What a Day

Good morning! Today would be a much lovelier day if it were going to be sunny. Paul got me a two gallon pump sprayer and eight gallons of vinegar. I want to go kill weeds in the garden but a sunny day really is better than a day where there is a 70% chance of rain. I’ve got the Dawn dish soap as well which I will definitely use along with the vinegar. I have salt, too, but need to do more research to find out for how long its effects last in the garden. According to one blogger, if you use salt, don’t expect anything to grow there again ever. I think that’s a bit extreme and it seems very unlikely that using salt in the garden would mean nothing will ever grow there again. I’ve got enough semi-composted hay, etc., from the goats to cover the entire garden with a thin layer. I think if I used salt and then used my semi-compost, we might be good. Anyway, I intend to do a bit more research before I make a final decision about the salt.

I took this while I was waiting for the girls May 22 at the middle school. It was raining and I thought the lights were cool.

Yesterday was quite the day. It began fairly early, as usual, with making sure Amena was getting up and then getting lunches ready and all the fun stuff that normally happens on a fairly typical school day. One difference was that yesterday was field day and that means being outside for an extended period of time which means extra liquid and sunscreen. We have some of the spray on sunscreen which is great other than you still have to rub it on and there are small particles flying around in the air that make their way to my  nose and cause it to, as I mentioned yesterday, sneeze, produce copious amounts of mucous and make my eyes water.

This bunny was in the yard Sunday afternoon.

Once the boys were off to school, I ate and needed to get ready to go visiting teaching. Julia and I were planning on visiting Amy which is always fun. I needed for us to leave by 10:00 so I could be home in time for my visiting teachers, Joyce Horne and Cheri Brimhall, to come. I got home at 10:30 on the button and no one was here yet so I managed to go through some soap stuff before they finally arrived at 11:00. Cheri brought her youngest, Quinn, with her and I got the blocks from the boys room for him to play with. He also played with the magnetic things that Grandma sent us. They are so much fun.

A swallows nest above the back door. They've really been taking care of the spiders on the back porch this year.

When they were getting ready to leave, I asked Quinn if he’d like to see the baby goats. He did so we went to see them and I let one out of the pen so he could pet it. Joyce and Cheri did as well and were amazed at how soft he is. Then Quinn caught sight of the big goats and he wanted to go see them also. So we went to the field and he got to pet Goldilocks and Snowflake. He had a little bag of Goldfish and Goldilocks did her very best to get them but was not successful.

Turkey in the front Monday. Yesterday she brought all of her babies (1- to 15 of them) with her. They are so stinking cute when they are little.

I had just enough time to eat a bit for lunch and get a few bars of soap ready to take with me to a little store in Athol called the Scrub Shack. A woman Julia was working with quit nursing and opened up a little store selling scrubs and she wants to have things there that women can pamper themselves with. I appreciate the fact that she is not open on Sunday and, in fact, goes to church on Sunday. It matters not that it is a different church than I go to, the important thing is that it is important to her. She said she tried selling at Rietta Flea Market once. It is a rather large flea market that is just around the corner from us (in a manner of speaking—it’s on 68 just north of where Pitcherville takes off). She said she just didn’t like the feel of it and was not comfortable there.

Kitty's Minion.

After that, I came home and did some laundry and dishes before it was time to go pick Seth and Joseph up from school so we could stop at the library. I had a book in and Seth needed to get a book or two to read. I’m not sure he likes the idea of having to read in order to play the computer game they like to play but he did read fourteen pages yesterday. I quizzed him to make sure he’d actually read it and understood what he read. I am satisfied that he did. Joseph didn’t want to get a book unless we stopped at the park on the way home. I wasn’t about to do that as it had begun raining.

