Plant identification

Specific plant identification needed... Any thoughts?

Around the Yard

Here's a little update on the grounds here at, wait,

what IS the name of this place??

We're thinking "Laurel Hill Farm" but not sure yet.

Anyway, here are a couple recent pictures from the yard. This first picture is looking from near the front door of the house over to the "new" garage. I LOVE this new garden area. It has been fun to try and fill up, though now I have some plants to MOVE.

Seems in my rush to fill things in, I planted several plants too closely together and in entirely the wrong places! For example, the 4 foot tall daisies that were gifted from my neighbor last Christmas, got stuck very near the front as I had dropped them in the ground to keep them protected then planned to move them in the early spring. Funny how that didn't happen. The next picture shows the garden next to the house. See, holes to fill in where plants got moved from. The Foxgloves did great this year, though. See their tall spikes?This next picture is of the field garden. Potatoes, corn and squash out there. Fenced off from the cow of course. Oh. My. Goodness. Are we going to have a ton of potatoes! The corn? Well, we'll see how it does. Big D planted a succession plan of three varieties. Still seems very small for the beginning of August. Though, it IS Washington. We'll have to wait and see if we get anything from it or not.

Next is a quick picture of what I brought inside from the garden. Why do daisies have to stink so badly?? They are such a cute flower and I think this arrangement makes the slight "aroma" worthwhile. Just don't get too close!

That's it for today! We are off to swimming lessons - all four kids and myself in the water at the same time. Maybe we'll hit the grocery store on the way home and I can implement the meal plan I made for the week. If not, same old story. Push it all back 'till I can go shopping.

Have a great day! Enjoy the sunshine, Washington!

Hay time!

So, I've had another "first" in my farming experiences.

I can now say that I have hauled hay.

We had our field cut, tetted, raked, and baled for the first time. It has been cut and baled before, of course, but this was our first time taking it on and keeping the product. It was a pretty exciting experience for us. Especially fun was seeing the "big" tractor and letting the kids have a ride in it. The tractor owner's wife was our daughter's 1st grade teacher, so it was super fun for our kids to see "Mrs. A." over the summer and meet her husband, and see what their summer life is like.


390 bales. Finished baling around 6:30 PM with rain a 20-30% possiblilty the next day. Yikes! The race was on to get the bales stacked up, but the kids wanted to PLAY!



Trying to get something done while the kids were still up.


The kids: "helping". We ended up getting the kids to bed and getting just over half the bales stacked before it got too dark. Thank goodness we had those field lights (Thanks, Dad!) or we couldn't have seen to get the tarp up.



Yowzas. A bit of hay for our little operation, no?



I was up on top of the pile, helping stack as the bales went up. That was way up there for me! Probably could have built it a little higher if I wasn't such a scaredy cat. It did rain that night. But not much. The bales left on the field dried out nicely with the breeze and warm temps the next day. We stacked the rest of the bales that next night and were finished.
This picture is of the final stack.

OK. So it was "only" 390 bales. That didn't take very long. ;)

Great Giveaway!

There is a great giveaway over at "Reluctant Entertainer" today! Check out her cool book. :)

Two and a Half. Really?!

Mighty Mouse. Where does time go?

The "New" Toy

Farmall tractor.

Barbie's Pencil Skirt - from a Sock!

So Dear Daughter (DD) "needs" more Barbie doll clothes. These clothes are SO not cheap at the stores, not to mention the trashiness of most of them. I started looking around to find some online tutorials, but was surprised to see only a few. I'm not talented enough / have enough time to make a tutorial either, but I will post a couple pictures of the "Pencil Skirt" I recently made from hubby's old sock.

I just cut it off, wrapped it around Babrie to find the right size, hand sewed up the back length, leaving the top inch or inch and a half. I tacked down the flaps that were left and then made some quick darts (not the right word?) on the sides to sinch it up to Barbies impossibly tiny waist, then added a snap.

I couldn't think of a quick way to bind the waist, so I just kinda whip-stitched around the top of it. It is holding up so far!

Now, DD wants a sweater to go with it. What have I started?!