Slurp, slurp, snuffle, *GASP*

Making BoGah cute

I've heard that the emotional drain of adding a newborn to one's family can be abated somewhat by dressing said newborn in cute clothes. Cute clothes have never been a priority for me before, but with baby #3, I'm willing to try ANYTHING that might help me bond with him faster and truck through the zombie phase ASAP.

So, I jazzed up some newborn shirts with fabric scraps and tidbits of worn out kids' clothes. Here are the first few:

A few pairs of coordinating footy pants are in the works, too, with brightly-colored waistbands and maybe some appliques of their own. It's an easy project for 1-2 evenings at the serger. Who knows what the payoff will be, but I can't imagine that cuter clothes could hurt the situation, right?

Garden Update

We're in the midst of a serious drought, yet my garden is small enough that I can water it as needed and keep things growing. It's been so hot, though, that very little is producing like I had hoped. We pulled up the onions and carrots today...sigh...such a dismal, grubby bunch....stunted...desperate. I may not try growing either of those for a while. Carrots will return sooner than onions, if I can just prep the garden bed deep enough for them to stretch out properly!

The green bean and lima plants are bushy, green, and flowering but absolutely barren in this heat. I'm leaving them in place until frost just to see if we can get some sort of harvest in the cooler fall.

I just did a little more reading on strawberry plants and it turns out they kinda fizzle out after 18 months. You essentially need to buy new plants every year, or propagate them in a high-maintenance way. Our berries have done really well despite the heat, and they're still giving us 1-2 cups of berries every other day or so:

This is the south side of the berry patch, farthest from the squirrel hole in our netting. The squirrel nibbles and enjoys the north side berries. He hasn't ventured this far, yet, and I haven't mustered the energy to fully squirrel-proof the patch. It's clear, though, that we could plant these guys much closer together in the bed next time. So much wasted space! I like the fresh berries all summer, so I'm probably going to order more berry starts next year. Long term, I may decide to save money and learn the high-maintenance propagation method.

Our large tomato variety is finally turning red! We'll see how greedy the squirrel gets with these guys:

 

And the sunflowers! I love our sunflowers. I'll plant these again next year, for sure. Low maintenance, rapid growth, and beautiful blossoms with excellent food potential. The seeds on this one are just starting to get their stripes. Each seed has its own tiny yellow flower for fertilization:

The apple trees have both developed Cedar Apple Rust (CAR). It's a very common fungal disease in the midwest:

Image source: http://www.apsnet.org/publications/imageresources/Pages/rust044.aspx

I should have done more research before selecting the apple varieties I did, however, because it's pretty hard to grow Honeycrisp and Red Rome Beauty apples organically. Those varieties tend to be "susceptible" and "highly susceptible", respectively, to CAR. Check out this University of Arkansas bulletin for the full list. So, I'm faced with a choice: 1) take on a high-maintenance organic treatment regimen (depending on the state you live in, some fungicidal sprays are approved for "organic" agriculture), or 2) rip out these susceptible varieties and plant resistant ones next year. 

It's only two trees, really, and it's easier to take them out now than in 10 years, and new trees will only cost $20-30 each (I don't know how much 10 years of fungicidal spray will cost) but I'm not convinced (yet) that the resistant varieties will have the flavor and eating qualities I'm looking for. Gotta do more research...sounds like a good winter project when I'm just sitting around with nothing to do...LOL. While I'm at it, I should also take a good look at ALL of the fruit tree/cane/vine diseases common to my area and find resistant varieties to plant...again.

I am tempted to grow only fruit next year, 'cuz I know we'll all eat as much as we can of it :)

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week has felt very long.  I didn't do too much, but our family did a lot.  Robert has been getting better with the potty training.  Today he actually told his nursery teacher that he needed to use the bathroom.  And he went all day without an accident several times.  Our trick, we bribe him with candy.  He gets one big treat if he says dry all day and another if he stays dry all night.  He also gets small ones each time he uses the bathroom.  I am sure it is not great for his teeth, but it is helping our sanity.

