Alaska, The Running Version

I took my good friend, Jamie's advice and went running on a coastal trail in Anchorage. This was one of the best parts of the trip. Lee and I ran six miles up and down one of the most beautiful trails I have ever been on. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I was thankful to be able to share it with the most important person in my life.


For once, I'll just be quiet and let the pictures do the talking.

Of Giants, Hula Hoops And Chocolate Dipped Bacon. Or As Some May Call It, The Alaska State Fair.

Isn't Alaska just breathtaking? Just look at the snow, the glaciers the endless miles of ice...... Well, at least that is what I was pretending it was from my seat in the airplane on the way there. Hey, it's a long trip. I have to entertain myself somehow.

This is the first of many chapters in the Alaska digest. We fit a lot into two and a half weeks and had a blast.

First stop, The Alaska State Fair.

Giants

Veggies grow so big in Alaska due to the nearly 24 hour sunshine and the rich soil. I am always astounded at how large they can grow. That is a lot of turnip. Soup anyone?


After the fair, some people donate their veggies to charity or give them to the city they live in for a giant Jack-O-Lantern. This year's winner is not sure what he will do with his pumpkin after the fair. He said he might just put it on craigslist.


Hula Hoops

My good friend's daughter said she would try the hula hoops if I would. Little did she know that back in the day, I was a hula-hooping queen.

All the kids joined in and out hula-hooped me. I just threw my crown on the ground and stomped on it. Getting old stinks.

Truly, I have no words. This was by far the most surprising part of the entire fair. You know I love me some bacon as well as chocolate but together? On a stick? That is enough to even scare me. No, I did not try it. Even though I was triple dog dared. I did try the deep-fried cheesecake but you know, I have to draw the line somewhere.

I let the boy try processed, refined and dyed sugar on a stick. Yes, it was as big as his sweet little
head. I had nightmares about cavities and ADHD for days after.


However, I did not let him have deep fried potato chips with processed cheese squirted all over the top. That was beyond scary.


I also held back and refused to allow them to get their hair dyed and cemented in various styles. I never let the kids have any fun.

Sweetness

We stayed with the most phenomenal family during our vacation in Alaska. I am very close with a wonderful homeschooling mom of three spectacular kiddos. I love her children just like my own and consider all of them family. Her three children are best friends with my three children. Our families are meant to be close to each other and we can't wait until that can be a reality. We just soaked up every second we could with them and had a wonderful time.


They had a great time at the fair and made a lot of great memories.

Payback

This is what happens when one goes on vacation for over
two weeks and forgets to have their lawn service come out
to mow, weed eat and prune everything perfectly for the duration.


Only, we don't have a lawn service and it was mowed and
trimmed perfectly a few weeks ago. The grass is out of control.
I may have to get a machete and search for my husband if he does
not come back soon.

Pictures from our vacation to Alaska will come as soon as the jungle is eliminated and
Lee has recovered.

Prissy

Our little banty has a problem. She is lonely and in need of a husband and family. The problem is, she is the only banty we have. The other roosters are way out of her league. They don't even give her a second look. She has decided to take it upon herself to have chicks of her own. I think she has been watching too many Jennifer Aniston movies.

We have decided to give her the name of Prissy. After Miss Prissy, Foghorn Leghorn's love interest. Poor prissy was always trying to make Foghorn her one true love. Only to be shunned by the other hens and Foghorn himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0gjNRpr8ao


Prissy stopped laying eggs and decided to sit on her nest day after day trying to hatch, well, nothing because her nest was empty. She believed she was sitting on an egg and would puff up and make threatening noises every time we went close to her. After 3 weeks of this, I took pity on her and decided to put a golf ball in her nest. I thought there was no way she would accept this abnormally large egg (large for a banty anyway, they are 1/4 to 1/2 the size of a normal chicken) but I was curious to see what she would do.


Prissy has literally taken the golf ball under her wing.
She is trying her very best to be a good mommy; patiently waiting for her baby to come. I can't help feeling sorry for her and wondering if I did more harm than good. You should hear the other hens clucking wildly and ridiculing her.

