Roll Out Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

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My blog. It's been empty a bit. I feel there is little to report beyond repeating myself, so I've not been posting much.

We've been doing school, weeding, harvesting, earning extra money on side jobs, etc. But nothing incredibly earth-shattering. However, I feel like I've abandoned it again, and I can't do that!

Michael has a great plan for his future and his education. He's got the whole thing mapped out to graduate high school early, maybe by 1 or 1.5 years, while simultaneously working on a degree and achieving that by the age of 20. All this while living here and saving up for his first home. His goal? To be a husband and father who stays home to work and care for his wife and kids. To that end, he is preparing himself spiritually, educationally, and financially. I'm so proud of him.

However, what that means is lots of study. He's going to take college classes at home as well as CLEPping out of as many as he can, to reduce his time and expense. I've decided to attempt to CLEP out of some right along with him, as I'm doing the guidance for his school anyhow. What that means is...


I'M DOING ALGEBRA!


And I'm finding out that the things I got stuck on in high school are the same things I STILL get stuck on! Some things never change. However, it is working out beautifully that the thing's I get stuck on, Michael is good at, and the things he is stuck on I am good at.

So that takes a little more time, as instead of just guiding him, setting him up, and being there to help him if he needs it, I am actually doing the work alongside him. It's cool, as we add a little competition to the mix and it spurs us on in speed and accuracy.

Other than that, here are some highlights of late.

Michael doing regular maintenance of the mower, making sure it's clean after being used.





Cute little frog.





A little turtle came on through.





Such beautiful designs!





He's got big plans. Where on earth do you suppose he's going?





I have been taking tons of cloud photographs. The spring and summer sky have been ripe with clusters of Heavenly inspiration. I could probably do that all day long. They simply amaze me, and I can't help but think of my Creator when I look at them, and long for His return.





Quite a bit of swimming.





Brussel sprout anticipation.





Window washing and office cleaning.





Gymnastics.





Weeding.





Much more weeding yet to be done.





Michael working with his horse.





Fiery sunsets.





New toys.





Beautiful friends with beautiful projects.









Doing more juicing. This is a delicious Granny Smith apple juice that I made a run to the herb garden to add interest. It's got parsley, lemon balm, spearmint, and ginger mixed in as well.





I have been practicing yard sale-ing. We had a wonderful day out at a huge sale in an upscale community. Lots of great stuff I hope to resell - just as soon as I've got time. I bought this quilt set for 3 dollars.





And I didn't get photos of all the designer childrens' clothing I got for a song. That will take some posting effort. We'll see how that goes.

We took off for a terrific trip educational field trip this week. It takes a couple of hours to get there, but the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge was a very interesting event in our nation's history. There is a Museum of Science and Technology that is really great to experience.

They had brought in a Cemesto house and set it up on the grounds. I went in and took gobs of photos that no one else will be interested in seeing, so I'll spare you, but it was cool to imagine this life for the 75,000 people who occupied a place and time so unique in this world's history. I checked out a book from the library to find out more about them, "City Behind A Fence".





Some brain teasers.









A picnic lunch.





One of those whisper cone sets.





We all enjoyed the show about electromagnetism.





And we even participated.









Toward the end of the tour, I found a lot of the young adults giving their feet a break.





On the way back we made a couple of pitstops; Subway for lunch, and the theater for Toy Story 3. It was really, really good. Sniffles all OVER that theater!

Please pray for our dear friend, Todd. It is really looking like the Lord is going to take Him home very soon. Physically it is pretty bad, and writing about the details of what he is dealing with would shock most people. But he is strong in the Lord. This battle with cancer over the last two years has been indescribable in the way it has reached people. God is glorified in all things. Pray for Barbara, his wife, and their two sweet children, Maddie and Ben.





May the Lord bless you all today.

~Faith

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Cherries!

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This is what a young man looks like when he catches a nap while taking a short schoolwork break.





Our cherry bushes are really doing well this year.





Once indoor stuff was done, we headed out for cherry picking last week.





We always look forward to this time of year. We have the most wonderful times, sitting under the cherry bushes in the shade, eating, talking, spitting.. all the great stuff. The weather always seems to be so nice.

Here are the bases. We have three of these kind.





Michael decided to use a ladder to nestle up higher in the foliage.













Hey! I'm unarmed!









Get busy!





Here's my share of a couple of gallons of cherries for the day.





These are perfect for fresh eating, making wines, and making jams and jellies. They are smaller than regular cherries, much softer flesh, so pitting them is a challenge, and somewhere between a sweet and sour cherry in tartness.

We are eating plenty of fresh cherries, I don't drink wine, and we don't eat much jam or jelly so, when friends came over the next day to pick, we gave the whole lot to them.

And we got this beautiful and VERY delicious jar of cherry jelly!





It was SO good, as a matter of fact, that I may make some anyhow. We'll have to learn to eat more of it.

~Faith

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SCREAM 3

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I think this is a true life thriller marathon week.

So Michael and I are reclining next to each other on the couch working some math problems on a very large write on/wipe off board.





Michael says, "Look at that", and points to the near, upper corner of the board I've got propped up in my lap.

All I remember is seeing two long antennae. The next few seconds are a blur.

I seem to remember it suddenly leaping down onto the arm of the couch that I was also reclining on, and heading down, where I was also.

