Now while I’ve always known Kaelyn was a little artist, I had no idea Kendrick had any artistic talents until this year. He started bringing home amazing drawings and he started doodling on notebook paper, and I was very impressed with what he came up with!
Here are his displays at the Art Fair.
We have known Kaelyn has artistic talent since she was a toddler. She has blown us away through the years with her various creations using all types of materials.
The kids had the opportunity of having art class this spring, taught by a local architect and artist and they both love it!
They showcased their drawings and paintings tonight at the Art Fair.
I have not been in the kitchen very much lately. It just isn’t my favorite place to be. But when I decide to actually make something, it ends up being fun, especially when everybody rants and raves about how good it is.
This was a recent recipe featured on The Pioneer Woman’s blog. I took these to the school Art Fair this evening. They were a big hit and not a morsel was left over!
I guess I should hang out in the kitchen more often!
Things are happening and the future looks bright! Silver Paw Kennels is moving and it’s going to be easier for everyone! We are going to be closer to town! We are going to be closer to the airport! We are going to be closer to the vet! We are going to be closer to the kids’ school and our church! We are going to be closer to our extra curricular activities! We are going to be farther from our ski mountain (you can’t have everything, you know!) And we are going to have less snow (hopefully) and milder weather (hopefully)!!
Our kennel area is going to be bigger, and it’s going to be indoors. And we are going to have outdoor space that is BIG and FLAT for lots of outdoor playtime for the dogs! We will make things happen one step at a time, and today something really exciting happened!
But first, let’s start at the very beginning…
We bought a house…
With a barn and a chicken shed…
The barn is BIG and RED and PURDY!!
It has lots of cool features, like a BIG storage room behind the 1st door, and a country basketball court behind the other two doors!
There is a big opening on the front of the barn that will be our indoor/outdoor covered doggie play area. Did you hear me say COVERED?!! This is very important, considering we get enough snow each year to be measured in FEET, and not inches! And let’s not forget the rain, and how undesirable wet, dirty, and cold doggies are!
The barn is divided into two areas, the big side, and the lean-to side.
The lean-to side is not very pretty inside right now, because, well, it’s an old barn, but we have lots of plans. A few weeks ago it looked like this…
Lots of stuff everywhere…
Most of it trash, and there were these annoying grooves in the cement…
We think it was an old cow barn, and this is where all the p**p ran down the floor – ewww!
But never fear, the woodman, who also does cement, came to the rescue today, and began the process of turning this big lean-to into a big, beautiful (term used loosely, even when project is completely finished) , first class (almost) dog kennel for our adult dogs!
Notice all that “junk” in the barn is now gone as well, but we can’t take credit for that as the owners that we bought the property from took care of that major detail for us!!
I’m thinking that some nice white-washed walls are next on the to-do list!!
My mom called me the other day to tell me about a video she had just watched. She was excited because it talked about controlling weeds and she knew that was a main issue in our garden because it is so GINORMOUS!
I was immediately interested and headed to the website to take a look.
www.backtoedenfilm.com
My Internet has not cooperated enough to allow me to watch the entire film yet, (so I ordered the DVD) but I have seen parts while in town and at home, enough to get extremely excited about the concept. This man uses Wood Chips as mulch in his garden.
The concept is that the ground is covered, the wood chips are not mixed in, and this keeps the moisture in the soil, and suffocates the weeds. There are a lot of beautiful spiritual applications as well, and he has studied nature and how the natural world grows trees in the forests, etc., without formal irrigation, etc., and he has implemented these concepts into his garden and has amazing results.
I know it’s not a new concept to lay down a mulch in a garden, but wood chips are more permanent, don’t blow away with the wind, and take years to beak down. When they do start to begin to break down, the soil becomes beautiful, light, and from the looks of this man’s garden, and his pH test results, the soil will grow anything with success and vigor.
I was already devising ways to stop the weeds before they grew this year, and had bought a whole lot of straw bales to lay straw down all over the garden area. But now, I’m going to lay down some chips.
I didn’t waste any time going to the local lumber yard to secure a small load of wood chips in my trailer.
They actually didn’t want to sell me any of this pile because it is what they use to burn and create energy, and their supply is low right now. But since my trailer was so small, they charged me $10 and filled it up.
These are not the pretty kind used in playgrounds and landscaping. That stuff costs $100/ton. But they are what I wanted…ground up branches, leaves, basic organic material from all different types of sources.
The dumpster (what is that thing he’s driving?) driver piled it as high as he could. By the time I got home, it was a couple of inches below the edge of the trailer from all the jiggling as we traveled over the road.
I can’t wait to get started. We’re initially going to lay down newspaper on a dormant bed, 4×46 ft long, that we don’t plan to plant this year, and mulch it with these chips. I can’t wait to see what the ground is like next summer after all the snow, rain, and worms do their magic.