We had a very busy day yesterday.  Alice had a birthday party with swimming.  We all got to go swimming for a little while afterwards as a family.  We also cleaned the church. I was very proud of Alice because she mopped the floor of both bathrooms we needed to clean all by herself.  It was a good week, just very long.

How are you feeling?

When one is obviously pregnant, she often gets the question, "So, how are you feeling?" Lately, I'm feeling a bit like this:

But life is good. I'm making progress on preparations for BoGah. Buddy helped me put up the crib, protesting that it was still 'special' to him and should go back into his room. I pointed out that a crib's job is to trap babies inside whereas his new bed gives big boys the freedom to come and go as they please. He didn't seem to mind the change as much anymore. I located a little dresser and put the changing table in there, too. All the sewing stuff is stacked neatly in the closet, except for the sewing machine and a small pile, because I have an equally small desire to finish a couple sewing projects before BoGah arrives (more on that to come soon, I hope).

As for names, I have a good list of 6 that I'm considering. Bobby finds them suitable as well. We're going the traditional route yet again: David, Neal, Matthew, James, Joseph, and Thomas are the front runners. The babe will probably be nicknamed BoGah for the first little while, just because that's what we're all used to calling him already.

Alice and I have been making preparations for school to start, too. We're sorting through boxed clothes, collecting some new ones, and gathering other essential gear. This girly loves to get new stuff, but every once in a while she randomly bursts into tears wishing she never had to go to a new school. I've been asked the question, "Why do things have to end?" too many times this week to count. I am confident that she will LOVE kindergarten. She just doesn't like the ominous unknown future. Hopefully, we'll get her teacher assignment soon and see how many of her current friends will be in her future class (Alice is one of 4-5 kids in our acquaintance entering Kindergarten at Yankee Ridge this year). That should help, I think, unless her bestest, besty, super-best friend of all time just happens to be assigned elsewhere (in which case, I foresee utter devastation and a quickish recovery with periodic relapses of unpredictable magnitude and duration...LOL! This is my life with Alice).

Alice finished her last day of summer camp today. We're all a little sad about it. She had a great camp leader this year, Kaley, who was clearly interested in the kids as much as the activities she ran them through. Now we have 3.5 weeks until school starts, largely unstructured at this point. There's a short family vacation/staycation to St. Louis in early August, and perhaps other staycation-like activities strewn about (dare we try a Drive-In movie?). I should try to work that out a little more before diving right in :)

New "Hicken House"

We finished the new chicken enclosure/house/coop/pen thingamajig. It's big. It's sturdy. It's a thing of beauty and functionality:

 

The original plan included a stylish tarp/tent over the arched part to protect the chickens from rain and snow. I still have the materials on-hand, but I'm not in a rush to get them out there. The major point of this design was to create a "deep litter" system where the chickens essentially live on our compost pile. We throw our kitchen and garden scraps out there, they eat what they want, poop all over the place, and scratch around to keep the straw and wet stuff mixed up. In my experience, traditional composting needs water to keep the microorganisms happy. Maybe I don't want to shut out rain and snow, eh? I'll try it without the tarp/tent at first. If things get too stinky or sticky, I can keep it drier. The chickens themselves still have that little sheltered perch under the red coop to stay dry during rain. They are old enough to start laying any day, now. 

I also swore that this would be the last big project before the baby is born. And it is. But of course, my thoughts have moved to the grapes that are just now starting to turn the faintest blush of purple. I have other big plans...next year's plans...but it doesn't hurt to start researching now, does it? Rip out the old fence and shrubberies and grapevines on the north side of the house, prep the soil, build the 6' trellis, identify grape varieties that are hardy and disease resistant and good for organic production, plant said vines, and let them grow. I just can't decide how many fresh eating grapes I want versus juicing grapes. The only tasty way I know to preserve grapes is through juicing and jellying, unless someone else has another idea?

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week was mostly low key, except for the chicken coop.  Susan already talked about that so I don't have a lot to add besides saying thank you to everyone that helped out with it.  Sorry I wish I had more to add.

