Garden Train

On our way to my parents house for Father's Day we were rerouted to meet my Sister and her family along with my Dad at one of the neighbors houses down the road.  Apparently he had what you call a Garden Scale train.  I have always loved trains, and growing up every once in a while my dad would get out his HO scale train that was normally on a 4x8 sheet of plywood and hung from the garage ceiling. A few years back we inherited an O Scale Lionel that is really nice, but quite a bit bigger than HO.  So, on a 4x8 sheet of plywood you can barely get one oval in.  It is all packed away in the barn for now until we have a place to set it up that is no quite so dusty.

This is just part of the layout, the city part.  As you can see this is a very serious hobby, and very time consuming.  This gentlemen enjoyed telling us about the different buildings and explaining how he got started.

Below you can see some of the miniature trees that his wife works on to keep them looking the proper size.

It was a lot of fun and an unexpected BONUS to Father's Day.

Veggie Garden & Chicken Herding

I feel we are little late on the garden this year, but we will see.  Currently we have the following planted from seed:
- Sunflowers
- Mammoth Mangel Beets (you may remember these from last year)
- Turnips
- Zucchini
- Sweet Meat squash
- Green Beans
- Sweet Peas (just starting to produce)
- Slicing Cucumbers
- Pickling Cucumbers
- Romaine Lettuce
- Butterball Lettuce

Currently up and growing are some green onions in the raised box at the bottom of the picture and a little over a row of Yukon Gold and some purple potatoes.

In the box to the right against our garden shed is Mia's Flower garden.

We should have started our tomatoes and sweet bell peppers a month ago, so they are still in our house by the window sill.

Much to our surprise earlier this year we found some Hood Strawberry plants that the deer had eaten down to the ground.  They are now thriving in pots on our deck and we are trying to place small pots under the runners to get them to produce more little plants.  At some point it would be great to get them back in the garden.

Here is Ethan watering them this morning.

We still need to get the Pie pumpkins, acorn and butternut squash and sweet corn planted.  We got some work done on the watering system, which is a mixture of soaker hoses and drip irrigation.  Getting it set up is very time consuming as the layout changes each year, but I am not big on just a broadcast sprinkler as I don't want to water paths etc, just to have weeds grow in them.  We are using more straw as mulch this year, but unfortunately after the kids got some laid out in paths the chickens got in and scratched around in it making a mess of the paths, we have since blocked their entrance portal.   

Chicken Herding & Sleeping Quarters

Now that Lily is more stable on our uneven ground she has taken to helping the kids put the chickens away  in the evening.  We typically put our arms out and try and herd them towards the chicken house.  Here is Lily trying her hand at it.

She did pretty good but I had to tell her if one got past her to go back and get that one.

The youngsters, live on the right side of our coop as you enter the door.  In the picture below you can see the nursery at the bottom left corner, and then we moved them into the pen on the right.  This use to house our ducks, and for ducks you just needed a short wall, hence it was only 3' high.  I added some chicken wire across to make it taller, but now that the chicks are getting larger they just fly over in the evenings when they are looking for a nesting spot.  Or as you can see, about 5 of them just nest in the bend of the chicken wire like it is a hammock.  

Even higher up, just below the ceiling these two were roosting.

At some point we need to put them together, and I don't think there will be too many issues since they have been able to see each other and get acquainted for so long.  I am just leery about letting the younger birds free range as they are smaller still, and could possibly get picked off by a hawk.

It is your life: The Moss Family Free to watch online thru June

Our family just got done watching this online tonight. And man, what an inspiration. We had a group talk about it afterwards and one of our children commented that he loved how the Moss children don't fight and that they truly love each other. It is so true. One of our hearts desires is for our children to be best friends together and to serve each other out of true love, which they can only get from knowing God and loving Him first. We hope you enjoy the movie as much as we did.

Moss Family

Varmints and Friends

Ethan is on mole and gopher patrol.  We borrowed some traps from my dad while they were on vacation, so Ethan was running 2-3 traps at a time and has caught a total of 7 varmints.  I guess I should not have offered to pay him for each one.

Artsy photo, that is as good as it gets.

We stumbled across this Rhubarb plant growing in our field, unfortunately it is right where we would like to build a little shed for cows.  It got quite large and we harvested a good portion of it with my Mother-in-law, as she was showing us what to do.

We found this great recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Crunch, and it was AWESOME!

For Lily's actual Birthday she got candles in her baked oatmeal, and then we headed for the Hillsboro Farmers Market.

We believe this to be a garter snake, it just seems to have different coloring than all the others we have found.

Here the kids are hauling straw up to the garden to be used as mulch, we need to get more if we are going to cover the whole thing.

Evan and one of our free chics, possibly a black sexlink.

Earlier this week we had some old friends over, who have just returned from Melbourne, Australia with Campus Crusade.  It was great to see them, and let the kids get reacquainted.  We also had some family and close friends join in the gathering.  There was a whole mess of kids.

The kids got the dining room table while the adults enjoyed the living room.

It was good to get caught up and hear where the Lord is leading them, and how He has faithfully provided for their needs.

Once the girls warmed up to each other they were inseparable.

Fire Pit

This girl always likes to fly up and stand on the edge of our deck, but in doing so she startled Jennie the other day.

Lily got some new boots as an early Birthday gift from Grandma and Grandpa, she wears them all over.  

First we dug it out and then Lily got it leveled.

That is not a bald spot it is the reflection from the sun setting, or maybe there is slight thinning.

The Fire Pit is almost done, except that I miscounted and are 6 pavers short.  I would like to add a screen to go over it, just to help minimize starting a brush fire.

Evan and Lily Mae

Ethan and Mia

The whole crew.