Michael, who lost a couple of hero points with me this morning, nimbly leapt up and off the couch, safely away from the creature.

I, in an effort to put some distance between me and IT, raised myself up off the couch in a bridge position, feet on the ottoman, shoulders on the back of the couch.

However, this put me in a dangerous position. Now, I could not get off the couch without dropping back down again. An even more horrifying predicament emerged, I realized my over sized shirt was dangling down beckoning to anything looking for a dark cavernous safety zone to hide in.

I have no idea how I got off that couch. I seem to remember yelling for Michael to help me (and watching him move WAY to slowly), flailing from side to side (I have no idea where the dry erase board was at this point) and frantically wondering where on earth that thing was.

Mind you this had to only be a couple of seconds but it felt like a good hour, life-and-death struggle to me. I finally ended up on my feet and standing next to Michael, both of us peering at the couch and seeing nothing.

Then, I feel it.

AAAAaaaaauuuuuuuugh!

You know bugs are ok. As long as they are in their own zone and out of mine. But there are certain times when they have crossed over the zone that I've had to utilize my God-given authority to squish them.

There have also been very few instances where I've had to strip naked, but this was one of them. Fortunately for Michael, the closet was within 10 feet of me because I ran in there and stripped, faster than a renegade sergeant loses his stripes.

Sure enough, shaking out my clothes, out drops a c.... c..... I can't say it.

Shoes! That's what God made them for!
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Just so you know, this entire episode from beginning to end was paralleled with a non-stop verbal haranguing of my poor non-existent hero. "I TOLD you it would get me! I TOLD you to help me up!!!!"

He said he doesn't like bugs.
Blood and death are OK, it's bugs he doesn't like.

sigh...

I'm going to have nightmares for weeks.

~Faith

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Hunter Safety Class

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The only hunting I've ever done was as a child, when my dad made me go out and shoot ground squirrels that were digging up the land, or blackbirds that he has never liked. I hated it. Well, let me clarify - I loved every part of if up do the actual point of bullet entry into the animal, and it's subsequent injury or death, depending on my accuracy.

I love meat. I'm no hypocrite. I have no problem with hunters - those who do their best to avoid animals suffering and who are considerate of others. I have participated in the butchering of animals myself.

The only thing different about me is that I do not consider it a sport. I consider it a necessary evil that, if necessary, I will do to feed my child. I get no pleasure from the death of anything and, I don't consider it sporting to cause death. Hunting is a beautiful drive and day at the grocery store meat department where I save money by doing the kill and butchering myself.

Many wonderful people disagree with me and that's OK. Hunting is perfectly acceptable to God and it's legal. I just don't like to do it myself. I'd be like the Indians - going up to the creature and apologizing and thanking it, probably with tears in my eyes.

All that being said, if my son desires to do so, he has my full support. And I myself aim to be able to defend myself when necessary, as Michael needs to be.

I grew up with guns in the house and using guns on our farm or ranch. I want Michael to be familiar and comfortable with them as well. He needs to have those skills, and he does, from target shooting. But I wanted him to have a gun safety class.

And that's now we accidentally ended up at a Hunter Safety class. I thought we were being offered a gun safety course when I signed up. :oP

But it was fun, interesting, and we learned a lot.

We were able to cover a week's course in two days and over half the class were of the female persuasion. Most of us knew one another and many of us were home schoolers. One family is vegetarian.

We did 11 hours of classroom instruction, with a short bathroom break each hour.





Much fun -









Don't forget the knitting for down time. That's right next to Leah's Beretta. I brought mine, but left it in the car when I realized how much studying was involved. Not a lot of down time.





Michael, asking the instructor if he could go on a hunt.





Some of the younger crowd getting hands on instruction of differing guns and identification of gun parts.





This was a 'cute' little rifle.





Much snacking occurred, as we did not have lunch or dinner breaks.





A set of young ladies coming up for their turn.





I don't think Angie had ever touched a gun before. She did great!





Kasie hadn't either.





Good friends.





A gift for the instructor, his choice of turkey callers.





We headed out to put in the required shooting for completing the course. The farm of one of the participants.





Shooting skeet. Michael had done this before and done well, but it was really nice to get additional instruction and try out several different guns.





Look at that smile. That's from a vegetarian who has never shot a gun before. He is thoroughly ready for a hunt. I asked, "What will you do with the meat?" Answer... "Give it to you!"

Coolness.





Look at Donna's shell casing fly!





The peanut gallery. Or, our wonderful hosts.





Go Nate!





My friend, Barb. Bad girls of the Bible poster girl? LOL





Leah, firing off her Beretta for the first time.





Michael, firing off a .357 Magnum for the first time.





Everyone in the class passed the test, requiring 75% score. The instructor said if he could get this many girls signed up for class every time, he'd have no trouble getting young men into hunting.

It was fun, but exhausting, two fulls days. We didn't get a lot of rest or work done otherwise. Michael is likely going to go on his first turkey shoot in a couple of weeks. I am hoping for venison soon! Grass fed, and only the charge for cut and wrap.

Coming from a place with much less foraging for deer, I was shocked to hear of the limit for deer here. 3 does and 1 buck a day! In Ca. does were off limits, except for a 2 week period once a year, and the limit was one, I believe. As for bucks, I believe it was 3 a year total.

Wow!
Any hunters out there?

~Faith

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