Dog Sitting

The neighbors are out of town for the next two weeks, so we are dog sitting.  They have the tiniest dog.  Her name is Minnie, and she weighs in at a whopping six pounds.  This makes for the perfect size dog for Rachel.  She loves to walk the dog, but sometimes Cookie will snatch the leash out of her hands when he tries to go after something.  Not a problem with Minnie.  Rachel thinks it is so neat to have a dog of her own to walk.  She is actually getting pretty good at it, and is learning to stop when the dog wants to go potty.  In the past she just kept going and would end up dragging Minnie down the sidewalk.  Poor Minnie.  I know she is always glad when her family comes back home.   

Becoming One With Nature

We went to the beach a couple of weeks ago.  The wind had been blowing like crazy for days, so the surf was rough.  There were jellyfish washing up on the beach, as was seaweed and the small little reef fish that call the seaweed home before the grow up and move on to the reefs.  The large surf was also causing problems for the land dwellers as well.  We find a ghost crab washing around just at the water's edge.  They live in holes they dig in the sand and are not swimmers, so he was not a very happy crab (I guess you could say he was a little crabby-sorry, just could let that one go by!).  He was still alive, so we carried him up out of the surf zone and placed him in a dune area.  He was a little worse for wear so he did not put up much of a fight.  I remember catching these guys on the beaches of Alabama when we were kids.  Since they can pinch pretty hard, we didn't usually pick up ones this large.  This one did latch on to my finger, but it was at the nail and he was not pinching very hard.  The girls really enjoyed seeing the crab up close.   

 

About two weeks ago the girls come running into the house yelling for me to look at what they had found in Allison's garden.  In their hands they held five caterpillars.  They had found them munching on the parsley.  I first thought, that the girls had pulled them off the parsley because they didn't want the caterpillars eating it, but they informed me that they wanted to put them in a container and watch them grow and change into butterflies.  So they set them up in our little ladybug habitat, and we looked them up online to find out what they were.  Turns out they are black swallowtail butterflies.  Anyway, for the next week we picked parsley from the garden to feed the caterpillars and watched them grow.........and grow.....and grow!  Those things quadrupled in size and they did it fast.  Allison must be growing some healthy parsley.  Of the five caterpillars, four have survived to morph into their chrysalis.  We have moved their habitat into a butterfly enclosure and are now anxious awaiting the arrival of butterflies. 

Allison and I got out and enlarged her garden recently (just before the discovery of the caterpillars).  She was just itching to plant more "stuff", and she had run out of room.  She immediately got more plants and seeds and proceeded to fill up all the new space too.  She has been getting quite a few tomatoes, lots of parsley, a few strawberries and a few green peppers.  She finally got a green pepper to grow bigger than a quarter and was so excited.  We had to cover the strawberry plant, because apparently strawberries are irresistible to the local wildlife.  Tomatoes are too, but there are more of them, so they stand a better chance of getting into the house to be eaten by the human consumers.  Her newest plants are beans and jalapeno peppers.  Wonder if the wildlife will like the jalapeno peppers?     



Harmony Farms Showtime

Rachel has completed her third year of horseback riding.  There is no way that I can over exagerate how much she loves it.  She talks about her horse every day........."Horsey......Pepper.....Trot.......Ride."  To the best of my knowledge she is saying that she wants to go riding;  she wants to ride Pepper;  she loves it when Pepper trots;  and she wants to know if today is the day to ride.  At least that is what I think she is saying.  I hope she is not saying please don't take me to see the horsey, I don't ever want to see Pepper again, it scares me to death when he trots, please, please don't make me ride anymore....Ha!!

Below are some pictures taken a couple of weeks ago when Rachel was participating in her Showtime.  It is going to be a long summer without horseback riding.  I hope Rachel can make it until September. 

Awwwwwwwww!!!  The girl loves her horse! 

Where To Begin........

As usual, time is getting away from me.  I would like to use the excuse that something out of the ordinary was going on, and I just couldn't find the time to blog.  But that is not the case, as I have just let myself get bogged down in the everyday stuff.  Like.........

Packing lunches for school.  I usually get the right foods in the right lunchboxes without so much as a thank you, but believe me they let me know when I mix them up.  A mom's work is under appreciated.

Getting the kids up for school in the mornings.  As the year progressed, the kids got harder and harder to get up in the mornings.  This was one of Rachel's particularly rough mornings.  She actually went back to sleep in the floor!

Taking the big girls to riding lessons.  They have actually found something they love to do.  They looked forward to Monday afternoons all year.  They will be taking a break for the summer, as they will not be going regularly on Mondays, but the lady is so easy going she said the girls could come out from time to time to see all of the horses and various other animals she has.

Taking Rachel to riding lessons.  Another year for Rachel has come to an end.  She has completed her third year at Harmony Farms and loves it more now than she did when she started, if that is possible. She talks about riding ALL of the time. 



Taking a long weekend trip to Vegas with a friend.  This was a welcomed change of pace for me.  I had a great trip out to Vegas with a friend I had not seen in seven years and a cousin I had not seen in at least ten years.  It was so good to get to see them both again, and there is nothing better than having friends that you can pick up where you left off.  Thank you Laura and Lori for a great trip!  

Going on a camping trip during spring break to Manatee Springs State Park.  We set a record with this trip.  We had never camped out for more than two consecutive nights.  This was a three night trip, and much to my surprise, one of the best trips ever.  We had perfect weather  (it was a little cooler than we expected at night and I had to run to Walmart to by blankets for the beds, but cool is better than hot!) The springs were beautiful, and the kids had a great time.

Taking the kids to the beach.  It has still been a little chilly, but the kids have had a great time.  We pretty much have to take along a friend now for the girls to want to go, so we always have an extra kid or two along with us.  

Celebrating guinea pig birthdays.  We have had the guinea pigs for one year as of April, so the girls wanted to give them a birthday party.  The pigs were none to happy about wearing party hats!  One of the guinea pigs has been having breathing problems for a while and I have been making multiple trips to the vet to try to figure out what is going on.  He is now being treated for pneumonia after his chest xray (yes, you read that right....his chest x ray)  showed some consolidation in his upper lobes.  He is now on two antibiotics and a probiotic for the next several weeks.  I am getting pretty good at giving meds to guinea pigs.  Last year at this time I was treating the other pig for an abscess and he was on antibiotics for several weeks.  These are two expensive guinea pigs.  Please remind me of this when the kids start asking for more guinea pigs in the future.

Celebrating Easter.  I hope I did not let Allison go to church with her hair looking like this.  I think Mike took these pictures before we were ready to walk out the door.  At least I hope so.  We had a nice Easter Sunday.  We went to church, went out to lunch, and headed to the beach in the afternoon.  Very relaxing.

Praise You in the Storm

I loved this video that someone made right after the tornadoes rolled through Alabama in April.  The destruction seen in the pictures is incomprehensible, but the songs remind us to keep God at the center of our lives no matter what we are going through.  I am still praying for those struggling to get their feet back on the ground in Alabama.  Thankfully all of my family was okay.  One cousin lost his home, but his family and even his dog were spared.  Praise be to God!