Robinson Creek Reds

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Can you believe it?

Woke up this morning to 24 degrees outside. I am SO ready for summer, I can't even tell you! LOL! Hope we didn't lose our fruit blooms.

We might have our old place sold. We are trying not to get too excited in case it doesn't work out. They are the cutest young couple, with a toddler and one on the way. They have been living in less that satisfactory arrangements and are just so tickled about our old place. I sure hope it works out for us all. Dh has decided to finance to them. The young man has a really great job, right now, but it's temp and they want something they can pay off quickly so that if he loses the job they still have a home.

Didn't get the rain we were expecting, once the percentage goes below 40, we usually don't get it.

Hope everyone had a blessed Resurrection Sunday!

blessings, mommared

selling our old place, adoption, and WAH stuff

I put our old property in a small paper, locally. It's a bargain shopper type thing. We have had ALOT of response on it. We have several folks that want it but they need us to finance it. Dh really really doesn't want to do that, although there is one family that he is willing to finance it for. LOL! We have a couple more that are interested in  taking a look at it. If someone comes up with the cash, it's gone. Praying that it sells soon. With insurance, owner's assoc dues, and the taxes on it, it's costing us monthly to keep it. We sure could use the money, as we are still waiting on our last bill from our adoption lawyer. I have 2 appointments to show it tomorrow.

Sent off for our son's new birth certificate. In Texas they will put US on his new one, how cool is that?

Supposed to get more rain tomorrow, so no egg hunts, I bet.

Looking into anything I can do online, from home, that will generate some extra income. I am NOT a salesman! LOL! The info is overwhelming as everyone has 'the best work at home" project for you! ;) What I don't get is why they don't just tell you what the deal is. I mean, if you are not cut out to do what they are offering, who will know it better than you. Seems like it would cut down on a lot of their time wasted . You have to jump hurdles to get to the info that actually tells what it is they do, so instead I have been spending time looking up reviews from other folk who have tried this or that. That has been helpful, to some extent, although you still get the "I hate it, they cheated me" vs  the "I loved it, it's great" sites. LOL! Confusing, confusing, confusing.

Too bad someone isn't paying to read or edit books before publishing. THAT I would be great at! ha!

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A single breaker may recede; but the tide is evidentally coming in. -Thomas Macaulay

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blessings, mommared

Win Rosetta Stone!!!

Rosetta Stone has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while -- next week they are unleashing a brand new curriculum, and you can WIN the *all new* Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3… FOR FREE! 

This is a $219 program (and believe me it's worth every penny!) and the winner gets to pick from any of these 14 languages: Spanish (Spain or Latin America), English (American or British), Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Hebrew, or Russian.

This will also include a headset with microphone, and students will participate in lifelike conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program.  Rosetta Stone still incorporates listening, reading and writing as well, in addition to speaking.  Many homeschoolers requested grammar and vocabulary exercises, and with Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3, they're included!  For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program and allow parents to easily enroll students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, and view and print reports. 

To win this most excellent program -- in the language of your choice -- copy these (blue) paragraphs and post it in (or as) your next blog post -- then to enter the contest, go to the original contest page HERE:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/JenIG/501132/  

and leave a comment with the link showing where you blogged about it.  And please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post it.  And good luck!  The winner will be picked randomly on March 26, and will be notified thru the link they left to their blog pg.   And if you have more than one blog, you can post them and enter those separately for more chances to win.   Yay for free stuff!

Rain!

We got about 3 in of rain on Tuesday and supposed to get more this weekend. The creek only rose slightly this time. I think it washed it out good, but by the time the thing is warm enough to swim in it may be mossy again. Spring fed creeks are mostly too cold for me, until July. LOL!

Have a couple of appointments to show our mobile, on Friday. I am prayin it sells soon as we could sure use the money and to get out from under the expense of it all.

blessings, mommared

And now...the weather.....and musings on home business...........

The rains have come. Flash flood warnings all around us and more rain in the forecast, maybe through tomorrow. The creek should get a thorough cleansing anyways. We are stuck in the house for them time being. Movie day,maybe. LOL!

I keep racking my brains trying to find some way for me to make some extra income entirely from home. We have thought and thought and going back to work, with the lad now, is out of the question. Daycare would kill us, besides the gas now that we live in the country. I am doing a little bit of selling from ebay, but I am still researching other options. I am looking at stuff like ProjectPayDay, etc. I could actually do something like this, when my man gets home in the evenings. We really want to be debt-free and are working towards that and then we still need to build something here to live on. This trailer is not going to last and putting more money into it just seems foolish as it's already almost 30 yrs old.

