Where is my balloon . blogspot . com

This morning at 8:00 am a group of excited homeschoolers and friends met to release 50 helium balloons. Attached to each balloon was a card asking the person who finds it to let us know.

check out http://www.whereismyballoon.blogspot.com/ to track the progress. We have had one balloon reported in Missouri. If you live north east of Kansas City check through your yards and fields for a card attached to a string. We hope to get word from finders for all fifty cards.

It was a great time for all involved.

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Casey, our new puppie is a miniature Schnauzer. He will probably be able 15 pounds. This is a lot smaller than Neelix but larger than our friends miniature Schnauzer, Otis, who is under 10 lbs. He did great today. It was a beautiful day to be outside. Herogian walked Penny around our property - off leash, with just the shock collar and Casey following. They did excellent. Penny is relaxing around the new puppy better today - no drooling. Casey enjoyed going to the balloon launch with us, playing outside, and sleeping on the couch curled up against Penny.

Herogian and Penny had a super day with training. Penny retrieved and brought back the frozen birds that Herogian uses for 'fetch' training. She did this off leash and he didn't have to use the shock collar. She is learning and so is Herogian. They even walked through the neighborhood with the check cord dragging behind, Herogian didn't have to hold onto it. Penny heeled the whole time. The smile on his face was almost as big as it was when he bagged the turkey last week.

Casey D. Deskis

We did a six hour drive to circle down to the far reaches

of Kansas to return home with this little cutie. The boys named him Casey. I added the D. for middle initial since two of the boys have that initial, and our new family member isin the kennel next to Penny for the night. He finally tinkled outside for the first time at midnight. I was starting to worry a bit. He's had a rough two days. They had a vet fix a small umbilical hernia yesterday. The owner gave him his round of shots today and then we yanked out of his environment and moved him next door to the largest dog he has ever seen in his short 9 weeks. He threw up when we got home, wouldn't eat anything until 10. After our backyard trip, he was playful and nosing Penny. Now I'm hoping they will settle down and go to sleep for a few hours. Me too.

CHECK THIS OUT - AWESOME

http://bcove.me/c804mu3j


THe video above is awesome, inspiring, and you'll be amazed at the inventor's identity - gives you chills.   Herogian almost made a career change when he saw this video.

OKGranny - He wants to be a vet. He could use this type a car for that job too.

If black cows give....

If black cows give chocolate milk, what do white cows give?
White milk.
What do brown cows give?
Hot chocolate
WHat do black and white cows give?
Milk chocolate milk.
What do reddish brown cows give?
Orange Juice.
What do red and white cows give?
Orange Julius

Oh look there's an eagle in the tree.
That was cool.
Where? What tree?
The one beside the road between the other  trees.

Driving with Commander and the boys has always been an experience of goofiness.

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The urge to move is finally rubbing off. We went house hunting yesterday for 40 acres and a pond. HMMMM. It was just too far away.
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Check out this math program online.  http://www.tabletclass.com/      I was really impressed with the sample lesson. The teacher is really easy to listen to and follow.  REALLY!   I think the boys will also benefit from doing an online course, before we hit high school/college requirements.

Thanks for stopping by.

Turkey hunting and bear scat

Mr. S. took Herogian hunting Monday. Don't you just love extra curricular homeschool activities like hunting?  anyhoo, They left at 4:00 am and came back at 12:45.  Herogian couldn't keep his braces hidden behind that smile.

They walked out toward a corn field hoping to find birds. They immediately did! They had to drop to the ground so not to be seen. Herogian commando crawled over 100 yards, while Mr. S. called the turkeys their way. Herogian said there were some areas where he could get to his feet and crouch run behind downed trees,  but he had to belly crawl under a fence wire. He sat the barrel of his gun on a branch, slid up into position behind it and came home with....

A 22 + pound Tom.

They had field dressed the bird, and it topped the scale at 22, I'm sure it beat my 23 pound house record. Time to go hunting again.

 This is Mr. S. with Herogian. All smiles. It's so great to see the boy so happy. Mr. S and his family will be joining us Saturday for Turkey dinner and all the fixings.

