April 28- May 4, 2019 Sewing, Brooding Chickens, Avenger's Endgame, Fiddleheads

April 28- May 4, 2019
Sewing, Brooding Chickens, Avenger's Endgame, Fiddleheads

Hello Friends!

A good, very rainy week here in the Grand Rapids area.  It is officially May, but if we were in Indiana I'd think it was still early March.  It is always so interesting how different the weather is when we are only five hours north of Indianapolis, Indiana.  It is fun looking for the smallest signs of spring to appear!

Fiddleheads:

It's that wonderful time of year when the fiddleheads appear on the Ostrich ferns, especially these first weeks when they emerge.  They remind me of butterflies--how when they have newly hatched their wings have such bright colors and after a few hours their wings get beaten up and weathered looking; ferns also get ragged looking in the summer.  

Sunday: Uncle Roland

It was a special church service for our us, we had a guest speaker.  Uncle Roland's family and extended family have attended our church for decades.  Recently Uncle Roland retired from being a missionary in South America and had lived and attended our church for almost a year about two years ago.  Since then he has found new work in Indiana working with the prison population (I believe that is correct) in sharing the gospel.  He is probably in his seventies roughly, but has the energy and spirit rarely found in men in their twenties!  He is just a power-house and a joy to listen to preach!  His main theme was about praying and I was particularly touched about the part he shared about praying for the hungry.  He really did a great job and it was really great for us all to hear him, there is just something special about hearing from an older man that really has faithfully served the Lord for many decades in selfless service.  He is the type of man who spreads love and kindness, not judgment and superiority.  Dh and I didn't stay for Sunday School as I had been fighting a migraine all morning but wanted to go and hear Uncle Roland.

Chickens:

The chickens are so happy to be spending more and more time outside in their protected chicken run, they love to run and flap their wings! I've been able to pick LOTS of greens for them now!  They are eating them all up and enjoying their preferred diet.

Miss Lemon: our Bantam hen:

 After months of Miss Lemon laying eggs and being so active, she has turned "broody" again.  She now can be found sitting on top of a nest, hoarding some fake eggs with all her life.  She is on a mission to sit on those eggs and has a bee in her bonnet when I take her off and place her beside the food.

Henry:

Henry has a serious problem with car travel and we aren't sure why.  Dd spent some time each day this week taking Henry out to the car and sitting with him while he was just adjusted to being inside.  She read her homework while he settled down.  She drove around the driveway and parked in different spots.  We are hoping to be able to take him to parks to hike with us but we will have to overcome his anxiety about cars first.  A month ago I took him to the library and he was drooling like crazy and after about five minutes he threw up, so he needs help.  Henry has been scratching like crazy this week, even though he is on very expensive allergy medicine twice a day.  I think it bugs me more than it bothers him!!  

I brought my computer into my bedroom from the cold basement but had to figure out a way to stop Agnes from chewing the cords...so far so good!  That is aluminum foil over each cord.

Volunteering at Library:

It has been about a year of Dd volunteering at our local library and this week was her last day.  Last summer she did the teen program of helping during various classes, then in the fall she started helping out during the Thursday Story Time class.  She did a great job and always arrived early and was diligent in her efforts.  This summer she is going to be working, most likely at Subway, and we will be doing summer school together for Science, English, and Math so she won't have time to volunteer.  I'm so glad she put in a year of service to her community.  She will continue to help out at church doing Nursery and our last weeks of Olympians on Wednesday nights.

Sewing Comforter:
I spent hours sewing together two beautiful pale yellow all-cotton twin comforters into our new sofa cover and was pleasantly pleased with my handiwork.  That accomplishment helped me feel ready for the big project I'd been wanting to do all spring---my new comforter for my bed.  I spent all day Friday and a few more hours on Saturday on this project.  The rainy weather was perfect for such a long, labor-intensive inside job!  I can't say I'm usually proud of something I've made, but for once I really did a great job and am so glad!  Sometime in the last year, I found two panels of a pale pink linen material at our thrift store; I'm not sure what they were intended for, not curtains, maybe table covers?  The material was so nice I bought it; not knowing exactly what I would use it for!  Then in March Heather took us to Goodwill's Pay by the Pound store where I found a queen size, all cotton, super cute comforter quilted bed top.  The funny thing about this comforter, I knew it exactly!  I've seen it at Target for years, in their Shabby Chic collection (White Blooming Blossoms) but it always costs too much new and I never expected to see it at a thrift store in new condition!!!  It is in perfect shape, not a mark or worn spot.