There is so much to peruse, on the internet, regarding home based businesses it's kind of overwhelming at the best of times. But I will keep searching and keep plugging along. There must be something out there for me. Too bad you can't find a place that pays you to proofread books for publishing. LOL!

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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. -Groucho Marx

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blessings, mommared

Book recommendation.............not an ad! LOL!

I was reading another blog today where the lady recommended a book she had recently read and it brought to mind a book that I really really enjoyed. The book is Created To Be His Helpmeet, by Debi Pearl and I really need to reread it. I read it a while back and it has really made an impact on my life. I am a pretty straightforward gal and this lady is too. I don't like 'beating around the bush' and Mrs. Pearl will NOT do that! As you can see from the title, it's about being your husband's helpmeet and boy does it give lots of insight, wisdom and most of all scripture.

I love this subject anyways, and this book was really something. I think they now have a companion journal for it, but I am still teaching myself to journal. HA! So I have not checked into that one.

I have given several of these books away and will continue to do so, for wedding showers and such. Also gives some good insight into what 'type' of man you might have.

Another good book that I recently read with my dh, was Wild At Heart. I cannot remember the author, but this was such an insight into men and boys and why they are the way they are. Often it was very humorous to read as it fit my men so well. We really enjoyed that one.

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The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. -1Cor 3:19

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blessings, mommared

Those days of................SUMMER????? and ramblings............

Well it looks like it may have happened again. What was I really expecting.....really? I mean it does this 99.9% of the time. Just because we had ONE year where we actually SAW a spring, doesn't mean I shoulda expected spring this year too! LOL! I blinked, and missed it............again! Ahhh Texas! Ok, well we might still get a few nice 70-80 degree weather days before it just jumps right into the 90+ stuff, but really......I shouldn't even hope! Ha!

And along comes the pollen! Woo hooooo! Our trees and plants have been so messed up anyways. Last FALL my lilac bush actually flowered TWICE, poor poor plants. They just don't know what to do.

The wee laddie had a fever and then woke up with the croup, but at least we know what the fever was from. He's much better today, although he coughed on and off most of the night. I ran the humidifier and rubbed his feet with baby vicks, but the only thing that seemed to help was for him not to sleep on his back.

The weather channels say that there are to be flash floods around us, so we may get to see the creek washed clean again. It's pretty clear now, but lots of slime on the bottom. Mosquito-ville, down in the shallows too.

Three day weekend for daddy, which we are always glad of.

I am still trying to sell our old property. We had a mess with the appraisal district when we moved and we were not getting our taxes. I thought I finally had that straightened out, when we got a notice on Sat saying that we owed 2 YEARS of back taxes on our old place. Apparently they had seperated the mobile home from the land. We had been paying the taxes on the land and wondering why the property value had dropped so much. We just figured maybe that happens when you leave a mobile empty for a while. But no, we never got the tax invoice on the mobile. They tried to tell me that I should have gotten 2-3 notices in 2006 and then again in 2007. The only notice we ever got was the ONE notice on Saturday. So now we had 2 yrs to pay AND late fees. Word of warning to the wise, never trust government agencies to keep up with things correctly. Be aware and be on them when you don't get your invoice! LOL! Lesson learned. Of course they cannot figure out why we got  all the others and not those too. Oh and we had paid EVERYTHING we did get, so why would we not pay for the mobile sitting ON the piece of land that we paid taxed on? HELLOO!!!!! And to try to put the blame on our postal carrier....WHY would they not deliver one particular piece of mail, several times 2 yrs in a row. Wow are they good? ha ha ha. So we are paid up now and hope to sell it soon. I didn't realize that I had it listed $2880 under the tax appraised value because we never got the invoice. I mean, it needs work, but now that's a deal, huh? LOL!

Live and learn!

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After the event, even a fool is wise. - Homer

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Blessings, mommared

More of my days.............

We made it through the final adoption hearing on Monday and our little boy is legally ours now! It was really kinda weird. You have this child, who has BEEN your child for over 3 yrs-almost his entire life, and you have to wait on other folks to say that it's ok for him to BE your child. LOL! I guess the weird thing is these people will never see him again, most likely, and will have no more input in his life but still they are the ones who say whether he can stay with you or not. Not trying to make that sound bad, it's just totally weird. Maybe others who have adopted can relate to me in that? It was a formal hearing and we actually had to take the stand again. We also had to listen to a divorce procedding before our turn. So sad.

