Pig Bone Fat. I Got Nothin' For A Blog Post.

Check it.

"Fatty acids derived from pork bone fat are used as a hardening agent in crayons and also gives them their distinctive smell."

That special crayon smell? Pig bone fat. Now that I think about it, yes, it's a nostalgic smell, but really, isn't it kind of a stinky smell?


In other news, my short term memory is shot, so goodness knows what we've been up to.

School's out next Wednesday though the girls skipped yesterday to go to Kennywood, and they all skipped today because the girls were tired from Kennywood and Sam uncharacteristically missed the bus. Only half days anyway.

Yep. That's all I've got today. Who wants chicken wings?

Getting In Touch With My Gross Side

Turns out, I'm gross.
Exhibit One:
Regular pants don't fit? Only 2 pairs of maternity? Refuse to wear those sweatpants again today?
Duct Tape, my friend, duct tape. A really sad moment because it wasn't a sad moment at first. At first it was totally acceptable. I was in a rush to get out the door and I thought, perfect!
No. No, it's not. You duct taped your pants. Gross.
Only good thing is I might get famous here.

Grossness, Exhibit Two?

Going shower-less for 3 days and I wasn't camping (but was wearing duct tape pants.) And somewhere in there, sleeping for like 15 hours straight and I wasn't hungover or anything. 'sup with that?

Grossness number three: Septic tank flower garden.
I imagine there's a proper thing folks do with the septic tank lids. Do they bury them? Because I'm afraid to bury them and then we'll end up driving the tractor over them and cracking the lids. Or maybe some bushy ornamental grass? Then it would be my luck we'd have to tear them all up to get to the lids.

Nah, I just let the girls plant flowers to their hearts' content. Yes, with a million and one places around the house to plant flowers, let's draw attention to the poop tank with flowers.
Just going to hope the petunias spread. A lot.

Grossness Four. Now, I could only maybe take half credit for this, but birthing a child who at the tender age of 8 is capable of the most pungent man-like armpit odor in our whole family. A female child no less!

Five. Salami sandwich for breakfast. Debatable.

Ya, I guess a lot of it's debatable, but I was just so not feeling feminine this weekend, ya know? Just.....not cute. Or pretty. One of those weekends.

But how 'bout a palate cleanser?

Awww, neato! A heron outside my back door this morning. Nature!

What else?

-Go kart's broken again. We need to keep parts on stock.

-Lily finally had a friend over after much waiting, and darn, if I didn't forget to pre-warn the mom about how filthy their child is going to get at my house.

Straight to the creek in shoes and socks, thoroughly coat them in mud then strip them off and throw them all over the porch. Splash mud over every appendage. Add a coating of watermelon juice from 2 big slices each. It helps the kitten hair and barn dust stick better. Then, when I shoo you into the tub to rinse your arms and legs, skip that and just have a splash fight. Return from the bathroom every bit as dirty and also soaking wet.

They had such fun though. And friend's mom is totally cool with the creek mud.

-Roses for my anniversary. I forgot to take pictures, but what a lovely surprise at work. Mark, you rascal, you.

-I can slightly, slightly feel a baby moving in there sometimes. A little bit. Just not when I'm lying really still trying really hard to feel it. I am struggling with not driving myself so, so crazy with this whole thing. Funny how carefree I was all those other times. Boy, am I making up for it now.

-I did some laundry. I cut up some fruit. I planted some sunflowers. ;-) I'm just being purposely extra boring now.
Have A Good Monday, Internets!

The Fungus Among Us, Girls Will Be Girls, And I Heart Maternity Pants.

Howdy, Neighbors. 'Tis the month of May and verily it doth truck along.
Morel Mushroom season, but our haul was much smaller that last year's. I think it just wasn't quite the right temperature/moisture combo going on out there in the woods. But we found enough to fry and eat with leftover prime rib one night, and the next night to make a fabulous stuffing/dressing with leftover hard rolls, scallions, and morels baked to a yummy goodness. It went perfect with oven baked rabbit.

