Cabin Walk

We had a great time up at the cabin this weekend.  I fell in love with the water up there again.  I forget every winter how clear and beautiful it is, and then I see it again, and then I start pining about having a cabin on the water and other difficult to impossible things.

We also went for a walk through the woods across the street from our cabin.  It was very peaceful and beautiful and then the kids saw this track.  I am not great with tracks, but either this is a bear track or else we have a big foot with claws around Island Park.  Our walk back to the cabin was noisier and faster than the walk out.  I'm still not sure if It's a bear track.  If you know about these things, please enlighten.

Golden Delicious' 8th Grade Graduation

As Grandpa Tracy would say, "I could pick her out of a pen full". 

I am proud of Golden Delicious.  She made it through a really tough year and she did it with flying colors!  (Her lowest grade was a 97.2).  She's looking forward to being a mighty freshman next year at the local high school.  Braeburn is busy coaching her on what and what not to take.  Also, he's scaring us with tales of hours and hours of homework, but since we see no evidence of that in his life, the jury is still out on that one.

Here's G. D. with the principal, Mrs. H-T.  This photo is strictly for posterity.  I imagine my grand children (children of the 4 boys specifically)  being told stories like, "well, I know Mrs. So and So is not your favorite, but let me tell you about Mrs. H-T... " or since the spy twins swear they will never be so mean as to send their children to public school it will be more along the lines of, " shape up and do your work or else you'll have to go to public school, and you KNOW what I've told you about the teachers there!"

This is Mrs. Rice, 6th Grade teacher.  Fantastic teacher and lady!  Love Her.

And this is Mr. E, who G. D. had as a teacher this year.  (Sorry I'm missing the 7th grade teacher, who was G. D. all time favorite).  Mr. E.  was a good teacher who also teaches jujitsu.  Good skills to have with an 8th grade class.  To my knowledge he was never forced to display his skills in class.

You know, though, my kids really have it easy.  Imagine if I had pictures of my old teachers like  Mrs. Lloyd or Mrs. Blattner, or Mrs. Kelly, or Mrs. Mc Creedy.  Uggh.  After such a run of  teachers it's really amazing I know anything at all.  

Mrs. Lloyd did say I would never amount to anything, which  I can't agree with, since being mom to Golden Delicious is definitely something, and something good.

Cabin Update

The snow is almost gone and it's time for the cabin to wake up for the summer.  We took off the boards over the windows (you have to put them up if you're not going to shovel snow all winter because the snow gets so deep it will break the windows), and turned the power back on and other "wake up" activities.

The voles had a hey day with all the sod we planted around the fire pit.  Voles!  They're everywhere!

But the cabin looks as lovely as ever.  It's dangerous to go up there because you leave all troubles behind and have such a perfect time.  It's listed with a new real estate agent this year and so we'll see if he does any better than the last one.  Meanwhile, we'll keep enjoying it.

The Boy Pilot

Granny Smith is officially smitten with "the flying bug".  For his birthday this year he got to go for a little spin and that was all it took.  Since then he's been studying airplanes with his Grandpa and talking all sorts of code.

Typical conversation:

G. S.  "MOM!  Did you know an SR-71 can go mach 3??"

Mom "No."

G. S.  "MOM!  Did you know that pilots say that an SR-71 is just a big fuel tank with wings??"

Mom  "no."

G. S.  "MOM!  Did you know that the F-15 is my favorite?"

Mom "YES!  I did at least know that!"

G.S. "Mom!  Come watch the airplane movie with me!"

It's great to have a 7 year old pilot.

No Farmer's Market Today

That's right.  We will not be attending the Farmer's Market today.  Last week was our first, and perhaps last day at the market.  I've learned several lessons for those of you contemplating selling at the market.  

First, this is how I imagined it:  (Please don't laugh yet!) We would arrive with our beautiful produce, herb seedlings, fresh warm bread, apple muffins, and it would be lovely.  People would be thrilled to have REAL FOOD and VEGGIES at a farmer's market, instead of snow cones and kettle corn.  We would bask in the appreciation of these grateful folks and then come home, tired but satisfied.