 I made this from a recipe that had I think was called "Fruity chocolate clusters" ewwww. Just to girly of a name for boys in this house. It is now called Bear Scat.
A cup each of dried strawberries, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, and whatever else a bear might eat. Along with sunflower seeds in this one. The braces kept me from putting in harder nuts. Melt chocolate in a bowl slowly in the microwave, then dump the mix of berries in and stir.  Spread out on fold or waxed paper on a cookie sheet and refrig for a few hours. You can then crumble it up. It does melt in your hands if you hold it too long.

Randomness

Archery league is over. Mr. McGee and I placed second. I finally learned how they score the league. Each night we go against another team for the four rounds. Each round is scored a win or loss. Last night we were shooting against Mr. McGee's son's team. We lost one round in the second half and that dropped us from first place. We had a lot of fun. I'll miss shooting with Mr. McGee. I hope to see him and his lovely wife back next year.

Today, Herogian and I shot the 3D meet. We made it through 40 targets along with Cori, his dad, and his younger sister (6) she shot at every target. I was impressed that she made it through the entire hike. There was one point where she found an old shotgun shell and something else. She really wanted to play with it, but couldn't carry it with her bow and arrows, not enough hands. Her dad told her to decide, shoot targets, or they quit right now and sit in the truck with her 'toy'. She almost reached out for the 'toy'. They decided to put the toy in the truck so no one would pick it up and throw it away. She was afraid of it disappearing if she put it down. Too cute.

Here's a few pics for you.

THis is Tiny Might. We helped this chicken out of it's shell, knowing full well it might not survive. We could hear it pecking, but unable to break open the shell. She is a runt, about 1/4 the size of her sisters. She still has white rings around her eyes, where her sisters don't.

THese are the four adopted ducks. They are now white and four times the size. They stay this close to each other all day long running around the yard.

Dehydrated marshmallows. Gluten Free and fun to eat.

Have you seen these on the store shelf? Jumbomallows! I split them open, swiped crunchy peanut butter inside. Later I added chocolate morsels.  Made a sweet snack for a work break.

One last thing.  Check out http://www.whereismyballoon.blogspot.com/ your homeschooling group might want to join us on April 30th by releasing balloons from your area. Who knows maybe your balloon will end up here in our town and ours in yours. Weird how the wind blows.

Have a great week. I'd love to hear from you.

Migraines, septic pumping and savings

Wednesday morning I didn't sleep in much. Usually, after pulling a closing shift the night before I let the boys sleep in until 8 or 8:30 because I'm still sleeping. Wednesday I got up to grade papers and make sure we were set for the day. While grading T11's math, I realized half the page had disappeared, it was still there, I just couldn't see it. I was told it is called an "eye migraine". It doesn't necessarily cause a splitting headache, just a dull one, but it wipes me out energy wise. I feel like I have ran a marathon. The boys tried to let me rest on the bed for an hour or so in the morning after they started on their work, but with a few phone calls, math problems, can't find a book problem, napping wasnt' working out very well. I decided that the best thing would be to send the boys to P.E. without me. A few phone calls later and everything was set for the boys to be picked up. Just as the boys were headed out the door the phone rang. The septic tank pumping company was on the way.  I knew my nap was in jeopardy.
I walk the guy out to the middle of the back yard where there are telltell signs of the septic tank being there - one being an open pipe looking down into it. YUK.
He steps off four feet and says, " the lid should be 'there'. We need to dig down to it."
 I'm really confused at this time. I know the last time the tank was pumped I was dealing with chemotherapy, but I didn't think I'd lost that many brain cells to remember if or not the guy had dug a hole in the yard to pump the tank. He hadn't. The guy tells me again that we have to dig, and it is $100 dollars an hour if he has to dig it up.
No way.
I told him to go get the hose, I had the shovel. I started digging. He checked on my progress, now and then, and I found the lid. It was about 15 inches down and 17 inches across. (I had to measure it later).
An hour and half later 1800 gallons of you know what was cleaned out of our back yard. When we were done, I covered the entry lid with an turned over tub with a ten gallon bucket inside it to give it some inside support.  The tub will be covered with one of those molded plastic rocks to keep the entry lid accessable. We surrounded it with dirt and leveled the yard off with the extra.
Losing a nap to save $100 was well worth it. I did rest up a bit later and made it through another closing shift. I definitely slept in this morning.