Look at the cute little snail.
Last weekend we finally got the part to fix the go kart. That was an adventure in and of itself. It involved a trip to a small town West Virginia cycle shop where the owner behind the counter was unabashedly eating sardines on saltine crackers when I walked in. And that seemed to make perfect sense at the time.
So anyway, fixed the go kart. The weather wasn't cooperating and Agnes and her friend were going nuttynuts. They finally decided weather-be-damned, we're going riding.And so they did. And it took about 5 minutes for them to look like this.It rained and they rode. For hours.
And then the tricky part of cleaning up. Ever notice that it's a lot of work letting kids be kids?
My plan was for them to hose off at the barn in their clothes, come in the cellar where I'd have towels so they could strip out of the mud clothes and then head to the shower in their towels.
Instead, they grabbed the towels and headed to the barn to strip. Dripping wet and still pretty muddy, they trekked from the barn to the back door. OK, not the cellar door like I asked, but no biggie. I asked Where are your sweatshirts? (to go with the other piled muddy wet humps of clothing they left on the porch) and they headed back out to the barn to fetch them, still muddy and wrapped in nothing but towels. So forgetful, these pre-teens.
So then I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for them to come back from the barn because it's like 8:30pm on a school night and they still need to get showers before we take Ag's friend home.
Ah, here they come, still totally unaffected by their lack of clothing. Well, we figured since we were already over at the barn we might as well go see the new kittens...
Well, that makes perfect sense!
Finally they were showered and content, and I was left with the aftermath of mud-filled tennis shoes and a bathtub full of sediment and leaves.
But then when I was looking through the photos I'd taken of their fun, I found this picture of yours truly from about this time last year:

and I couldn't really complain because Aggie gets her muddiness honestly. (sigh, was my butt ever that small?)

In addition to morel and mud season it is also softball season. Both girls are playing and it is quite the time suck. We got home after 9pm last night. I guess I'm just a big rookie at this is my problem.
But I do enjoy watching them, and I'm ever so happy that they seem to be enjoying it because I finally have someone to play catch with!Good memories. Pretty fun watching a bunch of 8 year olds, too. They're like a flock of chickens running around out there.

I took these puppies out for a test drive today: During my 1st trimester misery I was hellbent on staying in normal people clothes for as long as possible. I was pissed when I went to Target to grab a bunch of big neutral pregnancy clothes and they stayed in the bag for awhile unworn. I was sweating the fact that I was growing too large too quickly, but I'm over it. Pregnant four times equals get big quickly for me. So that's my approximately 15 1/2 weeks belly up thar pokin' out. And my growing bosom. Hello! Enjoying that before they get out of hand.

Anywho, glory be, are these pants not the most comfortable thing on my bloated middle? Love love love. Even more than my sweatpants. And they are not nearly so ugly as the maternity jeans I wore 9 years ago. We'll see how long til I'm exploding out of them.

That's all she wrote for now. Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms out there!

Why Must I Ruin Her Life All The Time?

Protesting the fact that I did not buy her a trampoline this weekend. A right proper sit-in.All my poor neglected girl can do is sit and listen to her iPod Touch and text woeful texts to her friends. sigh. To her credit, she has limited it to theatrics only, no mean sass mouth to date. Thank God for small miracles there.

So Ag and her bestie had big plans this weekend for the go kart. Unfortunately, shortly into their fun Saturday the throttle cable pooped the bed and ended it all.

Begin the volleys of asking mom then dad then mom then dad to buy a trampoline to end their boredom suffering. They are champions of sweet asking those two. They made Mark lunch of a peanut butter honey sandwich with a honey heart on the bun. Aggie volunteered to forego all 2010 future Christmas presents. There were frowny faces. A touch of sighing.

Lemme just say, since there's a really good chance I'll end up caving like I do on stuff like this, I think trampolines are the junkiest piece of eyesore I could probably ever put in my yard. I admit, though I know it's not totally fair, that I associate them with trashy trailer parks. I've often wondered how long it takes for the thing to become boring and forgotten like any other yard toy.

It makes me think of Sit-N-Spins.

We never had a Sit-N-Spin at our house growing up and they were like the funnest toy ever-in my mind. Any time I visited someone else's house where they had one (and I swear everyone else had one but me) I'd sit-n-spin & sit-n-spin. And probably, the kid to whom it belonged thought "what the heck's the big deal?" and they probably never played with the dang thing. It's just one of those toys that's way funner at somebody else's house. Like a trampoline. At least, that's my theory.

Fortunately they did manage to find other ways to entertain themselves. I made them waffles for breakfast and then they headed outside in their 'pajamas.' I wasn't paying attention and then it was too late to bother making them change....

They were catching bullfrogs. Good times.Just like Charlie's Angels. Or something. Sam had just caught a couple of drones (male bees that don't have stingers) to play with and possibly take to school. He'd bee wrangled a bee at school last week and kept everybody entertained for a period or two. I said Crazy Bee Boy, huh? and he said Ya! He got the drones from an unoccupied hive that the other bees were cleaning of its residual honey. No gloves or nothin'! Even though you know they don't have stingers, it still makes me feel weird to hold one.

Could this be a prince?

We were just finishing supper, chicken fried wild turkey-yum!, when my grandmother phoned and Lily picked up. Nan asked Lily what she was doing and Lil said eating, but immediately said we caught bullfrogs today! And Nan said, You're eating bullfrogs?! and Lil said No! And Nan said Well, good. I wouldn't want you to croak.

