What A Week!

What a busy week! I bet the kids sleep in this weekend. Monday Olivia and Lucas had ski club after school.  It's been cancelled for a few weeks now. First it was too icy (snow melt and refroze) and then too cold (a week of -20 or more) so it was great to go again. 

Tuesday was the Cub Scout Blue & Gold Banquet. Besides leading a Den of 9 Scouts I am on the Planning Committee and I am the Awards Coordinator. Lots of time went into organizing the Advancement for 38 Scouts. There was a little over 100 people in attendance. 

The Banquet is a potluck and so many good things were shared... main dishes....

.... sides and salads....

... Alaska Salmon, Moose and even a whole turkey!

I must have put about six hours into this awards table. Everything is recorded online and then I purchase at the Scout office. Two hours alone was spent writing out the cards and attaching the patch, pin or belt loop to it. The little portion cups have activity segments for the last four Pack meetings. Keeping track of who attends what is a chore! I am the only leader who knows all the kids. 

I won't share all the photos (we took over 200), but each of the 5 dens performed skits and sang songs. My Den sang a grace before dinner that we wrote ourselves. This is our skit "Old Akela Had a Zoo". The boys start out behind the curtain and then move out to the side. The song had actual animal noises... yes, I spent hours and hours creating/editing the music with sound bits found online. I need to purchase more fabric and sew the curtains so it looks nice, but will have to wait until they get some in. 

Emily is an enormous help to me. I couldn't do it without her. She looked so beautiful. I, on-the-other-hand, better get back to going to the gym. I've put on a lot of weight this winter and my knees are complaining. I know I would have more energy, too.

I have a special ceremony for each Den when they earn their Rank Badge. That's the Cubmaster reading the script. The ceremony involves face painting the boys. This is my Wolf Den. Eight of my nine boys met the requirements for their badge. 

Father and son.

At the end of the night we had the Ice cream Trough. This is something we used to do 15 years ago in the Pack. It was pushed aside by the germaphobes. Us old-timers brought it back and the kids loved it (or at least the ones who had parents who would let them join in).

Wednesday the little ones had Ski Club again and then were up late for the season opener of Survivor. Nick took a few hours off of work to be here for that so we could pick our favorites.

Thursday I got Nick and Elijah to carry out the broken washer that has been sitting in the middle of Elijah's to-be-room-if-we-ever-finish remodeling. Then Emily and I cleaned out the whole space so work can begin. Homer has the the corners to put around the sliding door in the craft room and then I can start taping and mudding (after he shows me how). He'll move on to the next room until I am done painting and then come back to build my counters and shelves.

Last night Lucas had basketball practice at a school 25 miles from our house. You take several long, icy back roads so travel time is 45-minutes each way taking up 2.5 hours of the evening for practice! I left dinner for Homer and saw him for a late movie. Between his long hours of work and my running the evening activities we hardly see each other.

Before work yesterday Nick made Olivia and Lucas new shirts for Tie Dye Day at school. They were thrilled when they woke up this morning and saw them. Aren't we a tough bunch? Yesterday it was +30 and Lucas went to practice in his shorts. It is +12 this morning and they sure aren't bundled up, are they? Spring is in the air and the sunshine is wonderful after the long, dark winter.

Speaking of Spring I should be planting my  geranium seeds March 1st and I haven't even ordered them. My plant room turned into storage again this winter and I can't even get in there. I have so much to do and it's been such an exhausting week. Guess I'd better hop to it. 

Yard Work

Dad pumped the water so I could clean out the leaves. It was supposed to happen after my lawn project yesterday, and now it's been raining all day. It will need pumped again and it is too slick to walk in. Bummer!

Yesterday's progress was halted by a trip to the gas station and some mixing of fuel for the blower. Then I spread fertilizer on the front lawn and half the ditch.

The next project was to blow the ditch line to the end and then rake up all the leaves on the corner. That took a couple hours and my arms were killing me!

Before and after. I didn't do down in the ditch yet. That will be a project for later in the summer.

Also had to clean out the chicken yard so I can plant grass seed. Got the fertilizer down, but I'm waiting a couple days to spread the seed. I hear we might have snow tomorrow morning.

I cleaned most of Daisy's pen the other day. All that is left is the corner, but Dad has to put up a couple more compost bins so I have somewhere to put it all.

Today, I'm working inside with my plants. It's been raining all day which will be wonderful for my lawn! Maybe I'll even do some cleaning. Probably not.

