It's the Little Things

Happiness is a bike basket that makes me smile every time I see it. There's something about sunflowers, even the artificial ones, that just makes me happy...

Feathered Friends

As crazy as it sounds, we borrowed three chickens from some friends of ours. They have 40 or so chickens and were thrilled to give S and K a tiny taste of farm living. I had romantic visions of throwing corn out for them and then singing quietly to myself as I brought two eggs back to the house each and every morning. (In my day dreams I was always singing this song from Beauty and the Beast, but I suppose that really isn't important to the story.)

Henrietta, Fudge and Big Mama were ours for the summer, so of course we had to name them. 

The girls have only been with us for a short time, but we are quickly learning that chickens, do in fact, have distinct personalities. Fudge, the youngest of the flock, is by far the most inquisitive. Henrietta is standoffish and Big Mama rules the roost (pun intended.) Both Fudge and Big Mama (so named because she is considerably larger than the others) will eat snacks right out of our hands. Their current favorite snacks are dehydrated meal worms, followed by sandwich crusts and weeds from the garden.

The coop use to be the kids' playhouse. They hadn't used it in several years and our friend thought it would make a perfect place for hens to roost and nest. (Thank you Rick.) Except...

In the three months since the girls arrived, we'd only gotten one egg. Yep. 

One. 

Stinking. 

Egg. 

One lone egg was waiting on the coop floor the morning after they arrived. I've read several books and have joined the forum at BackyardChickens.com, but I was at a loss.  Our theory was that they thought they were on vacation - they were on Mackinac Island for the summer after all. Allen even started calling them "The Freeloading Slackers" and occasionally referred to them as "Sweet, Sour and Teriyaki," much to the horror of S & K.

No big deal, I felt like even if we didn't get any more eggs, we learned a ton and that made it all worth while. But then a miracle happened. OK, maybe it wasn't a miracle, but it was darn exciting. We'd really given up on actually checking for eggs when we went out to get the girls up and put them to bed. (Not literally; that's just what we call opening the coop door in the morning and then and closing the coop up at night.) On Saturday morning we found three lovely brown eggs in the nest. I was so excited I forgot to snap a picture! We had another egg on Sunday and yet another today.

We're not sure which one of the girls is leaving the eggs for us, but we suspect Fudge. She sexually matured in August, so we're thinking it's most likely her. Go back and look at that first picture - that was what Fudge looked like in June while the picture below was taken today. Just look at the difference in her comb and wattle between June and September (the comb is on top of her head and the wattles hang down.) It amazes me just how much she's grown.

Now that we're actually getting a few eggs, it's going to be a lot harder to send the girls back home this fall...

Note to Self

I think I should head home, like now,  it just might rain...

Lasagna Sauce ??

My daughter's tomato plants are loaded with delicious looking tomatoes. I can't wait until we have enough to make a batch of "lasagna sauce." Of course, she won't eat "spaghetti sauce" - heaven forbid her noodles be desecrated with a something as awful as a vegetable.  In fact, I'm not quite sure just how my husband convinced her to grow them. But, since she loves lasagna her tomatoes can go into a sauce for that.  Right now she doesn't need to know that they are actually the same thing, right?

Yum

Thanks to Ken & Deb's cucumbers

 and Rick's Grandma's recipe,

we now have jars and

jars of bread and butter pickles.

Excursion: Marengo Cave

Last summer, while we were down in Indiana visiting Grandma and Grampie, we were lucky enough to visit Marengo Cave.

We got our tickets,  

and were very impressed by the numerous formations we saw in the cave.

For me the coolest part of the cave was the story of how it was discovered. After over hearing some kids talking about exploring a sinkhole, a fifteen year old girl and her eleven year-old brother grabbed some candles and decided they wanted to explore it first.

I can't even imagine exploring a very wet cave with nothing but candles! Plus, they didn't tell anyone where they were going. Heaven forbid something had happened, no one would have come looking for them.

The kids reported their discovery to the property owner, and in just a few weeks the cave was opened to the public. Because of this, it's always been protected, so the formations are in amazing shape.

We loved it!

Many of the formations were amazing, 

and apparently Indiana takes great pride in protecting its caves. I searched and couldn't find a similar law in Michigan. I wonder if it's because we don't have nearly as many caves? 

Of course, when were were done, we had to "mine" for gems. The kids loved it when we were here, and they were willing to spend their own money, so how could I say no?

Plus, it's just fun!

And the geek in me adored how both of them spent a good twenty minutes with their identification cards to make sure they correctly identified each and every one.

Hanging Around

As I was leaving school yesterday, I noticed this little guy hanging around near the door. (I've been back at school this week working on getting my classroom ready.) Usually there is a little group of 10 or so bats that roost up under the entryway at school, but not this summer (due to white-nose syndrome.) I know lots of people don't like bats, but the do eat an incredible amount of bugs. Plus, they really are kind of cute - well, as long as they aren't flying around inside your house.

Some People

Not the best morning when you head over to the mainland to go shopping and find the side of your car looking like this. Ug!

Perhaps karma will even the score at a later date...

