Sick Day Activity

Both boys were feeling under the weather today. We found out yesterday that Rylan had strep, and while he was much better today than yesterday he was still dragging. He started the morning by telling me his ear "wouldn't turn on". Conrad stayed home from school because his stomach was hurting pretty bad. I know when he starts carrying a trash can around with him things could get serious. And not wanting to have him known as the kid who always pukes at school, I kept him home just to be safe.

By this afternoon they were both feeling better so I thought we would carve pumpkins. Normally we would have already done this, but we've been slacking this October in the crafting department.

First they got out all of my Sharpies and drew their designs. Rylan was happy with his until he saw Conrad's, and then he wanted it to look like that. It was a little disappointing to him that it couldn't be erased.


Next came the carving and scooping out. I am NOT a professional pumpkin carver. Nor am I any good at making a pumpkin look like Darth Vader. That is what Rylan's is supposed to look like, though you would never know it!


Finally the creations were done! Conrad worked hard to separate the seeds from the goop. The goop went into the coop for a chicken snack and the seeds went into the oven for a people snack.

Photography classes...well worth it!!

I am taking an 8 week photography class right now at the Perfect Picture School of Photography on understanding exposure. It is expensive, but has been very valuable in improving my skills at setting exposure and forces me to think about creating a photo instead of taking snapshots. The class is well worth the cost when I end up with images of my boys like these! :)

Backyard Flock

We have chickens! Jason has wanted them ever since we relocated to the country, and has slowly been working on winning me over to the idea. I finally conceded about a month ago, and we started on a coop. We had a minor setback with the Ike windstorm because it actually knocked the coop over and blew it across the yard, but there wasn't any damage so we finished it this past weekend. Our original plan was to get chicks, but it is a little late in the year for them and we decided pullets would be easier to start with anyhow. I found 5 Barred Rock pullets on Craig's List of all places and we picked them up last night. They are adjusting nicely and are actually quite cute!! Much less noisy than I expected too. Hopefully we will have fresh eggs starting sometime in November. Conrad and Rylan have really taken to them. Conrad jumped right in there and started picking them up, and Rylan wants to take his leftovers out right after each meal. We will probably end up with 10-12 eventually, but for now 5 is just enough!

We've Got the Power!!

Wowee, it has been quite the week!! Sunday afternoon I decided to head to Meijer for a few groceries. It was a little windy, but nothing unusual. On my way out, it was so windy I could hardly push my shopping cart. It was comical looking around the parking lot at all of the hunched over people pushing those carts with all of their might. To make matters worse, it was kicking up the gravel so as I struggled I was being pelted.

On my way home, Jason called to tell me the chicken coop that we had worked so hard on Saturday had blown over. Thank goodness it wasn't damaged, but when it was all said and done it was shocking how far across our yard it traveled.

The 70 mile an hour winds seemed to go on forever. I've never seen anything like it before in my life. It was hard to even stand outside, and pretty soon our trash cans and grill had gone to visit my mom next door. Mom lost tons of branches out of her big maple trees and the top of a pine tree, but neither of us had house damage. Right before the winds let up our power went.

No big deal, right? I mean, our power seems to go out pretty regularly, and it is always back on in a matter of hours. Not this time. The windstorm left hundreds of thousands of people in Columbus without power. And to make matters worse (for us anyway) AEP had sent a lot of their folks down to Texas to help with the devastating blow they received.

Now, being without power is one thing. But us country folk out here on a well had to do without water too. And that ain't pretty. No water means no washing your hands. No showers. And the worst of all - no flushing your toilet! Luckily Heather B. across the street was kind enough to allow us to take buckets of water from her pond so we could once again flush. Nothing like taking a bucket of pond water with you to the bathroom.

We also found refuge in "Mr. Jason" and Jen's condo. We stuffed their fridge and freezer full of food from our house and mom's, and took full advantage of their working shower. We also cooked several meals there since our food was there anyhow.

Joan leant me some space in her freezer as well which is fortunate since there is no way we would have fit all the food from two stuffed deep freezers at the condo. And I agreed to go to Heather W's Pampered Chef only if she would let me shower at her house first. Gotta have my priorities straight.

Last night we got a real luxury. Jason and Amy had their power back on so they leant us their brand spaking new generator. We couldn't believe our luck, to be able to put the boys in bed with lamps instead of flashlights. Jason and I were just settling down to enjoy some tv when all the lights flipped on. That's right. We had the generator hooked up a whopping 20 minutes before the electricity came back on. Figures.

In the end, we were without power (and more importantly water) for 3 1/2 days. That is more than I've ever had to do before, but there are so many ways it could have been worse. We could live in Galveston, Texas. It could have rained and flooded our house. It could have been sweltering hot. It could have been winter and we would have been much colder and extremely stinky (hard to gather water from a pond when it is frozen). Even though I would prefer not have that happen again, it wasn't unmanageable. And hey, Conrad got two bonus days off of school!

More Visitors

Last week wasn't the first time I've spied deer in our yard. This pair was drinking the water that sits in back and were kind enough to wait for me to get the camera. Just gorgeous, don't you think?

Same Photo, Different Kid

Rylan started preschool today. I was a little apprehensive because he gets clingy at church sometimes when I leave him in class, but my worries disappeared quickly when we got to his room. He barely even said goodbye before he was off meeting new friends. When I picked him up he was all smiles, had participated in all of the craft projects, and was still telling me all about it when we got to Chick-Fil-A for his first day of school lunch. What an awesome day for him!

As a bonus, I had two hours completely to myself. I took full advantage and met Amy to go running and then out for coffee. I could get used to this!

Hummingbirds

We noticed we were getting a lot of hummingbirds visiting our flower bed earlier this summer, so we put a feeder out on the front porch. It took a while, but we have several visiting us now almost constantly. Seriously, you can look out there almost any time during the day and if you wait 5 minutes you will see one. They are the neatest creatures. So teeny, fast, and very feisty! I didn't realize how territorial they are -- if two happen to show up at the same time they fly off squeaking at each other. I've stalked them a few times for photos but they are so darned fast! I can barely even click the shutter before they are gone again!