...And the Heat is On...

 I just wanted to say hi and hope you are having a nice weekend. I am pretending I am on a vacation at a resort. I decided I would swim instead of complain about the weather. It is only going to be 107 today. Where my daughter lives it is going to be 114 so it isn't so bad for me. Here is our weather picture for the next week.

 

• Today Sunny and hot, with a high near 107. Light and variable wind becoming west northwest 5 to 10 mph in the afternoon.
• Tonight Mostly clear, with a low around 80. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south southeast after midnight.
• Sunday Sunny and hot, with a high near 109. Light and variable wind becoming northwest 5 to 10 mph in the afternoon.
• Sunday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 81. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south after midnight.
• Monday Sunny and hot, with a high near 111. East wind around 5 mph becoming west northwest in the morning.
• Monday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 81. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south southeast in the evening.
• Tuesday Sunny and hot, with a high near 109. East southeast wind around 5 mph becoming west in the morning.
• Tuesday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 81. West northwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming southeast in the evening.
• Wednesday Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 108. East southeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west in the morning.
• Wednesday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 79. Northwest wind 5 to 15 mph becoming south in the evening.
• Independence Day Sunny and hot, with a high near 104. East southeast wind around 5 mph becoming west in the morning.
• Thursday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 76. North northwest wind 10 to 15 mph decreasing to 5 to 10 mph in the evening. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph.
• Friday Sunny and hot, with a high near 103. East southeast wind around 5 mph becoming west in the morning.

 

My garden loves it and every thing is growing very nicely. I am so thankful for air conditioners. It makes me wonder how people did it without them.   Have a lovely Saturday, ~Kim~
 

Wednesday Words

I was just thinking I would have some things I finished to show you today. Things have ways of coming in and changing plans. Last night, the boys decided to take Sasha for a walk. The sun was still up so it should have been safe. She got sprayed by a skunk in broad day light. At least it was her and not the boys.

We used the skunk stuff we have until it ran out and then one of the boys ran to the grocery store to get peroxide, and more rubber gloves and dish soap. We mixed up the stuff and washed her in that and let it sit and then filled a tub with warm water and gave her a bath, she got sprayed in the mouth so she foamed and drooled and she got her mouth rinsed, but her ears still have a faint aroma. I couldn't get her to go out for a walk with me this morning. The good thing is it is summer and it is hot so she dried pretty fast.

This week I got some packages in the mail. I entered a giveaway given by Lauren at Rugs and Pugs.  I won her lovely spoon jewelery. It made me so happy. I have wondered where it came from so I was thrilled to have been picked. Thank you Lauren!

Then my friend Jacque, is having a wool sale. She always has the nicest wool. In the past when I have received wool from her I do spend lots of time looking at it and touching it. She still has some bundles left for sale at very nice prices. The Chocolate Puppy.

One thing that I love about being a blogger is the wonderful people that you meet that you might not have ever come in contact with, to get to be friends with people all over the world is such an incredible gift.

One of these friends I met is Julia. She has a lovely blog Of Petals and Wool, and I always enjoy her life and her words. She has helped me so many times and gives me encouragement and even a gentle kick in the pants when I need it. She sent a lovely card in the mail with a reminder of how many lives we touch through our words and our lives and I am for one thankful she has touched mine in so many ways.

She sent me a heart, but really every day she shares a bit of her heart with  me Now I have one to hold in my hand.

All of this reminds me of what a wonderful gift we have for this time. The ability to share our lives, our families and our friendship. I know that I am so thankful for this gift. So if I haven't said it in a while, I just want you to know that I feel so thankful and privileged to be able to share in your lives as I am thankful to share with you, my life too.

Blogging has changed my life. So has your gentle and kind friendships. My husband always says, " You have the nicest friends who visit your blog." I do, he knows because he reads your comments every day.

So  thank you so much,

~Kim~

Our and About in The Garden

I could say, something about it being Tuesday but since this is a nice Tuesday so far, I thought I would share about my little garden. For one thing, I felt like a complete failure by planting a small one but I have to say now I am pretty happy with it. It is just right.

The sunflowers are going crazy. I almost can see them growing they are growing so fast. The pumpkins are doing the same thing.

I have just been amazed at how from day to day they are just putting on new leaves and I am so happy because if I can keep them safe from those stink bugs I will have pumpkins in the fall after all.

