A week in which much is accomplished

Hello again! I've been off for quite awhile and was, as the title suggests, very busy. Many, many, things are going to be happening and so we are preparing now as well as getting things done while we still have time.

 First and foremost, we finished the hay! Whoop! Mathematically, we got about 110 round bales{6 feet tall} per 15 square acres. Can you believe that?? We usually only get around 50! We have stacked 51 bales in our stackyard for us to keep and the rest we are selling. This grass is really good too - good enough to feed the horses this winter - so we might not have to buy loads of hay from others this year like we have in the past when our hayfields were full of pigwheat and other weeds only fit for cows to eat.


Mum and I took a day and made strawberry jam that is to die for.

There is nothing quite like homemade jams and jellies.

I have been rearranging my room just about every day, trying to get it the way I want it. I went crazy and bought a load of picture frames to put my photographs and artwork in, but I'm running out of room on my walls! My art-and-writing nook is yet to be completed. I still need to put up my gigantor corkboard. And I'm in the middle of organizing my artwork. Not an easy project!

Sunday was my little brother's 10th(!) birthday{I still can't believe he's that old! I remember turning ten!} and a few days before his was my Da's birthday. I'll be nice this time and not mention his age... :D

The second week of August is the County/4-H Fair! and things are CrAzY. This year you have to pre-register all your entries by Aug. 2nd for some incredibly vapid[new favorite word there :}] reason. They{the fair guild} don't seem to understand that, on average, each participant doesn't even know what they're taking until the night before. So we have been scrambling to get all our projects in order by... good gosh! MONDAY?? *yelps*
 I'm in all sorts of categories ranging from Breads to Educational Posters. I don't have pictures of everything, but I did take one of an antique photo collage wall hanging I did for Home Environment:

Hmm... This one turned out blurry. Drat.

The letter that makes up the background was written by my great-grandfather while he still lived in Germany!{Yes, that means it is in German :)} It's dated July 16th 1910. And I found it on... July the 16th 2010!! How cool is that?

You can see my grandpa with a friend on the far left. The faded sepia next to it is my great-uncle when he was about 3 chasing the chickens in the barnyard. Next over is the team of draft horses my grandpa's family shared with other homesteaders. And on the top is a picture of my great-aunt as a child, playing in the hayloft.

I love all things old fashioned, but photos are the best.

On top of all those things, I'm going to open an Etsy Shop for my jewelry. I have been planning on opening one since last November when I first heard of Etsy but never got round to looking into it. My Etsy has a cause behind it as well, something that has been on my mind for for a long while. I never had the answer until now.... I won't tell you more until I've fully set up everything :)

Harvest has begin with the picking of baseball bat sized summer squash. I don't know if we're going to get much more than gourds this year - the grasshoppers are worse than terrible - but I'm crossing my fingers for a few tomatoes.

Briefly, some highlights:
 We've got a big pack of coyotes nearby at the moment and they screech and holler to high heaven every night. O_O It is very hard to sleep.
 A pair of foxes had kits up in our neighbor's high pasture and omygoodness! They are the cutest things alive!! I've only gotten to see them once while I was riding up there and I sorely wished I had my camera!
 Shyanne pulled a tendon in her left hind leg so I can't ride her at the mo.
 Hooey rolled on some cactus - I had to perform "surgery".
 I plan to have another Little Fun Thing soon, but at the moment the camera isn't working so I don't know when exactly "soon" is. Hang in there!
That's what has been happening in my life.... What's going on in yours?

-Gwyn