September Happenings

We've been really busy this September.  I just started implementing a new religious ed program at our church.  So far it's been really successful.  We're using the Apostolate's Family Catechism.  I would recommend it for anyone wanting to learn about the faith.  I'm not teaching a class out of it, but want to be prepared if any of the teachers have questions, so I've been reading a few pages every morning (after Josh leaves for work and before the kids get up).  It's just amazing how well this book presents our Catholic Faith.

We had an early frost, so we've been cleaning out the gardens.  We had covered the tomatoes, but most of the vines even froze.  I thought I would just get a few tomatoes.  Now it looks like the tomatoes themselves didn't freeze and are ripening like crazy.  And I thought I was going to have a break this year from canning tons of tomatoes.  Josh put it well..."Looks like you're going to have more tomatoes than you know what to do with."

I made sauerkraut this summer.  I borrowed a 5 gal crock from the neighbor to make it in.  It got pretty nasty looking on the top before I got to canning it.  (That's how kraut works.  You just scrape off the scum and can the good kraut on the bottom.)  Anyway.  I was scraping off the top scum and putting it into the garbage.  John says "Poop!  Poop!"  (It smelled like poop!)  Then he watches as I take the good sauerkraut and put it into a kettle - to be heated before canning.  He says (to himself), "Johnny eat poop.  No!"  It was so cute!  I don't think he'll be eating any of the kraut this winter;)!

As you can see, Johnny's been putting words together to make sentences.  It's really neat to hear him express himself.  He's always telling me what "Johhny" (or Olue or Mommy or Daddy) is doing or what one of us should be doing.  He thinks when Olue is "Cryin'" that she should go "Nigh-Nigh" or that Mommy should "Feed Lu.  Feed Lu."

Johnny and Olue both love to play outside.  Cedar now brings the ball to them to play fetch.  John likes throwing the ball for Cedar and Olue just likes sucking on Cedar's ball when Mommy isn't looking (Yuck!)  We got 2 loads of straw bales from Darcy, and John loves to climb on them.

We had Darcy and the kids (Ashley, Jennifer, Logan, and Levi) over for a campfire supper last Saturday.  We had a really good time with them.  Both John and Levi fell asleep watching the fire.

Olue crawls like crazy now.  She gets into everything and has an attitude if we take away something she thinks is a cool toy (that we think is a dangerous one).  I found her standing in her crib for the first time this morning.  I think it's time to lower the mattress.

 

Daddy made a batch of his specialty cookies after a cold day of working outside.

Johnny loves Daddy's cookies.

Potato Harvest

100lb of whites in the wheel barrel, and 30lbs each of specialty potatoes, and 90lbs of blue potatoes (in front). 

 We already picked and sold all the red potatoes throughout the summer.  The specialty potatoes are really good:  Carolas, Rose Apple Fin Fingerlings, Cranberry Reds, Russian Banana Fingerlings.

30 lbs of blue potatoes

Since the gardens froze, we delivered our last CSAs last week.

Duck Opener at Mom & Dad's
We spent an early weekend (Wed-Sat) at Mom and Dad's.  We had a lot of fun.  Josh helped Dad with some fencing and tool organizing.  We (mostly Josh) picked apples.  We came home with 5 paper bags full.  Now I have even more to can!:)  We love the canned fruit.  Josh bought 2 cases of pears last week that are now ripe and ready to can too.
Josh and I spent Thursday early morning scoping out the duck situation and found a pond full of ducks and geese.  That was a lot of fun.  Mom and I spent Friday afternoon pulling the kids around in their garden cart, while Dad and Josh got the boat ready for hunting.
We had a great time at their house.  It was nice to have a relaxing weekend there (without any pressing harvesting).
 

Josh & Dad shot 6 ducks!

Grandpa holding John & Olue



Labor Day Weekend

Veggie Harvest

Bowel of Peppers & Cherry Tomatoes, Bowel of Cucs and Purple Cabbage, Milk Crate of Carrots & Tomatoes.  We picked these for Farmer's Market one week.

Johnny drinking a juice box after a long evening of harvesting in the garden.

Gopher Troubles...

Josh finally caught one of the pesky gophers the day we left for Loegerings for Labor Day Weekend.

We've been having troubles with gophers in our yard.  Josh had been removing dirt piles by the mail box all summer.  He tried various methods of getting rid of them, until he finally used a trap with a tomato leaf to lure the little bugger in.  We still have one or two more to catch, but the destruction of the yard has slowed.  So far the damages have included 1 celery plant, 2 parsley plants, 1 Echinacea plant, and lots of dirt piles in the lawn.  It's weird to see the plants that the gophers get into.  They just eat the roots, so you'll go out into the garden and find a brown plant and wonder what happened.  The plant just pulls right out of the ground, since none of the roots are left...crazy!

Labor Day Weekend at the Loegering's
We went to Roger and Sue's in MN for the weekend.  It was a lot of fun.  We left home on Thursday after Farmer's Market.  Of course we got there around midnight and got our second wind (Johnny included).  Even though we could barely keep are eyes open on the last part of the ride, we stayed up late with Roger and Sue visiting.

Roger & Olue playing

Josiah & John

Kristina, Vika, and Tolya on couch.  Roger hanging Olue up-side-down.

Playing with Grandpa

Now John's up-side-down!

Cousins

John, Addy, and Lu

Playing with toys

I think the kids shared a little too well.  We all came home with Uncle Jake and Cousin Addy's cold.

Volley Ball

 Roger got a Volley Ball net for Father's Day.  We had lots of fun.  I especially liked the new rule of letting the ball bounce once!:)

John even got into the game.  He always has to be at the center of a game when a ball is involved.

Paintball
Josh & Jake got out their old paint ball equipment and invited the rest of us to join in on a few paint ball wars.  They played two days and had a lot of fun.  (As you can see we didn't all join in...maybe next time;)

Paint Ball

Thomas, Katie,Jake, Kristina, Josh, Roger, Josiah.

Katie, John, Olue, Addy, Josh playing with toys.

Another game of Volley Ball

The cousins took a bath, while everyone else played  a game of football.  Olue and John enjoyed their time in the water together.  Addy, being sick and tired from her cold, didn't want to share the tub with her cousins.

Grandpa taking John for a ride on the Gator

 Paintball
We went out and watched the paintball games on Sunday...Lots of fun to see!

Kristina, Joshia, Josh, Jake

Potato Gun
Josh & Jake got out the old potato gun and had fun shooting Sue's precious few potatoes.

Cedar's pretty excited about all this shooting!

You can see that this one went a long ways.

Fall Harvest

We had an early frost on September 13th that finished off the vines and most of the rest of the garden crops.  We picked all of the pumpkins and squash that week.

Josh loves growing giant pumpkins.  He grew one over 100 lbs this year.  He was pretty excited since last year's biggest was only 70lbs.  I'll have to reveal the top pumpkin's weight after our church Fall Festival, since we're using it for a "Guess the Weight" fundraiser.