In Progress...

With some generous help from our neighbors (Wayne with lifting/constructing, Diane with entertaining the kids), we've come this far in assembling the new "hicken poop", as Buddy calls it:

We're taking a break for lunch while Wayne creates a custom crossbar for the top of the pen (to help stabilize the top bars and secure the hardware cloth better). It's a very, very, very sturdy structure. Once we put on the top crossbar, we'll apply the last strips of hardware cloth to the sides and top, then put the ladies back inside. The ladies are currently spending time in the garden, enjoying the shelter of the sunflowers:

 

I had a doozy of a time moving the chickens from the old pen into the garden. They fought me every inch. Silly, untrusting, squacking, flapping biddies. Our other neighbors heard the commotion through their closed windows and came out to see who was tormenting the poor birds. Pbbbsh.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week has been anything but normal, and it is almost all thanks to Robert.  He was sick this week, as Susan already stated. Luckily he did not get that sick, but we did have a few sleepless nights.  Then on Friday he was at one of our neighbor's house, and there was a new wasps next that no one knew about, and Robert got stung by one of them.  Then on Saturday he was trying to help Susan with building the chicken coop and he got a big cut on his little toe.  He has not had a good week at all.  We took him to sacrament meeting today, but decided it was best not to keep him in Nursery so SUsan took him home, and he had a royal fit the whole time.  Susan is an amazing person to put up with all of this.

Alice helped make Saturday a difficult one too.  There was supposed to be a community carnival yesterday.  He teacher from preschool was supposed to help out at one of the booths and Alice was looking forward to it all day.  She even got a very special hairdo for it.  But it was rained out.  Alice was devastated. This is her hairdo.  It is in her words a mohawk of ponytails and two Pippy Longstocking ponytails on the sides.  That is why she is holding them out.  She also went to church with a very similar hairdo today, just more ponytails in the back.

The week wasn't all bad.  Both Susan and made some progress on our projects.  My recent project has been trying to clean up some of the cabling mess that we have.  In the office the cabal guy more or less just drilled a hole in the floor for the cable to come through for the phone and internet.  We then had the modem, router, printer, phone, and a harddrive (N.A.S.) sitting on the desk.  It was very ugly.  I finally went into the crawlspace, drilled a new hole for the cable up into one of the cabinets, and refished the cable into there.  It now looks a lot better. Especially when the cabinet is closed.

I also did something similar on a much smaller scale to a table in the living room where we tend to keep our computers.  It is not completely done yet, but it looks a lot beter then it did before.   I put in a power/data plug in the back that is designed for computer desks.  If we want to hide it completely we can flip it over and make it disappear. I still need to put in another little hole for the power to go into the table, instead of through the door on the side.

And as for Susan's projects the garden and new chicken coop are coming along very well.  We have a 10 foot tall Sunflower in bloom and have harvested a few strawberries.

And a video from Alice just for fun.

In the Clear

Robert woke up a few times last night, but was easily soothed back to sleep with his blankie and a calm voice. What a blessing! He slept in until 7:30, too. Today, he appears to be back to his normal self, despite the itty bitty red spotty rash remaining on his hands and feet.

I'm also excited to report that he's gone 2.5 days without a potty-training accident, day or night. We started this thing 5 weeks ago. He's been 100% accident-free during the day for about a week. Night time has been 50/50. He's also done better taking charge of it himself. In other words, he doesn't tolerate reminders or promptings very well. When he's squirming and crossing his legs, I've learned not to force the issue. He can hold it in indefinitely if I'm the one to put him in the bathroom. I just wait for him to say he's ready, then it's zip-zap-zoop, quick as lightning. No power struggles. Again, this works REALLY well when we're just hanging out at home in quarantine. It can be more frustrating when we're out at a park, or Home Depot, and a toilet isn't readily available, or convenient, or clean, or even open. Ugh. Dare I confess that he's already had experience peeing into a bottle?