Life can be so cruel. The other hens don't care much if they have babies or not. They take it for granted. This one wants one so badly and can't. Poor little Prissy.

Bacon

Oh, hi there. Did you bring me some food? Scraps? Rinds? Oooooh, I know, those little pieces of bacon that you burned for the 100th time? By the way, what is bacon? That stuff is wonderful, I tell you. Wait. What did you just say?

I'm going on a little trip? A field trip? Is it to the dump? I just love that place.
No? I'm going where????? What's that?

What chu talkin bout, Willis?


And I thought you loved me. All this time, you were just using me.
All the treats and buckets of food were just to fatten me up?
I feel so used and dirty.

Don't even look at me.

Summer Recap

Our summer vacation is quickly coming to an end.

I am forcing the kids The children are thrilled to start our new
school year next week.  Just the smell of freshly sharpened pencils
puts them in a joyful frenzy.  Oh wait,maybe that is just me.  At any
rate, we are starting our new school year on Monday.  I for one am
overjoyed to get back into a routine of reading, thinking, learning
and watching all those wonderful light bulbs click above the children's
sweet little heads.

I have not updated the blog a whole lot this summer
so here is a quick recap of what we have been up to:

I did a whole lot of weeding and mowing and raking and shoveling
and did I mention weeding? Oh my. The things I could have
accomplished if it weren't for those disgusting weeds!


I worked in the flower gardens.

And in the veggie gardens. I harvested
about 300 pounds of red potatoes,
lots of butternut squash,peas, beans, okra
and tomatoes(the ones the darn horn worms
did not get!) I am going to plant a fall garden
as well.  I will have lots of lettuce, broccoli,
cabbages, carrots and other
cool weather veggies.


This sweet, chubby, precious little
cupcake turned 13 this summer.


Please make her stop growing.

I shot and killed a nasty snake all by myself. It was eating eggs in
my barn and I just can not have that. I am terrified of snakes. There
was shaking and whimpering involved while killing it but I got the
job done. If my daughter was not there comforting me, I probably
would have chickened out.


Speaking of chickens I spent a lot of time chasing chickens from
the back porch, from eating everything in my garden and from
the front yard where they were eating all the grass seed. I finally
trimmed their feathers and made them stay in the chicken yard
for a while.



Worked a lot in the orchard, trying to get grass, flowers and herbs to grow.


Tried and failed to save an egg-bound chicken.

Started to learn how to make stained glass jewelry. Still working on it,
I'm a little rough.


Brandon (center) tried out for and participated in this years
Missoula Children's Theatre production of Pinocchio. He was one
of the Pleasure Island kids who turns into a donkey.



The kids started volunteering at the humane society.
(Click on Homeschooling above to see the details)


And I chopped off a good 6 inches of hair because of the
awful humidity that ruins any chances of maintaining
any other hair style.

The end.

What did you do with your summer vacation?

It's a jungle out there

Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When we simply refuse to weed.



It took me 10 hours all together to weed the garden.

It. was. that.bad.

I find it totally disgusting that the weeds are thriving so. We have had barely any rain this summer along with scalding temperatures with heat indexes up to 113. My veggies are suffering but the weeds, oh the weeds are growing like crazy. Grass will grow up through the wood chips in the garden and reach the heights of my thigh with no effort.

However, planting grass seed around the house is a whole other matter. I tenderly tilled the soil, added home-grown fertilizer, spread the seed at just the right setting on the spreader and watered like crazy. I yelled when the kids or animals walked on it and willed it to grow. Nothing. Nada..zip.

Apparently, I need to thickly cover the lawn with wood chips, neglect the grass and pull one sprig of grass to make 100 more pop up. Yes, a change in strategy.. I've just had the wrong approach all along.


Well, at least the weeds are out of the garden for now. Enjoy it because I'm sure that by this time next week it will look just as bad as before I weeded.

Won't you be my neighbor?

