Updates on the Fort Construction

It has been a long project for Karl to work on the fort. With the Navy sending him away on trips, the wettest summer and autumn in a long time, soccer season, and events that have fallen into our schedule, the fort is still awaiting it's completion.

After the posts were put into place,

Karl got to work on the retaining walls surrounding the play area and sand pit.

Of course he had lots of helpers!

After this was completed, and it took a long time due to the slope of the land,

Karl and Anton set to work on the joists for the main platform.

Then we worked on the walls of the fort and the second platform.

Once those were in place, we could safely get the swing beam raised into place.

This required the assistance of two of Karl's male friends

to give some muscle to our pulley system.

The swing beam sits about 10-12 feet from the ground making this a "big kid" play set.

Shortly after this feat, it began to look more like a play structure.

The slide was added and once we get chain attachments, the swings will be in place.

But with all out door projects, we must bend our schedule to the whims of nature!

Yes, I Am Alive!

Many of you have sent me messages asking if I was either dead, sick, or just forgetful.

Well, I have been neglectful in my blogging due to......life!

I actually was waiting on a few pictures from a friend back in late July for a post,

and then I just got very far behind in everything.

I fretting about what to do.

Several friends suggested to just start with the present and forget catching up,

but then you miss many of the wonderful things that have happened the past few months.

So, I will try to give you some highlights as time permits!

Let It Snow!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful!

But my dear it's so delightful,

and since we've no place to go,

Let it Snow!

Let It Snow!

Let It Snow!

(The current prediction is 23 inches of snow by tomorrow!)

Dog Days of Summer?

With the end of July coming upon us, it only seems like a good time to update the puppy progress. The girls have grown and are considered by veterinarians to be adults, i.e. capable of breeding for health of mom and pups. However, we took care of this issue last winter, so no puppies here! By trainers standards, we are in the horrid adolescent years. Late in the Spring, we took the girls to a professional trainer because the dogs are only getting bigger and more powerful. Blossom was starting to pull Isabella across the drive, skinning up her knees. Isabella was becoming fearful of taking her dog out and this was not going to work. Also, we have Karl's reasoning for spending the money, "It is much cheaper to have the dogs trained, which we want anyway, than to fence in 5 acres of land for them to run in." Katie's Independence was starting to show up in pure "female dog" form which resulted in her not really wanting to listen to us.

So off to the trainers they went for 3 weeks! After this time, we got to take them home and return for private weekly lessons. Isabella found her commanding voice and Anton learned proper discipline techniques. I was still the Alpha Dog, except when the trainers are in the room and their Marine Like voice booms over mine. I failed to mention these trainers train all the county's police dogs, have agility competitions, and can teach your dog advanced behavior for hunting/retrieving skills.

Now we have advanced to group lessons where the girls must learn to listen and obey us with other dogs around. Blossom listens better than Katie because Blossom really wants to please me. Katie is working on her independence and dominance which was obvious when she was suppose to remain in a down stay as other dogs invaded her 6 foot bubble. Katie ignored most dogs, but two. One was a solid German Shepherd, very well behaved and graduated that day, the other was a skittish Jack Russel. According to Dog Whisperer thought, Katie was triggered by the strong dominance of the German Shepherd and the unstable scent of the Jack Russel. Stable dogs do not usually cause problems. So, Katie, our problem child has issues with others being ahead of her, she wants to be the center of attention. She does not want anyone upstaging her time! But she is still very lovable and quite the ham for the camera!

Cub Scout Box Car Races!

The Sunday following Camp, we had another Scouting event. The boys had their Box Car Races at the Church parking Lot. These are gravity powered, pre-made cars the kids just steer down the hill.

There was a lot of set up and rules to be read, but soon it was time to give the children their fun.

Karl used this event to try to bring one of Anton's friends into his pack. Little did we know, someone from another pack had "scouted" out a new pack for her son at the camp the week before. She came with her son and they are now part of Karl's Den also.

Isabella and Anton have multiple runs down the hill.

But the day was very hot. The pack had provided hot dogs, chips, cookies, lemonade and water to keep everyone fed and hydrated. I did not eat any of the food as it was all processed food, but that is for a later post. I enjoyed the time sitting with my friend Aileen as our children took turns going down the hill.

At least Isabella thought so as she chomps Oreos in her post race pose! I guess she deserves it, she did win most of her races.

Cub Scout Camp

In the middle of July, Karl and the kiddos abandoned me for Cub Scout Camp. Everyone would be up, dressed, fed, and out the door by 7:15 am and not return until 5:30 pm. This happened Monday through Thursday. On Thursday, Karl had to leave the Camp to attend an important funding review for his Rescue Submarine Project. It was so important he came home and dressed in his whites! This meant I had to drag myself from my project catch up time to pick up our little ones at the camp ground. Since Karl was going to be there for the majority of the week, Isabella was able to participate in a Sibling Den of girls ages 6 - 10. They had a lot of fun and came home exhausted each day.