Now, this is what happened.  I woke up early saturday (after baking late friday night)  and made bread and muffins and chocolate dipped pretzels.  At about 8:30 things became chaotic since I was supposed to be there at 9 and the bread would just be coming out of the oven at 9.  I called Annette's family, who was sharing the booth with us, and they were in the same frantic state.  The Spy twins loaded folding tables, seedlings, warm bread, markers, white boards, cash box, etc. into the truck and I took off and the rest of the family went to the ward activity.

Annette and I both got there in the nick of time and the booth did look fantastic.  Annette had four huge glass jars full of mint brownies, cinnamon almonds plus all our other stuff.  Oh yes, and I'd brought granola.

The market went from 10 to 2.  The kids did rejoin us and helped sell lots of stuff and had funny experiences while they were at it.  By 2:00 we were exhausted and ready to come home.  After paying all our fees and expenses, we both made about $80.00.  

That sounds great except for that when you consider how many hours I spent planting seedlings and baking I made about 50 cents an hour.  And since I paid the kids, I donated lots of time to this cause!  The worst part was that it didn't seem like anyone appreciated the real food.  So, I know now why there are not farmers at farmer's markets.  The name sounds great, but the farmer's can't make any money selling anything.

I will relate the horrors of trying to sell our eggs there on a different post.  Talk about over reaching government bureaucracies.  Uggh.

In the Field

I've finally realized why this blog has been so empty lately.  It's because Golden Delicious went and created her own blog!  She now writes about all the interesting stuff and I miss her!!

But I cannot use that as an excuse and must press on solo....

So here is Mr. Bechtel  trying to set the syphon tubes to irrigate.  I just hate syphon tubes.  HATE THEM!  They don't work at all for me and I get thistles in my hand and half fall in the ditch and my hair flies in my face and I wipe it away and get mud all in my mouth and I want to scream because I go to all that work and then the stupid tubes refuse to pull water.  Mr. Bechtel doesn't have that problem, especially with his hair.  

The water makes a great sounds when it starts gushing out the pipe.  I love it.  I start thinking about scriptural references to the desert blossoming as a rose.

Lots of Stuff

How could a month go by without updating ??

Here's what's been happening:

• Braeburn won $300 for his claymation film at the Kiwanis teen festival.
  
• We have 8 baby goats in the barn.  
  
• I have tons of plant starts in every available window sill waiting to transplant when the weather improves.
  
• Our little chicks now number 64 and are not so little anymore.  I've ordered electric netting fence so we can rotate them on pasture...little cows.
• MaCavity the stray cat, who is an excellent mouser, just had kittens.  They keep increasing in number.  First I thought there were three, then five, and now we're up to seven.  They are all little black lumps and it's hard to count them all.  Kittens galore.
• Golden Delicious bought a pig for 4-H.  It looks like an appaloosa with black dots on it's hind end.
• We are getting 4 suffolk lambs for 4-H also.
• We are getting 2 boer goats for 4-H also.
• I think I need a nap.
• Braeburn has been spending a lot of time at the hospital checking on his friend, Steven, who was in a fencing accident with Braeburn last friday.  Steven is still in intensive care.  We are praying for him to get better quickly.
• The orchard has 6 new trees; a mount royal plum, mormon apricot, honeycrisp apple, tendercrisp pear, honeygold apple, and redhaven peach.
• Mr. Bechtel has built me 2 new grow boxes to put strawberries in.
• I need to beg, borrow, or steal a tractor with a tiller attachment to till the garden.  Our rototiller goes in about 3 inches and will not work for this first round.
• The Spy twins, Prairie spy and Nova spy, are making an extensive series of dirt hills for their bikes out of some dirt I had delivered.  The dirt started off as a nice long line about 30 feet long and 3 feet high of sandy potato dirt.  It is now a compacted 30 foot long snake with bike trails all over it.  Nova spy has MULTIPLE bruises on his legs from crashing.
• Granny Smith wouldn't let Mr. Bechtel cut the back of his hair this last haircut.  He says he's growing a mullet....NO WAY!
• I let Granny Smith's rabbit, Alec, out of it's cage to run with the chickens and he has disappeared.

Lots of excitement.  In fact, some of it, way too exciting for me, Steven especially.  It will be a happy day for all of us when he's well again.