Having issues..........

blogging can be a pain if your computer is acting up.........more to come

6mths in 4 days........

baby #6 is getting so big. She has such a happy personality, she loves her siblings and the animals. We have started her on solid foods and she thinks that so cool. She is a wonderful child and we are so blessed to be her parents.

Cuteness factor just went up....

Ducklings.... ahhh they are so CUTE!!!

The canning race has began....

I love to can. Well really I love to eat and cook so I suppose canning fits right in with all of that. I pulled the row of beets and pressure canned them, I love the beautiful color of beets. I will can some more with the fall crop and most likely pickle a bit also.
Today I pickled 10 pints and 6 quarts of cauliflower. The kiddos are pickle fends and I came up with the pickled cauliflower out of desperation a few years ago when I way over-planted and wound up with about 30 heads of cauliflower. I freeze some but the kids really went through the pickled.
The peaches are just about ready I will be dripping peach juice by this time next week.

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!

We were doing some tidying around the house and found a box with files from our old computer. Most were boring tax files and such, but one was a trip back in time. I put the unmarked CD in the drive and was surprised to find some beautiful shots from long ago. It's hard for me to ever believe that we lived in such a gorgeous place... was the water really that blue?? There were photos of kiddos 1,2,and 3 driving the boat..they were so little. My how things can change. I love the farm but thinking of the past is dreamy..........

Yep I am still here........

With the start of summer well on it's way I really thought things would calm down. With softball,construction,gardens,orchard,cows,sheep,chickens and 6 kiddos I somehow thought that summer would allow more time..HA nope we are juat as busy as ever but we are having fun at it. We have spent many hours at the pool and goofin off. We are working like mad on the house addition and it is so exciting to be planning for it.
The garden looks great we have been canning a bit and I have beets that are waiting for me to work them up.
Gladys is due with her calf in August, we are getting ready to wean the bull calves so things are going to be a bit noisy around here... the boys are very attached to Gladys and cry if she just goes around the corner of the barn so I am sure that they are going to bawl big time.
With baby #6 Mable did not get bred... I am sad about that but that's how farm life is we have her for sale and hope to replace her with a beef mama.
Lucy and Coco are HUGE.. they both just turned one and are to be bred this summer. They look great I am so pleased with how they are turning out.
Well that's just a small part of the summer goings on I suppose I need to get to theose beets.... see ya later!!

Making bread.......

With 6 kiddos and hunky hubby it seems that we are always in need of bread. I bake twice a week and usually make 5 one pound loaves. One loaf is devoured hot out of the oven ( and really you can't blame them hot bread is the best!) and the other four are gone in two days and everyone is hollering for more bread.
I use a sourdough starter that came from my great Aunt. She baked like a pro and used her starter for 40 years or more. The starter has a wonderful flavor and adds a beautiful rise, the only problem is that it uses the sponge method in the process. To bake bread from start to finish it is about 18 hours. In order to have enough bread I typically have a bowl on the counter full of dough. I love to make bread luckily because I am always making bread....... what are you doing today???