On Friday, the parents were able to come to see silly songs and skits they had worked on during the week.

Isabella's den was in the beginning. They had a cute skit about throwing Pebbles in the Lake with the youngest girl being soaked at the end, she was Pebbles.

Karl's Den arrives late, all Webelos were late as they have a good 15-20 minute hike from "Webelo Land". Karl could be heard from a distance as he led the boys in cadences while they marched into the Camp Fire/Flag Pole area. Soon it was their turn. The boys did a crazy skit called "Ready, Set, Dance" and another called "The Gathering of Nuts".

Laura leaned over and ask me what was the skit suppose to be about it because she did not get the punch line. I shrugged my shoulders with the reply, "Beats me! I am not sure all of them have a point, but the boys think they are hysterical!" So what did I do with my free time, I painted the entry from the garage, caught up on the produce from Chester across my counters, and baked enough muffins and breads to last the next three months! Some people would not find this a lot of fun, but I love to bake and it feels good to know the freezer is stocked with good, from scratch offerings.

This picture is actually from the following week, as I was just learning how to use my new pressure cooker to can green beans! I did not have time to get to them all, so it spilled over into the next week. We all had a good week! The children got special time with Karl and lots of activities, Karl got to be on the other side of Scout Camp and receive Millions in extra funding for his International Rescue Sub from the Defense's miscellaneous funds, and I got to catch up on a few things and sit down to a good Jane movie. So, when is Scout Camp next year???

New Park, New Friends

The children and I have been exploring a new home school group where we live. I am not saying the other one was bad, we are just looking to see what is available in our area now that we have been here fore awhile. On this day, we met our new friends at a park we had never been to before. One of the moms clued me in to bring a clean change of clothes for my children as this park has a stream which runs through the play area.

Isabella and Josie are having an intense conversation for 6-7 years old girls.

I wonder what it was about?

I went in search of Anton who quickly joined up with the boys on an exploring adventure totally concocted in their imagination.

This park presented a perfect back drop for their search of magical creatures they must fight against to protect their home. Since Anton has been reading the Redwall books lately, it did not take any time to help the story along.

The girls were a little more reserved about getting in the stream. After their playing on the swings, the moms said they could get into the stream after they ate their lunch. Corralling the boys for lunch was more difficult. The boys inhaled as little as possible in order to appease the mother's and get back the the quest.

The girls went into the stream in search of nature. After about twenty minutes, Isabella came running up to where the moms were eating asking for a container to catch crayfish. As I retold the story to Karl, I smirked at him over his princess wading into the stream, turning over rocks searching for crawdads. She was actually pleading with me to find someone to help her catch one. The children decided "Daddy would definitely love this park!"

Play Space part 2 - Posts!

The next day we were all moving a little slower than the day before. With aching muscles, a few cups of coffee, and determination, we plugged along. The First thing was to sort the wood in the garage, move posts to play space and mark the post positions.

After moving the posts, 6 x 6 x 16's and 6 x 6 x 12's, I was not a happy camper!

It was very heavy and after the third larger post,

we decided to try a wheel barrow to help carry the load.

Then it was on to marking the posts while I ran off to Home Depot

to pick up some 1 x 4 x 8's that did not come in our delivery.

It took us two days to get the posts dug, level, squared and concreted into the ground.

One of our friends came over and helped Karl with the last four posts on Saturday

while I baked bread and ran a few errands.

I think it was quite an accomplishment!

You can see the basic outline of the space,

the other square is for the sand pit next to the structure.

Later that evening, we enjoyed a cookout at

Laura and Micheal's house before running to the fairgrounds for fireworks.
It was very quaint with the small town feel we are growing to cherish.

It was a very long day, so we took the next day to relax and play board games with kiddos.

Play Space part 1 - Contouring!

The next big project has begun! Karl took off July 2 & 3 for a long weekend to begin the Fort!

Here is what it looked like before we got started. You can see the lines where we squared off the space before we used the Round-Up to kill off the weeds.

We had rented a tiller and began the grueling process of moving dirt. What you can not see is a gully in the middle of the space that needs to be filled and the slope tamed a little.

After several hours of moving dirt, we were all getting worn out!

But the results are much better than what we started with!

We still need to get the landscape ties in to hold back the 18 inches we dug down. Maybe next weekend we can get this completed?

Capturing the Season!

I love trying to capture shots of nature and it's growth. It enables me to reflect on the beauty and goodness during those drab months of winter when the weather is not cold enough for snow and the ground is in it's brown resting stage. I have been trying for a few weeks now to record the butterflies on the Echinacea but as soon as I come back out with my camera, they disappear. Today, I was more successful.

