it then. Any way we enjoy reading and we loved going out to eat at Applebee's with our cousins.

I think this is Parker's last year to be in the "read to me group" so he will have control over the number of books that he reads. The summer can be a difficult time to sit still and read, when there are so many other activities going on.

They also offer if for the adults. Of course it takes awhile to complete just 1 book.

Chicago

I have been selling Pampered Chef for 4 years now. Each year they have a conference for the Pampered Chef in Chicago. The first 2 years I was unable to go due to Mommy duties. I now look forward to this little break in Chicago each summer.

Pampered Chef has their headquarters in Chicago, so we go to them each year. It is a great opportunity to meet others in the business and see how they do their business. It is also a chance to see the bigger possibility and see others be recognized for their work.

I am a country girl and have not been out much, so was a little nervous to go to Chicago, the 3rd largest city in the US. However after having visiting there and seeing it is a beautiful and clean city I have changed my tune. This past year I even ventured out on my own.

Chicago is known for its deep dish pizza. I talked the ladies in my group to trying it. I think I will stick to traditional pizza next time. There was so much cheese on the inside.


I went shopping with my friend Kathy and met the silver guy. Come to find out he makes his living by dressing like this everyday and gets tips from passerby's like me.
I took a boat tour of the city and loved learning some of the history of Chicago.
At the conference itself there was opportunity to see the new products, go to classes to learn how to be a better business woman. Plus the chance to converse with consultants all over the US to hear what works for their business. Pampered Chef rewards their consultants that work hard by taking them on a trip. This years trip was for Hawaii. Here I am with the girls I traveled with.

Lasagna Gardening

Lasagna Gardening. It is not about growing a garden so you make lasagna, although you could choose to grow those plants. It is a no till, no weeding and no digging type of garden.

I checked the book out from the library. The author tried this method of laying wet newspaper, followed by peat moss, organic matter, more peat moss, organic matter. You can make as many layers as you want. If you make the bed in the fall you can cover it with plastic to help it "cook." In the spring you have beautiful dirt to plant in. She ended up throwing her rota-tiller away.

I have these visions of beautiful beds filled with flowers, a cutting garden, bulbs, perennials and some vegetables in there too. But if you have ever scene PA soil, it is clay and rocky. Even when you do rota-till the ground is still hard and weeds seem to find there way back. I want the kind of dirt that looks like it came out of a bag, only with out paying for it come out of a bag.

Plus I have grassy areas that I would like to turn into gardens. I don't own a rota-tiller. We have ended up asking a neighbor to come over and do it for us in the past. This book really appealed to me.

So we tried it. It was great. And the best part is we recycled half of the ingredients we used. And this was one job the boys could actually help with.

The first step was marking out the space. We used painters tape to mark where we wanted the garden. This is in my front yard.

Our next step was to soak newspapers and cover the grass. We soaked the newspaper in water from our rain barrel.


The next step was to cover the area in peat moss. Well this is our version of the idea.
I then called a friend who owns horses. She had plenty of manure, the factory is always open. I took a pick up load home. The remainder I put in a small pile behind my garden to save for the next project. At this point is just looks like dirt or mulch and I don't even think the neighbors suspect it. We did see some white butterflies flying around. I believe they help with decomposition.

The next thing I did was put some top soil on top. We did the condensed version of the idea from the book. She uses more layers, but this seemed to do the trick for us.

I did go back and add some mulch around my plants to help hold in the moisture. I forgot to take a picture of my garden later in the summer for you. Our garden did pretty well considering it did not get planted until July. I harvested basil and made pesto. I got a few sunflowers. And my swiss chard did very well. I got several cuttings from it. Next year I just need to start earlier.

I have big plans for my gardens in the years to come. Next year I want to try more veggies. I want to do another bed by the road and plant wild flowers, black eyed susans and daisies and such. I have already got a jump start on my newspapers.

I should also mention that I started one last March on my rocky bank. I never had to weed it all summer.

Preston turns 3!

I know only 6 months behind. I still feel the need to blog about things in the order that they happened. So in case you are confused, Preston's birthday is in July when the weather is warm and we can wear shorts and sandals. Even though I am writing this in December, wearing a sweater and needing a blanket.

Birthdays are a big deal at our house. Parker will go through each month of the year and want to know who has a birthday. We go through our own little family and the grandparents and some of the aunts, uncles and cousins that we can remember off the top of our heads.

When I asked Preston how and where he wanted to celebrate his birthday, he replied at Grandma's house.



And when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, Parker had already brain washed him into Lightening McQueen.


We invited Grandpa and Granny Rayburn over to Grandma Linda's house for lunch and cake and ice cream.

Preston is a laid back type of guy. He is also a tough guy that often takes being "played rough" by his older brother Parker. He likes to eat good food and will often be the last kid left at the table cleaning his plate, while the others are too busy to eat. He is real good to take along with you, he just rides in the cart or car. He often entertains himself. He likes going to the Library and playing his older brother.

Farmer Jane

So my Mom is from Ut and it is a big deal to have and hold family reunions. This past year it was (her turn). What this means is that the reunion planning takes turns among the siblings of her parents. She and her sisters planned the reunion. My Mom wanted all of her family to attend since they had a little more control over where and when it would be held.

I really considered going with my 2 boys, but I have a great fear of flying. I get panic attacks just thinking about it. I have discovered drugs for these attacks, but flying would really put it to the test. When I realized it would cost about $1000 for the 3 of us to fly and the thought of backing out because I was having an attack. That was more money than I was willing to risk losing. My Mom loves my boys, but I don't think she would have taken them alone for 10 days with out me all the way to Ut. So that would have been 3 backouts on the flight.

My fear of flying could be a whole other post. If you really want to know let me know.

So I came up with a suggestion. Send my dad and I will help Lee milk the cows and hold down the farm.

So I moved in for a long weekend and played the part of farmer Jane.

I soon realized why our farming ancestors were able to eat bacon, meat and potatoes. They worked it off. I was assigned to feed the dry calves. I hope I have my terminology correct. These are the calves that no longer drink milk. Instead they eat chop and hay. I had carry their feed to them. The truck would only get so close to the trough. And bedding them really worked up a sweat. I lost 2 pounds that week;)

The boys just tagged along with me. They thought it was great. Uncle Lee was our boss. We checked in with him after breakfast and got our assignment. Then we made lunch, hung out for part of the afternoon and then went back to do evening chores. It was a lot of fun.


We also helped with the bottle calves too. My boys jumped right in to help.

Riding the back of the truck was definetly a highlight for the boys.

Parker was in charge of watering the calves. He also found a new drinking fountain. In fact one day he disappeared from the house and took a walk to get a drink.

And these were my surroundings as I was lugging heavy bags of feed and making sure everyone had water to drink. To me it is a little bit of heaven on earth. Maybe I am biased because this is where I grew up and this is what I call home.
Well that about sums up our farming experience. Sometimes both Jim and I wished we lived closer to help out when needed. It was fun and I am more than willing to do it again.