Dad and Mom on the right, us, Jeremy and Abby on the left. Uncle Jerry was down a couple of spots and Skip and Brandi were a little ways up the hill.
Another Houseal Family Get Together is in the books. We had the most beautiful fall weather this year and camping at Lake Darling is always a great experience. We camped Thursday through Sunday together with Dad and Mom, Jeremy and Abby, Skip and Brandi, and Uncle Jerry. Then on Saturday everybody else came for the day. I took lots and lots of pictures and still didn’t get pictures of everyone. And we didn’t get a group picture this year. Oh well, hopefully next year we’ll remember. I love that we try to do this every year!
I found a rock at our campsite! Thanks Brandi!Joe and Uncle Jerry heading out on a trail. I drove them to the other side of the lake and dropped them off. I’m hoping to walk this trail yet this year. We walked at least one trail each day and the kids brought their scooters along.I wonder what Bayah and Great Grandma are discussing?Brandi brought her paint supplies and rocks along and lots of rocks were painted and hid around the park. So much fun!Boys rolling down hills!There was lots of corn hole played. Uncle Jerry and Jeremy won the tournament on Saturday!Grandpa and Bayah may or may not have hid under the table to eat candy before we ate lunch!An early morning walk before everyone before anyone else was up.Boys fascinated with motors.Dad and Joe – wonder what they were discussin?Skip and JeremyDad, Me and JoeBraxton and DrewMom and Uncle Donnie (Mom’s baby brother)Abby and Uncle JerryMom and Uncle Terry – Mom’s younger brotherUncle Jerry. He’s not a Houseal but he’s always invited and I love that he camps with us too! He’s Dad’s brother-in-law.Noah and Braxton (Braxton LOVED playing corn hole!)We had morning fires and evening fires – lots of wood was burned over the weekend!
Drew and I harvested dandelions earlier this spring when they first started popping up. Most people I know think of dandelions as weeds but after sketching them in our Nature Journals and doing some research we decided to make some useful items out of them. We have so so many dandelions in our yard and I love them. They remind me of little drops of sunshine all over the ground! And the bees and the chickens enjoy them too.
I decided to make some dandelion lotion bars out of the fresh blooms. And Drew wanted to try frying some blossoms. The lotion bars turned out so sweet and they work wonderfully. Drew wasn’t a huge fan of the fried blossoms. I kind of winged it and they could have used a little more flavor in the breading but it was still fun to try. We harvested quite a few extra blooms to dry for later use. I want to slowly start adding to my stash of dried naturals to have on hand.
Making use of dandelions was fun and a great way to get outside even though it was still an early chilly spring day. And now Drew will pick me little dandelion bouquets now and then when he’s outside playing!
Life lesson for Drew: The Mule doesn’t work in snow, the 4-wheeler can also get stuck, and Dad doesn’t like to stop what he is doing to help dig you out! After a lot of shoveling and some pulling, Drew now knows how to get things unstuck!
It’s hard to believe February is almost over. It always amazes me how quickly time flies. We decided to do our phenology wheel journaling for February today. It’s fun to see what each of remembers most from the month. We pulled out our nature journals too and went through them to remind us what we observed and what we studied on those days we couldn’t get outside. (Which was most of the February as there was just too much snow and too many cold cold days.) We are starting to really enjoy these phenology wheels now that we have two months filled in. Our nature year all in one picture!
It really hit home today that spring is on its way. Along with a wonderful warmer week, today Drew spied our resident chipmunk out running around. Hibernation must be over! We noticed him last year living around the oak trees and today he was out running all over the cave and around the yard and trees. Drew and Possum would go from one dining room window to the other watching him run around. Drew was entertained and Possum was wanting to eat him. It’s a good thing there was a window between them! And he was a great addition to our nature journals!
It’s cold here in my neck of the woods. And snowy. We have lots and lots of snow this winter. I just came in from taking care of the chickens and my toes are cold and my cheeks are cold. I was doing pretty good until I decided I needed to shovel off the patio as we got another skiff of snow this morning. I love love love winter and snow but these zero and below temps are not fun. It’s even cold in the house since I refuse to turn the furnace up. We just layer, pile on the blankets when we’re sitting down, and this year I’ve made rice bags and boy do they help!
Last week was tough as Joe was gone most of the week. And this week is the same. We have gotten so spoiled over the past year as he hasn’t had to travel. Last week he was only 45 minutes away which even though he’s not home, we at least know if absolutely necessary he can come home or we can go to him. This week he’s out of state. The only positive to that is he’s there to hand over the account to someone new so he shouldn’t have to go again. Yeah! The last time he was there was last year. We weren’t sure he would be able to get home due to the quarantine and the state shutting down. He made it home and the next day everything shut down. Scary times!
We had been so used to him traveling. He had slowed down considerably over the years but he still was gone quite a lot. But over the past year, he’s been home. All the time. And after an adjustment period for all of us, we settled in and loved it. He’s slowly been going out and to accounts and been gone during the day for part of the week and that’s as it should be. But again, it was an adjustment as we had gotten to used to him being here all the time. There have been so many negative aspects of this pandemic but being able to spend so much time together has been a blessing that I have cherished.
Another positive of the pandemic has been homeschooling. Something we had been thinking about doing became necessary at the end of the last school year and then we decided to carry on this year. While challenging, very challenging some days, it’s been fun. A fun new project we started at the beginning of the year was a nature journal. And then the darn winter weather hit and getting outside and exploring really isn’t possible right now. There is just too much snow and it’s too darn cold. So, for now we’re taking what we study in Science and our Mammals unit and we’re transferring that into our nature journals. As you can see, Andrew drew his food chain but then he decided to embellish his journal with a turtle with a food bowl in its shell. I never know what he’s going to come up with!
We celebrated Candlemas and Groundhog Day yesterday. I surprised Drew with a day of celebrating mixed in with school work and I think he enjoyed the day. He asked if we would celebrate Candlemas every year! I found it interesting that he has never liked Groundhog Day and never wanted to talk about it or know if the groundhog saw his shadow or not. But he was open to studying it yesterday and he even chose to draw a groundhog in his nature journal. A groundhog with a top hat on!
For Candlemas we talked about what Candlemas is and how we’re halfway to spring. That seemed to excite me more than Drew! I had not ever heard of Candlemas so it was interesting for me too. We brought out the beeswax candles we poured awhile back to use in our celebration. We did some fire experiments using the candles and for supper we ate pancake stacks by candlelight. We had just read the chapter in Farmer Boy about Almanzo’s mom making him pancake stacks so that made it even more fun! It was nice to have a little celebration on a cold winter day.