Bum dum bump!

Look What The Cat Dragged In

Kinda gross, I guess. Sorry about that. Fluffy. She doesn't know any better. And heavens to mergatroid, it's not like we don't feed her every day.

But for reals, Sam got his first turkey this morning. It was his first time going turkey hunting. He and Mark headed out behind the house early this morning and came back triumphant in less than an hour. 21 1/2 pounds.

Mark was too excited to make any normal faces for the photos. I gave him many chances, too.

...had my head so far up my uterus...

Sorry. That's a bad visual. And a pretty accurate picture of where my brain's been.
On top of having trouble still wrapping my head around the fact that I'm pregnant, I've had 3 bouts of food sickness- one keeping me in bed for 2 days, the expected normal nausea and sundry hormonal grossness, an episode I'm fairly convinced was mildly epileptic, moodiness & exhaustion from hell, and general fear of the future. So. Wah.
I been meanin' to post, but then blogger wouldn't cooperate with my photos (gawd, am I the only idiot who has this much trouble dragging photos??,) and then the anti-virus would need updating for infinity minutes, and then I'd lose interest and go lie down. Then I'd think as I was lying there You're in no frame of mind to blog. You're thinking and acting weird. Maybe you ought to lie low for a while. So I guess I kind of did that, too.

What else have we been up to in the last weeks tho'?

There was the Maple Syrup Festival.After pancakes we walked around town to the kiosks and booths, through the museum, past the horse drawn carriage!

They let me pet him.Then there was a horse pull at the nearby fairgrounds. Much, much more entertaining to me than anyone else in our group.My photos weren't so hot but let me tell you, those horses, they were pretty. And strong.

From the horse pull Mark & I travelled to the farm where we buy maple syrup to sell at the market. The family has been making syrup for generations.

They also milk cows. Photogenic cows.There on their farm and all along the route you can see the maple trees tapped and strung with tubing to collect the sap. It's pretty impressive. So many trees. You can kind of see the tubing here:And then I went pregnant crazy for a few days and then I was ok.

Then Mark did some Spring beekeeping. He purchased some packaged bees to add more hives to the "herd."

Packages of bees behind the seat of the truck:

Sam helped him get everyone installed in their new homes. That's the suit he got for his birthday. (I would've duct taped those pant legs shut though!) One of the queenies in her cage being investigated by her ladies in waiting:

*yaaaawn* It is so boring when we can't go riding, isn't it, Nik?We had the annual Easter egg hunt at Wagner's Greenhouse.

'Tis the season to be gobble-gobbled awake every morning by wild turkeys pitching woo. It's a pretty nice way to wake up actually. That and the crowing of the rooster who insists he must be right below the bedroom window when he greets the sun. Ah, it's ok, he's a good kid.

Sam has been studying his Italian. If you can't find him, check in his "office."Sure, it's the closet, but the shelf is right at desk level, he's made a seat out of a rubbermaid container, got his lamp, dry erase board & calendar, books, and my laptop on loan in there. (And all the extra household bed linens he could possibly need.)

There is just enough room to shut the door right at your back. Pretty much an office. And a fun hiding place.

A big storm blew through the county last week.

My weren't we singing praises to the generator when the power went out! You just couldn't hear us singing over the noise of the generator.

The storm blew some jumbo trees down.A big 'ole cherry tree right on the fence. Fortunately there were no escapees.Sad to see such a nice tree go. I love trees. But that's another zubject.

Lily is on a hobo kick lately. She draws hobos and she builds hobo camps. Duct tape, sticks, and old bed sheets=awesome.

She took me on a tour of the empty pig pen the other day. Like I'd never seen this pig pen in the past 6 years we lived here.

But I let her show me the particular spots by the creek that were hers or Aggies. The area is on the far side of the barn and kind of out of sight of everything, so I can see how they'd feel like they were in a whole other world. She showed me where they made mud pies, where they'd unearthed bits of old junky pottery from the creek bed.

She showed me the "island" on the other side of the creek. The stones they sit on or cross the creek on.

It was awesome. It'll be kind of a bummer when the pigs move back in. Fortunately, their hobo tent is just outside the pig pen, so all is not lost.

Aaaand, most recently, yesterday, in fact, comma, Mark opened the market for the season. Not chock full like Summer, but still full of lots of goodies. Good and good for you. ;-)So far off to a nice start. Here's hoping for a super year. Reckon I' got onsies and papooses to buy.That there is my hero of a husband. Dude has had to deal with some major, major issues from me lately, and he has handled it like a true champion. I love 'at boy.

Roger, Wilco, and I'm Out For Now.