Here is one with both of the butterflies. Sorry, we do not have a butterfly identification book so I could define them for you. Does anyone have a good book title they can send me? Since we have been doing so much nature study in our new surroundings, I have been slowly collecting these identification books.

Here are some of my beloved daisies I split from the Connecticut house last fall.

I am still working on pictures of the bees on the lavender. When I grew lavender in Connecticut, I remarked how it appeared the bees would become intoxicated from the lavender. Apparently my observation was correct because the other day while reading about harvesting and propagating lavender the author remarked about "drunken bees". The bees are also more docile when around the lavender. It seems to put everyone in a calm mood. Another tip I picked up while reading, throw a few lavender stems on your campfire and the lavender smoke repels the mosquitoes. Karl is going to make fire starters with his Webelo Scouts and intends to take my left over stems to put in the mixture.

Just Hatched!

Isabella is trying her hand at nature photography here!

It is a little out of focus, but you get the idea!

The kiddos are just intrigued by the baby birds and all their actions. I get many updates!

Deer Sightings

Karl, what are your thoughts again on the boundary fence?
Actually, right now,

we do not mind as they are eating the vines and grasses we can not get to

due to the high water table and the last few weeks of down pours.
They are pretty to look at as long as they stay away from my fruit trees!!!

Learning Moments From Mono

Well, I have learned a few things from my bout with Mononucleosis. First, I can do nothing without God. He can take it all away in a flash. Second, how I got to this point? This one is a little hard for non-military/non-homeschooling folks to understand.


When we decided I would home school the children it was a gradual building process of work. Kindergarten was about an hour or two of focused work and more interactions with the world, like nature discoveries and book reading. First Grade and a Pre-K was more involved as Isabella was quickly excelling and showing signs to want to learn to read. This required more individual focus and lots of book reading, but actual schooling was two to two and half hours. Second/Third Grade and Official Kindergarten/First Grade was a little more focused work, but the oral reading was decreasing. Then we moved!


We had been pretty settled in the house when we began the homeschooling journey. Yes, we did some projects, but they were added in slowly and we did not try to kill ourselves over it. The basement had been built and our conversion of living room to dining room was a Summer project. The garden was part of our Kindergarten going into First Grade science curriculum. But it was not moving to another state into a new home on acres of land.


The children had been slowly building their activities also. First with swimming, adding soccer, gymnastics, ballet, tap, and cub scouts one at a time. The Aquarium and Seaport activities were part of our schooling programs. Karl and I slowly added to our church responsibilities from assistant teacher/nursery to Director of Religious Education and Confirmation Teacher. Then we moved!


I made the mistake of trying to pretend to my family that I could make our transition as painless as possible. I tried to overlook the obvious fact of our lives, we are a military family and we do move around. I wanted the children to not miss out on their activities that brought normalcy to their otherwise hectic life as military children. I tried to pretend we could get the house the way we wanted it within an unreasonable amount of time as long as I just worked a little harder and faster. I tired to live a double life of Farm Girl and Suburban Socialite by trying to make them both perfect. The Farm Girl by tackling the land and creating the dream we wished for while looking at the plot before we moved. I wanted to make it the picture in our minds within a couple of years so we could enjoy it. The Suburban Socialite by keeping the children in all their activities like soccer, choir, scouts, piano, etc. Karl and I resumed our church duties by tackling Sixth Grade Religious Education teaching responsibilities. I never took the time to just be and take it all in. I was moving faster than I could keep up. I was exhausted and landed myself in the Emergency Room. That was the breaking point!


I knew I could no longer keep up this ridiculous pace and live to enjoy it. Time was passing us by with memories of me being too tired to enjoy the moments. This was not going to work. All projects came to a stop. Luckily for the children their activities were slowing down for Summer Break, and their schooling was slowing down for a short break also. (We are taking all of July off.) I began to return to being me again. I was resting more, catching up on books I wanted to read, remembering what snuggling with the children on the sofa was all about. We found our way back to the fun of schooling instead of dealing with a check off list.


The garden is not going to happen this year. I missed the best planting window and Chester is still showering us with lovely farm gifts of fresh chicken eggs, fresh lettuces, cabbage, broccoli, and promises of tomatoes, sweet peppers, and green beans. The zucchini and squash might be a little slimmer this year as the long rains have caused some fungal disease on several plants. Chester only wants to share the joys of his garden and receive a few jars of my tomato sauce. His Step Children want the salsa. I think the lack of garden might push me to the Amish Markets this summer for fresh produce. I wanted to get to it last year, but time got away. I will only be harvesting lavender, onions, and garlic this year. I might get a few pots of herbs for my Birthday but that is about it.

