Summer Is Here

And it is hot and muggy out. I walked out of church this afternoon, and it felt like I was walking into an oven. It was even worse when we all piled into the van. The air conditioning doesn't work, so you can imagine how lovely that felt:)

So today after church and lunch, I was walking around our garden and I stopped off at the grape vines and blackberry bushes, and I found our first ripe black berry, which I promptly ate, and it was delicious. Thanks to the help of some birds, our black berries have sprung up EVERYWHERE. We have them in the pine trees, in the far back corner by our house, in the tree in the front yard... and waaayyy more than what we had down by the grapes. Hopefully some black berry jam will be in order this year:-) we don't usually have that many grow, but I think we are in for a bumper crop this year!

My sister who is right below me graduated last night:-) I will have some pictures up of that once my sister in law puts them on facebook and I can hijack them from there.
It was a lovely ceremony, and afterwards we all ( my family that is) when out to dinner at Cracker Barrel, and I discovered I like fried okra. So does my nephew "Biscuit" who was sitting next to me, and ate about half of my serving.

Today at church I helped in the sound booth running sound. It is interesting to see what makes people sound good and makes them sound horrible with all the EQs and such. It sounded good though.

After church there was a missions meeting at my church ( my dad is the missions director) and we mainly discussed the upcoming Ukraine trip, which I will be going on, in October. I can't wait! Next week we are having a skype meeting with some members of the church in the Ukraine. I've never attended any of these meetings, so I'm excited about it.

There is also a slight chance that I'll accompany my sister Anna to Mozambique Africa. Anna is going to the Ukraine as well, and will be traveling from there to Africa, as it will be cheaper then flying from the states. I went to Africa in 2008, and would love to go again. I miss the kids there. But I am also in great anticipation of the upcoming Ukraine trip, as this will be my first excursion to Europe, and I'm so excited to see what God has in store for us there!!!

Well, this has just become a lot of ramblings, so I shall sign off now:)
Cheerio!!!

Chickens

So last month we got some chickens. We hadn't had chickens in AGES. Years ago we got rid of all of them because we were going to get goats. We never did get goats though.
However, my sister Anna and I had been wanting to get chickens again, and someone we know had a bucn they were getting rid of, so we got some .

So my brothers and I spent days cleaning out the old chicken coop. I almost wish I had before and after pictures to show off of the coop. It hadn't been used since last year when we had ducks in there. So the grass had grown up waist high, weeds were everywhere, and it was not a pretty sight. We pulled out the old grass and weeds, dug up the old dirt, discovered food dishes that had some how or other gotten buried, pulled out the old falling apart shelter and brought in two new ones, leveled it out, and now it looks as if it never saw a blade of grass inside. I was rather proud of all our work :-)
So now we have ten chickens. And yes, we named all of them. They are Phee, Tillie, Millie, Flossie, Clementine, Trixie, Merl, Martha, Addy, and Magnolia (however we think Magnolia is a rooster, so if that turns out to be the case, his name will be General, or dinner, as that is what he will inevitable end up being)

Here are some pictures that my brother took and put on the computer (yay! I didn't have too!!!)

Flossy

Millie

Millie (I think)

Merl

Tillie (notice the Tiller behind the pen:-) lol, we were planting the garden

Martha and Phee

Addy

Thats all the ones we have pictures of. I must say I like having chickens again. We got them as Chicks, so none of them are fully grown yet, and by October we should be having fresh eggs:-)

Next on the agenda will be figuring out where to put a dozen ducks that my siblings are getting in a week to raise for 4H.

The Little Things...

I had a list of "little things'' running through my head. A pointless list of things I love and hate. So I came to the decision while I was eating dinner, that I would write a blog post about it. A pointless one, so you needn't feel obligated to read it, though I will probably announce on facebook that I have a new post up.

Things I Absolutely Cannot Stand:

• That people seem to feel the absurd urge to punctuate each sentence with "Just Sayin' ". This in my opinion displays a rather diminutive vocabulary. If the best you can do is the afore mentioned verbiage, I would recommend a Thesaurus to add to your reading list, post-haste.
• The word "Incling" I don't know what it is about this word, all I know is that it makes my skin crawl. Uhgg..
  
• The perfect alignment of little weeds growing where we planted the lettuce in the garden. I'm thinking that Burpees may have possibly mistaken what seeds went in which package. All though I don't know who in their right mind would purchase weed plants (and no, I'm not referring to the Marijuana type. California this is not)
• When I lose my keys, and then realize that they weren't lost, I just couldn't see them right in front of my nose.
  
• Library fines. Particularely large ones that I had paid, but they never updated it in their systems, so it always tells me I have one.
  
• When people try to prove me wrong when I know I'm right. (and no, I'm not referring to the age of the earth)
• The fact that my beloved camera has bit the dust, with no explanation as to how or why.
• The 25 cents I know is in the bottom of my pocket, but all I can seem to pull out is nickels.
• The fact that society has chosen to cheapen women by marketing clothing that shows more skin than actual material.
• When my sheets eat my socks and I always have a mismatched pairs.
• When people speed down the road at 1:3o in the morning with their radios turned ALL THE WAY UP!!!

• Mosquitoes.

I could go into more, but that is all for now.

Little Things That I Love:

• Gardens
• Rubber boots. Seriously, I love them. And I don't care if I look like a dork marching around in them with a too big t-shirt and an old pair of over sized shorts at 7 in the morning. I'll change out of what I slept in when I'm good and ready.
  
• My neices and nephews.
• My car, Max.
• Throw blankets on a cold day, with a good book.
• The Fair!!!!!!!!!
• A good book.
• Spearmint gum
• my guitars, Eulalie, Benny, Tuck, Marty, and Jolene.
• The fact that I named all of the guitars that I play ( even though only Benny, Marty and Eulalie are truly mine)
• My Bible.
• The New Testament (especially Paul's letters)
• Celtic music
• Rolled down windows, as opposed to Air Conditioning.
• The 1940's
• going barefoot

Ahhh. There are way more, but I'm sure I've lost you by now if you actually read this hole thing.

But, as you can see, the good far out-weighs the bad.
Good evening all :D