Latest Pastime!

The other day Josh brought over the wood splitter because I had the idea I might split wood for exercise. Unfortunately, a respiratory infection of some kind has had me laid up for the last two weeks! So yesterday the boys beg Josh to show them how the wood splitter works. Ever since they have begged to split wood every free moment! Poor Josh! The kids are in love with splitting and stacking wood now. We are happy since this is a job that needs to be done before winter. In past years they have shown little or no interest, so this is a great change! (And lest you become too worried, Josh keeps an eagle eye on things and has taught them the safety rules for splitting wood.)

Morning Harvest

This was the beautiful harvest from the garden this morning! We actually harvested some fresh corn today, as well, but it was later in the day and missed the basket. I just had to take a picture because it was so beautiful! Praise the Lord for blessing us!

And this was our dinner tonight! Entirely ranch produced food--roasted venison, corn on the cob, tomatoes, and okra! Yum!

Summer Moments

Grandma, this picture is for you! Juliana loves her "princess" puzzle and was proudly telling me here how she put the whole thing together herself.

This year Nathan learned to drive the riding mower. If I need something moved, he can't volunteer fast enough to hook up the trailer and haul it for me! After finishing a job the other day, the kids all had a ride!

Nevada County Fair!

This past week was the Nevada County Fair. Our family traditionally enters as many things as we can find to enter! The Ramey family was well represented and did quite well. Here are a few highlights.

One of the divisions is to submit a poster showing a community service project you did during the year. We put together a display about the blankets for Haiti. It took Best of Show for the 5-8 age division! We were grateful to give glory to God on the display.

One of the highlights for our boys for the past two years has been to watch the Gold Country Woodturners working. This year, they invited the boys to come and watch them create something. Peter volunteered. He observed the entire project, which took at least 30 minutes. The craftsmen were so encouraging and gracious to the kids. Nathan would really like to learn this skill and we are going to see if we can work out helping him learn.

He even let Peter stain the wand himself!

Proud little boy!

How Nathan enjoyed lunch at the fair!

How the kids enjoyed their free ride at the Fair, courtesy of the public library summer reading program!

Homemade Granola Bars

One of my latest quests has been for a satisfactory granola bar. Finally played around with the recipes enough to get a less crumbly result.

Raisin granola bars. I used this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Playgroup-Granola-Bars/Detail.aspx. It tells you to cut the bars after cooling for 5 minutes--do it! They get hard to cut after they are cool.

I also made another recipe. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chewy-Granola-Bars/Detail.aspx This one is very crumbly, so added 1 egg and it was much better. These are made with chocolate chips, so not as heathful.

Both recipes met with rave reviews from my "taste experts". I had to hide the bars or there would have been none left for picnics and outings next week!

Blackberry Magic

Those of you who have children have surely experienced the following problem--blackberry (or other fruit stains) all over a favorite outfit. Such was our dilemma last week. Juliana enjoyed picking berries, but the pink shirt looked to be permanantly ruined.

Enter a recipe given to my mother when we were small that works every time to remove fruit stains. It saves you so much money because clothes don't have to be replaced so often! Simply boil approx. 1-2 cups water and place in a small bowl or measuring cup. Add approx. 1/8 to 1/4 cup ammonia to water. Stretch the stained fabric over the top of the bowl and allow the steam to come up through the berry stains. Pour small amounts of hydrogen peroxide onto the berry stains. Wait and add more peroxide as needed until the stains disappear! Launder as usual.

The only time this has failed was when the garment had already been washed prior to trying the stain removal technique.

And now, drumroll please . . . . . . .

Same shirt as good as new!

Blackberry Picking

On Saturday we went blackberry picking at our neighbor's property. They have LOTS of blackberry bushes that are loaded with berries and they always graciously share them with us. With Josh gone on a fire, I was looking for things to keep the kids busy. It was a lovely morning and we had fun working together.

Juliana chose her own berry picking head gear--I have no idea why!

A portion of the morning's harvest. They make the most lucious freezer jam!

Growing Garden

Thought you would like to see a little of my garden this year. These pictures were taken about two weeks ago and the corn is now as tall as the sprinkler stake! This shows only about 2/3 of the garden. It is located in our fruit orchard, which is why you see fruit trees mixed in with the garden veggies. You can also see the blue roof of our chicken pen off on the side.

Right now we are harvesting squash, banana and jalapeno peppers, cherry tomatoes, and a few regular tomatoes. Things are really behind because of our cool wet spring. I should begin harvesting corn next week, I think.

The large plant in the foreground is a volunteer squash of some kind that the kids wanted to let grow to see what it was. It is now about double the size it was in this picture! They want to see how large it will grow!