We ARE the Vacation

This summer has been quite a whirlwind of visitors and fun, fun, fun!  We have had 3 different sets of visitors that have each stayed a minimum of 6 days and nights with us, with the longest being 9 days and 8 nights.

PHEW!  I’m tired just thinking about it!

But as I’ve been saying to myself in a mantra like state “we are stressed because we are blessed“.  And it is absolutely true.  The constant what are we going to feed these people? and how are we going to entertain these vacationers? were certainly weighing heavily on my mind.  However, after stopping and remembering that all of these friends and family groups all took the time and effort and hard-earned money to actually stay with us and be part of our family was nothing short of miraculous to me.

 

 

Store’s night!  (notice the essential bug repellent spray…. the humidity brings all the bugs to the yard….)

 

 

 

Here is our friend and daddy teaching how to cast for fish… in the yard.  Miss Ariel was excited that her fishing pole was pink!  I was proud of all of the kids.  They all were enjoying themselves and look forward to when we can take them out on the water to test their skills.

And of course good ole fashioned family time with the kids Uncle and Aunt (not pictured).  We enjoyed each others company immensely.  Lake days, pizza at the local farm, game nights, trips to the famous Mall of America, and of course an introduction to the next door dairy farm were in store for many of our summer time guests.

These are the moments that make life worthwhile.  They are also the moments that make this momma need a nap.

Pony Perks

Coming home to Minnesota has had its own perks this summer.  Recently we have been enjoying our neighbors ponies, who have taken up temporary residence on our property.

All of the kids, including us big kids parents, have loved being near these majestic creatures.  Here is our littlest one learning the art of being gentle.

Mini Man is attempting to pet this gigantic pet over the hardly working electric fence.

I loved watching each of the kids relating to these unknown animals.  The ponies quickly ate thru our patch of grass where they were penned up.  A couple of days we all wound up spending nearly 2 hours picking grass and each of the kids were helping to feed the ponies.  They were in heaven!  I was amazed how they each picked the pony that they liked best and stuck with only feeding that particular pony.  I kept wondering what it was about their pony that made my kid decide to take sides.  Oh to be in the minds of a child!

Little Miss Ariel had me cracking up the most with her fearless attitude.  We often had to tell her that it isn’t a smart idea to get under the fence and just start hanging out with these 5-times-bigger-than-her animals.  Her dad and I were concerned, but apparently she was not.  Here she is getting to know each and every one of the horse gear that was left behind in the shed from the previous owners.  Ariel just loved shouting “WHAT’S THIS MOMMY?!”.  I was just grateful for these laid back ponies who didn’t seem to mind the loud ruckus she was making.  Perhaps this girl is a cowgirl in the making.

Now just because these guys were laid back, didn’t mean that one of them didn’t get into trouble.  Often.  This vanilla colored beauty decided that electric fence or not, he was going to go onto the other side to greener pastures.  Literally.  Poor little guy was starving.  We had to call the owners to let them know of their houdini escape artist.  To make due with a bad situation, he had to tie up the pony to tree until he could get some hay for this desperate pony.  Unfortunately, during the hay wait, the pony would get itself all tangled up, so Music Man had to come to the rescue.  It was such a sweet and tender moment between human and animal that us city folk rarely get to see.

Too bad the ponies had to go to their permanent home in North Dakota where they can graze all they want and hang out with their fellow pony friends.  I’m still crossing my fingers that the owners will stay true to their word and bring back child friendly ponies or horses for us to get to know this summer.  I don’t know who is more excited about the opportunity to learn more about the animals, me or the kids!

The Princess and the Toad

This week has been quite the whirlwind.  You see we had to fly (Mr. Sunshine and I) and drive (Music Man and the rest of the munchkins) back to California.  *more on this in a later post*

Well its no small feat to accomplish this big task of moving back home.  Well our other home I guess.  Which means we had lots of work to get done beforehand.  So while my in-laws, Music Man and I were hard at work, Ariel and Mini Man were hard at work too.  They were busy in the garden with us, busy exploring nature, and most of all they were busy playing with found toads.

I just LOVE the juxtaposition of my baby girl all frilly-ed up petting her toad.

Just couldn’t be happier.

Here she is kissing the toad.  Perhaps she honestly believes it will turn into a prince?

Grandma had a good idea about creating a place for the toad to sit.  Ariel actually said “We are creating a habitat!”.  Grandma and I were so surprised to hear this come from my 5 year old.

First you have to start with water…

Then you put in some rocks for the poor little bugger to sit.  Do you see him?

There he is!

Mini Man was so gentle.  Look at that one finger touch.  Like a pro.

Next up on the to-do list is helping Grandma in the garden.  She was lucky to find an actual shovel just Mini Man’s size.

He was a genuinely good helper.  He is only 3 1/2 but he was out there for a couple of hours right there alongside his Grandma.  I couldn’t believe it!  As Music Man says “he’ll make a good farm hand!”  And with all of our produce that our garden grows, we will surely need the help!