Burnt Grass and Bugs

Once the ditch line was done I wanted to finish burning the rest of the lawn, but had a few no-burn days due to wind advisories. I did the bulk of the work Sunday and tonight, and can finally say I'm finished. Of course, I forgot to take a photo so that you'll get tomorrow. I burnt the dead grass, raked it and then used the leaf blower to get rid of the debris. Next comes the fertilizer, water and green grass!

I would like to note that this is not a family project. My honey is just holding the flame for me so I could take a photo.

In fact, while I'm slaving away the kids are out getting muddy on dirt bikes.

And playing around on the ice.

They can also be found sitting by the fire, riding scooters or eating, but they most certainly will not be found burning, raking or blowing. I'm pretty sure I have sole ownership of the lawn.

Little Miss wanted to try out her bike without training wheels. Poor dad...up and down the driveway. It didn't take too many trips for Olivia to realize isn't wasn't going to be as easy as she thought.

My great-niece Jadyn spent Friday and Saturday night with us since her sister Justise was playing in a basketball tournament and it would have meant a lot of time sitting around the gym. It was nice to have all the cousins together to play.

I ran out of planting containers and have been quite mopey about the whole deal. I really don't want to spend anymore money on materials, but couldn't find anything suitable to use. I still have many seeds that haven't been put in the dirt, and really, they are several weeks behind and it is probably pointless. I do a lot of pointless stuff. Anyhow, I spent a few minutes reading blogs this morning and came across the making of newspaper pots. I had completely forgotten about this so I set to googling. I found a tutorial that didn't require the purchase of the official gadget and set to using up our recycling materials. Olivia was more than happy to help.

First she tore the newspaper into strips and then rolled it around a bottle.

The ends were folded over and the paper slid off the bottle. Next she used the cinnamon sugar sprinkler to smash the inside flat.

A little dirt was placed in the bottom and packed tight with a hockey stick. Lord knows after all those years of hockey we have enough sticks lying around to make a boat and float away. Then Olivia filled up the pots with dirt.

The tray was filled and Lucas showed up in time to put the seeds in.

All watered and on the shelf. According to what I read these pots will hold together for 8-10 weeks, and I only need them to make six. When transplant time comes I can just plop the whole thing in the ground and let it decompose. No need to ever buy pots again! :) Next winter I can make them while watching movies and be all ready for Spring because I do have to admit it is a very time consuming process especially with little helpers.
Well, here I am after midnight again. I am beat from all that yard work. I spent some time blowing leaves, etc. from around the pool, but apparently the first batch of mosquitoes have hatched. I must have had a swarm of 50 around me. I fought it about an hour and gave up. Now I'm chewed to bits! Little buggers. Time to hit the shower and bed. It will be 6:00am before I want it to be!

Oh...good news. Nick's first blood test indicated he had mono, but the second test confirmed he does not. Yea! He also had an eye exam this morning and his eyes are top notch. I love good news!

Not Too Spring-y Out

Yesterday I went to Pioneer Park with four of our five children. See the black clouds? It really wasn't a park day, but sometimes you just got to roll with it.

We had a picnic. We really just stopped at the deli for some fried chicken and jojo's, but it was like a picnic. After the four people behind us left we had the whole park to ourselves.

After the park we stopped by Creamer's Field to see the geese and swans.

For Earth Day I wanted to plant a Lodge Pole Pine in the yard. We went to a local greenhouse, and after seeing the $125 price tag I decided I didn't want one that bad. See the hanging baskets? They were $45-$60! I couldn't believe it. They had so many in the five greenhouses obviously people will pay that price, but I sure wouldn't.

Emily with one of the $60 baskets.

Emily really liked this planter, but I think $200 is a bit over-priced. The chair was $300! I told her I bet we could make one of these. Or maybe not, but we could have fun trying. I think the key is an air nail gun, and I have no clue if we have one.

It was raining when we left, but it never did rain on our side of town.

These are my Delight and Dwarf Dahlia's. Those plants were $4.79 each at the greenhouse. I grew 97 of them.

Things are filling up. There is another row under the bottom that you can't see. Everything is doing pretty good, but there is no substitute for actual sun. Wish I had a bunch of big windows to rotate them at. I'm afraid to move them out to the greenhouse. Could you imagine if the furnace quit in the middle of the night?

Pretty soon we'll have to put up the rest of the lights.

There was a wind advisory last night so I wasn't permitted to burn the rest of my grass. The wind never did blow at our house, but rules are rules. I hope I can finish that project today.