A Touch of Illinois

Last night we got to welcome into our home, Heath's cousins and their grandson.  God blessed our time together with a beautiful evening, wonderful company, and great food.  Thank you God for your many blessings!

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I think little Owen had alot of fun on the farm!

Wonderful campfire music by Koreen!

Chicken Story Part II

Today was the first day in a whole month that our little June came outside to see the sun (without being forced out-just so she would eat).  So, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of her with her little one!  It was a great evening out for the birds.  Heath and I watched them as we were pulling weeds in our garden.  

The doggies stayed in the house, just so they would not be tempted.

Young Married Bon Fire

We had a ~WONDERFUL~ turnout last night for our bon fire.  Great fun, fellowship, and food!  Thank you!

Especially thank you to my husband who helped so much getting ready for it!  I love you!  :)

The Ladies

The Guys

The Animals

Hobo Dinner on the Fire

My Husband and Father-In-Law

Hot Off the Fire

And Dinner is Served

Our Chicken Hatched Her Duckling!

Miss June, our blonde chicken, started "brooding" about a month ago.  Now, I really had no idea that was what she was doing other than I knew she was acting quite strange.  She wouldn't get off the nest ever, I never saw eat, drink, or even go outside.   Most importantly, she stopped producing eggs.  Although she is really only an 'every other day chicken,' I still really appreciate when she lays for us.  Every day when I would go to get eggs she puffed up her feathers and continued to "set" on her eggs.

Curious about this behavior, I asked my friend Jennifer, with BeeHaven Roadside Market (http://www.beehaven-farm.com/) if she knew what June was doing.  It was pretty simple, she was "brooding."  This is basically their innate behavior to hatch the eggs they are sitting on.  Well, since we didn't have a rooster, I knew she would be fully disappointed because she would never produce any offspring, yes I know chickens don't comprehend feelings.  :)

So, Jennifer thought of an awesome idea.  She asked if I wanted some fertile eggs from her farm.  After much thought and being scared of the idea of raising chicks, I accepted.  Later on that evening, I received a text, "How do you feel about ducks?"  Well, long story short, I accepted 2 duck eggs and 1 chick egg.  I labeled them with the date and type of egg they are just so we didn't accidentally collect them.  The duck eggs are unmistakably larger, but the chick egg was brown and matched the other nonfertile eggs.  Miss June has been setting since May 23 and yesterday, she hatched her first duckling!  Her chick egg got squished, but we are still expecting one more baby duckling soon!

Honestly, when I went in there last night to gather eggs, Heath told me to give them a pep talk because he saw that I had bought 18 eggs from the store.  She needed to hatch or get off the nest type of thing.  When I saw that shell cracked, I thought that she might have accidentally squished another egg, but much to my surprise, as I was digging around underneath her for eggs, there was the baby duck!! 

Running out of the chicken coop, "HONEY, HONEY come here!!!!!!!"  After all my excitement, he rushed over to see what it was.  I told him his pep talk worked!  :)

Hay Is UP!

GOOD MORNING~Rising to greet the sun after a hard days work is super rewarding!  We beat the lovely rain storm last night.  Everything looks great!  Our yard is mowed, trimmed, and our hay is put up due to alot of people's help!!  Thank you to Heath, Garry, and Whitney's for helping us get our hay up!  Looks great!  What a bountiful first hay harvest of the year!

Ephesians 3:20-21

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen."

Our Little Helper

The other day I got a text from my husband before I got home from work.  It went something like this:  "Hi, Mommy!" including a picture of Heath and a little gray fur ball.  When I got home, they were sitting on the adirondack chairs watching the sun go down together, so I joined them in this serene moment.  That was it, I knew this little fellow would be staying.  He is an answer to prayers because he is super sweet, young, playful, and not scared of the dogs.  We have been really wanting a cat ever since Killer ran away (right after I got her spayed).  She was a great mouser and since we have had mice in the house.  One night a few weeks back, we caught 3 in one night!  We, let me rephrase that, HEATH, went to reset them several times after we had laid down for bed.

Turns out, Jasper (we let Andrew name him), is really good help.  I was weeding the garden on Sunday night and he took liberty to crawl his way all the way up my back and onto his 'perfect perch,' my shoulder.  Last night, when I got home, poor Heath had picked up all the once clean laundry from all over the yard (at one point it was on the clothes line-due to limited time, space, and massive amounts of laundry-boys cleaned out lockers at the end of school-I didn't use as many clothes pins as I should have).  Looks like the wind won, poor idea on my part!  That late evening storm really hammered us with rain.  We are very thankful for the rain to help our garden, grass, and hay ground.  The only not so good thing about this pop storm is that we had just gotten our hay raked.  We have some friend's from church who are going to so kindly help us baling.  They even had their tractor here all ready to go for today, but  now it will be a few days and some thinking on our part before we get the chance to bale.  We do not have any equipment to turn the hay over to dry it out.  Anyway, when I got home last night Little Man was curled up on Heath's shoulder helping him fold laundry.  Today, as you can see below, he was consistent in his work ethic as I was making our bed.  He kept getting all folded up in the sheets and stuck under the covers.  CUTE little rascal.  Now, he is perched on my shoulder sleeping.

Beauty Is Everywhere

"Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy *think* about such things."  Philippians 4:8

This verse reminds me rid myself of negative thoughts.  Life is short, love it!