I also plan to put some in my pathways and around some of the vegetables that come up in the garden beds. It should be a fun experiment. I am mostly eager to see the weeds be suffocated. Let’s hope it works, at least, for that!!
We took a hike yesterday with some church friends. The lake is so low right now we were able to hike out to what is normally an island. It was cold and windy but we had a nice time anyway.
At the very end of the day, we saw a rainbow! I always love rainbows and remembering that they originated with a promise from God.
This next one is the result of me choosing “clarity” on my Camera+ app. It wasn’t quite this vibrant but playing around with photo enhancements is always fun!
I need to document this day. The green house is officially ours! Escrow closed today and we have keys!
This home is just 5 miles from the school my children will attend for the next 7 years. I’m really looking forward to living so close to school, church, and fairly close to town, though not too close!
The new house is cheerful and full of windows! The inside is always bright and sun-shiney! This is going to be good for me during the dreary winter months of the northwest. The weather is going to be more mild at this home, at least I don’t think the snow will fall quite as soon in the fall, and it will melt and stay melted earlier in the springtime.
We were there just yesterday and I failed to take any new photos. The grass is a vibrant emerald green now and spring is so evident at the new house. We were also surprised with a “lake” that we could see just across the road!
The sounds of birds filled the sky with song. I hope every spring is greeted with this surprise. The picture doesn’t do it any justice. The water was a vibrant blue and it spanned the prairie and was alive with fluttering activity!
Finally, my children will have their own space and my daughter will have some privacy! The boys will share a room and Kaelyn will have her own room. She has been sharing with the boys for the past 5 years, and while that was fine when she was 11, it’s a whole different thing now that she is 15 going on 16!
The house has some really nice features and the kitchen has a dishwasher! I know this is so basic, but after living without one for 5 years, I’m ready for that little kitchen “gadget” to be back in my life. The things I’ve missed most about my home in California were the dishwasher and a room for Kaelyn.
When we were hoping to buy the home, I posted a bunch of pictures HERE. I’m very thankful everything worked out and we will be moving sometime this summer. “Silver Hill” has been a nice place to be, and especially while I was homeschooling, but now that the kids are involved in various activities and going to school every day, we simply need to be closer to everything. We spend so much time driving and it’s quite exhausting day after day. My friend called the new house “Green Gables”. I don’t know if it will really stick. I’d like to think of something a little more original. I do like the idea of “naming” a home!
I haven’t been blogging personal things lately. It has been all I could do to stay on top of new puppy photos and announcements, so the personal stuff gets put on the back burner.
But we had a nice family gathering a couple weekends ago and all the grandparents flew to Spokane to attend Grandparent’s Weekend at UCA, the Academy that Darien attends.
The weekend was filled with music from the choir, choraliers, band, and the orchestra. The gymnastic team also performed. I’m excited that all of my kids will be attending next school year, and we will be living just a few miles from the school!
It was nice for everyone to be together and to get a mini vacation away from the chores of life.
Darien always looks sharp in his tux. He now towers over both grandmas, affectionately known as “Mema” and “Mom”.
It’s that time of year when growing a garden seems wonderful and romantic and appealing. Visions of beautiful canned goods, plants heavy with produce, and good food, friends and family and laughter, float through my mind.
Where are my seeds?
Do I have enough starter trays?
Hurry, it’s time to plant seeds!!!
But I haven’t planted anything…not yet.
This year I won’t be pulled in so easily to all the romantic visions of a perfect, weed free garden, because I know my summer is going to be very busy packing, sorting, and getting ready to move.
Yep, we’re moving, closer to the school, but that is another post, for another day.
I do still want to have some kind of garden. We will have raspberries and strawberries even if we didn’t want them. They grow like weeds around here. I plan to pick and freeze as many as I can.
We will probably plant some potatoes and I always get sucked into planting tomatoes even though they don’t do all that great around here. I always dream of having jars and jars full of canned tomatoes, but our tomato patch has not blessed us just yet.
In thinking about gardening, there is the ever present reality that there will be weeds in the garden, and so I am constantly thinking about what could be done to prevent them from growing in the first place.
A few weeks ago I found myself in the magazine section of the grocery store. I snapped these photos of photos from the magazine I was paging through.
I love the hay in the pathways. I’m nervous about this idea for my own garden though because it would take a LOT of hay, and I think the weeds would grow through it anyway. I might try it between the raspberry rows though.
I love garden boxes with defined sides, and pathways, and edges. But again my garden is too big to have boxes everywhere.
And I love these stacking blocks. I love them in a circle around trees, I love them as retaining walls, I love them as planter boxes. I never thought of using them to create a space for planting vegetables, but I love the way it looks.
I don’t know what kind of garden I will have this summer, but I have caught garden fever, and my mind is churning, and thinking, and plotting, and planning!!
My daughter is a budding artist! She has had no formal training. I think she is off to a great start!!
