New Post, New Blog

If you are a regular follower (I know there are a few:))   Go here: http://www.tailspinfarm.blogspot.com/ and become a follower or change your link address on your blog.  I will be blogging there all the time now.

Go Here!!!

Go to http://www.tailspinfarm.blogspot.com/ to see pictures and about my day at Maple Valley Off-grid Farm.

Maple Valley Farm

I am SO excited!!! Today 2 friends and I are going to Maple Valley off-grid farm to meet Homemaker Ang and her family!!!  We are taking 2 classes and having lunch on the farm.  If you want to check out her amazing site go here http://eclecticculturefarm.blogspot.com/  I am taking my camera and plan on taking lots of pictures!  More to come on this amazing experience~~

American Heritage Festival

Well, we went to the festival and spent 2 days there, but did not sell a single thing! We had fun though and there were alot of neat things to do for the kids. Here is a picture of our booth.

I Love Science!!!

That title seems weird coming from someone who did not enjoy school, especially science. I didn't hate it like math (which is a whole other post) but, in the last 8years of homeschooling (Yes, this Mom who really disliked school, LOVES homeschooling!!!) I have gone through ALOT of curriculum. I have switched over on all of it except science. We have done Apologia since the beginning and I have always been happy with it. I have learned so much along with the kids too. This year we jumped into the new Anatomy for the elementary kids. We just finished the first chapter and I think this one is the best yet! I went ahead this year and purchased the notebooking journals (we have always done the journaling, just with our own binders) and they are wonderful. The kids did the "jello cell" this morning and it turned out so neat and it reinforces what they learned by putting all the parts(candy)of the cell(jello)together. I would HIGHLY recommend any of the Apologia sciences to any homeschool parent out there, but be prepared to enjoy science like you may have never done before!



Jello Cell


B and J putting cell parts together

Back To Reality

How is it that time sees to pass so quickly these days? I can't believe it has almost been a month since my last post! We had a wonderful vacation and very relaxing. I will get some pictures posted this weekend. We started school 2 weeks ago and have had a great start so far. Four of the kids have joined our local Homeschool music group and three of them had their auditions this morning. They did a great job and I was so proud of them. This will be a huge commitment for our family with practice time and concerts, but I have come to find out that all five of our kids are very gifted in music and that is something that I can't teach here at home, but I can find an outlet for it! I have decided to step out of my comfort zone and will be doing craft show type event in two week at a local Nature Center. They are having a "Heritage Festival" and the girls and I decided to take some of our fiber, yarn and items that I have made and see if there is any interest in the angora market. I have wanted to get the word out about my business for awhile but in all honesty have just been chicken to do it. I think this venue will be great though since it is a heritage festival and a lot of what I do is with my spinning wheel. They are also having re-enactments which the girls and I love anyway so we will have a great time there I am sure.

I can't believe it has been nine years since 9/11. I can remember that day vividly as if it were yesterday. Our youngest was only two months old when it happened and now he is so grown up (being that he is 9 and all, LOL) I remember it was a BEAUTIFUL day here, and I wanted to go pick up our kids at school, but they were all on lock-down so I couldn't anyway. I am sure that all the people that lost loved ones that day also have such strong memories as the rest of us.

End of Summer

Cam and Kayla patiently waiting


Josh shooting last fall


Nolan and Cam playing at 4-H


Bekah at rabbit show

Kayla won a Rosette for her Style Revue dress

I keep trying to figure out where the time goes! We are getting ready to leave for our annual one week vacation to the Upper Peninsula. This week is much loved by all of us because there really are no plans set in stone, unless you count sitting by the fire at 7a.m. watching the sunrise, or sitting by the fire at 11p.m. and watching the stars.

I am always amazed every year at the stars. We live in the country but we are just a few miles from a small town and about 20 miles from Lansing. So we see stars, but not like we do up there. It is amazing. The whole sky is spotted and you can see clusters of stars and planets.

I am really proud of the garden/canning that we have done so far this year. I hope to come home to it still producing. I haven't totaled all my cans and frozen stuff yet, but it is a lot. All the kids have been helping this year, which made a huge difference for me. Even the girls are getting in on the canning bit!

These are some various pictures from the last few weeks, although I think the archery one is from last fall!

We had a great 4-H, Kayla and Nolan came home with Rosettes, and Nolan and Cameron also got one for their band performance, Bekah got a "best of breed male" for her rabbit. We got numerous "A" and also some "B" ribbons this year.

Bekah 4-hperformance

This is our youngest daughter at the 4-H performance! She had a minor hicup and was very nerous, but she did great and got a blue ribbon!

Music

These are our sons. Their band, Hundredfold Harvest, played as the "entertainment" last night at our 4-H fair. My son Cameron wrote this song and it is called "Redeemed". The video has alot of 4-H noise in the background and I got a little weepy in the middle, so it's a bit shaking. I will post on Friday how fair went for us this year!!

My Life as a Cruise Director

I have been struggling lately with "low mommy moments". The easiest way to explain this for me, is I feel like a "cruise director" on a ship, but I never go anywhere amazing or get a big fat pay check!! I have been scheduling, running, helping, running, telling kids they need to run, telling hubby we need to do something, Oh, did I mention running? Part of the struggle comes from seeing my kids older and not needing me like they did when they were little. Now I hand them money and the keys to the car and pray they will make it wherever safely. The boat I am directing is in quickly changing waters and it is scary! I feel like I am constantly moving, but I am not getting anywhere. August always seems to be a difficult month. We have 4-H week, hubby and I and the older 3 kids work a week of camp as counselors (which I am stepping back from this year), and we go on vacation to the Upper Peninsula the last week in August, then school starts up again!! Wow! time sure does fly as you get older.

