Playing at the Park and More - The Walnut Acre Daily Thursday and Friay June 25 & 26, 2015

WORDS TO LIVE BY

Let your conversation be always full of grace,  seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Colossians 4:6

TODAY'S QUOTE

The difference between a smart man and a wise man is that a smart man knows what to say, a wise man knows whether or not to say it.  ~ Frank M. Garafola

ANIMAL UPDATES

Socializing the kittens

YARD AND GARDEN

The onions and potatoes are coming up pretty good now. 

Austin and I worked in the garden again this yesterday  - Austin was pulling weeds and I was cutting greens and also pulling weeds as I went. I was able to put another gallon bag of mixed greens in the freezer. 

WORKING, LEARNING, AND PLAYING TOGETHER

The boys watched this work from the front porch for about an hour and a half yesterday afternoon. The girls came out for about five minutes and then went back inside. 

The water line for our new neighbors isn't finished yet and they didn't work on it today because of the rain so I guess they'll be back next week.

This evening Austin and Doug worked on a lawnmower for awhile. 

OUT AND ABOUT

I had told the kids we would go to tjev park today and they've been looking forward to it. When I got up this morning  and saw how rainy it was I was afraid they were going to be disappointed. We decided to head out and see how things worked out.

First we ate a picnic lunch.

When we finished lunch it had stopped raining so went on to the playground.

After playing awhile we took a walk around the fish pond before heading home. 

 

DAILY DEALS

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The Walnut Acre Daily - Freezing Radishes, Yard Work and Other Fun

Walking With the King
He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. ~ 1 Corinthians 1:8-9
MORE HERE - Only Through Jesus

We Are Learning

Doug spent some time with CJ today helping him practice running the riding lawn mower. CJ was thrilled and worked on it for quite a while. Driving in a straight line was a bit of a challenge but he had so much fun!

We Are Reading
The only things we read today were Michael and CJ's bedtime stories this evening.

Homemaking Joys
The only real housework that got done today was dishes and laundry. This only about half of what I washed and the rest probably will not get folded tonight. 

In the Kitchen

We had leftover sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast, pizza bread and vegetables for lunch and chicken and noodles, and vegetables for dinner.


I read somewhere that radishes can be blanched and frozen so I'm trying it to see if we like them. I don't what we'll think of them after they've been frozen but I do know I really enjoyed just eating the blanched radishes after they cooled. They were milder and so tender, but not mushy. I ate a lot of them before they  made it into the bag to freeze.


 I also cooked and mashed more sweet potatoes to put in the freezer. I'm haven't reached the bottom of that 40lb box of sweet potatoes yet but I'm making steady progress in that direction. 

 Outdoor Fun
CJ has lots of wood that he would like to build a shed out of. Today he was making his plans and trying out different ways of doing this.

Part of the time Mykalin was his helper. Actually I think she did a lot of watching but CJ loved showing her his plans.

Doug had a mowing job for someone else today and Michael helped him load the trailor and then went with him. They took along his bike so he could ride while Doug mowed.

Our farmer neighbor and his son had some trouble with his tractor this evening so Doug helped work on it for awhile. I think they eventually got if fixed.

CJ's friend Kevin came over to play for about an hour this evening. This picture isn't very good because I took it through the kitchen window. Kevin has been here twice recently and he and CJ seem to get along really well.

Out and About
I'm still my friend's ride to and from work so I took her to work at noon today and am picking her up and taking her home when she get's off work this evening.


Doug has squad duty tonight (he's a volunteer EMT) and it's an all night shift which means he has to stay at the building tonight. He always has a hard time sleeping when he's down there all night so he'll be tired tomorrow.

In the News
I think it's really neat that SpaceX successfully launched it's mini space-shuttle and that it safely reached the orbiting space station. I dream of traveling into space one day, and I love to see these new developments. I've always been fascinated by space and space travel.

Daily Deals

Quote for the Day

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. ~ Winston Churchill

The Walnut Acre Daily - Tuesday May 8, 2012

Walking With the King

Now we ask you brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:12, 13

MORE HERE

We Are Learning

We are continuing with the Pretty Bugs theme as we will all week and possibly next week as well. We read our stories, songs and reviewed our memory verse that goes with this theme and then played a Pretty Bugs memory game.

We also worked on our Bb worksheets from here.

We Are Reading

Two of the books the kids chose for me to read to them today are 

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss 

and Read to Your Bunny by Rosemary Wells.

Homemaking Joys

Once again not much to report here. So far this week I'm barely keeping up with the basics. In fact, this evening Doug cleaned up the playroom for me because I just couldn't seem to get to the end of the work. Thank you, Dear.

And my kitchen still needs help. I should run another load of dishes in the dishwasher. But I'm too tired and it's not going to happen. And it's okay, they'll still be there in the morning.

In the Kitchen

We had pizza bread and fruit for lunch.

For dinner I made baked chicken with cheese sauce

salad with lettuce and radishes from the garden

 boiled radishes with butter

and macaroni and cheese. 

The boiled radishes were a new dish for us and both Doug and I really liked them. I had read a suggestion that putting a little lemon juice in the water when I boil them would help them keep their color but I forgot to do it. I simply boiled them with water and a little salt until they were tender. After I drained the water I added some butter and let it melt before I served them. This simple recipe is one I will definitely be making again. 

In the Garden

I finally got to work in the garden again today. 

I cut some of the lettuce that is growing like crazy.

I also pulled a LOT of radishes and also thinned out two rows of radishes that are coming along.

Now if I can just get to some of the weeds that are growing almost as fast as the lettuce and radishes I'll be glad. 

On Our Nature Walk

We continued our bug theme today on our nature walk. Khristian picked up several rocks that had interesting ant nurseries underneath them. We watched them for awhile and then carefully placed the rock back over them so they would be safe. It was interesting to watch the ants scurry to carry the larva somewhere safe as soon as the rock was moved.

We also found a spot we hadn't explored before and had fun finding the little "secret clearing" and "secret doorways" in it.

Other Outdoor Fun

We had a lot of other fun outside today as well.

Like climbing trees . . .

. . . finding caterpillars . . .

. . . and robin's egg shells . . .

. . . and just simply running as hard and fast as possible.

Doug even had the "fun" of changing the oil in all three vehicles this evening after he got home from work. He has recently become an AMSOIL dealer and since the vehicles were due for oil changes he ordered AMSOIL.

Out and About

Since my parents are on vacation this week they asked if I would gather the eggs while they are gone. This morning Amanda and I took the little kids down there and let them watch the chickens and play while I gathered eggs.

Oh, and Amanda told me that she'd better not be in any of these pictures so, like any good mother would, I took one while she yelled at me to stop!

Here are the eggs I gathered today. The six in the top row are duck eggs. We've never had duck eggs before and I'm looking forward to trying them.

Daily Deals


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