So, we have been living in this house for just about a year and a half. The only neighbors we have met have been the sweet old couple that lives about 800 yards across from us. He drives a school bus and is just the sweetest thing you could ever meet. He knows I home school and does not even give me any flack for it. His wife is a retired school teacher. He tells me I am doing the right thing by home schooling. That just knocks me on my arse. Usually, school teachers (and their minions) are the ones that give me the most trouble about my decision to home school my kiddos, so my sweet old neighbors are just way up there in my book of people I like. I think they have a perspective that most people "in the system" do not. They come over to give the kids suckers and warn me about suspicious people in the neighborhood. I just love them more than chocolate. I bring them eggs and veggies from my garden and tell them how much I adore them. I have a thing for old people.........that is a whole other post.... I do love these particular neighbors.

However, there is a dark side. I have other neighbors. These neighbors have never come to give the kids suckers, much less introduced themselves. Their dogs come over (3 of them) frequently to pee/defecate in my garden and chase my chickens. There are two football kickers....I mean....... terriers and one big Saint Bernard looking dog that could care less he is not on his own property. They run/lumber over and bark at me as if I am the one out of place and intruding on their space. Then, they chase my chickens and horses until I get my bee-bee gun and scare them off.

So, the owners of these dogs have witnessed many situations on this property that MAY have given them the wrong impression...Their property is through some trees and about 800 yards from our property line. The first time I noticed their "attention" was when I was chasing a pig that escaped it's pen around our property for 3 hours and I had lost any hint of civility, let alone manners. I was tired of trying to get the pig back in it's pen and was just at the end of my rope. I was cussing, and yelling and saying a whole bunch of things I know I shouldn't have but darn it!!! That pig was infuriating! I glanced across the property to see this particular neighbor just staring at me. I know he thought I was a lunatic. I had a horse whip in one hand, a lasso in the other and was screaming like a banshee. We won't even talk about the gun I was threatening to use or the nice man that had to come help me because my husband was waaaaaaaaay out of town and could do nothing to aleave my frustration.

Another time, the kids (all 3 of them) were on the trampoline and fighting about the rules of the particular game they were playing. Never mind the fact that they had been arguing ALL DAY or the fact that I sent them outside because the were driving me completely insane.........they still had to fight about who did what and what was not fair and who pushed who on the trampoline....I just lost it and started yelling at them........Only, who was hanging around but the neighbor across the way, listening to every evil hiss that came out of my mouth.......


Then, then......... there was yesterday....... It was the fourth of July. The day for celebrating and fireworks, pic nicks, friends and BBQs.......Sam, my elusive golden retriever had disappeared for a while. I did not think anything of it because he will often disappear and then show back up with turtles or a squirrels or just covered in mud. We live in the country, in the woods, by a creek. I was really not all that worried about him.

Unfortunately, he decided to pay a visit to our neighbors who were having a BBQ and disrupt their festivities. By disrupt, I mean steal all their BBQ, jump on the guests and make it totally impossible to enjoy their day. They put him in their truck and took him from neighbor to neighbor until they found his owners........Us.


I was in the middle of cooking our fourth of July BBQ fixings....At that particular moment, I was cutting up a watermelon when I heard an engine. Now, if you know me at all, you will know that people coming on to my property , unannounced just gets my panties in a wad. I don't like people coming here without notice and it makes me very nervous.

Which is why I have this sign posted on my driveway..

So, when the neighbors came over, speeding down my driveway, it put me in a bit of a tizzy. I went out with my butcher knife in hand (because I was just cutting up watermelon and the sound of a truck engine put me in a tizzy) I did not think clearly enough to put he knife down because my bubble had been breached!!!!!!

I went out to the truck, knife in hand to see what they wanted....They very quickly told me that they had this dog that was interrupting their BBQ and were trying to find the owners. Yep, it was my dog....I called him out of the truck and apologized.....I wished them well and sent them on their way... Still holding the butcher knife...

So, I think I made just a really spectacular impression.....Cussing at pigs, yelling at kids and coming out to meet them with a butcher knife. I'm sure they will be calling to invite us over to BBQ or hang out any moment . I just know it.

Maybe someday I will make some friends....Or not.

Probably not.

Sigh................................

Happy fourth of July!!!