Cedric got home not long after we did and shortly after that, it was time to go pick Amena and Sam up from the late bus. That was fine other than the fact that I got to the school a few minutes before the bus did and when it arrived, I never saw the girls get off. It seems I was looking at the wrong end of the bus, the front. They took off the other way and walked to Mr. Mike’s unbeknownst to me. It appears that they’d decided to tell Sam’s mom to tell me not to pick them up until 5:00. Not knowing of their grand schemes, I arrived at the school before the bus. And waited. And waited. And finally went in the school and walked around and didn’t see them. I went out and waited some more. I called the office to see if anyone was there. Mrs. McComb was and she paged the girls. Twice. To no avail. Mrs. McComb asked if they might have walked to Mr. Mike’s. I decided to drive that way and see what I saw. I hadn’t even left the parking lot when I saw them walking down the street toward the school.

I was not pleased. I was especially not pleased when I saw Amena wearing some too short shorts. When we got home, she had the skirt she’d worn to school earlier on and I let her know I do not approve of the shorts. They will go if I see them on her again.

After a brief Facebook messaging conversation with Sam’s mom, I learned that she never got the message she was supposed to pass on to me about not picking them up until 5:00 and she wouldn’t have approved anyway. I kind of figured she would feel that way and I hope Sam isn’t in too much trouble but I honestly don’t know whose idea it was. I do know that I would not have approved picking them up at 5:00 either. I made the girls call Mrs. McComb at the school to let her know that I had them.

That escapade took up more than thirty minutes more than I’d allotted it which I was not happy about. Partly due to not having much time to get anything together for dinner and partly due to the fact that I just didn’t feel like it, we had cereal for dinner. Not a good habit but we don’t do it very often. Actually, we do it so infrequently that I could honestly say we do is almost never.

We had church last night, as usual and of course, it being Wednesday. I needed to talk to the bishop so since Jessica was teaching basic washer and drier care, I visited with Marlain Beaudette while I was waiting. We had a good visit and I had a good talk with Bishop Carmack. We actually got out and were in the car ready to leave at 8:32. That was wonderful! One of the things I really dislike about Wednesday evenings is getting out so late that we don’t get home until 9:00 or later. Seth had already brought in the goats so he didn’t have to worry about that which was nice.

Boys got to bed. Paul got home before 9:00 which is something of a miracle, especially considering that I’d given him a pretty decent sized list AND the fact that he went to the Price Chopper in Shrewsbury and then back to work to leave some of the yogurt because he wasn’t sure how much room we had. Everything that needed to be refrigerated or frozen was put away but not everything else. I need to take care of them. When I’m done here.

This morning has already been an interesting one. Last night I unplugged all the cords of the computer in the library because a boy, rather than turning it off as instructed, covered it with a towel. Not only that, but it was a pigsty around the computer with dirty dishes and discarded yogurt containers and books strewn on the floor. That did not make for a happy mother. This morning when I came down, I discovered a child figuring out which cords to plug in where. The mess hadn’t been cleaned up. I told him on no uncertain terms that if the mess didn’t get cleaned up, the computer would be put away and would not be able to be used. He picked up a few things, Seth picked up more, Joseph picked up a few. It’s better now but not perfect. When Julia, Chantal and Margaret were here, they offered to come help move things. I think I will see when next week they can and get the rest of the stuff out of the library so that the boys aren’t hiding behind anything when they are playing on the computer. I’m glad it’s not connected to the internet.

Because it is supposed to rain today, I told Seth to just take hay out for the goats. I filled up their bucket with grain and their water bucket. Sometime before he went out to do hay, I’d looked out the window and saw that the gate to the pen was open. He went out and closed it but when we were out taking care of the goats, I noticed that the kids were not in the pen. Seth looked in the shed and they weren’t there either. I told him to go take a look on the other side of the garden. They turned out to be down in what’s left of the basement of the big part of the barn that isn’t there anymore. He and Cedric brought them up and put them in the pen so all is well.

While I was over by the goat shed and the boys were going to get the kids, Kitty caught a chipmunk. She took it and ran to the driveway in front of the house where she let it go to play with it. Misty saw and she took off with it, throwing it in the air, catching it by the tail and shaking it around, and just generally having fun. Kitty was just looking at her wondering what she was doing. I made Misty leave it alone so she and Minion could do whatever they were going to do with it and go in the house.

And that’s about it. Have a splendiferous day!