Oh, I also asked a lawn company, I was dealing with on the phone, if they gave military discounts for the job they would be doing for us. Just asking for it saved us over $100 dollars on the year.

stuff a happen'n

Archery is still a highlight of the week. Friday night, Mr. McGee and I stuck the whiffle ball to the target at the same time and through the same hole. I ever figure out how  find time to do the whole process of downloading from the camera to the computer I'll put the picture up. Mr. McGee shot a 279 and I a 281. We were neck and neck throughout the night. We have 5 wins and 3 losses. Don't ask me how they figure that out. Maybe at the last night pot luck dinner, I'll get someone to explain the team scoring. It is just fun. Mr. McGee told me he had told his wife that he really enjoyed shooting with me, he didn't feel pressured. Me? pressure anyone? I'm in awe of watching him shoot. Do me a favor and keep Mrs. McGee in your prayers, she has a ruptured colon in some manner, that causes a large bulge on her side. They are afraid at age 87, she might have a harder time with the procedure to fix it. I could tell Mr. McGee is worried about his lovely wife.

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T11 and Commander were out with the Boy Scouts this weekend taking care of a merit badge for shooting rifles. T11 must have shocked Commander by shooting really well, for he told me about it about 4 times. Circle your thumb and index finger together  and look at it. T11 put five shots in a circle that size from 10 meters.  I think the Commander was proud. HooRAH!

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Herogian tried to wring the neck of a rooster today to prep it for the grill. I think he saw a show where someone did it by swinging the body in a circle while holding onto the head. NOOOO, not my way of doing it. Give me the ax. We skinned , washed and presented two of the banty roosters to Commander and his grill. Herogian enjoyed eating them. They were a bit tough for my brace-face.
The four buff orpingtons have moved next door to our neighbors coop. That leaves us with two reds, 3 banties, and six hatchlings to intergrate into the run.
The weather has been nice enough to fill the baby pool with water. The ducks will have it brown within minutes but they love floating in the water to sleep. They have lost their yellow downy feathers and are white. They are now starting to quack instead of peep.

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VBS will be late this summer. We are going to do a program about unnamed heroes. I'm starting with posterboard, paint and markers to start the decoration process. It sounds like a fun program. I'll try to do a lot of prestuff since the boys are scheduled for 2 science camps and skeet camp at that time of the summer.

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T13 said he would train with me for 5Ks. I'd better get to bed so he doesn't leave me in the dust in the morning.
Oh, the carbohydrate counting has worked nicely so far. I haven't had the fanty sick feeling from blood sugar dropping and I dropped the last five pesky pounds I wanted to lose since before babies.  I know I still don't have it right though, I'm hungry too much of the time - ergo - the dropping of weight.

have a great week. Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate hearing from you.

Veteran Archer

Friday night's archery league was flat out cool. I met my team member for the first time - Mr. McGee. He is a veteran of WWII, the same age as my father, 89, and about a foot shorter than I am. They were calling us the Mutt and Jeff team. Mr. McGee has cataracts in both his eyes and still hunts with his bow. Target shooting can be hard with the lighting, obstacles they set up around the targets to create shadows, and limited target zones. Mr. McGee and I would talk over what part of the target we needed to aim for, but by the time we returned to the shooting line Mr.McGee couldn't see the tell-tell marks anymore. He shot great! One of his shots went  left of his intended mark and actually hit a small spot worth 14 points.
He thought he'd be too tired to shoot the entire round of 40, since he had been out hunting during the day. He did great. He and his wife would take turns resting in two chairs we put near the shooting line for them.
He served our country as a platoon leader in Italy during the great war. He said he got the position from being the smallest, youngest, and the loudest mouth.
I can't wait to hear more of his storys this week.
Oh, my shocking hit for the night was pinning a wiffle ball to the target at 35-40 yards. At one of the other targets a ping-pong ball dangled from fishline. Mr. McGee and I trapped the ball between our arrows, but didn't pin it to the target. I am so thankful Herogian introduced me to this sport.