Farmer's Market Bounty

(originally posted on my other blog 6-27-09)

I have three extra kids today, and had to wait for them to arrive, so I got a late start on my Saturday plans. I went first to get my eggs and milk from my friend, Tammy. She has such a nice little farm! We spent a couple of hours there seeing all the animals (for the sake of the visitors. My kids have seen them often). We came home to potty up, put away the food and then left for the Farmer's Market and plum picking.

It was noon, and the farmer's market was closing up for the day. There were only a few vendors still there. I ran to the first one, and swooped on the remaining green beans. She asked $13 for the table full. Of course I'll take that!

Then down the way, another man had a wide variety of fruits and veggies. I asked how much the corn was. He said 10 for $1. I asked how much for the whole basket (LOTS). He said, give me $5 you can have them all. Then he loaded me up with all sorts of other goodies.

He also said that if I came at closing time every week he'd make me the same deals. WOO HOO! I gave him another $5 (that's all I had) and got all of this for $23:


In fact, I forgot to add another full bag of corn to the picture. The kids all had two or three ears raw with lunch and that bag had been forgotten on the counter.

We also were able to get the two buckets of plums from a tree in a friend of a friend's elderly mother's home for free.

We got to see Tammy twice today. I asked her to share in the bounty. So I have been doubly blessed!

Praise Jehovah-Jirah!

A Trip to The Dunes

(originally posted on my other blog 6-10-09)

We've had great weather lately. It's been in the low 80's for a week! In JUNE! Well, that means we have to get out and do some fun things. Today, I took the Lambies to The Dunes. It's around the block from our house, where they started building houses, but never finished. All the dirt piled around has been fashioned into some mighty fun jumps.


All the kids got into the action:


Troubles was scared this first time, but climbed up over and over to ride down again.

Missy was the second to try this hill. Brave girl!


She bore to the left and avoided that jump. Jack did not. He jumped it quite a few times before the inevitable happened.


He hit his mouth on the handlebars. Poor guy. He got up and did the jump again, though! Here's his poor lip a couple of hours after the bonk.

The Lambies all want to go back again with Dad. I'm glad we found out about this fun spot.

Blog Catch-up

(originally posted on my other blog 6-1-09)

Well, it's HAS been a while since I've blogged, huh? I have been using Facebook too much, I guess. I'll share a few pictures of what we've been up to lately.

This is the beautiful sight I was greeted with on Mother's Day:
My Lambies awoke early and made Applesauce Oat Breakfast cookies and sliced strawberries and OJ. What sweethearts!

We went to the zoo with the cousins. What a great time we had!


We went to the lovely Sequoia National Forest for the day:

We climbed around on the huge rocks near the river:

I guess all the pictures of the river must be on my Honey's camera! I'll try to get some on soon.

I ate the first red cherry tomato today. There are many more reddening up. I hope the recent rain won't lead to blight...we are expecting more thunderstorms on Wednesday. I hope to have bushels and bushels of tomatoes to can this summer.

School is wrapping up. We should be finished next week, if all goes as planned. We'll see!

I've been making lots and lots of jams and jellies. We went to a u-pick cherry orchard and got buckets of Royal Anne cherries. I've been buying strawberries by the flat and freezing the extras for later. There's a berry farms that is u-pick about 30 minutes away. I hope to get there before the season is over.

We participated in the annual homeschool fair. The older Lambies made a big pulley system with Dad, among other things. Look for pics to be added to this post soon. They are also in Dad's camera.

We have birthday parties, family visiting and a used curriculum fair coming up in the next weeks. June is always busy! I hope yours is going well!