A Few Drops of Relief

Along with most of the nation, we are in a state of drought. I heard the other day our state is 14 inches below normal as far as rainfall goes so far this year. Farmer's Almanac says we should start seeing more wet weather by the end of August, which would be great news if it wasn't a whole month from now!

We had one day of relief last week, sandwiched between sweltering, record breaking, triple digit temperatures. It may have been only an inch and a half of rain, but it was wonderful while it lasted.

Even the chickens enjoyed it! Normally, they would all go to the barn and wait for the rain to end, but not this time!

The dry, hard-packed earth quickly became puddles, and in some places there was still standing water
the entire following day!

What is left of our garden after the grasshoppers had their way with it. And note the black locust tree in the background, has also been stripped of all it's leaves.



Grasshoppers- Old Testament Style

Our drought continues, and the grasshoppers have won the war. Every single plant in my garden is a mere memory now, and the grasshoppers have moved on to bigger and better things- eating all the leaves off our trees.

Everyone that comes out to the house is shocked by the numbers of grasshoppers we have. Apparently, they like our place the best. And they are everywhere. If you stand under a tree you feel "stuff" falling on you... that's their feces. And you better be careful- a grasshopper going full speed into your eye just might make you cry!

First Baby Pictures

We had our ultrasound this weekend and got to spend a little time getting to see our sweet growing baby. We discovered quite clearly, and without-a-doubt, that he is a boy. Handy Husband is thrilled, to say the least. Here are a few of the images:

He is so active, and was constantly moving and changing position. I love him so much already.



Cat on a Ladder

Morning Surprise

This little ball of fluff fell out of the loft after apparently hatching up there this morning or last night. I always *knew* this would happen at some point, as the chickens continuously insist on laying their eggs WAY up there where no one can take them.

Baby seems to be perfectly healthy, and now that momma hen has figured out where her baby went, all is well. I'm just not sure if there are more that are hatching up there or not. I sent my almost 7-year-old up into the loft this morning to survey the situation, as my giant pregant self is a bit too nervous to climb that ladder... and he said there is a nest with some eggs in it and there are some cracks in the eggs. So, when Handy Husband comes home from work

I'll see if he can get up there and take a look.

I'd hate to have more babies hatch and then just die because they're way up there and alone. 

Neighborbood Watch(dog)

Here's our friendly neighborbood watchdog...

We recently discovered that his name is Bear, though he's always been Big Giant to all of us. Giant is the sweetest, gentlest dog I know.... great with the kids, watches over the animals and wouldn't hurt a fly. He was especially attentive to the goats when they were nearing kidding time, and for a while after would spend a lot of his time lying near their gate, just watching.

Bear is a one year old Great Pyranees, and belongs to a sheepfarm back behind us a bit, but according to his owners, he takes more vacations than he works. He checks in with us nearly daily, just to see how things are going, and I imagine, just to say "Hi."



Order Among Chaos

With all the projects we have going on ALL THE TIME, it's nice to have at least a couple areas that are nice and pretty. Notice I didn't say ROOMS, because at this point, it's a bit early in the game to even dream about having an entire room be organized and pretty. I'm just happy to at least have some AREAS that are pretty.

Here are a couple spots in the kitchen that I love:

Here's a few of my more recent flea-market finds, mixed with some old lanterns that I've had for years. I love this look! I'd like to find one more "rooster shelf with hooks" to replace the bucket with.

This built-in shelving in the kitchen works nicely for some of the knick-knacks I have.

My temporary coffee area. I threw a shelf up for my cookbooks, put some hooks in it for my very small Fire King Kimberly coffee cup collection, and set my Torani syrups out.
This is not where the permanent coffee station will be, but for now, it will suffice.

This is one of my favorite finds.... $1 for this cute metal tray in black, red and white. And with a coffee theme!

Half-way There!

Wow! The first twenty weeks has seemed to FLY by! It's amazing to me to know that I am half-way there already.

We are all so excited about the baby coming at the end of November. My youngest is now five, so this will almost seem like starting over for me. And it is the first time for my Handy Husband.

There is SO much to do yet before the baby comes! We DO have the crib already, and the antique family high-chair that I used for all the kids. I'm going to slap a coat or two of paint on the master bedroom walls and ceilings this week. This will be our birthing ward, and where the baby will spend it's first couple of months at least, so I want the room to be "clean and fresh."

Like Gold Beneath Our Feet

This past weekend, Handy Husband asked me what we should work on. I responded with, "Whatever you'd like to." He said, "Let's tear up this floor!"

So that's what we did.

Here's a Before shot. The linoleum was stained and discolored SO badly, that no amount of scrubbing would EVER result in a clean-looking floor. Plus, it was chipping where they had seamed it. It was just downright UGLY:



It was slow-going at first, till we got the hang of it. As with most of the demolition jobs we do around here, Handy Husband did most of the grunt work. My job was to constantly bag up and carry out the debris. Keeping up with the mess WHILE we're making it was a great idea!

It wasn't long before we could really see what we were uncovering. And we LOVED it!

Just for fun, I swept and wiped down an area with a damp rag, just to see what it would look like. We still can't figure out why they stained the outer edges a darker color. If it had been done in a straight line around the entire room, I would assume that it was an intentional border... but there were areas where the stain was kind of in a "here, there, wherever" pattern.

The "finished, unfinished" floor.
Even as is, we think this is SO much prettier than that nasty, chipping-off linoleum that we removed.



This floor actually extends over the ENTIRE original, ground floor of the house... all the way down the halls, the boys' bedroom, and we *believe* it's probably extending into the kitchen as well, though that will have to be uncovered at a later date. I cannot wait to refinish it! This is just one more reason why I absolutely adore old houses! The treasures waiting to be uncovered make all the hard work worth it!

Paint in the Parlor!

We worked LONG, exhausting hours on the parlor room this past weekend and finally got the ceiling and walls painted. We chose "Rose Dust" for the ceiling... which is basically white:

We were a bit nervous, as we started applying the first of many coats of "Apple-a-Day": 

Here's the finished look, after applying 3-4 coats:

As it turned out, our second gallon of paint (which were all mixed at the same time) was a slightly lighter color than the first, so we had to do more coats than we should have, to cover any of the first gallon's darker color. We did not expect that!

The finished ceiling looks so crisp and bright now:

Below photo was taken early in the morning as the sunrise was shining through our East-facing windows. I am absolutely in love with our parlor colors and CANNOT wait to get it all trimmed out and finished!