Can you tell what this is? Ron is trying to get his benches cleaned off of all of the big trees he planted. He just wants to grow varieties used in growing Bonsai. So he has so many other big trees that he grew just to see if he could. He decided that he would make a row out in the garden area so we could have some more shade out there. The environment is so harsh and the ground temps in the summer are so hot. He planted this new row. He has planted so many trees now, that he is so fast. He did this row in about a hour. I was busy in the house and when I came out to help him he was finished. I couldn't believe it when I walked out and they were in the ground.

 Maybe that is a little better. A lady who was here for the wedding, told me that when they drive by, her husband always wants to buy this so he could turn the back of the pasture into a shop area and a building.

I admit it gave me sort of a stab in the heart. I know that is what will happen, someone will come in and cut down the trees and pave it over and use it for commerce. It is a good location for a business. I hope I don't have to do that for awhile.

The beets are coming along nicely. I must be low on iron as I was taking this picture, I wanted to just stand there and eat beet tops. I may just do that for lunch. :)

This is one of my favorite hens. She is a Cuckoo Maran. She went  broody. So did the black hen who I let set and hatched the one egg, she was the best mother, for awhile and then one day she left it with the other chicks and mothers and returned to the flock. I had two of them and broody hens make me crazy. I hated to do it but I found out how to break them. I put them in the coop with the crazy Mlle Fluers. They are the meanest, bunch of little hens I have ever seen. But after three 24 hour days the broody ones had turned to nice and normal hens.

The new dream coop is in the planning stages. I am so excited. Ron is planning and talking about it and coming up with ideas of how to build it. Since I have 19 bantams now I need a bigger coop for them. I don't know how many roosters yet. There is a restaurant in L.A.  that  serves only silkie chicken. Silkie meat is black. It sounds really gross to me but I have been thinking of tracking them down to see If I could send them some roosters. I have to do something. That kind of makes me sick too. Getting rid of my chicks. I am I think a hoarder at heart.

I hope you have a great day. Summer is here. I am ready for it now I think.

~Kim~

A Perfect Day in June

Today is a perfect day. I can hear the sound of a sprinkler off in the distance, the sound of my roosters crowing in the back yard, and a wonderful little breeze stirring the papers on my desk. Such a wonderful day to sit and dream and plan and think. I must be getting back to my old self as the ideas I have for things to make come flooding faster than I can make them. I made a punch needle pillow this week. I haven't done punch needle in awhile.

I finished my cow rug. Well except for the binding and I will do that today. It turned out okay. I am happy with it. I hope the person I made it for likes it. ;)

My garden is coming up nicely. I think next year I will just wait this late to put in a garden.
Every seed I planted is up. I always plant three seeds and in all my plants three seeds germinated.
I won't be organic this year though. I have already saw those red backed stink bugs out there. I will have to use pesticide. It breaks my heart but I am afraid if I don't get a handle on this I will have to abandon my garden all together.

 We moved the garden boxes out here and then put up the arches that my son made for the wedding. I need to buy some morning glories to grow up the arch but I keep forgetting. It is really so nice to be out here in the morning puttering around. I let my chickens out and they follow me around and the cats and the dog. Not to mention this guy who scolds me constantly.

He thinks that the garden is his and I shouldn't be out there when I am. He follows me around the yard.
He is always watching too.

The Hydrangeas are getting ready to be finished. But I even love the colors they turn as they fade. I just love this color.

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you have a lovely weekend, full of dreams and the time to enjoy them.

" Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." ( Matthew 11:28)

~Kim~

Odds and Ends

I am beginning to think that Wednesdays are my odds and ends days. Last week we were busy and lots was going on. ( One day I am going to write a post that says, I was bored all week.)  On Friday night, what was supposed to be just a quiet party with my son's friends turned into a going away party for another friend. I was glad that Ruthie brought another cake. She made this and since normally Friday night is game night, she did a cake from the game Catan.

She did such a nice job with it.

When our youngest son, Peter graduated a few weeks ago, Our oldest son, Ben made him a present. I was so impressed with it that I decided to show it here.

He made a knife.

 The leather pouch it is in came from a pair of old work boots that he cut up and used. The leather is so soft and pliable.

