Farmer's Market Pick-Me-Up

This past Saturday morning, I was trying to answer emails while listening to the children bounce between fussing with each other and joining forces to make as much happy noise as possible. Jon was trying to catch up on some sleep in the bedroom since he's working such long hours now due to marching band.
I couldn't help but laugh at myself for thinking Saturday mornings were supposed to be relaxing. No one told my children that Saturdays were for lounging around. So, I decided we could use a change of scenery.
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Charlotte decided to stay home with Jon because she was convinced that we wouldn't get back in time for her to go to a birthday party hours later. Evan and I loaded up into the van and off we went to the Farmer's Market.
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The thing I love best at going to the market early on a Saturday morning is that you don't have to spend much money to get some really great things. It's also nice to say hi to the vendors that I've come to know a bit.
I brought home a small jar of local honey. It's a light tasting honey perfect for topping english muffins. I finally bought a small bowl to replace my Mother's Day bowl. Lastly I bought some goat's milk lotion and a bag of soap scraps. I put the scraps in a twist-tied onion bag and use it just like regular bar soap.
Evan also bought a little bag of sesame seed cookies but they were eaten too fast to snap a picture of them.
Here's the pretty little bowl with salt in it. I'm keeping this one far away from the soy sauce bottle.

I was in such a better mood when I got home. Getting out of the house for a bit and bringing home little treasures was just what I needed.

Charlotte's First Day Of Kindergarten

Decked out in her fuschia outfit (turns out she already had fuschia socks and shoes), Charlotte was ready for school this morning. It has been a tradition in my family since I started kindergarten to take flowers to your teacher on the first day of school. Charlotte picked out purple mums for her teachers this year.
She loves her Dora bookbag that Jon got her in New York City a few years ago.


This just might be my favorite picture of her.

Here is Charlotte standing outside of her classroom this morning. I love this palm tree. Not only is it cute, it's also really easy for her to see down the hall so she can find her room on her own without getting anxious. (Okay, fine, it was probably me who was anxious that she wouldn't be able to find her room. What can I say, she's been my baby for so many years. It's hard to admit she doesn't need me as much as I think she does)

And here she was getting off of the bus this afternoon. After brief panic over the bus driver telling me there was no Charlotte on the bus, we found her with the help of the kids around her. The seat backs are so tall and she's so little that you couldn't see her sitting next to the window. I don't think she realized that it was her stop so she was enjoying looking out of the window. The bus driver felt bad for not realizing she was on the bus and assured me that she would look out for her next time.

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Charlotte has been telling me all about her day. She's changed her favorite part of her day a few times since coming home but they include playing with playdough this morning, watching the smart board design while listening to music during rest time, and a funny scavenger hunt. She said the cafeteria was really loud but fun. Recess was hot but she liked the slide. She thought it was cool that the computer lab was upstairs. There are 4 stalls in the girls bathroom and paper towels which is good because she doesn't like hand dryers. Riding on the bus was loud and hot but she liked watching the stop sign swing out at each stop.

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It's almost bedtime now and she's so tired that she has the giggles that won't stop. She can't wait to go back to school on Monday!

Twas The Night Before Kindergarten....

Tomorrow is the big day... the very first day of Kindergarten!


Charlotte couldn't be more excited. I thought I'd show a few pictures of how we've gotten ready for the big day. We ordered her lunch box from lunchboxes.com. I wanted her to have a lunch box with a matching thermos like I used to take to school. She picked My Little Pony.


Earlier this week we went to her open house.

She found her seat. She got to meet her teacher and her teacher's assistant. I was thrilled to find out that her teacher is actually a friend of mine. It's nice to see a familiar face when this transition to "big school" can be so overwhelming.

This is the school library. The school is almost brand new. Last year was it's first year open. Our school system is pretty big and her school has 900 K-6th graders! That's a big change from my little elementary school that had 200 kids.

Charlotte is VERY excited about the cafeteria. She has been ready to pack her lunch box for months now. She can't wait to eat lunch at school.

After open house we went to Walmart to pick up her school supplies. Charlotte had school money from Aunt Suzanne & Uncle Dave and Grammy and Grandpa. We gave her a little guidance but let her make the decisions on what to buy.

She bought a new outfit for the first day of school. I love that most skirts come with shorts under them for this age. She has yet to learn how to sit lady-like in skirts.

She had a lot of fun in the hair accessory department. I love fixing her hair in the morning so having a bin full of new hair stuff is pretty exciting for me too.

And of course she got her school supplies too.

Charlotte and I packed her lunch this evening and got her clothes all laid out. I'm hoping she doesn't wake up too early tomorrow morning because she has a big day ahead of her. I can't believe how grown up our little girl is.

Processing Broiler Chickens

*** Warning*** This post shows chickens during processing but does not show any blood***

My sister was generous enough to raise 25 broiler chickens for our family. She blogged about their progress several times. The chickens were Cornish Cross chickens. Some people don't think this breed of chicken, bred for fast, large growth, can free range. You should have seen these almost 11 week old chickens running across the yard when it was feeding time. They were very mobile and would wander around the yard, through the woods, and follow you everywhere.


While the kids and I were visiting a few weeks ago, we processed the broilers. This was the first time I've seen a chicken killed and participated in getting a live animal ready to be eaten. I was a bit nervous but I felt like it was important to help... not only because I didn't want my sister to have to do the work by herself but also because I thought it was important to learn what really went into getting an animal ready to go on the table.

We got a few things ready the night before. Katie took some scrap lumber and quickly made a stand that the killing cones would be mounted on.

