Strawberries...

Our strawberries are ready! Lena loves to eat them as does our whole household!
The kids and I picked these all yesterday! We have gotten this many once before. We are having strawberry shortcake for the graduation party and I think I have enough in the freezer now! It's fun to have something "finally" produce in great proportions!

Finished planting...

Here is my high tunnel. Kevin has not had time to do anymore than the East side of the posts but I had to plant it so Friday, Saturday, a little yesterday and today we got it finished. It was fun to see Moriah and Rebekah planting peppers and doing such a nice job. We planted 98 pepper plants and 98 tomato plants. We also got snap beans, okra, eggplant, watermelon, cucumbers, cantaloupe and beets planted in there. I got about half of the tomatoes staked and about half of the walkway laid down with cardboard. Now for a little sun and humidity and we will be doing good. I hear rain in the forecast for the next few days. We don't need that!

First I laid out the soaker hoses 30 inches apart the whole length of the garden. We will have 8 full length rows. I thought it would only have room for 6 rows so I didn't get enough hoses to finish it. Then we laid the plastic over the hoses marking where they were with garden staples. Then we tucked the plastic in the dirt. I cut the holes and all the girls helped plant (except for Lena). It was great fun and a learning experience for the girls. I usually do most of the planting. I do believe I have finished the planting for the year with the exception of some more lettuce and cabbage.

Long time friends...

Jordan and Cynthia

They both graduated this year from home school. They are the oldest child at home of many siblings and both are book-nuts so to speak.
All of the Jeub's and the Blazek's (correction: some of the Jeub's are missing) All of the Jeub's that came to our house yesterday (13 kids and dad Jeub)! They used to live in our area and we were friends through AWANA and home schooling but they moved 10 years ago to Colorado. We have seen them twice in that time. Jordan and Cynthia have been long distance friends through writing letters. Sometimes the letters are 11 pages long (front and back). They have a lot in common. Wendy and new baby Elijah were not along and they have two children out of the home now. We were blessed that they could stop at our place for awhile yesterday on their way home (they were driving all the way home too (17 hours there)). The kids had a lot of fun on the go cart, playing dolls and many other things.

I'm singing about God...

Lena was eating supper tonight and a CD was playing a song and she was trying to sing along but didn't know the song. I said, "What are you doing?" She replied, "I'm singing about God." It was so cute. The song was Wonderful Words of Life and I'm not sure you can hear that it is about the Lord but she knew it was.

Lena's first trip to the Buffalo in Jamestown. Here she is with her daddy under the big head.

She really enjoyed the buffalo. She said goodbye and everything.
Here's the girls' attempt at making it look like Moriah is a giant person petting this huge buffalo! Looks pretty good.

June got busy...

We went to a wedding just this weekend. Two beautiful people from our home school world.

The weekend before we spent the day in Milnor for the celebration they have every year. Caleb and Gideon drove the go-cart in the parade. Here they are right in front of Kevin's shop.

The week before that Kevin and Caleb worked on the high tunnel. It's been slow-going with everything else we have to do. Kevin has been busy at work so hasn't had much chance. I bought the tomato and pepper plants for it and will get them planted this week when we have the ground all worked up. Kevin will have to construct the thing around the plants. I had to buy them before the tomatoes were too picked over. The Roma's were already gone! :(

There are 40 ground stakes to put in the ground. They have to dig a 4 foot hole and tamp down the stake. They only got half of them in that day.

And on June 1st we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. There is a couple from church wed on the very same day in the same year so we went out to eat with them. Kevin brought me this beautiful flower arrangement. We were actually late meeting Doug and Janet because he had forgotten them in his shop! :)

What a storm...

My hot caps for my tomatoes were smashed to the ground and ripped to bits. I don't know if the tomatoes are going to make it with all the wind last night and then again today.

I have three beautiful trees in my back yard that give the house shade and us in the summer. Two of them were damaged. After Kevin trims out the damage they will look quite strange.

This one has a large crack down it. We are hoping it doesn't mean the tree is a loss.

This one will have no more branches on this side :( :( :( I know it could be lots worse and I know others had it worse than us but it is so sad to see these 30 year old trees brought down this way. We won't be able to raise any like it up while we are here.

The winds did some damage at our place last night as well as many around us. Our billy goat's pen was picked up and dropped in the horse pen. It's a bit damaged. It took awhile but we found the billy. He was OK.

From the window it looked worse than it was. The wind took the canopy on top and pulled it back. It got stuck on the chair and table in the picture and so didn't set back down. It's a little crooked but not damaged.

We spent some time in the basement and the kids were a little frantic with worry. We did go to sleep eventually but then were awakened to smoke alarms going off in the middle of the night when the electricity finally came on and the dog was barking because of the electric company coming out to check on the lines by our place. Sure wish we could have a peaceful, warm, June to plant gardens and spend outside.