As for projects, I have scaled down. Karl and I have something in works, but even that project got scaled down. We will be tackling the play structure but leaving out the patio/deck/retaining walls/planting beds of the rear of the house. We expect the project to take up the majority of the Summer working days. Karl is taking a week off plus an extra long weekend during July for working on the project and helping the children with a Summer Camp. The play structure needs to be built as we are a year behind on this promise to the children. The design details include a fort which will double as a camping space to accommodate four to five sleeping bags. It will include two swings, a 10 foot slide, climbing wall, lookout tower and sand pit. All of this is going to be placed near the trees to create a wilderness creative play space. I will be helping Karl as best I can, but when my body says take a nap, I need to listen. Several friends have volunteered their husbands to help Karl also. It will be nice when completed. The space will be a great escape for the children when life throws us curve balls to deal with.


As for the military mentality of hurry up so you can enjoy it. We do not plan on moving anymore. We have lots of years to visit the museums of DC, Mount Vernon, Monticello, and more. We really can not do anything with the largest amount of land until we have a the pond dug in order to drain the "bogginess" off the areas so we can get to the rest of the land. We tried to walk out to the back part of the land to see the boundary markers and stepped calf high deep in water and muck. This is going to require a contractor and a backhoe. So this huge project, upwards of a several thousand dollars, will be put off for minimally a year if not more. Karl says he will clear me a space in the vicinity of the future barn for next year's garden. It will be a large temporary space until the backhoe comes but near enough to the house and play structure for easy access.

Let's Play "I Spy"!

While wandering around on the walkway to the front door, something caught my eye!

This little Spruce tree is only three feet tall, but what is that nestled into the branches?

Looks like Mother Bird has found something useful for my straw mulch. I did not dare get any closer but used the zoom on the camera.

I showed the children the nature find and they were all excited. They have told everyone! However, by Sunday, Father's Day, we had to discover who the nest belonged to. I pulled out a Bird Identification Book and we began to eliminated them one at a time. Finally we figured it out!

The Chipping Sparrow!

This highly useful bird dines almost exclusively on insects with some seed to round out the diet. This is good as I want the insect population to go down so I do not have to send Karl out to kill any more of these.....

Karl is talking up the idea of Guinea Hens a lot more lately, especially after his camping trip with the kiddos last weekend. The children had 16 ticks removed before coming home and I removed six more off Isabella, one off Anton and three off Karl. My only hesitation is trying to not over load myself again. Having the dogs is a little easier to deal with when we want to get away than farm animals. We can either take the dogs to a kennel or bring them with us. Farm animals require someone coming twice daily to take care of them. We might be able to get the neighbor kids across the way as they are responsible teenagers, but I am hesitant never the less. Maybe after I get those tree guards on the fruit trees and our next project completed?

I might be able to put it off till next Spring?

Donations of Love

Sometimes pictures are better than words!

We told Isabella she could get her hair cut anyway she wanted since First Communion had passed. She declared Mary Clair and herself would be having a race to see who's hair would grow the fastest. She wished to cut it just above her shoulders. When I called the stylist who regularly cuts Mary Claire's hair, she asked how long was it. She wondered if Isabella would be interested in donating the hair to Locks of Love. I explained the situation to her and Isabella was all for it even though it meant cutting the hair a little shorter than she had initially wanted.

After the initial cut, she got to have her hair shampooed like the big girls and then cut to shape. She asked if she could sit under the big dryers too!

The stylist was game and I searched for a garden magazine for her to look at while I got my hair cut and styled. She likes her new shorter length and thinks it might reduce the ticks!

Guess What We Found?

After two days of torrential down pours and high winds, we had a surprise in out garage.


The garage had been left open for different hours during the course of the time the storms started for various reasons, like taking the dogs out and leaving for work an hour later, etc.


The children had taken the dogs out while I was getting our picnic lunch together for a park outing when they began beating on the front door. They unusually take the dogs out via the garage. Isabella exclaimed there was an anteater in the garage! Not thinking about her comment, I said "Good, it will eat the ants!" When I returned to our lunch preps, I had a second to register what she had said and replied that anteaters live in Africa. Finally we had our things ready and I sent the children to the garage to get into the truck. When I reached the truck, I remembered about the anteater. Anton realized I was thinking about this and stated it was under the wheelbarrow. I carefully walked in that direction and saw a long pointed tail and a flat shell! I shook my head and murmured to the turtle, you will have to wait till I can get back.

When we returned this is what I saw.

So for all the friends who have sent me pictures of their baby raccoons or mice, here is my unnatural run in with nature!

I called Donna and asked if her son, 14, could come over when he returned from school to help me out with an animal problem. Doug scooped up the turtle with a big shovel and dumped it into a big cardboard box. Later I asked Tim what his son did with the turtle. Doug had let it go about a mile from our house near a creek inlet way behind his house, but a half hour later, Tim saw the snapping turtle walking, pretty fast for a turtle, across his yard towards the swamp. So, we might have another run in with this turtle at another date.