Easter Showers Bring Mud Pies and Marketplace Purchases

Posted by OfWoodandEarth May 08, 2026

Easter Showers Bring Mud Pies and Marketplace Purchases

Our little bitty bug turned three months old!

Time is flying by too fast. It always does.

This month didn't have a lot on the farm front.

The baby ducks and chicks were old enough to move to the hoop coop. From 15ish chicks and 19ish ducks, we were down to 10 ducks and 2 chicks within a week and a half. There was a hole in the hoop coop we didn't know about, and something got in and ate all of them. We ended up moving them to the peacock pen since it's completely predator proof. One chick died almost immediately (who knows). So we are back to square one with needing to get more chickens for egg production.

We built new roosting bars for the Egg Mobile (the new chicken coop that was an old horse trailer) as part of the ongoing efforts to update the trailer into a good coop. I had to first clean out all the poop that had accumulated all last fall and over winter....it was a lot. In the process of dumping it in the compost pile, I taught William to drive the mower (very, VERY, slowly). He was so proud of himself!

Daddy modified the trailer to bring home a new toy! This was his solution for figuring out how to get a 2000 lb piece of equipment home using nothing but a trailer and a winch. It actually went really smoothly!

This is Sam's new toy! He was purchasing a metal bandsaw and found this steal deal! It's a metal lathe that will allow Sam to not only drill holes, but also make channels and things. Not really sure. But I remember he said it would make fixing the finish mower a lot easier. Apparently, the finish mower was the first gen., so there's a lot of issues with it. Sam is trying to update it to the best of his ability while doing some maintenance (straightening brackets, sharpening blades, fixing wheels, etc).

And with the warm weather, we have slowly started getting back into a mowing routine. It's hard to get into an actual routine with the kids playing too many sports this season (whoops on our part), so we mostly get it in when we can. And with the bush hog and the bat wing finish mower being broken...we only have the 360* riding mower to contend with (the only one I can drive). So we fight for who gets to mentally check out for an hour or so, haha. But I do LOVE the smell of fresh cut grass while holding onto my sleepy babies. They each get headphones, a pillow at their back and cushion at their butts to help with bumps. I make them a ratchet strap seat belt so they can't fall off, and usually hug them with my feet. They conk out pretty quick. Just means we ALL have to take a shower when we get done, haha.

Onto the writing side of life:

Trulee and I attended our second ever writer's conference together! It was in Frankfort, and we had a great time and met some wonderful people! It really makes me think that science may not have been for me because I HATED science conferences with a passion. They were so boring and cold. These writing conferences are actual useful!

I took Hazel with me, and she was the perfect in and out of every social interaction. Which was a relief for me. I'm definitely not as confident and outgoing as my sister! Maybe a few years ago before grad school killed me (cue self-deprecating chuckle).

We went out to dinner with the president of the Bluegrass Writer's Coalition, some of the guest speakers, and an agent named Cherry. She's great! Pretty much all of them held Hazel for me at some point to "help", haha. AKA they wanted some of those good baby snuggles.

There was only one talk that I had to take her out for a little bit. She was fighting sleep but a couple laps up and down the hallway did the trick.

After the conference was over, Tru went out to dinner with the group for a second time (I had to get home to Mena...the other three were in BG with Sam). Her nosy self asked agent Cherry about my book proposal, and Cherry expressed interest in learning more (we really only got to speak briefly at lunch. She was otherwise booked by the time I signed up for the conference). After some minor edits she suggested, I printed out and mailed her my manuscript. There was something rather exciting about sending it out in the mail rather than submitting a few chapters online.

I announced GravissiMum either this month or last...not quite sure about the timeline. But it all happened pretty fast. I updated the website after getting some tips at the conference, picked out a headshot to use, and designed business cards.

I had the business cards and website done before the conference because one of the speakers I was meeting with was a website designer for authors. He had some really great tips.

I was trying to come out with several reels a week, but that was too much for me at the moment, and I'm still waiting on a lot of material from my illustrator to be able to make a lot of content. We are having to push back the release date, too, so I'm kind of holding off until I can get the entire draft of the book complete. But I have that coming along, I'm designing the back and front cover, and I'm planning a release party. Spoiler: June 13th (probably) at the little park downtown Harrodsburg 3-5pm. You all can stop by with your kiddos. We will have cookies, bubbles, chalk, music, and more! It's going to be a fun time, and we will do a read along and have a book signing and all the things. It's going to be great. I've already booked the date with the hope that we will indeed be able to release the book by then. Fingers crossed.

Onto the family side of things:

While I was switching dresses for my headshots, Rylee found the clicker, and she and Will took some silly pictures!

They are a mess!

We did the annual Easter Party at my mom's house as well as CCs. It was great! We thought it was going to rain, but the dear Lord was kind to us!

One of Sam's good friend's dad passed away. The memorial service was the day of the writer's conference, so Sam took the older three to BG and I stayed with the two littles. It was the first time we had split up like that. Don't tell Sam, but it was so nice with the house being so quiet! Even if I did have a busy weekend at the conference, haha. I think they had a good time, too. They went hiking at Shanty Hollow, and the kids got to see Sam's good friends again. Here's a picture of William with Uncle Dejan!

We also had a death in the family. Pink Nanny (Jewell Ballard) passed away at 101 years old. She was my mom's dad's mom.

Rylee lost her first big front tooth! It was pretty funny. She had dance pictures on Tuesday, lost her tooth on Wednesday, and had more dance pictures on Thursday for the other two classes. She's going to be missing a tooth between the pictures, haha. But she says her teeth fit together better now. Silly girl.