That handle is made of cherry wood. Ron took out a old cherry tree and gave the wood to Ben. He took it and polished it and made this beautiful handle out of it.

See the knife part, he used an old file that he had to make the blade. The black part is still the file. You can't tell it unless you were looking at it real close.

There that is better, the workmanship is incredible. Peter is so proud of it and keeps it on his desk.

The other day, I was outside looking at Ron's junk pile and he had a bunch of boards cut up and I told him if he just cut me a couple of small ones I could make this flag. ( The pattern is on Brown Paper packages) He did so I painted it yesterday. I made a bunch of these last year but I gave them all away. So yesterday I just made one for me. It is the middle of June and I haven't decorated at all in red, white and blue.

I got the rest of the wedding photos yesterday. It is really hard to decide which are my favorites but I thought I would show you these.

All of our grand children with Auntie Em's. It had been too long of a week at this point. Tired babies.

I loved this one just because it shows the real Em's, always worrying about everyone else. This is our seven
babies and one more to be born in December. Our oldest daughter will add one more to her brood which will make it an even 8 I am so blessed. The four boys are are Ben and Megan's and the two girls and boy are  Kessie and Ryan's.

This is the whole bunch of our kids. You can't even tell that Kessie is pregnant. We were worried about the dress but it fit just fine.

Then all of us. Seeing this I have been outgrown. Oh here is a stock tip, buy some Weight Watcher stock, it is getting ready to go up because of the dues I will be paying.

It was a good day. It is nice to look at the pictures. We couldn't have done as much as we did without any of them working like they did. The only tired looking ones are Ron and I. I love my family.

So here are my odds and ends of Wednesday.
Thank you for coming along. What a year it has been.

~Kim~

Chats on The Farmhouse Porch

I have been so hit and miss on the Chats with Patrice. I thought I would do one today. I hope your Tuesday is a lovely day wherever you are today. It is just beautiful and cool today. When I opened the doors and windows it was just so nice to breathe. I know you maybe won't understand why I say that all of the time but our area has the worst air quality in the United States. There are days when it hurts to breathe. All of the air from Northern California gets funneled down to us where it backs up against the mountains. We live under a brown haze most of the time and when the fires start burning it gets harder to breathe. So just so you knew that. :) Why do we stay here you wonder? Because of the fruits and vegetables. :) Or maybe the fruit and nuts. Who knows.

Okay on with the Chat:

 1.  Is there a friend or relative who has been on your mind a lot lately?
I have been thinking of people this week and sending out some emails. People that keep coming to my mind. So yes, quite a few.

2.    Do you sunburn?
If I do sunburn, the next day it is  tan. I always feel blessed that way.

3.    If you were visiting my farm for a week (or weekend) would you want to cook with me, pick veggies or pull weeds with the farm crew, or just feed Wendell carrots until he outgrew his horse suit?

I think I would just like to hang out with you. I am tired so I would rather just visit, but I know how busy you are this time of year. I think what I would like would be to watch you get orders ready to deliver and go with you on those kinds of jobs.

4.    Do you like to tell jokes or hear them?
Oh, sometimes, I am not very good at it and I always forget the punchline.

5.    Do you wear sunglasses often?
Yes, I wear sunglasses every time I go outside.
Thank you so much Patrice for this week's questions and being so faithful.

Wedding Photos

I have a few wedding pictures. I imagine I will show you so many you will be tired of them. This was the flowers that Emilie worked on right up to it was time for her to go get dressed. She put in fiber optics so that they had this subtle glow in the flowers. This was the bridesmaids bouquet.

 Nik and Em's after they were married. She did her and Nik's flowers as well and there is a whole long story behind that, I had flowers everywhere my fridge was full of buckets of flowers trying to keep them cold. Then the wind came up right before the ceremony started and caught the flowers that were on the tables like sails and we were frantically running around taking the vases away and just putting roses on the mirrors.

She had never done bouquets before. Nothing like a baptism through fire. She worked so hard.
I was in such a panic for her.

She finally made it to this part of the day. She kept putting everyone ahead of her so that they could have the make up and the hair done first. We had to finally drag her in here. She really put everyone before herself.
She never thought at all of herself but of everyone else and the people here who were her guests. She said, when it was just her and I waiting for her Dad to come and get her, "Mom all of these people are here for me." I don't think she ever thought of it until then.