Hand, Foot, and Mouth

Surprise! Buddy woke up Wednesday morning with a fever. He got hotter throughout the day, forcing me to change my plans from "chicken pen construction engineering" to "holding half-conscious, fevery boy on the Snuggle Chair while reading Catching Fire, book two in the Hunger Games series." I didn't really mind the trade that much ;)

Well, today was different. The fever has subsided and now we're dealing with a rash on his hands and legs that doesn't seem to bother him much yet. It's the sore throat that's really bothering him. He's been drooling a lot, preferring to spit out saliva rather than swallow it. He's refused medicine, popsicles, and plain ice chips declaring them all "stingy." He does take a sip of water now and then, but calls it "coughy water" (we thought he meant "coffee water" for a while) because it irritates his throat and makes him cough. Milk isn't any better. He keeps asking to drink out of other people's cups, thinking their water will be better. Poor guy.

When I told my friends about Robert's fever yesterday, a couple of them mentioned that Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease had been going around the nursery kids this week. It's a pretty common viral infection in kids 10 and under that leads to fever, sore throat, and funky rashes. No medical intervention required beyond your run-of-the-mill pain meds. Robert is irritable, fussy, whining constantly, and nearly impossible to distract. He has quiet periods, but they don't last long. At my wit's end, I used an eye dropper to try and force pain meds into him, but he pretty much gagged and threw them all up immediately.

*sigh*

We'll see how things go tonight. If Robert doesn't take pain meds, I predict several wakings with inconsolable crying and lots of painful writhing :( I take great comfort, however, in the fact that it's a temporary state of discomfort. I know I will get sleep another night soon. I know he will heal completely in 5-8 days.

It's difficult to tell how long Robert will be contagious. I've heard different things from several different professional, reliable sources (CDC, NIH, pediatricians). We'll probably keep him home from church on Sunday. He may or may not have already passed it on to Alice. We'll know more on Saturday or Sunday (3-4 days after Robert began showing symptoms and Alice shared a water bottle with him, repeatedly).

I did finish the book, by the way, and have decided to continue with the third one. I find the writing tedious, since we only get to see/hear/experience what's in Katniss' head (she's not the most brilliant observer, nor analyst) but the story itself is pretty interesting. I would like to know more about the other characters, the government, and the revolution that led to the current setup...information far beyond the scope of Katniss' limited role in this experience :)

Corn Carnage

Last night, we decided our corn was ready to harvest. It was Sunday, though, and we thought it best to wait until today. A hour or so later, our backyard neighbors called us with news that a giant skunk and an enormous opossum were currently making their way towards our chickens. Skunks and opossums both love to eat live chickens in a bloody, piece-by-piece way. I ran outside to shut my ladies safely in the coop for the night (they had already gone to bed, I just had to shut the door). Mr. Stinky and Mr. Ugly ran off into the bushes.

Disaster averted, right? Not exactly. The chickens were safe all night, yes, but the next morning we discovered our entire corn crop had been decimated, trampled, torn apart, and eaten by one or more large animals. Squirrels did not do this:

 

I suspect Mr. Stinky and/or Mr. Ugly played their part here. I'm mad that they took our corn, but I don't blame them. This first growing season has been a learning experience. I knew about all of these potential dangers to crops and livestock, and I had planned several ways to avert each disaster, but I chose to do nothing about it until the danger became imminent/evident/pressing...disastrous. Pbbbsh. Too late.

(Will I sacrifice my first child to the world in the same naive way? Perish the thought.)

There is hope, though. One of the garden beds did get a mild form of protection early on. There are metal arches over the garden bed and I've draped some heavy-duty bird netting over the top and weighted it down along the sides. Strawberries, tomatoes, and eggplant await their fate inside. Each has begun to bear fruit, just starting to ripen:

Here's the next test. Will the bird netting be enough to keep squirrels at bay? Or will ripe strawberries and tomatoes prove too tempting? The netting doesn't stand a chance against skunks and opossums, should they decide to have a closer look. I don't have the energy to construct the predator-proof garden structures that I had planned for this year :( I've got the new chicken pen to work on, and then I think that's it. Energy gone. The garden will have to fend for itself.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Well,  This week has been very hot.  It was over one hudred yesterday, and then if you add on the humidity we were well into the 110 range almost every day this past week.  The 4th of July was very hot too.  We skipped most of the usual activities, like the parade and the fireworks.  We went to a BBQ at the church, and then hung out at home.  It was fun, but not the most festive of celebrations.

