Our Four in July
Our Four in July
I remember July being busy at the time, but now I can't remember why. I think we had birthday parties, Fourth of July celebrations, and a yard sale we were prepping for.
But first, a few pictures from Ryan and Jadyn's wedding in June.
This is Nanny. My great-grandmother, which means she is Mena's great-great-grandmother. She will be 100 years old on November 29th this year.
Sometimes, all you can do to keep stinky boys calm (and keep them from running away) is flip them upside down!
One of the largest farm projects we did that month was build a ramp for our ducks. There were a few reasons but the main one was we wanted to encourage the ducks to go back into their coop. This kept them safe at night and would encourage them to lay eggs in the nesting boxes (instead of willy-nilly around the pond and surrounding area).
Due to the size, Sam build it on the trailer so we could easily move it with the tractor later. We spent a week or so working on it in the evenings when Sam got home from work, which meant we had the perfect opportunity one night for a picnic dinner.
We also had to keep working around the rain.
Definitely, the most difficult part for Sam were the ballasts. He wanted there to be a dock at the end of the ramp that would float up and down with the pond as the water level changed through the seasons. He decided to use two barrels that we could hook up to a garden hose to fill will water until the dock was at the perfect height.
Of course, we tried to finish the dock the day we had to go to Bowling Green to celebrate Poppi's retirement. We were a little later than we planned.
And Sam was a little redder....but we made it!
I ended up having to walk the dock through the pond from where we put it in the water down to where we needed to connect it to the coop. No snapping turtle bites but lots of mud! I swear, I sank down to almost my knees in the mud, and my shoes nearly stayed behind.
It took a few weeks for us to get around to it, but Sam finally balanced the dock by filling the ballasts with water and placing some concrete blocks as weights.
The final result!
Sam was still super into auctions at the time. One of the things we won was a cute vintage screen door. I decided to sand and paint it for the chicken coop along with a shudder I wanted to use for a display at craft fairs this fall.
When doing hive inspections this month, we discovered an invasion of hive beetles. The "experts" online said to use dryer sheets or stiffer pads, so we decided to try both. The feet of the hive beetles are barbed and get caught in the sheets as they walk over them.
Since we are supposed to do a light hive inspection every to weeks, we try to replace the sheets then as well. This was the first time we took them off. They caught a lot of beetles, but they also caught a lot of bees. The Swiffer pads tend to catch less bees and are more consistent in terms of the numbers they catch. The dryer sheets catch more bees and some sheets catch only a couple and some are covered (like in the picture below). Right now, we kind of split the difference and just do two dryer sheets and two Swiffer pads per hive box.
Since I wasn't removing frames, and just lifting deeps up to take sheets out and put them back in the corners, I didn't think I would need my smoker. Boy was I wrong.
I got stung 12 times. Through my suit. The bees were so at war with the hive beetles that they took their anger out on everything that got too close. Which just so happened to be me.
We continued picking blackberries and making jelly for the craft fair.
We did have a bit of craziness that happened with the chickens. I found a stash and thought that they were younger than they actually were (and didn't realize the chickens had been sitting on them). We had several clients that reported interesting finds in their eggs. We ended up having to give our customers a free dozen if the found yuckiness. One customer reported it was a fun science experiment for their kids, though.
The family side of things was also busy. Of course there was Fourth of July. We made our tie-dye shirts.
In addition to our usual fireworks at the lake and fireworks at CCs house for her and Aunt Terri's, we also took the kids to the park.
Daddy and Rylee ended up watching fireworks on top of the car.
The grand finale was was amazing!
When Sam and I went to pick up an auction, we met a sweet family that was moving to California. In addition to picking up the items we bought, we ended up buying some more goodies from the garage and being gifted their avacado and fig trees. The fig tree is a sprout from a sprout that was transported over in their great-grandfather's suitcase when they immigrated from Lebanon (modern day Syria) in the 1800s.
Another thing we got from them was this MASSIVE water slide for $15. It's heavily used and comes with its problems, but it was a great new toy to play with this summer.
We went hiking with family.
And here's our cute pictures as always...
Mena Grace with her God daddy!
We finished the month setting up for the 127 yard sale. We took the camper and stayed at the fort again this year, and the kids really enjoyed it. More on the success of the sale next month....
But after the first day of hard work with set-up, the kids were out!
Enjoy a dairy-free dessert recipe on me!
SUGAR COOKIES
Ingredients:
1 cup butter (or one cup of plant butter)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 large egg
2 1/4 cups of flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Directions:
1. Warm the butter up in the microwave until it starts to melt. You want to let it melt for a few seconds.
2. Cream the sugar into the butter then mix in an egg until just combined.
3. Preheat the oven to 350*F
4. Sprinkle the baking powder and salt over the mixture.
5. Add the flour and mix until just combined, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl.
6. Make small bowls of dough about the same size and put them on the pan about 2 inches apart.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the edges have started to pull away from the pan.
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