We had several family members there and our little man had a hard time deciding how to spread himself thin enough to be in contact with all his favorite people at one time. Ha ha! He's quite a social little thing. He gets along with all age groups, but I attribute that to him not being confined to his peer groups alone. He was very excited and didn't really know why. He was hugging old people that walked by in the hallways. He felt very safe with all his own family right there with him. He made one old gents day by running up to him and wrapping his wee arms about his knees and hugging him. That man smiled everytime we saw him after that! I wonder if he will become some kind of diplomat someday. That could emcompass so many fields. ;)

Today the wee one is running a fever. Not to bad and really doesn't act sick, except to show that he is a bit achy. We are having movie day to get him to rest up. He really wants to go outside and play, and doesn't understand why mom will not let him just run amok out there.

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A boy's will is the wind's will. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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blessings, mommared

My Profile and this and that.

Last night my niece called me, funny girl that she is! She says, laughingly, "so how does it feel to live in Algeria?" Catching me off guard, as she often does, I am racking my brain trying to come up with something that she might be referring to. Did she hear something on the tv(we don't have one)? Is it an inside joke? Finally I say, "What?" and she proceeds to tell me that my profile says I live in Algeria. Ha ha ha! It's all fixed now.

So anyways, I DON'T live in Algeria, I don't even really know where Algeria is. I guess I will learn it when my son does, since we plan to homeschool! HA! Better get out those continent map puzzles and refresh myself.

But really why WOULD you need to KNOW where Algeria is, unless you live there! ;)

We finally got some rain and then ice. I was glad that the fruit trees had not opened their buds. They should be ok, if we don't get another freeze. The wee laddie had his flashlight out this morning shining it on the porch saying, "ICE!" LOL!

Crazy Texas weather, today it's supposed to be in the low 60's and then maybe more rain on Thursday. I am ready for the cold stuff to be gone completely. Come on summer! Spring is usually just one day long in Texas! :)

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If you choke a Smurf, what color would it turn?

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Blessings, mommared 

How does your garden grow............?

We got our garden tilled. I pulled grass runners out of it today and then threw out some crushed cow chips from the neighbor cattle. One more tilling ought to do it. Our peach and plum trees are starting tiny little buds and I am worried, a bit, about that as it's not even March yet. If we get another freeze...I would just hate to lose the peaches. Maybe our dog, Ruby, will keep the fox out of it this year. He pillaged it a few years back.

Think we will plant lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, sugar peas, zukes, cabbage, carrots, asparagas, spinach, eggplant, cukes, yellow squash, and maybe watermelon. We usually don't get many tomatoes at first, we finally figured out the boy was raiding the tomato plants. If you don't watch him he will eat them green even. He goes after the peas too. Oh well, it's good for him anyways. Already saw rabbit tracks in there today and nothing is planted yet. Maybe Ruby will keep him out too, yea right.

Our wee laddie says he wants a puppy. His got killed about a month back. Willie was turning into a great dog, our son's wrestling buddy, but he just wasn't too smart around the road. He followed his mom, Ruby, and got hit by a truck. We were all pretty sad, it's hard to find a good dog that everyone likes. He was just the right size too. We miss him. Ruby doesn't really like to wrestle. sigh........

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Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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This That and Tother

I don't know why or what I did, but when I signed on here I used a login that I use commonly, which is 'ibred1965', then named my blog under 'mommared04'. I guess it really doesn't matter, but it could be confusing when I am listed as on under another name than the one I sign my blogy by. How stupid, oh well I am just not real computer savy anyways. So now you know, HA!

I don't think I mentioned, previously, the flood we had here, after the draught. The water came up right under our backyard, literally about 4 ft down from our house. It was kinda crazy. I was home alone with the lad and we had just taken a walk -in our wellies- down by the creek, looking at the water rising. I pulled a metal chair up away from the water-or so I thought. We went back up and into the house as it started to rain some more. Our land is somewhat terraced with the house on the top part then the creek on the lower level flowing east. We have a cliff and the creek is down about 6 ft there, then the land levels out as it goes east towards the back of the property. Within 30 min the cliff was covered, the chair was...well not to be seen. At that time I was getting pretty tense and awaiting the arrival of my husband. We are right off a main road and there is a large bridge crossing the creek. We could see the police on the bridge watching the creek, which flows into a local lake. I didn't know it but, up the road, they were also holding traffic because, past us, the local town had flooded impassable roads. My husband was able to get through and once he was home we felt much better. Within another 30 min we were no longer able to access the lower level of land at all, the water was up to our dirt road. My husband explained that the water would have to cover the flat area across the creek before it would rise anymore on our side, which was reassuring.