On Saturday we cleaned all of our bedrooms and then went to the library.  After the library we drove by Dairy Queen for some ice cream cones.  We have been trying to do a chore as a family each Saturday, and then go out and do something fun together once the chore is complete, so far it has worked out OK.  The library/ice cream was our reward this week.

Penny's New Friends

She stands out in the flock, doesn't she? I can't tell the three australorps apart yet. They haven't had much energy to work on the pecking order today. They've just been panting in the shade and trying to keep cool.

Cicada Killers

Alice discovered a new kind of "bee" hanging around our back patio this week. It's enormous. Here's a teeny photo I swiped from wikipedia:

May I introduce you to the Eastern Cicada Killer? A solitary sort of bee species whose females dig 6-8 inch burrows into the soil and then ruthlessly hunt down, paralyze, and bury live cicadas (see below) to act as a special food source for their larval young.

Cicadas can be pretty big, too :)

Here's a pic of a cicada killer carrying a paralyzed cicada (courtesy of wikipedia, as well):

 

It's not an aggressive bee. Females only sting humans if they are handled roughly or stepped on. Like male carpenter bees, stingless male cicada killers approach anything that moves in hopes of finding a mate. Both males and females will fly away if you "shoo" them. So, they're pretty harmless overall but really scary-looking and kind of annoying. 

I haven't yet discovered where our particular bee is nesting (I'm pretty sure it's a female). I'd like to, though, just out of curiosity. They only bury one cicada and one egg per hole. If she sticks around, it should be quite obvious.

Gone Fishing

I recently learned about a series of FREE fishing clinics for kids in the C-U area. They're put on by the Champaign Park District. I signed up both of the kids for it (free, but must register through the CPD at least one week in advance, can even register online). The instructions were clear and all the equipment was easy to use. There was plenty of help when you needed it (i.e. to rebait the hook or take your fish off the line). It was strictly catch and release. Everything was provided for us.

In 90 minutes, with one rod, Alice caught 2 bluegills and one "pumpkin seed fish", Buddy reeled in a blue gill of his own, and I baited the hook 5-6 times. The kids would fight over who got to pick the next worm. The fish were itty bitty. I think that was best, actually, because they were less threatening that way. Both kids wanted to pet every catch and Alice threw all but the first one back in by herself.

Even with all the exciting fish action, there was a lot of hot waiting around. Buddy was too little to grasp the concept. He just liked reeling it in and letting it out over and over again until the bait finally fell off the hook. Alice could barely scrape together enough patience to make it work for her. If it had been shadier and if there had been other kids her age to fish with, then she may have complained less. She was all giggles and excitement when the fish would come out of the water, though, and she's begging to go back again.

The coolest thing about all this was that we were fishing at a common park in town. I think they called it "Urban Fishing." It was fun and relatively fast-paced. Every person in the class caught several little fish each.

Would I do it again? You bet. I think I'll sign us up again for another round in a couple weeks. And maybe I'll request a hookless rod for Buddy to play with on his own. Anyone want to join us?

She survived!

Whew. I'm not so depressed anymore.

Penny is settling into the single life, though I hope that will change in the next couple of days. I've got 3 black australorps coming, exactly her age. Each of them on the cusp of laying. May the new flock blend work well for all of us.

Put my coop door to the test

The fox took Agnes 6 days ago, then Edith 3 days ago. We're due for another fox strike tonight. Penny is locked away safely in her coop behind the new door. We'll see how this goes. Wish Penny luck.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week has been a slow week.  We did not really do much of anything in the evenings.  Potty training is still going on and Buddy is getting better at it.  He had his first dry night so far.  But still has had some accidents. Oh and the weather has been insanely hot lately.