On a better note, the garden is in full swing and I have already canned 32 quarts of pickles this week! My tomatoes are a bit slow, but I look for them to hit the next week or so.

Hubby's radio show was picked up by a syndicated blog talk show out of Dallas. That was huge for him! He will be on KBENradio.com every Sunday afternoon at 3p.m.

Fun Sunday

Hubby and I took the two youngest to North Star Alpaca farm to meet Maple and her herd of alpaca. We had such a wonderful time, and Maple was the SWEETEST lady! We left with hugs and promised that her and I would get together to just spin and talk fiber soon. The kids got to go out and feed her alpacas and B. got to lead one around in the pasture, with her knowledge of horses she was a natural at it. J. had to be "bribed" to go, but loved it when we got there. Her barn was cleaner that our house, we were so impressed. She gave me alot of help on getting my yarn business going. Of course I forgot my camera so I didn't get any pictures! but we will be going back there soon.

Garden

This hot weather we have had most of the summer has caused our garden to explode!! Last year we had nothing in the garden due to a June rainstorm that dropped 5-6 inches in about two hours. So we have been out picking and I have already frozen beans, and canned pickles and it looks like just the beginning!

And the Winner is.....

Our Crazy Farm!!! Yea! I will get your hat to you in the mail this next week! Thank you to everyone who signed up. Keep checking back, I will do another giveaway this fall again.

GIVEAWAY!!!!

I am doing a "Christmas in July Heatwave Giveaway" I think most of the nation is in the middle of a heatwave right now, although in Michigan we did have a cold front move through. We are in the mid-eighties instead of the nineties!!! I have been wanting to get some more traffic to my blog and yarn/angora shop for some time now. I have been doing some research and decided the best way to start is with a giveaway. Everyone loves to get free stuff, even if it is an Angora stocking cap that is seven times warmer than wool! So from now until next Friday, July 16, leave a comment for me on this post and we will pick the winner next Friday! You will get this 100% hand-spun, hand-dyed knitted stocking cap:

I Got an Article Published!!!

With Hubby working for Christian Devotions Ministries I have be able to get a piece published on their kids site www.devokids.com Go to Devo Kids and click on the "nature" button. You will be able to see one of our English Angora rabbits and learn a little about the rabbits and see what we do with them. There will also be a project coming up on there also about how to dye yarn with Kool-aid that you can try with your kids.

Blogging here now

I am in the procees of getting our farm "business" up and going a little bit more this summer. Over the years I have toyed with names of our farm and blog. Tail Spin Farm has become the one we are using on all of our stuff so I will be switching over and blogging here now: www.tailspinfarm.blogspot.com Please change this in your links.

VBS

We just finished out our week of VBS and the theme this year was Superheros. I did not have to think too long on a costume, I just had to pull my cape out of the closet!

VBS Pictures

Promise 2010

Our oldest son just returned from a two week long music tour with Great Lakes Christian College. This is his second year involved in this program and we can not say enough good things about it. It is all high school kids from Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and there was even a young lady from Pennsylvania this year! They spend the first week on campus practicing around nine hours a day. The second week they spend on the road touring churches, this year in Michigan and Indiana. They had an awesome message and the home concert was last Friday night. Here are some of the FIVE HUNDRED or so pictures he came home with! (thanks Maxx!!)

"Mellow Yellow" Yarn

My yarn is finished! I called this one "Mellow Yellow".

Here it is on the bobbin:



Here it is on the Niddy Noddy:




Here it is in a skein:

Angora Yarn From Start to Finish

We have been dying angora fiber this week. Here is a little peek of what we have done so far.


This is one of our English Angoras:





This is the fiber after we have groomed the rabbit:



This is the green dyed angora fiber:



This is the yellow dyed angora fiber:



These are the two colors together:



This is what they look like after they have been carded together:




This is on my wheel right now:




I am working on spinning it and will post pictures of the finished yarn hopefully later today!!

Hundred Fold Harvest

This is our son's band. They are getting ready for some gigs and wanted to have some pictures to use.

Gardens In!!!

We are finally getting our garden in today. We usually wait as long as we can, because we are in a low spot and if we get any substantial rain we will lose the entire garden (which happened last year) I am so excited. Our garden was wiped out the end of June last year and we didn't replant because it was so wet, so I wasn't able to do any canning at all. I can't wait for fall.

Like daughters, like Mother!

I have had really long hair for about 7 years now. Well after both girls have cut theirs for Locks of Love, I decided to follow suit this week! What a change for me.

K's Flute Recital

North Carolina Trip

Well I have been home a week and am just now getting pictures downloaded! These are from the TOP of a mountain that Scott and I and Eddie and Cindy (co-founders of Christian Devotions) climbed. Now we are from Michigan...no mountains...not even really big hills for that matter. So, when they said to walk the trails up the mountains, we were thinking nice groomed trails. We were so wrong. I can offically say I have climbed a mountain in my skirt and t-shirt with my Birkenstocks on!!! LOL We had a great time though and the view from the top was breath taking.