We are still amazed at the debris we find. Our picnic table is a goner, we found it but its twisted and maybe unsalvagable. We found the chair and the wee table that went with it. Our burn pile is all over the place as is our campfire wood. Oh well, coulda been a lot worse, huh? We got most of the tree trunks cleaned up in the bottom area, except what is in the creek bed itself. Our 4x4 was out of commission until last Sunday. We still look up and see stuff in the trees....well over our heads! So that was our excitement last year.

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The crash of the whole solar and stellar systems could only kill you once.-Thomas Carlyle

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blessings, mommared

Robinson Creek Reds

Someone asked where this came from. Well we live on Robinson Creek. My brother actually kinda started it, in a way. He has a red beard. He has lived in this area, though not directly on the creek as we do, for about 18 yrs or so. We moved about 1/4 mi from him, about 3 yrs ago. Now....my husband also has a red beard, and I have red hair, no beard...sorry! :) So I thought of RCR, it's just fit. I think they are racing to see who can grow their's the longest, but my husband will win. My brother's has been the same length for years now and my husband's would grow and grow if we didn't keep it trimmed. LOL! They really look more like brothers standing side by side.  I LIKE em!

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A stout man's heart breaks bad luck.-Cervantes

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Out of debt!

So I think that the American Dream is now to be OUT OF DEBT! I believe it has become 'fashionable', at least among my friends, to be debt free. We are on the band wagon and really hope to be in about 4 yrs. That sounds like such a long time, but if you think about it, to be entirely debt free in 4 yrs time....well that makes it sound so much better. Who knows we may make it sooner, but we will see.

After that time we really would like to build our own home. Nothing spacious, or fancy, we are simple folk. I don't want to spend the rest of my life cleaning a big ol house that no one uses the rooms in. We want 1200-1500 sq ft, NO larger. We looked at the cutest shell home. I looked just like an old farmhouse that had had a porch built onto it. The paper we got, on it, was in black and white and we thought, "how cool to use cedar and let it age to that grey color". See I told you we are simple country folk. We love the look of aged wood, like an old barn, plus no upkeep in paint. We would probably seal it and do that every so often, which would be much easier than painting a place. We thought about some faux dry stack rock around the bottom. Anyways, it had the coolest upstairs, small but just enough for a master suite with a nice bath. I fell in love. It was so light and airy. We are hoping to do it in those SIP's (structural insulated panels). Think of the energy savings! At that point it would be livable while we finished out the inside, as we had the money to do so. I am excited just thinking about it.

It would look so nice, right here on the creek, like it was made to live here! It would also be our first 'real' house as we have lived in a mobile our whole married life. 8 ft ceilings just don't make you feel like you are in a house, ya know?

I do worry about the stairs up, I have bad knees. But I told my man that we could put in an elevator like Swiss Family Robinson! ha ha ha...uhmm...he actually thought it was doable! Oh my! Cool!

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Whom God loves, his house is sweet to him.-Cervantes

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Blessings

mommared

Sigh....here I go again!

Ok, I am going to give this one more shot. I keep saying that don't I? I am just not the blogger that I hoped I would be. But I will keep pluggin at it til I get it right!

I have tons of new news though, so that's a good thing. We passed our homestudy with flying colors and almost one yr later we have our FINAL ADOPTION date! Back in Oct we had the hearing to terminate parental birth parent rights and that was the first time, in all this, that we could breathe a sigh knowing that no one could come and take our son without getting a lawyer first. Before that his birth mom coulda shown at any time and just taken him off. Talk about stress, but.......Woohooooo! We will have everything finalized in March of this year. It will really be a relief. It's been a total of, just under, 2 1/2 yrs for the whole process. Our baby boy will have a new birth certificate with his new last name on it! How cool is that?

Well...he's not much of a baby anymore. I guess I have to start calling him little man(LM). He's almost 4 now and almost 40 lbs too. He's chattering away, mostly only understood by mommy although daddy gets more and more of it now. He is really trying now, as I thought he was never going to speak to me. LOL! It's so cool to have him saying real sentances and conversing with me through the day, I knew it would be.  LM loves to "help" and I have some really cute pics of him washing the dishes. You would really be suprised at how well he performs this task too! He watches you like a hawk and immitates what we do. He helped daddy till the garden space last night, he loved that!