Mad Skillz

OK, to be honest no one in my family has "mad skillz" when it comes to sports, but the kids sure did have fun with out at Wawashkamo this summer. Each week Chuck, and a few helpers, worked to teach over 20 kids the basics of golf. 

Wawashkamo is such a beautiful course. It's kind of sad that I've been on Mackinac Island every summer since 1989, and I'd never actually set foot out on the course until this year. (Yes, I am hanging my head in shame.) 

Chick was really good with the kids. He taught them the differences between the different kinds of clubs, and helped them learn how to stand, swing and putt.

The best part was, for the introductory group, they never kept score; the class was about learning and having fun rather than who was the best player. Both S & K really enjoyed golf lessons - so much so that they've asked if we can go out to the course and play one day. I really appreciate the thinking that goes into golf - and since our school has a golf team S & K may want to play on the team someday. It's not a sport I have any interest in, but I'm glad they've had some exposure to it.

Jumping for Joy

My daughter has been sleeping on an old mattress. And when I say old, I mean really, really old. My husband and I got the bed, mattress and box spring as hand-me-downs, from my parents, when we got married - almost nineteen years ago! The bedroom furniture had originally belonged to my grandparents and had been handed down to my parents, when they got married back in 1965. (Yeah, it's old, but it's in really good shape.)

As soon as we took her new mattress upstairs and brought the mattress downstairs, the old one immediately became a trampoline. Because, I mean, who can resist jumping on a mattress? Not me. A half-hour or so later, after the old box spring made its way downstairs, the mattress was repurposed into the floor of a pretty amazing fort.

The trampoline / fort will remain until Monday when we can get to the DPW office to purchase item-removal stickers and arrange for the dray to haul them to the dump. Until then, feel free to stop on over if you feel like jumping...

Good-bye July

Dang! I can't believe July is almost over. We've been busy - really really busy. Being busy has been good, but I haven't had much time to stop and write about it...

Of course we celebrated the Fourth. But this year we were lucky enough to get to do it with one of our exchange students from year's past. Ying Ying and her fiance, Miguel, spent a few wonderful days with us. Catching up with Ying Ying and meeting Miguel was fabulous but somehow I managed to not get a single photo of either of them, though I did manage to capture the island's fireworks display.

A week or so later, we went camping with Allen's family up in the UP. Nine of us camped out in the middle of nowhere along the banks of the Carp River. Despite the mosquitoes and the lack of running water, it was a beautiful spot.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the Boat Building contest. Each boat had to be made out of 100% natural-found-at-the-camp-site materials. 

Everyone let them go at the same time and the first one over the falls won.

Even though the kids enjoyed the boat race, hands-down their favorite thing was spending time with their cousins. I just love how they all get along so well. 

A little later in the month, K got to go away to camp. It was her first time being away from home.

She spent a week down in Lapeer, MI at Lions Bear Lake Camp. The coolest part of the whole week was every camper and many of the counselors wore hearing aides. It was a wonderful opportunity for K to get to know other kids with hearing issues. She loved it, and has asked me to post more pictures, but it will have to wait for another day...

While K at camp, S got to go to "Camp Grandma," down in Southern Indiana.

She enrolled him in daily swimming lessons and made sure he got ice cream every day. (Sometimes twice!) Plus I think they went to see three movies during the week. He was thrilled and didn't want to come home when the week was over.

On top of all that I've been volunteering at the Governor's Summer Residence, the kids have been taking golf lessons and we've all been working together to care for three new pets. Not to mention I've been catching up on all those little jobs that I seem to be too busy to get to during the school year, such as washing the wool rugs, taking my wedding ring in to be repaired, cleaning out the car, etc. But tomorrow my brother arrives so we'll have several quiet days with him. And then: August...

My Singing Monsters Birthday

Back  in April my daughter asked for a My Singing Monsters themed birthday party. The only bad thing was up until she asked, I had never heard of My Singing Monsters. (She played it on a friend's mom's phone.) So, I started researching and discovered that it is a game about monsters that make music. Sure, there's a whole lot more to it, but I had enough to work with...

I started with the napkin fabric. It's usually the easiest place to start since the fabric usually determine the color palate for the party. Next came downloading images of the different characters from the game. There were a ton of them out there that I used to make the place cards, 

drink labels and the banner. (Which I may still have saved on the computer, so if you'd like the word file, drop me an email.)

For the table, I made a runner out of white faux fur (because of this character and because I can repurpose it at Christmas time) and we sprinkled little music note confetti all over the table. 

And, of course we gave everything eyes. 

The cups, the chairs and the food were all covered with eyes.

Even the fruit salad and the cake watched us as we were eating. (I must admit the fruit salad was more for my benefit - I don't think my daughter ate a single bite of it.)

(The cake was super easy - just Oreos and junior mints.)



And, of course, who can resist sticky googly eyes?

I still can't believe  my youngest is nine. And next year, my son will be old enough to drive a snowmobile. Where does the time go?

I found the monster plush shown in the first picture here, He was so cute, I had to make one for my daughter. He may not sing, but he is super snuggly...