May 10, 2015

Days in the Life of Us

 Front center for attention whenever he can get it!
 Happy Birthday to me. The day started with a hail storm.

 I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of the lovely cakes (yes, plural) that were brought to choir the night before my birthday.  They were all SO delicious.  These are just the left over pieces so not as pretty as they were that night. Such thoughtful people in my life.
 Homemade gifts from the kids are always the best.
 Galadriel made an angelfood cake with strawberries. YUM.

 Plasma cars are a HUGE hit around here.... even the almost-19 year old can take a spin.

 In anticipation of Galadriel's graduation party, I wanted to conquer the feat of making pulled pork in an oven that was soft and tender and not dry along the edges as it is in a crock pot.  After some counsel with a friend and her lovely mother (they are the queens of delicious pulled pork).  I followed this.
 First I sliced up onions and placed them in the bottom of our turkey pan.  Then places 2 very big pieces of pork butt with a little ramekin filled with water in the center.  A little salt and pepper may be added here.
 I covered very tightly with the heavy duty tin foil (that isn't tin but still called tin).
 I cooked it in a 250 degree oven for 8 hours and it was perfect.  It pulled away so easily.
 It was delicious! (though this picture makes it look rather gross. Truly it was really, really good!

 Sam and Frodo went with me to a family's home to transplant some of their excess to our place.  Here Rosie and Eleanor are transplanting the spring raspberries.
 Frodo working on the holes for the fall raspberries.
 I started some gardening. The spring onions were transplanted from the other family's home.
 Cleaning out the rhubarb patch.

 Aragorn and I have been going for walks almost every evening, about 3 miles each time.  The sun set was really pretty this day, and lit up the trees a very pretty red.
 As usual the camera doesn't do the sunset justice.

 Eleanor was purple belt tested and graduated to blue belt.
 Here she is taking down Frodo.
 Great job, Eleanor.

 HFH ended their enrichment activities for the school year. This was the concert with the 1-5th grade choir.

 "We" (that doesn't include me really) are prepping the field to plant some giant pumpkins, or at least the man who has planted them with us in the past said he was bringing us some plants.  We planted rye in the fall to give nutrients to the ground, feed to the animals, and perhaps over-run the gypsum weeds.

 Frodo got his first turkey license.
 The abominable leaf pile.
 Marigold the flower child.
 Since we don't seem to have a green thumb we decided to give up on our Assisi garden so here Kili is helping Eowyn clear rocks and put them in a trailer to be moved elsewhere.
 A flower child boy... who attends Princeton....
 I don't know but this cracked me up as this boat went floating by being pushed by a skidloader.  Plain weird.  I'm just glad to see now that it is spring that the boat is being put away... *chuckle*
 Jughead King Kili.
 One of the ladies in our homechooling group put together a series of 3 field trips to the Space Place. The perfect thing for my 3 stooges, Merry, Pippin and Bilbo.
 In this first session we learned comets and how to make one.


 Bilbo touching the dry ice with a scissors to hear it (the scissors) ring.
 They made a comet flip book to watch the orbit of the comet.

 Karate class was held outside on this gorgeous day!
 We got some ducklings!
 And chicklings! oh so cute!
 Rosie working on planting one of the 75 trees we planted (50 hazlenut and 25 lilacs)



 Frodo working on a metal fence to house the barrels for feed and other not-so-pretty things.
 Aragorn soldering a piece on to something or other.
 We had some really beautiful warm days.
 Frodo practicing his trumpet outside.
 He's getting ready for a band concert on the 22nd. This year he decided to make his mom proud and play a solo as well.  I believe it is "In Dreams" from "Fellowship of the Rings".

 My jolly little fat man.

 I think perhaps he might work a little on his posture and presentation while playing the trumpet!
 We ended IHH (small homeschooling group) with a little celebration for the graduates (there was only one graduate ... Galariel)




 This day we were planting 1/2 dozen or so chestnut trees.  We also planted plum, peach, apricot and nectarine trees.

 I attended another Ladies of Divine Mercy meeting.  This time we had a Muslim convert to Catholicism who spoke. It was one amazing talk. He talked about how he was raised in Iraq in the Muslim. It was one of my favorite talks. What an amazing story.

 As we are preparing for confirmation (which is the day before graduation (eek!) this was an awesome find! Doves! Perfect for decorating the food tables.
Ewww. a giant ant hill. I mean giant. (what a terrible way to end a blog post!!)