Country Rules

Country living has its perks.  Clean air, room to run around, old fashioned values, friendly neighbors…  Well, some neighbors.

This past week Music Man and I were up late as usual (we are total night owls), and heard a loud BAM BAM BAM.  Music Man jumped up and ran to the window.  I yelled “get the light!”.  Music Man was gifted a crazy powerful spotlight for his birthday this year and he loves it.  In fact he uses it on a nightly basis to see if there are deer in our yard sleeping.  I swear I think the poor deer are saying ‘yes yes we are here old man.  Now quit it with your light, we are trying to sleep!’.

Well this night we were super glad to have this spotlight.  Why?  To catch the young punks who were bashing in our mailbox.  MM shines his bad boy light and all we heard was screeching and ‘Aaaaahhh’ from several teenagers/young men as they peeled away from our house a la Dukes of Hazard style.

Then here was the conversation that went down between Music Man and I.

Me “That sucks!”

MM “I wish I had a shotgun so I could have shot them”.

Me “SHOOT THEM????!!!  You don’t want to go to jail for a mailbox!”

MM “It’s not going to kill them.  But it will hurt”

Me “How badly will it hurt?!”  (I’m imagining a big gaping hole in a poor teenage boys chest at this point.)

MM “It will burn their a** which is what they need.”

Me “Uh ok” (I’m clearly confused)

MM (Sensing that I am not getting it) “A shotgun bullet has a bunch of bb pellets in it.  It mostly just stings.”

Me “So it doesn’t kill them?”

MM “Well it could if you were really close but we aren’t close enough at all to do that”

Me “Yes but couldn’t you still go to jail?”

MM “Nope.  Country rules.”

Well this is what we found in the morning.

Was this really necessary?  I guess one hit wasn’t enough to get their rocks off.

I just might be convinced to settle up with some Country Rules.

*It should be noted that Music Man is well acquainted with Country Rules because he himself was administered this healthy dose of terrible teenage medicine while doing jerk things to neighbors growing up.  Guess a little sting helps put your brain back in your head*

**I don’t actually support real violence towards neighbor kids.  But I do support a 1950’s mentality where a neighbor goes to their neighbor and chews out that Denis the Menace kid who decided that throwing their baseball into their neighbors window on purpose, gets you a big dose of punishment.  And if that punishment should sting on the tush, then so be it.**

Making applesauce

After canning cucumbers and corn we turned our eyes to apples.  Our trees are actually starting to produce so we decided to make a jump on it while we could and make a couple of bags of applesauce.

First you have to have a cutie pie helper to pick apples off the tree

 

*that soft focus is due to the extreme humidity.  Unpleasant yes, but it makes for fun pictures!*

Because it was just the beginning of the season for our apples (still unsure about exactly which kind they are since it was the previous owners who planted them), we decided to use our regular pot to cook up the apples.

I agree Mini Man, I’m worried about those apples boiling over too (which they did).

I think Mini Man is actually investigating the corn in our big ole pressure cooker.

Our big pot of cinnamon applesauce!  This made 20 cups of cinnamon-y apple-y goodness.  Yum.

Canning Corn

As summer is coming to a close so are our crops in our garden.  Which means its canning time.  First up was cucumbers (which we canned into a huge pile of pickles).  Next veggie up on the chopping block (literally)… Corn!

We were so lucky to have a wonderful little helper…

First we cleaned the corn, then cooked up it up for 3 minutes

Yes, Little Rascal that IS a bunch of corn!  My mouth is agape with surprise too.

Then after its been cooked and then bathed in a cold bath (to stop the cooking process), Grandma cut it off the cob.  Good trick of the trade is place that corn cob on an upside down small bowl inside a larger bowl (as seen above).  Works like a charm.

Last step is to put them in a freezer sealed bag.  We bunched ours in 5 cup increments.  This way everything is even steven.  I believe we bagged about 50 pounds.

Honestly I can’t believe that my mother and father in law are smiling because this whole canning process is a lot of work!  Thank goodness they are supremely good sports and willing to help us with our insane country adventure.

Canning (part 1)

So this week has been a bit of a blur.  You see we have been canning.  And by ‘we’ I mean Music Man and his parents.  I was mainly on child care/household chores duty.  Canning is a new process for me, but not for my hardworking parents-in-law.  They were prepared with recipes and we were prepared with the biggest pressure cooker/canner we could buy.

 

People we needed a ladder to get into that big bad boy!

The lid is as big as my entire torso!  Apparently we are pretty serious beginning canners.

 

Here are our ingredients to begin our canning journey.

The first veggie we decided to can was our abundant crop of cucumbers.

 

They cut up A TON of cucumbers and then put them in a bath of vinegar and salt.

 

They had to let it sit for 3 hours and then pour out the excess water to drain the cukes (as they call them on the country street)

While we were doing that, we used that ginormous pot to sterilized the quart sized jars.  We were able to get 10 in at a time.  Although we could have gotten 20.