I really enjoy being home with him. He watches my niece get off the school bus in the afternoons and he commented, the other day, "momma, Zaden no yucky bus!" I laughed so hard and told him that he did not have to ride the bus if he didn't want to. We pray we can homeschool him, at least to start. I will never say never to public school. I learned a while back not to tell God what I will and will not do. LOL! But we do hope to teach him here.

I think he will learn to tell time before he learns his basic stuff. He is so very interested in the clock and time. So I have been showing him the time and telling him how much longer he has to wait on such and such. He is really interested and daddy suggested we get his own clock for his room. The one in the living room uses Roman numerals, so I think will get him one with 'real' numbers and he will learn those too. He learning to count with very little prompting. You can't push him much, just let him do it by himself in a casual setting, he does much better then. He is not the least interested in the alphabet, but he is watching the Leap Pad Letter Factory and starting to mimic some of that. He's very visual and hands on.

As you can see, I am quite tickled by him. He's a real hoot and I am just awaiting the day when he starts to play practical jokes on his ol momma. I think he will be quite a joker, but then he will fit in with all his uncles even better!

Ok, I have really taken off on this today and feel like I have tons bottled up inside me. I should save some for a later entry.

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Have nothing in your homes that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.-William Morris

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Can you tell I am trying to declutter!

blessings today

mommared

Always something to be thankful for..................

Thankful that these rains are keeping the West Nile(WN) mosquitoes away, or say they say on the news. They said that the WN ones like stagnant drought type water and what we have now are Flood Water mosquitoes, so that's good to know, as you get ate up by them. I did find a product that's called Repel. It uses Eucalyptus and Lemon oils, you have to use it a bit more but it's better than Deet any old day. They fly around me but then fly off and try again later. LOL! It works on my son too. I wonder if there is anything to use to repel them off of the poor dogs? Will have to research that.

It's so muggy, but after that year of dry sinuses I said I would never complain about it being muggy again. So praise God for the humidity.

Our Clan Gatherings have not been too big this year. I don't think it will get any better as we finally get hot weather. So far we are getting about 10-15 people each time. It's still fun to get together. Last year we had it set for 5pm to ? and we had complaints about having to drive home after dark, from some older relatives so we changed it to Noon-? and those folks still have not shown up. LOL! We may change it back as it seemed a better time last year. This year we tried to have a 'theme' each month, but that is not going too well either. We totally botched the 'Highland Games', but I told my husband that none of us were strong enough to do those games anymore anyways. Can you imagine all of us 'mostly over 40's' tossing the caber around? ha ha ha We have another one coming up the 23rd of this month which also marks my son's 3rd birthday. Momma turns 42 on the 19th too, and Father's Day this month. Everyone gets a day in June!!!

We didn't get many plums this year, as the wild ones got caught in the flood waters at the creek and the ones by the house......well that one may never recover from the drought last 2 yrs. It's half dead and half alive and looks quite sad really. The peach tree is loaded and we are thinking of culling some of that fruit as the branches are starting to bend a bit with the weight. Our grapes, wild and domestic, are loaded and doing fine. Can't wait for that grape jelly, may try some with honey this year, or maybe I should stick with what we know until we get better at it. ;)

Blessings, Deidre

Snail Mail-a lost art.............and stuff.

So I knew I would do this, forget I had this blog. LOL! Oh well, try try again. I remember when I was in High School and I had tons of people that I wrote actual snail mail letters to, all week long. I guess when that is the only way you have to communicate that you do what you have to do. I have become lazy and don't do any letter writing anymore, sad to say. It's a lost art.

We are still waiting to get the report on our homestudy. We both feel like it went really well. It seems we have to continually prod our lawyer and that they kinda forget about us if we don't. So my husband sent them a query yesterday and they found that one of the ads, to be posted to find the missing bio-parents, had not been run. Good thing we asked, huh? LOL! So still waiting for the termination of parental rights.

Slowly getting more done on our remodel. We have almost finished the small bathroom and it looks tons better. Trying to make a mobile home look like a real house, on the inside, can be challenging. Texturing does wonders!! I think my man has come up with a solution for our kitchen. I so wanted an island but then there would be no place to eat meals. M has come up with the idea of a breakfast nook type table that can go in the corner and then I can still have my island. He is so smart!