It was really sturdy.
Then David helped to make the killing cones from thin metal flashing. He used rivets to fasten the cones. We put duct tape around the edges of the flashing to protect ourselves from the sharp edges. This was the first part of our set up. We had the killing station and the plucking station.

Here are the cones being used. The chicken goes head first into the cone so the head and neck is accessible. The bungee keeps the chickens from flipping themselves out of the cone when their muscles contract.
I killed one chicken but I was very relieved that Katie did the rest. It was unnerving to do the actual killing. Once the chickens didn't have head anymore, it didn't bother me at all. They suddenly became meat once their heads were gone. I stuck mostly to the plucking station.



Before we could start plucking we swirled the chickens around in hot water for about 30 seconds to loosen the feathers.

Then we took them to the power drill plucker. (Not sure why it looks like I have a hump in this picture) David and Katie built a plucker with pvc fittings, rubber straps, and a power drill. As the rubber straps would spin, they would take a lot of the feathers off.

Katie was really good at the power plucker. You can't tell by the picture but there were feather flying everywhere. We tried to catch most of them in the blue tote and the board behind it caught a lot of the others which made clean up a bit easier.

After we had all of the chickens plucked (they went straight into a barrel full of cold water), it was onto the gutting station. We had been working for about 4 hours at this point and it was nice to be able to stand up straight and work away from the hot pot of water.

Katie showed me how to gut the chickens and I gutted one by myself. Then we worked out a system where I would start one chicken (cut off it's feet, and other wise prep it for gutting) and hand it off to Katie while I started another one.

Katie was a good teacher and made this stuff look so easy. I felt clumsy sometimes but got the hang of it after a while.

After about 7 hours of work, we had this to show for it...

I don't know when I've been more tired but I was so happy with the work we had just done. I was glad that I not only "got through it" but got comfortable with most parts of the process. I think the chickens had an average weight of 4.5-5 pounds but Katie's scale was acting up.

We tried to add up the expense of raising them and it averaged about $6.50-$7 a bird. That's a great price for free range chicken. I'm so grateful to Katie for the hard work she put into raising them.

Maryland Blue Crabs!

While we were at my sister's house a few weeks ago, I got to enjoy one of my favorite things about Maryland.... Blue Crabs! We had a cook out and Dad and Lisa bought the crabs. Thanks guys!

Evan preferred the watermelon and hotdogs. Both of the kids tried a bite of crab meat but they both wrinkled their noses. You can tell my kids haven't been raised in Maryland.

Devin made quick work of his watermelon. Katie's kids loved crab meat. I was hoping that would rub off on my kiddos but no such luck.

The highlight of the whole visit for Evan was a ride on Uncle David's lawn tractor. David let him steer it all by himself. It was only moving about 1 mile and hour. Evan's face was so serious with concentration. When David turned off the tractor, Evan said, "Want to drive more!".

Devin finished parking it in the garage.

My brother, Chris and my Dad had a battle with pop ball shooters that Dad brought for the kids. It was fun watching them play like kids.

Then Chris turned the shooter on Katie who was taking the picture.

The next day, Katie and I picked the crab meat from the half bushel of crabs that were leftover. We split the 2 pounds of meat between us and froze it. Now I have a pound of blue crab meat in my freezer for crab cakes this winter!

Knitted Birthday Gifts

This year I've tried to knit as many birthday gifts as I can. I like the challenge of finding something that I think the recipient will like.

While I was visiting my sister, Kylee and David celebrated their birthdays.
For Kylee I knitted a necklace and a doll necklace from a "Bag Smith" Dazzling Dangles kit. It was the first time I've incorporated beads in my knitting and it was much simpler then I thought it would be. The necklaces came together pretty quickly.

There was enough yarn to make Charlotte a matching set.

I knitted my brother-in-law a truck washcloth. Katie told me that the kid's Easter washcloths I made them were too small for David's hands so I was sure to make this one big enough. I used this pattern . I used a size 8 needle instead of 6 to make sure it turned out larger and I added a few stitches to each side to make the cloth wider. I think he got a kick out of the trucks.

Our Visit to Katie's House

The kids and I traveled to Maryland during the first week of August to stay with my sister and her family. Jon was going to be working 12+ hours a day since it was the first week of marching band camp so he stayed home.

My sister, Katie, also blogged about our visit.


I helped Katie bring some of her homemade crafts to her local fair grounds to enter them.

I loved her picture of her turkey. Unfortunately she didn't place with this picture but she did really well otherwise.

Doesn't everyone have turkey's on their roof??

Evan liked playing in Elmer's crate. See... you can give kids all kinds of fancy toys and what do they play with?.... animal crates!

Charlotte had a great time playing with her cousins, Kylee and Devin.




On Saturday, Katie, Evan and I went to their local farmer's market. There were some beautiful booths set up by the vendors. Our local farmers don't worry so much about aesthetics. I enjoyed seeing their displays.

I love the bell tower in the background.

This bakery stand had the most beautiful breads. I bought a loaf of sourdough. It was beautiful.

Evan enjoyed checking out the canon.

Katie has a few guineas and boy do they make a crazy amount of noise! They have such beautiful feathers though. I love the soft gray of this guinea.

Evan made Katie beautiful. Devin is playing cards with David in the back and if you look carefully, you can see Charlotte in the doorway wearing her tutu.

Broiler chickens, laying chickens, turkeys, and guineas.... who ALL run at you if they think it's time to eat. It was a sight to behold!

I helped Katie can some venison steaks. She got a new pressure canner for Christmas and this was it's maiden canning voyage.

My job was to stuff the jars full of the meat and broth and get the air bubbles out. (I love the way that Elmer sits with his bottom tucked under)

We had a great week. It made me really sad that we don't live closer.... maybe one day.