The bridal party. My oldest daughter on the left, Em's maid of honor, Ruthie, Em's and Nik My niece, and
Our- what- would- we- have- done- without- Megan- who kept us on our toes. Wedding planner extraordinaire The groomsmen were wonderful and such a wonderful group of gentlemen..

Our 4 sons and Ems. She grew up right in the middle between two older brothers and two younger ones.
I love this picture so much.

Finally married!! I just have to tell you from that first time he walked through the door, I have begged God to let him be our newest son. I am so very thankful that God has answered our prayers. He is just the best.
When she was so sick, I got to see what a wonderful guy he is and I knew then, God blessed us beyond anything I have ever thought or asked. It really does work that as soon as you are given that new baby, to start praying for that baby's mate. So far I have been blessed out of my socks.

That tree in our front yard just looks like a fairy tale doesn't it. Just think she spent so much time climbing around it as a little kid with her brothers and cousins and then it made the perfect arch for her wedding.

Our family, I am the short grandma looking one.

Our two families now united in marriage. Quite a crowd isn't it?

I will have more to show you so I will stop now. This is just the few I have right now. It was worth all of the work. I think though, I am okay with waiting awhile before another one.

Thank you for stopping by and sharing in our joy.

~Kim~

Garden Bench

One thing about living in the Central Valley of California, when you get a cool and beautiful day in the summer, you better make the best use of it if  you can. This weekend is completely opposite from last weekend. Last week my husband, Ron, wanted to build a garden bench to put his root stock on so they would be able to be out of the sun. The little grafts that he did in February/March. They are coming along nicely but the heat is hard on these Japanese Maples. He could only work last weekend until noon. He had to put in a new water line for all of the misters and he got that done before it was just too hot to work out there.

Last year, the wind we had blew down my son and his wife's fence around their yard. They brought the old wood over here and I was going to use it to make things out of old wood. Well, I never did. Today though,
my husband made his garden bench out of that old fence board. ( Meg, show Ben.)

It is long and perfect for trees as it has spaces between each board so the water can drip out onto the ground.

Here is a better shot of it. I think it is such a nice work space.

He does really nice work I think.

Here it is now with all of his trees on it. I tried to get a picture with the misters on but it doesn't show up very well. We had coffee out there and it is a very pleasant place with the breeze blowing the black shade cloth and the mist keeping every thing nice and cool.

Here is the first work bench he built. Now he will use it for working on his Bonsai trees. I always enjoy how he can see projects in the wood he has. This bench is made out of part of the dance floor and the poles the lights were on from the wedding. Now his other bench is made from old fence boards from my son's old fence. He never ceases to amaze me.

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you are all safe and all of the storms are past.

~Kim~

Dyeing Wool and Odds and Ends

You know what I have decided? Any day dyeing wool is a good day. I think putting in a piece of wool and bringing it out a different color is just magic.
I bought a new pattern from Cathy at Red House Wool Studio. It is her 1820 Sunflower pattern.

I drew it out on my backing on Saturday.

I needed wool for it so yesterday, I dyed wool to go with it. Here is what came out of the dye pot.

I just loved the colors that I got this time. I think they will be fun to work with once I get there. I am still working on the cow rug.

Here is it so far.

I think it is a nice cow. It really is bigger than I anticipated. Either that or I am just very slow. I thought I would be done this week.

Well, last night the wire worked on a skunk. He spayed my chicken coop and the house smelled so bad it woke me up but no chickens lives were lost last night. The funny,hysterical,  sad thing was my husband didn't think the wire was working last night so he went down to check it last night and got shocked twice. It really should have been me because I had forgot to turn the thing off one day and I didn't get shocked so he thought it wasn't working. Then he found out it was.

Today is my son's birthday. He just told me to expect 10 for dinner tonight. Then tomorrow night he is having his birthday bash. Tomorrow night it will  be a swimming party/game night. I am so thankful for the people that are friends with my kids. It gives you hope for the world. Very nice and well mannered bunch of young people. I feel so thankful to be able to open and share our home.

Now, I have to get off and go do grocery shopping. I am glad he told me so early. He just wanted Monte Cristo sandwiches so that is easy to multiply.

Have a wonderful day,
~Kim~