We have tons of sqaush this year and are already passing it on to others. We ate our first homegrown corn on the cob, last night. It was good, I think we picked it just a bit early as it could have been sweeter. We are having the worms that get in under the leaves on the cob. They are gross, but we just cut that end off and ate the rest of it. We actually only had to cut off about 1 in or so and they weren't in it all. Ha ha ha, selective squeamishness. No way I was throwing out all those cobs.  OH well.

Carrots are growing but are not sweet and tastey, a bit spicey, kinda like a raddish. I think maybe we didn't get them enough water at the start of the season. Live and learn.

Husband is looking on ebay for stuff for our greenhouse. He really wants to get that going soon.

Our Dreams

My husband and I have 2 favorite dreams:

1) trip to Scotland

2)travel the US

We hope to homeschool our wee lad and that would make both of these more possible.

My dearest friend is in Scotland where she and her husband and family live on a nice big dairy/egg farm. Not sure what they would call it. :) So we HAVE been invited and just are awaiting the money and opportunity. My husband ancestors are from there, he is a Campbell on his mother's side. My folk are Irish and German, so I would like to see a little bit of Ireland too at some point. I am a Parnell on my father's side.

We would, someday, like to have an RV and travel to see all the historic sites in the US too. What a great learning experience for our son. We hope to do Route 66 also. We hope to impart our love of history to our son. He is already learning to love the stuff that daddy loves. I guess that some nice automobile museums will be visited on that trip. Ha! My man also loves anything about wars, Civil, WWI and WWII. The Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredricksburg, Texas is one of his favorite places to revisit.

We would also like to visit some more underground carvens. I think we have hit all the ones in Texas, except the caves of Sonora. We really like those and once took a whole vacation to visit caverns. I wonder if there are some good ones in Scotland? That would be too cool.

Questions??

I have a few questions on all this blogging and am hoping maybe someone will read it that can answer them for me! ;)

How do I look at the other folks blogs?

How do I find a certain person, must I know their address?

Can you search by a subject that you are interested in? Wild Foraging, for example?

How do I get all that cute stuff on my page? Remember you are speaking to the technically challenged here!

Can I put a picture of our family on my page?

I am sure that this is pointed out somewhere on here, but I am just not finding it. I would appreciate any help in this. Thanks!

May the light always find you on a dreary day.

If you need to be home may you find the way.

May you always have courage to take a chance,

and NEVER find frogs in your underpants!

blessings, Mommared

same day second verse

Thanks for the welcome. I really had no idea what to expect. I think I may be hooked already. LOL!

Someone asked about our greenhouse. It's unfinished and was on the property when we bought this place. It has a framed bottom with a series of arches made of metal pipe. My husband says it's probably 12'x30' or so. He said all we have to do is get the plastic to cover it over. I guess we will gravel the floor. We also have several more of the arches laying about if we want to extend it or make another smaller one close by.

We are talking about putting our garden down the hill next year. There is a pump down there and we could have a free water source from the creek. Since it would be out of sight of the house I do worry about the critters getting into it. We have deer, rabbits, raccoons and fox( or is that foxes?). Last year we caught the fox eating our fruit off of our peach trees. I hadn't known that they did that until I watched a Marty Stouffer film. It actually was IN the tree. Wonder what's a good way to keep the critters out of a garden?

I mentioned our Clan Gatherings. We hope to eventually build a pavillion with electricity, fridge, benches, game tables and a dance floor. My husband wants it to have sides that can be let down or propped out to let a breeze through. He got the idea from the old country dance halls, such as the ones in Luckenbach Texas. That would also make it possible and more comfortable to have our family reunions here. The area down by our creek is really nice as the lady who previously owned the place was going to put in an RV park, so there are electric poles already in place.

Our creek stays quite full all year and is over 6 ft in some places. We have wild blackberries all along the bank but I can never beat the birds to the ripe fruit. Anyone know if these transplant well? There is also a big mulberry tree but I don't have the climbing ability to get to those. We have native pecan and black walnut and the hugest acorns on our Burr Oaks. I am very interested in wild foraging and have found that you can use acorns in cooking bread etc. Will have to look some more but I think they are rich in tanin(sp) and you have to either roast or boil them to release it so that they are edible and not so bitter. I would be interested in any info on wild foraging, reliable books etc.

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones. Prov 17:22

blessings, Mommared