Begging Your Pardon

I beg your pardon for my silence. Our 14-year-old neice has been visiting, and although I think everyone should just love teenagers, they are terribly time-consuming what with their late-night hours and late-morning sleep-ins. She left last night and although I miss her, I am a bit glad to get back to my schedule of little children who are all silently in bed by 8pm (and enjoy a Quiet Time for an hour every afternoon).

Anyway, you could blame my Blog Silence on my lovely neice.

Thought I'd let you know I'm back.

Since I am back, here's what has been happening lately....

Flooding...again. Tim got the new chicken coop 1/3 of the way finished, and it was under water again this week. We have had 23" of rain in April, which makes it the wettest month EVER on record in Pensacola, Florida. Still, funky weather makes life way more interesting.

Boating...across our flooded land to rescue the ladder, the wheelbarrow, and my made-by-Dad picket fence panels.

Shoveling...chicken manure from the flood site that dismantled our first chicken pen.
Moving it to our veggie garden.

Planting...lavender and rosemary in my raised herb garden beds. I found an organic herb garden center in Loxley, Alabama last week and thought I'd visited a corner of Heaven.

Buying...3 books by Lee Sturdivant on growing herbs and flowers for sale. I used to do this as a little side business, and want to start again. It would be a nice family business and since we homeschool, the children could learn a lot from it. Lee Sturdivan'ts books are great, if you're looking for this type of information, too, or even if you just like gardening. Her writing style is very down to Earth (she's a gardener, see, "down to Earth," lol).

Chasing...our 14 preteen-aged chicks up and down the hill. They keep escaping from their pen.

Worrying...or mourning...a missing free-range (while the coop is being built) hen. Maybe she was "visited" by a neighbor's dog, or maybe she's laying on eggs. We'll know in another 2 weeks.

Praying...for Tim and his brother, Todd, to have a safe trip back home today from Birmingham, Alabama, where they went to pick up a truck Tim bought on eBay. It's a 1966 flat bed. Basically a piece of junk with eye-catching potential. A great project between brothers.

Enjoying...having Todd and his family (which includes our neice who has been visiting). They are now 1 hour away instead of 17 hours away when they lived in Ohio. BIG difference!

Waving...at you!