Saturday Morning on the Homestead

A quiet day today.  Nevin and the big guys are at church this morning for the monthly Mens' breakfast.  I am not completely certain what goes on there.  Nevin is speaking this morning, but he did not tell me what about.  I made sure he had three dozen eggs to take and the boys had their teeth brushed, that is pretty much the end of my involvement.

I really like that when Nevin takes on a commitment it does not automatically become MY commitment.  I had always thought that anything he did would be more work for me, but it has not turned out that way.  If he needs help, he will ask.  But he does not assume that if he is going to a breakfast that I am preparing the french toast casserole.  He actually does not WANT me to - because then it was my project, not his.  He would much rather show up with a couple dozen donuts from the shop that he picked up himself, than a fancy dish that I got up and made.  Good man.  Of course, if he wanted me to I would certainly make whatever he wanted.


I think I am going to putter about the house this morning, maybe pull a few weeds.  The garden began producing red, ripe tomatoes this week.

These are Early Girls. They ripen, on average, ten days before the others.  

With the tomatoes came.....squirrels.  Squirrels have descended on our garden.  Nevin has shot several in the last few days.  The cats are funny, because when he shoots Esther (my old lady that we rescued last year) runs for the hills when she hears the gun, but the rest just sit there, because they know they are about to get a fresh squirrel treat. 


(Side note here - I have a picture of A.J. munching a squirrel, but decided not to include it.  I thought it was cute, others might get all queasy inside.)


Henry was very upset that Nevin gave them to the cats, instead of dressing them for us (ug, they like fried squirrel, I am not a fan).  But Nevin said they had ticks on them, he didn't want to mess with them.  I heartily concurred. 

Going to dinner at some friends' this evening, looking forward to that.  One of the things I really like about our church is that it is a younger congregation.  We have a lot of young people in the twenties, just starting their families.  Young enough to be our kids...!  Anyway, one such young couple with two small children has invited us old folks and our four kids to their home this evening, and I am really looking forward to it.  It is interesting, moving into this "older" stage of life.  On one hand, I don't really feel older (except my feet really hurt alot). I think getting started on our family later (32) has kept us in a younger state of mind.  Most of our friends in their mid-forties have grandchildren, or at least have launched a few young adult children into the world.  Our oldest is 14, youngest is 7, so we are just-entering-high-school-still-firmly-in-elementary-school with this crew.  Many of my closest girlfriends are 10-12 years younger than me.  It is how I get away with being kind of bossy.

Much of this week has been consumed with re-evaluating the use of my time, making plans and final (I really mean it!) purchases for school this year, and doing busywork.  Yesterday I started on a website for our business, hopefully will have that up soon.  Sometime this week I hope to get our school plans more "together" and able to post them.  We shall see.  This week is shaping up busy: dinner tonight, then church tomorrow and an ordination service tomorrow night (did I mention Nevin was ordained as a deacon a few weeks back?) for two of the men in our church; park day with the homeschool group; a health fair (getting my bloodwork and mammogram for free!); c-group Wednesday evening; a friend and her children coming to lunch Thursday and a birthday/pool party to attend Friday, and baby shower on Saturday (I am bringing quiche).  The FOLLOWING week, though, I have STAY HOME written all over the calendar!  The shop has gotten busy, I need to have free time to be home, be there to help Nevin as needed, and just keep things running smoothly.  When I get out-of-the-house busy things tend to fall into chaos here.

It is past time to feed the chickens, cats and guinea pig.  Thank goodness the kids fed themselves today!  I shall go pull those weeds, and spend some time in the Word, while it is nice and quiet here.  Have a great weekend!