Enjoying Summer?

We sure are!

Amazing views, wonderful families, happy together.  Not without hitches, to be sure, but this is how life is happy.

Love this.

Chicken Coop Update

This is a case when a project (although it would be nice to just have it done already!) becomes an opportunity to get other things done.

Like remembering that you have to build on a solid foundation.

Like listening to each other and learning to appreciate other people's experience.

Like remembering the childish delight of figuring out how things work.

Like feeling that satisfaction of making progress, rather than waiting for completion to be happy.

Ben, with Chris assisting

Chris and Ben

Ben and Alec

Like watching the boys learn to work together, and just buckle down to get a job done.

 Like growing enough faith that someone else knows how to steady themselves, and not worrying.

We put the chicks in when it was this much finished.  The windows were framed but not cut out - the door was cut out but propped back in place with boards and heavy bricks.  Good enough for now.  

 Like figuring out when things are "good enough" to work for a while and take a break.

 Ben took a chance to try out par kour, climbing on and jumping off the roof.

Right now we've got the roof on, the painting done, most of the finish trim up, the run fenced, and the window screens in.  And our chickens are happy.  Still have some work on the inside to do (permanent roosting bars, nesting boxes, shelving, and a sick chicken hospital), but we'll get there.  I think we've learned a lot in the process, even though we're not done yet.

Take The Kids To The Movie

Already.  They've been wanting to go to the movie, you know.  But you're too hot and too sluggish.  Ben finally took them yesterday, but they had to walk the mile-and-a-half back, sweaty and dejected because the show sold out.  But I think they are still wanting to go.  They even "spilled cans of paint" on the driveway to spell it out.  Maybe you should take them?

One Last See Ya Later

I just found this picture and it made me all mother-heart happy.  The Monday before Alec left for boot camp, we all went to an outdoor ampitheater to listen to Ben sing with his a cappella group.

Alec had come from a meeting, so he drove back home in a separate car.  I stopped and watched him walk away, thinking that I'd best get good at watching him leave.

But I liked the thought of him going into the light - to new horizons and exciting challenges.  It's fun, in a heart-wrenching way, to watch your kids grow up.

Big Families, Big Pans

I thought I'd write a note about cooking for a family of ten.  Already our family is starting to shrink, with Alec at boot camp and Chris spending the summer as a scout camp counselor.  Trent works most evenings, so I don't have to cook for him, either.  And if Ben is gone galavanting, the house feels so empty that I wonder if it is worth making dinner at all!  Keep in mind that when these four are gone, we "only" have six mouths to feed, but the rest of us eat less than the man and the teenaged boys do!

So I shall remind myself what it is like to cook a large meal.  I will need this information again, because Alec will be home for Christmas, and I'll have all ten again.  Hooray!

Potatoes - my mother taught me to cook a medium potato for eat person, plus a couple.  This rule of thumb works pretty well for us, even considering that the youngest three might split one potato between them.  Leftover baked potatoes not bad to have around.  If I am making mashed potatoes, however, I should use five potatoes just for Chris.  Extra mashed potatoes can easily be made into potato patties for breakfast, or used to thicken a soup.  As if we ever had leftover mashed potatoes!

Pasta - two pounds are good for a meal with a salad.  And about that much sauce.  I rarely measure - I just make it until the pasta is moist but not soggy.

Meat - we don't eat much meat as a solo entree.  We do use meat in other dishes, though.  For a barbecue, the bigger boys will easily eat three burgers a piece.  Total burgers = 18 to 20.  For the meat we use in a dish such as tacos, 2-3 pounds is a bare minimum.  Trent likes to stretch the meat by adding oatmeal, beans, rice, or corn (or whatever else he finds in the fridge), which gets lukewarm reviews.

Cereal -  a big bag for breakfast, if we are in a hurry.  Cold cereal is our Sunday morning go-to breakfast, because it is quick ans self-serve.  If we are having a slower breakfast, it may be closer to two bags.  For hot cereal, we usually use about 5-6 cups of dry oatmeal/farina (which is cooked with a 1:2 ratio with water) or 4-5 cups of cracked wheat/six grain/steel cut oats (cooked with a 1:3 ratio with water).  Yeah, it goes in the big pot.  If we are having eggs and hot cereal, then use half that amount.

Bread - if everyone is home, we can easily polish off three loaves of bread daily: one for breakfast toast and two loaves for lunch sandwiches.  If we are hungry, add another loaf.  If the bread is fresh and hot, coming right out of the oven, subtract an entire loaf with butter and jam right there!  Trent usually makes a 4-loaf batch of bread about every three days.

Eggs - 18 for breakfast, as long as we have other things with the eggs, like sausage and toast.

Condiments - a big (big!) bottle of salsa will last us for a month.  A bottle of mayo is gone in a week.  Ditto with peanut butter and barbecue sauce.  A pound of butter might last a week, unless we make cookies or other nummy things.  A quart of jam will last a couple of weeks, though.

Drinks - we can guzzle a gallon of juice (slightly less of milk) at a meal, so usually we just have water.  Tastes great, and is less filling.

Ice cream - evaporates around here.  Just always have one of those big gallon tubs on hand.  Or two or three, because we can easily eat a whole tub for dessert.  Especially if it's strawberry and Ben is home.

Produce - a dozen apples will do us for lunch.  An entire head of lettuce makes a nice dinner salad, with a quarter head of cabbage, some cukes or tomatoes, and three or four good carrots thrown in.  Plan on a dozen bananas for breakfast.  I'll use two bags (2 pounds) of frozen veggies for a dinner.  Medium-sized fruit (apples, peaches, oranges, etc.) go one per person.  A medium watermelon will work for a dinner and lunch the next day - unless we are thirsty or outside - and then we'll eat it all up!

Containers - two 9x13 pans are required for casseroles.  For German pancakes or something fluffy, we need three 9x13 pans.  One 9x13 for cake (and we'll polish it off).  I love the big bowls my sister-in-law got for us!  They are big enough for a large salad - and I don't have to serve pasta out of the pan.

Cooking for a big group doesn't really take much more time - you just need bigger dishes and bigger sizes and a bigger table and a bigger mindset!  Cleaning up, however, is a different story.

An Addition!

We have a new critter at our house!  We almost had a duck, because the neighbors found the cutest little fuzzy duckling wandering around in the street.  But I guess they decided to keep it.  Darn.

No, our newest critter is much bigger.

This isn't a photo from our house, but it tells the same story.

And less wanted.  A mama raccoon has been bringing her four babies to our porch every night to eat all our cat food.  At first it was cute, then not so cute, then expensive to feed all of them and our cats.  And now the mama raccoon is starting to get a little snippy with our pets.  We're afraid that if we don't put out the food, she'll go after our chickens.  It's wildlife extortion, that's what it is.

So we're looking for a nice way to subtract our additions.  Our local animal control doesn't do wildlife, so Trent has been watching coon trapping videos on YouTube.  We'll see how it goes.  Hope it doesn't get nasty!

Itty Bitty Vacation

Angel has been wanting to go to the beach.  That's a day and a half drive away, my dear.  So we went to the lake instead.  Hey, that counts as a beach, right?  We spent the afternoon and it was glorious to just relax and be together.

And no one got sunburned.  Bonus.

These are the memories childhood is made of.