 

In a regular pot we sterilized the rings

 

 

Next step was to build our recipe.

 

 

At last we were able to fill up our jars

Make sure you don’t get any liquid on the rim!  It could cause the lid to not fully seal which would make all of your effort go to waste.

It was great using our new cheap, but highly functional canning equipment.  The magnetic ring picker-upper was my favorite!

And now our fresh batch of butter pickles are complete!  We were able to make 10 full quart sized jars.  Unfortunately (fortunately?), we still have a bunch of cucumbers.  Basically we have cucumbers coming out of our ears at this point.  This at least puts a reasonable dent into our batch.

Irony?  I hate pickles.  But guess who likes them?  Everybody else.  Oh well.  Guess everybody is getting a can for Christmas!

Stepping Stones Community Walk

This past weekend my family and I had the pleasure of participating in a community event supporting young women who have chosen to have babies (instead of having an abortion) or just mommas who need a little extra support.  Many girls who find themselves with a surprise pregnancy without support don’t have many good options at their disposal.  Many conservative christians have love in their heart when they chant outside of an abortion clinic but don’t participate in the after care of the mother and baby.  This is that place.

We began with a heart to heart pep talk to encourage us walkers and to remind us why we were there.  The gal in charge explained that one of the girls we were walking for had to decided to go back to college to change the direction of her life for her and her baby.  This is exciting work that the Lord is doing in this community and for this family.

We began the walk in a word of prayer

 

Next we headed out for our mile walk through the neighborhood!

Walking with friends is the best

At the end of the trail we were greeted with bubbles!

After our soapy fun, we headed over to a small town get together that included such home made treats like donuts

 

There was also a rainbow hand made ATV powered kiddie train.  I thought my boys would jump out of their skin they were so excited!

I love that my kids can experience this young the joy of participating in helping others.  We had a great time.

Longing for Home

Perhaps its because its already mid August, which means summer is nearly over.  Perhaps its because Music Man is diving back into work with gusto.  Perhaps its due to the gloomy rainy day.

Whatever the reason, I’ve been feeling homesick lately.

I have been battling this nagging feeling for a while now.  I realize that what I’m feeling isn’t so much of missing a particular place on the map, but the feeling I get when I’m home.

Here in Minnesota, we are still getting established.  This takes time (obviously), but its the process that is tiring.  Putting yourself out there.  Putting on your happy and brave face even though your nervous and shy.  Feeling like your constantly on a first date.  Wondering “hey do you like me?” or “am I getting annoying the way I often feel like I’m annoying other people?” or “I like you want to be friends?“.  I mean you might as well put me in coke bottle glasses and give me a lisp I feel so out of place.

I miss familiarity.  I miss my friends who already know me and love me despite my glaring flaws.  The ones I don’t have to feel like I have to impress.   I am not a fan of small talk.  I like being in a relationship and already being into the heart of it all.  Plop me down in the middle of a friendship where we already know the backstory and are talking about our bad day over our vat of coffee and smeared mascara that we hadn’t wiped off from the night before without the feeling of judgement.  I want to be laughing at the insanity that only other harried mothers know.  That’s the place I want to be.

I miss the quantity of friends in California.  If someone is busy (which many of them are), no worries, there are other friends that might be interested in getting together.  Here, I only know a handful of people.  This is a small town, so there aren’t that many people, and again, we are just getting going here in our lives as a midwestern family.  But with those few friends, you can quickly feel like you have worn out your welcome.

I miss the local restaurants I used to haunt.  I miss the ease of shopping my favorite stores.  A local Trader Joe’s is a 45 minute jaunt into the city here in Minnesota, but in California it is a mere 5 minute drive.  I miss the happy smily customer service that my California workers give me, rather than the stoic midwest seriousness that happens on a Target run.

Don’t misunderstand me.  Everybody has been wonderful here and going above and beyond in trying to make us all feel welcome, but sometimes the trial of putting yourself out there again and again is exhausting.  And right now I’m a bit tired.

Farm park

Our dairy farming neighbors have seen a lot of us lately.  Why?  Because one of their cats had kittens this summer.  Which to a newly minted 5 year old, this means we need to live where the cats live.

“Mommy can I take her home?”  

Basically we have turned their farm into our own personal playground.  Thank goodness they are so kind and gracious with us.

This is a big deal for Mini Man to be playing with their dog.  He’s not what you would call a brave soul.  Kind, tender hearted, compassionate, sensitive… yes.  Brave… not so much.

 

John Deer tractor toy?  Oh my word I think Little Rascal is in heaven.

And while we are here, lets go meet the ‘just born today’ calf!

 

Trying out those baby legs!

Where the momma’s graze.

 

So despite a bunch of these kitten made claw marks….

 

My kids have really taken to this whole farm life pretty well.  

Despite the fact that mean mommy and daddy still won’t take home one of those adorable kittens.