  I knew it would be wide enough to cover the top of our king bed but not wide enough to hang down on the sides very much.  I hoped the pink linen material would match up with the quilt and that I could figure out how to put it all together, and I did!  I had also found a thin old comforter that would work as the battening to sew to the underside of the pink linen and it did match up to the right thickness.  I didn't want the quilt to be thicker than the sides or the sides to be thicker than the middle, but with adding the battening to the linen it all matched up.  I cut and sewed and had to cut off the width to make it long enough so it wasn't an easy job; I think it was eight pieces that had to be cut and sewed together to get the right sizes for the two side pieces.  The sewing machine was a great help, but I had to do quite a bit by hand.  I think it took about twelve hours of sewing but in the end it turned out fantastic!  I am SO pleased.  I've always wanted a really pretty comforter and the fact that I made it makes it even more special although my sewing talents leave it a little lacking!

Dickens likes the new comforter

 Skids & Dh:

Dh ordered two of these 'skid-breaker-upper's' and has been breaking down skids and building chopped-wood cabinets that are about 4' x 6'.  He continues to improve his woodworking skills and is really enjoying making things.  He gets the skids for free from work and this gives him free wood to work with without worrying about the cost while he figures things out.  He has now made three of these cabinets.  They also create a wall barrier that prevents Henry from jumping down into the bottom run that the chickens sometimes use when we are outside to keep an eye on them.  That bottom run doesn't have a net or any protection from hawks or owls flying in to attack a hen so we don't use this section daily.  It is a hard area to secure and these cabinets help, so they are dual purpose.

Avengers: Endgame:

Like so many people we reserved our seats and saw the latest Marvel movie this week on Saturday.  For the first time we had difficulty finding good seats available and had to wait a few days for our schedule and good seating to match up.  We had to wait a week before we could go, so I had time to think about how I would want it to end and was so pleasantly surprised that what I wanted is what actually happened!  That doesn't usually happen!!  I won't give any details but I was so pleased with the storyline of Captain America!  Being good does pay off in the end!

Hailee:

Dd stayed all day with Hailee- -they ended up going to Walmart and a fast food place to eat before they went to the evening Youth Program where Jim lead the program on Sunday.  Dd is spending more and more time with Hailee and I'm seeing her less and less.  I think the world of Hailee and am glad Dd has such a kind friend.  The hard part is that Dd always wants to spend more time with Dh, as he works long hours during the week, but then she spends so much of her Sunday with Hailee that she misses out on the few hours he is home and available.

The two turkey eggs are the white ones and the brown are from my hens.

Turkey Egg:

Dh came home with a turkey egg from a co-worker that buys our chicken eggs.  She wanted to let us see, and taste, what a turkey egg is like.  My stomach did not like it one bit!  I think the big yoke was probably too fatty for me.  I bet if I would have given Henry half the yoke I would have been fine.  When I make myself eggs I usually give Henry most of the yokes since my body has a hard time with the fat.

Nature:

Last week, around April 13th I saw the POPPIES coming up! Just the green plant leaves, but the flower buds will be coming soon!  Then on May 1st, the ferns started popping up!  My spring/summer goal this year is to remove as many thorny bushes as I can!  I'm focused and have ripped out, by the roots, as many as I can!  I do a little each day and some days I've really got a lot!  The woods will hopefully look better eventually!

 Rainy Weather: Garden

Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed, and Fri.  The sun didn't get much of a chance to shine this week!  It was so gray and rainy, but made perfect weather for pulling weeds and sewing inside!  It is still too cold to plant outside but the seedlings I've planted inside are doing really well!!!

Dd's Academic Progress for the Week:

Honeysuckle likes the new sofa cover I sewed this week

Bible:
Church, Sunday School, Youth Program
Bible Study:
Independent Study with Word of Life daily Bible Study and Awaken: 90 Days with a God That Waits by Priscilla Shirer




Volunteering:
*Last* Story Hour at the library: 1 1/2 hours
Olympians (game time) at church: 1 1/2 hours




Grace Co-op Classes:
Cultural Geography (Bob Jones University)
Spanish I ( BJU)
Algebra I (Saxon)
Introductory Logic
Exploring Economics (Ray Notgrass)
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